Metafiction

Dear Mom,

First of all, happy birthday! I'm sorry I wasn't able to celebrate in a fancy restaurant. And thank you so much for sending me to such a wonderful place; my experiences in the Philippines were the greatest things that happened to me.

At first when I opened the white wooden door into a hot, steamy, small, but cozy little room, the room was like a hotel; all the furniture was in a right angled order, and nothing was extraordinary about it. The room was utterly clean, without single dust on the floor, and the bed sheets and towels were neatly folded. Apparently in the Philippines, every household owns several housemaids because of the low personnel expenditure.

"Are you saying that I don't have to do my bed or organize my own desk here? Yay! This is amazing!" I cried out loud in joy after listening to my Ajjuma's (the owner of the house I lived in) explanation.

"Sure. In fact, you'll be in trouble if you ever do these tasks yourself. I have to train my maids since some of them are new here."

Except for the fact that it was extremely hot (the temperature reached over 40 degrees Celsius), the place was a paradise for me. There wasn't anyone to scold me or order me to do this or that. Back at home, I had World War Three with you every day, remember? You always tried to find any flaws that I might have made, 24 hours a day. I was delighted to have gotten out of all that.

One day during the six months of my homestay in the Philippines, I caught a really bad cold, as you already know; I couldn't move at all; my body temperature went up to 40 degrees Celsius, but I was still freezing. I skipped school and stayed in my bed all day. At 1 in the afternoon, my roommate came back from school and turned on the air conditioner. I understood her at first, because she was sweating all over, but after a while, I felt even more terrible with extra coughs.

"Hey Sora, could you turn off the air conditioner? I'm freezing here. Please?" I asked just to be polite since I was quite sure that she would gladly turn it off. It was more than obvious that I caught a bad cold and I needed the air conditioner to be turned off, so her answer was totally unexpected.

"You never consider others, do you? You are so selfish, did you know that? I know that you caught a cold, but I live in this room too, and can't you see I'm sweating like crazy? You should really start to learn to consider others too, you know."

I was infuriated with her, but I had no energy to fight, so I just stayed still and fell asleep. Apparently, my cold got worse.

A few days later, I got better. However, this time it was Sora who caught the cold; she must have gotten infected from me. She lay down all day long. Her coughs went on and I felt the strong need to turn off the air conditioner, but I remembered what she had done to me.

Only God knows why Ajjuma had to come into the room at that moment.

"My God, MinSun! Can't you see that Sora caught a terrible cold? And the cold was from you, remember? Now turn off the air conditioner immediately!"

I knew that it was bad, but I didn't want to do it. I knew it was childish, but I felt that it was unfair. I was 13 years old, at the peak of my puberty, so I was rebellious more than ever; I shouted back at her face as loud as I could. She got so mad that she went downstairs and called you. You and Ajjuma talked for quite some time. I tried to eavesdrop your talk from upstairs, but unfortunately, I couldn't catch a thing.

"MinSun, come down and get your mom's call!" shouted Ajjuma.

"Oh, shit," I uttered to myself, assuming that you would shout at me again. "This is my worst day ever."

With an extremely angered face, Ajjuma handed the phone over to me. I took it. I scowled at her for a moment, looked away, and listened to what the telephone had to say. I kept some distance between the phone and my ear since I expected shouting, when I heard a small crying voice from it. I couldn't believe my ear so I pushed the phone against my ear instantly.

"I know. I know you didn't do it on purpose. I know my own daughter, and she couldn't have done it on evil purpose."

"You do?"

"Of course, I know you have a reason to have done that. But MinSun, sometimes, you have to give in to these situations. You're in a foreign country, and in a house that is not your own. You don't have to explain to me what had happened, nor to Ajjuma. She wouldn't try to understand you. I'm on your side, so just go tell Ajjuma that you're sorry and turn off the air conditioner. That's how you can live your life much easier."

You were crying, so was I. It was the first time that I've heard you cry. It was the first time I realized that you were always on my side. My eyes were full of tears, but I didn't want to cry in front of Ajjuma. I put down the phone and ran upstairs into my bathroom. It felt as if someone was poking and opening up my wounded heart. It hurt, so much. I cried until I felt dehydrated, and opened the bathroom door into my room. Sora was sleeping in her bed, buried in multiple sheets. I quietly turned off the air conditioner, pulled out a piece of paper, and began to write this letter for you.

Love, MinSun

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She looked up from the letter, to me. She didn't shout or anything, but I could tell from her eyes that she was quite surprised to see me sitting right beside her while she was reading my letter. She smiled at me, but she didn't say anything. I wished she would break the silence, but she just smiled at me, which started to make me a little uncomfortable. So I spoke out first.

"If you think of me as a daughter who is always rebellious to your thoughts, I am not anymore. After all the years I've been with you, I finally can see the true purpose of all your nagging and scolding. I simply thought you hated me when you scolded me instead of my sister when we had a fight, and I really thought you hated me. In fact, until this moment, I've considered my family useless by the time I grow up and actually get to live on my own. I remember that night when I came home late.

What had really happened that night was I had watched a movie with my friend after lying to you that I would stay and study. It was late, but I didn't answer your calls on purpose because I didn't want to get caught for watching movies and lying to you. You were so worried about me, so you called everyone, including my best friend who was watching the movie with me, the academy that I was supposed to be in, and the police. When the police called me, it was then when I knew I was in big trouble and blamed you for calling the police and making everything so big a deal. I couldn't understand why you would call the police just because I didn't receive my calls for a couple of hours. When I arrived home, you had tears in your red eyes and I remember you saying something about the importance of family and how I should keep in contact especially at night in this dangerous world. I laughed at you inside.

But now, I know. I finally understand what you've been trying to say. It's my first time that I realize that my family is the only one that is going to stand on my side whatever happens to me."