CHAPTER ONE - THAI RAMEN
THE REALIZATION hit Nouri at an odd and totally unexpected time in her life - the realization that you never really know when you're doing something if it will be the last time that you experience it.
She came to posses this knowledge past ten o'clock on a rainy Friday night during her fifteenth year, as she sat on a sofa in front of her T.V. with a bowl of instant ramen in her lap. It wasn't just any instant ramen, though - this bowl of pre-packaged noodles was Thai instant ramen. The exchange student living in her house that year had brought an abundance of the noodle packets in both shrimp and tom kha gai flavors from her home in Bangkok and had generously shared them with Nouri. They were delicious - far more enjoyable than the bland sixty-cent instant ramen she was used to buying in the States.
As her eyes took in the crime show being displayed on her screen, the audio from the speakers mixing with the dull pit-a-pat of the rain outside, she took in her last forkful of spicy noodles with a sigh of contentment before remembering that she had just finished off the final packet of Thai ramen. There were no more bowls of spicy shrimp or zesty chicken flavored noodles to be had.
She felt an odd pang in her chest as she pondered this. If she had remembered that she had heated up the last remaining package of ramen before finishing it, she surely would have savored it more rather than scarfing it down like a rabid animal. Her mouth was tugged down at the corners as she thought even more: what if that was the last time in her entire life that she would ever eat Thai instant ramen? What if she never experienced the taste of the dish again? She felt as if she had wasted the moment without properly cherishing it, and she wholeheartedly regretted that.
And so, naturally, she began to cry.
Maybe this was an overreaction - she was a fifteen year old hormonal teenage girl, though, so it shouldn't really have been all that surprising - but it wasn't just because of the ramen that the blonde freckled girl began to sob. It was the door that her last bowl of Thai instant noodles had opened in the young girl's mind.
As her parents rushed into the room, doing their best to soothe their young daughter's cries while being completely in the dark as to why she was sobbing into an empty bowl of a sodium filled snack late at night - not to mention her poor Thai exchange sister standing in complete shock and confusion as she took in the sight, all Nouri could think about was the fact that every time she did something, it could very well and possibly be the last time she experienced such a thing.
She was now equipped with the knowledge and deep understanding that life was fleeting and short - each moment spent was a moment she couldn't get back. She should cherish every breath she takes, every sound she hears, every sight that crosses her line of vision because it wasn't a guarantee that anything would ever happen to her again.
Each bowl of Thai ramen could possibly be her last, without her knowing it.
This knowledge was more of a curse than a blessing.
She lived life on the edge - not in a cool way, like the people who did jaw-dropping stunts on motorcycles or climbed to the peak of Mt. Everest in their free time. It was more like she lived life on the edge of her seat, so to speak. Rather than her considerably well-developed outlook on life for a youth still going through the worst of puberty giving her a calm, intellectual presence, it made her jittery, overly excitable, and almost overbearing in some ways.
She wanted people to worry about this the way that she did, but the majority of her peers didn't care about much else other than when the next episode of their favorite T.V. show was coming out or what they were going to wear to their eighth grade graduation ceremony. Which was normal.
Nouri was simply unique.
The year after her ramen-induced, life-changing epiphany, her exchange sister gone and back in Thailand, Nouri's father and mother sat her down in the living room to tell her that they would be moving back to South Korea.
While Nouri and her mother were neither one from the country of South Korea, her father was. He had moved to the States twelve years before - Nouri being three years old at the time.
No, he wasn't her birth father. Nouri's biological father had passed away shortly before her birth, so she hadn't ever met him. So Lin Intak - her mother's husband and the man who had adopted her upon marrying her mother, Jane - was the only father Nouri had ever known, and she adored him just as if he were her biological father. He had never treated her meanly and had raised her as his own. He was a kind and good man, and extremely hard working.
Intak, her father, had moved from Korea to New York all those years ago due to his company relocating him there. It was by chance that he met Jane and Nouri, but they were his family now. Yet, the same company he had worked for had just demoted him.
He would have to go back to Korea.
Why did they take away your position?" Nouri asked in shock as her father informed her of this. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Not to my knowledge." He sighed, rubbing the crease between his eyebrows. "Maybe I wasn't working hard enough."
"That's not possible," Nouri said, agitation growing within her more and more by the second. "You're one of their most dedicated employees. You've stayed hours overtime there, working until you can't even manage to keep an eye open."
"Nouri, I know it's upsetting, but there isn't much that we can do about it," her mother said quietly. She forced a smile. "There is something good coming from it, though. You'll get to experience something completely and totally new when we move to Korea with your father. An entirely new culture. Isn't that exciting?"
It was then that the reality of the situation completely hit Nouri. She was going to be leaving her home - very soon, from the sound of things. Her school, her family, her friends and everything familiar.
She hadn't known it would be her last day walking through her school's hallways that day.
She hadn't cherished the moment.
She glanced at her parents, both of them searching her teary eyes, hoping, praying that she wouldn't be crushed by the drastic turn her life was about to take.
So, for them, Nouri pushed past the tears. She moved to sit between them on the couch and hugged them close, assuring them that she was so excited and that she couldn't wait. She avoided focusing on her wasted moments, and tried focusing on the moments to come.
She did it for her parent's sake. They meant the world to her.
Three years filled with plane rides, Korean language classes, and four different apartments later, Nouri found herself standing alone in her place of employment - a coffee shop named Cocobean located in a rather loud and disorderly area of Seoul. Having just finished high school that spring, she was expected by those around her to be in college now that it was fall. So why was she here, sweeping the dusty floors of a cafe in the morning instead of attending classes somewhere?
Well, that demotion three years before had hurt her family more than anticipated.
Her father and mother had always worked hard to support their small family. They had never been rich, but had never really been in financial distress either. Until the demotion that had sent them to Korea, that is.
Although they tried to keep it from her at first, Nouri knew that her parents struggled. It didn't make any sense to her. They worked so hard, so tirelessly, for so little in return. It bothered her to the core.
After walking across the stage at her graduation ceremony, her smiling eyes had sought out her parents in the crowd. Her mother's white-blonde hair - identical to her own - wasn't difficult to spot. Both of her parent's had tears in their eyes, but her mother was sobbing. It wasn't just average, joyful tears at seeing her daughter finish high school. There was something else there; a deep, melancholy basis to those sobs.
It was then that Nouri knew for sure she wouldn't be going to college.
She assured her weeping mother and guilt-stricken father later that evening - as they celebrated her graduation by ordering some slightly more expensive takeout for dinner - that it was okay. It wasn't their fault. She didn't have to go to college to be happy, anyways.
Her parents knew that getting a degree had always been an important part of her life goals. They saw through her charade, but she kept it up anyways.
Soon after her high school graduation, she had landed a not-so-stunning job as a barista at the Cocobean shop. The job wasn't awful - the only part that gave her a real struggle was the fact that, although she had spent a lot of time learning the Korean language when she moved to the country, there was still a bit of a language barrier there as she wasn't the greatest at it. Some days could be admittedly draining, especially when she would let her mind wander.
What was she doing all of this for? This endless cycle of coffee stains, nameless faces, and tired parents?
She was no longer living on the edge of her seat. Her days had become dull - she lacked the cherish-able moments that she used to be so afraid of taking for granted.
Oh, how she wished that her next bowl of Thai ramen would come into her gray life.