She was six when learned how ugly she looked. Looks were the buzz in South Korea and good looks made the whole glaring social caste system only found in countries as shallow as South Korea. Inner beauty. What bullcrap.

Nayoung stared back at her reflection as she straightened the collar of her shirt. She wasn’t particularly ugly. Basic. Unpolished, maybe. Her mother brushed her hair minutes ago into a straight mid-part, her usual go-to. Her mother said that it looked good on her, particularly because she fit into the boring, good girl built-in image she was offered and gladly took without much whys, slipping into the role with startling ease. Her parents didn’t allow whys anyway…

She wasn’t particularly ugly. Just… not attractive. Rimless glasses, messy front teeth, sort of tanned skin that didn’t fit with her weak constitution, bony stature, slouched back. And she was six, goddamnit, she was six.

She didn’t have many friends. She didn’t have any friends. In the age where playing tag was still a thing, nobody wanted to approach the girl who was conjoined to books about music. Bach wasn’t the hip thing to talk to about. She wasn’t attractive enough for people to flock around her for no reason other than just to flock around.

Her mother called her to get to the dining room. She left her ugly reflection alone at the first Nayoung because she was taught to never disobey.
 

---

She was seven when a classmate saved her from her friendless background. The girl approached her one P.E session. As per usual, Nayoung faked a headache so she was allowed to stay back, because ugly people had a hard time finding themselves a group for team sports.

Kim Sejeong was a not-welcomed surprise. Nayoung didn’t know how to form words around someone so up high in the social caste, so when Sejeong stepped into the shaded area of the tree and joined Nayoung on the ground with a melodious hey, Nayoung fiddled with the bridge of her glasses instead of returning the hey.

“Are you okay?”

That was the first time someone asked her whether she was really okay. She was fine… in green condition, even. “U-um, I’m getting better.”

Kim Sejeong leaned in closer, peered into the depth of her soul, probably, with her pretty, pretty eyes. Nayoung inched away, slowly, not to impress impoliteness. “You’re rarely with the class.”

“I never skip…”

“No, I mean, you’re rarely… with us. Like, when we play together.” Kim Sejeong leaned back, noticing her discomfort. Nayoung knew because the slight downward tug at the end of her lips expressed enough even for her, bearer of the social skill of a potato.

She didn’t know how to voice out the social caste theory she strung along in her head without boring Kim Sejeong with her inadequate explanation and excessive stuttering. Speech was never her forte. So she opened only to promptly close it back, shook her head, and settled with a no fun, “I’m no fun.”

“Everyone is fun. You’re so negative.”

Kim Sejeong meant it as a joke and she knew. She humored Kim Sejeong’s chuckle with her (forced) own. “You should go back. Th, the teacher will call you out for lounging outside the field.”

She watched Kim Sejeong’s side-profile as the taller girl stared at their fellow girls running around chasing after a ball in a game of watered-down basketball with more made up rules and shirt-pulling than the actual playing. Even her side-profile looks pretty… the thought cemented Kim Sejeong’s perfection. Kim Sejeong looked good in short bob.

Her object of observation noticed the prolonged stare, pointed it out, and Nayoung pinkened as a response. She’d taken it as a compliment.

Kim Sejeong told their teacher that she “suddenly got a headache too”. To Nayoung, surprisingly, it was a welcome surprise.
 

---

She was nine when she felt a surge of jealousy for the first time.

It wasn’t easy being friends with the closest thing their school have to a… school idol. Kim Sejeong was popular with everyone. Too well-liked to her liking. It was November and even the cold wasn’t enough to calm the fire.

It was an uneven mixture of everything; half the idea of being replaced with many of Sejeong’s friends, some of them way worthier of Sejeong’s attention, most of them way prettier to stand by Sejeong’s side. The other half, the subsequent inferiority complex of being in close proximity of The Sun personified. None of them Sejeong’s fault.

She ought to live her life outside her head and leave her ugly, damned thoughts behind, because envy was an ugly thing to have and she couldn’t afford being uglier than she was already.

Sejeong didn’t really like library, but she had promised Nayoung that she would come along every Monday and Wednesday. Nayoung liked library partly for the collection, mostly because that’d mean she’s going to have Sejeong for herself. For the time being.

“Nayoung~ recommend me something to read.” Among the towering bookshelves, Sejeong thumbed through the books’ spines. Nayoung hushed her for saying something so loud, and had her name tucked along, even.

“You should go to the fiction shelves,” Nayoung pulled a book, an introductory to composition, “this one is no child play.”

She wasn’t specifically looking at Sejeong, but she could see the girl’s frown. “I want to read the same book as you.”

