Unexpectedly Regular | Kim Namjoon

3

-Welcome to Korea! – A voice with German accent echoed on Nara's head, each wave of sound hitting her head loudly and painfully.

Nara opened her eyes but the light made her sick. She immediately dropped what she had in her hands but she didn't feel it would be a good idea to look under her bed now. As she sat up on her bed as slowly as she could, she put her glasses on and let her dizzy vision get normal while she blinked multiple times. Some seconds later, she could finally realize Angie entered their shared room carrying two big mugs filled with smoking hot tea. She handed one to Nara and took a sip from hers, at the same time she let her body fall on her own bed.

-Ah, in Germany we don't have effective hangover recipes but Koreans are specialists, thanks God! – Angie took another sip while Nara waited for her tea to get just a little colder – They have powerful hangover soup too but they are not vegan, so this is the best I can do for you.

Nara had a strong headache and a feeling she could throw up at any minute but she still made an effort to sip a bit of that tea. To her surprise, the effects of the hot beverage could be felt instantly, and although she had not completely recovered, she associated the eventual disappearance of the headache that took place later on to the tea. It gave her strength and stillness enough to get up just some minutes after she had finished. She had a shower and put on clean clothes. She still felt tired, but much better than before. Although she had to drag her body to the students' kitchen, she made it quite well, paying Angie back for her caring aid with a decent breakfast. Angie brought Nara's mobile phone, the object which had fallen from her hands as she woke up. Luckily, it was not broken but the battery was too low. Nara was decided not to check messages in order to save the battery, so it could last until she had time to grab the charger. But she realized she had a typed message she didn't send. The message was to KNJ and then her memories of the day before revived. This was the café translator's number and she had spent her last minutes in bed trying to find it, although she didn't know his name. To make it even more difficult, she was drunk at that time and she got even sleepier as she looked for him, only to find out the only new name on her contact's list was not actually a name but three letters. She remembered finding it both ridiculous and cute that he was being that mysterious, so she started typing something that fortunately, she had not sent. It turned out to be just a bunch of jumbled hangul and occidental alphabet characters that made no sense at all.

She smiled at that, not underappreciating her own openness to keep in contact, but actually just getting amused by her own drunk efforts to keep in touch with that guy. She told Angie the whole story and she explained how she'd better download a local conversation app, if she meant to talk to him at all. This time, Angie was a lot more friendly than intrusive, but she couldn't hold back completely her enthusiasm for her roommate's interaction with the mysterious guy from the café.

By the end of her morning, Nara was also feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of new information she had to take into her brain during her Korean class. Maybe if a great hangover wasn't messing up her brains, she would be struggling less to learn so much vocabulary and grammatical rules at once. Even though she wasn't fully focused, the girl was proud she had improved so much in just one morning.

Nara felt confident enough to try going on her own to a restaurant. Besides the fact she would have a longer lunch break that day, she also needed to go to the city center to buy food. So, she took a bus on her own, proudly interacting with people she needed to.

Nara's bus passed by the Café she went to, the morning before in Korea. She recalled her desire to start an interaction with that guy again, almost fulfilled last night, but providentially interrupted by circumstances. Nara was still open to talk to him, but the new, sober opportunity also allowed her to star with clear words and clear aims. She thought over her expectations, also fuelled by her roommate or even her mother, whose last sentence before Nara entered the plane was "volta com um genro". Everyone wanted her to find a boyfriend and although that hope people placed on her was annoying as hell, she couldn't let her irritation with that topic keep her from talking with the café translator. She just wanted to talk to him again, over tea. She barely knew whom he was, so how could people already assume something could exist between them? She was sure she wouldn't keep herself from talking to him and inviting that guy for a tea, not only to return his kindness but to meet new people. She would let the pressure for having a romantic relationship aside, just as she had left so many questions at home before coming to Korea. With the rest of her battery, she downloaded the app Angie had mentioned before.