There she was, sitting on the backless bench while smiling excessively at her circle of friends, as comfortable under the sun as a queen in her castle. In fact, Jung Jinsol truly was the queen of all Loona High School and no one would dispute such a solemn truth.

Champion of the football team and head of the school newspaper, JinSoul, as she preferred to be called, is the daughter of the governor of California, but her mother and she chose to remain in this small, remote city of us, an ancient village that gradually developed over the years. They live in a huge mansion ten kilometers from the center which show nothing close to simplicity — I know this because I had the opportunity to visit JinSoul's house last year, on her seventeenth birthday, when Ms. Ha insisted on inviting the entire school to her daughter's big birthday party.

I managed to drink a few beers and even steal drinks at the bar, so I didn't consider the night a complete waste of time, unlike Yeojin, who couldn't find her friend all night and came back frustrated to the orphanage.

I looked at JinSoul's table a few feet away, avoiding eating the lunch my supervisor had given me earlier this morning — it tasted like rotten beans when it was supposed to be meatloaf, and I didn't have the money to buy the one from the school — while pretending to hear Choerry complain about her chemistry teacher, who forced her to present a new work on molecules because her original had no content.

Yerim hated the school and any other mandatory institution, just like me; however, of course, for totally different reasons.

Choi Yerim — Choerry, as she forced everyone to call her — is one of my two roommates at the Loonaville orphanage. Daughter of a powerful figure in the Korean society who impregnated a domestic worker and sent his bastard to the other side of the world, just like the letter her mother had left for her in the basket she was placed in when she was a baby said. She had the ridiculous dream of becoming a great singer and being able to find her parents, or at least the maternal part, already starting free singing and dance courses at an early age at the city's arts center and keeping a stage name for herself.

All of this is unnecessary, in my opinion, because I don't believe that girls like us have such chances in life. It's one in a million and, besides, it's a big waste of time that she should be using to get into a good college, like me.

However, I avoided talking about it in front of Yerim, but more out of compassion than anything else. We may not be as close now, not as we were before, a year ago, but Yerim remains part of my family in a strange and ed up way. I don't like to see her sad because the way she mumbles when she cries is irritating enough to make me lose my temper. So I try.

"And he told me to collect gasoline samples from all stations in the city and then make a detailed report of their compositions, comparing them with the one he gave me, which is the correct one. Like, do you know how many gas stations there are in the city? Five!" She moved her arms exaggeratedly while talking and it made me sick. "I'll miss about three dance classes, at least!"

"So don't do it, simple as that," I said, picking up the wheat peas wrapped in foil in front of me. I really refuse to call that a meatloaf. That thing had nothing to do with a meatloaf.

"Are you crazy?! This work is worth almost seventy percent of the final grade! I will fail for certain if I-"

"Then skip the dance classes. Period,” I interrupted, already irritated, although my emotional lack of control was not entirely Yerim's fault; I was freaking out because of my own chemistry assignment, pages and pages of a report on a class we never had. Amazing.

I watched Yerim sigh loudly before turning my attention once more to the golden girl, who was laughing at something that her best friend, Son Hyejoo, was saying in Sign Language.

It was so cliché that JinSoul had learned the language just to be able to communicate with the new girl in the class when she was eight, like any of Nicholas Sparks' novels.

"You should stop this chase, you know. JinSoul never did anything bad to you," Yerim commented when she noticed to who my gaze was directed for. Sometimes she talked too much.

"And you should mind your own business," I gave up on lunch and tossed the small package in the trash, which just happened to be a few inches away.

"You have no reason to hate her, she never did anything to you! Not on purpose, I think. She's a lovely person, you know?"

"Choerry, shut up," I rolled my eyes, wishing I had headphones and a cell phone, or an iPod, so I could completely ignore her at the sound of Eurythmics.

"Don't tell me to shut up, I'm older than you," she defended herself.

"Who?"

"I!"

"Who asked you!" I pretended not to see her stubborn expression. "I already told you to stop talking. I'm not in the mood to make conversation now."

It didn't take Choi Yerim ten seconds to speak again.

"Is this still about the school newspaper? Well, Jungeun, it's not her fault if she writes better than you," she insisted again and my blood boiled.

Wrong thing to say. 

"JinSoul writes better than me, as much as you are good at acting," I revolted, losing patience once and for all and ignoring her shocked and indignant face. "Taking classes with her once a week does not make you friends with her, Yerim, nor should it make you choose her over me."

