Fall fades ever more towards winter, bringing with it colder weather and Jinah’s third birthday. Though she’s never thrown parties for the baby before, now that she’s actually got friends who might come, Jinri arranges a small get-together at Youngjae’s house – his mother insists on having it there since she adores the baby so very much. Everyone pitches in and it’s quite a good affair, Jinri finds herself thinking. Yongguk dotes on the baby almost as much as Youngjae’s mother does.

Unfortunately, the rest of her life isn’t quite as ideal as it is with her friends. The cold November winds seem to bring out the worst in her classmates, bringing with it a fresh bout of bullying.

Jinri doesn’t know why it’s continuing. Since Yongguk had made his lucrative offer – which, despite her best judgment, she takes him up on on a fairly regular basis – she hasn’t slept with anyone else, single or in a relationship. She’s stopped picking fights with her peers, especially the girls, but still people seem to dislike her on an intensely personal level.

It isn’t until she comes to lunch one afternoon with a blackening eye from a recent altercation that the boys really understand that the bullying is still going on.

“What happened?” Himchan asks gently, and he doesn’t have to specify for Jinri to know what he’s referring to.

She shrugs nonchalantly like it’s not a big deal; she’s been in more than her fair share of fights before for obvious reasons, so it’s easy to play it off. “Nothing. Some girl got pissed because her boyfriend looked at me the wrong way.” She chuckles, but none of the boys join her.

“Did you sleep with her boyfriend?” Yongguk asks bluntly, and Daehyun and Youngjae wince a little at his straight-forward manner.

Jinri glares at her blonde-haired…what? Lover isn’t the right word, but friend isn’t either. She’s really not sure what to call Yongguk. “No,” she says finally. “I didn’t sleep with her boyfriend. I didn’t kiss her boyfriend. I didn’t look at her boyfriend. I don’t even know who her boyfriend is.” She shrugs. “But when you’re this pretty, it just can’t be helped.” She expects at least one of them to laugh at her attempt at a joke, but they’re a pretty grim-faced crowd today.

“Jinri,” Himchan begins, but she cuts him off.

“It’s fine, really,” she assures him. “I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”

For some reason, she had thought that the bullying would be easier to deal with once she had friends. If she’s got someone to be friendly to her when others are being cruel, she figured it would make things better. But, on some weird level, it doesn’t. It actually makes things worse. Before she had convinced herself that everyone was and was beneath her, but now she knows that’s not true and it’s harder for her to build that wall around herself that once protected her. Now she’s vulnerable and out in the open for everyone to take a stab at.

“What the hell is your problem?” Mrs. Kwang demands one afternoon, appearing in Jinri’s doorway with a lit cigarette in one hand a cup of tea – probably mixed with vodka – in the other. Jinri’s just gotten home from school, where a group of girls she doesn’t even know cornered her to throw rotten rubbish at her and call her vile, cruel names. She’s currently splayed out on her bed, face pressed into her pillow, praying to whatever god is out there that the cotton will soak up her tears. “You’re acting like a baby.”

“Go away.” Her voice comes out lackluster and weak. She doesn’t even have the energy to hate her mother like normal. It’s like the bullying at school is even taking its toll on her home life, however much that before.

Mrs. Kwang clucks her tongue as if she could care less about whatever problems her daughter might be going through. “You should feed the baby. She’s getting hungry.”

“Can’t you do it just this once?” Jinri demands, lifting her tear-stained face from the damp pillow. But her mother is already gone.

Jinri finds Jinah in the nursery, sitting on the floor surrounded by cloth dolls and little pieces of wooden furniture that had come with the dollhouse Youngjae’s mother had bought her for her birthday. Most of the gifts she’d received from her birthday party were being kept at Himchan’s house – Jinri honestly doesn’t trust her mother and stepfather with much of anything – but this they had brought home since Jinri loves it so much. She looks up when Jinri comes in and her face splits into a broad smile.

“Are you hungry?” Jinri asks, pulling Jinah to her feet and holding her hand.

Jinah nods seriously. “I want pizza.”

“No pizza,” Jinri says, shaking her head. “Something healthy, okay? Let’s eat something healthy for dinner.”

Jinah’s face clouds over in that way that indicates a tantrum is surely on the way. She’s a good kid most of the time, but her tantrums are the stuff of legends. “Pizza,” she insists, stomping her little foot.

Jinri sighs. She’s had a bad day and she’s not exactly in the mood to argue with a three year old. “Fine, pizza. Let’s go get your coat and shoes.”

There’s a pizza restaurant just a few blocks from their house, so, after bundling them both up to ward off the November chill, Jinri and Jinah walk hand-in-hand to the pizza place. It’s not very crowded since it’s still early, so Jinri orders them a pepperoni pizza to share and they settle in at a table in the back.

Jinah looks up from where she’s coloring on the paper menu with half-melted crayons and gives Jinri a serious look. “Why are you so sad?” she asks, cocking her head to the side so her braided hair falls over one shoulder.

