‘Ella, please stay safe in Korea and come back in one piece. Make sure you focus on your studies. I don’t want you slacking off just because you might see a nice looking guy. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

From Mum.

P.S: Write every so often so I know that you are okay.’

“Love you too Mum.” I sigh, turning off my computer.

Not a single good luck in there.

No ‘I love you’.

I’m about to start at a new school and all I get is a whole bunch of warnings.

Thanks heaps.

Hey, it’s not that I’m dreading studying in a different country. I think it’s cool that I got accepted to a school in Korea. Over the past few years I have taken my Korean studies at school quite seriously. I only found out a month ago that I was top of my class and was being offered a scholarship for my final year.

No, what I’m dreading is the ever-looming prospect of being the person who doesn’t fit in.

Rolling over with a groan, I decide that one ‘o’ clock in the morning is probably a good time to finally go to sleep. I look down at my stuffed cat toy. I may have been one of the most popular people at my old school but maybe the social status is different here. My cat had such a happy face.

“Why are you smiling?” I asked sleepily. “We’re in this together you know?”

----------

As expected, I sleep in the next morning. School starts at 8:00am and what time do I get up? 7:30. Um hello, I’m used to starting at 9:00am. At least it’s a free dress school; uniforms are too fiddly when you’re running late. It’s also summer, Yay! Best season ever.

Because I have been bothered unpacking yet I run to the first box that I can get to and pull out whatever I can find. Dark denim shorts and a red singlet top. Why not? I have to make some sort of first impression.

Do I have time for breakfast?

No, not really.

Either way, I run around my room while eating a piece of toast. I quickly yank a brush through my hair and can’t help but pause in front of the mirror. I am so going to be the odd one out at this school. I have a pretty good feeling that everyone here would be Korean.

And me?

I’m like the farthest thing from it. Unlike the tanned people that I have heard are here, I have pale skin – especially legs that could practically reflect sunlight – that either may or may not be noticed in a crowd and green eyes. At least my dark-brown hair that I straighten into submission each day should minimize the novelty factor. I shouldn’t stick out too much.

Yeah right.

Grabbing my bag, I slip on some shoes and run out the door.

----------

Thankfully, the school was only a short way from my building so I could easily walk there. Amazingly, I arrived with some time to spare. After collecting my map and schedule from the office I decided to figure out my way around the school. I kept my eyes carefully averted from everyone. I heard people start muttering as I walked past them. Maybe they thought I didn’t understand Korean. Well, that was a mistake.

There was also my mistake of thinking they were all tanned. Although some of them…

As I walked, I continued to look in every direction taking in my surroundings. At least I did until I walked into someone coming around a corner.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I looked down as the guy I bumped into knelt down to collect his books. It felt weird speaking Korean so fluently for the first time in a long time.

“No harm done. It’s okay.” He glanced up to smile at me and my heart skipped a beat or two. It was easy to look at him because he was my height, roughly the 170cm mark. His youthful face and short, black shaggy hair made him seem only sixteen. Regaining the capability of speech, I decided to apologize again.

“No, it’s not really okay; I should be focusing on where I’m going. Because if I had been then –” Shut up, I told myself, preferably before you start babbling like an idiot.

“If we focus too much on where we’re going, we sometimes forget to look at where we are.” He smiled again. Way to break the ice – with a strange saying – most people just introduce themselves, which this guy hadn’t done.

Did I have to take initiative in the situation?

No, I couldn’t.

My mouth still couldn’t be trusted not to babble.

We both stood there for a few more moments just looking at each other – awk-ward. He cleared his throat and looked down. Taking advantage of this moment, I took a deep breath to calm myself.

“Maybe I should introduce myself,” The guy said looking back up.

Okay, my breathing meant nothing. But on the other hand, about time.

When he’d looked down, he’d pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket and was now wearing them. To me, he now looked like a little mouse. On the inside I was saying ‘Awww’; on the outside I still wasn’t saying anything. He held out his hand but I didn’t even glance at it.

“I’m Ryeowook.” He said with another cute smile.

“I’m – um, I’m El – I’m –“ Damn it, Ella spit it out and stop looking like an idiot.

