I had to watch Seung Ri from afar for the next few days.  He was on a constant rotation with the others to go from post to post.  The Korean and the US soldiers started having more and more meetings in the basement.  Strategizing, I assumed.  Something was up.  Out of sheer curiosity, many of us started watching the news and checking out the CNN website for any information that the soldiers weren’t ‘at liberty’ to discuss with us.

                Lots of words, lots of images, lots of runaround, but the main point that I got from everything I saw and read was that North Korea had bad aim.  They were shooting missiles at South Korea, aiming for Seoul I assumed, but they just kept hitting villages farther south near the bottom of the country and landing in the water surrounding the country.  The death toll of civilians was inching higher.  Everything was all over the place.  Some military specialists said they were doing it on purpose, others said Kim Jeong Il was just out of his mind.

                Either way, late at night, I could still hear explosions.  And they were getting louder.

                However, nothing had actually happened in Seoul yet or in the outskirts, where we were technically located.  So life carried on as normal, except that kids weren’t allowed to go to school now because of the foreigners that had taken up residence inside them.

                They started putting more soldiers on post behind the school in the soccer field so we could go out in the sunlight.  Being locked in like that, day in and day out, even though it hadn’t even been two whole weeks yet, people were getting cabin fever in here.

                Not to mention .

                When I was in college, I did a couple of study abroad trips with some other students.  I learned that when groups of young adults are put together away from home and are left to their own devices for the most part, they let their hormones take the wheel.  If it happens outside your home time zone, it doesn’t count.  Apparently.

                I’d never seen strangers pair up and hook up so quickly before.

                Until now.

                The classrooms where the cots were placed were split up by boys and girls.  No co-ed rooms.  Soldiers were placed outside the classrooms at night to keep the rooms one gender only.  To keep things civil, appropriate, comfortable, and to avoid any issues.

                That, however, only meant that people had to find other rooms to get to know each other.  Bathrooms, other classrooms, closets, darkened hallways.  This was a new record for gossip and hooking up, I swear.  I was surprised I hadn’t overheard anyone talking about getting a soldier to let down his guard.

                This must be why, my entire life, I was picky when it came to who was close to me.  I felt like most people in this world are nuts.  Including me, but I digress.

                I found an empty classroom to sit in and stare out the window.  The window I sat at faced the grassy field.  There were plenty of people out there.  Sitting, wandering around, talking, reading, doing anything to kill time.  Pretending everything was alright, everything was normal.  Like it was ok for them to just hang out with friends and enjoy the sunshine.

                Soldiers were scattered sporadically throughout the area.  I sighed and turned to leave the classroom.   I was never a huge fan of mingling.  To be brutally honest with myself, all I wanted was to talk to Seung Ri again. 

                I had just entered the empty hallway when I saw them.  Three Korean soldiers.

                One smiled and in a few strides, he was right in front of me.  I looked at him, looking at me.  He said something in Korean and smiled.

                I could feel my cheeks turning pink.  “Sorry, I don’t speak Korean very well,” I replied in polite yet broken Korean.  His smile turned into a smirk.  He turned his head to say something to the guys he was with.  He turned back to me and said something else in Korean.  My Korean was too elementary and his speech was too fast for me to understand.

                I just shook my head.  “I’m sorry.”  I tried to side step him, but he moved in front of me again.  I arched an eyebrow.  “I can’t understand you.”

                His eyes trailed from my head down to my toes, lingering on everything in between.  Seriously?  I inspected his uniform.  It was simple, plain camouflage.  They looked like the soldiers I used to see on the streets of Seoul.  The ones who’d just started their military service.  Rookies.  Newbies.  They looked young.  The one who’d talked to me stepped up closer and looked at me curiously.  He said something else.  I was getting annoyed.  His voice had a teasing tone to it.  He was acting like a bad high school kid.

                Abruptly, his eyes widened and he bowed as he backed away from me.  I looked behind me to see what had started him so much.

                I felt like jumping up and down for joy when I saw Seung Ri.  He was with four other soldiers.  I contained myself, merely smiling at him.

