A familiar, soothing scent. An indescribable warmth. The feeling of being in love and being loved in return, wholly and unabashedly. I am in her presence, holding her close, to the point where our hearts begin to beat as one. I feel safe, untouched by anxiety or loneliness. The sweet feeling fills me. I am complete.

My eyes flutter open. I’m alone. Every morning when I wake up, an odd feeling of loss haunts me. Tears roll down my cheeks but I don’t know why my heart is in pain. I can’t recall what I dreamt of, if it was happy or if it was sad or if it nothing at all. I always feel like I’ve lost something, and that feeling lingers long after I wake up, it stays with me like a silent companion, it holds me just as close as the feeling of happiness when I am asleep.

And even as my life goes on, amidst the busy streets I’m always searching. For something, for someone

Blue skies enveloped green, mountainous land- the sun adding a hue of orange, makes the water shimmer and the land glow. It looked beautiful beyond description. Itomori. Legend has it that 2400 years ago, this small town in Japan was formed when rocks descended the heavens and collided with Earth, forming a blessed land far and aloof, filled with natures beauty- be it the green, dense forest, the towering mountains or the expansive clear lake in the middle of a perfectly formed circle caused by the meteor. Itomori was one of the few places people would define as ‘heaven on earth’, it was pleasant, the population was sparse, the nature was vast, everyone knew each other, it was an amazing place to live in but

“Mina! Come down for dinner”

But Mina wanted nothing to do with this town.

“I’m coming!” Truth be told, she wanted nothing to do with her life.

“Jeongyeon! Breakfast is ready, hurry up” Seungyeon’s voice jolts her awake. She usually wakes up before her sister but working two shifts had her completely worn out. She quickly gets out of bed and gets dressed, she wraps the long red cord around her wrist as she always does, running to the kitchen while putting her shoes on, her sister heads out to work leaving her alone. She devours her food, puts the dishes in the sink and heads out. The bustle of Seoul hits Jeongyeon as soon as she steps onto the road, making her way through the crowd, she heads to the subway. There wasn’t a single building that didn’t reach the sky, there wasn’t a single corner without light and one would come across at least a hundred people per day but neither of them would know the others’ name. No one has the time. Seoul, the place for small people with big dreams and big people with huge wallets. This is where Yoo Jeongyeon lives. Sometimes she wishes she didn’t have to.

 “Jeongyeon chan” I hear a voice. “Jeongyeon chan” the desperate voice of a girl calls out, I look at her, she’s standing right in front of me, the crowd in the train pushes her closer to me. I keep staring into her teary eyes “Jeongyeon chan, do you remember me?” she asks desperately. I don’t know this girl, before I know it the train stops and the doors open, the passengers begin to detrain and along with them girl kept getting pushed out. Her eyes widen, she unties the cord holding back her hair “My name is Mina!” she throws the red cord towards me as she gets pushed farther away, without a second thought my hand reaches out to grab it

Jeongyeon jolts awake, her eyes blearily open, her mind was still occupied by that girl’s voice. Mina? She had never met the girl but there was something about her face and her eyes, she looked very troubled and sad. Jeongyeon didn’t think about for too long though, within a few seconds the dream slipped out of her mind, she couldn’t recall the girls face even if she tried. She rolls over, rubbing her eyes as she stretches her legs, her hand reaches out for the side table next to her bed to grab her phone but she feels her hand come in contact with… the floor? Jeongyeon’s body springs up, her eyes more alert now, she takes in the purple walls of the room and the floral blanket on her… futon? She was pretty sure she sleeps on a bed at her place and that she wore a shirt to sleep not a nightgown. As she looks down and sees dark brown hair falling past her shoulders, into the nightgown... that definitely was not her chest

"Mina chan, we're going to be late" A cute girl of her age slides open the door of her room

"Mina chan?" Jeongyeon asks, clearly confused "Where am I?" she feels shocked at the words that fall from because, though she understands herself and the girl who called her, she knows for sure that neither of them are speaking in Korean "Who are you? What language are you speaking in? What language am I speaking in?" Jeongyeon asks in a panicked voice, one that's a lot more shrieky than her own voice

"uh, Japanese?"

