Lost in your lens - NewJeans' Minji x M!Reader

Ch. 18 - Full Circle

One Year Later

The orientation room felt too big for just me and my thoughts. Staring at the stack of freshly printed welcome packets, I couldn't help but remember sitting on the other side of this room, jet-lagged and terrified, pretending I knew what I was doing.

"Yo, these new kids better appreciate how fancy these packets are," Hyein's voice broke through my nostalgia as she burst into the room, dropping an armful of convenience store snacks onto the desk. "I mean, when we were doing orientations last semester it was just, like, photocopied handouts."

"That's because someone kept spilling coffee on the original prints," I grinned, helping her sort through the snacks. "How many energy drinks did you buy?"

"Listen, these kids are gonna be dead from jet lag. Trust me, they'll thank us later." She hopped onto the desk, swinging her legs. "Plus, I had a class cancel on me this morning so I'm like, weirdly energetic? I need to do something with all this energy."

"When are you not energetic?"

"Fair point." She tossed me a banana milk. "So, how you holding up? For real though."

I caught the drink, knowing she wasn't just asking about orientation prep. "I'm good. You know, mostly. It's just..."

"Weird doing this without her taking photos of everything?"

"Yeah." I fiddled with the banana milk straw. "Got an email from her yesterday actually. Well, more like a photo. Some mountain sunrise in Peru that she said reminded her of Seoul."

"Dude, she's got like what, two months left?" Hyein stretched out across the desk, nearly knocking over the welcome packets. "That's nothing! Remember when you first started dating and you couldn't even order coffee without practicing for like an hour?"

"Oh god, don't remind me." I collapsed into one of the student chairs, letting myself feel small again for a moment. "Remember how I used to pretend to text people during lunch?"

"You were so bad at pretending to text. Like, the worst. Your phone wasn't even on half the time."

We both laughed, the sound echoing in the empty room. It felt good to laugh about it now, about how lost I'd been. How far I'd come.

"You know what's wild though?" I spun in the chair slightly. "These new students - they're gonna be just as scared as I was. But like, now I'm supposed to be the one who has their shit together? Me?"

"Uh, yeah you!" Hyein threw a candy wrapper at my head. "Mr. Perfect-TOPIK-Score, Mr. Published-Research, Mr. Official-SNU-International-Student-Mentor. You literally wrote a paper about cultural adaptation through language acquisition that's getting published next month!"

"Yeah but-"

"No buts! You're literally living proof that it's possible to go from completely lost to totally crushing it." She sat up suddenly. "Oh my god, remember when you tried to join that study group but couldn't understand their jokes so you just laughed whenever everyone else did?"

"Please stop," I groaned, but I was grinning. "What about when you tried to teach me Seoul slang and I kept using it wrong?"

"Dude, you called your professor 'oppa' by accident!"

"That was YOUR fault! You told me it was formal!"

We dissolved into laughter again, the kind that only comes from sharing embarrassing memories with someone who's seen you at your worst and stuck around anyway.

"For real though," Hyein said once we caught our breath, "you got this. And not just because of all the fancy academic stuff. Like, you actually get it, you know? What it feels like to be scared shitless in a new country but still wanting to make it work."