“Good afternoon everyone, this is your captain speaking. We are just about twenty minutes away from landing at about 15,000 feet above ground. Clear skies, pretty sunny, about 87 degrees Fahrenheit, which converts to about 30 degrees Celsius. I’d like to thank you guys for cooperating with us and our crew today, as they’ve done a fantastic job as per usual so please thank them whenever you see them. Thank you for flying with us at Korean Airlines today and enjoy your stay.”

Jung Cho’s eyes flutter open as the captain’s voice is quietly broadcasted throughout the aircraft. Her mind barely registers the same announcement repeated in Korean and her hand inconspicuously pats her chin area to see if she drooled. Planes were never her thing, but after many forced air flights, she would calmly down a motion-sickness pill and pass out for the whole flight with a few awakenings here and there for meals, which she kindly refused because she knew she’d throw up once the plane landed.

Nothing is different as she dares to take a peek at the window from her aisle seat and ignores the two heavy sleepers next to her. Seoul is full of bustling city life with its occasional untouched green pastures. She’s been here one too many times, but she can’t deny the kindled excitement in her belly. Seoul had always fascinated her when she was a child, and with her Korean mother, the culture never left her. Something about the city made her favor it more than the life in Suzhou, her father’s hometown. With a Chinese father and Korean mother, she is adept in both languages and understanding of both cultures. Some people might frown, but anybody could see that they were happy together, and in life, that’s all that matters.

She wonders if it’s because she knows all the secret places in Suzhou like that one really good dingy restaurant that serves the best, un-chemically altered you tiao (油) or that secret park between a few apartment complexes near the zoo. She wonders if it’s because she knows how the people are in China most of the time, but not too sure about the different lifestyles in Seoul and the areas around it. Is Gangnam as prosperous as people say? Everybody seems to be extremely different from each other, but inside, are they really?

A small ding resonates through the plane and she checks to make sure her seatbelt is buckled and fastened before clutching the armrests and closing her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the rough landing.

-

“Hey Mom, I’m picking up my luggage right now,” she speaks into her Bluetooth while keeping a lookout for her luggage on the conveyer belt. Her fingers tap on the cart as she nods at her mother’s advice to stay away from this and that place and to be careful of guys offering drinks at gay bars. “Yes, Mom, I’ll be fine. America isn’t any different.”

“Just be careful, alright? I hope you get the job at SM. You’ve come such a long way, sweetie. Dad and I are so proud of you.”

“Thanks for being okay with me quitting my pre-med track,” she smiles softly. “Not many parents just let their kids quit after one and a half years of college and switch to another major, and music of all choices.”

“Music has helped you a lot. We’ve come a long way since high school.”

“Yeah…” she trails softly, eyeing the luggage. “We have come a long way. I’ll call Dad later, okay?”

“Okay sweetie. I’m going to miss you so much.”

“Me, too, Mom. Say hi to Pochi for me.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, I’m hanging up. I love you.”

“Love you, too, honey.”

Click.

-

“Where is that child?” Cho grunts as she furiously taps at her phone. Her best friend was supposed to pick her up…

“Noona!”

Cho instinctively looks up and sees a bumbling figure speed towards her way before being locked into a vicious hug.

“Noona, I’ve missed you so much!”

She chokes and splutters as she pats the boy on the back to signal she was currently fighting for air. Said boy lets her go and she takes deep breaths of oxygen before focusing on him. Naturally, she can’t stay mad for long and brings the boy back to her in a weaker hug.

“I’ve missed you, too, little dongsaeng. How’s my Baozi doing?”

Kim Minseok steps back and beams at her. He towers over Cho by a few inches and she can tell he’s lost a lot of the baby fat on his cheeks, though he still looks like a steamed bun. He’s always been her favorite dongsaeng (shh, he’ll get extremely cheeky if he knows and will ask for favors more often) ever since she was in high school and they’ve kept in touch since that one time they met in Seoul during her summer break.

“I’m doing fine. College is a little stressful though. I have that engineering economics summer class this summer and I really don’t want to take it though. The professor is an . Completely refuses to accept that he’s wrong,” Minseok gripes as he pushes her cart of luggage towards his car. “We’ll drop you off at your apartment and then I’ll drive you to SM, alright?”

“Sounds good.”