"JAPANESE?!" Jeongyeon exclaims

"Mina you've hit a whole new level of weird. Get dressed fast, I'll be waiting in the living room" the girl says and slams the door shut

Jeongyeon shakes her head, trying to wake herself up from this weird dream. The full-length mirror on the other side of the room catches her eye, she shakily walks towards it, her loose nightgown slips off her shoulders and falls to the ground, Jeongyeon lets it be. She stares at the figure she sees in the mirror. Messy, long brown hair falls past her shoulders and down her back. She sees curious brown eyes, a sharp nose and slightly parted light pink lips with tiny moles decorating the side of the nose, her above her upper lip and on her chin above. Her eyes fall lower to the toned abdomen, chiselled abs stand out and damn do they look good. Jeongyeon, lost in admiring the figure in front of her, remembers the fact that the reflection she saw wasn’t hers. Taking in the situation and understanding it despite her confusion, Jeongyeon acts like the calm young adult that she is and

“AH!”

“Minari, hurry up! We’re gonna be late!” She hears Momo whine as she switches channels on the TV, finally settling on a news channel

“Calm down, if we’re late lunch is on me” Mina says as she sits at the table with Momo and her granny, helping herself with breakfast as she listens to the reporter go on about some comet

“You’re normal today” her granny says

“Eh?” Mina sees her granny and Momo staring at her

“You sure were something else yesterday” Momo says “You kept screaming, your hair was all over the place and you ate as much as me!” Momo exclaims

“What are you talking about?” Mina asks innocently

“Ugh, I’ll tell you more on the way”

Mina and Momo head out of Mina’s house, they walk down the path at the side of the hill- the best place to get a good view of the round Itomori lake, the valley covered in lush green grass. It looks beautiful

“Mina!” Sakura calls out as Mina and Momo make their way towards her

Momo and Sakura were her friends since kindergarten, born and brought up in Itomori. Mina had been friends with Momo, Sakura and Sana–Momo and Sana were practically her friends since birth. But Sana’s family moved away when Sana was ten, unfortunately Momo and Mina lost touch with Sana. Maybe one of many reasons why she hates this town is because her closest friend left her. But she still has Momo and Sakura by her side and they, just like Sana, mean the world to her

“So, you did your hair properly today huh?” Sakura asks with a smile as the three of them walk towards their school

“What?” Mina genuinely was confused by all the comments she’s been getting since morning, from her granny, from Momo and now Sakura

“I really think her granny must’ve exorcised her” Momo says with her arms folded “It’s that awful game you two play, must have possessed Mina”

“Hey! Don’t blame the game!” Sakura defends

“And most importantly” a voice booms from a megaphone, the three turn to see Mina’s father speaking on stage, a huge crowd gathered around to listen to him as he goes on with his campaign, she hears whispers of people praising her father. Mina is pretty sure her father saw her, but she turns away and walks only to be called by one of her classmates

“Hey Myoui” He calls, Mina replies with a murmur “Ah, the mayor and the contractor” The boy looks towards the stage at her Mina’s father, next to him is Momo’s father “Guess they force their kids to hang out together too” He laughs along with his friends. Mina feels like punching the boy in the face but she doesn’t

“There literally wasn’t anything funny or clever about what he said, what are you idiots laughing about” Momo shuts them up and continues walking with Mina and Sakura  “Ignore them” she tells Mina

“I’m trying” She really was

“Tasokare-  twilight. It’s evening, not quite day or night. It’s a window when outlines blur making it hard to tell who people are. It’s a time when people encounter demons or the dead-“  Mina zones out as her classics teacher discusses the topic with the class. Bored and restless, she flips through the pages of her notebook to take down notes only to find

‘Who are you?’ written big and bold in scrawny characters. What the-

“Miss Myoui” Mina hears the teacher call and immediately stands up with a ‘yes ma’am’ “Please begin reading on page eighty six” she says with a smile “Good to see that you remember your name today” the whole class bursts out laughing. What in the actual hell

“Do you really not remember anything that happened yesterday?” Sakura asks, the three friends sat outside to eat their lunch

“Nope”

“Absolutely nothing?” Momo pushes

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, you forgot your uniform ribbon, you couldn’t find your locker or your desk, your hair was a mess cause you didn’t tie it back and you were very jumpy the entire time” Momo lists

“What?”

