“HyeJin, why aren’t you eating?” JongIn asked, looking at the untouched bowl of cereals in front of me. I grabbed my pen and wrote my answer.

-I’m not hungry.- JongIn looked shortly confused at me because I was writing instead of speaking but he seemed to quickly remember our conversation. Thus, he smiled and got a strange look from his father.

“But you didn’t have dinner yesterday,” DoYeon remembered.

-I ate something when you were sleeping because I felt hungry in the middle of the night.- I lied and I felt so bad of doing it to JongIn.

“You came down and ate?” JongIn was surprised. It was understandable. It was probably new for him to hear that I had eaten without someone telling me to. I nodded, avoiding his eyes.

“JongIn, hurry up otherwise you’ll be late.” His father reminded him and he finished his cereal quickly. We got up and went to the front door where we put our shoes on.

“Have a nice day at school.” DoYeon kissed our foreheads and we bid our goodbye to her. We left the house and walked to the bus station.

“Will you talk now?” JongIn asked excitedly about the idea.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper, HyeJin. Feel confident and talk louder.” He encouraged me.

“I just can’t.” I needed to make a huge effort to talk and go against my fears. It was still too early for me to not whisper.

“We’ll work on it. Don’t worry.” He was smiling very widely. “I’m really happy to hear your voice. You can’t just imagine how proud I am of you.”

“Why?” I dared to ask. “Why do you feel proud of me when I accomplish things that I should actually know?”

“Because it means that you’re trying really hard to overcome your difficulties.” He answered and I just nodded.

The bus showed up and we went in. JongIn let me sit next to the window and I looked outside, thinking about his answer. I couldn’t really understand why he was always praising me. In that living hell, it was a must to do all sort of jobs and we would be punished if we failed. Despite all my failures, he still encouraged me to keep on trying instead of calling me worthless. I just couldn’t understand.

“JongIn,” I called him. “I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Your answer to my question.”

“Let me try to explain it otherwise. For example, when a child is riding on a bike for the first time, it…”

“What’s a bike?” I interrupted him.

“You don’t remember?” It couldn’t remember an object that I had never seen before. I nodded.

“When we get back home, I’ll show mine to you.” He promised. “Let me find another example then. Okay. Is a child able to read in its first attempt?”

“No.”

“Do you remember when you started reading?” I nodded. MinSeok started teaching me at age of 9.

“It wasn’t easy, right?” I nodded. “If your parents yelled at you for not getting it right, how do you think you would feel?”

“Disappointed on myself and worthless.” I was quite familiar to those feeling. Those men’s mission was to get rid of our hopes and dreams and they were quite effective.

“And if they encouraged you?”

“Happy and willing to learn in order to make them proud.” I had always felt accomplished when I had seen happiness and pride in MinSeok’s eyes every time I did some exercise right.

“That’s why I’m always praising you. I want to give you the motivation to keep on trying until you are able to do anything on your own.” He smiled. “Do you understand it now?” I nodded and smiled too, feeling blessed to have met him.

However, that feeling got quickly swept with nervousness when we got ou and entered schools. I didn’t know if I was able to talk to KyungSoo and the other. It hadn’t taken me so long to decide whether I should talk to JongIn or not, but it was different for the others. JongIn was like a brother to me and brothers always take care of their sisters.

“Hello.” KyungSoo smiled and simply stared at me, emotionless. I was getting really nervous and looked at JongIn looking for advice.

“It’s okay, HyeJin. It’s KyungSoo. You can trust him. At least I do.”

“Is something wrong?” KyungSoo asked, worried.

“Everything is fine. HyeJin wants to show you something.” JongIn encouraged me.

“What is it?” KyungSoo smiled again. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.

“Hi,” I whispered. KyungSoo’s smile vanished and he simply looked at me. “Hi, KyungSoo,” I repeated and he didn’t move.

“You talked.” He stated. I was getting nervous because he was simply staring at me without saying anything. Suddenly, he smiled widely and hugged me tightly. “You talked. You said ‘hi’ to me.” He said, excited.

“I had the same reaction, hyung.” 

“I’m so glad for you.” He didn’t stop smiling. “I might have been difficult for you to overcome your shyness. Just talk when you feel comfortable, okay? It doesn’t matter to me if you’re writing or talking, I’ll be always there to help.” He promised.

