A blue and red bird was singing outside her window like there was no tomorrow, Jessica didn't know what kind of bird it was, but she knew that the little fella had the energy to last for two lifetimes if not more. It had been a little over an hour in the beautiful and majestic Southampton, and the bird was still singing with the same vigor.

It had been the most delightful vacation of her life. The magnificence of a country with such history was entrancing and simply incredible to absorb. They've traveled around seven cities while in Europe, and Southampton was their last stop where they would be boarding the ship that will take them home.

With a resigned sigh, Jessica thought about London and how it was a place where she would consider coming back to. "Come on now, darling," Kim Jaejoong, her fiancé, and future husband, entered the room without bothering to knock or give her a slight chance to prepare for his arrival.

 "Off we go, your mother is waiting downstairs, and we don't want to keep her waiting, do we?"

His smile was not genuine, she could tell, but Jessica didn't comment on it. She never did.

Jessica stood up, the dress she was wearing already felt uncomfortable around her, and the corset was too tight again. She wondered if Dara tied it that way under her mother's orders or if she just forgot what Jessica told her the night before.

Jaejoong offered her his arm, which she took with a small smile on her lips. He liked to see her smiling. She could tell that he was proud to have her on his arm; it showed on his posture and the way he walked.

He was handsome, polite, charming, arrogant, and very rich. Jessica had met him in college, they became friends, and she even enjoyed his company, but then her father died, leaving her mother to found out about her new friend and practically ordered her seventeen-year-old daughter to marry him.

She completely understood why her mother did it, but that didn't mean that she was happy with the outcomes, even if she was always smiling.
Her mother Eunji was wearing a ridiculous big red hat on her head, but it matched her dress to perfection, and Jessica guessed that that was Eunji's gold after all.

"What took you so long, darling?"

Eunji's tone was tight; she was upset with Jessica's tardiness but didn't want to show it because that's not how a proper lady behaves. Jessica had heard it so many times in the past.

"Forgive me, mother, I believe I'm not ready to leave this beautiful city just yet,"

Her mother's eyes widened in satisfaction with her answer while Jaejoong laughed and leaned to kiss her temple with a softness that he didn't possess.

"Don't worry, sweetie, we'll come back as much as you want," he said, delighted that he could offer her whatever her heart desired. She smiled sweetly at him and squeezed his arm in forced appreciation.

"Why can't we just stay?" she asked innocently.

"And miss these first-class tickets in the biggest ship on earth? Oh no, sweetie, we're boarding the Titanic today,"

Jessica smiled politely at Jaejoong and internally rolled her eyes because she didn't understand what it was about this ship. She couldn't find it in herself to be excited about this trip or going back to New York, for that matter.
-
"You can do it, Yoong!" a girl shouted from where she stood on top of a chair in the middle of the little bar. The people around her were clapping and making bets on the young man - or who they thought was a man - that was standing in the middle of the circle concentrating with a dart on his right hand.

"Are you sure it's a boy?" a guy asked someone else in the crowd.

"Of course," the man said, but his voice lacked conviction.

The questionable young man had his not too short dark brown hair combed back. He was thin, but his arms showed muscle, his chest wasn't flat, but he was wearing man's clothes, and he looked manly enough, so he had to be a man.

"Come on, Yoong, you can do it!" said the girl on top of the chair again, and the young man smiled a little at that. His dark brown eyes danced to the left, where two angry men stood watching him closely with their arms crossed on their chests.

"Just do it!" one of the men said through greeted teeth, and the brown-haired guy smiled even wider at that. His eyes focused once again on the dartboard, and he breathed before he swung his arm back and threw the dart with measured force.

Everyone jumped and clapped their hands, and some even hugged the young man as he just smiled and looked in the crowd for his lady friend. It was a perfect shot. His eyes were shining with happiness as they landed on his friend. 

"We're going home!" the girl screamed in his ear.

At this submission, the clapping seemed to stop, and the two men stepped up and handed the young man two tickets rather angrily, but it didn't make any difference because they were still happy, and the girl was still jumping up and down with joy that didn't seem to end.

"We're going home!" the boy said, and even if his voice sounded very feminine, no-one utters a word about it because his clothes said otherwise.

