(small disclaimer: I'm not Korean, nor do i speak Korean.  So the Korean I use in this story may be a bit off... I tried my best.  (if I did make a mistake, please tell me in the comments, I do want to know if I'm saying something wrong.) And because I don't know enough Korean, if the dialouge is in italics, it means they are speaking in Korean.  I hope you enjoy!)

내 친구

“Sungjong Lee?”

“Here.”

“Sungyeol Lee?”

“Here.”

Sungjong poked his pencil across his desk and stole a glance at Sungyeol. Sungyeol caught his eye and grinned. 

“선생님 바보,” Sungyeol mouthed at Sungjong.  Sungjong snorted and shook his head at Sungyeol.  He sighed and turned his attention back to the front of the classroom. 

It was sometimes confusing to be living in an English speaking contry while you and your friend were the only Koreans there.  Many people asked him and Sungyeol if they were brothers because of their similar sounding names and same last name.  They weren’t brothers, and every time they were asked that, Sungjong would answer in the same way.  "Yes, I know our last names are the same, but we aren’t related!"

And did everyone need to asume that all Asian people were related?  He was once standing with Alice Hu, potentially the most annoying person on earth, and someone asked if they were sibilings.  Sungyeol later pointed out with a grin that at least they didn’t say dating, but Sungjong was just so tired of people asking him that and they weren’t even both the same ethnicity to be siblilings. 

Always, when ever they had subsitute teachers, Sungjong and Sungyeol bet on how the teacher would mispronounce their name.  The weirdest that Sungjong had got was “Soon-angh-jaon-gh…” He supposed he wasn’t the worse, with another girl with the name Xiaoxaun, “Ex-ee-ow-Xs… how do you say this?”  Sungyeol always says, and Sungjong wholeheartedly agrees with him, that if the name looks forgien, even if it has a simple pronounciation, whoever's trying to read it just s it up.  

But probably the worse was when the other kids would constantly ask him, “Are you Chinese? Or are you Japanese?” Sungjong swore if someone else asked him that he would punch the other in the face.  If they asked if he was a girl or gay, they would be punched again.  Or if he was asked to do “Gangnam Style”, he would probably murder someone. 

Sungjong had grown up in Canada for most of his life, his parents imigrated there when he was a baby and he couldn’t speak much Korean.  Sungyeol had moved to his school about two years ago from Korea and Sungjong knew that Sungyeol could speak fluent Korean and his English was perfect except for his accent.

“Class,” the teacher called after finishing the attendance. “We have a new student today.”

Sungjong looked over to the side of the class where the new student was standing.  The new student looked around the classroom, his eyes were sharp and took in every detail.  Sungjong could see  pair of earbuds hanging out of his jacket pocket.  His skin was pale which only made his hair look darker.  Sungjong didn’t need to ask the student if he was Chinese or not.

“Would you introduce yourself?” the teacher asked.

He student nodded slightly. “안녕하세요.  My name ij Kim Myungsoo,” he said, bowing to the class quickly.

“Kim?  Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

Sungjong whipped around to look at the speaker, Matthew Dettmann.  Whenever Matthew opened his mouth, Sungjong wanted to strangle him, every single sentence had something policatly or morally wrong with it.  Or it was just plain stupid.  

“And Myungsoo?” Matthew continued obnoxiously, “What kind of last name is that?  Some kind of Chinese name?”

Sungjong opened his mouth to answer, but Sungyeol beat him to it.  “Oh, shut up,” Sungyeol snapped.  “His first name is Myungsoo and his last name is Kim.  And he’s not Chinese, he’s Korean.” 

Everyone stared at Sungyeol.  Sungyeol usally kept quiet, his voice was accented from living in Korea for most of his life, and the other kids would for it. 

Sungyeol ignored all of their stares and walked up to the front of the classroom to Myungsoo. 

“안녕하세요. 내 이름은 이성열입니다,” he said, bowing to Myungsoo in the same way that Myungsoo had a few moments ago. Sungjong watched as Sungyeol conversed with Myungsoo in perfect Korean.  Myungsoo was smiling at Sungyeol and was nodding.  Sungjong tried to listen into the conversation but it was moving too fast for him to understand the words. 

