I was expecting Amber’s house to be another sprawling Italian palace like Jonghyun’s, but it was anything but. When I arrived at the address she’d texted me Saturday afternoon, I found that she lived in a snazzy penthouse in the heart of Gangnam. Like Jonghyun’s private sitting room, her apartment seemed to be very modern.

Rather than a servant, Amber herself answered when I used the call button, and it was she who opened the door when I finally reached the top floor.

“Narae-yah!” she exclaimed, standing aside so I could enter the apartment. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

“Thank you for inviting me,” I answered politely, looking around at the living room in awe. While it was obvious that the furniture was expensive, the apartment lacked the overwhelming decadence of the Kims’ house.

Amber linked her arm with mine and tugged me down a hallway, towards her bedroom. “It’s no problem,” she assured me. “Are you hungry? I’ve got snacks.”

“I’m fine,” I declined. “Where are your parents?”

“Working,” she replied indifferently, pushing open the door to her bedroom. It was plain and tidy within, devoid of useless trinkets and knick-knacks. She shut the door behind us and perched on the end of her bed. “What do you want to do today?”

“I don’t care,” I answered honestly, looking over the handful of posters tacked to her walls. They were mostly of sports teams, but there were a few of British punk bands.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “How about we go get your hair done?” she finally suggested.

I tore my eyes away from a glossy poster featuring the Pistols to give her an incredulous look over my shoulder.

Amber laughed loudly. “I know, I know. I don’t seem the type to frequent salons, right? I’m usually not, but your split ends are killing me. Please let’s get them taken care of!”

I blushed and my fingers automatically tangled in the loose ends of my long hair. I hadn’t had a haircut in forever. Zelo’s mom used to trim my split ends for me, even if she was only mediocre, but she hadn’t been sober long enough to trust with a pair of scissors. Himchan offered to trim my hair once, but he had had such an evil gleam in his eyes that I had run in the other direction and avoided his and Yongguk’s apartment for weeks afterwards.

“I don’t really have the money to go to a salon,” I admitted. And certainly not a high-end salon like the type Amber was used to.

“Don’t worry about it,” she smiled reassuringly. “It’s my treat. Let’s go.”

I tried to protest, because I definitely didn’t like accepting charity, but Amber was insistent. She practically dragged me out of the penthouse – she was as strong as she looked – and down to the parking garage, where she climbed behind the wheel of a blue SSC Ultimate Aero and gestured for me to get into the passenger seat.

“This car is amazing,” I breathed in awe, sliding into the leather seat and buckling my seatbelt.

Amber grinned devilishly, pulling out of the parking spot with a squealing of tires. “I know. It’s insanely fast. I love it.”

“I know,” I said, running my fingers over the smooth dashboard. “It can go from zero to sixty in two point seventy-eight seconds.”

She gave me a surprised but pleased look as we pulled away from the parking garage, into the busy traffic of Saturday afternoon Seoul. “You know cars?”

“I love them,” I admitted sheepishly. “My dream car is a McLaren F1.”

Amber’s grin widened. “Mine too! We should totally go test drive one after we go to the salon!”

My grin faded quickly, my heart skipping several beats. “N-no!” I said quickly. “What if we crash? Besides, they’ll never let two teenage girls test drive one of the most expensive cars in the world!”

She winked at me. “Never underestimate the will of a rich girl, Narae. I would’ve thought you’d learned that by now.”

It took us about half an hour to reach the salon since traffic was bad, but we finally found a parking space and went in. The inside of the salon looked like some sort of exotic spa. The floors were some kind of important black marble, and a long counter of the same sort of marble ran the entire length of the waiting room. There were a few middle-aged woman, dressed quite fashionably, sitting in the plush armchairs there, flipping through tabloids and sipping champagne from fluted crystal glasses.

The slender girl behind the counter, dressed in all black with fashionable cat-eye glasses perched on a nose that had obviously been altered, smiled at us when we came in. “Good afternoon, Ms. Liu. Did you have an appointment with us today?”

“No,” Amber said apologetically, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I’m actually here for my friend.”

