The day he stepped off the plane from Vancouver to Seoul there was a light drizzle. The sun stood hidden away by clouds of dark gray as the rain fell at a steady pace. It was almost like it was crying for him. Yeah, crying for him and not his mother, the woman who decided to relocate to an International Hospital in the middle of Seoul, South Korea after divorcing his father. It definitely wasn’t crying for his jerk of a father, who only had the memories and the photo albums in the cabinet underneath the Fine China.

It was crying for the poor pathetic teen that had to witness the verbal abuse spat from both sides of a hideous legal battle in two different languages. The kid that was being uprooted and displaced in a city where he could barely speak the language. The boy that had to deal with all of this in his final year of high school.

His mother hadn’t exactly shared his sentiments. Her lips were parted in a grin the moment she’d stepped off the plane, black heeled shoes splashing in the forming puddles as she held a conversation in a strange mixture of English, Mandarin, and Korean. He couldn’t blame her, despite his own frustrations with the situation he knew that if he were in his mom’s shoes he’d have drunk two bottles of wine and totaled his father’s Mercedes in celebration like the scorned women in movies. In his opinion, his father was lucky his mother was so kind and considerate.

They live on the fifth floor in a nice apartment in Seoul. Despite the doorman, fast elevator, and spacious hallways it’s not fancy. It’s nice but it doesn’t beat the pale green house he’d lived in back in Vancouver.

After two days of attempting and failing to get accustomed to a new country, and new timezone, he’s forced to attend his brand new school.

“It’s a nice school,” his mother tells him with a smile on her lips as she hands him his uniform. The slacks are Khaki colored, and the Blazer is gray, and reminds him of his arrival to Seoul. “You’ll like it.”

It’s a typical mom thing to say and Kris doesn’t agree. The uniform hugs him in all the wrong ways, and he hates knowing that he’ll need to wear it every day after being allowed to wear whatever he wanted in Canada. He remembers Asian schools from when he went to school in China, and not only was there more work, but students stayed in one class while the teachers changed. He wasn’t sure his could handle sitting in one place for hours on end. No, he knows he won’t be able to handle it.

When he’s dressed and tired because he’s still not used to the timezone change, he walks out of his room and meets his mother in the kitchen.

“Do you want breakfast,” the woman asks, she’s leaning against the kitchen sink, hot mug of coffee in her hands.

“No,” Kris answers, what he wants is for the day to be over and for him to be on a flight back to Vancouver. His mother frowns, black hair pulled up into a tight professional bun, and nursing uniform on. She’s silent as she looks through the newspaper beside her, eyes roaming along the Korean words with apparent ease. Kris takes a seat at the vacant table, occupying himself with a game on his smartphone as his mother finishes her coffee.

“Are you ready to go,” she asks him, putting the mug in the sink and neatly folding the newspaper.

“Yeah,” he mutters, standing and grabbing his school bag while his mother heads to the door to put on her white shoes. The elevator ride to the main floor is fast and just as the doors part, Kris watches a tall tanned male dash pass the pair of them.

“Hmm,” his mother hums looking in the direction the boy ran towards. “He looked like he was wearing your uniform, Y