The exhilaration she felt when being smuggled over the border into North Korea was almost too much for her to bear, as was being treated like a VIP in a foreign country and the USSR of all places! Seeing the prolonged vision of joy on their daughter’s face made Hiroto and Suzume wish they had taken her with them before. As for Yui, she felt that the fifteen years of dreaming of living abroad had been justified. She was more determined than ever to leave Japan, but she didn’t think it prudent to tell her parents that just yet.
When they had all checked into their Kazakh hotel, Marina took Suzume’s hand, and said, one proud mother to another, “I have seen photos of Yui over the years, but they haven’t done her justice. She is a very beautiful girl and not unlike my own daughter”. She looked