-

After more griping and complaining on Minseok’s side (he brought most of the luggage to her apartment), they’re in his car again, weaving through the busy streets of Apgujeong and towards the Cheongdam-Dong area where SM resides.

“It’s about a twenty minute bus ride and then maybe a ten minute bike ride. I already left the bike at the store I work at so just unchain it whenever you need it. Here’s the key, too.”

“Thanks, Minnie.”

     “Good luck on the interview! Fighting!”

“Fighting!”

-

“Minnie, I got in!” Cho screams into her Bluetooth as soon as she’s outside the building.

“I told you, and you’ve been fretting for two weeks!”

“Hey, it’s super competitive and you know that!”

“Yeah yeah I know I know. I’ll treat you tonight, how does that sound?”

“You’ve done enough for me these two weeks. I’ll treat you as a way to say thank you.”

“Fine fine. How does Cafe Silvia in twenty sound?”

“Awesome. I’ll see you there.”

Cho hangs up and puts her Bluetooth back into her purse before leisurely setting out towards Cafe Silvia. The happiness and joy is completely evident like an overwhelming aura around her figure. She grins to herself before lightly skipping towards the sidewalk and waits for the signal to switch to the walking sign. Since it’d take her only about ten minutes from SM to the cafe, she goes ahead and picks a table at the corner after ordering a hot chocolate. The cashier/barista gives her a strange look while typing in her order because who drinks hot chocolate in the middle of the summer?

As she stares out the window, her mind wanders to her conversation with her mother.

“We’ve come a long way since high school.”

Cho remembers the competitive days of her high school back in Houston. The top students silently fought for the top ten ranks and she had watched the top two battle from her number five position. She recalls the days when her mother and father used to lecture her almost everyday about her ACT scores, sending her to cram class and telling her nothing was ever good enough. All she wanted back then was to let go a little, to just stop having them breathe down her neck. The stress nearly drove her insane as she remembers crying out of pure frustration in the couple of months before college applications were due. She just wanted a break.

Her depression had reached an all-time high during her sophomore year. She wasn’t strong. She was so mentally weak that she scoffed at herself so much. At one point, her best friend had told her, “You have no right to be sad. People would give so much just to have parents like yours, parents who cared about what they did in school. And so many more people have it worse than you do.”

She collapsed that day. Two weeks later after that incident, she remembers telling her parents, and they agreed with her best friend. “She’s right. You do not have a right to be sad.”

That day was the day she truly disappeared and closed herself off. Her hand shook with the pills in her palm as she sat against her bed in her room with the sun setting, blood orange streaks piercing through her window. Her parents hadn’t come home yet, and she screamed and flung the pills back into the bottle before calling the suicide hotline. The man on the phone calmed her down and she refused knowledge on counseling because her parents would be involved. They didn’t believe in depression. They just believed that it was a phase, a child’s way of vying for attention.

That summer, she met Minseok, and through him, she learned how to act. She learned how to act happy in the years following. People thought she was better. Her best friend thought she had changed for the better. Cho scoffed because she was anything but better back then. Eventually she met a few friends who accepted her for who she was. They’ve been inseparable since.

But after her accident in college happened, she went to therapy and her psychiatrist had shown her parents what she had written and drawn. She painted pictures of her struggle and wrote of the love she didn’t feel and the pressure that weighed down down down on her shoulders like the world on Atlas’s shoulders. Her mother cried so much and apologized profusely for making her feel like she couldn’t talk to them after that incident. Her father took some time, however, to also apologize.

Since then, they’ve been closer than ever.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

But then her mind flashes back to that side profile she saw in the lobby of the building. She remembered Kim Jongdae as the boy who was with the rich people, all smiles and cheeky grins. Underage drinking every once in a while as he showed up to school one or twice with wincing expressions, but that didn’t deter from the fact that he was the amateur pro-golfer. She hadn’t heard much of him after graduation, but she remembered how they had biology and Spanish classes together.

“What’s your pretty little mind thinking about?” Minseok questions as he slides into the booth seat opposite her. Cho startles and chuckles afterwards, then sipping on her hot chocolate.

“Just the past.”

A/N: Welcome to my first story. This is more of an introductory chapter than anything haha but I'm working on the chapters. Thank you for reading and subscribing!

- Karen