Dérive

Chapter One — 2017 - The Trainee

Café Dérive, a café in the streets of Seoul. A hole in the wall, not known as much for it’s coffee or tea, but for it’s booths.

The sign behind your mother’s café counter has said it for as long as you can remember, etched into dark wood and softened by age.

“One session. One voice. Once a year.

No names. No faces. No promises.”

Most people take pictures of it, think it’s charming, a gimmick with soul. But you’ve lived under the rules for 2 years, and they’ve never once felt like a game.

You’ve seen people change in the booths. Not quickly. Not magically. But you’ve seen shoulders straighten, seen tears dry, seen strangers walk out like they’re carrying themselves a little more gently. You’ve seen people smile, not fake smiles, not the kind when someone asks you for a photo, or when you pretend like something isn’t bothering you, but the kind that seems to pull from somewhere buried and brave.

You were never supposed to be in the booths.

But then the wind is curling against the windows, and you’re wiping crumbs off the counter when the door swings open and everything in the café seems to hush.

She’s small. That’s the first thing you notice. Not short, exactly, just… slight. Like she’s been growing up too fast to notice the pieces of herself still catching up. Her clothes hang off her like she borrowed them from an older sibling, oversized hoodie, jeans cuffed messily above her sneakers. Her baseball cap is tugged low over her face, the bill nearly shadowing her entirely. But it doesn’t matter.

Because it’s her eyes.

Just before she heads toward the back booths, she glances around the café, and you catch them, just for a second. Wide, dark, rimmed in something that looks too painful. Exhaustion.

Not the sleepy kind. The soul kind.

You move before you think about it.

The booths are sacred. Your mom’s told you that more than once. People come here to pour their hearts into a stranger, to speak freely behind the safety of wood and curtain and rule. It’s not a place for eavesdropping. But the opposite booth is empty, and something inside you stirs, a quiet kind of ache, and before you realize what you’re doing, you’re slipping quietly into Booth A, opposite the one she just entered.

The red light turns on above the divider. The session begins.

Silence.

You sit with your hands folded in your lap, listening to the thump of your own pulse in your ears. The divider between you is smooth and solid, save for the frosted glass window that allows only the softest light through.

Then:

“Is someone there?”

Her voice is uncertain. Tired.

“Yes,” you say. Softly. Gently.

A pause.

“I wasn’t sure anyone would come.” Her voice is steadier now, but still low. “I almost hoped no one would.”

You wait.

Then, as if a dam quietly broke, she says, “I don’t think I know who I am anymore.”

It lands in the silence like a confession. You don’t answer, at least not with words. You simply… stay. That’s enough.

She exhales shakily. “I’m not supposed to say anything, I know. No names. No promises. But I need to say something, or I’ll lose my mind.”

You let her. You feel as if she’d crumble if you made her stop.

“I’ve been training to be someone, something, since I was ten. For a stage. For a dream that stopped feeling like mine a long time ago.”

You don’t speak. You let the space hold her.

“They say I’m lucky. That girls would kill for this. That I should be grateful. And maybe I was, at first. Maybe I still am, sometimes. But it feels like… like my skin is made of glass, and everyone’s watching, waiting for it to crack.”

You can almost hear the way her hands twist in her lap. The way she’s probably chewing her lip raw.

“They use me as the good example, that I’m the mature one. All they’re saying is I should wait till no one is around to cry. They time how long I sleep. How much I eat. How often I smile. They tell me to be effortless while watching everything I do.”

Still, you don’t interrupt.

“I miss forgetting what I look like. I miss waking up without dread. I miss—” her voice falters, “—feeling like a person.”

You lean forward slightly.

“It’s okay to miss yourself,” you say.

She pauses.

And then: “Why does that make me feel guilty?”

“Because they’ve made you think being human is a flaw.”

Silence, again. Not heavy. Just… full.

“I’m thirteen,” she says after a long moment. Her voice is quieter now. “I should be having fun with my friends after school. I shouldn’t be this tired. I shouldn’t be afraid to grow older.”

You feel your breath catch in your chest.

You know you’re not supposed to, but you couldn’t catch the words before it left your throat.

“I’m thirteen too.”

You don’t feel the same as her, not exactly. Your life is still books and awkward school projects and warm drinks handed to regulars who know your name. But something in the way she speaks, like she’s been hollowed out and painted over, makes you feel older just listening to her.

“I thought chasing a dream meant being happy,” she says. “But all I feel is pressure. I don’t get to fail. I don’t even get to cry.”