Couple by Kang Sunghoon, NASSUN

The orphanage is silent.

Sandara turns in her bed, mouth twisted in discomfort as she tries (and miserably fails) to find a suitable position to sleep in. She has been awake like this for far too long, tossing and turning while sleep cruelly evades her, and her struggle seems to have no end in sight. Counting sheeps hasn't worked (she stops at four-hundred and five), nor has humming an old partially-forgotten lullaby, and simply closing her eyes and hoping for the best proved to be just as unsuccessful.

Weeks have passed since she first came to Yang's, nearly two months, yet the persistant bout of insomnia that's plagued her since the day she arrived continues to haunt her. No matter what she does.

Groaning, Sandara sits up, heavy eyes rolling to the ajar window above her bed. Outside, a storm rages, and flimsy blinds rattle noisily with every gust of wind. Rain clashes violently against the outer walls of the orphanage, beating against the glass panes of every window in rythymless patters, and if her body wasn't already so resilient in its wakefulness, the resounding downpour certainly wouldn't have helped in the slightest in lulling her to sleep.

Sandara turns to eye the analog clock that hangs from the wall in the corner of her room. It's dark, but she can still make out the time.

3:24, it reads. Of course... 

With an irritated sound, Sandara plops back into her stiff mattress, head slamming against her pillow in a fruitless attempt to quite literally knock herself out. It doesn't work, obviousy, just like it didn't work the eight other times she tried since the guardians announced it was time for all lights to go out nearly seven hours ago. But Sandara is tired and angry and stubborn and goes on pounding her head into her pillow anyways – once, twice, three times, before she squeezes her eyes shut and raises her hands to muffle her bitter scream within their depths.

Lightning flashes throughout the starless night sky, the boom of thunder soon following. And Sandara stops herself from screaming again. How wonderful, she thinks, even more loud noises for me to enjoy. This is exactly what I need right now.

Sandara doesn't know who (or what) to blame for her consistent failure to get a good night's rest. She'll be granted a few minutes here and there, maybe, and sometimes she's lucky enough to get a full half-an-hour (lucky her). But that's all, and never anything more. She's either jerked awake by the faintest sound from the other girls slumbering nearby, or from some nightmare she can never remember once her eyes snap open. It's becoming a problem, she admits. In the mornings, she's expected to complete chores throughout the building before spending the afternoon hours babysitting (for lack of a better word) the younger orphans. And considering that rambuncious lot requires far too much energy, Sandara feels like dying whenever lights-on is announced at dawn.

In short, life here .

It isn't that she's uncomfortable at Yang's. Well...no, that would be a lie. She is most definitely uncomfortable. She doubts any amount of time here will settle the strange feeling which looms over her at the mere thought of this being her new home, regardless of how much better her living conditions are now compared to...before. She actually gets three meals a day here. She's made friends with a lot of the children. Her days are never boring; there's always something to do. The countryside leaves a lot of room to explore and play and it's almost like being at one of those sleepaway camps her classmates would always brag about after summer vacation.

No, Yang's isn't a bad place, per se. A bit rough and disorganized, but certainly liveable. It beats her days of traveling endlessly with her father and brother, going from town to town with hardly any pause. Some days without eating. Most days doing favors for her father that she would rather not. It was all too much, all too hard, all too unfair. So even if she has to suffer from a perpetual darkness under her eyes, yawning between every word, and running after muddy four-year olds, she'd much rather do that than every go back to the way things were before she came here.

She might not be happy. But she's alive. And that's all she can ask for.

“I bet they’re all ugly."

Sandara snorts loudly at Jiyong’s blind yet resolute assessment of the insufferable trainees she’s been forced to live with for what feels like eighty-four years. Sandara once thought her tolerance levels for nonsense were impenetrable thanks to her years at Yang’s. But the sixteen remaining trainees – save for her roommates, the angels that they are – test every last ounce of her patience more than any wailing toddler or squabbling pair of nine-year olds could ever dream.

Spending twenty-four hours of seven days a week with Seo Inyoung and her mob of delusional shadows makes Sandara’s life unbearably tiring. If it isn’t the ringleader herself stirring up petty trouble somehow – a glare here, a shoulder bump there, or an “accidental” outstretching of her leg as Sandara walks by (causing the world to spin and Sandara’s nose to become well-acquainted with the floor) – then it’s the other teenagers she has somehow gotten to follow her in her onesided war (probably through some warped propaganda about Sandara rising from the pits of Hell just to slaughter everyone’s families and steal their fortunes with a single breath) that makes said victim question why she doesn’t just throw all caution to the wind and throttle the lot of them with a good ol’ fashioned countryside punch in the jugular.

But no, bad Sandara. That would undoubtedly get her kicked out of Taiji, and after all of the brutal training she has endured for the past seven weeks, there is no way she’s going to let some toothpick-shaped hyena and her pack of equally unimpressive friends be the reasons she goes home packing – dreams unachieved and time thoroughly wasted. So what better way to release her anger than to call her favorite confidant at two in the morning and complain like there was no tomorrow?

