Here, it’s like day care except your parents don’t come to pick you up at the end of the day. Instead, they come here to drop you off and leave you under the care of complete strangers for months, sometimes years, other times a lifetime. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad place at all. 

Here, the strangers who eventually become like your parents, older brother or sister, or responsible adult, take good care of you just like real parents, older brother or sister, or responsible adult should. 

Here, it’s not too spacey nor too cramped, it’s warm and cozy, and has just about everything you need- a nice home anyone would be grateful to be living in. Anywhere, not necessarily a house, can feel like home to someone, but even at your most comfortable place, loneliness will find its way to keep you company. 

Here, Ms. K is in charge of all the important matters in the house such as communicating with the parents, keeping track of information and data, introducing newcomers, etc. and of course she has several assistants who help take care of other things since this place can get busy and troublesome at times. They do the regular house chores, make sure everyone finishes their meals, give weekly checkups, and so on. Apart from those tasks, everyone is left to themselves but isn’t allowed to leave the house without permission or without the company of a helper.

Here, greetings are rarely exchanged, compliments didn’t exist, and words of encouragement are more unencouraging than anything anyone could ever say. It’s not that the people living here don’’t care about each other, it’s just that they spend so much time focusing on themselves that there is no longer any time left to focus on who and what is around them. Self-centered and selfish wouldn’t be the right words to use in this situation, but you could put it that way, I guess...perhaps...not really. It’s hard to understand, trust me. 

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Despite not doing much throughout the day and sleeping for a fair amount of hours at night, he still felt tired and sluggish, having no energy to do whatever he was supposed to do. Well, to be honest, he didn’t have much to do here. Before he even got to finish his senior year of high school and graduate like all his classmates, he got sent here by his parents, as suggested by his teachers, counselor, and doctor. How long has it been since he last went to school like a normal student? How long has it been since he last lived like a regular person? How long has it been since he last felt...human? Maybe over a year, maybe more than that, it didn’t really matter anymore. He never really enjoyed going to school and sitting through lectures that made absolutely no sense to him, but he did his friends and the normal life he used to have. What does normal even mean? How did he end up this way, letting regret wash over him every single day and every sleepless night, living through a new day hoping he hadn’t? He wasn’t exactly sure about all of this, but again, it didn’t really matter anymore now that he already accepted things the way they were as if they were meant to be that way. 

He was always the last one in the house to get up. Being the oldest amongst all the other kids (mainly teenagers, but ages still varied) who lived here, he felt out of place and awkward around everyone. To solve this problem and avoid conversations with the younger ones who seemed to be afraid of him, he woke up later than everyone else and had breakfast in the kitchen table by himself while everyone had already left to play or mind their own business somewhere else. 

As he made his way to the kitchen to his usual spot, with breakfast already served and waiting for him, he could make out voices of adults conversing at the front door. Since people don’t visit this place often, pretty much never unless to take someone home or drop someone off, most likely the second one, there must be someone new coming to stay at this home. At times like these, he always felt slightly hopeful. Sometimes he wanted to run away from this house while he had the chance to and never come back. Other times he would expect someone interesting, someone different, to show up at the door and perhaps make his life more interesting, more different. But none of these wishes ever came true, probably because he never had the guts to break the rules and never felt good enough to deserve a special someone in his life. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door shutting and footsteps of more than one person coming towards the kitchen. He glanced up and saw Ms. K with an unfamiliar girl following behind her walk towards the kitchen. Unfamiliar faces were often seen, probably because no one in this place was ever too familiar with each other. People do come and go, and in fact, they come more than they go and stay for a long period of time but everyone naturally avoided contact and conversations with each other; that was the way it was and that was the way it had always been. 

It was still fairly early so Ms. K served a bowl of cereal for the girl and told her to eat first before showing her around the house. After she took the bowl and sat at a seat diagonally across from him, Ms. K left the kitchen to check on the other kids and probably to go over documents and make phone calls in her office like she always did. From what he saw, she looked very uneasy and uncomfortable, but it might have just been because she was felt nervous about being in a place that was still unfamiliar to her. Cheekbones stuck out too much, cheeks hollow and caved in, skin discolored, under-eye circles too dark and obvious. His own thoughts immediately reminded him to stop staring at this girl so he quickly looked back down at his still untouched breakfast- milk stained and cereal soggy. The least thing he wanted was to scare her. She was a newcomer anyway and it wasn’t like he was going to tell her to “have a nice stay” or something along those lines. Words like that were meaningless here. 

The kitchen was filled with silence because neither of the two said a word nor ate their food. Twenty minutes passed yet Ms. K didn’t return. She probably forgot to check the time since she always got extremely focused and occupied with her work. He found himself unable to look away from the girl. She was just so...he couldn’t come up with the right word to describe her but he knew she was…different, if that’s even the right word to use. A few more minutes passed and it was obvious that neither of the two could stand the silence anymore.

“H-hey,” he said nervously, not sure whether to look at her or not. 

“Hi,” she replied quietly.

“Hyunseung,” he said as he lifted his head to look at her.

“Hyuna,” she said as she looked back at him. 

The word he was looking for finally came to mind. It was a word he hadn’t heard or used in a long time. It was a word he had buried deep down in his mind ages ago. 

She was so…beautiful, he found it extremely difficult to look away.