(Backdated to 28/01/16)
The creaking of her room’s door signalled that her parents had just done their last check on her and had retired to their bedroom for the night. It was a routine of theirs to check on her and she knew she couldn’t blame them. When she was younger, she often disappeared without informing them for hours and when she returned home, they would often be met with the sight of her dirty form or an ancient looking thing in her grasp. This would then be followed by an earful and being grounded for a week or so. Being grounded never worked on her though. She always found a way to slip past them and go missing for a few hours again. Sometimes she would be fortunate enough to return home before them and act like she had been there all along.
Don’t get her wrong, it was not her intention to give them a panic attack. She simply kept forgetting to inform them whenever she left, and she was blaming the spirits for it. They were impatient creatures asking for her help and constantly pestering her when she refused. It was highly impossible to say no to them. With barely enough sleep each night, her expression was one of a constant daze which earned her the nickname ‘zombie’ at the private school she attended. Her mind wandered off frequently and sometimes she would even pass out in the middle of class. This triggered her social anxiety and thus the reason she had no friends. No one liked her anyways.
‘No one but Avi.’ Yuri smiled faintly. The two had started chatting online through her public journal, one she had started after becoming a model. They had many things in common, thus why Yuri was leaving her parents. She wanted to meet this girl that she connected so well with. Her very first true friend.
Yuri quickly reopened her laptop that she had shut abruptly upon hearing her incoming parents.
‘Hey, what’s your address?’ Fingers flew across the keypad pressing buttons precisely and efficiently before moving the cursor to the send button.
Closing her laptop once more, Yuri slips out of her bed with it, grabs her readily packed backpack hidden within her wardrobe, slipping her laptop in, and makes her way out of the now silent apartment with her iphone as the only source of light. She easily locates the main door without knocking into any furniture and locks the door behind her with the barest of noise. Doing it countless times had given her plenty experience. It was a wonder why her parents had not double pad locked the door and hid the key with her slipping out every so often.
The ex-model stared at the door, before bowing at a ninety-degree angle and running off.
Tomorrow, in the early hours of the morning, her foster parents would enter her room ready to greet her only to find a note left on an unmade bed instead of their only adopted child. When they finally read the note, one would be furious while the other weeped at the disappearance of their adopted child. An unfaithful one at that.
‘ Dear Mr & Mrs Lee,
You were unfortunate to have picked me. For that, I’m sorry. I have left a little gift for you in your bank account. It is not as much as you have spent on me but please take it and take in another. One more worthy of your care and love to replace this unfaithful child of yours.
I will seek you out one day, even if you might not want to see me, but until that day comes… please take care.
Lee Hei-ran ’
