I always knew I was different.

First off, I was blonde.

Okay, that doesn’t sound that bad. But it was a bit weird. Especially when I’m Korean. And 11.  It wasn’t natural- my Umma, what I call my Mom, helped me dye it. She said it made me look like a Korean celebrity. I think I look like a dandelion.

Whenever I walk on the streets, people always do a quick glance, and then turn back to have a real gawk at me, their eyes flicking from my hair and face like power switches, as if trying to turn their brains on and off to compute this new information.

I don’t care if they look. I’ve never really fit in anyway.

My Korean relatives think I’m cute though. They always say so when they visit. But I don’t want to be cute.

It wasn’t just my hair that made me stick out- I think I’m a little different on the inside too. I’m not sure how, but it’s just a feeling.

          Like when I met Mr. Choi.

“Hey, guess what this is,” said Kai, sticking a plank of wood between his legs.

I peered from underneath my blonde fringe to see what was going on, chewing on my lip as we waited for the teacher to come out for our first woodshop lesson. I didn’t think I would like woodwork. I wasn’t very good at measuring and making stuff.

“Uhh, your ?” Sehun laughed.

“No! It’s morning wood!”

They burst into laughter and I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling. That was pretty clever for Kai, considering he was a dumb most of the time.

“What are you smiling at, chicken boy?” sneered Kai. “Jealous you haven’t got one?”

Kai and his friends always teased me because I’m skinny, wear skinny jeans and look like a girl.  I hate it. But no matter how much I eat, the only place I gain weight is around my face, which makes my face look rounder.  And the only jeans that really fit my skinny legs are skinny jeans, so it only seems logical that I like those. Pair that up with my shaggy blond hair, and apparently, I’m a girl.

Me and Kai used to be friends. We went to the same church, and we always sat next to each other during the sermons. But then I moved schools because this was closer to my house, and Kai was here. I was really happy when I saw him in my class, especially since I got moved up a grade. But he just nodded at me and didn’t sit with me, bumping fists with the loud boys in the class. I soon learnt that I wasn’t cool enough to be seen with him. His friends didn’t like me. So when he was with them, he didn’t like me either. But when we were alone, sometimes he was nice to me again. Sometimes.

I rolled my eyes and looked down at my hands, playing with the beads on my rosary bracelet.

“Morning, class!”

I kept my head down as the teacher came into the room.

“My name is Mr. Choi, and I’m your woodshop teacher.”

Snickers from Kai and his friends.

The teacher started calling out attendance as I stared at the tools around the room, saws and drills laden with sawdust that made my nose itch.

Wow, my nose really did itch.

“Taemin?”

I sneezed.

The class started giggling and I could feel myself turn red, heat burning up my cheeks.

“Bless you Taemin,” said Mr. Choi. “Are you okay?”

Finally, I looked at the teacher for the first time, and he was smiling at me.

It was a smile that was genuinely nice and like it was only aimed for me, like he knew that I hadn’t been paying attention, and that the sawdust had tickled my nose.  It was a smile that eased away my embarrassment, and made it feel like it was our inside joke or something. He was very tall, with brown floppy hair and brown eyes. And judging by his name, Korean like me. A Korean teacher! He looked too young to be a teacher, but he didn’t seem nervous or anything.

I nodded, hoping to get the attention away from me.

As we watched a video about safety precautions in the woodwork classroom, I watched Mr. Choi. He was leaning against one of the benches, fiddling with a piece of scrap wood. He looked up and caught me staring at him.

Crap.

I quickly glanced back at the TV screen where a middle aged man with a moustache showed us his shoes, explaining how open shoes were dangerous in a woodwork classroom.

“Taemin?”

I jumped as I heard Mr. Choi’s voice close to my ear. I turned slightly to acknowledge he was there.

“Yeah?” I said quietly.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I answered quietly again, not knowing what else to say.

“Okay. Talk to me if you need anything.” He rubbed my arm before moving away, quirking a half smile which I tried to mimic back.

Mr. Choi was so nice.

“What up buddy,” said Jake, shrugging off his coat and hitting me on the arm as he walked past to the kitchen and I sat on the couch.

Jake, my stepfather, is not nice.

Well, he’s not mean either. He’s just not nice. He never calls me by my name, always some dumb variation of “buddy”, or “pal,” or “kiddo”.  He and my Umma got married two years ago. At first I had been excited to get a Dad; I had never known mine. My Umma had me by herself when she was 17, and we had come to the U.S. when I was five. I didn’t know much about my real dad,  so when my Umma said she was going to get married to this guy named Jake, I was really happy.

