Nowadays, people can easily acquire what they want, what they like but not what they need using the unlimited wealth they have in their hands. Sad but true, there’s a growing number of people who think that everything can be controlled by wealth and money… even with love. However, not to mention, there are also a few who live their lives the different way. They strive to compete with this unfair world and work themselves to death. These are the people who want to believe that it only takes hard work to survive. These people may not be born with an ocean of wealth, but definitely they can go along with the wild waves of life.

And one of these people who believe in hard work is this young achiever and this dreamer who’s in her freshman year in college. She may not have everything as she lives in this cranky room on the third floor of this five-story old apartment located on the narrow and quiet streets of the city. But even with the fact that she lives in such a limited space, this one girl can still find peace by herself inside this room with only her single ratty bed, one cabinet with a small table near the windows with a broken glass.

“Wake up sweetie. You have to prepare for your classes now.”

“Mom, your two hours early today. Isn’t it still around 4AM in there?” The half-awake girl responded with big yawn and a wide stretch while she lies down on her crumpled bed.

“Oh really. Sorry, I guess I got messed up with the time zone again. Your dad right here just woke up since they’ll be having a meeting at work today and told me to wake you up.” The concerned mother laughed loud.

Hearing the silly laugh made the daughter smile with her eyes now wide open. She can also evidently hear her father shouting, telling her to get her lazy up the bed and start her day earlier today. And now she’s chortling as she forces her morning stiffy body up the bed to face the mirror with her bed hair.

“Ok mom, I’ll prepare now. And tell dad not to worry too much about me. I’m not a little girl anymore.” The daughter said with a pout.

“You can’t blame your dad. He might not say it but he misses you a lot. Ever since you left here, he’s been bugging me to convince you to come back here. I know it’s so selfish of him, right?” The mother said jokingly with another set of laughter and the father can be heard interrupting shyly.

The daughter rolled her eyes and makes her way to her cabinet, “Oh whatever mom. Anyway, I have to go.” She said but with her sweetest conclusion, “I love you and tell dad that I miss him too.”

With that, the girl hang up her old modelled phone and tossed it back to her bed. At once, she started preparing, from taking her usual twenty-minute bath and wearing her usual jeans and black shirt with matching ragged sneakers and a white backpack to setting her own breakfast which is only a piece of buttered toasted bread and a glass of milk.

One last glance at her dirty mirror and exhaled big as she talks to herself, “Okay Lisa, just another day. You can do it.”

Lisa makes her way out of the apartment but before grabbing her bicycle parked at the side, she made sure that she fed the guard dog of the apartment with a can of dog food she always buy on her way.

“Good morning Lisa.”

Lisa normally gets these sweet and warm morning greetings from the people walking by the street sides and she would normally respond back sweeter with a bright smile on her face. This kind of routine goes on every day for her and for the people surrounding her. There’s nothing out of ordinary and she loves it.

“Oh my dear. You’re early today.” An old woman fixing the breads on the stand of this small bakery selling cheap breads not only for salarymen but for the poor ones greeted Lisa the moment she entered.

“Mom got confused with her time again and woke me up so early. I just wish she gave me one more hour of sleep.” Lisa complained in monotonous and pointed at her favorite melon buns displayed on the rack for her order.

“Aigoo, just understand her. You know, parents tend to be so over caring of their daughter especially when they are away from you. It’s like you’re thousand miles apart from them and you’re all alone in here. You can never remove their anxieties.” The old woman alleged while packing Lisa’s buns on a paper bag.

Lisa frowned as she lowered down her head then confesses, “I know. I miss my home in Thailand too. I miss everyone and sometimes I’d get homesick but what can I do? I have to stay here and continue my studies.  I’m just thankful that they supported me and allowed me to fly all the way here to study. Dad is even doubling his work sometimes just so that he can aid me some amount.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” The old woman raised her voice at every word just to make Lisa raise her head back up. She patted her head like a little girl and said to cheer her up, “What’s with that frown? If you know that, then don’t give up. Prove them that they made the right decision that they sent you here.”

Lisa forced out a smile out of her lips and nodded, “Yeah, sure. Thank you.”

