It All Started With A Creepy Mail ⚊ Yang Jungwon [#4]

✗ prologue ✗

⚊ prologue

Does anyone else who did everything they could to their parents get judged for their choices?

It's only been a year since we moved back to the Philippines from Macau, where before then we came from Europe, and now we're here in another famous country in Asia, home to Kpop and Kdrama. Or should I say, South Korea?

I wasn't over our sudden move when my cat and her babies decided to make me chase them in our neighborhood before I was helped by two boys who, from what I heard, one of them lived alone in the house across from ours.

Probably me being shy and still throwing all of my disappointments and anger over this predicament didn't talk to them or thank any of them, even though they managed to get my cat back to me.

Well, I didn't talk to anyone much for months until I was suddenly told by my parents they were transferring me to the nearest school.

To a brand new school where I know approximately no one. It's always the case for me every year, which cannot be helped when both of your parents have adventurous hearts.

They can't settle in one place permanently, and while I love that we've been to many places since I was born, I hate the fact that I keep losing friends due to the repeated moving and the distance that keeps them all slowly drifting away in time.

There will always be an exception, though.

It was the Philippines for me, the country where one of my parents was born, and I too, the country where you could hate and love it at the same time for its positive and negative traits. There is no perfect country anyway to live in.

All of them have their own faults the way it is with people anywhere in the world.

But that's not the true beginning of my story at all, so let's leave it at that and focus on the true purpose here.

It all started with a creepy mail.

Which would be weird for me. To see an anonymous email address popping up on my notifications, signed with the bizarre alias Stranger Danger, or SD in his plea for it to be short.

Except that my life has always been unrecognizable that nothing feels shocking anymore.

From: Stranger Danger

To: Jillian Klein Cruz

Subject: You're in no Danger! :)

Hey there, Ms. Cruz. We already met IRL, and I'm not sure if you remember. I mean, I probably talked to you at some point, but it wasn't longer than a minute, and I figured you must be a shy person, so I thought, why not email you instead to be your guide?

And yes, it might be a creepy move from an eighteen-year-old boy to be cloaked under the cover of anonymity, but if that's the way to reach you, then so be it. And no, you'll never know my name.

It is after all a secret.

"Secret? Seriously? I don't even know you," I muttered to myself when I received it on my phone.

Despite the stranger danger warning, which is kind of ironic from his email address, I continued to read through his rather long message.

His or him. He mentioned being a boy after all.

And yes, I also realized that most people our age would go for social media like asking for your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. But that wasn't an option, not when you're practically new here and had never interacted with anyone else.