Her heart's beating really fast, and her knees? They feel like water ready to merge with the ocean and float away. She wanted to float away… away from this mess.
But she was right there, standing behind the huge glass walls that separated her from the insides of the airport. That foreign smell of the airport stung her nose and she wiped it with her long sleeved woolen shirt.
Her shoulder felt a slight weight as her father's hand gently patted her. She looked up at him and saw that he was crying too. There was a dry tear right under his left eye that he had forgotten to wipe.
"I don't want her to go, dad…" she sniffled like a 5-year-old, even though she was 12 years past that age. "I know I'm asking this for the millionth time… please, is there any way to bring her back?"
Her dad wrapped his arm around his daughter's shoulder and held her close. He didn't say a word because he didn't know what to say. They both knew there was no other option left than for her to leave.
She looked through the glass and watched her pull her luggage on the escalator that took her to the gates on the upper floors. She was in travel clothing, skinny grey jeans, a red top and a black cardigan to keep her warm. She had cut her hair short to look like a Westerner, at least a bit. But her slightly slanted eyes and her full pink lips gave away her true ethnicity. No amount of alteration or makeup could change that.
She turned around and tried to spot her family in the crowd standing outside the airport. Haruki lifted her hand and tried to stand out so that her mother could see her.
Haruki Matsuo was a descendant of a family where shortness was the middle name. Her father was short for the normal male standards, and so was her grandmother and grandfather. Years ago, when Haruki's dad finished his graduation, his family had been depressed when they heard that their son had returned from college with a… shh… a girl!
But Haruki's dad didn't back down. He brought her back from the college for a simple dinner with his family. And how the tables turned when his parents found out that this girl was a tall one. Being pretty was also a bonus.
The Matsuo family started to grow hopes of finally having a tall child in the family… "It would end the curse bestowed upon us once and for all," Haruki's grandfather had said.
And so, on the dark dreary night of August 11th, 2004, in a private hospital behind a huge estate, in ward 203, a baby girl was born from Mrs Matsuo's cradle.
Her cries were like melodies to the Matsuo family and they were eager to see what this baby looked like. Cute, fleshy and very nice eyes! The family had hope. But Mr Matsuo and Mrs Matsuo were the happiest of them all.
Haruki grew up in her grandparents house with a lot of eyes watching her. In the early years of her life, she grew up not seeing her parents around much, but her grandparents.
And they ensured that she drank a lot of milk, ate her food properly and didn't slouch when she sat. All so that she could grow up to become a tall proud lady like her mother. It was very rare to have ladies like that in pure blood Asian families such as the Matsuo's.
Haruki got her periods at age 13, and the grandmother of the house started getting worried. She was still only 155 cm tall.
Grandma Matsuo called Haruki's mother and told her the news. Her mother was overjoyed to hear that her daughter had grown up.
"Ichi-chan, that's not the issue here. Our Haruki now only has 2 or 3 more years to grow and she is not even your height."
Mrs Matsuo couldn't help but laugh through the phone. "She will grow at her own pace, mother. Let her go play for now."
But the grandmother did not end the call. She was an old woman by now, and her hair was like the clouds on a spring day. White, stringy and serene. Her left eye had a cataract by now too and it probably made her very frustrated. But nobody knows how to explain what she said next.
"You tricked us didn't you?" There was malice in her voice. "You tricked us with your height and gave us false hope! I always told my son to be wary of ladies like you, you even tricked our entire family! Who wants this child now? Take her away, we cared for her for 12 whole years!"
Ichiyaka Matsuo couldn't believe what she was hearing through the phone. "What?" she could only stammer. "What are you saying?"
"We did our best to bring your Haru up and sacrificed everything for her. But she is short! Just like the rest of the family, you were of no use, you ***" More insane words followed that grandma Matsuo had picked up from her childhood living next to the military.
Ichiyaka started crying at this sudden outburst. Her husband was right next to her and he heard it all. He snatched the phone from his wife's hand and yelled into the phone, "Mother, can you shut up?" And he ended the call.
Ichiyaka was still very stricken at those words. She sat on the bed in their hotel and looked up at her husband with pained eyes. "Did you marry me only for my height?"
He sat down on the bed next to her. "You really mean to ask me that question?"
Ichiyaka then shook her head, "Sorry." She trusted him, and she knew that he married her for her, otherwise he wouldn't be doing all this for her. Even abandoning their daughter back home.
Daichi Matsuo stroked her head gently, "I'm sorry you had to hear that. She's old and probably gone crazy. Don't mind her."
"Haruki…" Ichiyaka cried, her mother-in-law's words replaying in her mind no matter what. "I miss her."
It was those words that struck something in Daichi's heart. That brought him back to the present. They had left their daughter 1 year after she had been born and had gone abroad for Ichiyaka's job. But not even once had they both taught about Haruki's future with her actual parents. Will she even recognise them?
"We are such bad parents," Daichi and Ichiyaka said at the same time. Then they leaned back and looked at each other in surprise and smiled slightly. But by then, Daichi had decided. "Hey, let's leave this place."
"What?"
Daichi wiped the tears from his wife's eyes. "Yeah, let's pause this for now. You know that house back in our home land that I kept on hold a few years ago. Let's buy that and move in with our Haru."
"Are you serious?" Ichayaka asked, her heart filling with unknown happiness but also breaking at the same time. Leaving this foreign country would mean stopping her career and dropping everything.
It was a hard decision to make, and it took the couple 2 months to properly decide. The threats from Grandma Matsuo started getting more frequent. On some days, she even called in the middle of the night so that Grandpa Matsuo wouldn't snatch the phone away from her hands and scream, "Stop being so stupid!"
So in the end, by the time Haruki's 14th birthday came close, Ichiyaka and Daichi were boarding the plane back home, for good.