Okay so maybe I should have thought this through a little bit more.

                But honestly, where’s the fun in that?

                After a terrible break-up with my boyfriend of far-too-long three years, I’d packed up the little bit that I actually owned in the shared apartment that I had lived in with  him, and moved to Seoul.

                South Korea. Yeah.

                Hey, but at least I had experience with Korean culture right?

                Wrong.

                I knew close to nothing about the culture aside from what my sister had educated me on the phone calls and Skype talks during the weeks before my big move. Considering my sister was an English teacher currently teaching in Seoul, I thought it would be best to listen to her instead of just going off of what I learned by mistakes while I was there. Her husband, who was actually Korean and was raised in Korea, was also a major help. Although he didn’t exactly support my decision to just up and move so suddenly. Not that most people did, but it wasn’t like I was really concerned on what anyone else thought.

                I wanted a new adventure.

                And Seoul was going to be it.

                Either way, I was now living in their spare room, working as a barista in a small café just down the road from their comfy apartment. Not that being a barista was my plan.

                I wanted to dance. I wanted to go to school here and major in dance. Or find a job at a dance studio as a teacher. Something. Anything. I just wanted to dance. That’s it.

                Of course, moving out would be great, but neither one of them really minded me staying with them, so that wasn’t too much of a concern at the moment.

                Whenever I wasn’t working, I was searching for any dance studios around the city and going to go and visit. With my limited Korean, I held small interviews with the people that worked in them, but to no avail. Usually, they weren’t looking for teachers of any sort, or they wanted someone with more experience that I didn’t have, or—my all-time favorite excuse—they needed someone with more fluency of the language.

                I’m so sorry that Pororo only teaches me the basics. Maybe people on dramas shouldn’t talk so fast.

                Getting into a school for dance went close to the same way. Since I had done pretty average in high school, my grades weren’t good enough for the schools here. Or at least, that’s basically what they said. I was talented and had the potential to do even better, but I didn’t have the grades.

                Awesome.

                So there I was, a barista living with my sister and her husband in a country that I knew close to nothing about.

                It was like being Katie from Mean Girls, except I didn’t actually have any “mean girls” around me. Or at least not yet.

                Either way, I was stuck filling up cups of coffee and hoping I had understood the customer correctly.

                Oh, and wiping up tables when people spilled their coffee that I had taken my time to make and didn’t even clean up after themselves.

                Like today. There was a particularly stubborn mark on a certain table that was giving me a hard time, and no matter how much I scrubbed at it, it just seemed to stay there and laugh at my struggle.

                I wanted to just break the table in half and pretend that it never even existed.

                But I needed to keep the job and pay for my part of the rent so that wasn’t an option.

                With a huff, I muttered at the stain as I scrubbed a bit harder and blew the hair out of my face.

                “Calm down there, Lady Fierce, I think the stain surrenders.” Someone chuckled from close by and when I looked up, there was a guy not much older—or maybe we were the same age? Apparently I looked young for my age—standing behind the chair seated next to the table. He placed his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward a bit to get a better look at said stain, then let out a low whistle. “Or maybe not.”

                I blinked as I continued to stare at him, still leaning over the table with a rag in my hand. Usually, I would have done the polite thing and bowed since this is Korea and that is the culture.

                But the guy was speaking fluent English and that was catching me off-guard.

                “Australian?” I asked, straightening up and tossing the rag onto the table, turning to face him and tilting my head to the side.

                He nodded, a smile appearing on his face. “American?”

                I sighed and nodded, brushing my hair out of my face quickly.

                “What brings you to Seoul?” he asked, gesturing for me to take the seat across from him as he sat down. I hesitated, glancing around the café quickly. It was a slow day, barely any business. I supposed I could sit down for a while and not get in trouble.

                I took a deep breath and relaxed into the seat, glancing over to the guy across from me. He was really a handsome guy, no doubt about it. A simple handsome. Nothing about him made him seem like he was purposely trying to stand out, but he also didn’t seem like he was trying to blend in either. He just seemed comfortable where he was at. From the way his hat sat on top of his head, the bill covering most of his face—except that smile—to his relaxed composure and body language. He seemed like the type of person I could see myself spending hours with and still not being tired of seeing.

                He tilted his head to the side as he examined me, and I wondered what he was thinking.

                “What brought you to Seoul?” he asked in a soft voice.

                I shrugged, glancing away from him and looking out of the window to my left. “An escape? Adventure? Opportunity? Who really knows anymore?”

                Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod and look down at the table. Probably staring at the stain. “What first brought you to Seoul?”

                I smiled, shaking my head in amusement at his rephrasing of the question. “Dance.”

                “You dance?”

                “I live and breathe for dance.”

                He leaned back, a silly grin spreading across his face as he stared at me in amazement. “Alright, what kind?”

                I waved my hand around and shrugged slightly. “Anything under the sun, but mostly contemporary. Give me music and I’ll dance to it, basically. I just love to dance.”

                He chuckled, crossing his arms and shaking his head in—was that disbelief written across his face?

                “What?” I asked, sitting up straighter in the seat.

                “I’m going to sound crazy in about thirty seconds.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table. “I’m opening up this studio, a dance studio, soon and I’m actually looking around for people that would like to teach there.”

                I raised in eyebrow in disbelief as I stared at him. “You serious?”

                He nodded eagerly. “Dead serious. Couldn’t be any more serious. Seriously.”

                I smiled. “You’re not going to believe this. I’ve been looking for a job as a dance teacher or anything like that since I moved here a couple months back!”

                He grinned and stuck his hand out. “I’m Barom by the way, but everyone calls me Rome.”

                I reached out and shook it. “Tanner, but most people prefer to call me Tang. Don’t ask why.”

                “I won’t.” Rome replied with a chuckle. “You’re not the first person I’ve met with an interesting nickname.”

                I smiled and let my hand slip out of his grip and onto the table. “So with this teaching job, would there be any requirements?”

                Rome paused, lowering his eyes back to the stain and clearing his throat awkwardly. “This is usually the part where people turn me down.”

                “Why?” I asked, looking at him with an expression of pure confusion. Who would turn down such a great opportunity like this?

                “Of course, there’s the usual requirements: knowledge of dance, ability to teach it, flexible schedule. Things like that, but you probably already know all of that.”

                I nodded, encouraging him to go on.

                He lifted his gaze back up to me. “You’d have to move into the apartment complex above the studio."

 

 

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well this is the first chapter :D 

just a small intro of some of the characters ^^ don't worry, the other characters will be making their entrances the next chapter~

how is it so far? :o 

comments are greatly appreciated!

thanks for reading~