Jinri has to bite back even more tears that threaten to fall. “I don’t like living in that house,” she answers honestly.

“I don’t either,” Jinah agrees, going back to her coloring. “We should leave. Just me and you. We’ll be happy if we leave.”

There’s a pain somewhere deep inside Jinri at the fact that her little girl is just as unhappy where they are as she is. “Would you like that?” she asks softly, reaching across the table to take Jinah’s tiny little hand. “If we left, just the two of us?”

Jinah thinks about it for a long moment, then nods. “Yongguk-oppa should come with us too.”

Jinri can’t help the snort that escapes at that. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, baby. Sorry.”

“Himchan-oppa is okay, too,” Jinah says, but she’s more focused on her coloring now than on the conversation.

They’re about halfway through their pizza when a group of girls wearing the same uniform as Jinri come in. She recognizes them as being in the year above her, third years. They obviously recognize her, too, because their faces pull up in sneers of recognition and they begin whispering excitedly to one another.

Jinri groans inwardly. She doesn’t live that close to the school, so this is the first time she’s seen classmates around here. She discreetly urges Jinah to eat quickly so they can leave the restaurant.

The next day, just as Jinri had suspected, new rumors are floating around school. Though everyone had been talking about her illegitimate child since her arrival back in March, now it’s the topic on everyone’s tongues again.

She’s cornered in the lavatory after sixth period by the same third year girls she’d seen in the pizza restaurant the night before, only they’ve been joined by a few more of their friends. They don’t particularly look friendly as they advance on Jinri.

“Yo, new girl,” one of them calls, which is a pretty rich nickname considering that Jinri has been going to this school for eight months now – a recent record for her.

Jinri pretends not to hear her, just continues reapplying her lip gloss in the mirror.

The girl clearly doesn’t like to be ignored, so she grabs Jinri by her hair and yanks her backwards. “I’m talking to you,” she says, and she’s smiling as she says it.

Jinri calmly removes her hair from the girl’s grasp. “Sorry,” she says clearly. “You said new girl, so how was I supposed to know you were referring to me? You obviously know my name.”

Another of the girls snorts. “Why would we know your name?” she demands. “You’re just a ty second year.”

Jinri knows that she should just let it lie. It’s in her best interest to shrug it off and walk away, to be the bigger person for once in her life. But she’s got too much pride for that; it’s in her nature to stand up for herself. So she lets her lips slip up into their familiar smirk. “Oh, I think you know my name very well,” she purrs, looking from one girl to the next until she’s faced off with all seven of them. “You know my name because I’m the girl your boyfriends are pretending you are when you’re having with them.”

The slap that stings her cheek is quick but not exactly unexpected.

The girl who has hit her is a small, pretty little thing. She could probably be Jinri’s rival if she so wanted. “My boyfriend would never want to be with a like you,” she spits. “Nobody wants to be with a girl your age who already has a kid!”

“We saw you last night!” another of the girls pipes up. “We saw you at the pizza place with your daughter.”

“What an ugly little thing,” another girl chirps, earning giggles from her friends. “Her father must have been a real dog.” She sighs dramatically. “I guess that’s the risk you run, though, when you spread your legs for every filthy animal that comes along.”

Jinri’s fist connects with the girl’s nose before the others have even finished laughing. “Don’t you ever talk about her,” she snarls, and her threatening voice scares even her.

The girls are suddenly no longer the laughing bullies they were a few seconds ago. Most of them look downright scared.

Before anyone can say or do anything else, however, the lavatory opens and Daehyun stands there. “Jinri,” he says, quite calmly. “I’ve been looking for you. Let’s get out of here and do something fun this afternoon.”

Jinri is all too ready to make an escape. “Sounds good,” she says with a sigh, stepping away from the girl whose nose is currently bleeding all over her uniform, accompanied by little whimpers of pain.

One of the girls, whose hair has been dyed blonde, stops Daehyun with a hand on his arm. “Oppa!” she says, almost desperately. “You don’t want to be seen with this girl! She’s a bad girl! She’s got a baby, you know!”

Daehyun calmly removes the girl’s hand from his arm. “I know,” he says with a little smile. “It’s my baby, too.” He turns to Jinri. “Should we take her to the park?” And then he lets the bathroom door shut behind them.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jinri admonishes quietly as they leave the school together, rubbing her bruising knuckles. “Now everybody is going to think that you’re Jinah’s father.”

“So let them think that,” Daehyun shrugs indifferently. “If it means that they’ll leave you alone about it, then I don’t mind. They can say whatever they want about me. And, anyway, all of us sort of think of Jinah as our own baby anyway.” He gives her a reassuring little smile.

Jinri lets her head rest on his shoulder, reveling in the warmth that has nothing to do with his body heat. “Thanks,” she mumbles, and she genuinely means it.