Youra rubbed her eyes open and shut her alarm clock off, making the room silent again.

She blinked and turned to her side, to see the tear stains from last night on her pillowcase.

She clenched the pillow case in her fist and closed her eyes.

Why did it have to be her?

She opened her eyes to her mom calling her from downstairs and sat up, hanging her legs from the side of the bed.

She had always found her bed comforting, even before everything changed.

It was soft, like someone was hugging her and listened to everything she said, without saying anything or expecting anything in return. She always lied there, whether she was happy, sad, angry, her feelings were always expressed there.

So when her mom called her downstairs, even after a week since it happened, she didn’t want to get up. She couldn’t bring herself to.

What would be accomplished if she got up? She would see her parents try to act like everything was fine, look around her house and be reminded of everything.

The answer is, nothing would be accomplished.

So why was she still getting up and walking to the bathroom, like she had no control over her own body?

She found herself functioning like she would normally, washing her face, brushing her teeth, looking at herself in the mirror before walking downstairs.

She grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down in the dining table, playing with her food because she didn’t have an appetite.

Perhaps that was the only thing her body was not able to do, force herself to eat, because it knew that she didn’t want to.

“You’re downstairs, good. Listen, your father and I are heading out now. Do you need anything while we’re out?”

She shook her head and brought a spoon of cereal to before putting it away and just drinking a glass of milk for breakfast.

It was like she was everywhere.

She waved to her parents before walking upstairs, closing the curtains and crawling back into bed, hoping to God that she would be able to go back to sleep.

-

“Yah, brat. What you up to now?”

Youra looked to her sister and scowled. “Who said you were allowed in my room?” She grabbed a throw pillow and threw it to her. Her sister deftly caught it and tossed it back.

“Gosh, how is your aim always so horrible? I’m right here. See?” She taunted before sticking her tongue at her and ruffling her hair.

“Noona, what do you want?”

“Mom said you might need help with homework. So your noona, being the great noona that she is, decided to help.” She said cheerfully before grabbing Youra’s notebook from the table and scrunching her nose. “Ooh, sorry kiddo. You’re probably gonna fail if you solve your questions like this.”

Youra sighed before chuckling and patting the beanbag next to her. “Mind helping then, big sis?”

She pinched her cheek, making the younger swat the older one’s hand away, and sat down beside her, trying to best explain how to solve her Economics questions that were driving Youra crazy.

“See, to calculate the PED of a product, you need to first find these two things,” She explained while pointing to the words ‘Change in Quantity Demanded’ and ‘Change in Price’. “Then you divide the two of them. Once you do that, if the num-”

“Wait, before you continue, what’s a ‘PED’?”

Her sister widened her eyes before smacking the back of Youra’s head, making her wince. “Yah! Couldn’t you have said something earlier?”

“Gosh, dwebuchi.” She mumbled before looking at the confused look on her sister’s face. “What? Just because I don’t speak Mandarin often doesn’t mean I don’t know it. Mom and Dad used to live in China for God’s sake.”

Her older sister just shook her head and crossed her arms while smiling. “Maybe I should tell mom that you’ve been watching too much ‘Meteor Garden’ instead of studying, like you’re supposed to, considering your Mandarin craze only started after you started drooling every time you looked at Dylan Wang’s face.”

Youra rolled her eyes before telling her sister to continue teaching her.

Youra woke up to a jolt as her mind finally registered what it was dreaming about. She sat up and found herself looking at her desk, where her sister had taught her for her Business Studies elective.

She was dreaming about something that had happened a few months ago.

A few months ago, felt like it was just yesterday her sister was taunting her like always.

And now, she was gone.

-

A week passed, and it was Youra’s last week in 3rd year of university. She didn’t want to go, but her parents urged her to.

They told her that if she didn’t go now, she would regret it later.

Like she didn’t regret so many things already, what was a simple graduation in comparison?

Sometimes, she thought about how she hated her life. About how she would give anything in the world, to no longer be where she was.

But then her sister would barge into her room, , annoy her but make her feel loved, and then she would think that life wasn’t that bad after all.

And turns out it wasn’t.

It was much worse.

-

“Hey,” Youra looked up from her book, to a pair of students she had never seen before. “We’re sorry for your loss. Your sister was a really nice person.”

She didn’t have the energy to speak so she merely nodded before getting back to her book. She had gotten used to random people coming up to her and pretending like they knew her sister, which was laughable because it seemed like even after all these years, even she didn’t know her.

So how could they?

-

Youra decided to not take the bus back and to walk home from the library. Walking was always something she did when she needed a change in pace or a distraction. And it worked most of the time, because she had only one rule when it came to walking, stay positive.

The past few days had been undeniably hard on Youra. The mental trauma, the looks of pity, the regret yet anger she harboured deep within her, all of it was so draining.

She worried that if she let it, it would take over her life and make her this shell of a person, a shell of someone who once knew where she was headed in life.

Now, it just seemed like she was stranded on a random island, and no matter how many times she spelt out the word ‘HELP’ or prayed for some sort of miracle, she was still stuck there, waiting hopelessly and slowly starting to lose her grip on things.

But walking around was like a rowboat, she knew her chances of finding other people and safely getting away from the island were slim, but she allowed herself to be optimistic even if a part of her felt guilty and felt like she deserved to stay on the island.

So she walked home, and looked around at her surroundings. There were kids playing tag, laughing and running on the streets, there was a couple huddled under a tree having a hushed conversation, but the best thing she noticed out of all of them, was her childhood friend Mark teaching his little brother how to skateboard.

Mark Tuan was just something else. He was one of the sweetest yet most aloof people she had ever met, which is why they managed to always get along when they were younger. Youra would be the loud, cheerful one who would drag Mark outside to play and Mark would be the one pretending not to have a good time but inside having a blast, as he went along with the crazy games Youra came up with.

But now things had changed, Mark had become more sociable. He had found friends that managed to bring out the best of him, making him loud and more vocal about his emotions and Youra had become this quiet girl, who avoided conversations and interactions and became somewhat of a loner as her friends slowly gave up on trying to bring her back to normal again.

She managed to smile to herself as she watched Mark’s little brother finally get the hang of skateboarding and Mark smiling fondly at him. His eyes moved away from his brother (once he was convinced he wouldn’t fall down anymore), towards Youra and he waved.

Youra waved back before trying to walk back home, but Mark wouldn’t let her go just like that. He called out her name and on getting no response, caught up to her.

He panted as he bent down, placing his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I have never seen someone avoid me with so much fervour. Dude, remember me? Mark, the guy who beat you at Chubby bunny and a million other games I can’t remember, your best friend?”

She sighed before smiling at him. “Hi, Mark. And no, I did not forget you. You however seemed to have forgotten that I’ve beat you at multiple games as well before.” She looked around as if though talking to an audience. “Anyone remember the summer of ’15,” She asked before looking back at him, “When I beat your at Mario Kart, that too at your place, in front of all of GOT7?”

He stood up and placed on a hand on his chest, looking mock hurt. “Sheesh, Youra. No need to bring up old wounds like that. What have I ever done to you?”

That managed to make Youra chuckle. As mentioned before, Mark Tuan was just something else. Youra could never control her emotions around him, whether she was sad, angry or happy. He just had that effect on her; perhaps it was because she had become fond of him over the years, even if they no longer hung out as much.

“You’ve committed the ultimate crime of bragging without checking your facts, that’s what you’ve done.” She chuckled. “I’m sorry, I’m jus