Unrealistic Expectations

The door to Annabelle's bedroom burst open.
     Gene stepped into the bedroom wearing his leather pilot jacket, aviators, and worn jeans. Annabelle rubbed the sleep from her eyes and slowly sat up straight, not making any noise as she did so. Eventually, her bleary eyes opened and she was looking directly at her brother.
     "Why are you wearing sunglasses?" She mumbled and moved her head towards the window in her bedroom. It was pitch black outside. "It's nighttime."
     Gene leaned against the doorframe, silhouetted by the light coming into her bedroom from the living room. Annabelle could only see him out of the corner of her eye, and she wasn't sure if he was smiling or not.
     "Ya wanna go to South Korea?" Gene said coolly.
     Annabelle stared straight at her standing brother.
     "Why?" She muttered, as she tried to wipe the crusted sleep off of her eyes.
     "To go meet Miracle Miya." He said bluntly.
     Annabelle blearily blinked again. She wasn't sure why her brother was asking her such ridiculous questions in the quiet of the night.
     "Yes?" She said as the sleep started to leave her system
     "Good, because we're leaving right after you get out of school." He said as he turned on the lights to her bedroom, momentarily blinding her. By the time her vision was restored, her brother had already taken down one of her suitcases and opened it on the floor of her bedroom. 
     "What's going on?" She asked as she limped out of bed and stretched. 
     "I figured that, since I forgot to give you a birthday present this year, I'd take you on a weekend trip to Seoul to make up for it." He said confidently, then turned to look at her and removed his aviators. "Annabelle, I really am sorry for forgetting about your birthday."
     "You've apologized for this fifteen times in the last seven weeks. I already said I forgive you." Annabelle squinted her eyes. "Isn't plane gas expensive?"
     "Airplane fuel." He corrected. "And yes; that's why I'm not flying us there; Dwight airlines will take us to Houston for free, and from there we'll catch a flight to Seoul." He said, as if what he was describing was the most normal thing in the world.
     Annabelle yawned and started opening her dresser extremely slowly.
     "That sounds like it'll take longer than a weekend."
     Gene shrugged as he started putting Annabelle's jeans and pants into the suitcase.
     "So sue me."
     "What did mom and dad say?" She said, her voice returning to its normal calm tone. "What if I miss a day of school?"
     "They said that, just this once, it was okay. It's basically a once in a lifetime opportunity for you. Plus, I told them it would be a great chance to see a different culture. A real hands-on learning experience." He held out his hand for Annabelle to pass him another piece of clothing to stuff into her suitcase.
     Annabelle plopped a graphic t-shirt into her older brother's hand.
     "Where are we going to sleep while we're there?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
     "I booked a cheap hotel while I was driving here. It's a bit of a walk from the airport, but it's not too far from the venue where Miya's latest fan meet-up is going to be." 
     Annabelle's heartbeat quickened as she gradually realized that she wasn't dreaming.
     "Wait; we're really going to Seoul?"
     Gene looked at his sister and smirked confidently, then put his aviators back on with a slight flourish. 
     "Yes ma'am." 
     A pair of lanky arms locked around Gene's body at the same time that a mass of black hair and slightly pale fair skin blinded him. 
     Annabelle squeezed her brother as hard as she could.
     Gene breathed slowly, then put his arms around his sister.
     The quiet quickly swallowed the siblings, and for a few fleeting moments, they merely embraced.
     "Thank you." Annabelle said after letting go of her brother.
     Gene shook his head at his sister with a slight grin. The two of them spent a few more minutes sorting everything into her suitcase, and when it was loaded up with enough clothing, he zipped it up and went towards her bedroom door. Annabelle watched him stand in the doorway, then he looked back at her.
     "You should go back to bed. You still have school today." He said with a smug tone in his voice as he flipped off the light switch in her bedroom and closed the door. 
     Annabelle stood in the complete darkness of her bedroom for a moment, then realized how awful the day ahead of her was going to be if she didn't immediately go back to sleep, and so she crawled back into bed and tried to force herself to fall unconscious.
     Unfortunately, it took her nearly an hour to fall asleep again, and so she only received roughly six hours of sleep as opposed to her usual eight. 
~~~
     Annabelle stumbled out of her school at four pm in the afternoon on Friday. She watched absently as her schoolmates walked past her and around her, hardly paying any attention to her. She waited patiently for her brother's pickup to pull up in front of the school. She kept her eyes as open as she could and fought off the yawns that kept threatening to send her back to sleep. A few other girls said something to her, but she didn't really register their words at all. 
     Before she knew it, she was inside Gene's truck and they were driving towards the small airport that belonged to his employer.
     After Gene helped her into the small two-seater airplane and went over the pre-flight checklist with her, she nodded off. 
     Gene looked at his sister as she slept peacefully in the co-pilot's seat of the airplane. He had made sure to explain his plans to Mrs. Dwight and had gotten express permission to miss work the next Monday. As it stood, he was planning for the flight to take up most of Saturday, then they'd spend the entirety of Sunday in Seoul, and Monday morning they'd fly back to Houston and then home from there. He'd get plenty of sleep on the flight back, so he wasn't worried about being too tired to work on Tuesday.
     The flight to Houston was calm. 
     When he landed the plane, he gently shook his sister awake. The two of them slowly walked to the edge of the airfield and waited there for half an hour because the driver Gene had hired through a mobile app didn't know how to find the small airfield on the edge of Houston. 
     The drive to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport was long and tedious, and Annabelle fell asleep while leaning against Gene during the drive. He sighed and ran his hands through her hair.
     He hoped that Miya would be more willing to rely on him after this.
     He bit his lip and looked out the window at the skyscrapers and glittering lights of Houston as the car drove towards the airport. 
     He thought about how he must have been thirteen different kinds of crazy. Miya had made the suggestion for him to come see her in Seoul on Tuesday, and after spending two days thinking it over, he had just decided to do it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
     Every time he'd thought about not going to see Miya, something inside him had resisted. It was as if something was telling him that he needed to go meet her in person, which was strange because whenever he thought about actually meeting her, his stomach filled with butterflies and his breathing became something he had to think about. 
     He didn't know why he was so nervous about meeting her in person; he enjoyed writing letters to her, and he appreciated her kindness, and he thought she had a great voice, but actually meeting her felt like it would shatter the illusion he'd created. 
     He was afraid, for a moment, that Miya might have been correct. 
     What if, when he saw her in real life and she became more than just words on a page, he realized that the whole endeavor had been a huge mistake. What if she didn't live up to his expectations? 
     He looked down at Annabelle as she breathed slowly against him. The sound of cars passing on the highway provided white noise. His thoughts slowed and he closed his eyes.
     Miya was a woman; and as far as he knew, she was a kind, sensitive, and dedicated woman who sincerely enjoyed brightening up people's days in any way she could. She had problems, just like any other person in the world, and she didn't have all the answers.
     He wasn't going to Seoul to meet a miracle.
     He sighed and smiled as the car neared the airport.