Cherry Flavoured Fate

I snatched the plane ticket from the table and hurried out.

"Bye mum, bye dad!" I shouted, lugging my suitcase into the taxi. 

"Bye honey, have a nice time in England! We're cheering you on the whole way! You'd better learn some proper English, or you're coming back to South Korea, got it?" mum called. 

"Yes!" I replied, slamming the car door. I switched my iPod on, letting the soothing voice of Lee Hongki relax the tension that was building up inside me. As we neared the airport, I got more and more worried. What if my English family didn’t like me? I was told they were called Mike, Catherine, Austin and Olivia. We were there before I knew it, and I got off.

“That’ll be twenty-five thousand won,” the taxi driver said. I handed him the money before entering the airport. I checked the times of the flights with my ticket, and found the one to London. Two twenty-five, yes. After checking in, I bought a fruit smoothie, then sat down and waited.

~

“This is your captain speaking, please get ready to land!" the captain said. I buckled up my seatbelt and put my book back in my handbag. In just less than half an hour I would be meeting with the people I would be living with for the next six months. The plane landed and I got off. Now all I had to do was find my suitcase. My eyes switched from suitcase to suitcase before finding my very own FT Island one. I had bought all the stickers and stuck them on a plain black suitcase. But of course, Lee Hongki appeared the most on it.

I put my suitcase on a trolley along with my handbag, and pushed it through the doors into the 'arrivals' place. There I saw a woman holding up a banner saying 'Welcome to England, Hye Yeong!'. I beamed before running over. There was a seriously good looking boy who I supposed was Austin. Olivia on the other hand was grinning with a big lollipop in her hand. They were wearing pretty normal clothes, not much compared to my mini skirt and blouse. My dyed strawberry blonde hair was down and my grey contacts were in. I had brown boots on with an inch of a heel. I made a big effort, but it wasn't needed! I even painted my nails and put make-up on. 

"Hello Hye Yeong! I am Catherine, this is Mike, this is Austin and this is Olivia. We hope you enjoy your time in England!" Catherine said, pointing to each one. I smiled.

"Hello! Nice to meet you!" I managed. That was probably the only English I knew except from 'excuse me', 'where is the toilet' and 'my name is Hye Yeong'. Understanding English was easy for me, it was just saying things I couldn't quite accomplish.

"Let me introduce myself. I am Olivia, I'm eight years old and I love rabbits! You know, we have one and it's called Snoopy. I think she'll really like you!" the girl said. She had a pink dress on and her blond hair was tied up. On her feet were two sparkly ballet pumps and a pair of silver roses were inserted in her ear lobes. 

"Nice to meet you too," I replied.

"I'm Austin. Sixteen. Not much about me, but you know. I like listening to music, K-Pop in particular!" Austin said. He had a hoodie on with jeans and some Nike 6.0's. His voice was lovely too, a bit like an angel. I nodded, flicking my fringe out of my eyes. He blew me away with his sea-green eyes and dirty blonde hair, which had a woolly hat sitting on it. Catherine and Mike smiled. He liked K-Pop too?

"Shall we go?" Mike said. I nodded and followed them out of Heathrow Airport. They brought me to a blue Audi convertible It was pretty cold so they didn't put the roof down. I sat at the back with Austin and Olivia, listening to Olivia blab on about random things. As expected from an eight year old, right? Austin stayed silent with his Beats headphones blasting out music into his ears. 

"We've got your school ready for you Hye Yeong. Would you like to change your name to something else?" Catherine asked. I thought of some names but since I wasn't English I didn't know any. The only ones I knew were Korean ones. "I was thinking maybe Haylee, or Henrietta, or something beginning with 'h' as your name is Hye Yeong. Do you have a preference?" I shook my head. "Okay, maybe it could be something else. Jessica? Katie? Lucy, Elizabeth, Natalie, Wendy, Sophia, Georgia, Cherry, Lucky, Denise, Freya, Yasmine, Danielle, Lotus, Lily, the list goes on! Do you like any of them so far?" she asked reading out names from a piece of paper. I liked Cherry. But I also liked Lucky.