Why Me?

School. I actually really enjoy school. It’s just the people who I’m surrounded by in this school that drive me insane. Do they not have any concern for their future? Fooling around in class and not trying at all just to start freaking out the last week of school when they realize they’re failing. But I’m almost done. Just one more week and I’m out of here with a one-way ticket to South Korea. Why South Korea? I really don’t know to be honest. I have no specific reason for wanting to go there, but my favorite teacher was a teacher their and ever since she introduced me to the little country, I was hooked. My parents weren’t very pleased with my decision at first, but once they did some research themselves, they realized that it wasn’t that bad of a place to live. I didn’t know what I would do once I got there, but I had been learning Korean from my teacher for all four years of high school, so I was confident that I could make my around perfectly fine.

I guess it would be nice to introduce myself a little bit now that you’ve read that much about my life. My name is Paisley Norton, and I’m your typical white girl on the outside, and complete nerd on the inside. I’ve been dancing since I was 4 on a very competitive team. Pretty much took over my life, school and dance. Not much room for a social life. I was not super smart, I had average grades in advanced classes and by no means a genius in any light. I loved learning, but my disabilities make school pretty challenging. I’m not severely emotional, and with my dance engrossed life, I’ve lost the ability to sympathize with others. But I’m by no means boring. When I’m not on my ADD meds, I am the life of the party and have the mentality of a five year old. I always wonder why I take them when they sober me down so much, and then remember the severe inability to focus on ANYTHING for longer than ten seconds without them.

As mentioned previously, I’m surrounded by imbeciles daily, thus the requirement for music to constantly drown out their buffoonery so that I can focus on my school work. I listen to anything and everything, except country. I was born and raised in the South, but have zero tolerance for country. I even worked at a rodeo for four years which has created the ability to tune out any country music I hear. Sorry if you love it, but everyone has at least one genre they don’t like. Recently, I’ve gotten into Korean pop music thanks to my teacher. She introduced me to a few songs and I was hooked. I don’t have a single favorite group, like everything else I don’t typically choose favorites, but I do listen to quite a bit of BTS, Got7, Block B, and 24k to name a few. I mainly listen to guy groups, but the occasional girl group song will appeal to me. I can’t deny the guys in the group are quite attractive and I definitely have my biases (who wouldn’t?!), but as a realist, I don’t typically devote my life or plan my future with the ones I find to be my “perfect match”. But enough about me, back to the story!

A week later

Tomorrow, approximately 6 hours from now, I will be on a flight to South Korea and out of this country. I couldn’t sleep and determined it would be easier to just sleep on the flight. I checked my luggage over and over making certain I wouldn’t forget anything since shipping costs are outrageous from country to country. My 4 AM flight could not come fast enough, but once it came it was hard to contain my excitement. I had never been out of the country, and now I was boarding the plane that would take me to my new home.
As soon as I was settled in my seat I was out. That’s what happens when you get about four hours of sleep in the last 36 hours. I woke up to the overjoyed sound of the pilot announcing our arrival to the “world’s best airport for nine years in a row!” Still groggy eyed from just waking up, I sluggishly sauntered through the gate in my oversized sweater and leggings. I was blinded by the sudden light from the rays of sun coming through the mile-high windows that made up the walls of the busy airport. I had just stepped out of the gate, when a herd of screaming girls comes running past the terminal towards the luggage claim. Great. I turned the volume up on my phone, blasting BTS’s new release “Run” (oh the irony) to drown out the incessant noise of screaming girls as I begrudgingly walked towards the way they went to collect my luggage. My first few minutes in Seoul, and I’m already becoming anti-social.

