Yes, you saw this right. I have actually updated twice in 24 hours. 

It was raining outside. Cold, tiny water droplets cascading rhythmically against the window and splattering on the roof, colouring the pure white glass with little, transparent, hedged dots, and the surroundings with a constant tip-tap noise.

When had a catharsis ever been so painful before? When had desire ever felt so wrong, so misplaced?

When had something that she had craved for for so long, suddenly seem so bad?

The letter. It was just a regular white rectangular piece of paper, folded to form a flap, and sealed down the middle. Inside it, similarly, another white rectangular piece of paper, folded into threes, and with black and white typing on it.

What was so special? What was so unique?

The letter, addressed to her. Hyejeong looked on bitterly, as she took in the only handwritten, individual part of the letter.

“Addressed to Shin Hyejeong” it wrote, followed by her address.

And signed, at the top corner, beside the US postal stamp, by someone, something that she had waited those six months for.

The culmination of eighteen years of her labour was concentrated, no, emblemised, by the bold typeface that they had chosen.

She had spoken to them the night before. The feeling of leaving everything behind and starting afresh; hadn’t they gone through that? Leaving one’s home, one’s loved ones behind; hadn’t they gone through that?

But it was easy for them. They didn’t have anyone left behind to care for. They didn’t have an immature, barely legal child to look after, to love.

But most importantly, they had each other.

They told her to accept the offer, and leave? Wasn’t she so excited about sending her application in, to their offices over there? Worried that something will mess up along the way, or that she had misread the deadline? Concerned that her school wasn’t prestigious enough such that being its valedictorian would count for nothing?

Adamant that nothing would stop her, in her pursuit for success?

She had commitments, Hyejeong countered. She had responsibilities, promises to the girl she loved that she had to keep. But as the moments passed, she began to realise, by the second, how weak her position was.

And how much weaker she was to her dreams.

Wasn’t this what she had wanted? Her life was the stuff of dreams, after all—intelligence and opportunity paving the pathway for her seamless future, uninterrupted by material concerns. The lottery of birth, and thenceafter the lottery of countless moments and forks in her life, had handed her the winning number. All she had to do was to hand it in, and the reward would be hers.

Why shouldn’t she?

Take it up, take it up, she recalled, the duo’s enthusiastic expression egging her on. They were already there, after all, a year her senior. She could even room with them, until she found digs of her own. They would be her tour guides, not only taking her around the foreign-ness of her new abode, but also making it her new home.

If not for four years, then for life.

The English that came out from their mouths. Was it the hymn of the angels, or the voice of blasphemy? Because if it was the latter, than Hyejeong could only be resigned to being cursed for the rest of her life.

Promises. What were they? Who were they to? Which ones were more important?

It was no