Whenever someone spoke of travelling, they always had a habit of making it sound like a grand adventure. Like a quest from a storybook, where the main goal was to find oneself while treading unfamiliar soil. At least, that was how Jung Wheein had perceived it.

Wheein had grown up in a family of travellers, people who never stayed in one place for longer than it was necessary. She'd attended a different school just about every year and her parents were rarely to be seen at home, they never brought her with them on their excursions. Her aunts and uncles were usually only reachable by video call or handwritten letters from various countries and her siblings (all much, much older than she was) studied abroad or worked high power jobs and rarely had time for her.

So, after Wheein graduated from the admittedly unimpressive local college that her parents had frowned at, she decided that she would try travelling herself. She thought that she would finally see what the obsession was about.

        In only a few short days, Wheein would be going abroad, along with her three closest friends from college, at whom her parents also frowned.

"Do you have everything you need?" Yongsun asked naggingly, while looking over the small bags Wheein had packed for the trip, "We need to be fully prepared for where we're going."

Wheein turned to look at her. She was visibly fretting over every detail, pacing the small living room of their shared apartment. Behind her, Hyejin was curled up on the better of the two lumpy armchairs, a slight smile playing on her lips as she watched Yongsun pace.

"Relax, Yong," Wheein assured, "I've got everything. Promise."

Yongsun glanced down at the multitude of checklists scattered over the coffee table, fully checked off, not once but twice each. She let out a sigh and seemed satisfied, at least for the moment.

Just then, someone beat loudly on the door. Yongsun started, her eyes turning to regard the sound with disdain. Without waiting for anyone to answer, the door flew open, revealing a gangly, tomboyish person on the other side. With backpack and ratty dufflebag in tow, Byulie entered the apartment and tossed her things next to the pile of shoes just inside the doorway. Her bags fell with a hearty THUMP and when she was done, she turned to them all and grinned.

"Who's ready for Canada?" she asked loudly.

"I am!" Wheein answered instantly, grinning back at Byulie.

Hyejin nodded her agreement, but Yongsun scowled.

"I still don't understand why we have to go to Canada in the dead of winter," she whined, "I mean, why not Japan in spring, or the Caribbean during the summer?"

"Don't be a ," Byulie retorted, "It'll be exciting to rough it for a couple of weeks."

Byulie crashed down onto the loveseat, taking up all available space as she stretched her long legs over the cushions.

"It won't be that bad," Wheein told Yongsun, who appeared offended based on the pout that hung from her lip, "We'll be staying in a fully furnished cabin, with more than enough supplies to last us while we're there."

Yongsun huffed and folded her arms, "I still think we could have chosen something less frigid this time of year."

"Maybe," Wheein assented, "but we couldn't really afford anything nicer, remember? If it weren't for Byul's cousin we wouldn't be going anywhere at all."

"Yeah, so show some appreciation," Byulie teased from her spot on the couch.

        For the trip, the four of them would take a plane on a gruelling sixteen hour flight, where they would then immediately drive another six hours to where Byulie's cousin lived in the countryside. From there, he would take them by his personal plane to the cabin owned by his family, out in a nearly unreachable location in the Canadian wilderness. The four of them would be completely out of touch with the rest of the world for the next thirteen days.

Wheein couldn't wait.

        The initial flight was as uneventful and miserable as anyone would imagine. Yongsun and Byulie had seats next to each other, which was more than a little aggravating for everyone in the seats around them, while Wheein shared a row with her friend of fewest words, Hyejin. But not even the muffled arguing from the other two, nor the boredom from her silent neighbor could dampen her mood.

Once off the plane, it took them quite awhile to regroup, as lack of sleep and stiff muscles served only to irritate the lot of them. Eventually, though, as Byulie led the way to the rental car, she carried most of their bags and cracked stupid jokes much too loudly through the parking lot. Once inside the huge black SUV, she tried out the sound system, which was actually pretty high end. She managed to keep them all in high spirits for the whole drive, with music and the occasional quirky story that she seemed to have an endless supply of, usually pertaining to an ex girlfriend.

        Wheein hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep until she woke up with her cheek plastered to the inside of the SUV's window. As she blinked away all the sleepiness from her eyes, she squinted at the darkness outside. They were flying down some country road, nothing in sight but the shadowy slender trees on either side. She turned her attention toward the windshield to find that the only source of light was from their own headlights. There were no other cars for miles. The interior of the vehicle was utterly silent other than the hum from the heater, and with a quick glance at Yongsun and Hyejin, it became clear why. Byulie had turned the music off to let them all sleep. Wheein noted her profile as she quietly wove through the snaking turns and curves.

"How much farther?" she croaked sleepily.

Byulie shrugged slightly, "Ten more minutes?"

Wheein straightened up in her seat, taking care not to jostle Hyejin in the seat next to her. The heat was blasting, but the creeping cold of the outside was still slipping in around the windows. The combination of warmth from one side and cold from the other sent a chill down Wheein's spine.

"Are you still looking forward to all of this?" Byulie asked suddenly, "You've been quiet since we left your apartment."

Taken aback, it was a moment before Wheein responded.

"I dunno..." she said thoughtfully, "I guess I just feel like I have to do this, just to experience it at least once... to see what it is my family sees."

Byulie nodded in understanding.

"But I guess at the same time," Wheein went on, "I have this bad feeling. Like something is gonna go wrong."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," she answered with a shrug.

