Her mother had cried. “Too dangerous.” Her friends had laughed. “Who travels alone? That’s sad.” But Jia had just smiled, a small, secret curve of her lips. She wanted to find out who she was without the echo of someone else’s opinion.
Jia Lissa had always been part of a we. A sister, a daughter, a teammate, a face in a crowd of faces. But the we had a weight. It was a warm, familiar weight—like a heavy winter coat—but it pressed on her shoulders just the same. jia lissa travelling alone
The trip wasn't all epiphanies. There were lonely dinners. There was a night in a capsule hotel where the hum of the vents felt like a heartbeat she couldn't match. There was a moment on a bullet train, watching Mount Fuji slide by, when she felt a sharp, sudden ache for her sister’s stupid jokes. She let the tears come. Then she wiped them away. Her mother had cried