"No, you're not," said the bartender while he cleaned the glass with a dirty mop, the friends turned their eyes at him, and he pointed at a clock behind his back. 

"The Titanic leaves in five minutes!"

"Oh, man!"

"Let's go!"

They picked up their bags from the floor and ran out of the bar with big smiles on their faces and happy that they were finally returning home after years of being stuck in Europe.

"I'd like to see their faces if they knew that you're a girl," the girl said and, the brunette - definitely a girl - laughed harder than intended as she ran ahead of her friend and between hundreds of people gathered around to see the biggest ship in history sail holding her bag over her shoulder and a smile as big as the Titanic itself.

"Me too!" she screamed over her shoulder and ran faster with her friend right behind her.

-

The sun was at its highest when they arrived at the dock, and Jessica was glad that she decided to accept the hat that Dara offered her before they left the hotel.

Jaejoong was already waiting for her when the door of the car sprung open. She took his hand delicately as she walked out of the car and saw for the first time the ship that everyone was talking about presented in front of her eyes.

The structure was immense, but it didn't surprise Jessica. It was called the biggest ship for something, after all. It looked like it hadn't been touched, the wood, the windows, the fresh paint, the entire ship looked immaculate to the eye, but that thought only made her feel guilty.

How many people had worked to make it look this way to please first-class passengers like her? 

It made her sick to think about what it meant to be a first-class girl, and what she represented, what was expected of her; every step she took felt like a step to her doom.

This wasn't the life that she wanted, this wasn't the husband that she would have chosen, this wasn't the clothes that she felt comfortable in, it all felt strange, and she wanted a scape. She wanted to hide, to run.

Jaejoong's beloved Renault Touring car was to their right, their extensive luggage arrived in two different cars, and Sehun, Jaejoong's bodyguard, was trailing right behind them.

Jessica looked away when his eyes found her. She didn't like him. He was always walking behind them. His eyes were always on her like he expected her to do something bad to run and tell Jaejoong about it.

She thought she heard Jaejoong said that Sehun was a policeman once, but she couldn't be sure.

Friends, lovers, and families cried their goodbyes around them; others laughed at their good fortune and ran inside the ship without waiting another second.

Her fiancé was smiling like a fool, eyes widened in anticipation of her reaction, but she kept her face cool when she turned to him.
 "It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania,"

Jessica wasn't impressed, and it showed. Jaejoong laughed, obviously amused.

"It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, Jess, and far more luxurious," he added as if that's going to do the trick and convince her to enjoy this trip.

Jessica's face remained aloof, and Jaejoong turned around to help Eunji to descend the car.

"Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Eunji," he commented, but the older woman didn't add a word because she knew that Eunji knew
.
Jaejoong and her mother were talking about something behind Jessica as they walked the boarding bridge that was above thirty feet of the ground to keep the first-class passenger separated from the second class ones. Jessica couldn't focus on their words as she stepped inside the ship and the click of her heels resounded in her ears like a death sentence, at least that's what it felt like.

This only puts everything in the moving boxes. In seven days, she'd be in New York City and three days. She'd become Mrs. Kim, save her parents' properties and settle to live a life that she didn't choose and a life that she didn't want to live.

The gold ring on Jessica's finger suddenly felt much heavier than it did a minute ago. Jessica swallowed the bile in and held herself back from crying or screaming, even though all she wanted to do was scream, but she couldn't because she was in the open, and that wasn't how a young lady behaved. Jessica knew it well.

"You could show a little more excitement than that, my dear," Jaejoong said, interrupting her sulking, but she knew that he was holding back his growing anger. 

The smile on his face was nothing but forced. Jessica turned around and smiled as sweetly as she could. Jaejoong seemed convinced, so he kept leading her towards their suit, completely oblivious to the overwhelming dread that she felt with every step that she took.

-

"Yoona, where are we going?" the brunette asked, and the dark-haired girl looked everywhere, her eyes searching.

The Titanic towered above the terminal, and then she saw it, the bridges hanging above the floor and the ones practically on the floor. She picked up her pace.

"Taeyeon, it's this way; hurry up," she called over her shoulder, and the two of them ran faster.

A few people parted to let them through. They were smiling, and their happiness was too big to ho