I had become used to being stared at back home, so the constant looks I received as I stood waiting for my luggage to appear from the magic tunnel had no effect on me. Of course I would get stared at, I’m a small, blond, white girl who looks like she just stepped out of bed. My teacher had told me about how important looks tended to be in South Korea, so I was aware that my airport attire would not be seen as appropriate, but I was not about to sacrifice my comfort on a 15 hour flight. The mob of screamers had magically disappeared when I finally made it to claim area, and I sighed with relief as I wondered how they could’ve dispersed so quickly. But I had sighed too quickly as my music was disrupted by screaming once again. I paused the music and glanced towards the direction the sound was coming from and was faced with a herd of girls who surrounded a herd of security guards who surrounded seven guys who seemed to be the cause of this chaos. Of all days to be at this airport, it had to be the day BTS was returning from their American tour. I loved their music, and I was slightly attracted to one of the members, but the inconvenience they caused, or really the screaming girls caused, made for a much more difficult airport experience. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but I would have much rather just quickly obtained my luggage and sceedaddled my way out of this busy airport. What made it even better was that their luggage would be coming through the same carousal as mine. The security was able to disperse the mob once and for all (Those guards must be wizards), and I was once again able to hear the pleasant sounds of Got7’s “If You Do”.

I noticed one of my suitcases appear through the magic tunnel and stepped up to the conveyer belt to pick it up once it made its way to me. This was only one of the four suitcases that I had brought, as well as the largest, (I was moving here) and grumbled at how annoying it was that they couldn’t just keep all my luggage together instead of having to wait for 30 minutes to retrieve each suitcase. I reached for the tag on the handle, making sure the suitcase was mine, before grabbing the handle and started to lift it off the belt. To my dismay, the bag was much heavier than I had remembered and with the insufficient amount of muscle in my arms, I couldn’t lift it. I began to grow anxious at the increasing amount of attention I was getting as I struggled to get my suitcase. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I prepared to put all my strength into lifting this darn suitcase. Giving it one last tug, the suitcase suddenly grew light as air, and I easily lifted it off the belt. But that didn’t make sense. Bags didn’t just become lighter. This wasn’t Harry Potter. I opened my eyes and came face to face with a boy with brown hair wearing sunglasses. He removed his sunglasses as I removed my headphones, and I was finally able to recognize him. Taehyung. Taehyung from BTS. Just helped me with my luggage.

“Do you have more?” He asked. His eyes scrunched up with his infamous smile as he cocked his head. I looked down at the floor trying to think of some kind of reply. My years of Korean were flying out my ears as I tried to remember how to say something.
“She probably doesn’t speak much Korean Taehyung. She’s obviously not Korean.” I heard another voice say. I looked up to see Namjoon standing next to Taehyung with a look of slight judgement at Taehyung’s assumed mistake. I quickly pulled myself together to avoid looking like a complete idiot.
“Aniyo! I speak Korean! I was just shocked and my mind went blank for a second. I’m sorry.” Despite my thought that I spoke too fast for them to understand me (Like really fast, incomprehensibly fast), they looked shocked and seemed to have caught what I had said. “Also I do have more luggage, but this was the biggest one. I can handle the others. Thank you,” I said as I bowed towards Taehyung. Namjoon had returned to the security huddle after realizing his English skills were not needed.
“Well, I’m going to stay here just in case. A pretty girl like you shouldn’t have to lift such heavy luggage by herself.” I felt my face begin to heat as my brain began to comprehend what he had just said. He called me pretty. I knew it was useless to argue, so I “allowed” him to stay by my side and wait for my remaining luggage. “What is your name?” I jumped at his sudden low voice filling my ears and glanced up at him to find him staring intently at me.
“Paisley,” I said tersely. He blinked a few times our eyes unmoving from each other.
“Pais…rey?” I let out a small chuckle at his Engrish.
“You can call me Pais if it’s easier for you,” I told him, a lingering smile on my face.
“Pais.” I slightly shivered at the way his name rolled off his tongue in his deep toned voice. "Your Korean is very good. I was shocked when you said something." I smiled at his praise and gave him a nod of thanks.

