Summer Child

First Summer

Chapter 1: The First Summer

Yoon Seri loved summer. She always had, since the first time she ever remembered from her childhood. She loved the way how the grass turned from green to greener, how the weather turned from tolerable to downright loveable, and how she finally could follow the temptation to throw herself into a lake and felt the fresh water engulfed all of her senses.

Growing up, summer also the time when she could spend more time with her mother. Her mother was a professor in a big university; so, while in the 'typical days' they would spend time together too, but at summer when her mother was on a recess as she was, they would spend the entire days together. They would go hiking, they would pack their overnight bag and took their trusty old car for a road trip around their beautiful country and their surroundings. Or they would simply stay at the house, reading their favorite books in the small garden they had outside with iced tea between them.

Today was the first summer after she was accepted at the most prestigious fashion institute in Paris. It had been her lifelong dream to pursue a career in fashion and she had her plan down to a t. 3-4 years undergraduate degree in design, then followed by 2 year's Masters in fashion management while working for a, preferably, notable fashion house in Paris; then off she went with her own fashion venture. The works had been splendid, she thoroughly enjoyed the studies and the works; but she missed her mother.

It wasn't that they hadn't met the entire school year; they were not separated by impenetrable border or anything. She had taken various 7-hours ride from Paris to her hometown Zurich every now and then and she had stayed home for a week for Christmas. But it had been months since she last went home, and she was eager to spend time with her mother; especially with the new café her mother just opened last spring.

While her daughter took her interest in fashion, Choi Joo Ri's personal interest was in baking. She loved to spend time in the kitchen and baked her daughter and her friends various sweet treats over the years. However, now that Seri was studying in Paris most of the year, she finally decided to act on her personal ambition to open a bakery of her own.

She had been hunting for a place to open it for years, and finally the opportunity came when one of her neighbors who owned a small vintage shop decided to call it quit and retired for good and she offered her the old shop. She hopped on it immediately.

It wasn't that Choi Joo Ri needed more money to support herself and her daughter. They lived very comfortably even to Zurich standard with her job at the university, and her daughter's father had set up an enormous trust fund for Seri practically since the day she was born. Trust fund that would be sufficient to support Seri's education to whatever length she wanted to take and her next endeavor for decades to come.

So, no, it was never really about the money. But she found it so satisfying to see customer come into the small door of her café and came out happy after eating her treats or bringing it for the people they love. It also helped with the sudden gap Seri left when she moved to Paris.

Seri helped with the first stage of the shop when she went home for a short spring break, but after she left to go back to Institute, she hadn't seen the café again. Her mother said she had hired some people to help her with the café. A barista to make coffee and drinks, and another person to help with waitressing and general cleaning while she was busy with baking the cakes and bread. Seri couldn't wait to see how the café turned out.

She endured the last two hours of her journey by opening her sketch book and worked on the designs she was assigned to pre-work during her summer break. Seri was so engrossed with the work, that she didn't realize that they had entered her home city and she smiled as the familiar old city looming around her.