당신이 뭐?

You what?

Winter came and stayed.
In the midst of frosty mornings and blowing snow drifts, Crystal began a daily ritual of pestering Tess about taking classes at the collage near by. The ice had barely frozen when Tess gave in and enrolled for the spring semester.

So in turn Tess quit her job at the diner, keeping her part time work at the florist, and delved into her studies. Language arts along with some creative arts classes, filled her roster as well as some unexpected courses. She was actually taking instruction in dance. There she learned classic, modern, and various dances of bygone eras. Also, thanks to the rather unconventional group she was friends with, she had a good handle on the more popular pop & lock style as well as some B-boy moves.

She was always laughing in those classes, especially after finding she was rather good at it. The other girls in the class liked to teach her y dances just to watch the blush spread on her face, considering she was older than most of them, and still relatively shy.

Majoring in the language department was also rewarding for her.
She loved the languages she was slowly learning and was now very well versed in Korean, to the point that her professor told her he could teach her nothing more. He then suggested she think about going overseas to immerse herself in the culture as an option to perfecting her skills.

She told him she would seriously consider it, pleasing the man to no end that he had such an accomplished student.

Crystal had other plans for her as it turned out.
Without letting the other woman know, She'd signed Tess up for a chance to learn in a Korean institute situated in Seoul.

No big deal right? Except this list she had applied to, had a special set of conditions that helped to push the woman into making such a choice, in-lue of telling her friend about it straight out.

It was to be a home stay program, with the conditions stating it would be a dorm of Korean Idols, male idols. A contract would have to be signed as well as a privacy policy, protecting the un named group from slander of any kind.
It also stated that the whole thing would be filmed and shown on a local television station in Korea, so all applicants had to send in a video of themselves to the production company, in care of the institutes application department. 

Crystal figured it was a publicity stunt for the idol group to gain popularity, and didn't think much of it. She just knew this was the way to help Tess. She would do anything she could to make the people she cared about happy.
Even if that meant throwing them to the wolves.
 

~o0o~

That following week, Tess became extremely annoyed at her room mate. Every time she turned around Crystal had a camera in her face, filming her. It wasn't just once or twice that she caught her filming secretly as well, and it was seriously getting on her nerves.

She had even followed her to school and work with the blasted thing!

Finally when she burst in on Tess as she was brushing her teeth, still clad in her pj's, all hell broke loose.

"Seojung! What are you doing?" Tess said loudly in Korean, gesturing with her tooth brush.
Thankfully she had just spit before the door was thrown open, but she still had a white ring of foam around .
Crystal began to laugh at that, even with the threat of Tessa's temper in the air.

"I'm brushing my teeth, give it a rest already!" She pushed the other girl from the bath room and locked the door.

Crystal laughed even harder when a loud "Aish!" came from the other side of the door.
That should do it. she thought snapping the view screen shut.

Now, seriously saying, Tess was good at quite a few things, and could be rather graceful when she danced, but most often she would be the one tripping over her own feet.
She resembled Jaejoong in that aspect. Crystal thought more than once.

It was quite the sight to see, when a woman does a face plant while walking across a snow covered campus, but it's even better getting it on film!
 

~o0o~

The last week of Tessa's classes came, after the rush and worry of finals she had graduated from being a freshman.

As she took the last few steps from the language arts class room, her professor caught her in the hallway.

"Tessa!"

"Oh. Professor Jung." she answered turning to the short balding man behind her.

He was a Korean, American man with little hair atop his head and bright eyes behind spectacles.
He laughed a short bark and patted her shoulder.

"Congratulations on being picked! I'm glad you decided to go and perfect your Korean. Home stay was a wise decision. You'll learn by osmosis! Just don't do anything I wouldn't do!" He said with a wag of his finger.
He walked away with a proud smile on his face.

Tessa watched him go with a strange look of bewildered confusion on hers.

"What the heck was that about?"

~o0o~

"You What?"

Crystal cringed back at the sharp yell. She was standing in the kitchen with a chair placed firmly between her and Tess as the other girl paced back and forth before her.

"I signed you up for a home stay language program in Seoul." She repeated softly.

Tess turned to her and stared in disbelief.

"How could you do something like that with out my permission?"

Crystal shrugged. "I just... did."

"Oh my... Aish!" Tess resumed her pacing and roughly ran her fingers back and forth through her hair.

"They are going to film it? I'm going to be on Korean TV?"

"Yes, but if you think about it Tess, this would be a great opportunity! If you can win over the hearts of Korea then being with my brother wouldn't be so hard!"

Tess stopped abruptly and stared at the woman as if she were demented.

"I was just trying to help." She said with a pout.

Tess grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at Crystals retreating back. Once the door of her room slammed, Tess picked up the letter and, plopping down on the couch, gave a heavy sigh as she read it again.

That, along with a contract in a large silver envelop, came earlier in the day. 

It stated:
- There is to be no physical relations with any one including, but not limited to, the Idols of whose home you will be residing.

- No dating with any one including, but not limited to, the Idols with whom you are residing.

- No negative comments about Korea, the Korean language, the Korean culture, Korean Idols including, but not limited to, the Idols with whom you are residing.

- No offensive behavior...

Tess shook her head. "Like that isn't already common sence." she said tossing the pages down on the sofa beside her.

"I guess I have no choice. Korea here I come."

...

In three weeks time Tess was on a plane headed for Inchon international.

It was her first time flying and her stomach was twisted in knots. Half was nerves, but the other half was excitement.
In actuality she wanted to come to Korea, but she had been scared.

Korea was a foreign place to her and, even though she knew the language, the customs, she was afraid she would make a fool of herself.

Now even more so, since she would be on television for the whole of South Korea to see. With the added pressure of living with a group of unknown-to-her idols, she felt the prospect to be harrowing at best.

But still... she thought, as the plane descended, I get to live in a place I've always wanted to and I'll have a group of people who can help me out and perhaps become friends with. Maybe I'll get to see Jaejoong too.
It was wishful thinking she knew.

"It might not be so bad."

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

See I told you there were a lot of hop, skip and jumps in this chapter! lol Joking, anyway I wanted to speed it up a bit and get to the good stuff with out leaving every thing all loose and everything. So I hope you guys like. Let me know if you don't and I will try and improve my writing style. O.k.? See ya,  laterz!