“Thank you,” I whispered again, still slightly nervous.

“I told you there was nothing to worry about.” JongIn ruffled my hair. The bell rang. “I have to go. See you at lunch.” He waved at us and ran to his classroom.

“You were nervous?” KyungSoo asked as we started walking. He took immediately my hand.

“Yes. It’s quite difficult for me to talk to people.” I explained. I was happy that I wasn’t stuttering at least.

“I can imagine, but you don’t need to worry.” I smiled, thanking him. “I can’t wait to see JongDae’s reaction.” He started chuckling.

“Why?”

“I heard my name.” JongDae appeared out of nowhere with ChanYeol next to him. “You can’t see my reaction to what?” He asked, curious. KyungSoo smiled at me and for the time I understood a sign.

“H-Hi, oppa.” JongDae and ChanYeol had the same reaction as KyungSoo, but it didn’t take JongDae so long to react.

“You can talk?” I nodded. “You can your voice?” I nodded again. “That’s so awesome. Now it’s going to be easier to be your friend. You’ll be able to say everything to me. It’s not that it wasn’t going to happen anyway. I would force you to tell me everything anyway, but it’s much easier now that you can talk. I need to give you my phone number so that you can call any time you want and…” 

“JongDae, breathe. You’re overwhelming her with all your bubbling.” ChanYeol interrupted him.

“Thank you.”

“You have a beautiful voice, HyeJin.” I blushed deeply and hid, embarrassed behind KyungSoo.

“Aww. You’re so cute.” KyungSoo said and I blushed more.

“Stop,” I begged.

“Never.” JongDae refused, still smiling. “I’m still amazed.”

“I…” Someone bumped hard into me and I ended up bumping into KyungSoo who fell to the ground.

“KyungSoo, I.. I..” I stuttered, shocked.

“You should watch where you go.” A male voice said and I turned around. There was a tall boy, looking at me annoyed. I remained silent, scared to death of the stranger. “Aren’t you going to apologize?”

“You should be the one apologising, WooSeok. You’re the one who bumped into her on purpose.” JongDae stood up for me and he and ChanYeol stood in front me, protecting me.

“I don’t think so. She was in my way.” He looked at me and I looked down, trembling and holding back my tears. “I’ll let it slide this time, but remember this. Next time, you’re dead meat.” I heard his footsteps fading. I let myself collapse to the ground and started crying.

“HyeJin.” KyungSoo hugged me and I kept on crying.

“I.. I.. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise, HyeJin. We know he bumped in you on purpose.” KyungSoo started my hair to calm me down.

“What are you looking at? Have you never seen a girl crying? Mind your own business.” JongDae warned the students who were looking at us.

“Are you hurt? He bumped into you quite hard.” I denied with my head, though my back was aching. I had endured much worse. “Can you please stop crying? It must have scared you, but you’re making us sad.” I looked at them and I could see the sadness in their eyes. I wiped my tears with the sleeves of my jacket and stood up with KyungSoo’s help. ChanYeol and JongDae smiled at me, looking kindly at me.

“I promise it won’t happen again,” KyungSoo promised. I moved away from him and looked at his body, looking for any injury. “I’m fine, HyeJin.” I nod and keep my eyes down.

“Come on, HyeJin. You seemed so happy before WooSeok bumped into you. Do you think you can go back to the happy HyeJin?” JongDae asked, smiling and I shook my head.

It was stupid of me to think that there was hope. JongIn, JongDae, KyungSoo and ChanYeol were being so nice to me. I had been used to those awful men and meeting men, that actually cared for me, gave me hope that maybe I wouldn’t meet such people anymore. JongIn’s father belonged to that sort of people, but having JongIn always by my side in that house made it more bearable. But this incident had brought me back to reality. There were also bad people outside of that world and I couldn’t help but feel scared again. I had the need to close up again in order not to make any more mistakes.

“Leave her, JongDae. She just started living a normal life again after a traumatic experience. She only has been surrounding by people who care about her and meeting WooSeok must have kind of shocked her. She just needs some time to digest it.” ChanYeol described my situation perfectly and I unconsciously nodded. 

“I understand.” JongDae’s good mood seemed to get down and I wanted to cheer him up, but I couldn’t find the energy to do so.

