Chapter One

"I'm not going."

Nineteen-year-old Chris Chan sits at their cramped dinner table with a scowl, watching his mother cutting through the pile of cabbage and feeling the dread creep up inside his stomach. The old fan keeps on whirring above their heads, creaking with every cycle and Chis is surprised it hasn't given out from the rust yet. The kitchen is small and unevenly painted in bright turquoise, with splotches of cement where they'd run out of paint, the kitchen counters made out of wood and looking worn with each passing day. Cupboards are stacked in the left corner of the kitchen, creating a small semi-circular alcove where the stove and microwave is found, the oven tucked right underneath. The smell of incense is in the air, the residue of his mother's prayers early morning.

Summer is close, Chris can feel the warmth seeping through his bones and he should've ben ecstatic at the thought of spending his last bout of freedom attending countless frat parties, drinking till the sun came up and walking through life in a mellow alcohol-induced haze. That is the perfect summer that Chris had dreamed of.

Not this.

"You are, and there's no arguing."

"But I don't get it!" he explodes, a vein popping in his forehead, "why?! This is going to be my last vacation! Ever! Why do I have to go waste it in a fucking rice field in the middle of nowhere?"

"Because your father said so, and he believes it's the best for you," Mrs Chan says simply, matters closed. That's how it usually is whenever his father is concerned. What Mr Chan says, Mr Chan gets, even if that means jeopardizing Chris's entire summer plans.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Chris mutters, earning him a whack on the back of his head with the morning newspaper. His mother draws back, eyebrows furrowed and shaking her head at him in disappointment, "maybe that little break will clean out your mouth as well. God knows you need it."

It's incredible how much power his father holds over the Chan household, though it isn't surprising considering that Chris is technically living under his roof. Growing up in a Chinese family in a neighbourhood filled with immigrants influenced by the Western ideals, it is no surprise that Chris is by no means, the most loyal to his Asian heritage. Despite his parents constantly pushing him towards his Chinese peers and activities where most kids were fluent in Mandarin, it seemed to have done Chris more bad than good. In retaliation, he'd refuse to speak Mandarin or 'Hakka' at home, always answering in English until he was forced to. At school, he'd hang out with the 'cool kids' and tease the ones who had a 'funny english' despite the fact that Chris had more in common with them than he'd like to admit.

"Wait; where exactly are you going?" his friend, Cameron, belts into the phone at his statement,

"I'm going to one grandpa's house apparently. Haven't seen him in ten years. The dude apparently owns a rice field."

"But Chris, man, what are you going to do?! This is our last chance to be young! This is the last ever summer break you're gonna have without work, or internships, or--"

"I know that," Chris interrupts with a roll of his eyes before his friend can continue. God knows how awful it feels already, seeing his clothes already being packed into one of his father's old and dusty duffel bags. It is a faded emerald green in colour, with red stripes along the zip. Chris assumes that the older man had probably received it as a gift from one of his great aunts, considering how it's almost falling apart at the seams.

"What did you do that was so bad?" Cameron asks with indignation, "don't tell me you took his car without permission again--"

"No. Nothing like that." With a sigh, the young Chinese man decides to recite off the story once more. There had been a family dinner a few days ago where all the cousins and the extended family had been invited. He only had bad memories where his cousins were concerned; they were all smart, driven by education and the successful praise that their parents would shower upon them, and it was in that same dinner that Chris had decided to make his opinion known.

"There's really nothing that special about you going into medical school," Chris had told one of his cousins of the same age as he was. She was petite in size and they couldn't have looked more different if they tried, lest for the same upward tilt of their almond eyes and the shape of their fine eyebrows, "wasn't it expected of you? Considering that's the thing your parents want you to do?"

His father had immediately picked upon his tone, "Chris," he'd called out from the opposite end of the table, "be quiet. That's not a nice way to speak to Emily when she's received a distinction," he'd then turned to Emily's father with a gracious, all too polite grin and lifted his glass as a toast, "I must say, congratulations for your daughter's success. Really. She's going to make our family proud."

That was when Chris made a noise at the back of his throat, mumbling something along the lines of "as if" under his breath.

That had been the last straw apparently. Mr. Chan's smile had kept frozen throughout the rest of their dinner, only breaking the moment Chris had stepped through the Chan's family foyer.

"You're gonna miss all the parties! Andre's even bringing some girls up from the West this weekend!" Cameron's voice is quick to bring Chris back to reality, only for him to answer, "I'll be gone by this weekend."

He dumps another pair of shorts into the duffel bag, glancing over his shoulder at the Chinese calendar marked with the date of his departure. He only has two days left in town and as he presents that sour news to Cameron, the latter huffs in frustration, "nothing's open till late during the week though."

Cameron has a point, and Chris is in too saddening spirits to keep up the jovial tone of his call. So he makes up an excuse about having to help his mom before hanging up and falling face-first atop his bed with a resigned sigh.

Three months. Three months of torture and living under a rock while his friends would be out partying till the sun comes up.

Chris groans, hand falling over his face. How in the world is he going to survive three months? In a rice field?