It was like any normal day: I wake up, go to school, get berated with peer pressure, come home, and begin homework. The beginning of a new school year was as stale as I had expected. Not through the perspective of my pessimistic mind, I suppose my life was not too bad. Sure, I am aware of the brutality of society, but I knew how to blend and work with others. People knew who I was and did not treat me like a nobody. I believe the ability to blend was an important skill to have, because if you cannot change the society, your only option is to coexist with it. Even with the insight of my high school society, I cannot be sure of the future. Will people continue acting, or will the facades be dropped after reaching adulthood. Life is too unpredictable and it is better to go forward fully prepared.

I prepared myself a nice, warm cup of water and began to work on an essay due next week. In school, I had exceptional grades, and even though I believed tiny letters littered across a piece of paper were useless, it was nice to have—like a trophy of some sort. The beginning of the essay was always the hardest—I had to bully my brain into the mood for writing, and then the first twenty or so ideas are always scrapped. I had to write an essay regarding past foreign relations between America and one other country in the world. The prompt was: Does American interaction with this country apply a positive effect to the world as a whole? I considered choosing China as my country, considering my ethnicity is Chinese, however I did not know any major interactions between the United States and China. I remembered in history we were learning about World War II. Near the end of the war, America dropped two bombs in Japan in order to prevent more American casualties. It would make an interesting essay, and I knew plenty about Japan since my parents had lived there for eight years and taught me a lot about Japanese culture and history.

Two hours in, and I was nearly done with the essay. I finished the last few drops of water in my cup and thought long and hard about how I should conclude the essay. The doorbell rang, and without a second to waste, the door immediately opened. I sighed as I plugged in headphones to my computer, knowing that it would be noisy in a few seconds.

I heard the klunks and oomphs from my bedroom and awaited for her arrival. The door busted open and my sister walked in.

"Hey, Jeff," she said. "Guess what happened today? I talked to David again. It was super awesome, like, he is totally cute after all…"

I sighed again as my sister ranted about her love life. A junior in high school, a year older than me, Alexandria Faan was the queen of our society: top grades, captain of the track team, and beautiful on top of that. Personally, I liked to call her an exception to our society's rules. She did not have to act or create a persona for people to accept her—people fawn over her naturally. However, thanks to her, I was able to build my own reputation, even if it was as Alex's little brother, or the occasional remark of Hey, aren't you related to Alex? It was annoying and stupid, but I would smile and nod, and then pointlessly tell the asker my name, only knowing they will forget it later.

"Like, your advice totally worked. I didn't know David would be kind of a wuss. Like, I only ordered him around a bit and then he stopped being so sassy and was actually pretty cute for once…"

Of course, it was easy to tell. People like lacrosse captain David pretend to act hard to get so more girls would chase after him. After someone breaks through his act, he will probably do whatever you say.

"Mhm… glad to help," I replied.

"What are you working on? In exchange for your help I'll help you edit your paper—"

"No, it's okay, you can go back to your room now, Alex."

"Hey, don't be a David—here, let me read it—" I complied, deeming it too bothersome to argue.

"Hey it's pretty good, bro. You just have some grammar issues here and your quote here is cited wrong—"

"Gee, thanks. Now get out, I have to finish the conclusion."

"Whatever David," she said with the emphasis. "Get downstairs in half an hour, dinner will be ready then."

"Mhm," I replied as she left and shut the door.

I thought long and hard about the conclusion, but after thirty minutes of effort, nothing came into my head, so I saved the document and headed downstairs. My mom was talking to my dad in Chinese as usual, as Alex was setting up the plates for dinner. My mom finished steaming the fish, and brought it over the table as the family sat down to eat.

"Thanks for the meal," my mom said in Japanese.

"Mom, how many times did I tell you to stop with that," I said. "We're not in Japan and we're going to be anytime soon. Besides we're Chinese, shouldn't we burp or something?"

"Don't be like that Jeff. You know Japanese culture really was something for me," my mom replied in Chinese. "You know, we really should go to Japan every once in a while, I miss my third mother that lives there."

"Mom, you know full well, that she isn't your mother; she was just your host family for a while."

"Yes, but even so, she was really kind to us in Japan," my father intervened. "And she even helped me find my job when your mother and I lived there. I heard she was in poor health lately and I am planning to take an extended break to go visit her."

"Hey, make Jeff go, he can take care of her," Alex said. "Remember? There was like a 'study abroad' ad or something at our front door this morning. If I remember, it was to somewhere in Japan. All costs paid and everything!"

"Ha-ha, you should go for the experience, Jeff!" my mom added jokingly. "And on the way you can take care of my mother there!"

The three laughed at the prospect of shipping me off to Japan. But something nudged at me. What if I go to Japan? Will it be a fresh start? Maybe I can meet someone genuine? There's always a chance, right?

My dad looked at me as I had stopped eating and was just staring at my rice. "Jeff, don't tell me you actually wanted to go—"

"I want to go."

All three of them stared at me, astonished.