A long-haired girl walked over to the dining table to join Mom and her younger sister.
“Have you made up your mind?” Sera Choi asked her eldest daughter.
Rachel Choi shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Do you think I should apply to the same university as Deisha Lee?”
Sera, who had been chewing, quickly swallowed. “Deisha applied there because she’s smart. What about you? You’re too lazy to study, your report-card grades are completely average—how do you expect to get into such a prestigious university?”
“No one knows unless they try, Mom,” Rachel replied.
Sera sighed. “Rachel, don’t waste your time. Just do as I say. You only have to choose one of the two universities I recommended.”
Rachel remained silent, her annoyance showing as she began eating breakfast. Ever since elementary school, Rachel had never been allowed to make her own decisions. She could only follow whatever her mother decided. Even as she approached the end of high school, Rachel had to follow her mother’s advice.
Ivy Choi, Rachel’s five-year-old younger sister, suddenly began crying as she covered her mouth, her face twisted in pain.
“Ivy, stop crying. You need to eat slowly so you don’t bite your tongue,” Sera told her youngest daughter.
“How long are you going to keep forbidding Ivy from crying? Why aren’t either Ivy or I allowed to cry? Are you raising robots?” Rachel shot back from the chair across from Sera.
With her eyes slightly bulging, Sera threw a cloth at Rachel. “How many times do I have to tell you never to make yourselves look weak? Besides, Ivy only bit her tongue by accident. It’s not like she’s being mauled by a lion, which would certainly make her cry from the pain.”
“It still hurts,” Rachel replied as she smoothed her slightly disheveled hair after being hit by the cloth. “Crying a little doesn’t make someone weak.”
Sera let out a long sigh and began getting up from the dining table. “Forget it. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite,” she said as she walked away.
Rachel could only watch her mother’s retreating footsteps before getting up and moving to the chair beside Ivy, who was still holding back her pain and tears.
“Does your tongue still hurt?” Rachel asked, placing a hand on Ivy’s right shoulder.
Ivy nodded slowly. “A little.”
Rachel smiled. “Be more careful next time, okay? Understand?”
With her red eyes still brimming with the last of her tears, Ivy nodded again.
“Rachel!” someone shouted.
Rachel’s steps came to a stop as she was entering the school grounds and heard someone call her name. She turned around to see the person whose voice she recognized.
From a distance, a brown-haired girl ran toward her with a wide smile.
“Wow, during these final months of school, why do you always arrive earlier than I do?” Deisha Lee asked.
Rachel sighed. “Why does everyone look so weirded out when they see me arrive early?”
“Because you always get to school five minutes before the bell rings. You even show up after the gates have closed more often than not,” Deisha teased.
“Those are exactly the memories that will make me miss my school days. I’ll miss Mr. Go punishing me for being late to class, and I’ll miss Ms. Ji scolding me when I fell asleep in class while she was explaining the lesson. Wow, it feels like we’re going to graduate any day now.”