Slender fingers traced through the sleek wooden frame, ghosting over the smooth yet solid material bordering a picturesque photo. A thumb moved in, firmly pushing it, the back of the frame supported by the other four fingers, after which the owner of those beautiful set of fingers lifted it with practiced elegance. That person, a tall, slim woman seemingly in her middle 20’s, gazed onto the photo contained within, facial muscles forming a melancholy expression. Not too long later, approximately ten seconds, she put the frame back on its place, restraining herself from looking any longer.

She moved back slowly, away from the object like a maddening curse had been placed onto her, yet still her gaze lingers on it longingly. Further, further, and further away she went, until the woman turned around, her back facing the photo frame, before letting out a sigh, either of relief or contempt.

She stayed like this for a while, but then she raised her hung down head and trudged to the minibar. She bent down, opened the mini fridge, and pulled out a medium-sized glass of jade green color. Wine, it seemed. She stared at the label attached on the bottle for a bit, taking her time as she contemplated on something with the same expression she donned earlier. She eventually decided against it, though, and put the glass bottle back in.

Instead, she pulled out an amber-colored carton and took a wine glass from the counter. Settling both on top of the table, the tall woman poured herself a generous amount of apple juice before sealing and tucking the carton away. She then strutted towards the balcony, her glass strongly gripped in one hand and her turquiose-colored smartphone in another, and sat down on the lone chair in the setting, the one near the railing.

She sipped the beverage slowly as her mind wandered away with a thought, what would ‘she’ had for dinner?

The phone got lifted midair and the slender thumb punched in a series of numbers. Perhaps pizza would suffice.

Soojung bites in on her slice of macaroni pizza as she closes her eyes, savoring the juiciness of cheese melting with the mere touch of her tongue. She reopens her eyes and looks around, wondering how such a good pizza joint has so little customers coming. Perhaps the dubious nature of its name, “Dracula Pizza”, contributes something to the scarce number of pizza-goers. Or perhaps the isolated location also did a fair share of contribution to it, given how it is placed at the near end of a very narrow, very deserted alleyway.

Either way, it’s still a good place to add to Soojung’s growing list of favorite restaurants, and shame for those, especially pizza enthusiasts, who don’t know that such a wonderful place exists here in the heart of Seoul, the heart of South Korea. But hey, the brunette can’t blame them. Anyone without prior and extensive knowledge of Seoul’s layout is guaranteed to have a big trouble coming at them when attempting to look for this joint. And in all honesty, under normal circumstances Soojung could very well amount the same as those unfortunate souls.

The Jung focuses her cat-like pair of eyes on the only other customer around, who is seated exactly at the same table as she is, right in front of her. Jinri is currently cutting her own pizza slice into smaller pieces of bread using the sleek silverwares with unexpected precision, always cutting a perfectly straight line and all the while firmly holding the bigger chunk of bread in place using a seemingly well-trained technique, not something a girl like her (seriously, no offense was intended) normally could pull off effortlessly, and yet the jet-black haired girl does it as easy as breathing.

The younger girl stares, thinking many possibilities as to how and where Jinri learned the know-how of proper table manner like this, because Soojung has seen her own fair share of rude people claiming to be ‘properly educated’ yet do poorly behind the dining table.

“Jungie?”

The shorter girl ends her train of thought and looks up a bit, just enough for her brown irises to meet pitch-black ones, “yes?”

“Your phone’s ringing,” the tall girl remarks as her hands hang midair, holding her silverwares so that they faced down towards the plate. See? Now that’s proper manner.

“Oh, really? Sorry, my bad,” she sheepishly said, her hand quickly rummaging into her Louis Vuitton handbag before fishing out her mercilessly-ringing-and-buzzing iPhone 6. She slides the green marker to the other side of the screen and places it near her right ear, “Hello?”

“Soojung! Where are you?”

Jessica? “Eating with a friend… Why? Something’s wrong?”

“Huh, really now…”

“What do you want? Either tell me or I’m hanging up on you.”

“Rude brat. I’ll get straight to the point then, since you’re obviously pissed off because I am possibly interrupting your sweet little eating date with whoever’s with you right now. There’ll be a gala tonight.”

Soojung’s cheeks heat up at the mention of the word ‘date’, but she visibly sours the moment her brain registers ‘gala’ and ‘tonight’, “What.”

There’s a long, knowing sigh from the other end, “There. Will. Be. A. Gala. Tonight. Capiche?”

“Capiche… So, why telling me this?”

A sharp intake of air. “How about you try and guess?”

Okaaay… This is getting way too suspicious…

“Because I’m supposed to come too?” The younger Jung tries her chance.

“That, and another reason.”