“Tell me I’m wrong, noona. They all look like trolls, don’t they?”

As expected, Jiyong wound up being everything Sandara needed and more. His automatic defensiveness on her behalf (no matter how biased) was like inhaling a breath of fresh air after stumbling through a burning building. A burning building filled with snakes. Two-headed snakes that spat poison and had strong appetites for unsuspecting orphans. In essence, a crappy place. But Jiyong seemed to effortlessly clear the thick smoke left in the wake of those airheads at Taiji which threatened to suffocate Sandara’s mind, purifying all of her negative thoughts one harsh insult at a time (as ironic as that was).

“So I almost curb-stomped a trainee today,” was how she had greeted him. And while she surely must’ve stupefied the boy on the other line, he didn’t show it, and instead growled a series of threats that would’ve made the guardians at Yang's red with fury if they ever heard him or his colorful (yet remarkably creative) words. It was almost as if those irksome trainees' actions against her were an attack on him. Sandara would have never thought there existed so many ways to say one was going to kick someone’s , but of course this is Kwon Jiyong she’s talking to. That kid can turn even the most innocent of sentences into the most crude and gruesome thing ever heard.

“How dare those uppity, oily s – ”

“Language,” Sandara had cut him off habitually, though by her strained giggles, the warning tone crumbled to nothingness before it could even live to see the light of day.

Jiyong had gone on for nearly half an hour on how he was going to get a job – how he would do such a thing at thirteen, Sandara didn’t bother asking – and use his first paycheck to travel to Seoul so he could show everyone at Taiji what he was made of. Because, obviously, if they couldn’t see what she was made of (“with how far their heads are up their asses!” he snapped) and respect her accordingly, then they most certainly needed a fist or two to show them reason.

He is calmer now, figuring her laughter meant the other trainee’s pestering wasn’t at a critical level to where he absolutely needed to intervene – “because no one s with my noona” – but he still grumbles here and there between her recounts of her week with barely suppressed rage.

“As if I would ever let them get to me,” she says breezily, eyes rolling heavensward as she recalls the (admittedly embarrassing – though only slightly) way Inyoung had loudly mentioned to her friends, haughty voice permeating the cafeteria, that Sandara sells parts of her lunch every day so she can gamble in alleyways with drunkards. Obviously such an outrageous lie was nothing more than that, but it bothered Sandara to know that some idiot who had inevitably overheard Inyoung’s words would probably believe it despite its blatant falsehood. Those idiots...

Well, jokes on them, Sandara thinks triumphantly. I’m using that money to talk to a boy. Those deprived losers would be so jealous if they could see me now.

Then again, that would probably be unlikely since Jiyong isn’t really a boy. Or, at least, not in the sense that would have someone like Inyoung turning green with envy. Jiyong is more of a friend – a cherished brother – who Sandara loves like she loves Sanghyun and banana milk and her mother’s old gowns that she would prance around in when she was younger and no one else was home. To be jealous of their relationship, no matter how close, would be similar to being jealous of a cat and her kittens: silly and unreasonable. Then again, just like how she lacks a steady boyfriend, Inyoung also lacks genuine companionship (wow, Sandara wonders why), her usual crowd only sticking around because Inyoung comes from a considerably rich family. So maybe she would be jealous of her and Jiyong’s closeness. A lot of the children at Yang’s were, no doubt.

Oh well. Sandara shrugs, pressing the phone closer to her ear as she listens to Jiyong’s lamenting over how boring everything is without her around. She laughs at his exaggerated whining, and offers him a weak apology that she knows will do nothing to silence his petulant muttering. He accepts it with a scoff, and Sandara can practically hear him pouting through the phone.

“You’re okay though, right?” he asks cautiously, probably squinting in his effort to detect a hint of deception in her words, and Sandara’s heart warms at his unyielding attentiveness. Typical Jiyong, she sighs. How she wants to jump through the receiver and pull him into her arms – him and all of his overbearing (but appreciated) worry.

“I’m fine,” she answers for what feels like the thousandth time since her first call to him. Jiyong never seems satisfied with her assurances, always questioning her sincerity, but even if she has to say those same two words a million more times, she doubts he’ll ever truly believe her. And why would he? Seoul is so far away from the home they created for one another at Yang’s. She’s alone and defenseless, a runaway b with dreams yet surrounded by the greedy and shallow. No one could ever been wholly fine in her situation.

But she’s Sandara Park, gosh darnit! She’ll force herself to be fine if she has to! There’s no way she’s turning back now, even if she does get homesick more often than not. Even if, too many times to count, she does feel like giving up all that she’s wished for and throwing it away. Even if she does want to see Jiyong again more and more each day, to