C&C | PJM

Twenty Seventh

Past diaries
Daehye

Morning milk tea was not that sweet as it tasted. Maybe the milk wasn't fresh, maybe the sugar was less. Or maybe it had been like that for a while. Since the day her accident took place, living on earth had been a challenge. All her life she aimed, dreamt of one thing, worked up like crazy to achieve those medals and first places in all the junior figure skating championships. All of it withered like dust.

10 seconds. It's all about ten seconds. Life gets swapped to a whole different side. It's like the dark side of the moon which is never seen all of a sudden it comes to the sky. And all we see are fucked up alien civilisations and then they attack us. Weird ass metaphor but y'all get it. Or maybe not.

She grabbed her bag and headed for the washroom door, adjusting her uniform tie and quickly gargling . It had been four months since the accident took place.

"Luv you leaving?" Her mom asked from the kitchen. "Yeah."

"There's half an hour left." After leaving skating Daehye had no option but to take the path of knowledge, despite her mother urging her to excel in business studies in university she went for science. It provoked her curiosity enough and being good at biology and chemistry came naturally to her, physics meanwhile required her blood, sweat and tears.

"I'll just study at the library." Library became the newfound comfort space for her. It was like finally getting out of the Mary's room. Skating was her passion, but it restricted her too. A triple axel required months of perfection. Landing on the quad triple toe loop was one hell of a task. It was as if a new world opened to her.

"Well we have to discuss something with you." Her father said while rubbing off the shaving foam left from the hand towel.

"Oka, please make it fast though."

"We have thought-" her father gave a pause and she raised her eyebrows after a second. "Of?"

"Moving to Korea an-" before letting him finish she interrupted. "No shit Sherlock."

"Yes shit Sherlock." Her mother said.

"You can't do this to me- what about my studies? What about the AP classes I've been working for from the past four fucking months?" Daehye was infuriated. And her mood swings weren't being kind to anyone lately. "We're your parents Eklavya Min. We know well enough about what to do and what to not." Her mother used her full name, her high pitched voice made it seem like she screamed at her.

"Calm down Neena, and you Daehye." Her dad sat on the dining table and opened his laptop. "Yeah so Korea huh? Papa I don't know how to write it- I don't know the culture and the morals well enough. Are there universities which are on the Ivy League level?" She bombarded her father with questions. Well it was true, as a matter of factly she didn't know much about the country, she knew her mother's side more deeply. She was more etched to her Indian roots than her Korean ones. Maybe it was because her mother was the one staying in the home as well as earning and her dad going out to do the same.

The facts were that Daehye could communicate fluently in Korean. Her dad started speaking that language to her since nine and now they mostly talked in Korean but problem was with the legal affairs. Studying a subject like biology also required language precision. But Daehye was far from even reading story books at times.

"Papa how- I don't know how I can give examinations in Korean."

"I know but there are universities which function on the funds of foreign students." He was referring to Kaist. She was aware of it, one of the top universities in Korea and it ranked under fifty in the global university list. But it required funds to get in. "You have that money to put me in that school?" Daehye asked, folding her shoulders.