Chapter 1

1 — B   E   G   I   N  .

/biˈɡin/

start; perform or undergo the first part of (an action or activity).

unedited

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"JEAN, I SWEAR I can't find my Network Card anywhere inside my bag. Please, help me!" The frantic lady blathered rapidly in inaudible Korean as she scampers upon the insides of her bag. "I'm positive it was right here this morning! It can't just.. vanish out of nowhere!"

"Jesus Christ, just calm down," Jean defiantly muttered back to her older sister, shirking her away to refrain her from causing unbearable nuisance to the other passengers. "Sit down and take a better look of your bag— it must've had slipped somewhere."

Jean had gotten used to her sister's despicable behavior, but having to tame her in a public transport has always been the worst case scenario for her. Though she had gone through this everyday (getting on the morning tram, 15 minutes lift to Hönggerberg, 5 minutes walk to each of the girls's respective campuses, coming home doing pretty much the same) there's always going to be one unfortunate event that causes her sister to snap to her usual, whimsical behavior. Jean usually has herself questioning on how her sister was able to control her temper among her rigid professors.

"How am I supposed to calm down when there's a 99% chance they're going to arrest me for treason—"

"Shhhh." Jean glared at her mendaciously. "We might be speaking in Korean but actions are easy to decipher. You causing a tantrum would only raise suspicion."

Nancy scrunched her face irritated, her hands hopelessly scrummaging her obliterated bag. "How am I supposed to calm down when it's not even legal for me to be here? I should really just turn myself in— AHH!"

A tap on her shoulder. Rattled Nancy Rivière turned around in an instant, gearing up to face her bitter faith. She effortlessly switches back to German. "I'm sorry officer, I promise I'll be a better citizen— oh."

The said person turned out to be a young man — so much younger than she was, 5 years tops, perhaps? — his first instinct was to back away from the ecstatic woman. Nancy stared at him bewilderedly, as she seemingly collected the rest of dignity she had left. Simply she had no idea such luck had bestowed upon her. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." She mumbled faintly, battering in secondhand embarrassment.

Jean raised her head, involuntarily her curiosity emerges as she sets to determine the looks of the stranger. Her mouth went wide open. No, it can't be. . .

Skinny and tall as chopsticks, hair down in locks of brunet. The man had a quizzical look on his face, his eyes fluttering upon hearing Nancy's breathless pace. He politely cleared his throat. "I'm sorry— I hope it's not wrong for me to guess that you're a student from...?" He spoke in heavily accented English as he nervously pointed a finger on Nancy's totebag. Nancy had her eyes trailed upon the man's gaze, eventually finding out what he was referring to. "Oh, you mean ETH?"

The man nodded lively, the depths of his brown eyes reflected his incitement. "I was wondering if I'm taking the right tram..?"

Nancy had granted her full attention to the latter, once she had noticed that he definitely had his own charms and was somehow attractive without even trying. Frivolously she ran her fingers through her hair, smiling coyly. "Which ETH are you searching for, boy?"

He raised his eyebrows.

Her smile widened, enthralled by his 'adorable' cluelessness. "Which department you're from?"

"Natural Sciences—"

"Good, then you're right on track." She averred plainly. "This is the tram that takes you to the Hönggerberg campus, aka the 'City of Science'. Its route is different than the one heading to Rämistrasse."

He nodded in advance, returning her an adherent smile. "Oh alright. Thank you." He was about to head back to his earlier seat when suddenly Nancy leaped upon his way to stop him.

"I'm in Biology, if you're asking." She chirped without hesitation.

The latter side eyed her, raising one eyebrow. "Bachelor's?"

Her grin slowly disintegrated into a frown. ".. Master's."

His mouth opened up into a wide 'o'. "I'm sorry I have been very unthoughtful — would you like to take a seat here then, Senior?" He offered politely, apprehending the fact that the other seats were fully occupied.

Nancy blinked a few times before answering. "Ah, there's no need! Seriously, you don't have to be that nice."

"Ah, okay." He replied quite reluctantly before he returned to his seat, confuzzled.

Same face, same figure, same voice. Jean knew that this could just be merely a coincidence, but her inner conscience was obviously against so. The guy's dead, Jean. 15 years ago.

Why is he here, then..?

Nancy sighed in dishevelment, adjusting her arms back to the railing. "I had no intentions of making him feel uncomfortable— turns out he had a different memo." She switched back to Korean so she could shamelessly talk about the guy who's literally only a few meters away from her without him or anyone else understanding.

Jean eyed the guy suspiciously. "Nancy, is it wrong for me to think that—"

"He's clearly a transfer."

".. I'm sorry?"

"Bachelor's transfer. Not from another country, but perhaps somewhere around Geneva?" She shook her head. "Imperfect English. His accent kinda threw him off."

Jean scrunched her face. "Since when did you become so observant?"

