[AE CHUNG POV]
1.8. The big 18. It finally happened. I've become an adult. No longer bound by the chains called "minor". I'm allowed to think and breathe for myself. I'm allowed to write my own path. No more parents, No more siblings, No more stalker, No more Busan. My life there disappears the moment I step foot on this plane. I'm rewriting my life the way I want it to be written. I'm going to live my life with no worries of my past coming back to haunt me. Life is going to be so blissful, in America. 12 whole years of learning English for this moment. Nothing can stop me either.
Walking towards my seat, I can feel my heart pumping in my chest. Once I sit down, Once I take off, my wish will be complete. The wish to start over. From the beginning. I'm sitting on a plane with foreigners. No one knows me. I know no one here. I breathe in and out before smiling happily. Thinking of my new life. And slowly reality turned into fantasy as I fall into a dream state.
[BackStory?]
Names Ae-Chung. Very confusing name if you ask me. My mother was a fujoshi. So she named me after her favorite bl character Love By Chance Ae. I don't know if she knew I was going to end up gay, but I had a feeling she wished every night I was. Too bad, she died before I could come out. She would've loved it.
I'm the middle child of 5 children. Kongpob, Kyung-Mi, Phana, Hei-Ran. My mom wanted to name all her sons and my dad wanted to name all his daughters so you ended up with 2 Thai names and 2 Korean names. To make it even, they did half and half with my name. My mom won rock paper scissors so Ae came first.
Parented by MyoArak Phala and MyoArak Ye-Joon. I'm a multiracial Asian. My grandma on my mother's side is Japanese married a Thai man. My grandma on my dad's side was Chinese married a Korean man. I wouldn't be surprised if I had every Asian gene in existence.
I've always had a fascination towards Americans. English is considered a universal language. Everyone is taught English and that intrigued me. Ever since the widespread of Kpop came to America we didn't have a lot of foreigners here, it was quite boring. So when foreigners started coming down here, I was most definitely excited. Seeing so many different people every day made me even more interested.
My curiosity definitely turned into an obsession real quick. When I got my first iPhone, I changed my app store to the US server. When I played online games I was always in the US server. Soon I learned their time schedule, and at 15 I took the big step into changing my phone time to EST. Since my first run-in with an American, I definitely developed as an "American". That caused me to become the target of many restless years of being bullied. But that didn't matter to me, I wasn't planning on living my life in Korea. I just needed that small push.
The death of my family was the shove that drove me up the creek. The death of my family scared me out of Korea. Someone was out to make me suffer. I didn't know who. I didn't want to learn who. I just knew Korea wasn't for me. So I ran. I took my inheritance and ran. I needed to disappear. So I transferred. I transferred schools, city, country, continent, life. I left Ae Chung behind. Once I get to America, I need to find a new me.
[AE CHUNG POV]
"Landing at ********** Ohio. Thank you for traveling with ****** Airline."
Hearing the buzzing of the speaker, I slowly woke up. When I looked outside we were already landing. I quickly grabbed my phone and searched up Kyle's @. Before fleeing I had found a form online that he was looking for a roommate near the same college I was going to, so it just ended up working out.
The only thing is, I have no idea what he looks like. We haven't even face time. We've only called. I know it was a rash decision but I had no other choice. I was not going to waste any more time, waiting for another opportunity.
'We are landing. Can you meet me at bagging?'
I waited for a while, the longer it took, the more anxious I became. What if he's not what he says he is and is going to sell me off somewhere? I felt my anxiety grow. I knew I should've thought about this in more detail.
I got interrupted when a flash went off from my phone, notifying me of a notification. When I read the text, I couldn't stop myself from shouting out an alien language. Scaring some of the passengers. I quickly apologized with a flushed face from my embarrassment.
I raised my phone up to my lips and gave it a bunch of pecks. I probably look like a crazy person but I lowkey fell in love. I caught feelings faster than my mom when a new BL came out. I don't really have any particular reasons maybe its because out of all my potential relationships ended up being crazy.
Maybe I fell in love because he was mysterious, or his little snarky comments here and there. Or when he accidentally gives you a compliment and quickly pretends that it wasn't him. He is definitely more normal than I'm used to. It became so unhealthy that just from one text I'm already floating on cloud nine.
'Already here.'