She was about to speak again when I picked up my backpack from the table and pulled it hard, accidentally spilling all the water from the bottle of Yerim over her body. I didn't look back, however, determined to keep walking, although I heard the girl's exaggerated screams and curses, and her dramatic ask for help. After all, it wasn't my fault that the bottle cap was open! And, anyway, my head was spinning a lot now, I wouldn't be of much help.

In the hallway, I heard a comment or two about JinSoul running to help Yerim and even lending her some dry clothes, which made me even more irritated. I couldn't even concentrate on English class, my favorite, because I was feeling so uncomfortable. Even more with that perfect head and that perfect body rotating at an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees to spend ten seconds looking at me and then turning away as if nothing had happened every five minutes.

At the end of the two classes, I was finally more stable, my nerves having calmed down as my brain struggled to understand the new subjects of the semester, and I spent some more time talking with the teacher about the extracurricular project that she had offered me two weeks ago to help me with a college scholarship.

I thought I got rid of JinSoul for the rest of the day, since there were no more classes until tomorrow, but I found the blonde waiting in the hall, standing by the room's door, checking her cell phone screen. Pretending that I hadn't seen her, even though I had, I continued on my way carelessly until my arm was pulled.

"Hey, you're Kimberly, right?" She asked and my gaze automatically went to her hand on my wrist.

"Can you let me go?" I asked and so she did, blushing out of embarrassment.

"I just came to talk to you about what happened earlier, the water thing with Choerry. Why did you do that?"

Why had I done that? It's not like I've done it at all, let alone on purpose! So why the hell was Jung JinSol talking to me like I had?

"Since the two of you are so close now, ask her," I started walking in the opposite direction, not caring if that was the right way to get out of school, but JinSoul quickly reached me and stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop again.

I took a deep breath.

"Uh, I did? Choerry said it was because I was the subject of the conversation you guys were having and you don't like me," I made a mental note to put glue in Yerim's shampoo as soon as I got to the orphanage. What a joke! "You don't like me? Did I do something to you? Look, if it’s my place in the school newspaper, I can talk to-"

"I don't care about what you do. I don't care about you in general,” I interrupted her. "You were chosen because your father is the governor of the state and your mother is the mayor of the city; big deal. I'm even flattered that things like that happen; the whole struggle for people from above to remain at the top, even if unfairly, so that people from below can never rise, even if they have the capacity to do so, because it is not only with me that this happens. And I would appreciate it if you didn't speak to me again, I might not be in a good mood next time."

JinSoul, in fact, did not speak again, her face too surprised to react, allowing me to take the right path this time and get out of that hell at once, only to find an entrance full of teenagers who didn't seem to want to leave school and their precious friends. On the contrary, I really wanted it. Bad.

I didn't even care that I hadn't clarify the situation for JinSoul. We are not even friends and I was sure Yerim had only told the wrong version of the story so that she would continue to get attention, so why should I? JinSoul is not that important, but I still thought about it on my way back to the orphanage.

The orphanage — a medium-sized building, ground floor, large, with white exterior walls and a black roof, and beige and gray interior walls — has the exterior paint peeling off and a chimney falling apart, which smelled of mud and dry grass. It has been intended only for girls since its opening, and all the orphans take twenty minutes to walking to school every day since there is no car. It is at the end of the periphery, in the poorest and most neglected neighborhood of Loonaville, where drug dealers from large cities sell illegal drugs and medicines to residents who have no chance of buying them at the original price. But what many do not know is that the composition of the pills is also nothing original, far from being pure; those who know, ignore it.

I climbed onto the black railing that was placed after an attempted robbery, but which in no way protected the place, just so I wouldn't have to lock the gate properly. I threw the backpack first and then the body. Last time, my supervisor — that's how the social worker who runs the orphanage makes us call her — spent hours complaining to me for not doing it right. So I just don't do it at all anymore.

At the door, Yeojin, the other girl with whom I share the room, was already waiting for me with folded arms and a frown.

"You made unnie cry!" She accused, clearly upset. She is only eleven years old and is commonly called 'brat' or 'kiddo', both nicknames given by me.

Yeojin is shorter than most girls of her age, which makes her look even younger. She is boring and really stubborn.

