Sleepless in Seoul ✓

1.

Seoul.

A city where you seldom see stars in the sky, a city that doesn't sleep.

Among many tall metal and glass skyscrapers which shine throughout the dark nights because some office worker or the other is pulling a late nighter,
among those many students cramming hard in self-study centres and burning the midnight oil,
among those who stay awake till the wee hours of dawn, I too am a nocturnal creature who finds the task of falling asleep without sleeping pills tedious.

Seoul and it's fast paced metropolitan life is heaven for those who don't sleep but the city is my own definition of purgatory, a hell I escaped from years ago only to come back here again.

Finding stars and constellations in the pollution-tainted sky here is difficult but finding someone named Byeol almost too easy.

It's a common name, which was given to me when I was born. It's also a name with which I have a love-hate relationship.

I usually go by my Christian name these days so it's also a name I want to forget. It was because I wanted to completely erase the old Byeol from me.

Years later, I have achieved that feat. I am no longer Im Byeol but Lyra Lee, a name which is often found signed at the bottom of paintings in art galleries in Europe and now even Seoul. 

In fact, those paintings are the reason I'm back to the place which is supposed to be my home but is far from it in reality.

The hotel room which I am currently staying in has large floor-to-ceiling windows. Yet I've drawn the dark curtains for I don't long to see the twinkling city lights of Seoul.

Bright as they are, they blind me. I prefer real starlight, yet as the stars don't show their faces in the city usually, people here have no choice but to make do with these.

However, I refuse to do that.

Sighing, I retreat back into the bedroom to organise my luggage bags which still sit beside the ottoman at the end of the queen-sized bed even though I checked in hours ago, almost immediately heading to the hotel instead of stopping for a minute or two breathing in the air of my homeland.

If I could, I'd hold my breath for the whole week which I have to spend here.

My phone lights up, a string of messages pouring in from someone I have come to despise over the years.

He's part of the reason why I escaped to Paris just after my high school finals, skipping even the graduation ceremony. He is also my so-called dad; biologically and legally but never once has he been one.

I'd bet all my easels and acrylics that Mr. Im Daejoon ( commonly known as a tycoon in the entertainment industry of South Korea) wouldn't even have realised that I was due to arrive in Korea tonight.

I don't even bother to read those messages. They're obviously from his secretary, Mr. Joo who cleans up after his messes and scandals, the grey-haired man who used to act as a fill-in guardian at my parent-teacher meetings.

I throw my phone on the bed, already rummaging in one of my bags to find something I've not seen for a long time; something I found while digging through one of my boxes in the store room of my apartment in France.

It's something which managed to escape from me throwing it along with other things which reminded me of Seoul-

 My old and slightly cracked phone which I used to use some eight years ago.

It's a phone I haven't powered-on or used since then because I refuse to associate with or reminisce about the past.

Byeol is long gone, Lyra has replaced her.

Still, a fragment of her has somehow survived in the form of this outdated Samsung Galaxy phone.

And on nights like these, when I can't rely on sleeping pills or coffee or even my trusty sketchbook, I have nothing better to do than to plug the old phone into it's charger which I  managed to buy from ebay before leaving for Seoul.

Besides, even though Byeol died the moment she flew out of South Korean soil, the phone has remained with me all these years.

It's only natural that I browse through it and then throw it away.

Who knew what I'd find?