As morning comes, little slivers of light fall through the gaps in the wood. The soft morning light bounces of the dust particles and into Ara's eyes. She groans at this and turns around refusing to get up. What's the point if waking up she wonders as she slowly drifts back into slumber.

 

"Get down here Ara!" A loud voice resonates in the house disturbing her sleep and she lets out of sigh getting up, pushing the towel she uses as a makeshift blanket off her body. She can barely stand in the confined space of the attic and she has to crawl to the exit.

 

The house has enough rooms for her but her parents refuse to give her any sort of comfort other than the essentials calling her a spoilt brat even when she asks for a simple mattress.

 

"Yes Umma?" Ara asks ruffling her hair as she walks to the kitchen. She isn't greeted by a 'good morning' nor a simple smile instead a hard slap to her face. The impact bursts her lip and her left cheek turns red.

 

"What the hell took you so long?" Her mother shouts. Ara is unable to answer, it had only taken her a minute since she was called to be there. She wasn't suprised at her mother's actions, this was their usual morning routine.

 

"Take this to your father" her mother demands pushing a tray into her hands, "he's sick today." Ara holds in the urge to scoff, of course sick always meant hungover.

 

"Yes umma." She complies taking the tray to her her parents room where her father lies sleeping on a large bed.

 

"Appa" she softly calls as she puts the tray down on the bedside table. Her father stirs in the bed and opens his eyes to angrily glare at the girl for waking him up.

 

"What do you want?" His voice is anything but soft and scares Ara as she takes a step backward.

 

"Umma, made you breakfast." She explained gesturing to the tray of food and drink next to him. He turns in the bed grabbing the first thing he puts his hand on and throws it at Ara. It just happened to be a cup of coffee. "Get out , don't wake me for such petty things." He screams at her. She quickly picks up the pieces of glass from the cup and wipes the liquid with the end of her shirt before running out of the room. She finds the closest bathroom dumping the glass in the waste basket before washing the blood of her fingers from having held the broken glass. Leaning back on the sink a sigh escapes as she examines the burn on her forearm from the hot coffee her father just threw at her.

 

***

 

Taemin looked up to see the girl walk in to class. Her head hung low barely watching where she was going. He stuck his foot out tripping the girl who fell to the ground face first. A smirk played on his lips as he watched her stand and wipe the blood from her already burst lip reopened by the impact with the floor.

 

Without a word, she walked away and sat at her table behind him placing her head on the desk pretending to fall asleep.

 

"Don't worry about the lip, nothing can make you uglier than you already are." Her lack of response frustrated Taemin, no matter how many times he had bullied Ara she had never once cracked. Annoyed he stood up and faced her desk. "Come on ugly, what's the matter cat got your tongue." Once again her head remained low and she refused to respond to the boy.

 

"Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" Ara mumbled under her breath hoping that those words spoke true today. 

 

No matter how many beatings she got at home from her 'loving' parents, she had always persevered. She always was strong in the face of all the bruises, all the pain, all the burns, all the scars from her home life. That is what she prided herself on, the fact that she had never cracked.

 

However Taemin's words always had an impact. She tries to control her tears every time he speaks, every insult that comes out of his mouth hurts her. In the face of Taemin all her resilience and stoicism fades away.

 

She resented and hated Taemin for that.

 

***

 

She walked to the lunchroom with empty hands, her parents never made her lunch so he school day was usually spent starving.

 

She sat next to Key, her best and only friend. The only person to never judge her, to never ask questions, the only one to actually care.

 

Seeing she had no lunch, like most days he offered his own. Ara gave him a sweet smile as she shook her head indicating no thanks.

 

"Come on Ara, you look so frail. You haven't eaten this entire week. Please take it." He tried again placing his lunchbox of dubboki in front of her. Refusing once again Ara pushed the food back to Key.

 

"I'm fine Key" In that moment her stomach growled loudly betraying her  hunger.

 

Key smirked,  once again placing the food in front of her. "Yeah totally fine."

 

Reluctantly Ara held her hand out making Key look at her confused. "Chopsticks." She clarified her gesture and Key smiled placing the chopsticks in her hand. "Thanks Key."

 

She began eating, stuffing the food in . "Slow down Ara, you're going to choke."

 

"I'm sorry" she wiped and smiled, "want some?" Key smiled back and opened his mouth insisting she must feed him. Letting out a small giggle Ara picked up the largest piece of dubboki she could find and attempted to feed it to Key.

 

Before she could however, the chopsticks were flung out of her hand and the lunchbox in front of her flipped over and spilled it contents on the floor.

 

"Taemin, what the hell is your problem!" screamed Key glaring angrily at the culprit who towered over there table. Taemin merely smirked and shrugged as he walked away, content with ruining Ara's day.

 

Key turned back to look at Ara, who was staring at the food that was now on the floor as a tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek. Behind her tears, she was fuming with anger.

 

Taemin had no right to do that. The teasing, the insults, the bullying she could handle but not this. That wasn't even her own lunch. Key had given it to her out of the kindness of his heart and that bastard had ruining it. He had messed not just with her but with Key. No way, that she would take that lying down.

 

Angrily she stood up and walked up to Taemin who was now with his friends laughing and smiling unaware of the person walking towards him. Taemin's friend Jonghyun moved his head as a gesture to warn his friend. Taemin turned around and smirked at finally getting a response from the girl.

 

She stood in front of him, hot tears running down her face. Taemin expected some sort of 'why are you so mean?' or 'please stop', the usual girl responses to bullying.

 

Instead she punched him, square in the jaw causing the boy to fall of his chair hit the floor with a loud thump. Silence filled the lunchroom as everyone watched her explosion. Looking at the red faced boy on the floor, Ara wiped her tears and gave him a smirk, the smirk she had seen on his face so many times before.

 

Without saying a word she walked away, out of the cafeteria. Key ran after her, suprised but at the same time proud of her.

 

"Ara!" he panted as he finally caught up to her, "where are you going?"

 

"The nurses office, I think I broke my wrist."

 

So that's the first part up. This is what I did last night when I should have been sleeping. Hope you like it. There's more to come. Please comment and subscribe. Even add me if you want to, you don't have to. Have a nice Halloween, even though that was yesterday but I'm always late. :)