He had been really cool at the beginning, when he and Umma were just dating. He always got me little presents, like a poster with a football player on it, caps and stuff like that. He was younger than Umma, so he was supposed to be cool and relate to me more. Even though I hated sports, I appreciated the effort.

But it wasn’t until after he moved in that I realised Jake wasn’t so nice. He had tried to play catch with me after dinner every night the first week, but he stopped after he learnt that you don’t play catch with me- you play fetch, since I could never catch the stupid ball. Jake was like a guest that never left and sometimes made me feel like my Umma liked better than me. He talked to me like he thought I was a baby who couldn’t understand anything, “don’t worry kid” this and “your Mom and I want to have an adult talk” that.

But the worst time was when we had gone shopping in the supermarket, and Umma had run off to get cheese. Someone Jake knew had come up to us, and he hadn’t seen Jake in a while.
              “Who is this?” he had asked, gesturing at me.

“Uhm,” said Jake, rubbing the back of his head. “Uhh, long story. He’s my wife’s kid.”

“So your stepson?” the man had prompted.

“Uh, I guess,” said Jake. “Except I’m too young and he’s too old for me to really consider as my son, you know?”

When I remember that, I hate him.

Like now, when my Umma and him are arguing. They always argue when they want to think I’m up in my room doing homework, even though we all know I’m playing Pokemon on my DS.

“I want to buy house, Jake. Renting is waste of money,” my Umma would start off in her bad English.

“I know Boa, but it’s not the right time. The interest loan rates are so high at the moment,” Jake responded. “I want to save up some more before we go investing into property.”

“It’s never right time with you, Jake!” my mother would yell. “We’ve been married for nearly two years. I want real home!”

I hate him. I hate when he makes my mother angry and upset. I hate him for making me angry and upset. It was never like this when it had been just me and my mother. I just wanted it to be quiet and peaceful again and I don’t have to live in a home where I get that prickling feeling at the back of my neck and that dip in my stomach because I know someone in it didn’t care about me.

I lay on my bed wishing Jake was like the father I had dreamed of. One that kept trying to talk to me because he knew I was shy, who understood I was bad at sports, and so tried to bond over something different. One who would call me his son even before I was ready, and didn’t fight with my Umma. I pretended that the light over my bed that was hurting my eyes was a very close up star, or maybe God’s face, and I wished with all my might that things could change.

“Who likes their fingers? Because if you don’t, here is the table saw. I cannot tell you the amount of full grown men who have had their fingers chopped off because of this machine. I am not kidding. Cut off anything worse than your fingers, or more than one, and you would probably bleed out before we make it to hospital.”

Mr. Choi surveyed us seriously, and I shuffled nervously.

“Alright. I’ve chosen your partners for your woodwork assignment. No switching, do you hear me?”

Everyone groaned as he started pairing everyone off.

“Kai, you’re with Taemin.”

Kai’s friends burst out laughing as Kai put his head in his hands, groaning. Stupid Kai. It wasn’t like I wanted to be with him either. He reluctantly walked over to teeter near me like I smelt. Which I knew I didn’t, because I took a shower that morning and I secretly sprayed some of Jake’s cologne on me. I liked to steal and use Jake’s stuff so he had to buy more and lose his money.

            “You do it, Taemin.”

“I don’t know how, Kai!” I said, gritting my teeth.

“I’m not getting my fingers chopped off. You do it.”

Kai walked off toward his friends on the other side of the class, leaving me alone with the piece of wood we were supposed to take turns cutting on the table saw.

“Where’s your partner, Taemin?”

It was Mr. Choi. I shrugged, not wanting to get Kai in trouble because it would mean trouble for me later.

He glanced to where Kai and his friends were, shaking his head as he saw them all crowded around Chanyeol’s phone.

“Alright. Let me show you how to use the table saw, Taemin.”

He helped me line up the piece of wood onto the machine so that it was directly in front of the saw, holding the wood and my hands tightly as he fed the piece in slowly.

I liked the way Mr. Choi smelt, like expensive warm cologne. It was so different from Jake’s. I sneaked a peek at him, watching him concentrate on helping me, letting him change the position of wood every so often. I felt very happy all of a sudden, and sort of floaty. Mr. Choi was so cool!

“All done! Easy peasy, wasn’t that, Taemin?”

I snapped my eyes back to the piece of wood and saw that my wood was now in the shape of the letter T I had drawn.

“Wow,” I couldn’t help but say. “Thank you, Mr. Choi!”

“No problem Taemin,” he smiled as he patted me on the back. “I’m glad you like it.”

