Thursday March 14th, 2013

It had been less than a week since Yu-ki was back home, and she was not faring any better than in Seoul. She had originally decided to go to Vancouver to get back to something familiar, but everything was just so different. Even though Yu-ki grew up here, it didn’t feel like home. Home was supposed to be where she felt the most comfortable, the most safe and sure of herself. This might have been home to her a while ago, but now, everything just felt so foreign.

Yu-ki rolled around in her bed to glance at her clock. It was currently 7:30AM and her mother had left for the university an hour ago. She had stayed back under the guise of getting work done, which wasn’t exactly a lie because that was the reason she was even in the country, but truthfully, she had yet to leave her bed since she went to bed last night.

Somewhere to her right her phone buzzed. Not bothering to look at it, Yu-ki assumed it was her mother texting her to inform her that she wouldn’t make it back for dinner. However, the phone kept buzzing, and Yu-ki belatedly realized it was a phone call. She immediately grabbed for her phone and picked it up just in time.

“Hello?” Yu-ki asked absently.

“Yooki? I’m not bothering you am I?” A familiar voice filtered through the receiver.

“Jongin?” She responded in surprise. Pulling the phone away from her face, she looked at the screen.

Incoming Call

Kim Jongin

Confirming the person on the other line really was on the other side of the world, she brought the phone back to her ear. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, is this a bad time? I can call back later.” Jongin replied

“No,” Yu-ki said immediately. “I’m just at home, I wasn’t doing anything. What was so important that you had to tell me this instant?” She asked curious.

“Nothing, I just wanted to check up on you.” Yu-ki could almost see his shy expression as he spoke. “You’ve been gone for a week and I wanted to make sure you were actually getting work done instead of lazing around.” He chuckled.

“You caught me.” She laughed. “I haven’t gotten anything done since I’ve been here.”

“At this rate you’ll never finish and come back home.” Jongin scolded with a laugh.

“Of course not!” Yu-ki exclaimed. “I’ll be back before summer don’t worry. There’s no way I’m leaving my brother there alone. How would he survive?”

It didn’t occur to Yu-ki at the time, but she had effortlessly conversed in Korean with Jongin even though it took a few days for English to come naturally when she had first arrived a few days ago. More often than not, Yu-ki also found herself thinking in Korean rather than her mother tongues of English or Chinese. There were even a few instances when she was speaking to her mother and would randomly change languages in the middle of a sentence without knowing. Her mother simply laughed at those moments and reminded her of Kris’ unusual habit of sleep talking in not only English, but in Mandarin as well as in Cantonese. (“He sleep talks in Korean as well these days.” Yu-ki adds).