Chapter One - Yoon

If you felt compelled to ask someone about Yoon, and if by the off chance they knew who she was, they'd tell you she was just about the shyest girl ever to walk the earth. Those few who talked to Yoon would tell you it was probably just a phase, something she'd grow out of. They had been saying that for about eighteen years.

Yoon wasn't one to complain about her shyness, but people were always telling Yoon what she needed to do. "You need to talk more,” her sister would say, but Yoon didn’t feel much like talking. "Or make more friends," her brother told her, but Yoon rather liked being alone."Or at least get a boyfriend.” Her mother said that one quite often.

Yoon always listened politely, but never cared much for what any of them had to say. The only thing she really cared about was being happy, and the one thing that made her happiest was the old Polaroid instant camera her granfather had left her before he passed away. She loved to walk around and snap shots of little things that grabbed her attention, such as an old couple holding hands in a diner, or a small bird playing with a squirell in the park. Then, once the picture had developed, she would fold it into a small origami-like shape and leave it on the ground for someone else to find. Mostly no one found these oddly-shaped treasures, with the exception of a janitor who had found one only as means to remove some gum that had crawled onto the bottom of his shoe. Later that day, having completely forgotten the incident with the gum, the janitor won 86.3 million dollars.

This was, of course, just a coincidence.

On another completely different day, seemingly no different than any other, Yoon was on her way to school when she noticed something odd. As she came upon her usual bus stop, she stopped suddenly as her eyes caught the sight of a nice old lady sitting on a bench. The lady seemed to be half sleeping over what appeared to be a magazine about knitting socks. Apparently there was some new method of sock knitting that allowed double-triangle knit patterns to be sewed in half the time of normal double-triangle knit patterns; it had become all the rage in these sock knitting magazines. Although efficient and ingenious this new method was, it wasn't what had caught Yoon's attention on that cold Monday morning. What surprised her was the nice old lady sitting on her bench.

Yoon had been traveling to this bus stop for over three years and had not once come upon a single person sitting there on that bench. In fact, she had specifically chosen this bus stop because between the hours of eight and nine, she could be completely alone. It was one of the few precious moments in the day when nobody would bother Yoon to tell her what she needed to do.

Yoon sighed and crossed the street.

It wasn't clear what Yoon should do next. Sitting next to people made her rather uncomfortable, but the only other place to sit was on a curb that had big bold black letters on them stating "PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON THIS CURB. THANK YOU." Although a bit distracted to wonder why there had been big bold black letters telling her not to sit on a curb, she reluctantly moved to take a seat

There was little room for Yoon, but she managed to squeeze onto the very edge of the bench, just a few inches away from falling right off. She considered standing until the bus came, but hadn't realized how long of a walk it had been and suddenly thought how nice it felt to be sitting down. So instead Yoon remained there, listening to the old lady snore rather loudly, when it occurred to her what a great morning it was for taking pictures. She pulled out her Polaroid camera and glanced from shop to shop, looking for something that was worth capturing in time.

And that's when it happened. That's when Yoon happened to notice a particular phrase that would change her life forever. Of course you wouldn't think the phrase itself was immediately consequential by any means, and in no way did the words stick out in a way that would suggest to anyone their life was about to change, but nonetheless Yoon's life was about to take a wild turn. These simple, seven-strung together words, whose only meaning up to that point had been to sell washing machines at discounted prices, would now become a part of the single most important picture Yoon would ever take.

Yoon, not knowing how exceptional the picture would prove to be, snapped the photo, made it into a small intricate shape and set it down on the curb, where quite unexpectedly, it disappeared.

“That was strange.”

Then, also unexpectedly, so did Yoon.