First Snow

Author note: Here we go for another adventure. To be honest, I wasn't sure about writing something else after Eyes on you. Then, I came across an article about a North Korean ambassador in Italy who disappeared with his family. It appeared that he had defected for the south. Most of the time, North Korean ambassadors leave their family behind in North Korea, it's a way to avoid defections. But this man came from an influent family and had the privilege to go to Italy with his family. This story is so incredible and inspired me for this fiction.

***

If there was one thing Seri appreciated in Switzerland, it was the infinite possibilities of escape.
Of escaping the rules, the protocol, the malicious looks, the judgments. No one knew her here, and the freedom anonymity gave her was priceless. Especially in the mess that was her life lately.

As her footsteps crunched in the pristine snow, she took a deep breath and stopped, listening.

Nothing.

Not a noise. Not a bird, not a rustle, just absolute silence, and one of the purest air in the world filling her lungs. For the first time in weeks, she felt at peace. As at peace as she could be. She loved the city of course, the never ending agitation, the lights and movement. She had grown up in Seoul, in a world of luxury and wealth. But behind the glitter, reality was far less brilliant.

Loneliness, the one that you don't choose and that devours you from the inside, almost crushed her at one point.
The power games and the overwhelming pressure of being a coveted heiress had been too much to bear. She sometimes felt overwhelmed by responsabilities. But it was nothing compared to what she felt at that very moment. Responsabilities had never really frightened her, after all, she had left her family and the comfort of their fortune,  to build her own company from scratch, succeeding in business like no one. Working wasn't an issue, it had always been a kind of distraction, an escape from the emotional void left by a childhood marked by loneliness, so she never really counted her hours, sleeping sometimes in her office, gladly skipping celebrations and family gatherings.

Family.

This strange word that was so overrated in her opinion, and that didn't really mean anything to her.  And yet, that meaningless word had trapped her somehow, and this trip marked a turning point in her life that she wished she had avoided at all costs. A small voice was constantly whispering to her all the things she was going to lose, a constant reminder that the powerful CEO she was had become just one more puppet in the Yoon family.

Clenching her teeth, she resumed her hike, her brows furrowed. The rage she felt at the unfairness of it all never left her, a constant nagging that even kept her awake at night. These past few weeks had been a nightmare, a mix of grief and anger and desperation and frustration, and how she wished she could wake up and just go back to her old life, which consisted in  working, and terrorizing Mr Hong, her assistant.

It was funny how the random things became the most precious ones when about to be lost.

Well, not really lost, but as much as she knew that she would keep her company, the fact that she no longer could make her own decisions regarding her private life, made her feel as if cold clutches were choking her to death. A slow, long, painful death.

She swallowed hard and looked at the sky when she felt soft snowflakes grazing her face. A smile, hesitant first, enlightened her face.

It was the first snow.

Well, obviously not the first snow here given the snow she was walking on, but her first time watching snow falling since she arrived. Just her first snow.