So What Now?

Dear Rose,

We thank you for your application and your interest in our TravelDreams – Work and Travel program.

However, we regret to inform you that due to limited spots available in the program and your late application, we do not have a place open anymore for the fall semester of 2018.

Kindly note that we offer this program twice a year, and we are pleased to provide you with a spot in the spring semester of 2019.

To secure your spot, please...

The rest of the e-mail is a blur. I stare at the screen, the outside of the window. Then at the screen again.

I've been rejected.

I've been rejected.

The words are slowly and painfully burning themselves into my brain, and a feeling of utter failure and desperation washes over my entire body.

How could this happen to me? Me?

My entire life, I've always known what I was doing. I've never been late for a deadline, and I sure as hell have never been rejected from anything.

After graduating from high school, I couldn't bear the thought of starting university right away. Another four years of sitting in a classroom and memorizing pointless information only to forget it right after taking the exam seemed like hell to me, and I somehow managed to convince my parents to let me on a work-and-travel around the globe for a year.

Except, there's a slight problem.

I wasn't accepted to the only program my parents could afford.

I shut my laptop closed – I can't look at this damn e-mail anymore- and put my head in my hands, massing my temples.

The cute café I'm sitting in Hongdae, Seoul, does not fit my current mood. Around me, people are chatting, laughing, talking, carrying with their life while mine has just been ruined with this simple, short e-mail.

I need to clear my head. Everything can be fixed. How do I fix this?

There's several issues with my current situation. First of all, the fall semester at the universities here starts in two weeks, so I can't apply anymore. Second of all, I've already told my parents I was leaving. Everything is ready. It never even occurred to me I wouldn't be accepted.

How could I be such an imbecile?

At this moment, my phone lights up, and a text from my best friend Eun appears on the screen. Great. I officially have no plans for the future anymore, but at least I still have friends.

You still coming tonight?

Sighing, I read her text. Eun wanted to go out with me, and some of our other friends tonight before summer is over. Except I'm absolutely not in a party mood right now. But I'm also not going to bail on my best friend.

Sure can't wait babeee

As soon as I send the message, I immediately regret it. That sounded way too enthusiastic for my texting style. She's going to sense something is off.

What happened?, she immediately texts back. Damn it, I knew it.

Talk tonight, ok? , I answer without waiting for her response.

"Ouch!", I groan as Eun grabs me by the arm to pull me outside. "Can you like, slow down?"

She ignores my complaints until we're outside on the street, far away from our other friends who are still dancing inside at the club we've reached a couple of hours ago.

Eun and I met in high school. I couldn't stand her at first; she was the confident, cool girl who never knew when to shut up. And maybe she also made me feel insecure because her accent when she spoke was perfectly American, more American than mine, the ex- New Yorker. Meanwhile, as she's told me to the face many times since then, she perceived as the boring, shy girl. One afternoon, she came over to my place for a group project, and it was spent with very little working and a lot of laughing. She finally realized that I while I am shy, I am certainly not boring. The rest is history.

Eun has recently gotten her haircut, her face now being surrounded by a perfectly shaped bob of black, shiny hair. Her eyeliner is as present as ever, so is that orange-pink girls that somehow all Korean girls like to wear.

Eun crosses her arms and glares at me, her eyes two little fireballs. "What happened?"

I don't look at her as I answer and observe the countless young, drunk, and most importantly, happy people walking around the streets of Itaewon on this Thursday night. Then, I decide there's no easy way to say this anyway. "I need to crash at your place, starting next week."

She raises an eyebrow. If she wasn't a little drunk already, her reaction would be stronger. "Huh? Why?"

"Because that's when I'm supposed to start travelling," I mumble, already dreading the rest of this conversation. I don't want to go through the humiliation of admitting I was rejected. Suddenly, I really wish I was that girl standing a few metres away from his, making out with her boyfriend by pressing her tongue so far into his mouth I fear he might gag soon.

Eun stays silent for a while, trying to read me by staring at my side profile – as I'm still refusing to meet her gaze.

"You got rejected. You got rejected from that travel program thingy," she finally concludes, analytical as ever.

It's weird. This street is so crowded, and still, I feel like we're all alone. "Yeah," I nod. "So, I need to leave home for a while, in order for my parents think I'm actually travelling."