“Let’s go to the classroom.” Kyungsoo and Jongdae held my hands. We walked towards our classroom and sat down, on our seats.

“Have you already read my notes?” I nodded and took them out of my bags. I gave it to him, then I took all my notebooks out too and handed it to him. 

“You’ve already copied everything?” He asked surprised and I nodded. “That’s impressive. You didn’t just copy them, right? Did you try to understand them while copying them?” I nodded. I opened the first notebook which happened to be the one of Biology.

“JongIn helped me where he could and give the idea to underline everything. When it’s green, it means that I’ve understood it. When it’s orange, it means that I’ve understood it half and red means that I have no idea.” I explained while he flicked through the pages. 

“It’s really good. It’s a really good idea. It’ll make easier for me to know where you have the most difficulties.” I smiled, slightly. “Did you ask your mother about my proposition?” I grabbed my notebook and showed him her answer.

“She has no problem with it.”

“Alright, then. During the break, I’ll call my mother to tell that I won’t go immediately home.” I nodded. The teacher came in and a girl ordered us to stand up. I simply copied KyungSoo’s moves and sat again.

“Before we start our lesson, our directress want to see Park ChanYeol and Oh HyeJin in her office.” ChanYeol stood up and walked towards the door. I looked around not knowing what to do. 

“You have to follow him, HyeJin,” KyungSoo whispered to me and I obeyed. I walked towards ChanYeol who was waiting for me at the door. We walked out of the room.

“ChanYeol,” I whispered his name and he stopped walking.

“Yes.” He turned around and I looked to the ground to avoid his eyes.

“Where are we going?”

“To the directress’ office.” He answered.

“Why?”

“I guess she wants to know how you’re adapting to the school.” I titled my head confused and looked up.

“Why?” I repeated. “ I don’t understand.”

“Do you know what’s a director?” He asked and I shook my head. 

“To put it simply, she’s the chief of the school. Everyone has to respect her and she decides with the help of the teacher about the rules in our school. And she’s also my mother.” I tried to hide my surprise as much as I could. If his mother was the chief of the school, it means that I must respect him as well. “However, you don’t need to treat me differently. Treat me just like you have treated me until now. Okay? If you do otherwise, you’ll hurt my feelings and I’m going to cry.”

“No, I don’t want you to cry.” I hugged him on an impulse but pulled away quickly.

“The only way not to make me cry is if you don’t treat me differently. Will you change?” I shook my head several times.

“I promise to you that I won’t change.” He chuckled and ruffled my hair. 

“Let go then.” I flinched when he grabbed my hand and started walking. It was the first time ChanYeol was holding my hand. His hand was much bigger than mine. I followed him, but my eyes were on our hands.

It was so strange. ChanYeol was very tall and normally all tall men were bad. During physical education, I couldn’t help but notice that he was quite muscular, but not in an exaggerated way. If he had muscles, it meant that he could hit me at any time, but he hadn’t done it yet. Instead of hitting me, he was always a bit distant as if he knew I was afraid of him. Every time he had talked to me, his voice was so calm and he was always smiling.

We stopped in front of a door and he knocked. He let go of my hand when a female voice told us to go in. He opened the door and made a sign for me to come in first. There was a woman in a suit, waiting for us. She smiled at us and pointed to the chairs in front of her desk. We sat down and waited for her to start talking.

“What do you think of our school until now, HyeJin?” She asked with a calm voice.

“Mom, can you give her a pen and a sheet for her to communicate?” ChanYeol asked and she nodded. I thanked her with a bow and started writing.

-I don’t know. I don’t remember going to school, thus I can’t compare it to other schools.- I showed my answer.

“You’re right. How is your class? Do they treat you well?” I nodded. Even though only KyungSoo, JongDae and ChanYeol talked to me, the others would kindly smile at me.

“That’s good to hear. My son’s class is the best behaved of your year and when I heard about your story, I thought that it was the class which best suits you. Is KyungSoo helping you to adjust well?”

-Yes. He’s really helpful. ChanYeol and JongDae, too.-

“JongDae?” She was very surprised and looked at her son, looking for an explanation.

“They met before she was enrolled in here and he helped her. She won over his heart immediately and now he doesn’t leave her alone. We are now her friends.” ChanYeol explained.