"Since I got myself a pretty French bastard who doesn't understand German to look up to." She grinned widely. "So long since I encounter such pretty face.."

Jean glared at her defiantly, somehow disgusted by her sister's sudden attraction. "You're taking your master's degree at the moment. You should know better."

"You know what, Jean? I've wasted a whole lot piece of my life for education that the thought of dating had never even crossed my mind for a long period of time." She spoke out indifferently. "I'm 27, of course I'm entitled to think of those things."

"Yeah, but not to a clueless transfer." She sputtered. "Anyway, I can't stop thinking of how similar he looks to—"

"Are you also interested in him?" She altered a speculation, glaring at Jean briskly. "That's why you're so against of me liking him?"

"What are you saying—"

"You're in your bachelor's degree, department of natural sciences. Oh, what are the odds! Just because there's a small chance of him getting transferred to your faculty doesn't mean you have the rights to call dibs on him."

"I don't want to—"

"Oh, and you can't stop thinking about him? Jesus Christ Kang Jieun, please try to learn to be less obvious."

"I don't like him!"

"Or would you like me to tell him yourself? Because I'm your big sister and I don't want you to go through such trouble?"

"Nancy, no—"

"My sister said she likes you." Nancy blurted out as she turned around, facing the guy. "And she wants to get to know you better."

"Kang Namjoo, you keep your mouth shut—" Jean had no choice but to strangle her sister, making sure to keep her hands inoperable for the time being. She glanced over the brunet man — who was looking more puzzled than he already was — and discontentedly grimaced. "Please ignore my sister— I don't know why she keeps creating a big fuss."

The man only returned her yet another pleasant smile, one that accelerated the small voice in the back of her head saying that he's definitely the guy. She shoved away the thought and pushed her sister upfront close to the exit door so that they don't have to bother that man ever again.

After a 15 minutes trip that felt like hours, they finally reached their stop. Crowds of university students abruptly went off the tram— they were immediately dropped off in front of the gates of the 'City of Science'. Nancy and Jean eventually got out, with Nancy still heavily discombobulated by the situation they had earlier. 

"I'll be taking a cab home, just grab a tram without me." Nancy muttered bitterly. She quickly left the scene with no intentions of exchanging apologies with her sister.

"Wait," Jean grasped her sister's arm, stopping her. "Please, just for a second please listen to me."

Nancy scoffed, pulling her arm out in disgust. "What?"

"That guy we've been talking about." Jean took a heaved sigh. "Whoever he is, he looks.. strangely similar to. ." She bit her lip.

"To who?"

"To the man I told you about.. the one who died."

Nancy stared at her disbelievingly. It took a while for her to discern Jean's whimsical speculation — though impossible, beckoning — before snapping back to reality. "No, that's.. too much. Even for you."

"I won't be telling you this if I wasn't sure of myself." Jean reasoned, however it wasn't powerful enough to get Nancy's consent.

"The dude's dead, Jean! 15 years ago!" Nancy alluded. "Hell, he might never even had exist—"

"He did!"

"Then tell me, why didn't they retrieve a body the next morning? There were no evidence that the man even existed."

Of course, they were back to this argument, one that Jean had failed to defend herself even so after all these years. "We've gone through this, Nancy."

"Yes, we had gone through this. There's no way we're bringing this back up just because you're assuming that a dead dude has been brought back to life."

"That's not what I said—"

"Please just get over it, Jean. It's been 15 years. The fact that you're still going on about it concerns me." Nancy repudiated as she narrowed her eyes. "For all we know, this might just have been a big coincidence."

"I.." Jean was about to hit her back with another argument, but she knew that no matter how much she tried to go against her sister, she was still in the wrong. In utter denial, she eventually backed down. "Alright, I get you."

"So please don't try to bother the young man and just let him live his life, okay?" Nancy had both of her hands grasping Jean's arms, eyes locked onto hers. "Don't make any other worthless speculations, I'm begging you— Jieun."

Halfheartedly, Jean tried her best to nod away; hence she didn't have much choice in the first place.

They parted ways once they had reached the gate; Nancy heading to Biology, Jean to Physics.Though the girls had a common interest which is the subject of science, their preferences of it has always been indisputably different. Nancy enjoyed studying direct anatomy of living creatures and the correlation they had with each other. Jean on the other hand is a big fan of mathematics, and having it to emerge with the process of gratifying the laws of nature was what definitely caught her interest since the beginning. So it's no surprise when the girls end up entering the same department (natural sciences) yet with such different faculties.

Jean eventually made her way to the main atrium, following her usual schedule in which her faculty receives a daily lecture every Monday morning by their home professor, Greta Bauer. Of course, upon the large crowd of students she arduously took an effort to search her group of friends. It didn't take long, considering one of them had a crazy locks of rainbow hair.

"Jean!" A young, well-fitted woman called out her name. Her long, rainbow-dyed hair leaped along with her as she ran across the room to embrace her best friend. "Seriously, please just stop going to Daegu every Christmas break. You always miss out the fun!"