“Ella?” Ryeowook said kindly.

“Um, yeah. How did you know?” I was surprised. He simply handed me a piece of paper. I glanced at it and saw that it was my schedule.

“You dropped it when you bumped into me.” He smiled again. My heart jumped again. His smile was so cute; his cheekbones seemed ready to jump out of his cheeks.

“I see that your first class is in…” He looked at my schedule. “Room 3.”

“Yeah.” I said.

“Well, mine is kind of on the other side of the grounds,” Ryeowook looked away in that direction. “But I’ll help you to your class first if you want.” I nodded.

Together we gathered up the rest of our books and together started walking across a large oval to another set of buildings. Along the way we both started making small talk, I told him where I was from, how life was in Australia – a topic that interested him greatly – and then began asking him the same questions. As we finally stepped into the cool shade of the outdoor corridors, we were already laughing as though we had known each other forever. I found it really easy to communicate with him, even my heart was jumping every two seconds. I’m not usually someone who believes in love at first sight but the love alarm in my brain was going off, I think it was beginning to annoy the logical angel in my head.

“Well, I can’t go in with you,” Ryeowook and I had come to a stop outside Room 3. “And I’m probably a bit late for my own class.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Aww, don’t apologise. I can just pull my cute face at the teacher and the worst I’ll get is a warning.” He flashed another smile at me and I didn’t doubt for a second that every person with a heart would melt at his so-called ‘cute face’. He gave me one last wave and held his hand up in front of my face to show that he had his fingers crossed for good luck. I nodded weakly and pushed the heavy door of my new classroom open.

And oh God, the novelty of the new kid began.

Putting on my confident attitude I tried to avoid the twenty or so pairs of eyes that were trying to telepathically drill me with questions, and started to search for a seat. I finally saw just next to two girls who were the only two not staring at me like I held the key to eternal life. Walking across the silent room I dropped into the seat and dumped my bag on the floor. Give it T-minus two seconds and…

“Who are you?” A manicured hand slapped itself down on my table and I looked up with a smirk on my face. The girl with the perfectly styled hair and the porcelain face looked down on me as though I was a person off the streets and placed a deadly emphasis on each word she said. So I just answered as normally as I could.

“Well, hi, it’s wonderful to meet you too. I probably won’t find out your name directly from you so I’m not about to tell you mine in return. All you need to know is that I am the new exchange student here and I respect my personal space.” I tapped on her hand and she immediately jerked it back as though I had poisoned it. Flipping her long fringe out of her eyes she leaned closer down to me.

“You have no right to waltz in here and think you own the place. There’s an order in this classroom that you can’t just climb up like a Lizards and Ladders game. Got that newbie?”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, right in her face too. She jerked back again with a disgusted look on her face. Stifling my laughter, I stood and got right in her face, just to mirror what she did.

“Number one: I didn’t waltz…for future reference I walk. Number two: I know that I don’t own the place and neither do you. Number three: Let me guess the order goes you…and then you couldn’t be bothered figuring out the rest? I see no order, we’re all equal. Number four: Snakes and Ladders, you have no intelligent upbringing do you? Number five: Yeah, apart from that I got it.”

A deadly silence had fallen over the room. I just love putting the school tart in her place on my first day. We were still staring at each other when the teacher entered the room. I shoo-ed the girl away with a wave of my hand and sat back down in my seat triumphantly. I heard the girl mutter something under her breath and storm off. The teacher looked back and forth between the two of us, clearly understanding that something had gone down before shrugging and inviting me to stand up and introduce myself. I did so quite happily before sitting down again.

“Wow.” I heard someone say to the left of me. I turned to see a girl with heavily layered red-brown hair smiling at me whilst another girl with short black hair was leaning her chin on the others shoulder.

“Uhm, wow what? I don’t think my intro was that cool.” I laughed faintly. The brown-haired girl shook her head rapidly.

“No no no no no no. No-one has ever stood up to JungGi like that before. Like ever.” Her already wide eyes seemed to get even larger somehow. I smiled.

“I just don’t care what she has to say to me if she doesn’t want to say anything nice.” The girl nodded again before realizing the other girl was still leaning on her shoulder.

