Chapter 3 — The Password Without Me

To be seen, to be evaluated, and then to be pronounced as "not worth mentioning" is a bitter sting. Being ignored is painful enough, but to be gently picked up and then discarded at a whim hurts infinitely more. When ignored, one can at least delude oneself into thinking that they simply went unnoticed. Yet this time, attention had been paid. It was just that they found it completely insignificant.

Soon after, the final confirmation email from the university in Norway arrived. All documents had passed the review process. The confirmation page read: Study location: Bergen. Enrollment term: February. Sixty degrees north latitude, where winter offered only five hours of daylight each day. I tapped to confirm. A line of text flashed across the screen: We are waiting for you. I took a screenshot and saved it to an album accessible only to me. That afternoon, upon returning home from school, I pushed open the door to my bedroom and froze in my tracks.

Two large black storage bins sat on the floor. They belonged to my younger brother. His athletic team uniforms, training bands, jump ropes, and set of hand weights had all been moved from his room and piled right in the corner by my desk. I stepped out into the living room.

"Mom, why is Chau's stuff in my room?"

Without lifting her head from measuring the length of the window curtains, she replied, "Your brother's room is too small and cannot hold all his equipment. Your room is spacious, so we temporarily moved some things over."

Temporarily moved some things over.

"But the space next to my desk is completely blocked. How am I supposed to do my homework tonight?"

"Can't you just tidy up a bit to make room? No one is forcing you to move out."

No one is forcing you to move out. Yet, lowering my gaze, I looked at the exact placement of those two crates, wedged squarely between my desk and my wardrobe. They could neither be pushed aside nor navigated around, standing like two silent declarations. During dinner, I said nothing of the matter. But halfway through the meal, Father suddenly spoke up.

"Once Chau passes the sports student assessment next year, your room can be converted into a training studio for him. By then, you will have gone off to college anyway, so leaving it empty serves no purpose."

Your room. By then you will have gone off to college. He had no idea that I would be leaving in January. Yet his meaning was unmistakable: in their blueprints, this room had never truly belonged to me. It was merely a holding space, subject to immediate reclamation the moment my younger brother had need of it. Mother chimed in immediately.

"That is right. By that time, we will install a shelf along that wall, and all of Chau's trophies and medals can be displayed there."

She had already begun planning the renovations. My bookshelf had stood against that very wall for over a decade. It held my middle school essay anthologies, my tenth-grade vocabulary notebooks, and the dog-eared original English novel I had read to tatters. Yet in her grand design, that wall was soon to be crowded with a boy's accolades. And what of my belongings? They would likely be boxed up and shoved into some forgotten corner of the storage room, joining the soup-stained certificate, gathering dust inside a sealed container that no one would ever open. I laid down my chopsticks.

"I am full."

No one answered. Back in my bedroom, the two storage bins remained. I tucked my schoolbag into the scant patch of remaining space and sat down on the edge of the bed. I had lived in this room for eighteen years. The walls bore faint outlines of glowing paper stars I had secretly pasted there during childhood, impossible to peel away cleanly. On the windowsill sat a pothos plant I had nurtured since the eighth grade, now surviving into its sixth year. Behind the door were pencil marks tracking my growth, the final line drawn with my own hand when I was fifteen. Yet none of these things had ever been regarded as important by anyone else. The room was mine, but the ownership was never vested in me. It was merely a plot of land "temporarily devoid of a better purpose." The moment someone else had use for it, it could be demolished, partitioned, or remodeled at a moment's notice. Much like my own place within this household.

That night, I dragged the suitcase I had packed long ago out from beneath the bed and stuffed in the last of my belongings. They had partitioned my living space for my brother; I would partition myself away to a place willing to carve out room for me. My flight was booked for four o'clock on Monday morning. On Sunday evening, I washed the dishes for the entire family. I wiped the sink dry, polished the faucet until it gleamed, folded the dish towel, and hung it neatly on the rack.

At three-fifty in the morning, my phone vibrated. I dressed, picked up my suitcase, and walked past the living room. The green light on the router continued to blink rhythmically. I paused for two seconds, drew out my phone, and opened the Wi-Fi settings.

"Le Family 5G."

The signal bars were full. Saved. I tapped "Forget This Network." A confirmation prompt appeared. I pressed "Yes." That name vanished from the screen.

The front door clicked shut with utmost gentleness. The motion-sensor light in the hallway flared once and died. Downstairs, a taxi waited by the curb. The driver rolled down his window.

"Airport?"

"Yes."

The car pulled away from the residential complex while the night remained pitch black. I did not look back. A notification banner lit up my phone screen:

"Your flight is about to board. Destination: Bergen. Have a safe journey."

I switched off the screen. As the aircraft lifted into the air, I closed my eyes. For the first time in eighteen years, I did not need to wait for anyone's reply, nor did I need to yield my ground to anyone else. Awakening would bring a brand-new city, a brand-new network. The password was set by me alone. Number of connected devices: One. Exactly enough.