                He caught my eye for barely a second before he stepped closer to me.  He growled something in angry Korean.  The one who had talked to me looked humiliated and bowed again.  Then pointing behind him, Seung Ri shouted orders at the three mischievous soldiers.  Embarrassed, they bowed again and hurried back down the hallway where they’d come from.

                “What did you say to them?” I asked, nearly laughing.

                He was blushing.  “Could you understand anything that they said?” he asked.

                “No.  I started taking Korean classes a couple of months before all this started.  My Korean is still pretty bad.  I can order food and count to 1oo like a pro though.”  I grinned cheekily.  His friends chuckled behind him.  “Did you hear what they said?”  He shifted uncomfortably.

                “Many soldiers come to Seoul for their military duty from small towns or villages that have very few or no foreigners,” he began, his neck turning a light red.  “White girls are fascinating to see for most of us if we’ve never seen one before.”  I giggled.  “He’s just a kid.  He was trying to be funny.  He wouldn’t have bothered you.”

                “So what did he say?” I pressed.

                Seung Ri sighed heavily.  His friends snickered quietly.  “He wanted to know if white girls tasted better than Korean girls.”

                “Taste better…?”  What kind of nonsense was this kid babbling about?  I was only slightly delayed in understanding.  My eyes widened.  “Oh, gross,” I laughed.

                “He honestly wouldn’t have bothered you, but it was a bit crass of him to say such a thing to you.”

                “Not to mention stupid since chances were you wouldn’t have understood,” one of his friends added. 

                “True,” I agreed.  “So what did you say?” I asked Seung Ri.  “You sounded angry.”

                Seung Ri’s face had darkened to a crimson color.

                “He told the kid it wouldn’t matter since he probably didn’t know what a Korean girl tasted like anyway.  Then he told them to go ask their sergeant for forgiveness for being such a jerk to one of the people we’re supposed to be watching out for,” another of his friend’s told me.  The four of them cracked up.

                “You defended me,” I giggled.  “That was nice.”

                Seung Ri looked away from me bashfully.  “We’re on a break,” he said pointing to his friends.  “These are my friends.”  I smiled at them.  “Guys, this is Nikki,” he said with a grin.

                One of them stepped forward and reached to shake my hand.  “Ah, Nikki, yes, Seung Ri has told us so much about you,” he said seductively.  I could feel my face pale in shock.

                Seung Ri frowned.  “No, I didn’t,” he argued.

                “I know,” his friend said, his voice turning casual as he let go of my hand.  “But guys always say that when they meet a girl through a friend.  I’m Kwon Ji Yong, by the way.”

                I giggled, trying not to sound too relieved.  The others laughed.

                “He told us you’re an insomniac,” another friend said taking my hand.  “I’m Dong Young Bae.  Seung Ri told us he met a girl wandering around one night.  He never sleeps either.”

                I smiled, making a mental note to thank Seung Ri for not telling his friends what a basket case I was that night.

                “I’ve seen you around, too,” a third friend said.  He bowed slightly as he took the hand I offered him.  “I’m Choi Seung Hyun.”  Ooh, he had a nice voice.  I blinked rapidly, trying not to make it look like I was fantasizing about him.  “I used to see you around with another girl.”

                “Yeah,” I sighed.  “Lisa was a friend I used to teach with.  Her dad’s got some serious connections with Washington.  He got her on a flight to Japan through the Air Force.”

                Seung Hyun smiled apologetically.

                “I’m Kang Dae Sung!” a fourth friend spoke up shaking my hand so hard, my entire arm was whipped up and down.  I smiled, glad for the comic relief.

                “It’s nice to meet you guys,” I said after Dae Sung had released my hand from his vice grip.  “Did you guys meet when you joined?”

                We’d all taken a seat on the floor in the empty hallway.  Sunlight poured in through the windows.  The explosions and gunfire had become merely background noise.  I’d heard it so often for so long, I barely heard it now.  I could also hear laughter and talking from the people who were out in the soccer field.  It was odd how we could all act so normal when the world around us was in shambles.