“Oh and you kept losing in League, your gold rank dropped” Sakura adds

“WHAT?!” Mina reacts louder this time, she worked very hard for that gold rank on league of legends

“Yeah, you acted like you had amnesia or something” Momo says

To be honest, Mina didn’t really know what happened yesterday. She tries her best to recall but nothing comes to her mind, she only knows that she didn’t spend yesterday as herself

“I don’t know, it’s a very fuzzy in my mind” Mina says “I do remember that it felt like some weird dream” she adds

“Maybe” Sakura gets up to emphasise her point “Maybe you got into the multi-verse!”

“Saku chan sit down before I push you off the hill” Momo threatens

“Hey! It’s just a theory! And we all know you’re too soft to actually injure anyone. Anyways, I was saying maybe Mina’s sub conscious travelled to a parallel universe where she lived as someone else, which is why she doesn’t remember what happened yesterday” Sakura rants

“Or maybe she’s just very stressed out?” Momo suggests

Sakura thinks about it for a few seconds “Maybe”

Mina listens to her two friends bicker, her mind goes back to the note she found in her book ‘Who are you’

Later that evening, back at Mina’s house

“Please! Just let me go to this one fanmeet and I will never ask for anything ever! I will braid cords and stay in Itomori till the day I die! Please granny” Mina begs as she adjusts her kimono

Her granny laughs “You don’t have to be that overdramatic Mina, it still is a different country and you are only seventeen”

“Seventeen-year-olds travel to different countries all the time” Mina whines “South Korea isn’t that far! I’ll only go for a day” Mina begs

“Okay, I will think about it” her granny says and Mina jumps with joy knowing she has already half convinced her grandmother to let her go

“What’d I miss?” Momo asks, once she enters the room

“Why are you here?” Mina asks but her excitement takes over “I’m going to South Korea for the next SNSD fan meet!”

“One, I’m here for moral support because I know you’re gonna need it after your whole ritual thing and two, that’s great! Bring me something on your way back”

“Ah, Momo come join us” Mina grandmother asks the girl to sit with them as she starts braiding the cord

“This looks so cool” Momo comments, watching the long threads as Mina and her granny plait them together

“Listen to the voice of the thread, as you keep winding them- your emotions flow with the threads binding them together. It carries a part of you, of your soul” Granny says while looking at Mina and then turns to Momo “Our braided cords hold a thousand years of Itomori history. That school of yours should be teaching all of you more about the town’s history to you children. Two hundred years ago- “

Mina smiles to herself, here she goes again

“A fire began in the bathroom of Nakomoto Yamada, the straw sandal maker and it burned up this whole area, including the shrine and all the old records. It was what the people call- “

“The Great Nakomoto Fire” Mina answers

“Mm hmm” Her granny nods, looking satisfied

“Woah, they named the fire after him? Poor Mr. Nakomoto”

“Thanks to that fire, we don’t know what our dances or the patterns in our cords mean anymore. All we have last are the forms but we mustn’t let them disappear. The meaning of those shapes is bound to resurface someday”

Mina memorizes, although she thinks it is foolish, all these rituals are a part of her and it is her responsibility to honor and respect them. It doesn’t sound so bad after all

She takes it back, this is awful. To perform the dance in front everyone is fine, she’s used to it by now, but to chew and spit out rice? Now that is downright disrespectful and humiliating. And to make matters worse, her classmates were watching her. If only being the shrine maiden actually gave her some powers, she would turn herself invisible immediately. She didn’t want Momo to be there either. She cries internally as she keeps chewing the rice and spitting it out into the small wooden box in her hand. She doesn’t fail to hear the comments her classmates make. I have to get out of this town

“Come on Mina, cheer up” Momo says as the two walk back home “Who cares if those idiots saw you?”

“I care, duh” Mina sighs “I just want to be an ulzzang” she murmurs

“Eh?”

“I just want to get out of here”

“And we will” Momo tries to comfort Mina “We can go to college in Tokyo”

“But I want to leave now” Filled with frustration Mina, Mina runs down a few steps and yells at the top her lungs “I hate this town! I hate this life! Please make me a beautiful girl in a big city in my next life!”

Mina knows it was dumb and useless to yell in the mountains about her wish for her next life but deep down she was desperate for her wish to come true.