Chapter 1 : Meeting Stephanie.

Her name is Stephanie. According to the document I attained from the agency, she was an introvert who loves fashion and drawing. She hated physic and chemistry but did very well in art and biology, 149 centimeters in high, 42 kilograms of weight.

She was twelve when I first met her. Meeting her in person was totally different from seeing her in photographs or watching her in the playground. Her mushroom hair was actually as bad as what I had seen from afar. Her eyes were giving me this cold passive look that made me shrink. I felt so uncomfortable I started to think that this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Maybe I should just go back to the comfort of my home, living my life with just my work and my wife.

But I stayed in the small common room of the foster home, bearing a life-changing mission on my shoulder. Under the watchful eyes of Minjin-ssi, the social worker that was assigned to support us in this project, Stephanie and I shared small-talk and information.

Everything was going rather smoothly until Minjin-ssi left the two of us alone.

Stephanie changed her stance, her hands were folded across her chest, covering the pink teddy bear print on her oversize T-shirt. Her passive look turned icy. “Forget it.”

“Huh?” I was in the middle of of coaxing her to talk more about her hobby.

“Forget your plan.”

I tried not to look discouraged, tilting my head like I always did when talking to adult. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I want you to stop wasting my time.” She looked away. “You'll regret this. Tomorrow, next week, or in a matter of a year or two. I guarantee you'll regret this. So please, walk away, but tell Minjin that I've behaved well as you walk outside.”

I had read her file. I had her background info well studied. I had talked to her caretaker about her marred past. I should have expected this. But being bluntly rejected never felt good no matter how well-prepared you were.

“I'll leave and tell Minjin-ssi how much of a well-behaved girl you are if you agree to browse through this with me first.” I took out a book from my Burberry drifton backpack opening one page at random.

Despite Stephanie's best try to conceal her curiosity I knew from the dilating of her pupils that this book sealed the deal. It was a bundle of 250 pages glossy paper with pictures of fashion trends from year 1780 to the recent spring/summer collections.

Her fingers ghosted above the page and I helped her open the heavy book to its first page, smiling at the pictures I knew by heart. There was a picture of the Ladies Waldergrave in their caracos, a shorter dresses à la polonaise with long tight sleeve