Chapter 1

The free bird leaps 

on the back of the wind

and floats downstream

till the current ends

and dips his wings

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

"What do I think about love? Love is merely our hormones producing chemicals in which activates our brain to make us feel something. I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I'm stating facts. I'm stating science."

As her abrupt opinion came to end, so did her phone call. The youth disappointingly sighed her way to slowly, grudgingly placing the device on her desk beside numerous post its and  messily annotated pages of a few textbooks. Her tired, brown eyes drooped in the desk lamp's lamination as her mind became concerned of her only friend; a hopeless romantic and oblivious believer in all things that are above ordinary. Not to mention a lousy, uncaring person who rather ignores views that speak differently from hers. The girl had become used to being ordinary. She is rather comforted by it. 

"Is this thought odd? Perhaps the thought of being alright compared to greatness...is quite weird in a way," she whispered to herself while whipping out a tape recorder from her sweater pocket and lastly breathed into it, "Note to self, perhaps the want of normality can be, in ways strange to others...what am I even saying? Note to self, try not to overthink."

A quiet click echoed from the recorder as her dainty finger lifted off the tape.

"Unnie! Dinner is ready!"

A shout from downstairs clouded her train of thought and snapped the girl back to reality. She checked the time and refreshed her mind with notes that she had recently taken. Afterwords, she struggled getting to dinner from legs that haven't been walked in hours and a mind exhausted from absorbing information. Her younger sister, a sixth grader, which sat across, wore a sweet smile and bright eyes. They both ate in silence and  usually exchanged a few remarks of their day afterwords. However, this was no ordinary day for the both of them. The girl had realized this soon from the words that fled her sister's mouth and her happy expression turning into fear.

"After school, a strange man had approached me. He was asking about you," she murmured, afraid that someone might be hearing them. 

The girl's mind went blank. Panic and confusion swept across her face as she tried to analyze her sister's words and tried to conjure something relating to her grades or after school job. Nothing had come to mind and she had become more worried by her sister's shaking hands. In an instant, the girl came to her sister's side and quickly embraced her. 

"Oh sis, don't worry about me. I knew I left something in school today. I suppose this 'strange man' was probably a teacher looking out for me," the girl lied.

"He looked young to be a teacher. In fact, I haven't interacted with another person who spoke Korean in awhile."  

"I-I'm sorry?" The girl choked as she was taken aback.

He had spoken the very language that she had carried guilty in her heart and hasn't spoken it for years. All her memories of the life she led in South Korea was left there. Therefore her family's past has been buried deep there as well; thousands of miles and an ocean apart from her. Chills rang through her spine as she guessed the past has come back to haunt her. 

"Pack your things, we're taking a trip," the girl had spoke in knowing her sister is presuming the same thoughts.

The sister hurriedly started sorting her belongings in her room as the girl frustratingly paced back and forth in her own. She thought of places to escape to and the secret cash supplied somewhere in the apartment.  She mind ran rapid about men, strong enough to endanger the sister and her in which have come to do so. She thought about the mistake. The simple mistake that made her lose parents and forced exile. The girl's lips were still pursed tightly as if she was afraid that one word of remembrance could be the end for her.  

She gazed at her desk, a disarray of knowledge, for the last time as she assumed the heavy steps up the stairs were those of her sister. She searched for a bag amongst the pigsty of her room, thinking that her only remaining family member is waiting patiently waiting outside her bedroom. And as she reached for one which was deep inside her closet, a cold hand cupped hers as a deep, gentle voice spoke in Korean;

"You won't be needing that." 

 But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.