This is the first chapter I'm re-doing, the other one got deleted. If you've read the deleted ones please still read these because the story is slightly different than last time.
For those of you who are new, welcome. I hope y'all enjoy my story. General notes about the chapter will be located up here, and other updates about me or my stories will be after the story. Please enjoy and thanks for reading.
English lines appear like this, korean lines appear like this, thoughts appear like this when used in complete sentences, author notes appear like this.
⚠️TW⚠️: Cursing
Timeline: Saturday, July 20th, 2019, 4:00 PM - Sunday, July 21st, 7:00 AM
Word Count: 2131
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YOUR POV
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You never meant for it to end up like this. When you came to Korea as an honors senior trip you didn't expect it to change your career path and basically your whole life.
You got offered a trip to Korea - for graduating with one of the top five GPAs in your class - by your favorite teacher, Mrs. Potter (and yes, you joke about her name a lot). And of course, you accepted. Each person got to invite someone else and you managed to be able to bring your entire friend group. School's out now, which means you would be stuck at home until you happen to find enough money to move out, and the one thing you want most in life is to be separated from your family for as long as possible.
Okay, that sounded a little rude. The thing is, your family sucks. Your mother is always sticking her nose up in your business, and when she finds something she doesn't like, she'll go ballistic. There's been multiple times where your father barely stopped her from seriously injuring you. And even more times where her words have left you emotionally scarred. Your father, on the other hand - well, he only intervenes when you're in real danger. Everything else your mom does (like verbally abuse and manipulate you) he lets slide over his greasy ass head. Real helpful, I know.
Your siblings are no better. They're always ratting you out to your mom, and never keeping their promises. Your mother praises them for it too, always spoiling them to the point where you don't think they'd ever live up to anything without your mom supporting them. So basically, you feel very much like an outsider when you're at home, and that's why a trip like this is heaven on earth.
As you step out of the airport in Seoul, suitcases and travel bags in hand, you think about how luck you are to have this opportunity. And the best part? You get to share it with your friends, A.K.A, your favorite people in the world. The six girls who you love so much, get to join you on this little vacation with Mrs. Potter. Of course, there are other people here too, but you're mainly focused on your girls.
There's Maddie, the absolute fucking goddess of cooking. She loves spending time in the kitchen especially with you. Creating what ever tasty goodness her mind can think up and being able to share it with people is what brings her the most happiness, and helping her with that also makes you happy. You invited her after getting the 2nd highest GPA.
Lauren is a queen too. her motto is literally 'why give any fucks when nobody's going to give them back?' and you're very much here for it. Lauren's basically a 'get out of trouble free' card for you, but she's obviously fun for more than that. Her attitude brightens up even your worse days so she's one of two people who can bring you back down to Earth when things get rough at home. She (to no one's surprise) did not make top five, so she got invited by Haven.
This Haven is actually your other "get out of jail free card" (even if she gets you into most of the trouble). She's also basically your free therapist at this point judging from all your talks about your feelings and other sloppy, shitty stuff like that. Your emotional bond with her is definitely the deepest and you feel like Haven truly understands you. She made it on the trip by barely scraping fifth place by a singular tenth of a point higher of a GPA.
The youngest, Sophia, is definitely the comic relief of the group. You obviously love her to bits, and that's not the only reason you're friends with her, but her jokes are always perfectly timed to bring anyone out of a downwards spiral. Soph's also the one to fall head over heels in love with a guy she barely caught a glimpse of, and she's very excited to be in Seoul. She's still a junior so she got invited by Elana.
Speaking of Elana, she is your closest friend. You two have gotten to a point where you could just waltz through her front door, and no one would bat an eye. Her family has become your family, and because of that you call her parents mum and dad ironically. Whenever shit gets rough for you, your escape is always to her, whether over FaceTime or heading to her place for the night. Nobody was surprised when Elana had the highest GPA in the class, and she invited Soph.
Then there's Lexie. She was the first one to walk up to you at that private school in Britain. The two of your were only in ssecond grade then, and you've been best mates ever since. After you moved from Australia, you had no one, but Lexie was the one to change that for you. She brought you out of your shell and opened you up to this great group of girls you have now. She was invited by her boyfriend, who scored number three.
Lexie also happens to be the most excited to be in Seoul (you could tell because she spent the whole flight muttering about how excited she is). Both of you have become huge STAYs, and the one thing she's hoping to accomplish on this trip is catch a glance of a Stray Kids member.
As if in sync with your thoughts, the bouncy, blonde haired girl walks up behind you and sighs, "oh, I just want to see them. That'd be enough."
