Blog

I looked at him in surprise. “Is it that obvious?”

Jungkook looked me up and down. “No one from here wears clothes like that.”

“What would you rather I be wearing?  This?” I asked, reaching for my coat.  I unbuttoned it and pulled it off, revealing my short top underneath.  The bright oranges and pinks of the shirt made it stand out even more in the entirely white room.

His eyes widened. “Where on earth are you from?  I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“Obviously,” I shrugged my coat back on. “I’m from Chanda.”

“Chanda?  No way are you from Chanda.  There’s an invisible wall between here and there.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Lumi emerged from the office a moment later, Tae hot on her heels.

“See you later,” she said shortly before leaving the inn.  Tae had a stupid grin permanently glued on his face.  He turned to me.

“You still want that room?”

——————–

The room was far nicer than I’d expected.  You can’t blame me, really.  The entire town was made solely from that white stuff.  That I still didn’t know the name of.  Tae had left me a change of clothes on the bed as well as a note.

“I hope you can wear these clothes without freezing yourself.  I figured it would be best to help you blend in since how you got here would raise suspicion.  If you need anything, please feel free to ask me or Jungkook. – Tae”

I had so many questions, but at this point, I was absolutely exhausted from my journey.  Not to mention the clothes I was wearing were starting to feel weird.  I took them off as well as the clothes I was used to wearing at home and changed into the clothes Tae had left.

The transparent things that they had used to make the windows of the building seemed to make a good mirror, so I studied myself in one of the windows.  This outfit was weird.  The shirt was loose and flowy, but the pants were rather form-fitting.  They were made out of a material I didn’t recognize.

I looked past my reflection to look outside.  There were two boys outside tossing some items to each other as they filled bins with them.  It looked like they were probably selling food.  I’d have to go check that out in the morning after I’d eaten.

——————–

I was woken the next morning with a gentle knock on my door as the sun began to peek through my windows.  Still half asleep, I stumbled out of bed to answer the door.

“Breakfast starts in twenty minutes,” Jungkook informed me before turning on his heel and heading back down the hall.

I stared after him, still not entirely sure what was going on.  I closed my door and laid down on the bed again.  Glancing outside, I noticed the same two boys from last night both eating what looked to be pieces of fruit.  It was then that I realized the only thing I’d eaten yesterday had been the sandwich Tae had given me.  I rolled out of bed in search of my bag.  Surely that apple was still in there.

To my relief, it was.  I sunk my teeth into it hungrily.  Why on earth had I not eaten anything else last night?  Of course, I had gone to bed at an earlier hour than I usually did, and I had eaten a sandwich right before, so maybe that was why.

Before I knew it, I had inhaled the entire apple.  I decided it would be best to go out for breakfast now.  There was one other person in the lobby.  It was a girl with light blonde hair.  Just like the rest of the girls here.  She looked up at me and smiled.

“Hi there.  I’m Indra.  Who are you?”

“Odelle.”

“That’s a pretty name!  What brings you here?”

“Um…curiosity, I guess.”

“Ah, of course.  I’m from one of the villages at the edge of Alba.  The ice water out there can be scary sometimes.  It’s washed down a few of our walls.  I had never been anywhere else before, so I thought I’d come visit here.”

“Oh.  That’s nice,” I offered, not sure what else to say.

I thought the conversation would stop there, but Indra seemed to want to tell me every single detail of her life.

“One of the boys I met in the village last night is the cutest!  He was trying to sell me some plums.  I bought ten.”

Ten?  Did this girl even like plums?  Who bought that many fruits at once?  Come to think of it, what even were plums?

I decided not to ask.  It would probably make me look insane.  Thankfully, Tae showed up with breakfast a minute later, so I didn’t have to come up with a response.  He set down in front of me a carved wooden bowl filled with what I could only assume was an assortment of fruit.

This place fascinated me.  At home, the popular thing to eat for breakfast was toast topped with avocado spread and a million different spices I couldn’t name.  Another breakfast item had simply been roasted coconut.

I couldn’t tell you the name of any single item I’d eaten that morning, but one thing was for sure, it was way better than eating spiced avocado toast.