Original: Transcendent

[Eglaya]

It's been years (litterally) since I last posted original fic on MFG. Ever since the Roses of the East. *brushes tear a those nostalgic 2005 days* Well, as for the thing I'm about to post... It requires lots of patience. I had this story in my mind for over 2 years and I felt that I would explode if I didn't put it on paper (well, figuratively speaking).

This fic contains lots of random Japanese, Korean and Lithuanian words. It's supposed to be a drama, but I guess it would have comedy features too (because I'm not too good with mushy/angst stuff). Also, this fic is a bit sci-fi like, because the action takes place in two plotlines, timeslot ranging from 2005 to 2035. xD It's like a freakin' Forsyte Saga. I follow the lifelines consequently of children and their parents, when those were young. I'm going to keep posting this even if it doesn't get any reply, because I have a constant number of readers in other forum. And this fic is more like a tribute to myself anyways.

Questions are always welcome though =]

Tagline of the fic? Mushy: Two Generations. Two Love stories.

Let's go.













T.R.A.N.S.C.E.N.D.E.N.T.

--1--


He passed through an opened gateway underneath a huge arc and entered an old Renaissance courtyard. It was a spacious and sunny courtyard with a small fountain on the right. Its light and elevating ambience was enhanced with faced out yellowish and creamy color of ancient walls that surrounded the courtyard. The architecture was strange and contradictory but nonetheless interesting and refreshing. He could see that the walls were thick and tiny square windows on the right, but in front the arcs where clinging one to another resembling a Roman viaduct.

It wasn’t his first time here, but it was certainly the first time he thought that it was worth studying here for the architecture only. He sighed and took a closer look around. The courtyard was full of people. The benches near the walls, around the fountain and the birch tree near it were perched with posh people 90% of which were girls. He was rather startled to find out that his mother was right. It really was a female sanctuary. Which he did not quite understood why it was so. Not that he was scared of studying in highly feminine environment. He was quite adept at handling female kinks and if in order to have an all-guys company he had to go to Physics or Chemistry faculty then no thank you. He shook his head insensibly. He was determined to graduate with English major and Philology faculty was exactly the place where one should go in search of studies of Academic English.

He sighed and checked out his own clothes once more. Compared to those girls on heels, in tight pants, mini-skirts and occasionally – heavy make-up, he felt a bit out of the loop. Classic Converse sneakers, slightly baggy blue jeans and a white sweater with an elaborate weave, making it look almost as hand-made, suddenly didn’t look that modern again. He felt his silver cross pendant, dangling around his neck. Surely, he pulled these clothes out of his father’s unbelievable stock closet and his garment was surely older than himself, but in his almost nineteen years on the face of this planet he has noticed that trends tend to come back after 20 years or so. Therefore, he was almost 100% sure that the things his father wore decades ago (or something at least a little bit akin to that) would be popular again during this autumn/winter season. He sometimes wondered whether it was blessing or a curse to have a fashion-freak father. Even at an “ancient” age of 49 his pop still knew more about contemporary style than the boy himself.

“Aigoo…” unawares he released a sigh while walking towards an entry and that earned him a few funny glances from people around him.

He huffed a strand of jet black hair off his left eye and kept on walking. He was ready for stares. He was ready for questions. He was even ready for harassment and bullying if there was any about to come his way. The young man just checked his watch and hastened his pace, turning left at another arch and entering a narrow, dark, short hall. It was 10 minutes to 11 in the morning and all the first years, majoring in English, were to gather at room 92 at 11 sharp.

It was the 1st of September. The first day of a new study year and he reckoned that almost all of these young people around him were mainly first years. He had been told recently that upperclassmen didn't really care about the beginning of the year ceremonies.

The young man smirked and turned left at the end of the hall, facing long wooden stairs which led to the second floor of the main annex. He could hear a nervous and excited chatter already. Girls’ voices mainly. Oh well, he shrugged, trimming the bag strap, slung diagonally across his chest; we’re all from the same planet, aren’t we?

When he passed the first landing and was about to keep on climbing the next section of stairs, he stopped dead in his tracks, because the way up was blocked. Somewhere around 50 people were sitting, standing on stairs or leaning against the walls, squashing around the white door to the Room 92. He caught another dose of curious glanced being thrown at him. Some of the girls were openly eyeing him up and down, some just stole the glance, pretending they didn’t do that and continued talking with their newly acquired friends, while the rest merely ignored him, too absorbed into their conversations.