The woman behind the counter looked me over, scrutinizing every detail of my less than glamorous appearance, from my scuffed sneakers to the two inches of split ends in my hair. “I can see that,” she finally said, forcing a smile. I would’ve been offended except I figured that was the most polite way she could’ve phrased it.

“I know she’s probably all booked up today, but is there any way Hyojin can squeeze her in?” Amber asked hopefully, leaning against the counter.

The receptionist typed something on her flat-screened computer, frowning through her designer classes. Then she smiled up at Amber and I. “You’re in luck! She had a cancellation today, so she’s got a free slot. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Er, Song Narae,” I answered, feeling that even my name wasn’t nice enough to be in this salon.

The receptionist typed it in with a clacking of manicured nails and smiled at us again. “Great. Hyojin is just finishing up with her current client, so if you’ll just have a seat she’ll be right with you.”

“Thanks,” Amber said, grabbing my arm and dragging me over to two empty chairs near the wide front window. “We really lucked out,” she whispered gleefully as we settled down to wait. “Hyojin is usually booked six months in advance! She’s really the best, Narae-yah! She’ll do wonders with your hair!”

We had to wait about forty-five minutes for the stylist, but Amber initiated a conversation about foreign cars so I really didn’t notice the passing of time until the receptionist called my name and beckoned me back. Amber followed, even though I hadn’t asked her to. I guess she knew that I would need the moral support. I’d never really done anything with my hair before, after all.

The receptionist with the stylish glasses led us back to a private room, where a pretty woman in her early thirties was standing beside her stylist’s chair. She smiled at us; she had a smile that could grace the cover of any magazine. “Ms. Liu,” she greeted Amber warmly. “What a pleasure to see you again! I hear that we’re helping your friend out today?”

“That’s right,” Amber said, steering me into the stylist’s chair before taking a seat in one of the empty chairs. “As you can see, she needs a bit of work on those split ends.”

The stylist, Hyojin, pulled a cape around my shoulders and fastened it at the nape of my neck. “Well, what shall we do to fix this?”

“Do whatever you want,” Amber suggested, not even bothering to verify with me that this was okay. “You have total creative liberty. I know you’ll make her look amazing.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had always kept the same hairstyle, ever since I was a little girl. It had always been long and straight and my natural color. Anything else was too difficult to maintain – not to mention too expensive. My plain hair might have been boring, but I’d always been okay with it. The thought of this woman doing whatever she wanted to my hair terrified me, but at the same time it was just hair. It would always grow back, and if it ended up looking horrendous I could just wear a hat until it didn’t look so bad anymore. So I gave a slight not of acquiescence.

Hyojin looked like Christmas had come early. “Fantastic!” she crowed, and she immediately set to work.

She shampooed and conditioned my hair, which wasn’t the scary part. It got scary when she brought out some foul-smelling dye and began mixing it together, looking alarmingly like a mad chemist. That’s when I felt my palms go sweaty.

Luckily, Amber chose that moment to resume our eager discussion about cars, distracting me from the way Hyojin was layering dye and aluminum foil into my hair. It took her about forty minutes to finish with the dye, and then she set a timer and left Amber and I alone while the dye set.

“You’re really going to like it,” Amber promised, changing the subject from cars to hair in an instant. “Hyojin is really a genius when it comes to this sort of stuff. Most of the crotchety old ladies who come in here don’t give her much liberty, so you’ll definitely have a one-of-a-kind hairstyle. Everyone at school is going to be really jealous.”

I nodded. Even if I had misgivings about the final product, it was too late to do anything about it and I’d never been one to worry needlessly. So instead of talking about hair, I said, “Unnie, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she answered without hesitation.

I chewed on my lower lip, thinking how best to phrase my question without sounding ruse. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Amber cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m nice because we’re friends. Friends are nice to each other.”

“But since when are we friends?” The words sounded rude even if I tried to be polite. “I mean, I’ve been going to Seol Chong Academy for months now and this is the first time we’ve ever hung out.”

