Page 23 of XOXO

Ten

According to the dorm supervisor, I’m the only student moving in this morning; the majority of the students in Year Three are either returning students, who keep their same room, or live off-campus with their families. I could have opted to live with Halmeoni and my mom, but it would have been a forty-five-minute commute, there and back. And on campus, there are practice rooms where I won’t annoy any sound-sensitive neighbors. Plus, with how many hours my mom works, I’m used to living more or less on my own.

“Though you requested a single room,” the supervisor explains as we take the elevator up to the top floor, “we unfortunately didn’t have any available.”

“That’s not a problem,” I say.

The elevator opens to a clean hall with ambient light filtering through the high windows. I push forward the small cart that holds my suitcases and cello.

Halfway down the hall, the supervisor stops at a door with akeypad lock. “Did you receive an email from housing?”

“Yes.” I pull out my phone, scrolling down in the email for the code to the keypad. I press the buttons and it makes a whirring sound as it unlocks.

“I have to sign in some deliveries,” the woman says, distracted. “Will you be okay moving in by yourself?”

“Oh, yes, go on ahead.”

She heads back in the direction of the elevator and I open the door to the room. I’m surprised to find it’s more spacious than I expected, about twice the size of the guest room in Halmeoni’s house. Propping open the door with my luggage cart, I slip off my shoes in the small entranceway. I open the cabinet to my left out of curiosity and gape at the amount of shoes already stockpiled inside. I spot Doc Martens, three pairs of sneakers, knee-high boots, flats, and a pair of stilettos. My roommate, whoever she is, has some serious footwear.

The room is split in half by a bookshelf divider with the area nearest the doorway clearly occupied. Besides the shoes, my stylish roommate has a standing rack with coats and dresses, presumably overflow from her already packed closet. Everything else about her side of the room is neat, her desk bare but for a computer and a few landscape photographs pinned to a corkboard.

I wonder if she’s always this clean or if she tidied up in preparation for my arrival.

I drop my backpack beside the unmade bed on my side of the room and prop my cello against the wall.

I’m tempted to collapse onto the bed, but I know that if I do, I won’t get up for another hour. I start to bring my luggage into the room, beginning with the one that has my bed sheets. I make a note to go down to the housing office to pick up a comforter and pillows.

I’m on my way out for the last suitcase when I bump into my roommate’s desk. One of her pictures dislodges and floats to the floor. I quickly lean down and pick it up. It’s not a photograph, but a postcard. From Los Angeles. I flip over the card to see a long message written in Korean. I’m glad my Hangeul is severely lacking, otherwise I’d be tempted to read it. I’m putting it back when a few words in English and a signature at the bottom catches my attention.

Chin up, Songbird.

You will always have my heart.

XOXO

“What are you doing?”

A girl stands in the doorway. Walking over, she snatches the postcard out of my hand.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say. As far as first impressions go, this is the worst. I feel awful. I shouldn’t have looked at her things, even if it was by mistake. “I knocked into your desk and it fell.”

She opens a drawer and drops the postcard inside, shutting it with a loud bang.

I wince. “I’m your new roommate, Jenny.”

“I know,” she says. She doesn’t offer her name, though I’d seen it on the small placard outside our door.

Min Sori.

Her name is as beautiful as she is. She has cat-like eyes, a long, elegant nose, and gorgeous pouty lips. I thought I was tall for a Korean girl, but we’re the same height, though she appears taller due to her ballerina-like posture.

“I wouldn’t have been able to the read the postcard, even if I wanted to,” I explain further. “I’m from the States. My Korean reading skills are the equivalent of a grade schooler’s.”

“Could you move?” she says. “I need to study.”

I don’t care much about honorifics, but it feels pointed that she isn’t using any with me. Instead of familiar and friendly, her banmal sounds rude.

I step away from her desk and she sits down, opening up her computer and putting in her earbuds.

---