"Maaaaan," Byulie replied, drawing out the word for emphasis, "You just need to hit the blunt every once in a while. You think too much. Get all caught up in your own head. You just gotta chill and stop worrying about everyone else... or your destiny... or whatever it is that makes you feel like you need to do this."

She paused to let that sink in.

When she continued, there was a big grin on her face as she glanced over her shoulder and said, "I'm getting some stuff from my cuz before we head out to the cabin. You should smoke it with me."

Wheein chuckled, but shook her head, "You know I don't smoke."

Byulie shrugged. And though Wheein couldn't see her face, she knew the older girl was rolling her eyes.

*

        As it turned out, Byulie's cousin was quite well off. Though he lived in a moderate-sized house with a big yard laden with rusted metal parts and machines half buried by snow, he was dressed in all manners of expensive brands of clothing. They were casual, of course, but his jewelry, haircut, and perfectly straight, shining white teeth betrayed his "modest country boy" facade. He greeted Byulie with a brief hug and a hearty clap on the back, and the rest of them with an ultra-polite greeting in a well-spoken but thick accent.

As they all brought their bags to the house, the sky began to lighten from black to star-speckled purple and Wheein couldn't help but to stop and admire it. In the city, you could never see the sky so clearly. It seemed much bigger on this side of the Earth.

Hyejin stopped next to her, taking a break from dragging her heavy suitcase through the ankle-deep snow. Behind her was a broken and jagged rut that led from her to the car.

"We'll be up there again pretty soon," she commented breathlessly.

"I call dibs on sitting next to you," Wheein stated jocularly. 

"Aish," Hyejin sighed, a small smile on her lips, "I have to sit between the kids so they don't fight the whole way."

Wheein laughed, but quickly fell silent.

The nagging feeling of dread had returned and she couldn't seem to shake it off.

Hyejin had resumed dragging her suitcase toward the door, clearly still struggling and deeply terrified of breaking off one of her manicured fingernails.

"Hyejin-ah."

Hyejin stopped to peer at her curiously. Of the four of them, she was the best to go to for advice. She was the most level-headed and intuitive one. Wheein had stopped her with the intent of asking her opinion on that bad feeling in her stomach, but then she remembered what Byulie had said about her thinking too much.

"D-do you need help?" she asked as she gestured to the suitcase.

Hyejin nodded sheepishly and allowed Wheein to take the suitcase from her, but she also offered her a searching look. She had seen through Wheein's act but had chosen not to address it.

        Once inside, another shiver rocked through Wheein's body as she adjusted to the sudden warmth. The inside of the house was much neater than the yard and had an undeniably feminine appearance to it. The furniture was all of soft colors, tastefully arranged, and everything smelled of fruit or flowers.

Currently, the only people in the room were Wheein, Hyejin, and Yongsun, though someone could be heard clattering dishes and utensils in the kitchen just beyond the spacious living room. For a moment, the trio merely stood awkwardly in the center of the room. Then, Byulie and her cousin reappeared from a doorway to the right. Byulie was quickly stuffing something in her pocket and when she caught Wheein's eye, she winked.

"I'm so sorry," her cousin said, "Byul has got me making deals instead of being a gentleman and carrying your bags."

He offered them a greased smile, so like the one Byulie had a habit of sporting that the two could almost be mistaken for twins.

The others smiled shyly back, Hyejin lightly rubbing the muscles in her hand.

"Jin come on," Byulie retorted, "You've never been a gentleman."

He ignored her, "Before I fly you all out to the cabin, my wife insists you have breakfast with us."

        Jin's wife was a tiny, pretty thing, with a quiet, almost submissive demeanor. She served Jin first, to which he made no response other than to demand she make his eggs a different way. Feeling uncomfortable, the others thanked her profusely for their own food and ate without complaint. She only sat down to eat once she had fixed Jin's eggs again.

Afterward, they all gathered outside with their things. Jin's backyard was equally as messy, though much, much more open than the front. There was a long, flat, clear patch of hard earth, which could only be the landing strip for his personal plane. The plane itself sat inside of a massive barn which had things scattered around the edges of the floor, out of the way. Tools, machine parts, even a large single wing that didn't seem to match his plane (which Wheein prayed was fully intact) were stacked in haphazard, leaning piles.

        While Jin jogged to the plane, the girls waited outside for him. A violent shiver wracked through Wheein's body as a gust of particularly icy wind blew over them.

She hoped the cabin would be warm.

        Jin's plane was nice, but not too nice, and only just big enough to hold the lot of them. Squished shoulder to shoulder, Wheein, Hyejin, and Yongsun took up the long seat in the back and Byulie took the copilot's position.

"You know how to fly a plane?" Yongsun questioned in surprise as Byulie placed both hands on the yoke.

"Not in the slightest," she answered with a grin as she turned around to look at them all.

"Please don't kill us," Hyejin replied simply as Jin joined them.

He offered a grin just as before, the greased up kind that couldn't be trusted, and said smoothly, "No worries. I know what I'm doing."

He winked cheekily at her and when he turned back around to face the front, Hyejin pulled a face.

She didn't like slimy men.

        Though the flight was exceedingly uncomfortable, it was a wondrous thing to be able to look out the window and see the frozen wilderness below them. Underneath the plane, the evergreens stood like pikes, the frosted tips of their branches weighed down with snow. Where the foliage was sparse, white dunes rose up and fell in sloping hills. All of it was untouched, save for the ruts left behind by wildlife as they elegantly made their way over the terrain with ease. They even passed over a massive body of water, so large that Wheein couldn't discern whether it was a lake or a river. As they passed over, they spotted a herd