As the story revolves around grief, I used 5 stages of grief as the guiding backbone that fills the story dynamic. The story started by setting in the reality of Cika's situation with school, family, and friends. As her story progresses in her origin country, her grief process started from denial, anger, to bargaining, depression, and ended in acceptance through a time jump, one year later.

I mapped the protagonist's experience dealing with cultural grief, each shown with every aspect of the struggle, such as family, school, friends, weather, and language. Below is the initial brainstorm of Cika's dynamic with friends, family, and herself.