Chugye University for the Arts. A smaller college, but none the less, a large building that stood in Seoul, South Korea. The university was fairly exclusive and so the majority of people in the capital city walked past it daily without much recognition. But despite Chugye’s lack of hype, the building seemed to loom over head as a small 19 year old girl walked through the gates and up the large marble steps to the main office.

                “Kwon Julia. J-U-L-I-A.” the girl recited from memory, her voice nearly shaking as she watched the woman behind the desk type her name into the system and print off a small sheet of paper. Once handed to her, the blue sheet showed a splay of Korean character which; after a few moments of switching gears to han-gul from the English alphabet, revealed her class schedule.

                The woman at the desk gave her a soft smile and spoke slowly in Korean, “I’ll call one of our best students to show you to your class.”

                Julia-though annoyed by the woman’s slow speaking-nodded and smiled before bowing and offering a barely audible, “Thank you.” She then turned to look around at everything printed in her native tongue. It would take a while to convert back to her old ways of thinking in Korean instead of English.

                “Chong-songsaengnim, is Kibum-ssi in your class now?” There was a pause in which Julia assumed the person on the other end was responding before the woman spoke again, “Then could you please send him to the office, I have a new student that needs to be escorted to your classroom.” another pause. “Thank you very much.” The woman now turned back to Julia with a broad smile, “He’ll be here shortly, if you’ll just wait outside the office, he’ll know what to look for.”

                The girl felt herself frown but said nothing as she bowed in thanks once more and went to the spot outside of the door as she’d been instructed. “Escorted to class…” she mumbled softly in English before leaning against the wall and sliding down to the floor, her schedule held limply in her hand as she rested her head back against the wall to wait for this ‘Kibum’.

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                “Key-ssi?”

The brown head of hair popped up from it’s notebook to reveal an angelic face, “Mm?” he responded, setting down his pen to focus on  the teacher at the front of the room.

                “You’re needed at the office. We have a new student.”

                The young man called Key scoffed softly and nodded, “I suppose I have no choice?” he remarked, standing and pushing his bangs from his face.

                The teacher laughed but tutted at him, “You’re a good student, you know where to go and seeing you usually puts people at ease.”

                He chuckled softly at this, eyeing a few of the girls on the other side of the room who let out high pitched giggles. He shook his head at the site and stuffed his hands into his pockets before he headed out of the classroom, welcoming the quiet of the hallway.

                “Noona neomu yeppo…” his voice rang quietly against the walls as he turned a few corners, first left, then another left and finally a right.

                There was a petite girl sitting against the wall with her head leaned back. She looked normal enough with blondish red hair styled messily with gel. And her style was cute, a blue jean vest over the lavender button up she wore with black jeans and a pair of high top sneakers. But just because her appearance seemed innocent enough didn’t mean that she would spare him the squeals or the picture and autograph requests.

                He frowned slightly and took his time, walking quietly down the hall. Kim “Key” Kibum was in no rush to be attacked by another rabid fan girl. You see, Key was a member of the band SHINee. A group of young men who were slowly raising straight up to the top of the charts in Korea. And Key himself never failed to find the craziest of the crazed. Fans that is.

                The girl jumped at the sound of a throat clearing and her eyelids flew open to reveal vivid blue eyes. Her hand flew over her heart and she laughed nervously, covering with her free hand. “Ohmygod!” the words were slurred together and in English before she ran a hand through her hair and caught her breath. She regained her composure rather quickly as she blinked up at the boy and she bowed her head quickly, “I’m sorry,” her words jumped to Korean expertly, “You scared me.”

                He let out an almost bitter laugh, waiting for her realization of who he was, “I couldn’t tell.”

                She smiled softly and helped herself up with the wall, settling her bag over her shoulder before bowing to him, “You must be Kibum?” she asked, her face staying pointed up to him with that same soft smile.