Oh? There’s another reason? Soojung ponders, Let’s see… I don’t normally have to be informed if there’s a gala coming unless 1) I’m obligated to show up, 2) Jessica asks me to accompany her, which is pretty unlikely since nowadays she prefers to come with her friends {read: Summer Choi}, and 3) …

No. No, no, nonono no!

“It’s… It’s not going to be held at our place… Is it?” The girl stammers, trying to coherently form a question, whatever question that can disprove her greatest worry because DEAR GOD PLEASE DON’T I—

There’s a long, agonizing pause before Jessica giggles menacingly, “Upupupu… DAAAAHAHAHAHAHA BINGO! I’m glad you’re still as sharp as ever, loser! Now, DESPAIR!”

*Luna: This scene involves our Krystal Jung Soojung flipping over and plummeting the poor restaurant to debris filled with bricks, dusts, and despair-inducing wrath reincarnate. What? The alleyway? No, no, it’s still intact, of course! Well, she’d like to be an awesome bastard like that, but then this story genre would change and I’d hafta held yet another Mutual Killing. Still, thank you our despairingly evil author for censoring this scene because hey, gotta keep the rating at bay! Okay, thank you for your understanding then, loser! Upupupupupu~

Onew: Luna? Who are you talking to—Wait, what are you doing??

Luna…?: ‘Luna’? What, how do you spell that again? Lun-a? Anyway, me no Lun-a! Me, Monokuma! Keep that in mind you stupid, chicken crazed leader of what-was-its-name-again group! Anyway, gotta roll! *vanishes in an instant*

Onew: Wha—I don’t lead any group! And wait, I’m not stupid! Get back here you— *storms away*

Amber: And yet he doesn’t deny being ‘chicken crazed’ *sigh* I apologize for the chaotic intermission, dear readers. Please, keep on reading.

Henry: I don’t get it… Are we in a fanfiction or something?*

After paying for the damage done to the poor, innocent restaurant (and that one waitress who looks like she’s devastatingly traumatized by the whole ordeal), Soojung and Jinri decide to stroll down the suburbs of Seoul, with the former finally experiencing firsthand just what kind of treatments the latter receives here on a daily basis, and just how degraded the society is here in general. The Choi keeps giving her pretend-girlfriend an apologetic look, and would occasionally suggests the use of taxi (with Soojung shooting down the idea each time despite seriously considering it after she gets d ‘accidentally’ by that lecherous man who probably has arrived at the hospital by now), but eventually they arrived at a local park rather incident-free.

Soojung hung up the call during her tantrum (a rather demonic tantrum, at that) and thus received further information regarding the gala via text messages, which she is currently reading thoroughly with an eternal frown plastered on her face. But the frown disappears when she asks if she could bring her friends to the gala as well, of which the following is Jessica’s response:

From: Dolphin Sis

IF YOU DARE BRINGING THE ‘Trio from Hell’s Deepest Pit’ TO MY GALA, MY. ING. GALA, I’M DISOWNING YOU, YOU RUDE BASTARD, DEVIL SPAWN WHO LIKES TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE SUFFERING D”:<

That. Was. Hilarious.

Enough to bring smiles to Soojung’s normally stoic face, as well as upping her mood by several levels as she reminisced about the incident that left the older Jung to be fearful towards her three best friends so much, she couldn’t talk about them without being reduced to a frightened, whimpering mess (or, in a case of text messaging, typing everything in caps lock and adding the bawling-angrily emoticon at the very end). However, this particular story shall be saved for another time, because this is starting to go off of the original tangent.

Soojung is left wondering, who should I bring to the gala as my companion tonight?

“You’re spacing out again.”

The Jung looks to her right, finding Jinri looking warmly at her as if concerned, slightly.

… Of course!

“Ssul, are you free this evening?” she asks immediately without missing a beat, “I’d like your help on something important!”

The asked girl seems taken aback by the sudden questions for a bit before answering unsurely, “I will have to check first, but perhaps with a bit of readjustment… I think I am. Why? What’s the big deal?”

“Perfect!” Soojung pumps her fist into the air and grins, “I was wondering if you could accompany me to my sister’s gala tonight. You can, can’t you…?”

The Choi’s eyes blink confusedly for a second before she asks meekly, “what’s a ‘gala’?”

They both stop abruptly as the innocently strange question sinks in. Soojung in particular is really baffled, and just as she is ready to counter the question with a very sarcastic remark, she remembers that it’s probably going to be extremely insensitive to Jinri, and besides not everyone in this world know about all sort of things she knows, especially considering ‘a certain issue’ at hand…

“Uh…” the Jung starts awkwardly, God knows how badly she fares at answering questions without sounding rude and sarcastic, “I think… It’s okay to say that a ‘gala’ is a bigger, grander version of a party… Well, I think…”

Jinri’s lips form an ‘o’ shape before she summarizes, “so, does that mean you want me to be your date to a party designed for the riches? I’m not sure I’m going to qualify… I mean, I’m not that fancy, and I most likely don’t have any clothes or gowns gala-worthy enough, also—”

“Whoa, hold your horses! What are you talking about, again?” Soojung cuts the taller girl while being unable to stop her face from getting redder by the second. Again, the mere mention of the word ‘date’ is responsible for setting her off like this. Curse her heart for beating wildly whenever that word is said!

