The eleven hour flight wasn't too bad. I slept through half of it and woke up when the flight attendant lady gave me the complimentary meal. I chose the vegetarian option which was cheese pasta and bread roll, and so did Lishi mainly because the salmon didn't look edible. After the food came and went I spent the rest of my time watching movies. They had the Harry Potter movies here so I binge watched the first five and got through half of the sixth before the pilot announced we were landing in Incheon Airport. Seeing as my lovely best friend had fallen asleep I did what any caring bestie would do.
"Lishi... Lishi... ALISHBAH WAKE UP!" Seeing her jump up made me burst out laughing, catching a glare from the nearby attendant. Lishi looked at me like she was ready to strangle me.
"Hey it got you awake didn't it?" I spoke in between laughs. She simply flipped me off and started putting her stuff away but I could see the small amused smile she had. She loves me too much to be mad.
When we walked out into the airport I kid you not, I stopped, along with my heartbeat, and just stood there. I mean I'm finally doing something I truly love, with the support of my best friend. Lishi snapped me out of it when she said we needed to hail a cab. Carrying my two suitcases, laptop bag and carry on makes walking out of arrivals a journey I swear. I was also dressed in just a tracksuit with no make up on so I looked like trash to anyone who looked over, nice.
Waiting for the taxi took a while. So Lishi went off to find a place to purchase water, and I sat with our luggage.
"안녕." I turned and saw two men in what I assumed was their mid 40's to 50's grinning at me. The one who spoke to me was wearing a red Hawaiian print shirt. Oh lord almighty I already see where this is going, but unlike the girls from the Taken movie I'm not going to follow them into a cab. I simply raised my eyebrow and looked ahead of me to the cars picking up their friends or family members.
"Hey my friend said hello, we speak English! Are you new here?" The other man in a blue Hawaiian print shirt said.
"You need a cab right? We can drive you! Come on!" Blue shirt said grabbing my arm to which I yanked it out of his grip and turned to look at him. Fury, and I mean rage of hell fury was in my eyes.
"Do not touch me!" I said clearly and precisely and even repeated it in Korean afterwards, just so they'd understand. They started frowning which wasn't a good sign, but it's a public place and people are starting to look so they couldn't do much.
"The lady said leave her alone so I suggest you do so." Another male voice came out from behind the two men. When I say his voice was smooth it was velvety smooth, and deep. The two men looked back at the man and walked away grumbling to themselves.
"감사합니다!" I said gratefully. I didn't want to cause a scene but at the same time I was ready to start scraping and that's also not how I'd like to spend my first day in Korea. He raised an eyebrow at me, probably not expecting me talking in Korean.
"한국어 정말 잘 하네요." Looking me in the eye he stated. He was dressed impeccably. Wearing a beige coat over a black dress shirt and black slacks. He had a plain white mask slightly pulled down and his hair was styled modern chic. No facial hair in the slightest from what I can see, which is what I personally enjoy. He looked... expensive in a way.
"정말 친절하세요." I said bashfully, avoiding his eyes. It's like his dark eyes could stare into your soul, impossible to escape.
"Next time be more careful." He said in English before turning away and walking off. Alrighty no name nothing, he was cute. That's when I noticed Lishi with two water bottles standing nearby with wide eyes.
Wait. I just met a cute guy looking like the before picture in infomercials. I look like Shrek! Comfortable but still! I sighed and took the bottle of water from Lishi gratefully. I won't see him again most likely so it's fine.
"So he was cute.... name?" Lishi inquired as our taxi arrived.
"No clue, he just scared these two guys away like a hero in a kdrama." I replied shoving our luggage in, with much difficulty.
"Ooh a mysterious heroic guy. It does sound like a kdrama plot." She agreed and helped me shove our luggage in.
After stuffing our luggage in we finally headed to Seohyun's apartment. We're staying there until we all find another place for us all to stay. I love how cute her apartment is, but it's tiny. She has one bedroom but she has futons for us to sleep on, from the last time we stayed at hers. The car ride wasn't that long only 20 minutes at most, and once we got out we were greeted with Seohyun's smiling face.
"AHHHHHH!" We all screamed and ran to each other, nearly toppling each other over in a group hug.
"I missed you guys!" Seohyun said once we pulled away. She gave us an up and down look and raised an eyebrow.
"Rae you dyed your hair again!" Ah that. Previously when I came to Korea my hair was black, now it's a dark red with lighter red highlights. I have a thing for dying my hair, but I stopped for a while so my hair wouldn't be too damaged. I had it done when I was out with Aunt Ina.
"I know I did it just before we came, but look at you you're looking amazing!" I said in all honesty, because she was. Her style had always been so casual yet trendy. And since it's the middle of summer she had the cutest blue polka dot sundress on.
Taking out luggage and paying the taxi driver we headed up to Seohyun's apartment. The first thing I did when I arrived was put down my stuff and flop on the couch.
"We'll make yourself at home." Seohyun sarcastically said, but she laughed a second later joining me.
"It's only 2 in the afternoon here so I can't sleep. But I'm so tired." Lishi moaned tiredly sitting on one of the suitcases.
"Amen and we have that job interview tomorrow." I reminded her. She's the worst with jet lag, whilst I never really experience it so it's up to me to make sure we both wake up on time.
Most of our day was spent lounging around lazily. We were watching various shows like Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, Hwarang and such. Well I just really like Park Hyung Sik, he's my favourite actor. I went and got groceries with Seohyun that afternoon a since her fridge was empty, and we came back to make some Subak Naengmyun (수박냉면 Watermelon noodles). I love the stuff, it's cool refreshing and delicious.
