Narrative: Free to Live WHO: Jae Song, Hyuna and Victor Park WHEN: Summer WHERE: Jeju Island
"Get into the picture with your mother," Jae's step-dad directed. She moved to where the her mother stood on the sand by the ocean. Jae and her mother both looked young, and her own mother didn't really look like the mother of a teenager, nor did her step-father look like the father of one. But no one was concerned about who looked his or her own age. The mother and daughter hugged, smiles beaming on their faces as the sun beat down on them. Victor Park brought his cell phone up, focused the picture, and snapped a few photos.
"Now you with umma," Jae said, hurrying over to take the phone from him. In her hands she held it, framing the picture and even repositioning them so the sun wouldn't blind them so much. The two hugged and smiled and posed. Jae snapped the photo.
In a few years, her mother would become human. She would grow old and then one day she would die. She lived a long and happy life, only bearing one child along the way. The child that she held close to her for over three hundred years. Now she could go and live the rest of a human life in peace, knowing her daughter would not be at risk or potentially hunted. Yes, a hunter had traveled to America to find her but Jae was better prepared now. She was no longer in doubt of her own ability. She had overcome.
And now she would continue with her life and the two would part ways. Not forever, but things were to be different now. Jae would no longer be the fox cub that her mother nurtured for so long. Jae would no longer feel ashamed of what she could not do. Three years of St. Margaret's were to thank for that.
Before Jae left, she bid farewell to the friends and teachers she met there. For some it would be a brief separation. She would see Kana and Sara in New York City in a few months. She made sure to spend time with Davian too, giving him a parting gift of a memory foam pillow and nap music (all of it classical but played by her). She also told him he would need to visit her during Thanksgiving. Him and Ambriel together. He was officially invited to their little Thanksgiving feast. Jae also bid farewell to Sorin, telling him if he ever got the chance, he should return to America and he should come visit the performances for her and Vixey.
Eventually she had to go and made sure to thank Dr. Hallowfen but also Mr. Kaden, Mr. Cavanaugh, and others who encouraged her along the way. Those that believed in her and taught her a great deal. Now the goodbyes finished and it was time to go. Jae wasn't ready to leave the school but she also knew she had to. She gave Davian one last, almost bone-crunching hug, before she was in her taxi and gone. She left the school behind her, feeling its absence in her life grow greater with each step she took.
Maybe one day Jae would have a child of her own. If that day ever came, she would certainly send the child there. Not for the same reasons that brought Jae to the school, but because she knew it was a good place for her daughter to learn.
"Let's go get some kimchi," her mother said, linking her arm through hers, and Jae nodded, "Please? I'm starving!"