Winter was in a considerably bad mood when she entered the chicken restaurant that her parents owned below their cramped three-room house. She did not pause to grab a drumstick as she normally would as she made her way pass the kitchen, where a basket of piping hot fried-chicken awaited her, nor did she pay any attention to the delicious scent of honey-flavoured chicken that tickled her nostrils gently. As she walked zombie-like up the staircase that led to the second floor, she paused momentarily and inclined her head to a piece of paper stuck to the wall on her right. It was a yellowed, aged piece of paper that contained Winter’s writing of fictional characters nine years ago.

            A faint memory tickled at the back of her mind, and she remembered a small, eager girl of seven years old scribbling zealously on a sheet of paper in class. The girl pressed a final dot to her essay and straightened her right arm in the air, slicing through the silence in the class. “Teacher! I’m done with my essay!”

            The homeroom teacher turned her head in surprise and collected her essay curiously. Winter remembered staring at her teacher’s pupils, wondering how it was possible for them to move so fast and yet not look like they were moving at all as she read her masterpiece. She witnessed, as if in slow motion, the pupils of her teacher’s eyes widening in shock as she reached the end of her story. “Th-this… you wrote it within 30 minutes?” her teacher stuttered disbelievingly, “but I only asked for a short introduction, and conclusion… I never expected you to craft a story completely! Winter, I am astounded but pleased to say that you have some real talent in story writing…”

            The words some real talent had remained stuck in her mind from the moment the words left her teacher’s mouth. After that Winter remembered staring at her teacher’s incredulous expression as she handed the essay to her mother, throwing more compliments regarding Winter’s outstanding story-writing abilities. But the scene in front of her had seemed dreamy, the audio and off spasmodically. Winter had caught some random words here and there: true talent… at the age of seven years old!… a real author… In her mind she only thought: this is where my talent lies. I have found my dream! Winter had envisioned herself receiving No. 1 Bestseller Award, becoming a world-renowned author of a series of seven blockbuster books and becoming someone big enough to leave a mark in history.

            But that—of course— was not what Winter was doing. Instead, her mother had laminated that essay among other works she had written since then and pasted it on the wall along the staircase as a memory of her remarkable achievements, and all that continued after the discovery of Winter’s real talent was herself writing melo-fiction in that insignificant journal of hers. Well, it was significant to Winter, at least. Recalling the events of the day, she felt as if her skin was being torn off when her journal was ruthlessly snatched away from her; something that was part of her seemed detached whenever her journal was not within her radius. If Winter could describe herself in that state, she would picture a jack-o-lantern, hollow and empty where her insides had been dug out. Vaguely she could hear her mother’s voice calling out for her from the kitchen.

            “Winter! Come down here for a moment, I need you to make a quick delivery for me.”

            “Can’t you get Jun Yeong to do it instead? I’m already on my way to my room.”

            “No, you get over here. Jun Yeong is busy studying for his final exams.” Her mother’s stubbornness pricked an unknown vein in Winter’s heart, and she found herself steaming before she knew it.

            “Why is it that you always take care of Jun Yeong instead of me? Is it because he is the youngest in our family? Also, when does he ever study for his exams? You might not know it, mom, but all the times he locked himself in his room, he was playing games! Were you ignorant all this time, or did you choose to turn a blind eye?” Winter had not meant to shout, but all th