Eun sighs and puts her arm around my shoulder. "Why don't you just tell them the truth, Rose?"

Immediately, I shake my head. "You know why, Eun-ah. It took me so long to convince them to let me do this, and now... I'm basically going to lose six months of my life while waiting for the next semester. They are going to be so... disappointed. Not even angry, just disappointed. I won't stand it."

"Of course you can stay at my place", she mumbles. Eun's parents had to move back to the countryside a year ago due to her mom's job, and Eun has been living alone in a small studio ever since. She's the only one of my friends who lives alone, and it's probably one of the many reasons why she's the strong and independent one of the friend group. "But what are you going to do? Just watch Netflix for six months?"

"While that sounds like a dream, no, of course not. I don't want to just live off you. I'll find a job at a café or something, and once my life is stable again, I'll confess to my parents and move back home, I promise."

She considers this, chewing her lip before she crinkles her nose at me. "The two of us living together, huh? Doesn't sound so bad."

And this is why Eun is my best friend. No judgement coming from her side, only love and support. I don't need to tell her how insecure I feel because of that rejection because she already knows and she doesn't care. It doesn't change her image of me the slightest. Sometimes, it feels like nothing ever will, and that thought is incredibly comforting. I was so focused on graduating from high school that I did not expect life to feel so... empty and meaningless afterwards. It's the first time in my life I don't have a concrete goal, and if Eun wasn't present to be my anker, I would probably be terrified right now.

I can't help but slightly smile at that. "No, it doesn't."

"See?" Eun pinches my cheeks, making me laugh for the first time today. "There's something good in every situation. Now let's go back inside, I heard that YouGe's Kim Minjun is at the club tonight." Her ironic tone clearly shows that she does not believe in that, but I can't help but shiver at the thought. What if... with a mask, everything is possible.

No, it's probably just stupid gossip. I shake the thought off and follow my best friend inside. And what would it matter anyway? He wouldn't recognize me anymore.

YouGe is THE most popular Kpop band in South Korea. Maybe even the world. No matter how sheltered you live, it's impossible to never have heard of them. Each and every one of their signs become a hit, Korean award shows have come boring since they win everything anyway, and there's barely a street in Gangnam that doesn't have a billboard with their faces plastered on it. Minjun is one of the best dancers in the group. Rarely have I ever witnessed someone move as gracefully as him.

We dance and drink for a while, and I finally manage to relax a little, as a new plan forms in my head – I'm going to crash at Eun's, I'm going to find a job, and it's going to be alright -, before I tell the others I'm going to get a glass of water from the bar. It has been enough liquor for the night.

As I wait for my much-needed hydration at the bar, someone taps my shoulder, and I turn around with a smile, thinking it's one of my friends. However, my smile immediately fades away when I see a big security guy twice my height staring down at me.

His cold eyes meet mine, and without introducing himself, he just says: "Follow me, Rose Winters.", and starts walking away.

I stare at him with my mouth open. What the hell? Then, I run after him, struggling to keep up.

"I didn't do anything wrong! I'm legal! I'm allowed to drink alcohol!", I immediately defend myself, panicked. What could he want from me? I tick off a mental checklist of every crime I could have possibly committed, but nothing comes to mind. I've never even watched a porno.

"I know," the guard responds calmly. "I never said you did anything wrong. Come on now. He wants to see you."

"He? Who the hell is he?" I ask, utterly confused.

"Stop acting like you don't know. Aren't you friends?" He seems to be running out of patience as leads me into a dark corridor and finally stops walking, staring down at me again, this time with a raised eyebrow. "Come to think, you're unlike the people he surrounds himself with usually. Geez, I hope I didn't pick the wrong person."

I frown, still not understanding the slightest what is going on. All of this does not feel safe, at all. What would my mother say if she saw how I just blindly followed after man after she taught me to never trust strangers? "What does that mean, unlike the other people? Was that some kind of insult?"

He just sighs at me impatiently and points at the door we stopped in front of. "He's inside. Go on in."

I look back from him to the door and ponder feverishly. This whole situation screams kidnapping and rape, but somehow, I don't feel unsafe. Taking a deep breath, I open the door, and the person who's sitting there smugly on the sofa takes my breath away.

It's no other than Kim Minjun.