“Yahh, do I look like a resting place for your chin? Aishh.” She pushed the girl in the face with her hand – in a friendly way – causing the other to pull back and then turned her attention back to me.

“I’m Kari by the way, and that’s Sola. We can help show you round the school if you want. It’s quite big but there are some awesome spots to hang out. It’s even better when they are places that the teachers don’t always know about. We have to thank Kibum for finding this place, and then he told Ryeowook who told us. Oh wait, you wouldn’t know Ryeowook would you? Maybe? No? We’ll introduce you to him, he’s nice.” She nodded eagerly at me, causing her layers to fly around her head. I noticed she was a very quick and happy talker. I started to giggle and she took that as a good sign.

“I already know Ryeowook, he walked me over here, and it would’ve taken me forever to find the class room otherwise.” I said. Sola shoved Kari backward in an effort to talk to me.

“How sweet is he? He’s been my friend since kindergarten; I swear he hasn’t aged a day since then.”

We talked in whispers for the remainder of the lesson and by the end of it, I was pretty sure I had found a good group to hang out with. The teacher unfortunately called me back and Sola and Kari left, leaving me to wander aimlessly around outside the classroom. Abruptly someone covered my eyes with their hands.

“Guess who!” The person behind me chirped. I laughed as I realized that it was Ryeowook.

“I can’t see. Where do you normally hang out?”

“Well, let me guide you and you will see.” He said in a sing-song voice. And so, we walked quite a distance until he finally took his hands of my eyes with a happy ‘TADA!” Blinking, I noticed that I was in the shade of some trees, where Sola and Kari were sitting with a group of guys at a wooden table. I looked behind to see that we were behind the building with Room 3 in it. It was a quiet enough place, but there were still other students milling around.

“I assume you’ve already met Sola and Kari?” Ryeowook asked gesturing to them. Kari nodded and pulled me to sit next to her. I was happy that I was being included so quickly.

“Well, if that’s the case I only need to introduce you to these idiots.” Ryeowook wandered round the table and whacked – someone on the head. The latter immediately retaliated.

“This is Donghae.” Ryeowook pointed to the guy he had hit. Being polite, I got up from my spot to say hello. Just like I would back home, I gave him a quick hug. The reaction wasn’t the same though. He squeaked and quickly ducked under the table. The others laughed while I just stood there confused. Ryeowook stepped up to explain.

“Donghae is against skin-ship, so it’s a bit weird for someone he’s just met to be hugging him.”

“Oh,” I stuck my head under the table where he cowered. “Sorry.” He just nodded. I straightened up again and Ryeowook continued the introductions.

“This is Shiwon.” He pointed to a tall boy at the far end of the table.

“I don’t mind skin-ship, can I have a hug?” Smiling, I went over to him. Man, he was an awkward person to hug. Maybe it was because his limbs were too long.

“Desperate.” Ryeowook shook his head. “This is Shindong.” A boy who was as squishy as my cat on my bed gave me an eager yet lung squashing hug.

“Kibum.” Ryeowook pointed to a guy on the other side of the table who simply gave me a shy wave.

“Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun.” The two looked up from whatever they had been very seriously discussing. The one named Eunhyuk practically ran over to me and gave me a hug; Kyuhyun just remained in his seat and smiled at me. Cute smile.

“Finally, we have Sungmin.” Ryeowook sat down next to Donghae who had emerged and shoved Sungmin over to make room. Sungmin looked similar to Ryeowook but I assumed that they weren’t related. Ryeowook would’ve mentioned if they were.

“I’ll be nice and ask,” Sungmin said before poking his tongue out at the others. “Do you want to give me a hug? I don’t mind if you don’t.”

I smiled again. Happiness seemed to be infectious in this country. “Come here.”

And I – whoa! Skinny jeans, loose white top, gorgeous open-mouthed smile, perfectly messy hair! Holy crap, if Ryeowook had made my heart flutter, this guy required me to bring out the defibrillator! 

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Alright, so there you are, first chapter!

Hope you guys enjoy it, feel free to leave a comment and I'll update as soon as I can ^o^