“… yeah, I know, I tried journalism, but I’ve got 9 for preliminary exam and you HAVE to get 10 to get there,” a red-hair with green eyes and a really big pink Hello Kitty bag on her shoulder rolled her eyes. “So here I am…”

“It’s not that great as everyone thinks,” uttered a calm girl sitting on a bench at the end of the landing. “Journalism, that is,” she trimmed her grey jacket.

“Oh?” another girl with a very kind and rather gullible face looked at her, ceasing rummaging in her square Pucca bag. He smiled.

“I’ve studied there for two years, it’s not just sunshine and daisies,” said the girl in the grey jacket. “Trust me.”

“Oh, so why did you change your major?” the pink bag asked. “They flunked you or it was too difficult?”

The grey jacket laughed, but he saw a very short flash of anger in her grayish blue eyes.

“No,” she said. “I just didn’t like the major. In fact, I entered those studies accidentally and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

People around their little group, even those who weren’t participating in the conversation suddenly hushed and turned to look at the Grey Jacket. The youth smiled. He has heard that journalism was considered one of the most prestigious professions here and he suddenly felt a faint wave of regard towards the Grey Jacket surging over him. He wondered whether she would be in his academic group or not.

He stood at the wall near one of perhaps 5 other guys out here and stole a glance at his neighbor. It was a rather pale boy around eighteen years of age with a typical short mouse-grey hair and greeny brownish eyes. He had a genuine and frank face with high nose and thin lips. The boy had his hands tucked into his jeans pockets and there was a huge white heart-a-gram on his black jumper. He looked a bit like a fish thrown into the shore. Figures, the black-haired youth smirked knowingly, anyone could be scared in this henhouse.

The conversations continued and the youth in the white sweater closed his eyes and tilted his head listening to the sounds around him. He furrowed his eyebrows when among the endless chatter and high-tone laughter he heard a constant pounding, which was getting louder and louder. It was as if someone was beating a wall with a hammer. Then it hit him – it was high heels beating against the wooden stairs. He opened his eyes and looked left.

Soon enough a tall woman in a beige suit and a neat blond bob emerged from the first stairwell section. She was holding a folder and a key. She eyed the first years with her perky blue eye-lined eyes, smirked and kept on walking upwards greeting everyone with an energetic “good morning”. Eventually she thrust herself through the crowd and got to the door, unlocking it and letting everyone in.

It was a big room with white walls, at least 120 seats and 5 huge windows on the left. It even had a few rows of steps also set with chairs and benches and there was a grand piano on the first step at the back of the room, so the black-haired boy thought this class was used by university’s collective or choir or whatever.

Everyone crammed into the room and almost crashed around the final rows of seats. Apparently, no one had a wish to sit at the front. But he had little scruple about it and shuffled right up to the front and flopped down into a seat on a second row. He found himself settled left to his stairwell-neighbor. The same boy with black jumper. Another chair close to him creaked and he looked left to see the Grey Jacket girl sitting next to him. She caught him staring at her and he smiled automatically without showing his teeth. It was a reflex acquired since he was 10 or so. The Grey Jacket girl returned the very same polite smile and he thought he should try her out.

“Laba,” he said, his slightly husky voice resounding eerily among this all feminine chatter.

The girl raised her eyebrows and her mouth gaped open for a tiny second, manifesting her surprise, but then she composed herself and nodded.

“Hi.”

He nodded back and concentrated onto the stage, where the tall blonde was now standing. He leaned back in his chair and prepared to listen for a while. Naturally, she congratulated everyone with entering the oldest university in the country and, of course, she said she was glad to welcome them into the best department of the faculty and it’s needless to say that she was the head of the Department of English Philology.

The youth wondered whether he should listen further on. He stole a glance at the Grey Jacket girl and noticed that she was only half-listening to the yada-yada-ing of the head of the department. Then he remembered that it’s not the first time she’s in the first year and she, most probably, was all too well acquainted with university’s formalities. He figured he’d rather ask her for help about anything than some unknown tutor. Not that she was known, but, oh well.

Finally, the head of the department began reading the distribution of the academic groups. She began with group 1 and the names were written in alphabetical order, so he decreased his focus until she was past the first third of the alphabet.