Having become distracted by the sudden confrontation with a Korean idol, I almost missed my two bags coming out of the magic tunnel. I again stepped up to the belt, followed by Taehyung, and waited for the two bags to come around. I was grateful he was there knowing that there was no way I would be able to lift both bags myself. I checked both tags confirming they were mine before grabbing for the smaller of the two bags while Taehyung grabbed for the bigger one. Lifting it with much more ease than the first, I wheeled them over to my pile of luggage and repeated the process of waiting for the last suitcase to come. “You sure have a lot of luggage for such a small girl.” he teased
“I’m moving here,” I told him bluntly. “I only have one more small suitcase to get, so you can go back to your group. I think they’ve already retrieved all of their luggage, including yours." His eyes widened at the sudden statement, but he had no time to reply as I saw the last suitcase appear, and walked away from him and my pile of luggage to get it. I placed my headphones back onto my ears as I rolled it back to my pile to prepare myself for the transportation of all of my suitcases. They all clipped together so I could just clip the two smallest bags with the two bigger bags and roll all of them with two hands (thank you technology). Lost in thought, I ran into a tall body standing in front of my pile and quickly looked up to apologize, only to see it was Taehyung. I had thought he would immediately retreat back to the huddle once I told him I only had one suitcase left.
“And just how are you going to get all this luggage anywhere?” He asked after I had removed my headphones.
“They clip together so I can pull two suitcases in each hand,” I said softly, glancing down at the small suitcase in my hand.
“And you think it will be easy to get around like that? You do realize that this is one of the busiest airports in South Korea right?” Of course I knew that I’m not an idiot.
“Well yeah,” I grumbled while shuffling my feet. He smirked at his small victory before looking over at the huddle and nodding his head once. I glanced over to see a few guys head over to where we were standing and immediately realized what was going on. “Oh no no no! I’ll be fine really! Besides you all have to get back home you must be exhausted from your tour and stuff.” I was getting anxious as the men took my luggage and began wheeling it towards the group they came from.

Before I could protest anymore, Taehyung grabbed my hand and I was quickly lead to the seemingly impenetrable wall of security guards. They quickly stepped aside after slight hesitation to letting an “outsider” into their little bubble of safety. I was then met with six familiar faces.
“Aish Tae, took you long enough,” I heard one of them grumble.
“Who is this pretty little thing?" another asked pointing at me. “She looks feisty,” he smirked, nudging the guy next to him.
“Excuse me,” I said glaring daggers at him. “It is none of your business who I am Park Jimin”
His jaw dropped, he probably didn’t think I could understand him. And the one next to him, Hoseok, began to laugh at his friend's embarrassment. Not giving him another glance, I looked back over at Taehyung who was in a seemingly serious conversation with one of the guards. Who knew he could be so serious. Not wanting to interrupt him, I turned back towards the six boys. I recognized Namjoon from before and the grumbly one from earlier, who was glaring into space, was obviously Suga. The two next to him were Seokjin and Jungkook, Seokjin being the one who was fixing Jungkook’s hair underneath his hat. How motherly he was always making sure the boys look their best. I felt an arm on my shoulder and looked up to see Taehyung smirking at me.
“Your coming with us,” he said and the whole group began to make their way through the airport towards the pick-up zone outside.
“I’m supposed to meet up with a friend at their house. That’s where I’m living. They’re probably worried because I’m not there yet.” I tried to protest my way out of this, but it was no use.
“So you don’t even have a place to call your own? How do you even know this friend?”
“Well I don’t know them. They were a good friend of my teacher when she used to live here,” I mumbled. I knew I had lost the battle after admitting that. I just told him I was about to meet up with someone I don’t even know and that I would be living with them. Good job Pais, no wonder you were so bad at debate.
“You really think I would let a small girl like you wander around Seoul alone this late at night?” He had a point. It was pretty late and I looked pretty weak and innocent on the outside. “Don’t worry we don’t bite. At least most of us.” I felt my body shudder as he whispered playfully into my ear. I was a sucker for a guy with a deep voice, and his definitely fulfilled that.

He opened the car door for me when we had arrived. Jet black, including the windows. I had no idea what they did with my luggage, but I felt like I could trust them. They wouldn’t have any reason to steal from a girl like me, right? The car took off after the rest of the members were inside and I immediately focused my attention on the window, immersed in the unfamiliar scenery of Seoul. Wait, wasn’t that the exit I was supposed to take to get to the house I was living in?
“Ah where are we going Taehyung?” I whispered to not wake the other sleeping members.
“You can call me Tae if you want,” he whispered back with a smile on his face. He was avoiding the question.
“Ok then Tae, where are we going,” I repeated more forcefully.
“Well…” he said scratching the back of his head. “ We’re going to our dorm," he mumbled. Breaking down under my steady glare, he glanced helplessly towards Namjoon for help. The leader took a deep breath before looking me straight in the eye.
“Pais you’re coming to live with us. In the dorm."

Notes