DISEASE

> "Some people are alive just to prove they can survive everything meant to break them."

Now the world around her is changing. University admission season.

Her friends celebrate scholarships and campus placements. Their parents gift them phones, cakes, even vacations.

Mun sits in a dark room, hearing the ticking of a clock that never gave her a break.

She tried. Again. Spent nights rewriting personal statements, holding onto hope like it was oxygen. Public universities were the only chance for poor students. And she didn't get in.

"I did my best," she whispered.

But her mom didn't believe her.

"You didn't try hard enough."

Her dad didn't say anything. He never does. His silence is a sentence she's been serving for years.

Her mother didn't cook for days. They didn't talk. Nix got his favorite lunch, his favorite snacks. Mun ate rice and shame.

She felt like a disease in her own home.

That night, her mom threw her phone against the wall.

"What's the point of educating you?" she yelled. "We should just marry you off!"

Mun laughed bitterly. Not because it was funny, but because it wasn't the first time she heard that.

Marriage to a stranger. That was their solution to failure.

But Mun wasn't a failure. She was a fighter with no audience.

She locked herself in her room and cried. Not loudly—she wasn't allowed loud emotions.

Then she did the unthinkable: she emailed five foreign universities. With trembling hands and a heart that barely believed in itself.

Maybe they'd see her. Maybe someone in the world would say, "You matter."

And if they didn't?

She'd still breathe.

Because despite everything, Mun wasn't dead yet.

She just felt like it.

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