“… Jankovska Natalija…”

“Here~!” he saw the Pink Bag raise her hand on the left side of the room.

He just hoped he wouldn’t need to work in the same group as her. Ever. He didn’t fail to notice her long nails enhanced with pink nail polish.

“Kazlauskaitė Rasa.”

“Here,” the Grey Jacket raised her hand absent-mindedly as if she was bored with all this and he focused on the blonde teacher when she squinted at the list and then looked up at him. Bull’s-eye, he thought. The teacher breathed in.

“Kim Jintae.”

“Here,” he raised his hand.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

* Laba - Hey

[Eglaya]

*cricket sound*

x]



T.R.A.N.S.C.E.N.D.E.N.T.

--2--




…44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50.

He pushed his body up quickly for the 50th time and halted on his fully stretched arms, staring at the wooden floor, stray strands of slightly damp jet-black hair covering his eyes. He was breathing slowly and considering whether he should go for another 50. Most probably not. It was 7.30 in the morning and he couldn’t allow himself to be late for his first class. His, or more likely, his mother’s apartment was close to the main alley of the city and the university was about half an hour walk away, but he wanted to take his time.

He turned over and sat on the floor, ruffling his hair. He didn’t bother using a hairdryer, but he did slop a good amount of mousse all over his scalp a few minutes ago. His father would have winced at such negligence, but Jintae knew this would work enough for him, and as long as his hair doesn’t lie deflated, he’s fine with it. Mousse was the price he had to pay for not having a buzz cut. It was either gel and 3 cm or mousse and 7 cm. And since with gel he would have looked squeaky clean, Jintae opted for long bangs and strands which covered his ears. When his father first saw this new image, he was delightfully thrilled to see that his son looked almost identical to Mr. Kim when he was around the boy’s age; and so on the occasion Jintae even received earrings with Chinese inscriptions of his name and his father then declared enthusiastically “Now we Match~!!”. His mother just had slapped her forehead and chuckled silently.

There was a distinct classic ring and Jintae got up from the floor looking for his black Morph. He found it on a small table in the living-room, wrapped the slim strip around his wrist and touched the sensory plate. His speakers across the room clicked when the Bluetooth signal reached them.

“Klausau?” Jintae said absent-mindedly, not looking at the caller’s ID and stretching vigorously.

“Annyeong, Jintae-ya~” sang out a husky voice, which he knew to the marrow.

“Abeoji,” Jintae stopped stretching and looked around alarmed as if his father could see him.

“Ey, why can’t I see you?” his father asked in such manner that Jintae could swear he was pouting.

“I have the camera turned off,” Jintae explained and sighed. His father was the biggest video call maniac ever. He had to see EVERYTHING.

“Hmm…” Mr. Kim hemmed in a weird tone.

“What’s up, abeoji?” Jintae knew he had to cut to the chase, because otherwise it would have taken years for his father to get to the point. His father loved talking.

“Just wanted to wish you luck on your first day at university^^”

Jintae cocked an eyebrow. He sometimes allowed himself to indulge in this blasphemous thought that his mental age was a lot more numerous than his father’s.

“Dad,” he ruffled his hair again, walking around in the living-room. “Put mom on the phone.”

“Yah, adeura, lemme see you!” his father said in imperative intonation, and Jintae could already imagine him waving a huge dipper.

“I’ve applied mousse already, no worries,” Jintae rolled his eyes, still ruffling his hair and heading towards to the wide-screen TV just in case.

“Oh? For real? That’s my boy~!” Mr. Kim released a throaty exclamation. “Lemme see!”

“Dad, I’m not dressed.”

“Oh, come on! As if you’d have something that I don’t!”

The boy knew his father could go on like this forever, so he grabbed the remote control and turned on both, the TV and a camera, attached at the top of the wide screen. At the other end Mr. Kim saw his son with nothing but white baggy pajama pants on. Jintae, on the other hand, almost choked with laughter as his father appeared on the big wide screen seriously holding a dipper. He was looking at the camera in an angle which made his eyes look extremely big in his middle-aged face. He was wearing a black apron which corresponded with his short, slightly-gelled jet-black hair. That black hair was driving Jintae’s mother insane although Jintae himself suspected his father was secretly concealing whatever amount of the grey hair he had.