“You don’t really have to degrade yourself, you know? Geez… I’ll see to it that you don’t have to worry about what to wear for tonight, okay? Just make sure you’re booked tonight by me, and only me! Okay?”

The slightly older girl can only nodded before muttering lightly, “Ah, such request… Even if I have the heart to say no, why is looking at her flushed face shuts me up…?”

She read through the messages over and over again, as if they were proses from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or Andersen’s Little Mermaid, or Alexander Pope’s Heloise and Abelard. They might as well be such for her, as tragic as they may be. Don’t they reflect her most, tragically broken, fleeting away?

She listlessly released the phone off her slender hand, not sparing a glance as it bounced and bounced away, down to the floor with the crisp, panic-inducing, cracking noise that couldn’t even attain her attention the slightest bit. She learned not to be bothered by such things easily. She couldn’t, she shouldn’t. Doctrines.

The tall woman trudged lightly towards the closet. Her closet, supposedly. What a vast one, filled with equally vast collections of branded items. Dolce Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Chanel…

Yet she didn’t start choosing for the occasion, instead staring at them like a curious child. How did she get all of them, after all? It was so different back then, when even her underwear was handmade, knitted by her using the skill she observed from her aunt back in the days. Auntie, auntie… where art thou nowadays? Gone was she, was she not? A lesson learned, yet again. Appreciate what you have, not what you want to have. You can stare and be mesmerized, but you can’t have. Unless…

She snapped out of it and gritted her teeth. This lifestyle is sick and she knows it. But hey, she’s equally as sick and they clicked so well, almost to a fault.

Having enough brainstorming, she picked whatever her eyes first landed onto, but still being carefully selective so as to not being mismatched or bizarre enough. Party’s a party, hundred pairs of eyes are watching her every inch and no rest and break shall ever rescue her from the impending doom. Reputation, as they said, do make privacy a prized commodity.

She looked upon a full mirror and swayed a bit, forcing a saccharine grin to perfect the look. There, what a good quality portrait. This’ll appear on the front pages tomorrow.

She bit her lower lips and sighed. The night was surely going to be a long one.

“So, how do I look?”

Suzy looks up from her fashion magazine lazily and locks her gaze on her roommate’s figure, now clad in an elegant, expensive-looking black gown complete with same-colored purse and hair decoration.

She swallows the lump in that formed out of nowhere and coughs a mere “good”.

“That doesn’t sound genuine at all…” Jinri mumbles sadly, “As I thought, this doesn’t suit me at all…”

“What? Come on, you look just fine,” the other girl groans, “I envy you, Choi. Getting to go to the gala for the riches! Why am I not blessed with as many lucks as you do?!”

The Choi laughs a hearty one, “maybe you should start actively seeking clients, Suzy, instead of getting them to hoard at you. Who knows what kind of a person you’d find? Perhaps as awesome as Soojung, if not possibly more. The probability is high with you! Besides, what can’t the prodigy do?”

“Well…” Suzy sighs and buries her face into the magazine, “look, you mind your own business and I mind mine, okay? Now, aren’t you running late? Wouldn’t want your date to wait, now would you?”

“Of course not! She’s picking me up soon—” A honk. “Ah, perfect timing! Gotta go, bye Suzy! Hope this looks good enough…”

Jinri rushes for the door while the Bae looks on with a soft sigh, “If only you know how beautiful you look in that dress…”

Meanwhile, Soojung is anxiously waiting for her companion to arrive while fidgeting and looking at the window every so often, checking her look to make sure she looks perfect. Wouldn’t want Jinri to be disappointed, she told her chauffeur, Min Yoongi, every so often when he starts looking at the back seat. Said chauffeur only nod and mumbles a small, quiet “but I didn’t ask anything…”

When the taller girl does arrive, though, both people on the car gawk in amazement at how elegant and beautiful Jinri looks. Soojung catches on Yoongi eyeing her ‘date’ shamelessly and reminds herself to fire this bastard tomorrow first thing in the morning. Poor, poor Yoongi.

“Soojung!” Jinri calls out while grinning slightly, “How do I look…?”

“You look—”

“Flawless!” A voice interrupts, and of course it has to be Yoongi’s. Of course.

The Choi is caught off guard, “Wha—why, thank you, um…”

The chauffeur extends his hand and takes Jinri’s pale and slender ones into his, “Min Yoongi, proud chauffeur of the Jung family, at your service, fair lady.”