“You aren’t even into music…”

Sejeong slapped her lightly on the elbow. Nayoung winced more at the impact. “I just want us to read the same kind of book, you know…”

“Why?”

“Why? So we could talk about it later, silly,”  

In the end, Nayoung returned the book back into its empty slot and took Sejeong’s hand in hers and sighed and dragged the two of them to the fiction section. She knew Sejeong wasn’t much of a reader, so she browsed for a novel with comical scribbles to go along with the story so Sejeong would be able to finish the book without going bald before her age.

It was fun, reading in the quiet corner of the library. Sitting across each other. Legs swinging, bumping into one another, stolen glances between pages, giggles shared whenever her leg hit Sejeong’s knee or when Sejeong pinned her leg with both of hers. A good distraction from the frostbites and November glacial claw and well-fed jealousy. At the same time, moments like these reminded her that, Sejeong really is wonderful… because for someone so up high in the social caste to compromise so much, maybe she was deemed important enough. Irreplaceable.
 

---

She was eleven when she rushed from school to Sejeong’s home because her friend had been absent for five days straight. No news. No calls. No nothing.

It was a cold afternoon for one eleven year old who forgot her coat, so Nayoung ran from the bus stop to the apartment complex Sejeong and her family supposedly live in, to burn her body in body heat. Even colder winter seeped into December, pronounced by the vapor breath Nayoung coughed as she pushed herself past the limit. She was never a sports person.

The apartment complex was rather run-down. Sejeong never took her there before, or anyone, ever. For someone so well-known throughout the school… Sejeong was partly a public figure, mostly a mystery with lots of tell-tale and myths made facts.

Her calves burned from taking two steps at a time. At last, she rang the doorbell. And waited with halted breath.

When the door opened to a frowning Sejeong… no one ever told Nayoung beforehand that Sejeong did look uglier without her usual sunshine smile.

But it was just the beginning to the imperfection that followed.

“Oh,” Sejeong’s eyes widened before her usual grin crept back to its usual place, “Nayoung? You look, um, tired, out of breath, and…”

“Y, yeah.” Nayoung managed to puff out between her gaping lungs. She pushed her glasses back with her index and middle fingers. “I ran.”

Sejeong pulled her door wider, welcoming an entrance. “Come in. It’s cold outside… but it’s rather messy inside.”

“It’s okay. Thank you.”

Those rumors about Sejeong being some stinking rich princess were total lies. Nayoung confirmed it with her own two eyes.

A small apartment for three, judging from the three pair of shows lined up before the step. The dulled paint of the wall told Nayoung stories about a home softened by the winters it’s been through. A guy, which Sejeong simply introduced as her brother, was sprawled on the couch, sleeping soundly, hair mussed, shirt wrinkled badly. Sejeong took her deeper into the flat.

“My mom has been sick, so I can’t go to school.”

“Oh…”

“Brother has to work, so I have to take care of her, because I’m the only one available for the job.”

Sejeong’s mother looked like Sejeong. Older, of course. With all the spirits exhausted from her eyes. She exuded warmth even though when Nayoung held the fragility that is her arm, even though her fingers were pale, pigments iced.

“Sejeong told me about you. A lot.” Her mother said, sitting against the headboard with a pillow snugged between her back and the wood. Sejeong was outside, getting some drinks and snacks for them. “She won’t shut up about it. I’ve been dying to see this Kim Nayoung girl – and turns out she’s a sweetheart.”

Nayoung nervously chuckled as an automatic response, then stuttered her gratitude.

That was a first.

Her mother never called her a sweetheart before.

Throughout the evening, Nayoung picked up a lot of things, most of them from observation because she knew her place enough not to ask. One, Sejeong’s father is not around. Two, her brother is a taxi driver. Three, her mother is frail and weak and sickly. Four, Sejeong is the strongest person I know.

Later, when her father picked her up at 8, she was scolded throughout the car ride. Slapped when they were out of the car. Of course. That didn’t stop her from rushing back to Sejeong’s apartment the next day with flowers she bought along the way, a bouquet for Sejeong and another for the mother. Finally, she put her saving to a good use.
 

---

She was twelve when she experienced something that only happened in chick flicks… The Makeover.

All because she couldn’t resist Sejeong’s kicked puppy face.

Damn that girl! Thankfully she was sort of old enough to curse.

They went to the same public middle school together after Nayoung begged her parents not to ship her off to a private girls’ academy. Of course she was allowed a way out in the form of a shrug, but not after she promised them a lot of things, like always being in top ten in her year. Nayoung could afford crazy-studying, but she couldn’t afford parting ways with Sejeong.

Sejeong wandered around her room, going through her dressers. She came back with a scissor, a hairbrush, some hairclips…

“Don’t do this to me,” I’m ugly enough as it is!

