Finding the Right Words

Chapter 6- A Little Present for the Ride Home

Someone helped me to my feet. Apparently I wasn't the first person who had collapsed after coming out of the room. Even as they helped me to one of the chairs, I could feel my entire body shaking from the nerves and tension that I'd been furiously hiding during the audition. I didn't even hear myself thank them. 

I sat that way for a while, taking repeated deep breaths until my heart stopped pounding in my ears. Even still, I didn't regret anything about the audition. I had gone in, told them exactly what I thought, given my performances, and wasn't afraid to show that SM may be a tough entertainment company, but I wasn't about to run away from it. I had been... myself. So why had that been so hard?

Finally able to breathe properly, I called Steve, who'd said that he'd be waiting for me in a nearby cafe, reading the L.A. newspaper to entertain himself until I was done. When the phone was answered on the other side, though, the voice was of a woman, speaking in Spanish, and not all that kindly.

"Quién es?"

Oops. "Lo siento!" I replied, proud of my Spanish, "Numero equivocado!"

"Ah. Yo sé. Adios."

I cringed. I was pulling out the sheet of paper Steve had given me so I could re-type the number when someone behind me said "You speak Spanish?"

"Yeah, I-" I looked up, saw who it was, and all of the nerves from the audition I had just recovered from suddenly reappeared in one second as I fell out of the chair. "K-K-K-KYUHYUN!"

"You... know me?" He seemed to be thinking very carefully about what he was saying.

Uh, um, uh-oh. What should I do?! What was he doing here? And why was he wondering if I spoke Spanish? 

"I, uh..." Suddenly I remembered what I'd thought before during the interview. If everyone knew that I was a fangirl, they'd DEFINITELY just look down on me! I mean, I'm 90% certain that Kyuhyun would forget I existed after this, but what if he remembered and told the auditioners? What to do? What to do?!

"No comprendo." As soon as the words were out of my mouth I was wondering what in the world I was doing.

"Do you speak English?" He asked, sitting down next to me. Okay, scratch that. My nerves from before hadn't come back. They had tripled. I took a moment to think that he had pronounced "English" surprisingly well before my mouth once again took over for my brain.

"No. No comprendo inglés."

He made a point of gesturing. "I'm sorry. Later, I go down to Chile for concert, but Spanish... I don't speak. You... teach?" 

I almost cried from holding in the severe fangirl urges that were screaming to get out at that moment. Oh my gosh, his English was so funny! I would say cute, but "cute" wasn't a word we usually used to describe Kyuhyun. Usually the words used were "Evil", "intelligent", "sharp-tongued", "amazing" and "handsome." 

But what could I do? I had a few precious moments to have my second-favorite member of Super Junior's thirteen-plus-two to myself. There was no way I was going to turn him down. But how to turn this in my favor?

"Yo te enseñaré español," I said, pointing first to myself, then to him, then to the Spanish-language L.A. magazine on the table next to us. "Tú me enseñarás koreano," I continued, pointing to the auditions door. I hope he understood. I felt EXTREMELY bad doing this to him, but I couldn't really figure out what else to do at that moment. Not to mention that I figured the evil-mastermind Kyuhyun would figure out that I was faking it pretty quickly, if he hadn't already.

He nodded. "You first." He said, pointing to me.

"Vale." What to start with? Well, what was the first thing we learned in Spanish 1, way back when? Umm... our names! Okay, let's start with that. "Me llamo Sofía." I pointed to myself, then repeated. "Sofía." It wasn't an outright lie. "Sofía" was the name I used in Spanish class. "Como te llamas?" I asked, pointing to him.