She looked down at her hands, looking a bit guilty. “To be honest, I’m not as brave as I probably come across. At a school like ours, appearances are everything and I wanted to fit in. I was afraid of befriending you because I was worried about what it would do to my reputation around school. I’m not proud to say it, but even someone like me can be affected by what their peers think. And you…well, you know what everyone thinks about you…”

I nodded, smiling dryly. I appreciated her honesty.

“But when I saw Jessica and her little es picking on you the other day, I just sort of lost my temper,” she admitted. “I was so tired of seeing everyone pick on you when they didn’t know a thing about you other than the fact that you’re a scholarship student. It really got under my skin.”

“I appreciate it, but I really don’t want you to be my friend because you pity me,” I muttered, playing with a loose threat on my shirt.

Amber looked at me earnestly, her clear face honest and open. “I’m not,” she said simply, and that was that.

Hyojin returned to the room when the timer went off and she washed the dye out of my hair. Then she put me back in the chair, dried my hair, and went to town with her shears. Thankfully Amber was there to distract me from the constant snipping sound and the sight of my hair falling softly to the mat below. We’d exhausted our conversation about cars by then, so she began telling me about her close friends at school.

“Jinki is really awful,” she said with a fond chuckle, and I struggled to put a face with the name. “He thinks he’s really funny, but his jokes are all so lame.” She laughed loudly. “He’s actually pretty sweet, though. Then there’s Jonghyun, but you already know him.”

I grunted. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

“He’s not as big of an as he comes across, you know,” she said with another fond smile. “He just thinks he has to keep up that big-money façade all the time. He’s weird like that, but I think it’s because of his dad’s business.” She hesitated. “You know, I’m the one who told Ms. Lee that he threatened you that day in the bathroom.”

I nearly jerked my head around to gape at her, and only Hyojin’s firm grip on my chin kept her from cutting my hair in a jagged line. “Be still!” she warned.

“What do you mean, you’re the one who told Ms. Lee?” I demanded, trying to see Amber in the mirror. “How do you even know about that?”

Amber shrugged. “I was in the restroom when he was threatening you. I guess he figured everyone would be gone since school was over, but I’d stayed late to help Ms. Park. So I overheard everything.”

I frowned. “Well, why did you report him? He’s one of your best friends, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Amber agreed. “But you didn’t deserve such hostility from a guy who didn’t even know you,” she said, meeting my gaze directly in the mirror. “Besides, sometimes Jonghyun is too high and mighty for his own good. It’s not going to kill him to do the damn project like everyone else.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I simply remained silent.

“Almost done,” Hyojin announced cheerfully, distracting Amber and I from the awkward conversation that had unfolded. I turned my attention fully back to my reflection in the mirror, examining my new hair from every angle while the stylist gave it a final brush.

Although I had certainly been apprehensive about the whole affair, the end product didn’t look half bad. Scratch that. It looked amazing. I turned this way and that, admiring myself in the wide mirror. Hyojin had dyed my hair a deep red, so dark that you couldn’t tell it was dyed until the sunlight hit it. Though she’d kept my hair long, she’d trimmed off all the split ends and given me long layers that framed my face. For the first time since starting Seol Chong Academy, I looked like I might fit in.

“What do you think?” Hyojin asked eagerly, clutching her shears in her hand.

“I love it,” I answered honestly, running my fingers through my silky locks.

Hyojin and Amber high-fived. “I knew you’d love it,” Amber grinned. “Hyojin is the best, after all.”

“I try,” Hyojin replied modestly.

I couldn’t stop playing with my new hair while Amber paid the receptionist and thanked Hyojin for the millionth time, and then we walked out into the bright afternoon sunlight to find Amber’s car.

“You really like it?” she asked, unlocking the car and sliding behind the wheel. She was beaming, like it was a personal accomplishment of hers that my hair had turned out so well.

I nodded, slipping into the front passenger seat. “I really do, but you shouldn’t have spent so much money on me. How much did it cost?” I almost dreaded the answer. I knew how rich people could throw away money on frivolous things like this.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered airily, throwing the car into drive. “Now let’s get something to eat.”