Sejeong pushed her shoulders down, telling her to sit on the edge of the bed, “Listen up, Cinderella. Just trust me, mmkay? Unlike you, I do know some things about beauty and makeovers.”

“Boys Over Flowers isn’t a beauty bible.”

“I don’t watch dramas!”

Nayoung sighed. Sejeong’s hands began to work on her hair.

A criss-crossing sound of a scissor made Nayoung jump. Out of reflex, she held Sejeong’s wrist. “S, Sejeong, I love you, but no.”

“Listen—“

“I look horrible in short hair! You can’t do this to me. I’m no Meryl Streep! I’m not even Betty La Fea so you can’t turn me into some Disney beauty overnight!”

“Keep on moving, Nayoungie, I’m gonna accidentally cut your nose and you’ll have to pay Dr. Kim to fix it.”

She clamped shut at that piece of warning.

“Nervous, aren’t you?” Sejeong chuckled at her tenseness. Nayoung kept her balled fists on her lap, fingers curled into the thin of her shorts. “Let’s chat.”

“Umm… what about?”

“Anything? Hmmm… have you ever thought about the future?”

“Um? S, sometimes. The future is kinda scary though, so I don’t think about it much.”

“True. What do you want to be when you’re grown up, Nayoungie?”

She had dreams. She had things she had to be. A fair line of difference separated the two. “I’ve always wanted to dabble in music, but…”

“Yeah. You’re good at piano.” Sejeong brushed her hair. Nayoung felt herself losing her trademark boring mid-part. “Teach me sometime!”

“Piano isn’t something you can teach to someone in a day… it takes years.”

“If it’s years with you, I don’t mind much. But you have to stop being so whiny first.”

Nayoung sighed and was about to retort, until a stray touch perched itself on her cheek and Nayoung jumped a bit at a mere touch, so she drowned her oh god, calm down, in pursed lips. “Don’t say something like that, I’m too boring to be your life partner for eternity. Plus, an eternity is a few years too long.”

Sejeong giggled. “Well. Anyway, what’s with the ‘but’ at the end?”

“You know how my parents wanted me to have a “clear future”. They allowed me to take piano lessons, but that’s because my grades are straight A’s.”

“Oh… right.”

“They should stop telling me to do things… I’m not Hakyeon. They already have Hakyeon anyway. Hakyeon is smarter and cooler and he’ll be the one in line for dad’s corps.”

“They should stop. Their kid is the next Be…atover?”

“Beethoven.”

“Yeah. Their kid is the next Beethoven and even I can see that.”

Nayoung unconsciously smiled. “You got it backwards. Only you can see that. But enough about me, what about you?”

“Hmmm. I want to be a teacher. I want to teach people – and it’s fun because you get to interact with lots of people.”

“It suits you… you’re charismatic, and you’re good at talking.”

Instead of keeping the conversation going, Sejeong pulled her glasses, then her hands so she’s pulled to her full height and dragged her to the mirror. “Say hello to Kim Nayoung.”

Nayoung stared into her reflection; she looked… different. She had been using braces, but that was from months ago. Her hair had been brushed to side-part, no more sticking-out strands which Sejeong probably cut into oblivion earlier. No glasses. No more slouching.

She looked less ugly.

“Now, try a smile.”

“H, how…?”

“Um, smile?”

“No, but, how do you, um, just, smile?”

She turned to Sejeong and noticed how she had outgrown Sejeong by a few centimeters. Sejeong used to tower over her.

“Want me to be honest with you?”

She nodded, meekly, unsure. Too much new things in a day. Overload.

Sejeong smiled, power a hundred Watts. “You’re really pretty right now, you’re going to floor all those boys. Just lacking a smile, though, and you’re off for a Disney-ing.”

Nayoung smiled in return, sincere and it felt easy and natural. Maybe because it was Sejeong. Maybe because it felt like spring had finally arrived for her even though it was July then. And she laughed out loud to cover her own rabbit heartbeat.

“I—I’m pretty?”

“Yup! Want me to give you back your glasses so you can be less blind?”

“My sight isn’t that bad!”

“Whatever you say, Cinderella.”

“I owe you lots, Sejeong…”

“Shush,”

It was the first time someone called her pretty, so she can’t help it.
 

---

She was fourteen when she found out that Sejeong had been struggling to make ends meet. Three months before, her mother was admitted to the hospital. Her brother had moved from being a taxi driver to a white collar worker. Still, it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough. Too many zeroes to cover.

On top of that, there was the monthly school fee…

She was fourteen when she told Mina to take Sejeong somewhere for the rest of the day. She was fourteen when she marched to the administration office and used the money she had saved for months to cover Sejeong’s fee. And paid for her next three months.