I noticed that Mr. Choi was so tall that when we were standing I only came up to the top of his chest. Mr. Choi was so nice.

I really liked woodwork class now. Even though Kai was my partner, he would wander off to where his friends were, leaving Mr. Choi to help me with what we needed to do that day. Mr. Choi was funny, and whatever we made was the best in the class. We once had to make a little chair, and when I brought it home, Jake looked surprised.

“You made this, kiddo?”

“Yeah,” I said, bristling. “Did you think I couldn’t?”

“No of course not, little man,” he said. “It’s just really good.”

I shrugged out of his awkward shoulder pat.

“Give it up, ,” laughed Kai as he shoved me. “It’s not like you’re gonna use it anyway. I bet you’re anorexic or something, judging by your skinny little .”

Kai was trying to get me to give him my pocket money, cliché of all clichés. He normally didn’t get it, he just liked pushing me around a bit in front of his friends. But for some reason, today I thought I would be a little bit braver.

“It’s not like you need to use it either, it’ll only make your fat bigger.”

I saw Kais friends gasp and make amused shocked noises, waiting to see what Kai would do next. Kai wasn’t fat. But he was violent.

“Sorry,” I said meekly. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!”

He pushed me hard, making me fall on my on the concrete ground with a dull thump.

For a second it was numb before it started hurting like nothing I had ever felt. Was it possible to break your ? Because it felt like my bone was a rock that had been thrown against a boulder, if butts even had bones. Tears involuntarily sprung up to my eyes as I covered my nose and mouth with my hands, trying to take it all in.

“Oh no,” said Chanyeol. “You’ve made him cry.”

Kai stared at me with his mouth open, looking like he didn’t know what to do.

“What’s going on here?”

They all lifted their heads at the sound of Mr. Choi’s deep voice.
            “Uh… Taemin fell, sir,” said Sehun.

“Really. Get out of here, all of you.”

The all scrambled away as Mr. Choi knelt down in front of me, looking concerned.

“You okay Taemin?” he asked.

I shook my head, but then realised how that wasn’t the right answer, and nodded my head.

“Oh Taemin. Come on.”

He gently helped me up, patting away dirt and little rocks from my clothes.

“Why are you here, anyway?”

I was near the teacher’s parking lot, where I normally ate lunch. Even though I wasn’t allowed, I still went here. It was because I didn’t want to eat in the court where everyone could see I was eating alone, and the library didn’t open until 10 more minutes where I could hide out.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” he said as I sniffled, trying to wipe my eyes on my hands. “Poor Taemin. It’s okay now. Let’s go to my classroom where we can calm down for a bit, shall we?”

I sat in the woodwork class, clutching a tissue. My still really hurt. Mr. Choi set down a chocolate milk he had bought from the cafeteria in front of me. I wished it was a Coke, but our school banned fizzy drinks.

“Chin up, okay Taemin?”

I nodded silently, embarrassed. He smiled and reached over to fix my hair. I flinched back from the movement, but smiled when I realised what he had wanted to do.

“Was it hard to dye, Taemin?”

I nodded, not looking at him as I tried to poke the milk carton with the straw.

“You have a nice name. Where is it from?” he tried again.

“It’s Korean,” I whispered. “It means ‘great people’.”

“I know. It’s nice.”

I looked at him, studying him. He was so young. Maybe even Jake’s age or younger, and Jake was only 26.  He was sort of good looking, if I cared about that sort of stuff.

“Sometimes my family calls me Taeminnie,” I told him shyly.

“Oh, that’s cute! Do you want me to call you Taeminnie?”

I nodded, out some chocolate milk from the straw.

“Do those boys bother you often?”

I nodded again.

“You can come in here whenever they are, I’ll be in here and we can just hang out. It’ll have to be our secret though. We wouldn’t want anyone else getting jealous from the extra attention I give you, right?”

I giggled as he winked at me. Mr. Choi was funny.

The bell rang and I hopped off my chair, secretly rubbing my .

“Thanks, Mr. Choi.”

“Anytime, Taeminnie.”

I beamed at him before running out of the classroom.

A/N: I think I caught all the names here! Mr. Choi used to be Mr Hoult and Kai was Ben in my original story but I hope I've managed to swap them all! 

This story will be updated pretty fast since I have already written it all and have had it graded so I know it doesn't need editing and checking. And as all these Koreans in this American school.. let's say this is set in a very Korean dense American town, shall we? Anyone know towns in the US with big Korean communities? The only place I can think of is like, Dallas.

But comments will make me update faster!! Please tell me what you think so far!

My tumblr is star-so-light.tumblr.com so please follow and ill follow back and we can talk :)