Mitosis

Interphase

I. Interphase

It all started with mitosis.

Zhen Wang was born in China in early May in 1996. She was a typical 18-year-old Asian girl with slant eyes and raven straight hair. She had those nearly black eyes that made it rough for others to distinguish her pupils. She was a native speaker of Chinese, obviously, but also very fluent in English. Her dream was to visit England one day, specifically London, and spend the rest of her life there. Her school's language education wasn't enough to get a proper level of English, so she improved it online and spoke native speakers there. Yet she carried a hint of her Chinese accent beneath her English no matter how many times she tried to get rid of it.

She had two brothers, one elder and one younger. She was getting along with both of them and loved them to bits, they had a different bond. They had never been away from China, even though they wished to visit the world. Languages were like the talent genes of Wang family. Zhen's elder brother knew Spanish and the younger one could speak Arabic and a bit Italian. No one tried to teach one of these languages to one another though - which was quite odd. Wangs were various in many possible ways and Zhen admired her family for that. Both of her parents were uneducated, yet they were down-to-earth and logical. Zhen thought their wonder of learning led their children to learn and be a part of the world rather than being only a part of China. All of them managed to bake themselves in life's hot oven.

Her family was an average Chinese one, therefore they couldn't afford the money Zhen needed for going abroad.

Thus she collected the money by working part-time jobs in summers and turning all the opportunities she had into money. She finally managed to collect the necessary money to afford the ideal London trip.

Her parents gladly allowed Zhen to make her dream come true as long as she did it all by herself. There was only one thing they wanted from their daughter as a condition - not to fall in love with someone there. Because they were so affiliated to their culture, they always desired Zhen to be married to a local man. However, if Zhen found a foreign boy there and got fond of him, it would mean their plans would be thrown to the bin. So they warned their daughter in a well-mannered and totally kind way.

There was also another thing they were worried about Zhen finding a foreign boy to wed. It meant she would move there - for they knew of their daughter's wish to live in another country - and she would be away from them. They didn't want that, they wanted to have their daughter by their side as much as possible.

"Zhen, my darling," Her mother started in Chinese. "We'll let you go visit London but on one condition."

Zhen was ready to accept anything only if it meant she would go there. So she nodded willingly, as if the condition didn't need to be said, because she had already agreed to it before even hearing her mother out.

Her mother's eyes met her father's and they exchanged looks for a brief moment - it was still her mother's turn to avow the decision. "Try not to fall in love there." she muttered, nailing a sincere and demanding smile on her small face. They weren't unthoughtful parents, they surely understood the meaning of falling in love. But they wanted Zhen to be realistic, too, because love would drag her down wherever it wished and she might've gotten lost along the way.

They didn't believe in the sincerity of love that happened in a very limited time.

Zhen first looked at her father, who was listening to them silently but knowingly, then her mother whose smile had still remained on her face. She thought for a while if she could control her heart in London. She never planned to fall in love with someone, nor hadn't she fallen in love with anyone yet. But it never meant it'd not happen there.