“I’m surprised but glad that he’s helping her.” She smiled and stood up. “You are free to go now. I’m happy to know that you’re adapting well.” We stood up and left her office.

On our way back, I suddenly stopped and  ChanYeol felt it.

“Is everything alright?” He asked, slightly worried.

“Are we friends?”

“I hope so. Why are you asking?” He smiled.

“I’m confused. When do I know when someone is my friend?”

“It’s difficult to know because people can lie and say that they are your friend because they want something from you. KyungSoo, JongDae and I are your friends because we really care about you and we want to see you happy. A sign that you consider me as your friend is that you feel comfortable enough with me to talk. If it were SunHo who always smiles kindly at you, would you talk to him as you do with me or one of the others?” I shook my head immediately.

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say. Thank you for answering my question.”

“There’s no need to thank me. Every question needs an answer. You can ask me everything you want and I’ll try to give a wise answer.” 

“How is it possible that you’re always happy?” I asked, feeling suddenly confident to ask anything.

“What makes you think that I’m always happy?” He asked confused.

“JongDae and you are always smiling, thus I assume that you’re always happy,” I explained my point of view.

“I’m not always happy. I just think we are too young to be unhappy. I have my own problems, but I won’t let them drag me down. Mine and JongDae’s philosophy is ‘No matter how difficult and hard something is, we’ll always be positive and smile like idiots.’ If we cry all the time, we won’t be able to enjoy our lives.” He explained.

“But… But it doesn’t make sense. A person just smiles when it’s happy. If you smile all the time, at some point you won’t know if you’re happy or not.” 

“I think you’re confusing some things. Every time JongDae smiles at you, you try to smile back, right?” I nodded. “You see that your smile makes him happy, thus you must feel happy too, right?” I nodded again. “Let imagine he was having a bad day, he’ll forget his problems and be happy because he managed to make you happy. If you just cry, at some point in your life you’ll forget that you were blessed with life. We are human beings and it is in our nature to feel emotions. There are no positive or negative emotions. Nowadays we consider for example fear as a negative emotion, but it was fear that keeps people alive in the past. You see fire, you are going to be afraid and the fear will make you run away from the fire. A ‘negative’ emotion saved your life. What I wanted to say before getting off topic is that a smile is powerful and that sometimes people want to see a smile to feel better.”

“I guess I’ve understood,” I said, still frowning.

“I know that it’s hard to understand now, but you will with time. I have a request.” He said.

“What is it?”

“It’ll sound weird, but I want you to look at yourself every night in the mirror and smile at yourself. Then, while smiling you’ll say ‘Don’t pay attention to what anyone says, just be beautiful like you are right now.’ You have to do it every night before going to bed.” He explained.

“You think I’m beautiful?” I didn’t know why it was the only thing it caught my attention. He chuckled.

“Yes, I think. You’re beautiful on the inside and in the outside.”

“Inside and outside?”

“Outside stands for appearance. I have to admit that you’re a beautiful girl, HyeJin, but you have to be aware that beauty isn’t everything. Even if you’re beautiful, no one will like you if you’re a bad person. You need to respect those who respect you, but you need to respect yourself first.”

“How am I beautiful in the inside?” I asked curiously.

“To be beautiful in the inside, you need to love yourself.”

“Love myself?”

“Yes. You need to love all your quality and all your defaults because they are what makes you unique. If you don’t learn to love yourself, you’re not truly considered beautiful even if you are pretty.” He pointed out.

“In what way will be repeating that phrase help me?” I asked.

“If you repeat it enough times, you’ll start believing those words.” He said. “Will you do that for me? It’s really important for me for you to do so.” 

“I will, but why is it important for you?”

“Because you don’t know how cruel this world really is. In order to survive, you need to know some rules. One of them is that no one will love you if you don’t love yourself first.” He explained and I nodded.

“There are rules?”

“Yes, but you don’t need to worry.” He smiled widely. “We are here to teach them to you.”

“Thank you.”

•••

I look in the mirror and smile at myself.

“Don’t pay attention to what anyone says, just be beautiful like you are right now,” I repeat the words that have been a part of my routine for years. “I wish you could see how beautiful I’ve become, ChanYeol. You would have been proud of me.” I look at the picture of him on the shelf. I grab it and I couldn’t stop my smile from vanishing. “I really wish you could.” A single tear falls on the glass of the frame.