chapter one
"Everyone has to weather a storm, but what makes everyone different is how they hang in there."

Everyone has to weather a storm, but what makes everyone different is how they hang in there. The words ring in her mind, memories of her mother's gentle smile and warm embrace making her long for those simpler times. This is her mantra; the simple chant she'd heard her mother say years ago, the words she uses to remind herself to keep going.

Her lunch tray lay on the floor at her feet her uneaten meal scattered in chunks around her. The cafeteria, which was always noisy, was eerily silent. Everyone was looking at her.

"Well? Aren't you going to pick it up?"

Mina doesn't bother glancing at the girl who'd purposefully tripped her, she just complies. Bending down she turns the tray over and begins cleaning up the mess picking up the food with her hands.

Mina is used to this. Being bullied had become an everyday ordeal for her, something that she had to overcome daily.

Today, it was just another day, thankfully it was already half over. Just a few more hours to go. Her heart knocks against the wall of her chest, anxiety making its presence known once again. Just clean this up, she thinks to herself, just hurry up and clean this up and then you can go hide for the rest of lunch period.

Just as Mina is gathering her spilled milk bottle a pair of sneakers come into view and before she can think about it one of the shoes shoots forward sending her tray and its contents flying across the floor. Mina winces. She doesn’t dare look up, doesn’t need to. She already knows who is standing before her. Kang Daniel; the second person who hated her more than anything on the planet. The first being her own sister.

“Get up.”

His voice is cold, scary, holding no trace of the kind and gentle lilt he used to posses. Mina trembles.

“Get up!” he shouts.

She complies, standing on shaky legs, hugging her arms to herself as she faces her tormentor.

“I don’t ever want to see you in front of me again. Trash doesn’t belong in the cafeteria. Now get out.”

Mina walks slowly out of the cafeteria. Someone manages to throw a bowl of soup at her just before she’s out the door and it spills all over her left shoulder. The crowd in the lunchroom burst into laughter and when the door is closed Mina runs. She runs as fast as she can, her legs pounding on the floor below her, her lungs burning with every breath. She runs past her class room and up the stairs to the old girls bathroom, the one the school stopped caring to maintain. She runs until she is safe inside the old stall farthest from the door.

“Mom, I need to talk to you about something,” Ong Seungwoo calls out to his mother who is too busy on the phone to notice her son.

She walks to the other side of the room where a bundle of clothes lay scattered on a loveseat and she turns to the stylist placing a hand on the end of her cellphone as she calls her over, “He needs something new, something that will get the Directors attention, something blue, a Cobalt Blue.”

She places the phone back to her ear, “Yes Kim Tae Kyun-ssi I’m still here. Listen, Seungwoo is a nominee for the Model of the Year and Breakout Star, I want to have a photoshoot to commemorate his win…” She pauses as the photographer on the other line gets in a few words, “I know he hasn’t won yet Tae Kyun-ssi but he will you just wait. And when he does I want these photos up on all billboards, all magazines-”

“Mom,” Seungwoo interrupts her and she waves a hand at him hush him up.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m thinking, so set it up for me will you and then give me a call. Okay… You’re an absolute doll… Yes, we will be there.”

She finally hangs up meeting Seungwoo’s eyes, “You were saying something hon?”

Seungwoo opens his mouth but before anything can come out his mother's assistant jumps in taking hold of his mothers elbow to get her attention.

“Sorry to interrupt you Sam,” His mothers assistant walks up to them, using Seungwoo’s english name to cut him off, “but Mrs. Ahn, Anna Wintour is here.”

Seungwoo’s mother's eyes open wide and he sees his chance fly out the window. She’s in beast mode now. Her target: Anna Wintour. Her goal: to get her son on the cover of Vogue.

The stylist runs up to them and hands his mother a set of clothes which she s to him, “Okay, Seungwoo, hurry up and put these on so hair and make-up can do their finishing touches.”

“But mom, I really need to talk to you.”

“Seungwoo listen to me, Anna Wintour, the queen of Vogue, the woman with all the power in the modeling world, the woman who has the final say over every model who appears in the most influential magazine, is here. And she’s come as a favor to a very good mutual friend of ours.”

Seungwoo sighs, slouching his shoulders and placing the clothes on the make-up table, “Mom she’s just another person, like you and me-”

“She launched the career of Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova by putting her on the cover at 16. This woman is the break we’ve been waiting for son. We’ve done fine on our own these last few years, enough that you’ve been nominated for the Model of the Year award. But this woman, she can take your career to a whole new level, one we’ve never even dreamed of. And she is here. Waiting for you. Wanting to see how you do in the shoot. Now, don't worry. Just be professional, okay?”

She pats her son on the cheek and turns to walk away. She won’t listen, she never does. But he has to try. Speak up now or forever hold your peace, he thinks to himself.

“I want to go to school!” He blurts. Everyone stops what they are doing to stare at him. His mother stops walking, she squares her shoulders before turning around to face him.

“Honey,” she says with what she considers a warm smile, it never reaches her eyes, “we've been through this.” Seungwoo can tell she isn’t happy by the sudden change in language. Her mother only used Korean on him when she figured she needed to work double in convincing him her way was the only way.

It confused him and more often than not he would have trouble understanding her so he would give up. That’s what she is hoping for here, Seungwoo realizes. She wants to confuse him, she wants to manipulate him in order to get him to comply to her wishes. But he won’t give up this time. This time he wouldn’t let her change his mind.

“Mrs. Ahn, I have your father on the phone-” His mother waves the assistant away. Seungwoo cranes his neck staring after the assistant as she conjures up an excuse as to why his mother couldn’t take her own father's call.

“There is no reason for you to go to school, going to school would take valuable time out of your day, that’s why we have a tutor on the road with us.”

“But mom-”

“Seungwoo,” She walks up close to him grabbing the long white sleeved shirt from the table where he had left it and helps him out of his shirt and into the new one, “Right now we have exciting things on the table. Modeling contracts, runway shows, appearances on talk shows all over the world and even a movie deal…”

Seungwoo shrugs into the shirt as his mother picks up a simple gold filled chain with a feather pendant and 2 tiger eye brown beads off the table and slings it over his head, “Right now you have opportunities any kid your age can only dream of.”

“Yeah but I still think it would be a good idea to take a break you know, catch a breather. I think going to school could help-”

“All our hard work is finally paying off, we are finally becoming someone Seungwoo, isn’t that what you want? For the world to know your name? Taking a break now would kill all of the opportunities and any hopes of a come back- ever. Now finish getting ready, I don’t want to keep her waiting any longer.”

Seungwoo watches helplessly as his mother walks away.

She’ll never listen. She never has, she never will. Everything in her world revolved around fame and fortune, being known and wanted. Seungwoo was sick of it. He hated it, the attention, the sleepless nights, the loneliness only he seemed to be aware of. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his grandparents.

Taking a look at his surroundings Seungwoo gives himself an ultimatum; Escape this life now or forever hold your peace.

Mina turns on the faucet, staring at her reflection in the dull mirror. The mirror is scratched her reflection all but barely visible. She can see her silhouette and the dark stain on the side of her shirt from where someone had thrown their lunch at her.

Tears threaten at the back of her eyes but she doesn’t let them out. She never lets them out. She had learned long ago that crying and feeling sorry for herself didn’t help with anything.