Found my world in a small town | Winrina

Chapter 1- A New World

Christmas had always been Minjeongs favorite holiday.

She loved how happy people got around Christmas time, how they seemed to have a lighter step, practically bouncing through the streets. She loved all the happy, smiley faces and the people greeting each other in the shops. She truly enjoyed the Christmas songs, even the cheesy ones and the Christmas lights and decorations in all the streets.

But what she loved most about the Christmas season was Christmas Eve. Her whole family would get together for Christmas, every single cousin and all the second-degree aunts and uncles would come to eat dinner and share presents on the 25th; but on Christmas Eve, it was just her and her parents.

They would sit down in their living room together, putting on some kind of cheesy movie and drink tea or hot chocolate. They'd turn off the big lights, the room being only lit by the TV and some candles that Minjeongs mother - Taeyeon- placed all over every available surface. When Minjeong was younger, she would get to open one present - just one - on Christmas Eve but it really was not about the gifts, it had never been. She enjoyed giving presents to other people far more than she enjoyed receiving them, just to see the sparkle in people's eyes when they got excited for the content of their gift.

Still, for her, it was more about getting together and enjoying the time they had, putting all conflict aside and simply enjoying each other's company. Talking about random things, living in the moment, a little calm in the rushed and hectic world. It made her feel happy and at peace with life. 

This year however, everything had been different. 

The atmosphere was tense, unspoken words lingering in the air between Minjeong and her parents.

 Minjeong knew her parents were disappointed in her choices. It was not that they did not love her, they truly did care about their daughter and only child. Maybe they even loved her a little bit too much. Her mother and father wanted her to have a good life with a good job and dropping out of college after just one semester was not really what you called 'academic success'. 

But Minjeong had been so unhappy with her psychology major that she did not see any other opportunity. So she had started writing applications to other colleges with different majors and had finally dropped out at the end of her first semester. Her parents were furious, understandably. Minjeong still lived with them, since she had to leave the college campus room, of course. The disappointed looks Taeyeon shot her every time she was in the same room as her and the way Baekyun would shake his head every once in a while really had not made December the most pleasant month.

Her father, Baekyun, was a quite well-known biologist who specialized in plants of all kinds. Together with Taeyeon, he had written a few books on plants and ecosystems of all kinds. So naturally, when an old friend had knocked on his door (well, called on his phone) and asked him to write a book about Canadian wildlife together, Baekyun just had to accept that offer immediately.

And well, that was the reason why Minjeong was sitting in a plane this very moment, waiting for the huge metal-bird to finally land.

She had flown twice before, once to and back from Korea for the holidays and once to Busan as a class trip in her senior year, but it still made her a little nervous. Being so high up in the air, relying on nothing but some guy's huge invention, breathing the only oxygen left at this height, always in danger of possibly falling down from the sky - it really was not all that great.

They had travelled all across the Asia so far, from their home in Seoul all the way up near North America- the Canadian border. The friend from Canada lived in a small village in British Columbia with his family. Around this time of the year, they were most likely buried in snow. Minjeong snapped out of her thoughts when the plane sank down a few feet, making her stomach jump. She made a little, surprised noise, thus alerting her mother who was sitting next to her.