Mr. Kim grinned.

“Ai-ya, see? I told you,” he pointed at the camera with the dipper. “Absolutely identical pectorals. No moobies,” he put his free left hand to his heart and closed his eyes, smiling rather dorkily for a 49-year-old. “Of course… this man’s genes here… are perfect.”

Jintae wanted to snort, but he ended up smiling like an idiot. He put his hands on his waist and tossed his hair, looking at his dad. Some things were hereditary indeed.

“Ooh and you’re wearing the earrings I’ve given you!” Mr. Kim’s eyes sparkled as he peered at the two silver Chinese characters dangling in his son’s ears, one stood for “JIN” (眞) and the other for “TAE” (態).

“Dad…”

“Kim Jinyeong, are you bugging your son again?” an upbeat voice interrupted their conversation and soon Mrs. Kim came into picture. It was unusual for a woman to take husband’s family name after the wedding in Korea, but Jintae’s mother decided it was for the best. Not to mention that her family name was impossible for Koreans to pronounce.

She was now standing at her husband’s side, lean and straight and womanly, with a simple jacket and trousers on, her shoulder-length hair dyed in a color of honey and her eyes laughing at some mischief that only she knew. If Jintae’s dad used to be an uljjang in his 20’s, then his mom was a pretty woman in her late 40’s. Not that his father looked bad now and not that his mother had been totally unappealing, when she was young, it’s just that she was one of those women, who looked absolutely stunning being middle-aged. Jintae frequently thought to himself that his mother was really what a woman’s supposed to be, and he didn’t care if a thought like that was a severe manifestation of Oedipus complex.

“I was just…”

“Your stew is climbing out of the pot already,” Mrs. Kim said looking at her husband kindly.

“Ho’sh1t!” Kim Jinyeong gasped and dashed away from the camera’s range to save his stew.

Jintae chuckled silently. Over the years he had learned to suppress his laughter most of the times, because the laughing manner was another thing he inherited from his dad and anyone who laughs like that soon because a laughing-stock for the others.

“You’re back to Gongju?” the boy asked switching to his mother’s language.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “We’re visiting your grandparents tonight. And tomorrow we’ll go to Gwanju to check on Jiho-oppa.”

The word “oppa” certainly sounded strange in the mouth of a middle-aged woman, not to mention that she wasn’t speaking in Korean, but Jang Jiho was his father’s long-time comrade, one of his best friends, and naturally his mother had a great respect for that man.

“Is ajusshi doing better?” the boy asked.

“Yeah. It was a nasty fall, but thankfully, nothing’s broken. He just got some really ugly bruises. But you know uncle Jiho; he’s the most stubborn creature on earth.”

“True… Listen, why on earth did he call me?” Jintae sat on the black sofa, painfully noticing that it was already ten minutes to eight.

“Ah, they’ve finally transferred you the money,” Mrs. Kim smiled. “I know you laid us under obligation to represent you in any matter concerning that issue, but they’d love to have you on the filming set, Jintae-ya.”

“I have classes, mama,” Jintae let out a tired sigh. “In fact, I’m having my Phonetics class in an hour and I’d better go, if I don’t want to show up at university in this state,” he visually demonstrated his current “state”.

“Weeeeell, I don’t think your group-mates would mind that much,” Mrs. Kim grinned. “And I’ll be sure to tell the studio that you consider your studies of the highest importance,” she added quickly once Jintae’s expression changed into a slightly annoyed one. “Who’s your Phonetics teacher?” she asked suddenly changing the topic.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It was on the timetable, but I didn’t really catch it… something about yelling or screaming or shouting…”

“Šauklienė*?”

“Uh? Yeah,” Jintae blinked. “How did you know?”

“Jesus, she was teaching me as well!” Mrs. Kim laughed. “Was very young at the time, but… I mean… now she should be somewhere around 60. But she’s cool,” she said quickly as Jintae’s face turned into a horrified one. “At least she used to be. Well, just be ready to answer lots of questions. Especially about your accent.”

“It’s barely noticeable,” Jintae said perplexed.

“Exactly. Just like I said, be ready for questions,” she nodded. “And you’re still planning to purchase that thing? Especially now that you’ve got the money.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the license already, and I don’t want a car yet, so yeah… and besides, there are a few sets of clothes for that in the closet, I bet dad would be thrilled if I wore them.”

