Sooji stared at the group of small boxes sitting at the corner of her bedroom. So far, she had managed to furnish two items in five days. In front of her lay her notebook and a picture frame. Enclosed in the frame was a photo of Sooji at the age of eight years old, throwing piece-signs and flashing a cheeky grin. She remembered the memory vividly. Her mother took the photo.

A scoff. A grimace. Her again. Sooji looked through the window across the room. Suddenly she was blinded by a notorious sun-ray. In the month of July, Sooji was always reminded of three things: (1) her parents left South Korea in July, (2) she used to sell lemonade in July, and (3) her birthday was in July. The twenty-eighth, to be exact. 

Like most things, Sooji's birthday brought resentment and anger. She couldn't forget the sickening smell of stale cupcakes and stiff parcel paper that her parents would send, three weeks after the designated day. She couldn't forget receiving two Barbie dolls with matted hair, when in fact she had turned fifteen years old. Barbie dolls, at fifteen.

The letters she received were worse. Sooji didn't learn until she was sixteen that her parents' ongoing promises of returning were empty. We're coming back, Joojoo. Just one more year. I promise. She stopped writing back at seventeen. She stopped opening their letters at eighteen. Can't hurt me anymore. Sooji still kept the letters, in case she would decide to read them after some time when she would feel forgiving enough. She knew it was cruel. Part of her knew it wasn't healthy, either. 

For she was lost in herself. She often questioned her own existence. Existence in everything. I am not here. I am not real. When she wasn't questioning her existence, she was questioning why. Why? Why me? Sooji buried her sorrows in every possible distraction. Photos. Drawings. Calligraphy. Her sunflowers.

Oh, did she wish she was a sunflower.

Two knocks. Sooji was jolted back into reality. She blinked twice. She silently wondered who could possibly want to visit her. Maybe it's just the postman.

Sooji nervously paced down the stares. She looked through the tiny eye-hole, to see a young man about the same age as her. A momentary confusion.

She opened the door slowly. The man in front of her. Empty stares. And confusion. She looked into his eyes and she wondered whether he was confused too. What does a stranger want from me in the middle of a day like this?

"Er- hello, my name is Myungsoo. I live next door. Pleased to meet you," he said.