“So, quit standing here and go kick the butts of those rich spoiled brats in the university. Don’t let them bite you.” The old woman finally said and pushed Lisa out of her shop, waving her hand with a warm smile as she paves goodbye.

Lisa just bowed at her and begun pedaling her bicycle forwards once more. Through the busy streets, passing through these busy people pacing from different directions and through these tall buildings racing up in the sky, Lisa’s mind started to be in deep thoughts. Her mind is so focused on how she got in this place and how she managed to be by herself to chase her dreams.

“I shouldn’t be really thinking of these things right now. I’m just starting.” Lisa sighed, trying to somewhat motivate herself by shaking off these trail of negative thoughts off her mind.

As her mind is drowning in these useless thoughts while aimlessly steering her bicycle, she absentmindedly went on crossing the street not realizing the red sign of the traffic light ahead of her. This careless act of hers, as anyone should anticipate, causes an accident.

“Watch out!” A passerby who predicted the accident coming shouted at Lisa’s closed ears.

Only the loud horn from the luxurious car that’s fast approaching alarmed Lisa’s selflessness. She quickly turned her head to her left only to find out that there’s a car taking its full break less than a meter away from her. She felt her heart stopped from beating and that she halted her breaths before she dropped off her bicycle and got hit by this car.

“Ouch!” Lisa cried in pain while she’s on the heated road, trying to stand up from her feet with her scratched elbows which she used for support.

Thankfully, the alert driver of the car managed to take his full break before things could get worse for Lisa. As a result, the damage that he caused to Lisa is not that bad as the passersby thought, only that this minor accident left Lisa in a mess on the ground.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” The driver, the man belatedly went down of his car to check on Lisa who’s still on the ground wiping off the dirt on her arms and checking at her damaged elbows.

Lisa looked up to meet this driver wearing his business attire and well-fixed hair. For second, Lisa lost her words as she realized that she just got tangled with a rich man and that her poor bicycle just caused a minor scrape at the bumper of his luxurious car. “Damn, I’m doomed. I hope this guy won’t sue me!” She thought upon accepting the helping hand of the man who stretched out his hand to help her up from the dirty road.

“I’m alright.” Lisa faked a laugh to cover her edginess. “I should be the one apologizing. I wasn’t looking at my way and I was inattentive. I’m so sorry for the trouble.” She then bowed down for a formal apology.

The man though beamed at her and said, “No worries. My spoiled sister is also bugging me inside the car while driving so I wasn’t mindful of the traffic light too. So I guess that makes us equal.”

“Ah… yeah…” Lisa shyly snorted.

The small talk ended when the man’s sister from inside the car blew the horn multiple times, asking him to go back immediately. This irritated Lisa for some reason and glared at the car’s windshield, hoping to see his sister’s face but to no luck, she couldn’t see who’s inside but can definitely see a figure of a slender woman.

“Sorry but if I have to go. And if you need some help or any replacement of your bicycle or something, feel free to contact me, okay? I think your bicycle won’t cost me much though.” The man concluded with a calling card that he handed over to Lisa before marching back to the car.

The commotion ended just like that, the man drove away while Lisa quickly moved her damaged bicycle to the side. She finds the man kind at first, but the fact that he arrogantly handed over his card and on how he simply implied that her bicycle is just a cheap one turned her off that she wants to rip his head off.

“Kim Ji-yong, huh?” Lisa read his name on the calling card but as she kind of despises the man’s attitude, she immediately threw away the card without reading the entire contents of it.

Meanwhile, if Lisa is struggling by herself to reach her dreams all by herself, there goes her father way back in Thailand having it the same way as he’s struggling as well, probably twice the struggle of his daughter at the moment. Battling with the scourging heat, he has to walk kilometers from the bus stop before he can reach the company where he’s working at. Well, most employees with the same position as him do the same way, aside from these higher ups that would enter the company building with their high end cars.

“Mr. Manoban, can I talk to you for a moment?” His supervisor came to his cubicle and called the hard working father out of their office.

He didn’t like the looks and the actions of his supervisor. Discerning that if it’s a simple matter, he could have told about it o