I was born to this world surrounded by blood-stained green and white. After I opened my eyes, I knew the beauty of the world for the very first time. Born in the late spring of 2003, the fear filled the east. Tired people blindly avoid greetings from others, and home is the only refuge. People hid behind windows, longing for a bright tomorrow with sunlight. The lullaby sent me to sleep and the whales were flying in my dream. 

When I was seven, a great earthquake occurred in Japan, and I was searching for information about my dad on television. I looked across the screen, and the opposite side of the lens was like hell on earth. Houses were blown into ashes companioned with the shaking, and sadness spread in the air. Demons swept through the cracks in the ground, pulling everyone they saw into hell. Television channels switched by the move of my thumb, and none of us were immune to anxiety.

When I woke up, I got up from the bed. The cold air outside was attached to the window, looking at the monotonous interior of the house. The calendar on the wall was torn off page by page, and the few pages that remained were thin. When the bell rang at eight, I dressed up and put on a mask, welcoming a whole new world once again. It had been two years since I first heard the name of this virus, and people seemed to be used to living like this. I was used to it too. I had trouble seeing who was laughing or talking, knowing who was sad or crying. But in return, I locked my feelings in my body. The breeze blew away the intersection between people, I stood in the middle of the crosswalk. Pedestrians passed by me, coming and going in this lonely city.

A world where humans and tragedies coexisted, miserable and happy. In the midst of loss, we found ways to move on.