Shine Seoul City Lights~ A BTS Encounter

Epilogue: My Future, and One Freakin' Long Airplane Ride

After about an hour on the airplane, I sat back and tried to relax. The loud hum of the airplane almost seemed to muffle my thoughts, so I pulled out my phone and listened to music. Korean music had completely invaded my playlists since I'd come to Korea. Now that I was on my way home, I began to think about my future. I hoped that the decision that I'd made was the right one. I'd thought long and hard about it; wondering what my family would have said, but in the end I realized what I wanted to do for myself.

Three weeks after I would land in California, I would return to Korea. I'd gotten a place in BigHit Studios as a trainee; one of the few female trainees. I'd spend the next few years of my life training and completing school in Korea. With a lot of sweat and hard work I'd hopefully make a clean debut, and begin my career as an artist. I'd be leaving the life I knew behind. My friends, my house, my school, my sport; it was all going to be gone. Somehow it was horrible and refreshing at the same time. I couldn't really explain it.

I pulled out the CDs and pushed the one from all of Bangtan into the computer. What greeted me immediately put a smile on my face.

"Annyeong, Emma-ya!" Seven grinning faces looked up at me from the computer screen.

I resisted the urge to say hello back to them, and continued smiling. They spoke in both Korean and English, and I felt as though I was right there in front of them. This was the sort of thing they did for their fans, except in this video Yoongi seemed to be dressed in his pajamas, and the others all had messy hair and no makeup. It was a half-hour video; mostly of Bangtan messing around and cracking jokes and teasing me even though I technically wasn't there. After that there was footage of the concert. I wasn't quite ready to watch it, so I took that CD out and put in Jimin oppa's CD.

Jimin had put in the recording of me dancing that Jungkook had taken. He'd also put in a few other recordings of me dancing. I had no idea when these had been taken. I watched me dancing with Jungkook, and then me doing the duo dance with Jimin oppa. Then he had a whole video tutorial on how to do Not Today's choreography he made just for me. He had also put in a ten minute video with random tips and tricks about dancing. Then he added a few bonus clips of him and other members of Bangtan dancing to girl group songs.

After that, I pulled out Yoongi oppa's CD. In it were a few videos of me learning how to rap. I was horrible. I had no flow whatsoever, and my voice sounded a little weak and empty. Then there was a video of Yoongi rapping. Like Jimin oppa's CD, he kept giving me tips , except it was now on how to rap properly. At the end, he put in a video of me rapping, except this video had been taken a few days before the concert. I could see a drastic improvement from the beginning. Yoongi oppa pointed this out in the last video segment. In his notebook he'd scribbled a bunch of songs that I should check out, as well as some videos. He's also written some lyrics here and there, and little segments of song. Some I recognized from my notebook, and others I'd never seen.

I fell asleep not long after finishing Yoongi oppa's CD. When I woke up I listened to music some more, and re-watched some of the videos on the CDs. A million hours later, the airplane landed at LAX and the entire plane of people began the zombie shuffle that eventually resulted in my being able to leave. I took a taxi, and before I knew it I was standing in front of my house with my two suitcases. It shocked me.

The moment had crept up on me, and I was actually here. I took in the olive tree in the front yard; the silver car parked in the driveway. I looked at the magnolia tree and the rose bushes. And then I opened the door. Everything was the same.

Feeling as though I was in a dream, I walked slowly through the first floor, breathing in the scent of home. Exactly the same. The piano was open, and there were pillows on the floor, the way they always were when my sister was reading on the couch. The blinds were open in the kitchen, and there were even things on the counter where someone had been cooking. I climbed up the stairs and went into the room I shared with my sister. The beds were unmade, and the closet was horrifyingly messy, the way it always was. There were even clothes on the bathroom floor.