                He blinked at her for a moment, “Uh… Yeah…” was she really this slow? He ignored this and bowed back to her, “Kim Kibum, but you can call me Key,” he hinted, “I’m here to help you find our class.” he straightened, as did she before she bowed once more, though not as deeply this time.

                “That’s very gracious of you, thank you.” this time she came back all the way up and Key could see just how petite she really was. She stood a good 15 cm less than himself and he couldn’t help but smile. She was cute.

                “Wait, did you say Key?”

                Ah, there it was. “Yeah, I did, why?” he asked, preparing himself for the normal reaction.

                She giggled. Of course she giggled. “That’s just a very… Unique name.”

                He blinked, was this girl for real? “Well yeah, it’s a nickname. I mean, it’s the first part of my name.”

                She thought on this for a moment and then nodded, “I didn’t make the connection. I was thinking of the English word, not of how you would write your name out.”

                He stared at her, almost dumbfounded, “Well, that’s how I spell it, the English way I mean..”

                She laughed, “It’s cute.” she said before bowing quickly, “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

                Key’s gaze stayed fixed on her and he shook his head slowly, “No, no it’s fine.” he said slowly, scratching at his head in a daze.

                “Is something wrong?” her voice interrupted his thought process. He blinked at her for a moment and then shook his head, “Uh, no. No, everything’s…” he felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth and he let it shine, “Everything’s perfect.” She gave him a bright smile and suddenly she didn’t seem so timid anymore. Something about the fact that this girl didn’t know who he was made him incredibly happy. It was like the way things had been before the band’s debut. He liked it. Finally he could just be Kibum, treated like any other guy off the streets. Who knew, maybe this girl would even like him for who he was, not because of his band. Speaking of ‘this girl’…

                “Uhm, what did you say your name was?”

                She blushed brightly, “Oh! I didn’t say! I’m so sorry!” she bowed a few times before standing back up, “Kwon Julia. But you can call me Jojo.”

                Key snickered, “And my name is ‘Unique’?” he teased.

                She blushed, “I’ve gone by that since I was little, I’m just used to it now.”

                He smiled approvingly, “Same.” he stretched, reaching his hands up to the sky and linking them before he sighed softly, “So, you have my same class right now?”

                She blinked down at her blue schedule and squinted at it, still trying to adjust to reading the characters instinctively. “English Literature with… Chong?” she said the last in a question as she tried to read it correctly.

                Key nodded and then blinked at her slowly, “Are you… Fluent in Korean?” he asked, slowing his words down.

                Jojo turned her gaze to him, the color of  her eyes almost matching her paper. She frowned, “Yeah, I am, but I’ve been living in America for the past 19 years, so I’m still trying to adjust to having to actually use it all.”

                He chuckled at her snappy response and held his hands up in mock surrender, “Alright, alright.” he snickered but stopped quickly, “You’re how old?”

                She blinked, “19?”

                Key looked at her for a few moments, his eyes squinting, “When’s your birthday?” he asked suddenly.

                An eyebrow shot up on her forehead as she tried to understand why exactly he was suddenly asking so many questions, “May 14.”

                “Year?”

                “1990?”

                “Dammit!”

                Jojo jumped,  “What? Why?” she asked, suddenly afraid she’d said something wrong.

                “You’re older than me!” he exclaimed, as though this were some sort of travesty.

                She couldn’t help the fit of giggles that poured from , “All of that just because I’m your noona?”

                He frowned at her, almost a pouting look, “I’m younger than like… Every girl that I’m friends with.” She patted his head the way an adult would do for a child and he huffed a breath as he shoved her hands away, “Don’t patronize me.” he wrinkled his nose and she grinned.

                “So aren’t you supposed to show me to class?”

                He blinked for a moment and then nodded, “Yeah, there’s that.” he laughed and nodded his head in the direction that he then started walking in, the new girl following closely behind him.

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                “Come on, I want to introduce you to my friends.”

                “Uhm… Okay?” Jojo was gathering her things, about to sling her back over her shoulder before Key grabbed her hand and started to drag her behind him out of the classroom.

