Being in a relationship compels us to compromise things to avoid conflicts. If there was one thing I learned from the love story of my parents, that was ‘We lose sight of ourselves when we give it all to the person we love. We often get lost to the point wherein it would be difficult to keep track on the road even if someone left crumbs of bread for you to follow’.

It was still fresh in my memory, like it just happened yesterday, how my father clenched my hand so tight and said, “Eubin, from now on it will just be the two of us.” I was only seven, but still she was engraved in my heart. Then everything became a blur. I could suddenly feel the world spinning like a top. Even though I only get to see her every night because of her work. She always made sure to kiss me good night before I drifted to sleep.

The day my mother left was the day my father stumbled. I remembered how calm he stood in front of the visitors, but at the end of the day he’d shrunk and wept like there was no tomorrow. He cried like half of him also died.

It was heartbreaking. So as a seven year old-girl, I wrote 5 promises on the last page of my English subject notebook. It was still with me through the years, buried in a pile of garbage I call memories. Appa thought the box was a garbage bin because I collected pieces of stuff that have significance. For instance, I had a classmate named Yuri, during Valentine’s Day someone asked me to hand a box of chocolate to her. I did. She refused to accept. I ate the chocolates. Turned out there were peanuts in them. I almost died. But I kept the wrappers with me since it was the first indirect Valentine’s gift someone gave to me.

According to the list, the first promise I wrote was to buy myself a gallon or two of chocolate ice cream, but I had to make sure there were no peanuts. Next was to buy myself a strawberry ice cream. We could afford to buy a cone, but never a gallon of ice cream back then since we were not blessed with money. Third was to hunt the guy who almost killed me with the box of chocolates. Next was to buy my mother vanilla ice cream since she was always tired when she got home from work. The last one was added after my mother died; it was to take care of appa when he gets all feeble and blind.

As a child, it was apparent my parents didn’t satisfy my cravings for ice cream. My fourth promise would be a promise I’d never fulfill. I missed my mom.  

I still recalled how this family exuded optimism. It was just yesterday when we had our breakfast and we were talking about the show Running Man. Everyone loved the show, even my father wholeheartedly shipped the Monday Couple. I was fine with it as long as no one utter the words ‘Kwangsoo’ and ‘mine’. That was how possessive I was with my fictional boyfriends. However, today the family was slightly a bit off. The exuberance of the two daughters were consumed and locked inside a chest, the key was nowhere to be found.

It was a ghost-like silence where you could hear the marching of the ants over the opened nutella.

The tastes of pancakes were bland. The once fluffy cakes felt rubbery in my mouth every time I chewed. Appa cleared his voice before he said, “Eubin, we’ve talked about this last night. Don’t sulk just because I didn’t give permission for you to fly to Japan. That was too sudden.”

I was about to reply when he cut me, “You didn’t even tell me what happened and why your eyes were puffy.”

The reason was seated in front of him. I couldn’t even afford to look directly at her, how much more point out and straightforwardly reveal her true intent towards me.

“Oh well. I supposed I could transfer you to another school if that was what you wanted, but I can’t let you go away from me,” he finished his last piece of pancake in one bite.

“I suppose you can grant her wish to transfer to Japan,” Krystal crooned as if my mere presence didn’t count in this family breakfast affair.   

“Why is that so?” Mom looked at her with puzzled look.

“Your sister currently resides in Japan and I think it is for the good of everyone. She can actually enroll to the school my cousin attends. It’s a pretty good school for Korean transferee. I researched it last night. Plus the cost is not that expensive we just have to book an early flight for her to avail cheap tickets,” she blurted like she wanted to kick me out as soon as possible.

“O-kay? Krystal, just why are you pushing you sister to leave for Japan? And I a