I owe you lots, Sejeong…

She was fourteen when Sejeong found out about it later, called her an idiot, wrung her collar thrice, told her to turn around, and quietly cried against her back.
 

---

She was fifteen when an upperclassman asked her out. Called her pretty, beautiful, model-like. She reached the 165 cm mark months ago. Beautiful, though…

The hallway was empty saves for the two of them, since it had been two hours since the last bell rang. Nayoung stayed behind to finish a project long overdue because she had to take a week break. Damn that fever.

“So…?” The upperclassman – name too irrelevant in her life to recount – wasn’t bad looking. He’d been one fine man to date if Nayoung was born with even an ounce of interest in the chromosome Y’s.

“Ah, sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. You look cute even when you’re spacing out.” He meant it humorously. Nayoung was too busy thinking whether Sejeong had gone home safely because it was raining outside and the girl had to rush home even though Nayoung offered her a ride. Then again, Rachmaninoff plus a heavy torrent screamed disaster in the making…

Or maybe, Sejeong already knew about this sudden hallway k-drama confession beforehand.

“Nayoung?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
 

---

She was sixteen when she and Sejeong had an interesting talk one night.

Under the night sky of August, they had a usual rendezvous at Yanghwa Bridge, leaning their front against the railing, taking in the marvelous view of Seoul at night and flashes of car headlights shining from one end of their peripheral view to another.

To keep thoughtful silence away, Sejeong mused about her day. “Should I get a part-time job? Tutoring is already draining as it is, but, money. God. Those pieces of paper mean a lot more than my entire existence and I’m human. We’re humans. Humans create money. Money creates humans.”

“Stop trying to be so philosophical. It ain’t your lane.”

Sejeong elbowed her, but the gesture was fond. “Money has been on my mind these days… and you’re the only person I could confide to. About this.”

To the world, Kim Sejeong was a one-dimensional thin piece of paper personifying every good deeds in the world. To Nayoung, Sejeong was a three-dimensional human being with her own set of flaws. “And I’m a willing pair of ears.”

“What should I do…?”

Sejeong’s life was an entirely different world from hers, but one she has frequently taken a visit to. Sunday dates with Sejeong’s mother in the Municipal Hospital, free rides to houses of the brats Sejeong need to tutor, nights spent at Sejeong’s place when the house felt exceptionally empty. Two had always been better than one.

She racked her brains for one answer. “There is one ultimate way.”

“Shoot.”

“I’ll marry you.”

She heard their bated breath. Sejeong’s. Her own. “What,” Sejeong’s voice came out a bit quivering, unsteady. Unlike Sejeong. There was a breathy chuckle tacked at the end of it.

Nayoung looked up to the sky, finding no stars to guide her home. The story wrote itself: two teenagers lost in youth. “I’m—no. My family is loaded. We should get married… we’re both Kims already. Sign the marriage certificate. That way I can legally pay for your… everything?”

They exchanged smiles at each other, Sejeong baring teeth at her. She looks ethereal, Nayoung thought, even though right then Sejeong was also baring her everything, imperfection included. Sejeong stretched her arms, pushed her body backwards with her feet rooted to the ground to keep herself steady. “What about love?”

“What?”

“Marriage needs love. It’s in the recipe book.”

“Um… we can work on it.”

“By?”

“We’re friends. We’ll go over it with time.”

Sejeong laughed, not the loud kind. Softened. By what, Nayoung wondered. “Sure. Marry me in ten years!”

“Sure!”

“The Han River is the witness to your pre-marriage proposal.”

“Tell that to the Han River.”

Sejeong pushed herself forward, pressed her chest to the railing, and shouted into the night, to the Han River, to the world, “Marry me in ten years, Kim Nayoung! You promised! Make me rich and get me those fat checks!”

Nayoung followed, shouting in her own hoarse voice, “Hear that, Han and the creatures dwelling under the river! It’s me! Kim Nayounggg! I’m gonna marry Sejeong in ten years so you better keep the dashing princes away from her!”

They shared laughs and there were no more words, just their disjointed chortles and the hushed melody of their lungs, Nayoung’s dragged exhale when she witnessed Sejeong’s brightest grin in years and Sejeong’s sharp inhale when Nayoung pulled her into a hug.

“You promised.” Sejeong whispered to her shoulder. Nayoung nodded against her black locks. At least she made Sejeong laugh. At least her joke of marriage proposal worked… it’s not like the feeling is mutual…
 

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Note(s): [1] Follow-up chapter in three days. Sorry for the boring chapter ^^; mandatory flashback and backstory chapter is mandatory ;___;