"God, Lexie. We get it." That'd be Lauren. She's walking up on your right, rolling her eyes.
As the two of them start arguing about the hotness of Korean men, the rest of your party joins you. Sophia predictably joins in on their conversation as Mrs. Potter leads the way to where the ten of you will be staying. The other three people along for the ride are Josh, Lexie's boyfriend, Jake (a really hot hockey guy, who placed fourth), and Caleb (another hot hockey guy, who Jake invited.
Sunday, July 21st, 2019, 5:15 AM
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After probably ten minutes of arguing with Haven about whether or not you're going on a walk, you finally got out of the cramped hotel. The streets of Seoul are surprisingly quiet, only a couple of people are up this early on the weekends, so you had some room to think.
Using the amazing thing known as Google Maps, you find your way to a nearby park. The walk from the hotel is a mile and a half, but you still enjoy it. There's just the outside air, the blinking yet soft lights, and no one here to judge you. After you arrive and walk around for a bit, you sit down on a park bench and open up your notebook you always carry with you.
There's been a melody in your head during your time outside, and you want to put words to it. After you label the top of the page with the date you open your phone up to the app that holds all of your voice recordings of pieces of songs. These recordings are very special to you, it's almost as if they each hold a little piece of you. You press the button to create a new folder and label it the same way you did in your notebook. Then, after humming the melody a couple times to really get what you want it to sound like, you record and your sweet voice fills the air and travels into your microphone to be saved forever in the folder.
You spend a good half hour working out lyrics in both Spanish (your father is Korean-Venezuelan, so he taught you) and English. Your in a good mood, so you sing of the good times with your friends and how they made your story a happier one. After your both satisfied with how it turned out and uncomfortable or sitting that on on a chair with no back, you get back up to walk around a bit more.
Taking your earbuds out of your pocket, and looking for a suitable playlist to listen to, you start wandering around the small park. Eventually, you decide to play your playlist with all of your favorite songs by Stray Kids, and you're dancing a little to the impossibly good music 3Racha inhumanly produced.
Once a couple songs go by, you decide to begin the mile and a half walk back to where you're staying. When you turn around to figure out the right way to get to the hotel, you notice a man standing in a nearby storefront, and it looks as if he's looking right at you. He's dressed in a red hoodie with black sweats and white running shoes. The hood is pulled over his head so you can't see what he looks like at all, you're assuming it's a man by his bulky figure. You just brush it off as a man with a staring problem though, and start walking home.
If he starts following me, I'll just walk in circles, and call the cops on him if I need to. But why the fuck would he follow me, anyway?
You'd be lying, however, if you said you weren't at least a little freaked out by guys with staring problems.
Once again following the magic of Google Maps, you decide to take a different rout back, even if it is a little bit longer. You just want to take in as much as you can of the city, this very well may be the only time you get to lay eyes on this place, so you want to make it last. It's not long after you start walking again that the sun starts to light up the morning sky. You smile to yourself, enjoying the beauty of the city with the orange, now slowly fading into pink, sky as a backdrop. Your mind is completely taken off the mysterious man as more people start filling the streets. None of them even glance your way as they go about their daily business, and that makes you happy. There is no one here against you, there's no one here you'd even know, and you're content with that.
It probably would've been best if you remembered the man in the storefront during that return home, but maybe not. He did open the one door that changed your life, even if a few others closed behind you in the process.
The same man in the red hoodie some how managed to catch up with you, and he meets you on an intersection between two busy roads and wordlessly hands a slip of paper to you. You try in vain to get his attention and ask him what this's all about, but your lack of knowledge in the Korean language disables you from succeeding in that.
With a little hesitation, you look at what he handed you. It's a business card... for JYP.
It contains what you guess is a phone number, and nothing else you can understand except for the JYP logo. With barely muted excitement, you store the card in your jacket pocket and double up your speed in getting home.
This'll be a nice surprise for the girls.
You decide not to tell them right away, but think a little more into it. It'd be best to try and figure out what the card says before telling anyone about it; don't want to get any hopes up for nothing.
So, when you get home at seven o'clock, you don't tell anyone about the little slip of paper - one that may well change your future - that is now hidden in a small, secret pocket in your travel bag.
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First Chapter! This one's actually released on December 23rd, so chapters around "wrong place, wrong time" will mention the release of deleted chapters, this is the first of those deleted chapters, all of these up until "the bad parts" are deleted chapters.
Feel free to check out my OneShot book!
Have a great life,
~outSTAYing