Promotion

"Her eyes, her smile, her touch, her kiss, her soft hair, and everything makes me fall for her every day. I never imagined falling in love with someone; who has a cocky attitude and who is opposite my character. I crave everything I used to hate in her.

A year ago, I was unwilling to move to South Korea, and now I'm not ready to leave South Korea. I guess this is what destiny is all meant to be"

I'm Mia, 26, from India, living with my mother and elder brother. I work as a Public Relations Manager for a company called FLASH. It is an advertising company; that expanded internationally. I was happy, and my life was going well until...

PRESENT

Just as every day, I got up, showered, put on a nice outfit, had breakfast with my family and went to the office.

After reaching the office, I straight up to my best friend Rita and shared a bar of chocolate with her. We both are childhood friends. Rita was an amiable and outgoing personality whereas, I'm impatient and a homebody.

She likes to hang out in new places with me, and I try to keep my ass at home. We work for the same company in the same department. She makes me comfortable with the outside world.

We both were talking and bickering about going out for a night party when,

"Mia and Rita, you were called by the HR Manager."

Our co-worker said.

We were looking at each other confused; as to why the HR manager was calling us. We both went to the HR department to meet the manager named Shreya. We knocked on the door of the manager's office and went inside.

She smiled and asked us to sit down. She was loaded with paperwork but still looked calm. It is hard to imagine why she called us in the first place.

Rita squeezed my hand hard, getting my full attention on her. She signalled me to start the conversation with the manager while shaking her legs.

I instantly started the conversation by saying:

"Good Morning Mam; you called us?"

"Good Morning to both of you and, yes, I'd called."

Our manager Shreya replied; in a soft tone keeping her papers down on the table and focusing on us. She takes out two separate documents, which were held in a brown envelope. We both glanced at it while she handed it to each of us.

"Please read it and let me know if you have any confusion."

She told us, and get back to working out with other documents. We both took the document out of the envelope and read it carefully.

"TRANSFER TO SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA?"

Rita and I spoke loudly, startled by the document. I read the entire document as fast as I can which mentioned:

'The company congratulates you on the transfer to the headquarters of FLASH in Seoul, South Korea. We are impressed to see your brilliant performance over the past two years and, hence, decided to continue your work further in South Korea.'

After reading the whole document, we glanced at our manager expecting an explanation for the sudden transfer.

"Congratulations! to both of you on the promotion. It's a very nice opportunity for your personal and professional growth."

Our manager said with a cherished voice asking us to find the plane ticket inside the envelope.

"I can continue work from India. I don't want to go to South Korea, and many employees are performing well in the company then; why are we the only ones to be transferred there?"

I spoke in a calm but impatient voice. Rita however, is shocked by the news but in a good and exciting way. We always wanted to visit South Korea together to see cherry blossom season. Keeping the other documents aside, our manager answered:

"It is true about others performing well in the company, but the public relations department in South Korea headquarters wanted more experts like you. Also, you have mentioned in your resume about knowing certain languages, including Korean."

"Yes, but I don't want to be transferred to a new place. Can you please acknowledge it again with the head department?"

I replied to my manager with a pleading voice. A new place with new surroundings means starting over your life again among new people. This is something I never wanted in my life, although the opportunity was great. I was expecting my manager to give me a satisfactory answer, but she replied:

"I'm sorry Mia, but there is nothing I can do further as this transfer is important and the company need more employees for the headquarter."

She added:

"Also, you know that the company can ask for your transfer to any location according to the requirement mentioned in the agreement. Therefore, please pack your bags as both will be leaving next week."

Before I could say anything else, Rita nudged me signalling to come out of the manager's office. There is nothing more I can do to stop the transfer, so hence left the manager's office.

After coming outside, Rita took my hand and took me to the washroom. I was feeling really low and didn't know how to digest the news. I moved forward in the washroom and sat on the bathroom slab keeping my head down and sighing continuously.

Rita took her time and then slapped me hard on my head saying:

"Will you stop sighing women? It's only a transfer, and we always wanted to go there anyway, then why are you being like this?"

I replied:

"There is a difference between visiting and transferring. I never wanted to go and live in South Korea permanently. How will I even survive there?"

"You are not alone. I'm coming with you and we will figure out everything together. You don't need to be afraid and worried when I'm with you stupid."

Rita replied in a playful but aggressive way. I looked at her thinking about (That is the most worrying thing. You can't cook, clean or handle anything well. It's going to be me who has to figure out everything for both of us). However, looking at her smiling and excited makes me calm and safe to survive the news and go on further. Hence, I replied:

"Darn it, let's do this"

We both laughed and continued our work for the day.

With a blink, the day of our arrival has come. All these days, we have prepared and fought over silly things. Some moments consisted of our family gatherings including shopping, talking about our childhood together, crying, having dinner with relatives and some personal moments with my family.

My mother and brother are both worried about me going to South Korea. They know that I'm not very friendly and for being a trouble magnet with people. They even considered once leaving the company but my career and achievements are important to me. So I ended up convincing them for my good.

All our family relatives and friends arrived for our farewell. Rita and I were dressed in pyjamas for a comfortable journey but seeing our relatives and friends, we are deeply embarrassed by our looks. We hugged our parents and siblings and left for our flight.

We find ourselves in a plane seated together. I was nervous whereas Rita is excited but we both ended up holding hands and sighed about our new journey.

As the plane took off, we saw our city getting smaller and smaller making us ahead closer to South Korea not aware of what it held for us.