“Speaking of which, what are ya gonna wear today?” Jinyeong returned after successfully saving his stew and stood next to his wife speaking in his adorable Chungnam accent.

“Uuh… I don’t know,” Jintae took a look around, as if in search for a savior. “I’m sure, I’ll find something in the closet…”

“Whu--? You haven’t prepared your outfit in advance?” Jinyeong suddenly had a long face. “One of the few good features that I have, and you didn’t even inherit that one!”

“Hey, at least I keep them folded, hung and clean,” Jintae grumbled.

“Right,” daddy folded his arms, grasping his chin with one hand. “What’s the weather outside?”

Jintae rolled his eyes, but went over to the window nevertheless to check the temperature.

“+15 C, sun is shining,” he said coming back. “I guess it would climb up to +25 C at the max. It’s September after all, will get nasty soon.”

“OK, listen closely,” Jinyeong narrowed his eyes. “Grab the Harley Davidson jumper…”

“The one which looks like dark tee + white jumper?” Jintae asked heading towards the closet. Its door was installed at the back wall of the living-room, so he was still in camera’s range.

“Yeah, and don’t forget the tight black jumper which is supposed to be worn underneath!!” Mr. Kim exclaimed when Jintae opened the closet and walked into it.

It was half the size of the living room, stocked with rows and shelves of pants, shirts, shoes, jackets, coats, jumpers, ties, gloves, beanies, scarves and other details of male wardrobe. The point of it was though, that Jintae’s personal belongings made up only 1/10 of the whole content. And most of that was underwear. When he first came to live here for a longer period of time, he didn’t bring many clothes, which he was happy about right now. He had had no idea, that his mother’s apartment was stocked with these old clothes, which once belonged to his father. And they had been worn maybe once or twice at the best. So what if they were old, this fashion was coming back.

The boy sighed and went along the rows of shirts to look for that Harley Davidson tee.

“And also take faint blue jeans!” his father was shouting. “Those pants go well with the light brown belt. The one which has yellow sun-like buckle!!”

“Aye~!” Jintae called back, already putting on the tight black jumper and heading towards the image of a motorcycle. Once he had Harley Davidson on, Jintae shook his head, noticing that his hair was already dry. When he pulled on the faint blue jeans and snatched the light brown belt, he went over to the accessories cupboard and pulled out the very same silver cross pendant he had been wearing yesterday, the watch and a thin bracelet of black and red beads on a beige string. He was sure his father was bound to recommend that one.

“And put on those blue boots!!”

“Hell no!!” Jintae emerged from the closet fully dressed, holding his black Converse sneakers in his hands. He was as white as a sheet. Or perhaps he was just naturally pale. Who knew.

“I’m not wearing those freaky stalkerish boots!” Jintae waved his sneaker at his dad. “I’m not U!”

“Stick to your Converse, Jintae-ya,” said his mother, eyeing him up and down. “You already look like his copy, preserve a bit of originality.”

“Hey, my clothes are good!” Jinyeong pouted. “And what’s wrong with him looking like me? He’s my son!”

“Your clothes are OK,” Jintae sighed and then smirked. “And I’m not his perfect copy. I don’t have eye-bags!” he poked out his tongue.

“Augh~!” Jinyeong faked a heart attack.

Mother and son rolled their eyes. She sniffed the air demonstrably.

“What’s that smell?” she asked not bothering to change into Korean.

Jinyeong sniffed too. His eyes widened.

“Ho’Sh1t~!! Bulgogi!!” he dashed away. Jintae slapped his forehead.

“Why did you marry him again?” he asked his mother.

She shrugged.

“Love’s blind, sūna.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


FOOTNOTES

* Morph - OK. Actually, the action of this fic takes place like... 30 years from now. Well, in not so distant future ^^;; And Morf is this really cute phone concept:
Morph Concept
Revolutionary Mobile Phone

* Klausau - I'm listening, a.k.a. Hello a.k.a. Yeobuseyo

* Abeoji - Father

* Adeura = Adeul + a - Son

* Ajusshi - Uncle

* Šauklienė - made of a noun "šauklys" which is derived from a verb "šaukti" which means "to yell" xD

* sūna - a very dialectal way of saying "son".

