As long as we have consciousness, we will have our own fantasies. It can be fictional, where a prince riding a magnificent white unicorn comes to pick you up and brings you to his happily-ever-after paradise. Some can be morbid and infused with depression. Others can be more of a realistic fantasy, which you can pursue as your life-goal. And my story is just that - a mere fantasy that turned out to be true.
My name is Shizuka Shinomiya and I am 22 years old. I was born in England, but grew up in USA. My Japanese father met my Korean mother when they were in University in England. Father was an exchange student who went to England for two semesters during spring. They got married within five months of relationship, since father had to return back to Japan at the end of summer semester. Shortly after father's return, mother found out she was pregnant with me. I was born without my father being at our side. However, my mother got a permanent job in USA soon after I was born. Even though father applied for a visa to USA as well, he was disqualified. So after me and mother moved to USA, we frequently went to Japan with a visiting visa of one year duration. It took my mother five years to get US citizenship, during when we would alternate place of residence between USA and Japan. We would stay in Japan for a year, and then return back to USA to renew our visa. The process used to take upto six months, during when I attended school in USA. When my father was finally able to move to USA, I was seven. I also have a sister, Miyoko, who was actually born in Japan during the time when we were staying in Japan under visiting visa.
My early childhood education was a complete mess. I stayed in school for half year in USA, then started different grade in Japan during the middle of it's school year. Which is why I was a year younger in American school. When I started to go to college here, I was only 16. My parents decided not to make me repeat a grade in USA when we finally reunited here, so I ended up being too young to live in campus dorm. I had to go to a normal community college near my home until I was 18.
Even though the long distance married relationship and their dedication seemed so nice and pure, my family broke soon after father moved to USA. When Miyoko was born, father insisted that she would live with him, while mother took me back to USA for six months every time. However, I didn't realize that my parents were getting tired of the distant relationship. When I was three or four years old, I remember the fun times I spent with my parents and Miyoko in Japan. We looked like a happy family. But as I grew older, I realized the love they had for eachother was long gone.. They both started to see others despite being married to each-other. There was never a day that I didn't see them fight, which rarely happened when father was still living in Japan. When I was ten, my mother divorced my father. She insisted to bring Miyoko with us, but Miyoko didn't agree. We thought it was because she grew up with father in Japan and felt more connected to Japan than USA. Later on, I learned that my father was living with another woman back in Japan, who took great care of Miyoko as if Miyoko was her own blood-related daughter. Miyoko wanted to think of that lady as her mother rather than her own biological mother.
My father took Miyoko and went back to Japan after the divorce. However, he died less than two years after from a road-accident. I barely kept any touch with Miyoko after father had died. But as far as I know, she was adopted by that lady afterwards. I went to visit Japan ten years later and finally met with Miyoko. She got wasted completely with drugs and boys, with uncertain future and uncertain life. It was just painful to see how devastated my little sister's life had become. But even still, she refused to take any help from me.
I hated my family more after my parents got divorced and father had died. My mother started to live with other men and had couple of unsuccessful marriages. I hated to stay at home, so I tried my best to spend longer days at school. In my highschool, there was an organization where students would volunteer in high-class business and other industry programs and practice networking skills. It required members to travel all around USA during school-breaks and attend programs, auction-event etc. Most of the student in that organization were junior and senior. But I joined during my freshman year so I could avoid being at home. During my senior year, we had to travel to San Francisco to attend an opening ceremony of a newly launched business project by a company called "C & R International." My organization worked as the backstage security volunteer. The organization's mission statement was to help students to network with professionals, so after the opening-ceremony, we could all attend the dinner party to have one-to-one talk with the professionals.
That was where I first saw Jumin Han, the eldest son of the chairman of C & R. Back then, he was just 19. But even still, he looked and acted like a mature person. He came to attend the party with his father and was talking to others so professionally. He was extremely modest and maintained a calm attentive posture the entire time. His gesture, clothing, attitude were elegant to a whole new level, something I had never seen before. I couldn't gather the courage to directly speak to him, but I took note about the company as much as I can from flyers and speeches. Later on, I started to do my research on C & R and followed then on social media in hope to find out more about Jumin Han, who stole my heart away the moment I set my eyes on him.
Soon after I completed my two years in community college and received associate degree, my mother suddenly found another man to marry, who lived in Korea. I was ready to move to University of California, but she pretty much forced me to go to Korea with her to attend her marriage ceremony. Helpless, I went with her to Korea. This happened four years ago, it was my first time going to South Korea. I learned that the person my mother was marrying was her non-related cousin, the brother of mother's sister's husband. I actually didn't know my mother had a sister. Afterall, my family was broken before it had a chance to build up. However, my new father took a liking to me and insisted that I stay with them in Korea and go to a school there. In normal case, I would immediately booked a return ticket back to USA on that very day. However, since I finally got to set my foot in Korea, it was my chance to finally learn about Jumin Han since he lives in Korea as well.
I enrolled in a small university as an international student to complete my remaining two years for the bachelor's degree. I refused to live with my mother, so she rented a small apartment for me near my university. Along with studying, I worked some part-time jobs to support myself in day-to-day life as my mother and step-father paid my tuition. By working as part time, I quickly got hold of Korean language. In about two years, I became fluent. The more time I spent in Korea and experienced working life, more I started to feel like my fantasy about Jumin Han was that of a teenage girl having crush on a celebrity actor.
However, that depressive thought didn't have the chance to sway myself off of my fantasy. Last year on my way back from work, I suddenly received a text from an unknown number, saying that it was from a lost phone. The person gave me an address, but stupid me trusted it and went straight to that address, only to find out that it was related to a fundraising organization. Suddenly an app opened up, a chatroom app. To my shock, I saw Jumin Han as one of the users that were chatting. I felt like my my heart just exploded and everything around my was pink and fluffy. I started to shake from both confusion and excitement, so much that I didn't even flinch when the users decided to invite me to this organization called RFA - Rika's Fundraising Association. I was able to talk to Jumin almost everyday and I realized the similarities we have. Jumin fell in love with me after I gave him my tremendous support. However, I didn't realize he was interested in me from the very beginning due to my interest on taking a challenge of organizing the party. We went into relationship soon after the party, which was like conquering the moon.
It's been a little more than a year I have been a part of the RFA family. Slowly but surely, I have been improving RFA with the support of everyone, especially Jumin. My dream was to meet Jumin, and I was able to not only meet with him, I was able to hold a part in his life. We have been together for a year now, and no doubt we will be together till we grow old. I can surely assure, I am thankful to my mother for forcing me to bring to Korea, since moving to Korea was the best thing that ever happened to me.