Deen-This is home now?

Wait...huh? That cannot be right, I thought. Mee looked confused too.

'Mrs. Jung, where are we?' Mee frowned at her. 'This doesn't look like the place you showed me in the picture.'

'It's not,' Mrs. Jung replied. 'This is someone else's house. Your house is back there.'

She led us up an alley beside the mansion. There was a small house behind the posh palace. It was a one storied house. Compared to the gigantic mansion behind us, it was not much. Mee told me, it had only one bathroom, a small veranda and the rest of it was a large space; enough to alternate between a kitchen and sleeping room. I was fine with it. We did not need many luxuries anyway.

Mrs. Jung led us into the house. It was not as bad as I expected. Our dingy apartment back home was actually smaller and in dire need of repairs. The walls of that building were probably hundreds of years old with no paint left on them. During winters, that place was almost as cold as Alaska. That might be an exaggeration on my part though; I've never been to Alaska. But this place might turn out to be better than that one. I hoped.

It was definitely cozier and felt more... homely. The walls were a soft white color and the temperature inside was warmer than I expected. As per Mee's description, apart from the bathroom at the corner, there was only one large space which had to be used as both the kitchen and bedroom. It was small but I think I can consider this as home. Mrs. Jung was nice enough to put up a bed near the window. She even kept some cooking utensils at the kitchen corner. Mee paid for those things but it was still kind of Mrs. Jung to go out of her way and buy them. My initial impression of her being a toad was wearing off.

'Thank you, Mrs. Jung,' Mee said sincerely. 'You have helped us a lot in this foreign land.'

Mrs. Jung was also touched by Mee's gratitude. She patted Mee's cheek in a tender way.

'It is not easy being a single mother in this country,' Mrs. Jung said, a bit sadly. 'You'll face a lot of problems here. I understand it well...'

Mrs. Jung broke off. Mee smiled at her politely and held her hand.

'Thank you,' Mee said again. Mrs. Jung gave her a smile.

'I'll see you guys later,' Mrs. Jung said and took off.

'So,' I said as the door closed behind us. 'This is home now?'

Mee gave me a back hug and kissed my head.

'Yep,' she said softly, scanning the place. 'We're home.'