I’ll definitely make sure things turn out different. Here, this very pretty, obviously rich student is actually talking to me. This is the perfect opportunity to start anew and show myself for who I really am. There’s no point really in dwelling on my pathetic past when I have the present to contend with. NO. This time it’ll definitely be different. I’ll open up more and I won’t be so conservative, and I’ll work hard to make up for what I’m lacking in financially…..

I continued to space out into my hopes for this new life when I heard finger snapping and saw a hand waving frantically in my face. I suddenly came back to my senses….”W-What!?”, I snapped.

“I SAAAID….is this your first year here?”, Sunny asked again slowly and carefully as if I had trouble understanding. “I’ve never seen you around here before so I assume that you’re new?”.

“Y-yes”, I said dumbly, only now just realizing that my mind had flown away right in the presence of my new prospective friend. “T-This is my first year here. My family and I recently moved into the neighborhood”.

“Ahh, I see. How interesting”, said Sunny. She had a very carefree tone, so I wasn’t able to pick up any hint of her knowing of where I was from. I thought everyone here would be aware that the new girl was from some poor village. It wasn’t everyday that a person just happened to move INTO Seoul Leigh. IT seemed like you were either living here or elsewhere…depending on your financial state of course.

I was about to drift off into my regularly occurring internal life reflections when Sunny suddenly broke my trail of thought. “How would you like to go out later after school?”. The words hadn’t completely registered into my mind when I realized what she was asking. “You’re new here so you might not know of it, but there is a very cute café a couple blocks from here. Their cakes are really delicious and they have all kinds of Chinese tea. Are you interested in going with me?”, Sunny asked again. My heart leapt as I was ecstatic that such a beautiful girl invited me to go out, but at the same time my heart sank because I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford it. My family was on a tight budget and I wouldn’t want to burden my parents with my selfish desires. I would have to turn her down…regrettably…

“UH-I”, I opened my mouth to speak, when suddenly a group of girls, all elaborately put together with carefully and artistically done make-up, delicately manicured nails, and sporting all the latest designs I’d seen in my sister’s fashion magazine, suddenly ambushed Sunny with hugs and kisses and remarks like “How was your summer?” and “We need to catch up” and “Your coat looks so gorgeous”. The girls took off into rapid and excited conversation. They were obviously good friends who hadn’t seen each other much over the summer. Sunny had obviously forgotten the conversation we were having previously having as she was quickly and skillfully responding to the various questions she was asked and commenting appropriately with the topic of their girly conversation.

 “Let’s grab a coffee shall we?”, suggested the shortest girl of the group. She has medium length wavy hair and a cute round face. As she made her suggestion she was slowly urging and pushing the group in the direction of the door. The other girls liked the idea and went along with it, pushing Sunny along with them. She looked back at me as the group inched closer to the door and smiled an apologetic smile at me and put her hand to her ear in the “call me” sign, like we’d talk later. It was nice to know she didn’t forget I was sitting there but it made no sense to me to signal that sign when we hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. But in any event, I was glad for the distraction so I wouldn’t have to turn her down on her offer to go out. At least I had some time to come up with an excuse.

I breathed a tired sigh of relief and looked around the room, observing all the gorgeous students who surrounded me. I continued to recite my mantra for this new life over and over in my head, “It won’t be the same I promise”, and I lay my head on my arms on my desk as my mind drifted off into another one of my internal reflections.

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Hello there!

This is Nellie-Chan, thanks for reading

and please comment!