Sungyeol turned to the teacher.  “I’ll show him around the school and I’ll help him in this class.”

“Thank you, Sungyeol,” the teacher said.  “Everyone, please be nice to Myungsoo while he’s getting settled here.”

Sungyeol lead Myungsoo down the row of desks and gave him the empty desk beside him, in front of Sungjong.  Sungyeol grinned at Sungjong which he returned a smile to.  The teacher started talking and Sungyeol faced the front again. 

Sunjong found himself staring at the back of Myungsoo’s head as the class started.  Myungsoo placed his supplies neatly on the table, placing the earbuds from his jacket, with his iPod in the corner of his desk.  

When the teacher finally let them start their work, the classroom exploded into activity and Sungyeol turned to Myungsoo again. 

“명수야. 이 이성종입니다,” Sungyeol said, pointing to Sungjong behind him.  “Sungjong, this is Myungsoo.”

Sungjong jumped as Myungsoo turned around in his desk, his big brown eyes turned towards Sungjong now.  “Nice to meet you,” Sungjong muttered messily in Korean. 

Myungsoo’s eyes light up and he smiled.  “Nice to meet you,” he said in heavily accented English. 

“Myungsoo, you’re Sungjong’s hyung,” Sungyeol said in Korean. 

“What?  He’s my what?” Sungjong interrupted. 

“Hyung,” Sungyeol repeated, slowly pronouncing the word.  “That’s something that males add after the name of older males.  But it’s different with males and femals.  If Erin was talking to you, you would call her ‘noona’, a younger male to a older female.  She would call me ‘oppa’, a younger female to a older male and call Beth ‘unnie’, a younger female to a older female.”

Sungjong blinked.  “What?”

Sungyeol laughed.  “I love your face right now,” he said.  “I’ll explain again later.”

Sungjong frowned as Sungyeol looked over Myungsoo’s schedule with him, marking the class names in Hangul along with the teachers’ names.  “Sungjong, I don’t have the afternoon classes with Myungsoo, but you do so could you take care of him during those classes?”

Sungjong took the schedule.  “I don’t have fourth with him, only art,” he said.

“Well, then help him during art.  His fourth is a help class anyways,” Sungyeol said. 

“Ummm, okay, fine.”

Sungyeol laughed at his reluctance to help Myungsoo.  “He isn’t going to bite you, Jongie.  You know some Korean, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but it’s like, hi, my name is Sungjong, numbers up to ten and some colours.”

“It’s art class, you need to say colours.”  Sungyeol waved him away.  “I’ll tell him to speak slowly and then you can understand him better.”

Myungsoo smiled at Sungjong and Sungjong tried to smile back.  It was going to be an interesting class. 

“Sungjong!”

Sungjong turned around as he heard Sungyeol call his name over the crowded halls.  Sungyeol’s head stuck above 80% of the rest of the crowd and Myungsoo’s head of dark hair bobbed up and down behind him. 

Sungjong pressed himself up against the wall as Sungyeol and Myungsoo escaped the crowd of students. 

“Okay, Sungjong, Myungsoo, have fun, okay?  I got to get to the third floor, bye!”

Sungjong blinked blankly as Sungyeol sprinted off into the crowd again, leaving Myungsoo and Sungjong alone.  Sungjong looked over at Myungsoo, unsure of what to say. 

“Hey,” Sungjong greeted.

“Hi,” Myungsoo said softly, his fingers fiddling with his earbuds again.

They stood there awkwardly together, unsure of what to say.

“Um, why don’t we… go in?” Sungjong guestured into the room.

Myungsoo nodded and followed Sungjong into the art room, settling down in the chair beside him.  As the teacher talked about the class, Sungjong watched Myungsoo carefully. 

Myungsoo was paying close attention to the teacher even though she wasn’t saying anything important.  His hands were folded neatly in front of him, his whole posture up straight.  It was surprising to Sungjong how disaplinced Myungsoo was.  His mother hand mentioned to him a few times how Korean schooling system was very different from the Western standards and how lucky Sungjong was to be having all the different opportunities, but it still surprised him at even in a different school, Myungsoo still remained displined and polite. 