"I didn't do anything," I passed through her straight to the kitchen, stealing an apple from the basket that Choerry carried under her scowl. By the taste, it had been from the apple tree across the street.

"You can't do that, unnie is family!" She followed me into the bedroom.

That's it. Today was not my day.

"No one here is your family, Yeojin," Grimes, the orphanage supervisor, scolded with her body propped up against the bedroom door and a cold look in her face. The woman had a damn habit of showing up at the most inconvenient times possible. "You are no longer in Korea, child, so stop using these slangs at once," she complained and crawled on her thick heels away from us.

Technically, no, Yeojin is not Korean, but this is a secret that I keep even from Grimes. For the best, of course.

"Hey, kiddo! Have you done your homework yet?" I tried to change the subject because I know how sensitive she is and can't get these issues out of her head. Children don't need this, even if I — in most times — don't like any of them.

"Choerry said she would help me with it later."

"That one doesn't even do hers," I murmured, sitting up on the bed and throwing away the worn, almost colorless sneakers as soon as I took them off.

"But you don't either!"

"That's what I tell her so she doesn't ask to copy from me. Now go and get yours, you little know-it-all," provokingly, I threw my shirt on her head and saw Yeojin run away while shouting about how sweaty my clothes were.

In particular, I never sweated easily, but as I recall, it was the second day I wore that blouse. It is a valid complaint.

I was able to lie down and take a deep breath just for five minutes before Yeojin came back and jumped on the top of my body, hitting her arm and struggling to get out when I retaliated by tickling her belly.

She is an intelligent child, that one. She always has been. She doesn't have many resources to improve her talents, like all Loonaville orphans, but I know that one day she would graduate. I really hope so.

In the end, Yeojin had few doubts in the boring subjects, like Math, and many in the cool ones, like History, and she only left me alone when Grimes shouted for us all to go to the dining room, this around seven at night, for dinner.

"The money from the city came earlier this month, in a larger amount, which means that all of you will get new sneakers," our supervisor commented when I was already finishing my soup. "Tomorrow I'm going to the market."

That extra amount didn't mean much and we all knew it well because Grimes always prioritized the purchase of her new and totally outdated heels and dresses over any real improvement or investment in the orphanage; in the meantime, the rest of us would continue to have three horrible meals a day and worn mattresses. And since no one cared enough about our side of the city or our lives to do something significant — no action or investigation would be done to try to fix things —, none of us did anything but listen and eat.

I just ignored the whole thing, as usual.

Once in the school hallways, the most functional radio news, while changing the books of the day, I heard that some girls would go on a diet, some just to imitate a singer or an actress they loved, or — I almost couldn't believe it — to attract some stupid guy's attention. They refused to eat anything at all for days or almost nothing for weeks to lose weight, in addition to exercising more than their bodies could handle, and it made me think about it for longer than I would like, as now, while making Yeojin's bed so that the child could sleep.

Okay, I always had a small, thin body, but it wasn't by choice. I didn't even have the power to choose — but what if I did? Knowing that girls like me go hungry every day, if I were one of those privileged teenagers and totally out of my current reality, would I do the same?

The answer is no, always a big no, I wouldn't do that; I'm sure I wouldn't care how many calories a chocolate muffin has, or if a huge bowl of ice cream would make my body swell. I would just eat it all with no regret because food is life and food give us comfort.

It is so unfair that, while I and the other girls at the orphanage have only one plate of soup and a glass of juice with more water than fruit for dinner, and we want a big meal full of calories and carbohydrates, people who already have it despise it. This makes me furious, truly upset with the stupid mentality that yield to the 'standard of beauty' imposed by society, especially when seeing that humanity is degrading more and more every day and nobody seems to care. Or try to change it.

After all, a simple diet can easily evolve into an eating disorder, which makes the whole thing the most ridiculous in the world.

Well, I couldn't keep thinking about the same thing forever, but my procrastination led me to be the last one in line to shower, making me wait for more than half an hour.

"It's nine o'clock, I want to see everyone in bed!" Grimes shouted to announce the curfew. The woman forced us to sleep early so that we wouldn't be hungry again.

Even though I was late, I was forgiven for wandering around the house after the final hour because I was in the shower, but as soon as I got dressed, I just waited for Yeojin to fall asleep — she liked to sleep with me sometimes — to get up, put on my coat, close the bedroom door and open the window.