The bell rang as Dami walked into the skate shop.  She stashed her board under the register, put on her name tag, and clocked in. Her boss, Siyeon, stuck her head out of the office. "Hey Dami!" she called. "Not much to do today - we got a couple of packages that need to be opened, checked, and the contents put on the shelves. Looks like it should start raining any minute now, so I'm not expecting many customers today."

Dami silently waved her understanding and Siyeon rolled back into her office, already lifting her earphones back into place. Dami lifted the first box onto the counter and started cutting it open. She looked at the stack of boxes behind the counter waiting for her attention. "I don't know where Siyeon gets off calling seven boxes 'a couple,' but it's better than standing around with nothing to do."

Three hours later all the boxes were unpacked, the rain was pouring down, and true to Siyeon's prediction, there hadn't been any customers. She sat down on the stool behind the register and started flipping through the current issue of Skater Girl magazine. Suddenly, Siyeon was standing next to her, making her jump and drop the magazine.

"What are you, part cat?" she exclaimed, as she bent down to pick up the magazine. "How do you even walk without making any noise?"

She shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess. Speaking of walking, you've been thumping around all day like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders. Anything you want to talk about?" She took a custom skateboard deck she was working on down from a shelf, grabbed her paints, and started working. After a couple of minutes of silence from Dami, she looked over at her and raised her eyebrows. "Cat got your tongue?"

Dami tossed the magazine down on the counter and pulled her hat down tighter on her head. "No."

Siyeon went went back to painting, not saying anything. She knew if she let the silence linger long enough, eventually Dami would start to talk about whatever was bothering her. Or else she wouldn't. Siyeon had just about decided that Dami wasn't going to talk when she heard Dami say. "Fine, yes, there's a problem. But it's nothing anyone can do anything about."

Siyeon put aside the deck, closed the paint, and cleaned her brush. She leaned back against the counter, waiting to see if Dami would go on.

"There's a formal dance at school in a couple of weeks. . ." Dami trailed off at the end of her sentence.  

After a long pause, Siyeon filled in the blank: "And Sua wants you to go."

Dami nodded. "She just doesn't get it. I spend all day at school around those people. None of them like me. They tease me and call me names. Why would I want to spend more time around them than I have to?"

Siyeon shook her head. "You don't get it, do you? This isn't about you at all."

Dami's head flew up. "How can you say that? I'm the one who'll have to go there."

Siyeon shrugged. "You are, but so is Sua." She looked around the shop and spotted her phone charging at the outlet under the register. "Can you reach down under the register and get my phone for me?"

Dami reached down and unplugged the phone. She held it out to Siyeon, who made no move to take it.

"Have you ever looked at my lock screen?" Siyeon asked, putting her hands in her pockets.

Dami shook her head. "No. Why would I?"

A mysterious smile played over Siyeon's face. "Take a look at it."

Dami looked down at the phone. The picture on the lock screen was taken in front of the door of an elaborately decorated Gothic church. It featured two women in white wedding dresses. She squinted at the picture to try to make out their faces. The one on the right was definitely Handong, which meant the one on the left must be - "Oh my God! Is that you in a dress?" Dami squealed.

Siyeon reached out and took the phone from her. "That was me in a dress. I would have been just as happy to get married in front of a judge down at city hall, but Handong insisted she wanted a church wedding, at that church, with her friends and family there. She wanted them to see the choice she was making. She wanted them to see me."

"Huh." Dami nodded, not really seeing the point of this story.

Siyeon reached out and tapped Dami on the side of the head with her fingertips. "C'mon, Dami! Use your head for something more than just a helmet rest! Sua's a big school nerd. All these people that you can't stand, they form a big part of her life whether she likes them or not. She's probably - no, scratch that - she's definitely had to deal with guys asking her out. She wants you to be there so that she can show you off. So she can say 'You see? This is what it takes to get my attention.'"

"But-" Dami sputtered, "I don't have anything to wear to a dance like that! I can't just show up in a T-shirt and shorts. I'd have to have a nice dress, and I'd have to buy makeup, and do something with my hair. I don't want Sua to be embarrassed to be seen with me!"

"I already thought of that," Siyeon said. "Did you forget what my wife does for a living?"

Dami had forgotten, as it wasn't something that impacted her life much - Handong ran a boutique down at the opposite end of the strip mall from the skate shop.

When Dami looked up, Siyeon had already dialed her phone and Handong had apparently answered. "Hey babe," Suyeon was saying into the phone, "How's it going? I'm guessing the rain's keeping your customers away too? . . . Good . . . No, not good because I don't want you to have customers. Good because I need a favor . . . No, not that kind of favor . . . You're so bad . . ." Siyeon walked off into the office, talking the whole way.

A few minutes later, Siyeon came back out. "Okay, then, it's all settled. You need to go down to Handong's shop so she can measure you, then the day of the dance you go down and she'll put you in the dress and do your hair and makeup."

Dami gulped. "Siyeon, I can't afford that. You know what I make here, and I can't ask my mom for money. . ." She slumped back on the stool.

"Then it's a good thing Handong's not going to be asking you to pay for it," Siyeon said, grabbing a Coke out of the fridge. "She