Sulli’s POV (At Hope Orphanage)

As I led Eun Gyeol to the entrance of the orphanage, a commotion from the playground grabbed our attention.

“Hey Deh-ji (Pig in Korean), why are you sitting on a swing?” a boy taunted a plump girl playing on the swing.

“Yeah. The swing is going to break because of you!” another boy chimed in. The rest of the children, six to be exact, burst into laughter.

“Deh-ji Hye Ji. Fat and ugly. Deh-ji Hye Ji. Fat and ugly…” they started to sing. Hye Ji got off the swing and ran away crying. I sprinted in Hye Ji’s direction, caught her in my embrace and lent her my shoulder to cry on.

“Yah! Who are you to call others ugly? Do you think you are handsome like Lee Hyun Woo?” Eun Gyeol scolded the other boys.

“Who is Lee Hyun Woo?” the boys asked.

“What? You don’t know? He is this hot actor in the famous Kdrama ‘Equator Man’.”

“Never heard of him!” one of the boys said.

“Probably someone famous from ajhussi’s generation. That’s why we don’t know him. Let’s just go and eat our food before Deh-ji Hye Ji finishes it all,” with that the boys scooted off.

“Yah! Who are you calling ajhussi? Aish kids these days…” then Eun Gyeol turned to us, “Is she all right?”

“I don’t think so. Why didn’t I notice it earlier,” I blamed myself.

“Notice what?”

“She hasn’t been eating well. Last week, and the week before, she skipped all her meals…” I turned to Hye Ji, “Is that why you are not eating? You have been made fun of?”

“Yes…. I want… to be… slim and pretty… like Sulli Unnie...” Hye Ji said in between sobs.

“You don’t have to look like me. Hye Ji looks the prettiest, just by being herself,” I her chubby cheeks and tears started to well up in my eyes. I knew exactly what it was like to have your looks being the source of ridicule…

Flashback:
“Rabbit teeth’s umma thought she was a rabbit. That’s why she didn’t want her.”

“My Umma did not say she doesn’t want me. She just…” I always trailed off at this point. The truth was I did not know what happened to my mother, or father. It was like they never existed.

“She just threw you here and left,” one of the kids finished my sentence his own way. “She didn’t tell you anything because rabbits won’t understand anyway. Hahaha!”

I hated how my front teeth protruded out like rabbits. Rabbits looked cute that way, but on human, it looked ugly. Why couldn’t I have normal looking teeth like all the children here have? Why must I be different? Not wanting to hear any more of these mean things, I left the porch and ran away to look for the ahjunmas. Before I could do so, I was stopped by another group of children. Unlike the previous group, they were the older ones.

“Why is our dear Jin Ri crying?” one of them, an unnie, asked.

Jin Ri? I was surprised to hear my real name being called. They were the ones who started all the name calling, hence I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “They… they say my… my umma doesn’t want me…” I stammered softly.

“How can you say such things?” the oldest unnie in the group stepped out and told the children who made fun of me off. “Why are we here? Because our bad parents don’t want us. We are all the same. So don’t let me hear anyone using that kind of thing to tease people. Araseo?” her authoritative tone scared the children off.

Then she walked towards me and patted my head, “Jin Ri, do you want to play hide-and-seek with us?”

“Well… I…” before I could say anything, she dragged me away with the rest of the group. I was being brought to an old looking shed far away from our orphanage.

“First of all, let us welcome Choi Jin Ri to our group!” the whole group cheered and clapped. Everything felt so surreal.

“Since this is the first time you join us, you have to be the seeker. That is our rule,” an oppa explained.

Another unnie held my shoulders and gently led me inside the shed. “Now face the wall, cover your eyes and count to a hundred. If you turn around halfway, we consider you cheating and you are not allowed to play with us anymore. Get it?”

“Araseo,” I did as told. “One, two, three, four, five…”

“Click!” I stopped counting after hearing the strange sound. Something was not right. I quickly ran to the door and found out that it was locked.

“Yay! We trapped a rabbit!” I could hear the unnies and oppas cheering outside.

“Let me out! Let me out!” I banged against the door.

“Jin Ri is toe-ki (Rabbit in Korean). And that’s the Jin-Ri (Truth in Korean),” I could hear them walking away, leaving me behind.

“Somebody, LET ME OUT! PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” I wailed.

Back to the present…
Jae Hee’s POV (Goyang)

Unlike the city area, Goyangsi was more down to earth. Being a rural area, there were very few road signs to tell you where you are. To make things worse, every area looked similar to one another. Krystal was right. Without her, I would have lost my way. She expertly navigated the meandering paths till I started to see a surrounding I used to know. The sight of the long flight of stairs that led to Angel’s Orphanage told me that we were at the right place.

“Wow you know this area very well,” I praised Krystal.

“My late grandfather used to live here.”

“Opps I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. He died peacefully of old age. It’s not something that can be helped,” Krystal shrugged.

When we finally reached the top of the stairs, I was greeted by a different looking building. Not only did it looked nothing like the orphanage I used to live in, the building looked like it had been abandoned. In fact the entire area was deadly quiet.

“Has the orphanage moved elsewhere?” Krystal voiced out my thoughts.

“Possibly. Let me check to see if we can find anyone.”

“Hey there’s a little girl over there. Let’s go and ask her,” Krystal ran to where the little girl was. I picked up my pace too to catch up with her.

The little girl with long hair tied in a ponytail had her back facing us. She seemed to be doodling something on the sand with a tree branch.

“Little girl, do you live here? Can you kindly please tell us where the rest of the people are?” Krystal tapped on the little girl’s shoulder gently to get her attention while I stood beside her.

When the little girl turned her head, showing her face clearly, I froze.

Krystal’s initial shocked expression slowly transformed to a sympathetic one, after seeing swollen layers of burnt patches on the girl’s face. “I’m sorry to see you hurt… ”

“Krystal! Run!” I took her hand and raced in the opposite direction.

“Wait! Jae Hee! If we run away like this, we are going to hurt the little girl’s fee…” Krystal was dumbfounded when the little girl was no longer there. I, on the contrary, was not surprised.

“Jae Hee, you saw the little girl too, didn’t you?” Krystal’s body was trembling with fear.

I held her in my arms tightly to calm her nerves. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have allowed you to come along and put you through this.”