Soojung nearly commits a murder right there at that very moment, but Jinri subtly removes her arm from Yoongi’s gloved ones while managing a small smile, “Nice to meet you, Yoongi-ssi.”

“Oh, hold on!” the man exits the car and opens the door to the back seat, “please, by all means.”

“My, thank you Yoongi-ssi,” the tall girl offers a polite smile as she enters the car, sliding herself to sit next to the fuming second daughter of the Jung family.

“Calm down, Jungie.”

“… I’m calm enough…”

“Wouldn’t want your beautiful dress to have bloodstains all over it, right?”

Soojung sighs, “very well.”

Jinri nods cheerfully and straightens her position.

“Ssul?”

“Yes?”

“… You look beautiful tonight.”

“…”

“You too.”

The party is loud, very loud, and very jam-packed with gorgeous and poised people of all ages and genders, but only from one standing: The riches.

Jinri feels extremely out of place despite blending so well into the crowd appearance-wise, thus Soojung feels the need to be next to her date at all times, because who knows when the Choi decides to disappear on her and leaving her standing against her eternal nemesis.

P-A-R-T-Y.

Stupid party.

“Yah, Soojung!” A high-pitched voice echoes in spite of all the loud noises, and the owner quickly comes into her and Jinri’s view with a frown decorating her fair features, “Oh, who’s this?”

“Here, let me introduce you,” the younger Jung grabs her sister’s right hand and locks it with Jinri’s, “Jinri, this is Jessica Jung, my older sister. Sica, this is Choi Jinri, my friend.”

Doesn’t feel like we’re truly friends anymore, though, Soojung thinks as she looks slightly at the ever-smiling Jinri who begins engaging Jessica in a friendly conversation.

Suddenly, Jessica’s phone buzzes, cutting whatever conversation they are currently having. Jessica answers with a brief, “Hello?”

“What? You can’t come? Why??”

“Late? You think being late has ever stop me from attending your parties before? I don’t see that as an excuse, you backstabbing fiend!”

“I. Don’t. Care. Either you come or we’re through. Easy as that.”

Jinri leans slightly and whispers on her companion’s ear, “has your sister’s vocabulary always been this… er, colorful before?”

Soojung sighs, “trust me, this is nothing. At least, coming from the famous model who’s known for being polite yet calls her own sister ‘rude bastard’ or ‘ungrateful brat’…”

“Fine, I’m expecting you to appear in fifteen minutes. Any later and I’ll just consider you taking the latter option. I’m a simple girl.”

“Quit talking and get on with it, shorty!”

“Hey! I’m still taller than you, aegyo bastard! That’s it, you’re going to have it from me—”

“Hello? Sunny?? Yah, Lee Soonkyu!”

“Damn shorty!” Jessica hisses with venom laced in her every words, “Soojung, tell me if that shorty has arrived or not! I’m preparing her execution!”

“Whoa, Sica, calm the heck down!” Soojung tries to calm her sister down, but to no avail as the older Jung bolts towards the back door. ‘The Chamber of Despair’, as Jessica would call it.

Jinri gapes, “w-what’s your sister going to do…?”

The shorter girl shrugs, “no idea, but the only thing I’m sure of: It’s not going to be pretty.”

“Hahaha…” the older of the two supplies an awkward laugh, “h-hey, I’m kinda thirsty… What kind of drinks do you have here?”

Soojung smiles, “we have plenty! Let’s see… Fruit punches, mocktails, cocktails…”

She observed as the two young teens scanned through the wide selection of beverages, the familiar taller girl eyeing all of them like she wanted to devour every single drop there was in that mansion. Said girl knew better, though, and only took small shots each time, the thirstiness gone with each that she drank.

She observed with melancholic look decorating her beautiful face. Oh how she would love to join the two lovebirds, seemingly without a care of the world in a place filled with people who literally only cared for the one world they’re living in. People who literally couldn’t feel true happiness. People who couldn’t be ‘happy’ without having things in order. Laws, cultures, ethics…

She looked again at that one girl that she observed earlier, the familiar one. Both figuratively and literally speaking. She clicked her night black heels onto the wooden platform, but they only hover slightly above the ground, with their owner still sitting on the tall stool and all that.

She fished out her turquoise smartphone and stealthily snapped a candid photo of the tall, fair girl grinning happily, unconsciously forming a genuine one herself unlike the sugary, obviously fake one she displayed earlier.

She sighed and tucked the phone away. Even if she wanted to be with that girl again, after all this time, she couldn’t.

Because she was no longer the person that girl knows.

Because she is Summer Choi now.

And the shell that was Choi Sooyoung, sister of Choi Jinri, was already long gone.