Road Trip

Chapter 6

"Honeeeey!!!’

Jihan almost dropped her phone on the floor when her mom’s voice suddenly blared from the device, deafening her for a good five seconds. She fumbled for it before it fell, shaking her head as she returned the thing to her ear.

‘I’m so glad you called! Your dad and I miss you so much! Where are you now? Are you having fun? Did you get us souvenirs?!’ Her mom continued without missing a beat.

She wanted to roll her eyes from her mother’s silliness, but she did miss her very much, and it was kind of her fault for not calling often.

“Yes, hi mom,” she finally said, “I miss you and dad too. And I’m here at Paris.”

‘Oh, you went back? Weren’t you there months ago?’

“Well, uh, I kind of… didn’t leave.”

Her mom had become quiet after that, probably still processing what she had said.

‘I thought you were gonna travel around?’

“I am—well, was, but something really unexpected happened and now I’m actually working here!”

‘I… don’t get it.’

Jihan then started to tell everything that happened when she arrived at Paris, starting from the moment she landed at the airport. She excitedly narrated her first encounter with Madame Cosette and how she ended up being her stylist, finally explaining how she got the stint and why she was still in France after staying for a few months already.

“And now I’m being paid for making people wear nice clothes,” she ended with a giggle.

‘Well, you’ve always had nice style, sweetie, so I’m not surprised.’

“Aaaaww! Thanks, mom!”

‘So where are you staying now? Don’t tell me you’re still staying at the hotel? That would be too expensive even if you’re getting paid now.’

Jihan closed her eyes tightly and grimaced.

She was hoping that her mother wouldn’t bring that up, since she had been trying so hard to omit that one small detail from all of her stories. Mother’s instincts, she thought, but then again she shouldn’t have kept it from the older woman.

With a dramatic sigh, Jihan prepared herself from being massively teased for the rest of her life.

“Uh, well… About that…”

 

A few months ago…

The dinner she had was just lovely, and the company a whole lot more, so Jihan thoroughly enjoyed herself, felt really good about everything that just happened.

She never thought that Hyewon would be right, though.

When Jihan left the country, it wasn’t on her mind to look for something new—she just really wanted to travel, to see the world. But it just came and sprung up on her in the most random of times, forcing her to act without much thinking. It did felt exhilarating; that much she couldn’t deny.

All her life, she had done nothing else but work in her family’s company, but she excelled at it. It was perfect, to say the least—she was really perfect in that job, in that whole setting—but it was only that; there was nothing else. Jihan had never thought of it as boring because that’s what she was used to. She never looked for anything else either, there was no need for that, she thought before.