                “No, we all went to school together since elementary school,” Ji Yong answered pointing to the other three, not including Seung Ri.  “Seung Ri here moved to Seoul and ended up at our high school.”

                I nodded.  “Wait, by yourself?” I wondered.

                Seung Ri nodded, slightly embarrassed.  “My parents thought it would be good for me to go to a new high school.  Seoul has the best ones and I wasn’t really doing all that great at the one back home, so they sent me up to Seoul to live with my grandparents.”  He shrugged.  “I didn’t do so well in Seoul either,” he added.

                “He met us.  We’re a bad influence,” Seung Hyun replied with a shrug.  The others laughed, trying to lighten the mood.  Something in Seung Ri’s face told me he felt bad about not trying harder in school, but he didn’t blame his friends.

                Our conversation flowed into what was going on now.  I asked them if there was anything they could tell me.  If what I read in the news was real or being exaggerated by the media.  They looked at each other in silence a moment before Seung Ri spoke.

                “It’s not too much of an exaggeration,” he said lowly.  “They say the North Koreans might just be trying to surround Seoul from all directions.”

                “Are they moving closer?” I whispered.

                More silence.  “Yes.”

                “But don’t worry!” Seung Hyun assured me, eyeing the others.  “That’s why all of us and the US soldiers are here and at the other schools with the Americans.”

                The laughter sounded forced and I realized they couldn’t really say much more about the whole thing.  And that I didn’t want to hear much more.

                We talked for a few more minutes, trying to move onto lighter subjects.  I found out these guys became such good friends through their love of music.  They even sang an American song for me.  Seung Hyun said he didn’t sing.  The song lacking a rap in it made him create the beat for it.  I laughed and clapped excitedly for them when they finished.

                “You guys are so good,” I cheered.  “You could totally be one of those kpop boy bands.”

                “Yeah!” Seung Ri agreed.  “I’d be awesome.”  The other guys started to protest.  “We, I meant we.  We would be awesome.”  He leaned closer to me and whispered, “But I’m the most handsome out of these jokers.”

                Dae Sung poked him in the ribs.

                “We’d have to live together.  I can barely stand these guys now,” Young Bae teased.

                Dae Sung poked him too as the others swatted at him.

                “I could write the songs!” Ji Yong piped up.  The others murmured their agreements.  “And…” he smoothed his hands down the front of his uniform.  “I’d make a pretty good leader, don’t you think?”

                The murmurs of agreement turned to groaning protests.

                “I’d be the leader.  I’m oldest,” Seung Hyun pointed out.

                Ji Yong scoffed.  “Barely.  Besides,” he shot me a smoldering look.  I almost passed out.  He did smoldering very well.  “Who could resist this?”

                Seung Hyun rolled his eyes and looked at me.  Tilting his head and lowering his eyelids, I shifted under his gaze and stumbled to the side.  I sat cross legged instead of on my legs and tried not to make it look like I was cowering behind Seung Ri.  Ji Yong: zero, Seung Hyun: 1 in smoldering gazes.  Though it was a close one.

                The guys argued and protested some more.  Shoving at each other and teasing each other.  I already liked them.

                Suddenly, a weird chirp sound and some static filled the air.  The laughter stopped and all five men straightened in attention.  Young Bae pulled something that looked like a walkie-talkie out of his pants pocket and held it to his mouth.  He said something in Korean.  A Korean voice came back immediately.

                They stood.  I followed.  “Sorry, Nikki, but we have to run.  Meeting,” Dae Sung informed me.  They bowed and told me it was nice to meet me.  I bowed in return and smiled at them.  They waved before running down the hallway.  Seung Ri lagged behind.

                “I’d like to spend some more time with you,” he told me in a whisper as he walked backwards a few steps heading in the direction his fellow soldiers had gone.

                I just nodded.

                “Maybe I’ll see you around again, maybe tonight?”

                I nodded again.  “I’m an insomniac, remember?  It’s an easy bet that I’ll be in a classroom again tonight when I can’t sleep.”

                He smiled.  Turned and sprinted to catch up to the others.