My small body almost trembled as my knuckles turned white clutching onto my bags. Although I was fluent in Korean and this was my 3rd time in South Korea it’d been years since my last visit, and who wouldn’t be scared being so far from home and all alone? I’d never really been the independent type, I would always have someone to cling to, and that was how I liked it. So as you could imagine my parents’ divorce struck home for me. Initially I wanted to live with my mother after the divorce, however I felt as if I was a burden to her. I’ve always been her little boy and she hated that I had to watch my own mother crumble. She wanted me to go though, she wanted me to see the world in a different view, she wanted me to experience new things while she set out to discover herself and hopefully find someone who could love her more than my father ever could. Despite my heart telling me not to leave her, I left and without a single word said to my father. We hadn’t been close since I was really young, so young I could hardly throw a ball. Around the age of 6 was when I noticed their relationship disintegrating slowly. Throughout the years they became more and more unhappy fighting more and more often. Their love faded and chipped off like old paint piece by piece, to the point where if you asked me what a normal married couple looked like, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But right now it didn’t matter. We were all going our separate ways to find new happiness and new meanings to our lives, that was why I decided to seek out Dongho. Although he was a whole 3 years younger than me and we hardly saw each other, we were past cousins- we were best friends. He understood my problems because he witnessed them first hand. Whenever he came to visit us in America I would stay with him at his rental house so I didn’t have to listen to the screaming and slamming of doors in my house. His mother, my aunt from my mother’s side, was also very important to me. She was like my second mother and I loved her to death even though we could only communicate in Korean and it was hard to understand her because she talked so fast and with an accent. All in all despite my scared-less-ness I was extremely excited.

                The bus came to a stop and I walked off out into the street, looking around. Food vendors were scattered all over distracting me from focusing on finding the address. I shook my head and looked at the gps on my phone and finally tracked down the building I had been looking for. My heart race picked up in excitement and I flashed a big nervous grin as I looked up at the big white apartment building.

                 “This is it, Kevin. Your new start.” I whispered confidently to myself.  

After going up to the second floor I knocked on the first door on the right; the one Dongho had told me was theirs.  It stayed quiet for a moment, until the door swung open revealing Dongho in a white sweatshirt and blue duck pajama bottoms even though it was 4 in the afternoon.

                “Hyung!” He squealed excitedly, leaping into my arms like a child giggling madly. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too! But you’ve gotten a lot heavier.” I groaned, letting him down onto the ground. His smile didn’t falter though, instead he grabbed my hand and led me inside the apartment after shutting the door.

“Alexander!” Dongho called out.

The living room was huge with a theme of white. White couch, white curtains, white chandelier.  Next to the living room was the kitchen with the same type of feel as the living room, then there was a hallway with two doors on each side and one extra door at the end.

Then someone I didn’t recognize came walking out of one of the rooms and looked at me skeptically. He had dark skin and round eyes with a jagged medium brown haircut, he had a look of sass.

“This is Kevin.” Dongho explained.

“Hello!” I smiled, bowing.

“Ah!” He pointed at me and grinned. “You’re the cousin Dongho talks about so much! Nice to meet you, I’m Alexander.” We took each other’s hands and shook them.

“Did he meet Kiseop?” Alexander asked Dongho, who puffed out his cheeks and shook his head no.

“I sent him to get food an hour ago…” He mumbled and looked at his watch. Alexander’s lip