[JAIF]

Ah... well, I'm not too much into this kind of stories, but for what it's worth, it's very well written. I only saw it once, but italicizing usually looks much better than capitalizing for emphasis. I also like the depth of your description and the smooth quality of your narration. It's pretty great, all said. You are perfectly allowed to type "shit" normally though ;>_>. Unless you don't want to, of course.

Oh, and I added the topic prefix "Original", and removed it from the title.

[Eglaya]

Thanks JAIF :) I'm perfectly aware that fics like that are not or could not be popular in MFG. For one, I'm not good at fighting sequences, I'm not a fan of high-school or usual drama either. It's just... what I like. I use caps and italics for different purposes, so I like to emphasize stuff with caps, whereas italics is more like to convey different stuff (like text in foreign language or something). But thanks for your thoughts, I'll keep them in mind^^
ah, lol, about shit, I'm copying this from the other forum, where it has been posted earlier, and that forum does not allow to post certain words, so.. ^^;; lazy, lazy...


note on the chapter - it was an extreme pain to come up with all those names x.x






T.R.A.N.C.S.E.N.D.E.N.T.

--3--


The ground floor hall was dark and cool and Jintae gave a sigh of relief, because the weather outside was somewhat stuffy. He even considered getting rid off one of his tops and distorting the image of his layered shirt. Because worse than a messed up style was an excessive perspiration. And he hated being all mucky and sticky. He had no idea why some of the girls had a fetish for sweaty guys. For one, that was totally disgusting and smelly.

He figured that those chicks have never been near a sweaty guy and they didn’t realize that men’s perspiration was a lot worse than women’s. Jintae shook his head walking up the stairs. Who he was, in the end, to delve into the female mind? He was never the type to analyze things. The fact remained, though, that being sweaty makes one feel highly uncomfortable, not to mention it stains the clothes, and Jintae did a small victory dance in his head when he emerged into the first floor hall and, after a little bit of squirming, he found out he was absolutely dry.

The first floor hall with murals of the Muses and their mother on the walls led towards a high arc, right into a bright corridor. It was completely different from the ground floor. The walls were painted in bright yellowish color and the rays of sun were penetrating through big windows on the right, flooding the students, gathered around windowsills, with the light.

Jintae checked the time. It was 5 minutes to 9 am. He ripped his Morph off his left wrist, folded it, and shoved it into his jeans pocket. With a watch and the nano phone on it, his wrist looked heavy bandaged. Jintae liked such accessories as bracelets, but he wasn’t fond of cluster.

A bunch of girls passed by and he had to move out of their way, because they were stomping ahead like a horde of gnu, with loss reflecting in their eyes. They were most probably the first years and they couldn’t find their classroom. Jintae didn’t bother. He knew his room was A7 and he had been smart enough to come around the day before and explore the corridors of Philology Faculty, searching for certain rooms. Not to mention he could already see some of his group-mates, decorating the windowsill with their bags. If he had caught it correctly yesterday, there were somewhere around 12 people in his group. There was the Heart-a-gram shirt guy standing there as well and Jintae felt somewhat relieved, he wasn’t the only guy in the group. He sped towards the people gathering around the windowsill, right in front of a wide hollow arc in the bright wall, which opened to two doors: one on the left and the other on the right. Those were room A7 and A8.

As he walked closer he heard the Heart-a-gram shirt talk in a really heavy northwest accent to some girl Jintae hadn’t noticed before. The guy wasn’t even trying to speak in standard language or disguise his dialect. Somehow Jintae felt benevolence towards that boy and a smile crept across his lips. Well, for one, Jintae liked northwest dialect. It was so different from the standard language and sounded strong, hard and daring. Perhaps even exotic. If Jintae had to draw parallels, he would have associated that with Jeollanam dialect back in Korea. Both were equally fascinating. And Jintae was pleasantly surprised to realize that he understood 99% of what the guy was saying. He silently thanked his mother in the corner of his mind.

Jintae looked up at the group again and one of the girls noticed him coming over. She was rather tall and had this really bushy and long dark brown hair, making her look like a very friendly lion. She suddenly grinned at him and began waving her arm hard, yelling:

“Oy!! Over here!! Mornin’!! You’re in our group right~?!” she greeted him and welcomed him into their little crowd, finally enclosing the circle.