The class started after the art teacher told them the assignment.  Sungjong helped Myungsoo get a sketch pad and pencils to start the assignment.  The project was pretty free, draw anything and with any medium, so the art room was chaos as everyone started their project. 

Sungjong and Myungsoo settled down in a quieter part of the classroom.  “You can talk slowly in Korean and I’ll understand you,” Sungjong said slowly. “I can’t reply back but I know what you’re saying.”

Myungsoo smiled tentitively. “진짜?”

Sungjong nodded. “My parents are from Korea and they speak it around the house, but I don’t really speak it myself.”

“Where are your parents from in Korea?”

“Gwangju,” Sungjong replied. “You?”

Myungsoo smiled and pointed to himself. “Seoul,” he said.

“The capital city?”

Myungsoo nodded enthusiastically.  “Gwangju… light city?”

“Huh?” Sungjong frowned. 

This time, Myungsoo's brow furrowed as he thought about his English.  “광.  Light?” he asked hopefully.  

“Ah!”  Sungjong laughed and nodded.  “Gwangju is the light city.”

Sungjong peeked over Myungsoo shoulder to see what he was drawing during art class. Myungsoo’s face was filled with concentration as he shaded in one of the boy’s eyebrows.  He seemed to block out the whole world as he had his earphones in, Sungjong could hear soft whispers of the music.  Sungjong looked back at Myungsoo’s drawing. Myungsoo had brought the paper to life, the picture of a group of people.

“Who’s that?” Sungjong asked.

Myungsoo jumped and looked up at Sungjong, pulling out one earbud, letting it dangle on his chest. “Them?”

“It looks so pretty,” Sungjong said.

He tipped his head as he didn’t understand Sungjong.

“Ummm…” Sungjong racketed his mind for the word, for some reason, he could only come up for the word for acorn. “예쁘다, 예쁘다,” Sungjong finally managed to say. 

Another smile split Myungsoo’s face. “T-ank you,” he said.  He lifted up his sketch book and pointed to the boy in the middle. “Sunggyu-hyung.  He’s my… bru-d-er.”

Sungjong nodded.  He could see the resembalance between Myungsoo and his brother.

“Woohyun-hyung, Dongwoo-hyung, they are bru-d-ers.  And they my…” Myungsoo’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember the word.  “친구?”

Sungjong shook his head, not sure of what that meant, the word for acorn still bouncing around his head.

Myungsoo frowned, trying to remember the word in English once more before moving on.  “We…” Myungsoo drew his finger around the three in the picture and pointed to himself.  “Family.”

Sungjong smiled.  “They look beautiful.”

The bell rang and Sungjong helped Myungsoo put his supplies away.  Myungsoo stopped him hesitatnly as they picked up their bags. 

“Sungjong…” he said slowly. 

“Yeah?” Sungjong smiled at him. 

That seemed to loosen Myungsoo’s tounge as he smiled back.  “Sungjong… will you be my… 친구?”

Sungjong smiled slowly as he heard the word from earlier that he didn’t recognize.  Now, as he heard it again, he could remember what it meant. 

He nodded and held out his hand.  “Friends?”

Myungsoo smiled happily and shook his hand.  “친구.”

Sungjong grinned.  After that day he would never forget what 친구 meant.  He and Myungsoo would always remain close even when Myungsoo moved back to Korea at the end of the year. 

Because even though they didn’t always understand each other, they both knew one word.    

친구 means friend. 

Love is a universal language, so is friendship.

Yay!  

All 100% fluff!  How do you like my limbless-jelly-fish fluff?  Please comment and upvote and read my other stories!  

The prompt that I started with when I started to write this was my thoughts that even though we, as Inspirits, as K-Pop fans, don’t all understand Korean, and even though we speak different languages, we all love Infinite. 

Sometimes, we can’t understand what they’re saying except for the English lyrics, we can still hear their emotions and feelings in the song and feel their heart and spirit in their voices. 

I’m grateful that I’ve become an Inspirit, and just like Dongwoo said, “Once you’re an Inspirit, you’ll always be an Inspirit,” and I think for a long time, I will continue to be an Inspirit.  So thank you, Inspirits, for becoming my other family. 

And also thank you, Infinite, for giving me another family.  Because even if we don’t understand each other, there will always be something that we will understand. 

Your music and our love for you.