CHAPTER #1

THE SOCIAL NORMS

They say that if you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing to do is wake up. Shin Bora does it daily; literally. Getting out of her cold and uncomfortable bed isn’t exactly the hardest thing to do if you might ask her. The mattress that she has been given to sleep on has always done a poor job at cushioning her back against the cold wooden floor. The wool inside it was extremely worn and was broken at different places. There wasn’t a single night in her life where she hadn’t cursed the useless thing again and again before eventually falling asleep. Bora knows that her perception of the context of the saying above is absolutely wrong, but she didn’t exactly have enough time on her hands to think about it long enough. Whoever came up with that saying must have been a pretty deep person with a lot of free time on his hands. Sadly, that wasn’t the case for her.

Another day, huh?

The sleepy girl with long, raven locks, warm honey-brown eyes, and pretty features thought to herself with a heavy sigh and pushed away the blanket from her body that also unsurprisingly did a very poor job at protecting her body from the chilly weather outside. She wasn’t going to complain about it though. Contrary to that, she was thankful that her aunt was generous enough to lend her the old rags that maybe her great, great grandmother used to have.

Yeah, right.

Letting out another heavy sigh, Bora sat up in her place and rubbed her cold hands to ease down the frostbite she was currently suffering from. It wasn’t exactly hard to tell that the young girl was at the ripe age of twenty; her young face, soft skin, and innocent eyes made it rather visible. Shin Bora was a beautiful girl at her prime age where there should have been hundreds of marriage proposals lining out at her door if she was any normal girl; but, that was the problem- she wasn’t any normal girl. She was Shin Bora, the only daughter of the army general who died in the war protecting his homeland when she was at the mere age of fifteen. She was the daughter of the very women; who died three months later in the raid that was done on their Kingdom by the opposing one. She was the orphan girl who was taken in by her loving aunt when her parents died; leaving her with no fortune to rely on. Fortune. Worth. If you want to survive in the time and society she lives in these are the two of the most important things that you need to have or else this world won’t let you live. Or maybe they would; just like the way she was living her life at that moment. Bora was the girl with no fortune under her name. Her worth? It was probably in the negative if she was to say for herself. Who would want to marry a girl who had no important family name, no money or land that she was entitled to; a girl who would bring them no good? Not the people in her Kingdom or any other Kingdom for that matter. There was no one who was going to step forward and ask her hand in marriage; completely regardless of the fact that she was worthless when it came to fortune. The world she lived in was greedy and if by any chance a miracle might happen- her aunt won’t allow it. Why would she? Bora was practically a housemaid for her who demanded no payment. Why would her aunt ever let her go?

I’m never going to find true love.

It was a sad truth, but she has managed to convince herself to come to terms with it. After all, it was for her own good. Her being convinced won’t eradicate the pain every time a girl her age gets married, but it lessens it noticeably. Don’t get her wrong. She wasn’t a hopeless romantic whose only goal in life was to get married; which sadly was the case with almost all the women of her society except for the unfortunate ones like her. They all were raised like soft, delicate flowers, were always kept away from weapons, were treated gently so there won’t be any scars on their bodies, they were taught how to master the art of housework and every other feminine stuff that made the girl a perfect lady- ready to be shipped off to her husband’s house. They were taught not to have a brain or thoughts of their own; they were supposed to be a puppet that was responsible for having kids and bringing them up. Bora upbringing was nothing like that and she was glad about it. The small ugly scar on her waist just above her hipbone was the proof that she wasn’t like them at all. She didn’t feel jealous of them despite her miserable condition; on contrary she pitied them, but still, sometimes the realization that the world around her was so materialistic made her sad. Not being proposed to a marriage won’t have bothered at all if it wasn’t for the fact that it showed her that exactly how worthless she was in their eyes. She can’t disregard that fact; not when her aunt likes to always rub it in her face every single chance she gets. Especially, after her eighteen-year-old younger cousin, Yuju got married. She was just like her mother; rude and cruel. Bora wasn’t a human to them. Heck! That crazy girl treated her pet cat better than she treated her.

“Look at my beautiful daughter. She looks so pretty in her wedding dress. You wish you could dress like that one day, right? Too bad, no one would want your ugly, broke face.”

“How pathetic can you get? Yuju already has her first child in her womb and here you are with not even a single marriage proposal.”

“You might as well take care of Yuju’s son. It’s not like you can have children of your own.”

Those words used to sting before, but now they just induced a dull ache in her chest; reminding her that even though, people around her didn’t see it still she possessed a heart which was hurting. Her aunt has always been cruel, but it got worst after Yuju got married. She was constantly reminded that she was of no use to anyone. She would never get a chance to build a family of her own. It was another sad truth, but again something that she has already compromised with.

Only if she wouldn’t remind me of that again and again…

“Bora!” The poor girl was snapped out of her chain of thoughts by the loud ring of her name which obviously came from her aunt.

“I’m coming!” She shouted back before the loin would come hunting her down. Down? Yes. Her humble abode was the cold room in the basement where there was no heating system. Sometimes, Bora is scared that she would freeze to death if she stayed there for too long which was once again the common courtesy of her aunt. Pushing aside her gloomy thoughts that always come to her in the morning, she got up from her place, made her bed and went to the bathroom so she could get ready for the hectic day ahead.

‘Every morning starts a new page in your story.’

Bora has read it somewhere once when her parents were still alive. It was probably another famous saying by some philosopher she can’t really be sure of. Her father was a big fan of reading books. Literature was his hobby and he collected as many books as he could. Her mother, unlike her father, didn’t know how to read and didn’t even try to learn when she was given the chance. Another thing that the young girl hated about her society was the fact that common women were not allowed to study. They were not allowed to learn how to read and write unless they were a daughter of a Nobel or a Princess. It was atrocious. The discrimination between men and women, poor and rich lit up the fire of rage inside her, but apparently, she was the abnormal one in the society; not that she had anyone to share her thoughts with. It was always her mother and father. Her father always used to support her thinking. It was all thanks to him that she was an independent girl who could read and write very well, but same couldn’t be said about her mother. She was the typical traditional women who cared too much about the things that people have to say about h