“Labas rytas,” Jintae almost bowed, but stopped at the last second.

“Morning, found the place alright?” the Heart-a-gram shirt offered Jintae his hand. “I’m Lukas.”

“Jintae,” the black-haired shook his hand. “I kòde tu kaĺbi angliškai?” the youth blinked.

They all stared at him for a second, trying to register what had just happened here. Somehow they couldn’t relate his appearance and the words he had just spoken. Then suddenly…

“Oh my God! He speaks Lithuanian!!” squeaked the very same shy girl from yesterday with the Pucca bag and covered her mouth.

“No sh1t,” Lukas ogled at him as though Jintae was some strange specimen in a laboratory.

“So are you a Lithuanian?” asked the Lion-mane girl which had greeted him. “You don’t look like one,” she said and Jintae almost rolled his eyes thinking “Thank you Ms Obvious”. “Not to mention your name…”

“I’m half,” he cut her off. “Half.”

“Oooh…”

“Whoah…”

“Nice…”


This is what you get for entering a uni in an exclusively homogenous European country, idiot; Jintae mentally kicked himself, but this was rather amusing as well. Perhaps, deep down in the darkest corner of his heart he was also craving for popularity, just as his father had when he was young. However, contrary to Jinyeong-ajusshi, Jintae wasn’t so eager to satisfy his fans.

“Well, anyways, let us get to know each other,” the Lion-mane shrugged. “I know how usually people introduce themselves into the course of time, but let us be this really orderly group and do it properly, OK?” she looked around waiting for any objection, but since it was morning and everyone did not really care about it per se, she continued. “Ok then, I’ll start. My name’s Laura, nice to meet you.”

“Jintae,” he raised his hand again and eyed everyone, making sure that they could see him.

“Lukas,” the heart-a-gram boy nodded.

“Kamilė,” that was the Pucca bag girl.

“Rasa,” now wearing a blue jacket, she was standing in between Kamilė and this other fair-haired girl with extremely powerful specs.

“Jurga,” said the specs-girl.

“Ana,” this one had really long and wavy blonde hair.

“Irina,” Jintae’s ears caught a distinct pronunciation with long vowels only and concluded this dark-haired girl was Russian.

“Nadezhda, but call me Nadia,” another Russian smiled.

“Ah, then I’m Ira,” Irina laughed.

“Goda,” a hippie-looking girl with really pretty eyes waved nonchalantly.

“Agnė,” a girl with a mild round face and calm brown eyes stepped forward.

“Natalija,” the pink-bag waved at Jintae, exposing her pink nail polish and he almost gulped as she winked at him. “I’m Gemini, what’re you?” she smirked.

“Me?” he stared at her nonplussed.

“Yeah, you know, horoscope sign,” she nodded chewing a bubble gum and a few girls giggled.

“Scorpio,” Jintae answered blankly. “Do you need a blood type too?”

“Ah, darn, I don’t match weeth Scorpios,” Natalija grumbled and as her accent mangled the language, he figured she should also be a Russian. Or Polish.

“Well, but let’s forget Natalija’s crashed hopes and carry on,” Goda giggled. “What IS your blood type?”

“What the hell… is this a 3rd degree or something?” Jintae could barely hold back his laughter. “A. I’m type A.”

“Just like me,” Kamilė clapped happily. “Are you a vegetarian?”

“What? No,” Jintae furrowed at the single thought of living on veggies only. “Why?”

“Well, type A’s are usually vegetarians…” Kamilė reasoned.

“No, I would never…”

“First years?” they heard a loud yet smooth voice with an emphasized British accent and they turned around to see a teacher somewhere around in her late 50’s of early 60’s, with a light creamy suit, glasses and a totally white hair, yet a lipstick on her friendly smiling lips.

“Yes?” a few answered.

“This way please,” she beckoned them to follow after her and she walked through the arc, unlocked room A7 and let them in.

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* Labas rytas - Good morning

* I kòde tu kaĺbi angliškai - And why are you speaking in English (in mid-north dialect. Standard LT would be: Ir kodėl tu kalbi angliškai?, but it's not like you care xDD)

And before anyone says anything - Nadia is Nadezhda for short. Russians love clipping names. And Nadezhda means "hope". There's this great trinity of names xD lol. Nadezhda "Hope", Vera "Faith", Lyubov "Love".