"Rae how can you make food so good?" Lishi asked between mouthfuls of the food. I laughed at her. I actually don't know how I got good at cooking, most of my skills were from before lost all of my memories.
"I need to keep you around, I appoint Rae as our private chef!" Seohyun said going in for more.
"I can deal with that, I love doing this." I replied taking some of the watermelon. I used to dislike watermelon but I've changed my mind over the years.
We spent time watching more shows and eventually just fell asleep on her sofa. I woke up to the sound of birds chirping and found myself tangled up in just a mess of blankets and human limbs. Freeing up my arm I checked the time on my phone which I thankfully put in charge last night.
"Oh shit. Lishi wake up!" I shouted shaking her. She shot up immediately in surprise and started rubbing her tired eyes in confusion.
"We have about an hour and a half to go till our interview." Our interview is at 12:45 and it's 11:20.
Her eyes widened in alarm before she rushed off to the bathroom to get ready. Seohyun looked at us with a tired yet amused face at our panicked state. I picked out both mine and Lishi's outfits. I had black slacks with matching 3/4 sleeve blazer and a grey blouse and Lishi has a charcoal grey pantsuit combo with a white shirt. Once Lishi exited the bathroom I went in and almost screeched at how terrible my hair looked, my hair was in its curly stare but it looked tangled and messy. So I slicked it back and cemented it down with gel plus hairspray before washing my face and applying make up. When I say applying make up I can barely do make up, which is literally just eyeshadow and my eyebrows. But this time I added foundation and concealer to cover my eye suitcases (I call them that instead of eye bags) and as Lishi tossed me my outfit I took two seconds to whip it on.
"Wow what a change." Seohyun teasingly said, making the three of us laugh. I usually go for a shrek/comfort look when I'm with friends.
We barely had time to grab an apple before we had to rush out. The location of the interview wasn't far a 15 minute walk at most but we were pressed for time.
"Wish us luck!" I rushed out before Lishi dragged me out the door.
Dodging and weaving in between people walking on the street, and almost getting hit by a car twice we could've broken a speed record today. Avoiding someone's iced coffee for the third time we were getting closer. When we finally got outside the massive building we were exhausted and trying to catch our breath. We cut down a 15 minute walk down to 5 minutes and made it here with 4 minutes to spare.
"Okay take a mint, smile and think confident!" Lishi said handing me a breath mint which I took grateful. Once we composed ourselves we finally walked in 2 minutes early and walked up to the receptionist.
"안녀- Oh hello." The reception lady switched to English immediately when she noticed us. Signing in she gestured for us to sit down in one of the chairs nearby.
Sitting down and waiting was one of the most nerve wracking experiences. And it didn't help that I'm tired as hell. I did a barely good job of covering up my tiredness. I did people watch though, which is one of my favourite things to do. Watching some of the gorgeous people walk in, I could tell some of them were most likely trainees. Finally a slightly older looking woman walked in dressed in a black fitted suit, with her hair tied back into an impeccable bun no strand out of place. All in all she looked absolutely terrifyingly intimidating. Another lady walked in who looked much friendlier, with her hair in a fun bob and dressed similarly to the scary one next to her.
"Hello you must be Naima and A-Alishbah?" The younger one completely butchered Lishi's name and I could see the cringe in Lishi's eyes. Smiling she shook the woman's hand and politely asked her to call her Lishi.
"Ah okay, my name is Im Yoojin I will be your interviewer today Miss Lishi would you follow me?" She said with a smile gesturing for Lishi to follow her. Wait. That leaves me with the scary one, dang it.
"I'm Kim Jisoo we conversed earlier. Miss Naima come with me." Alrighty I got this. Following Jisoo, we ended up in a small office where she gestured for me to sit.
The interview itself went quite well, Jisoo wasn't as terrifying as her appearance may look. By the end of it we were able to talk more comfortably, still politely because she's older, but I didn't feel so stiff.
"If you're accepted you'll be working with our recently debuted male group SNOW, as a sort of caretaker in a way. You'd be in charge of their health and well-being plus other such tasks." She stated handing me a picture of them. Wow they're good looking. Incredibly so, but one of them looks so young. Like high school kid age.
"Thank you for coming in today you'll be notified by the end of today if you have the job or not." She shook my hand as we stood up to leave.
I got out and Lishi and her interviewer were already there. Giving the interviewers a smile as we walked out into the warm air, once we got out I sighed in relief.
"I hope we get this job, your job description is similar to mine isn't it?" I asked as we started walking around. Seohyun had work at 12 and we didn't have anything else to do so we decided to walk around and get something to eat.
"A caretaker to a group? Yep, although this one hasn't debuted yet they're called Sync." She replied.
"I would be working with a group called SNOW, they're really good looking I'll have to look them up to see how they sound." I said checking my phone when I heard a message tone. Once again I got a weird message from Unknown.
Unknown: Right into the tigers den you go, keep a watch on how things go.
This time instead of replying I ignored it and put my phone in my pocket. Of course I won't ignore it's message but I won't entertain the person who's sending them. Focusing on where to eat the message was put to the back of my mind.
"Let's get this." Lishi said pointing to a stall nearby. I nodded and we headed over. The owner was selling fish shaped buns, so we both got two each and walked around munching on them.
Just several hours of wait to see if I got the job, got I hope I get it....
Korean Translation:
안녕- hello (informal)
감사합니다- thank you (formal)
한국어 정말 잘 하네요- your korean is good
정말 친절하세요- you're very kind