My doppleganger stared right at me from her world of reflective greenish-silver. I inspected her face closer, only to find a detailed copy of my eyes: swollen and irritated red. Dang it! I have been crying too much. I repeatedly breathed in and out, deeply and slowly with a small prayer to calm my mixture of whirling emotions down. Feeling ready to charge my day, I stepped out from the bathroom confidently as if nothing can stop my spirit of productivity despite of the fact that my eyes were still swollen. However once I reached at the side of my bed, my bones managed to seduce my mind into opting bed over dressing up and being productive; and there I went, plopping myself onto my bed with moisten towel wrapped around my body as I let the cold air-conditioned air soothed my skin from the blazing summer heat. Besides, today is Saturday, also known as my day of the week to celebrate laziness! I reached out for my phone to check for any incoming messages, which I confidently assumed to be none. Ever since I reached Korea (or more like being kidnapped into Korea), there are nothing ringing up my phone. I stared at the twirling ceiling fan again out of boredom, and another pang from the spirit of productivity forced myself to push my lazy bones into movement to get myself dressed.

Still being positive, I opened up my heavy wardrobe door only to get myself dumbstrucked at the choices of clothing available. There are something that disturbed my mind, how the heck did these clothings fits me? All the colour schemes matched my taste too! Do we have a profesisonal stalker or something that is able to identify my body measurements and read my mind? Creepy..

“Good morning. Miss Noma,” greeted a familiar voice from behind. I was so shocked that I think I did a little awkward dance of surprised jump. I turned back to meet the gaze of Anna. She smiled with a gentle little nod and headed her way towards me. “Thank goodness you are getting ready. Now, let me help you get dressed,” she offered. I was hesistant at first, but seeing her determination to help me, I let her chose my outfits for today.

After few minutes of running her fingers and thoughts over piles of hung clothes, she finally matched me up with a white cropped blouse and black denim midi skirts. As the accessories, she switched my usual faded black canvas backpack with a black leather sling. She topped off my style with a thin-threaded choker and a high ponytail. Then, she pulled me to the dressing table where she patted on light application of creams and tints, ‘to make Miss Noma seemed more presentable’, she said. After some time of final touches and inspection, she finally nodded her head and clasped her hands in gleeful way.

“There you go, much better! You have to dress well today, Miss Noma,” she said in her unusual motherly tone as she glanced her watch. “By the way, you have a tight schedule of meeting people today, as you can see here..” and all the heavy input of schedules and rules were rolling right right onto my way. “So first stop, Mr Jiyong,” she chirped as she pushed my confused self out from my room, down the stairs and into Onii-sama’s car. She slapped closed the door and waved a cheerful good bye with a hardly-audible whisper of ‘hwaiting’. Still confused with what happened, I waved back to excited Anna. That is rare sight of Anna being alive from her usual appearance of lifeless and strict.

I think my clueless wandering mind had probably shown an expressive facial because the first thing came from Onii-sama was: Don’t worry, we do not have anything heavy today. Perhaps meeting people and stuff. You know, it’s like a leisure tour of how your life will be in Korea.

I turned my head abruptly towards focused Onii-sama. My brows furrowed and my mind churned. “Meeting people? Tour?” I paused as I tried to paraphrase my thoughts into sentence. “In this kind of unappropriate outfits?” I breathed out heavily as I try to continue my sentence. “I don’t even know why I am here! I was happy back in the States! I have everything that I need there, until you and Mother took me away from what I was living for” I blurted with rising temper. “Am I a fool until everybody literally trying control me?” I blinked hard as I took a deep breath. “And what about Daddy? Who will visit him and care for him again if I am here? I am his only daughter, Onii-sama. And I miss him so much. Do you know that?” I started to broke down in tears. “And who will solve his murder if it is not me? I am his only daughter!” I cried, heavier than before.

Onii-sama stopped his car at the kerb. He took a deep breath and fixed his gaze on me. “Look. I know you miss Daddy very much and I don’t think I can ever understand that feeling of deeply missing someone,” he stopped awhile as he took another breath. “I have a Dad myself but he never come home. He is too busy gaining fame and fortune till he literally ignored Mother and I. For him, fame and fortune is everything for his son. Unfortunately, he never understand that all I ever need is his love and care, not his fame or fortune,” breathed Onii-sama in disappointment. His gaze lowered again onto me as he handed me a pack of Kleenex that he just found as he digged under his seat. “You know, I got jealous of you sometimes. You have my Mother and your Daddy that care for you since birth. I was lucky to have your Daddy as my Daddy for 7 years, at least I finally learn how does it feels to have a caring father at home,” said Onii-sama, with sweeter tint of reminiscing old memories. I felt calmer at this point upon hearing story of Daddy.

“It was an old story, but I remember it very clearly. I was 6 years old back then when your Daddy married my Mother. You were born when I was 8 years old and I still can remember how excited I was when I know that I am going to have a little sister,” he chuckled in the between his last words. “When you were born, my whole world never felt anymore complete. I have a Daddy and Mother who love me and a baby sister who I can care and love for,” he said dreamily, but deep below his voice hid an incoming wave of sadness that predicted to arrive very soon. “However, perhaps our family was not destinied to be together till the end. Your Daddy and our Mother divorced 7 years after, a week before my 13^th birthday, when you were 5,” he said bitterly. I put my hand up to his shoulder, patting it as a sign of an emotional support from his little sis to her big bro. A smile formed on Onii-sama’s face as he shrugged off my hands gently, as a indicator that he is a big man that is able to handle his rolling emotions within.

“Sorry that I did not answer your question, sis. Those are actually Mother’s plan. The sole reason that I am supporting her was because I want to meet my one and only little sis again,” he said assuringly as he patted my head naughtily. I chuckled at his adorable attitude before getting the familiar flick at the forehead again. Ah.. childhood Memories!