No One’s POV

Ody looks outside the car’s window for the whole time. Her sister breathes out a long sigh as she drives.

Ody’s words in the coffee shop brought surprised to her sister and the boys.

“… I’m tired. Can we go now?” she said.

It was rude, actually. Ody knows that really well. But she couldn’t bear it any longer; she wanted to escape from the situation they were at.

Her sister apologized to the boys a couple time. Her sister decided to go back home because it seems that Ody is really tired from the long fight to the point that she’s grouchy. The boys understood.

In the car, on their way to Ody’s sister’s home, Ody’s mind is playing back the memories that she tries to forget.

---

Japan, 5 years ago…

Ody just turned 14. Even though she’s only 14, she’s already on the last year of middle school. She decides to go for an exchange program before starting high school. It’s all because she wants to know the country where her mom was coming from. Her dad is Japanese while her mom is white American. That’s how Ody got her chestnut hair color, dark-honey-colored eyes, not-too-slanted eyes and white-Asian complexion. On the other side, her older sister looks really Japanese; slanted-Japanese eyes with dark black color, milky white skin (that’s why she’s named ‘Yuki’ which means ‘snow’ in Japanese), except for her hair, she has the same hair color as Ody.

Ody’s real name is actually Audrey. Takahashi Audrey. But since she was born and grew up in Japan, she’s well-known as Ody. It’s difficult for Japanese’s tongue to pronounce ‘Audrey’ correctly.

Her dad works for the United Nation’s organization; he lives in Switzerland for work. Her mom used to work for UN too but since Ody born, her mom decided to resign from UN and live in Japan. Her dad comes to visit them every time he has breaks from work. If not, her mom, she and her sister would come to Switzerland to visit their dad. That’s why she is really good in foreign languages. Ever since she was young, she’s used being in different environment with different languages. She can speak Japanese, English, French, and German.

Ody goes for an exchange program to the United States for one year. Then when she’s back to Japan, she’s got a Korean brother. His name is Kim Jinhwan.

Her mom decided to host an exchange student.

It’s his 5^th months in Japan when Ody saw him for the first time. First glance, Ody knows he’s already well-adapted in the house. Her sister, Yuki, and her mom call him Jinnie. It sounds girlie but it seems like he doesn’t mind at all.

Her first-impression of Jinhwan..

He has the nicest radiant smile she’s ever seen in her life. She’s wonderstruck. Jinhwan also has this soft-raspy voice, the kind of voice that Ody never heard before. Everything about Jinhwan is new to her. The first time she knows Jinhwan, she can feel the butterflies in her stomach. Love at the first sight? She doesn’t know. No one ever taught her about love. She’s still too young to experience love.

Jinhwan is reserved, yet he’s dorky and funny at the same time. He’s kind and friendly. The more you pay attention to him, the more you find how genuine he is. That’s how Ody thinks about Jinhwan

As the time goes by, Ody realizes there’s something different about Jinhwan whenever he’s around Yuki. Yuki is 4 years older than him, 6 years older than Ody. Yuki is a perfect figure of a big sister and.. a girlfriend. She’s pretty, she’s composed, she’s graceful, she’s everything that Ody’s not.

And Ody knows it. The way Jinhwan treats her and her sister is different. Jinhwan treats Ody like a big brother would treat his little sister. But to Yuki, he’s the man. He would do anything to Yuki. And the way he looks at Yuki is what makes everything different in Ody’s eyes.

It always irritates Ody to see Jinhwan together with Yuki. At first she thought, maybe she just feels as if her sister is being taken away from her since usually it’d both of them who would spend time together. But she slowly realized, she’s jealous of how Jinhwan treats Yuki. She’s jealous of Yuki who always gets Jinhwan’s attention. And it hurts to see how Jinhwan sees Yuki..

There’s always a pain thump in her chest whenever she sees Jinhwan and Yuki being close. Jealousy fills her chest. This is the first time she ever feels like this.

She doesn’t what to do, to the point that she decides to avoid Jinhwan and Yuki. Ody spends more time with her friends. Or spends more time to her self; painting in her art room.

Until one day, Jinhwan comes to her art room when she’s painting. Usually, nobody would come in to that room when Ody’s in it, because everybody knows, Ody in painting room means Ody needs time for her self.

“hey..” Jinhwan sits on the stool near the easel stand

“nani? (what?)” Ody frowns at him

“nani mo arimasen (nothing)” he answers

“henji na otoko (weird boy)” she continues painting.

He chuckles.

“Ody-chan…” he calls Ody

“hmm?” Ody hums, doesn’t turn away for the canvas.

Jinhwan has this serious face on then asks, “do you hate me?”

Ody’s surprised, she never expected that Jinhwan would ask that. She turns away from her canvas and stares at Jinhwan with confusion.

“…”

“You know, I always have this feeling like you never really acknowledge me. We started it good, but slowly I feel like you’re going further and further away to the point that we are not really talking to each other anymore.” He starts talking

“I don’t know. I have the feeling that… maybe you hate me. maybe I’m here is just a bother for you. Maybe I’m not a good brother for you. But well, yeah.. I don’t want to leave with bad memories. Because tomorrow I..”

“No!” Ody cuts him off.

“No… it’s not like that at all” she starts talking quietly. “I just can’t be nice..”

“Why?” he asks

“… because it hurts…” her voice crooks. Jinhwan waits in anticipation.

“I like you so much to the point that it hurts to see how you see my sister..” She whispers. Tears are already blocking her vision.

The next thing she knows, Jinhwan walks out the room without saying anything. She cries.

That night, she shuts her self in her room, musing about what happened today. She feels so stupid for just suddenly letting everything out, but at the same time, she’s glad for letting her feeling out. Now she can make sure of one thing, everything has ended without even started.

But the very next morning she wakes up, She finds out that he’s leaving. He’s back to South Korea with the early morning flight.

Ody’s heart is torn, open wide.

It hurts.

--- End of Flashback ---

Ody sighs from the memories. Why does it still hurt even now?

Tears falling down her face as she closes her eyes to sleep, trying to forget the memories.