"When she said fun, she meant a whole marathon of Harry Potter and MCU movies, something I'm glad I'm not apart of." Another one of Jean's friends who goes by the name Nichol followed the previous girl from the back, grinning coyly. "I think leaving Arden alone to have her contemplate her life every year should do the trick. Her hair gets.. brighter every time we do so."

"I dyed it every week when you guys were gone." She said, pursing her lips. "It's not like I had anything else to do anyway."

"Uh, getting a title for your research paper?" Jean giggled teasingly.

"Get a boyfriend?" Nichol added.

"Get a tinder account for starters, that should work."

Arden scoffed. "You guys are the worst." She had both of arms dangling on Nichol and Jean's shoulders, holding them together as they reach their usual spots at the first row.

Arden Schmidt and Nichol Widjaja, the two people Jean is most close with in campus. Nichol is a bright student residing in a small condo in downtown Zurich — Southeast Asian, received a scholarship from the Indonesian government, is basically the epitome of a man with a dream. Girls dig for him, boys find him as an interesting folk. Though he is still not fluent in German, he's just simply likable by everyone, no one has ever been in his bad side.

Arden in other words, is eccentric. Being the only purebred Switzerland citizen in the group, she's usually the odd man out when it comes to summer and winter breaks, as Jean and Nichol would either be going back to their native country to meet up with their big families or simply having a planned holiday trip with their parents and siblings. Different than the Rivières, the Schmidts are all based in Switzerland, so there was no family relatives worth visiting to. Other than that, it seemed as if none of them were interested on going abroad for the holidays (she had only travelled with plane once when her grandparents brought her to Rome for the holidays) so all that she did during the holidays was walking around the busy streets of Zurich a millions times as it seems like that's the only thing she was allowed to do. From her eyecatching rainbow hair and bright personality, most people find her fun to converge with. Her stories are always so interesting for someone lack of life experience. Yes, she did nothing throughout the winter holidays, but somehow she always have something interesting to talk about every time Jean and Nichol return to campus.

How about Jean? Well, Jean Rivière is known to be.. rigid. Extremely diligent. Very out of everyone's league— according to the people who aren't close to her. Most people had that as their first impression of her because on the contrary, it was hard to break into her comfort zone. Once you do though, you'd realize how different her personality is around the people she's close with. She's considered as one of the most attractive girl in the faculty, but yet again it goes back to how she's clearly out of everyone's league.

"Bauer is surprisingly not being exceptionally punctual today." Nichol pointed out, checking out the time on his phone. "5 minutes late. What happened to the anti-rubber watch supremacist...?"

"I heard she's handling out the transfer students." Arden chirped.

Jean straightened her posture. "Transfer students?"

"Yeah, there are a few dozens from Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, and Lucerne." Arden said as she twirled strands of hair with her finger. "I saw a couple move into the cheap condos close to my house. They mostly spoke in French."

French transfer students. . . Perhaps he's one of them. Jean nodded adherently. "There weren't any last year."

"It doesn't make sense though— why they would transfer now when there's a huge chance that they'll graduate this year anyway?" Nichol pursed his lips, thinking. "It would've been easier for them to finish their degrees in their respective universities, then go here to take their master's."

"It's easier to get accepted for a master's degree if you actually took your bachelor's here, though." Jean pointed out. "Most of the transfer students must've had that kind of mindset."

"Or they're simply tempted on getting the same Physics degree at the same campus Einstein was in." Arden recoiled. "ETH Zurich's beloved Physics faculty. Home of the future Einsteins."

Nichol laughed. "Talking about Bauer, have you guys found the title for your research papers?"

Arden squirmed. "That is definitely in the list of productive things I have yet to do during winter's break."

"How about you, Jean?"

Before Jean had her turn to answer, Arden shamelessly took the chance herself. "Jean Rivière? Please, Bauer had agreed to her title even before the winter break started."

Nichol's eyes widened in disbelief. "No way."

"I dislike having to go through winter break with an unfinished task." Jean replied shortly as she skimmed through pages of notes she hadn't open for a while.

"I bet she's ready with a rough draft of her upcoming research paper so that Bauer could revise it."

Jean raised her draft paper, waving it menacingly so that she could tease the two. "Arden Schmidt, you are correct."

Arden groaned. "Why do I always have to be?"

It was not long until Professor Bauer appeared into the room, followed by a group of fresh students wandering, still waking with their heads up high. "Sorry, I'm late— it's hard to catch up when you're accompanying a bunch of rookies who are still entranced by how huge this campus is— no offense to you guys, by the way."

Because of his irregular height and his peculiar hair, it was easy to detect the guy she encountered on the train amongst the group of newbies. Nancy was right— he is in her faculty.

Jean took a deep breath. It'll be hard to keep her promise at this point.

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