Fernweh

Prologue : Parker

PARKER

Pigeons flew across her office multiple times a day, the eagles less so. The metro trains regularly passed from one station to another, every day, in a monotonous manner. High-rise buildings were being built, plans were made to engage the community to participate in, airports welcomed and bid farewell to the countless people, parties were held almost every day of the week. Sydney was a busy city.

She looked down the steel-framed floor-to-ceiling windows, from her office on the 20th floor of her company headquarters. There were some cars and motorcycles parked, and trees were planted in a line with equal distances on both sides of the street. She saw a couple, hand-in-hand, exiting the café on the other side of the street.

Though she modelled for various products, 'Pretty Things' was her dream come true, her little baby. Pretty Things became very popular in the fashion industry, slowly but steadily into the fashion industry. The line introduced new clothes, accessories regularly in line with the current trend, and to Parker's surprise, created trends of its own.

"Excuse me, ma'am." Parker turned around to see her assistant, Ria standing by the door. She walked inside as Parker took her seat. She took out a file and listed out her meetings, business propositions one by one. Parker got the file from her and went through the details. There was one extra schedule that Ria had left out. It was from the IMG.

Her eyes grew with each word she read. She was one among the models who were to walk the Korean Fashion Week which was to be held in a month. 'OMG' was all she thought before her assistant shouted, "Congratulations!". and as if on cue, her staff members rushed into her office.

She was alone after about an hour of 'congrats', from her peers and some of her friends in the industry who were in the know. She then decided to call her mom to let her in on the good news. The initial part of the conversation was good and things went downhill after her mom steered her into another topic, one she tried to avoid every time. The conversation usually went, something like this.

"Parker, it's time for you to get married.", her mom would start.

"No, not again. I'm only 23, Mom!". The conversation then would go back and forth with her mother complaining and her persuading her mother to give her time bringing up reasons which were true most of the time. She wanted to meet Park Jimin, from her favourite band, BTS before she married. Not one soul knew about this wish of hers. But this time, her mother didn't budge with her persuasions.

"Parker, enough is enough. I'm giving you six months and that's it. And by the way, Congrats on the Fashion week, !"

She never could understand how her mother went from being angry and stern one minute to happy and cheerful the next. It reminded her of Nikki, and she realized she had to tell them. She sent them a quick text on their group chat.

The rest of the day was packed with calls from various channels, papers and magazines asking her to elaborate about the Fashion week. The IMG had also requested get to attend a meeting set up for the evening. She returned home late that night. It was about 11:45 PM, and she was scrolling through her chats. She decided she would call the girls tomorrow.