“Jinhee…” Mom said with a sigh.

“Eomma, I honestly do not know why this is such a big problem for you guys,” I said.

Dad clasped his hands together, then unclasped them to scratch the back of his head, only to clasp them together again. Both of my parents were staring at me in silence.

“Why don’t you--” I was cut off by my dad, who was normally soft spoken. This time was no different, but he had an extra authoritative force behind his words.

“Because we hardly see you as it is,” he said. “You’re always off in that head of yours, and sometimes it feels like there’s someone else in there that you are trying be, as if trying to escape your reality.”

I scoffed, and went to roll my eyes, but they landed on my mother instead, who was slowly nodding. “I feel like I haven’t really spent time with you in such a long time, yet we live under the same roof. We eat at the same table.”

“That’s ridiculous! Of course we spent time together!” I argued. “Besides, I’d like to reserve the right to be traumatized. I was, after all, struck by lightning. Really, it’s very mind-blowing.”

“I understand that, I truly do,” she responded. “It’s just… I really miss you, Jinhee. I miss my daughter. And I have this strange instinctive feeling that if you leave, whatever piece of the old you was remaining will be gone. I just can’t shake it.”

“That’s not logical at all,” I pointed out.

“You’ll understand when you have children, Jinhee,” Dad interjected.

“I want a valid reason! Please, at least give me that!”

“I don’t want you so far from us for so long,” Mom answered.

“What are you going to do when I move out?” I asked.

“We’ll think about that when the time comes. Right now, we do not want you going to Korea with your friends, and that’s final,” Dad emphasized.

Before I could whine my way to a more manageable “maybe”, the door swung open. “Jinhee, we’ve gotta get to school!” Hana said.

I gave my parents one last hurt, bordering-on-annoyed look before grabbing my backpack and following my friend out the door.

“Okay, what?!” she exclaimed once I filled her in on my parents’ verdict. “Wow. That is horrible!”

“I know, but it looks like I’ll never get them to change their minds in time.” I sighed wistfully.

Hana was thoughtful. It was a little scary how deep she was in her head. “Wait…” she muttered. “Your birthday is next week, is it not?”

“Yeah…” I said, not sure where she was going with this.

“So you’ll turn 18. So you won’t have to have their legal permission to go!” She began to jump up and down.

“Hana, I can’t do that to my parents… It would hurt their feelings.”

Hana pouted. “Then how will we get you to Korea?” She gasped. “What if we kidnap you?”

I rolled my eyes, and she seemed to realize how dumb that idea really was. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’ll never go to Korea again. I’ll go with my parents at some point.”

“No, but you’ll never go see Kai if you go alone,” she said, almost to herself.

I scoffed. “Why would I go see Kai anyway, with or without you?”

“Because! It was going to be magical! You two were gonna see each other in person for the first time, and you were gonna check each other out for 3.7 seconds, and finally you were gonna lock eyes and instantly fall in love!”

“Wow. Imaginative.”

‘Looks like she has our futures planned out for us. Resistance might be futile.’

It’s a risk I’m willing to take.

“Maybe I should talk to your parents and get them on board with Operation: JongHee!”

“Operation: JongHee?” I questioned.

“Your names,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Jongin, Jinhee. It’s as if you’ve never heard a ship name before.”

“Hana! We’ve been over this! You’re not allowed to ship us! Also, my parents can never find out about Jongin and I.”

“So there is a ‘Jongin and you’! Aha! I knew it!”

“I meant our telepathy, idiot!”

“Same difference.” Hana started skipping like a madwoman. “Jongin and Jinhee, sitting in a tree…”

‘K-I-L-L-I-N-G Hana for this.’

If you were physically here, I’d high-five you.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Hana continued, oblivious.

“You sound like a third grader, stop that,” I said.

“First comes lightning, then comes coma, then comes an eternal love.”

“Here’s a tip: never become a lyricist.”

“Oh, come on, Jinhee. Stop denying it. I know you love Kai,” she said, leaning in towards me with a goofy smile on her face.

I pointed in front of us. “We’re here. Good job. You’ve managed to annoy me for the full walk from home to school.”

She giggled. “It’s only annoying until you admit it, then it’s welcome.”

I rolled my eyes, and it felt like the millionth time that day, despite it being early morning.

Thalia was walking out of the main office as we stepped into the building, struggling to carry a box, a stack of books and a couple of rolled up posters. I took the posters and Hana took the books, but not before the two of us took the time to laugh at our friend’s misery.

“Bad news,” Hana said as we walked to the art room. “Jenny can’t come to Korea with us.”

“What?!” Thalia cried, her shrill voice bouncing off the walls of the empty hallway. “Why not?”

“My parents won’t let me. They feel like I’ve been distancing myself from them.”

“And I thought it was you with the head trauma,” Thalia scoffed.

“Hey!” I snapped.

“Jenny’s right, Thalie,” Hana said, and I smiled at her having my back. “Her trauma was actually at the nape of her neck. You can see the scars if you push her hair aside.”

Spoke too soon.

‘Wait. Are our scars on the same place?’

Mine’s smack dab on my cervical. Where’s yours?

‘Exactly on the same area.’

Damn.

‘Maybe all of this was fate? As in, we were fated to meet, but then the gods got frustrated that we hadn’t met yet, so they struck us and tied us together?’

Or maybe you’re delusional.

‘Or… yeah, that.’

“Isn’t there any way you can convince them to let you come? Like, what if you spent the next few weeks spending time with them?” Thalia asked, entering her classroom.

I shook my head, following suit. “They’d catch on, now that they know that I know their feelings.”

The blonde girl pouted. “This ! I was really looking forward to this…”

“You can still go with Hannah, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but we were going to go see Josh and, I don’t know, slap him or something!”

“Why would we slap him?” I asked. “We were just going to talk to him.”

“And if he said something wrong, we were going to slap him.”

“Geez, Thalia, I thought your break up was friendly. What’s with the hostility?”

“Now that I found that I’d stole someone else’s boyfriend, I feel guilty, and very angry that Josh never spoke about you.”

“A-at all?” I asked, heart sinking.

‘Stop. You deserve better than him,’