My boss is a dick.

I looked at him from across his desk and smiled as sweetly as I could. "You called me, sir?" I asked politely in that sickly-sweet tone.

Richard, my boss, was sitting on his high-back office chair with his elbows on the desk and his fingers intertwined together. If I didn't know any better, he looked like the Godfather. And it didn't help that his hair was platinum grey and he had a thin, black moustache that was neatly trimmed resting across his upper lip.

He looked like he could have been one of the Kray Twins' henchmen. He was definitely old enough. And he was crabby too.

His mouth twitched slightly to signal that he was smiling—if you can even call it that.

"I called you here because I have something to discuss with you," Richard said in that gruff voice.

Uh-oh. This couldn't be good, I kept thinking as I shuffled my feet. Whenever Richard said that it was normally followed by—

"I have some bad news," Richard said steadily.

And here it was.

"Was there something wrong with my last report?" I asked worriedly. "If there was, I'm sorry sir, I'll get it fixed straight away."

"No, no, no." Richard waved his hand dismissively. "It's not about your report." He paused to think about it for a while as if I had just reminded him of something. "Although, you could work on your words better. Something about the word choice wasn't quite right."

My smile didn't falter but I was screaming internally. Nothing to him was ever quite right.

"No," he continued, "the reason I called you here was because of that interview you were going to do with that band." He put two fingers to his temples to signal that he was thinking. "What were they called again? Bang—"

"Bangtan Sonyeondan," I said finishing his sentence a little too excitedly. "Or, BTS for short."

Richard had his eyebrows raised. "Yes. Well, I have some bad news to tell you, I'm afraid."

Bad news?

"Oh, please don't tell me they've cancelled the interview!" I exclaimed desperately. "I've been looking forward to it all this time. I'm a massive fan of them, you see." I showed him my phone case. It had the letters BTS in bold, black letters. "If they can't do it on the day, I'm pretty flexible. I can do it whenever they want me to. I can even change my flight dates—"

Richard put up his hand as if to signal me to shut up. He had a way of telling you things without actually saying anything.

"That won't be necessary, Minami," he said.

"My name's Mirei, sir" I corrected him. Where did he get Minami from?

Richard gave a grunt as if to acknowledge his mistake. "Yes, Mirei." He says enunciating my name slowly. "Well, as I was saying, you will still be flying to Seoul, but you won't be doing the interview with..." He made circular motions with his hand.

"BTS," I say trying hard not to roll my eyes. But then his words just registered in my head. "Wait, what? I'm not doing their interview?" I could hear my voice rising in pitch. "Why?"

Richard was calm. "Unfortunately, our other reporter, who was meant to go undercover for us, has injured her leg and won't be able to do it anymore." He thought for a while then spoke again, "And since you're our only other..." He thought some more again as if he was trying to choose the right word. "Asian reporter," he said finally, "you're the only one who can pull off the job."

I was dumbfounded.

In the whole of the International Culture Department in the BBC, there was only a handful of South East Asian employees. I knew that I was part of the ethnic minority but, I didn't know it was literally just me and Hyemi— the other reporter Richard must have been on about.

I took a deep breath.

This couldn't be happening.

I was literally a week away from flying out to Seoul and getting ready to meet all the BTS members. My biases. And now, suddenly, I wasn't even going to meet them. I was going to replace Hyemi and go undercover.

"But sir," I said desperately, "I'm not even Korean. How can I go and do an undercover job?"

Richard had some papers in front of him. He lifted one and studied it enthusiastically. His mouth twitched again. He must have been smiling. "It says in your CV that you studied in Seoul for a year."

I nodded. "Well, yes." I didn't like where this was going. "It was for my exchange year in University."

"Then surely, if you have lived in Seoul for a year then, your Korean must be proficient?"

Ah, damn it.

I agreed with him hesitantly, "My Korean is so-so."

I shouldn't have mentioned that in my CV. That will teach me never to stretch the truth in my CV again.

He grunted. "Then, you're perfect for the job."

"But sir," I said, trying again. "Who will do the BTS interview if I'm not?"

Richard leaned back in his chair. "The other Asian reporter will do it."

I stared back at him blankly. Richard wasn't just a dick, he was a dick that didn't even bother to learn your name.

I thought for a while and figured he must have been referring to Nikka. Apart from Hyemi and I, there was only one other reporter of ethnic origin. And that was Nikka.

Damn Nikka, that lucky bastard.

"Well, if that's all I'd like you to go and read the debrief," said Richard handing me a thick folder.

There must have been two-hundred pages in that thing! I accepted the folder, still in shock from receiving the bad news. But then I remembered one vital thing. What am I exactly going undercover for?

When I voiced my question to Richard he just grunted, "You'll be going undercover as a live-in housekeeper to report the daily lives of K-pop idols."

Undercover as a housekeeper? Me? Richard must be joking. There was no way I was going to be a housekeeper.

But then I remembered that Richard didn't do funny. He only did crabby.

"Who are the idols?"

Richard had two fingers on his temples again. He really sucked at remembering names.

"It was some K-pop group that the other reporter was a fan of. Ugh, she wouldn't stop going on about them." He rubbed his temples. "Thinking about all these names are giving me a headache."

I stood there, pondering on who Richard might be talking about this time. A K-pop idol group that Hyemi was a fan of? I didn't really talk a lot with Hyemi. Mainly because she and I hardly had anything in common. But then I remembered why we hardly talked. And that was because she belonged to a rival fandom.

No.

It couldn't be.

My voice was small. "Is it...EXO?"

"Yes! That was it. EXO" confirmed Richard as if he had thought of it himself. "You will be going undercover as their housekeeper starting next week."

I stood there, speechless and in disbelief.

Lord, help me.

I, Mirei, an avid BTS fan, am going to live with my fandom's rivals.

And it was all because of my boss.

My boss is a dick, indeed.

~*~

Author's note:

Thank you for reading my first chapter of Our Little Dorm Mother.

I hope you are enjoying the story so far.

I plan to write at least a chapter a week and it will be released every Sunday (I will try to stick to this as much as I can!)

Please support me by commenting, voting and sharing my story with others. I hope to make you smile, laugh and cry by the end of this fanfiction.

Happy reading!

P.S. I may write the first five chapters and upload them so you can have a better gist of the story. We'll see how it goes.