Hazel sat at the dinner table with her parents, her eyes on her plate, and her fork held lightly in one hand, barely gripped. She was too numb to hold it any tighter.

After the art show, Hazel demanded to know from her parents where exactly it was that she was from. Both were a little startled by this demand, telling her it didn’t matter because she was their daughter regardless, and she belonged in the states. So she went on strike for the night, not answering a single word whenever they spoke to her.

Finally, her mother felt bad and sat her down, telling her that she was from Seoul, South Korea. She was born in the Asan Medical Center at two o’clock in the afternoon. Not two moments after she was born, she was handed over to the state because her mother was young and didn’t want the burden of a child. “Don’t you see?” Her mother had said. “Your mother didn’t want you, Hazel. We want you. We care about you. You’re our daughter.”

This only angered Hazel more. That couldn’t have been how the situation had played out. No, she completely doubted her adoptive parents knew the whole story. She didn’t even want to listen to their side. “I just want to know what I’m missing.” She said flatly, and her mother had immediately started crying.

The three now sat at the dining room table, no words having been used since Hazel had spoken to her mother, and neither parent could look at her.

She straightened. “I’m going,” She said plainly. She didn’t use malice as she said this, she didn’t even fight them about it. There was nothing to fight about. She was leaving, and she wasn’t going to come back if they told her otherwise. “I’m going to find my birth mother, I’m going to find out about the family I never knew, and then I’ll come back for the fall semester.” She stood from the table. “That is my plan.”

Her mother’s eyes had immediately widened, and she clasped a hand over . Her father shook his head. “We do not approve of this, Hazel-”

“I’m an adult now, and I have a right to know.” Was all she said before she turned and started away from the table. She moved silently up the stairs to her bedroom, where she opened her laptop and immediately went to her online bank account. She’d been saving up money to buy a studio, where her parents couldn’t bother her about her dancing. She’d found a cheap, small studio on the other side of town, but she’d been on the fence about purchasing it, even though she had the money. Eighty five thousand dollars stared back at her. She’d been saving since her freshman year of high school, when she’d gotten her first job at a local hot dog stand. The following year, she was hired at H&M as a cashier, but was immediately promoted to assistant manager. Junior year, she was promoted to store manager, by some fluke in the system regardless of her age, and she got a second part time job at the Tiffany’s in the mall. Tiffany’s had also promoted her to assistant manager, and all at the same time, she was selling sculpture after sculpture, portrait after portrait, and never spent a cent of her savings.

She immediately searched one way tickets for flights to Seoul, coming up with a few searches that all offered flights, for a single passenger, at about nine hundred and ninety eight dollars. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh crap.” She could pay for it, of course, but it was still a lot.

And she wanted Piper to join her. She couldn’t leave her best friend behind. It wasn’t going to work out at all if that’s how things went down. Disregarding the price, she reached for her phone and dialed Piper’s number. She picked up immediately. “Do you want to come with me to Seoul, South Korea.”

Immediately, Piper screamed from the other end of the line, and Hazel held the phone away from her ear, squeezing her eyes shut. “Oh my god! Yes! A million times yes! Do you think we’ll meet idols? Do you think we’ll go to concerts? Please, please let us go to concerts!”

Hazel had forgotten. Piper was incredibly universal in cultures. She loved learning about different cultures, different languages and different ways of life. It was incredible how many different languages she could speak, so Hazel was mostly in need of Piper as a translator and not just someone she could hide behind when things got intense.

“We can try,” Hazel murmured, changing the ticket sorter to two and continuing the process of checking out. “I’m buying two tickets for this coming Friday. Think you can tie things up by then?”

Piper squeaked again. “Yes! You had better post a video on your channel though, you know people will notice your absence.”

Hazel had a youtube channel where she danced to her own beats, to covers, or with friends. It was, surprisingly, well known and she uploaded twice a week. She wouldn’t be able to, if the two were moving to Korea for the summer. It would end up being a maybe every once in a while thing. She had to make a video, Piper was right.

“I’ll make it tonight. See you in the morning for breakfast?”

“Of course.”

Lena’s eyes slowly began to open, and a groan behind her made her wish that her eyes had stayed closed. Ahren’s arms tightened around her waist as he wriggled behind her. Morgan lay on the ground beside the bed, and Wulfric was at her side. Lena’s eyes narrowed. Why hadn’t Ahren stayed with them on the floor? When she’d gone to sleep, it was Morgan who was asleep beside her.

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