Loneliness in Love (Kdrama/You're Beautiful fan fiction)

Chapter 1

Natalia hadn't slept. The 13 hour flight had been long, but she never had been able to sleep on a plane. As she helped her sister put on her backpack, she couldn't help but think what her life would be now. She would be living in a different country, a country that differed in customs, traditions...language. She had lived all of her life in Mexico and now she was coming to live in a place where she couldn't even understand what anyone was saying.

"People in Korea speak English, Natalia...that will be your common language until you learn Korean." He had reassured her.

"Dad, you've been working with Koreans for over three years and you still have yet to learn to speak Korean." Natalia had complained.

"Remember when you were learning English...you thought you would never learn it....and look at you now...it'll be the same thing."

"It won't...they don't even use letters!"

Natalia, Andrea and her dad followed the other passengers and cleared customs within half an hour. After retrieving their luggage, her dad spotted a man who was holding a sign with his name on it.

"C'mon...there's Min-Jae"

Min-Jae was a middle-aged man who had been assigned to show them around Seoul. As soon as they had left the airport, Natalia felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Despite the laughter that filled the car with her dad, Min-jae and Andrea, Natalia felt incredible alone.

Min-jae pointed out a few of the landmarks as he drove them to what would be their new home. Natalia looked out to see modern skyscrapers, plazas and market places.

"You alright, Nati?"

"Of course." She responded to her dad and smiled at her little sister.

"Are you excited to be starting school here?" Natalia asked Andrea.

She nodded with a big smile on her face. If only she could feel the happiness her sister felt too.

***

It had been a week since Natalia had been in Seoul and she was having a very difficult time. She put up a front with her sister and her dad, not wanting them to know just how hard adjusting to this new life was for her; the truth was that she was feeling terrible. Things were so different from her life in Mexico and to top it off, she had no one to really talk to about how hard things were for her. Her sister seemed to have adjusted rather quickly, already having made friends in her language classes and since her dad knew a lot of the people at his job already, he really didn't feel the change, but Natalia was feeling the pressure.

She had gone out that afternoon to try and get a feel for the city, but once again she was feeling nostalgia for her home. Even though no one had been completely rude to her, she was constantly being stared at. She understood that she looked different from everyone else, but she half expected to see more foreigners roaming the streets of the country's capital- that was not the case however. Her olive skin, dark brown hair and green eyes were a far cry from the every day population and everyone took notice of it; not to mention that her figure was a bit more...voluptuous shall we say, than any of the Korean girls. She had been on the petite side while she lived in Mexico, but in comparison to the girls here, she had curves that went on for days.

It had been a particularly hard day for her and she was ready to head back home, but just as the sun was setting, she realized she wasn't exactly sure where she was. She must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because she did not recognize any of the stores or buildings that were near. Her Korean was practically non-existent and despite her dad's comments about English being her common language, she had learned rather quickly that most Koreans she encountered couldn't speak English very well- which left her almost unable to communicate. By God's good grace, she had managed to somehow express her need to get back home to a young woman and between her pointing to the dictionary and the girl's attempt at showing her where to go by pointing and writing street names on a piece of paper, Natalia concluded she needed to wait for the bus at the bus stop on the next block. As she made her way over to the bus stop, she felt a raindrop hit her head. She looked around and saw, almost in unison, everyone around her take out their umbrellas. Within seconds, the rain was falling harder, so she began running to the bus stop in hopes to get out of the rain before she got drenched. Without warning, she tripped over a box that was sitting in front of a store. She toppled over to the floor, scraping her knee and both hands on the pavement. She expected someone to stop and offer her help, but instead, everyone seemed to divert their eyes away from her, as if they hadn't seen her fall. She was in shock. Had she been back home, more than a couple of people would have at least asked her if she was okay, even helped her up. She felt tears forming in her eyes, partly from the physical pain she felt, but mostly from the heartbreak of being there. She walked the rest of the way to the bus stop, her knee causing her to yelp a little from the pain.

There was no one at the bus stop, not that it mattered, as she felt invisible anyway. After a few minutes, she saw a bus coming her way. She looked for the paper the young woman had given her with the bus information, but she couldn't find it.

"I must have lost it when I fell." She said to herself. "Now what do I do?" she said as she looked at the bus that was stopping a few feet in front of her.

She hesitated as the doors opened and she looked at the driver. She didn't know if it was the right bus but the rain was starting to pick up and she needed to get out of it, so she opted to get on. There were only two other people on that bus, an older lady up near the front and a young guy with light strawberry hair seated in the back. Having remembered Min-Jae's comments about the front seats being reserved for the old, the handicapped and the pregnant, Natalia took a seat in the back, a couple of seats in front of the other passenger.

She sighed as she finally sat down. Her hands were starting to ache and her knee was beginning to drip a bit of blood from when she fell. She looked in her backpack for a tissue and dabbed at her knee, making her flinch as she pressed down on it. She took her cell phone out and decided the best thing to do was get off on the first stop she recognized and call her dad to come find her. As she searched for her dad's number, the bus abruptly stopped and her cell phone fell out of her hands and went flying across the floor to the front of the bus. She made her way over to it and back to her seat, almost falling for a second time that day as the bus driver accelerated without warning. She sat back down and noticed the screen on her phone had frozen. She pushed multiple buttons to try and get the screen to unfreeze, but much to her dismay nothing happened. She switched the phone off and turned it back on.

"No..." she groaned as she saw the opening screen in Korean. "No...no no..." she mumbled in frustration as a message popped up. She again pressed various buttons, but nothing happened. She stared at her phone as tears began falling down her face. She tried to control herself, but inevitably her emotions overwhelmed her and she began sobbing in despair. What does it matter if she cried here? Nobody cared anyway...nobody took any interest in her anyway. She was invisible. She threw her phone into her backpack and brought her knees to her chest, hiding her face as she wrapped her arms around her legs.

Unexpectedly, a minute or so later, she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. She quickly brought her face up and gasped in surprise as she looked into the face of the blond-haired guy who had been sitting a few seats away from her.

"You okay?" he asked softly.