                She laughed as she was dragged through the halls, noticing the glares she was receiving from several groups of girls. This Key guy must be pretty popular.

                They weaved through the hallways for a while before walking out of the doors to a courtyard where people were sitting down, eating lunch or just passing time until their next class.

                Key lead the two of them up to a group of four other boys, conversing, laughing and play fighting with each other. She blinked at them slowly, seeing as all of them were insanely good looking.

                “Hyung!” one boy piped up at seeing Key from afar. The boy had dark auburn hair, styled in waves with bangs to frame a very handsome face. He stood around 175 cm and looked fairly young compared to the others.

                “Wha--?” one of the other’s responded, apparently, older as he whipped his head around. He’d been staring at fairly beautiful girl on the other side of the courtyard. He had brown hair, straight with bangs that hid one of his eyes and he was fairly short.

                “Not you.” the younger boy laughed, “Kibum-hyung.” he pointed now and the other three boys looked over.

                One of the others looked over and pointed, “Key-hyung!” he waved. This boy was the tallest, with hair styled much like the youngest’s, though it was dark brown and a bit shorter.

                Key grinned, waving at them all, “Ousa!” he called to the girl at his side and she laughed.

                “I’m hurrying!” she waved him off as he finally let go of her hand and she lagged behind him a bit. She observed all of them, watching Kibum greet the last  of his friends. He was the same height as  Key, but the boy she’d already met called him Hyung, as did all the others. She finally reached them and stood back, not saying anything until the younger, red headed boy peeked around Key’s shoulder.

                “Who’s this?” he asked with a sweet smile.

                Jojo felt herself turn red as she bowed silently.

                Key beamed now, “This is my new friend. She just started today.” he said, grabbing her by the waist nonchalantly and pulling her forward.

                She blushed bright crimson  at his hand but said nothing, simply bowed once more once she was pulled into the center of the small circle.

                The shortest boy grinned, “She’s pretty.” he said, beaming mischievously at Key.

                The younger boy blushed, “Hyung, shut up.” he laughed, covering his mouth as he laughed, chewing on his lip.

                The oldest smiled, seeming to ignore his friends and moved in front of the girl. He did a deep bow and stood to smile at her, “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Lee Jinki, but feel free to call me Onew.”

                She blinked up at him and nodded slowly, blushing. Were all of the boys here in Korea this good looking?

                Key smiled at his friend, “See, you all should be polite like hyung, instead of teasing me.” he shot a glance at the shortest boy who then grinned and moved to Onew’s previous place, bowing to the girl.

                “Kim Jonghyun.” he offered with a dashing smile. She blushed more as he took her hand and kissed it, “But any friend of Kibum’s is a friend of mine. So let’s be informal, yeah?” he winked at her and then grinned devilishly at Key.

                Jojo stared up at the man, her body rigid as she stared at her hand.

                Key shoved the boy, “Hyung! Stop being rude!”

                “What’s he doing now?”

                A beautiful Asian girl was now standing next to Jonghyun with her hand firmly on his shoulder. She was barely shorter than he was and breathtaking with her looks. She had black hair that fell in glorious waves to just below her shoulder blades. The man next to her grinned, “I didn’t do anything. Key is just being territorial.”

                The girl squeezed his shoulder, “Be nice to your dongsaeng.” she scolded, granting a large smile from Key.

                “Thank you Claire.” he said happily, sticking his tongue out to his elder. Jonghyun waved this off like it was nothing and smiled at the girl next to him, snaking his arm around her waste and placing a sweet kiss on her temple.

                “How was class?” he offered her, moving backwards a few feet to sit on the bench of a picnic table.

                The girl, Claire followed him and sat next to him, crossing her legs politely and resting her elbows on the table behind her. “It was… class.” she laughed as the group followed the two of them to sit on the picnic table.

                Jojo stayed silent, still quietly observing these people and wondering what sort of gorgeous planet she had just landed on?