“A single day is enough
to make us a
little larger or,
another time,
a little smaller.”
—Paul Klee

SOMETIMES the human mind only focuses on what is first seen. Our impressions of others and who they are can be made up in a blink of an eye. It’s only natural, to read a person based on what is seen. Throughout our lives we will meet countless of strangers who in a glimpse, we will try to guess their life story. The reason their smile may not fully reach their eyes. The reason their shoulders are heavier with a burden unseen. We will guess and think we know, with a simple look, a fraction of a second because we will never be able to talk to that perfect stranger.

If you look closely at the hordes of student coming to school bright and early, one will stand out more than the others. It’s not due to a downcast expression or because they are an outcast. No. The reason is much simpler than that. They are smiling, bright and already so early with their smile reaching their eyes. Anyone can see, how truly genuine it is. Aside from their outfit, nothing else but that smile sticks out. With a ponytail and uniform, they fit right in. A slight difference, the constant wearing of Adidas sweatpants underneath their clothing.

That is me. I watched my two older brothers, who left me behind in the morning, and ran up to them. Not an eye was batted as I linked my arms between them. A smile so bright my cheeks would hurt—if I wasn’t so used to smiling like this—was plastered on my face. Jinyoung is the first to try and pull away. I make a small noise and pout in his direction.

“She’s doing it again. She’s using her cuteness against you.” Jimin, the one closest in age to me pats my head affectionately.

It isn’t that long after that Jinyoung pinches my cheek. “You're a cruel girl, Park Joy, using your good looks and adorableness against me.”

I let go of their arms, running forward to the school gate and sticking my tongue out at them. It’s not a spectacle anyone watches. My being with my brothers is normal. We are close, they are my best friends. Other than my actual best friends.

“Hey Joy, happy as always, I see.”

I gripped the straps of my backpack and nod to Zelo, one of my four best friends. Some would think it was odd, for a girl to have so many male figures in her life. To me, it was normal. There was nothing out of the ordinary to play with boys. I liked to get down and dirty, playing in the mud or staining my clothing from sliding into home base while playing baseball at the park. I knew no different, and females brought a drama all their own, I couldn’t understand.

It wasn’t always like that. For five and a half years, I was the youngest and only female of my family. My father always wanted a little boy. My mother, she wanted her princess. After four births of just boys and their rowdy behavior. I believe she deserved my coming into the world. I did all the things little girls would do. I played dress up, made my brothers take turns in being my prince that saved me from the tower, and had tea parties with my stuffed animals. Sometime my mother would join, and I would make Jimin dress up in my princess clothing and play along with me. Those moments only happened after he made me cry.

I remember taking ballet and loving it. That was where I met Bae Joohyun, or Irene as we call her, our next-door neighbor. She was the same age as Hyungsik but very shy. It was in ballet that I noticed her gracefulness. She inspired me to be the best me I could be. I was poised and elegant. I spoke in a much too eloquent voice and speech for someone my age.

Before my sixth birthday, we were all given a wonderful present. The pride and baby of our family; Jisung was born. He was adorable from the beginning—what was not to love about him? He cooed and blew bubbles with his mouth. I enjoyed helping my mother and dreamed of a future where I too would be a mother.

But life wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. To get the rainbow, a storm must pass. To have butterflies, winter first must come, and the flowers must bloom. For every beautiful moment in life, there was a tragedy behind it. My mother fell ill. It wasn’t something to be weary of at first. She had a simple common cold. I was eight at the time and Jisung was two.

Her cold only worsened. She didn’t get better. Her common cold turned into a bought of coughs. Her coughs led to bronchitis, which ultimately lead to her developing pneumonia. Her body was weak. She never showed it, but pneumonia would bring her end closer than ever expected. As a young girl, she never thought she would live long—let alone be able to have children. She battled cancer and had a brain tumor the size of a lemon removed at the age of fourteen. The chemotherapy almost took her. We were her pride and joy. To have six beautiful children with the man she loved—and she was all of ours pride and joy.

When she passed, a month before my ninth birthday, she took every girly part of me with her.

I didn’t want to dance anymore. It only reminded me of how she would sow my ballet costumes. I didn’t want to have tea parties. They were never the same without her. I didn’t want to remember her because she was gone. I shut it all out. I was an empty shell, and my father and brothers did not know what to do with me.

I would look at Jisung and only think of how lucky he was. He wouldn’t know the loss of a mother—than I would hold him in my arms, crying as he looked at me confused at the tender age of three. He wouldn’t know the love of a mother either.

It wasn’t until a year later when the school bully—Jung Jaehyun—would call me a motherless miscreant that I experienced my first thrill of being un-lady like. My tiny self and fists did not hesitate on jumping him and punching him in the jaw. I pulled his hair and he pulled mine. I kicked his shin and kneed his gut. I had seen enough of my two older brothers fighting to know what I needed to do. I gave him a bloody nose before the teachers were able to pull me off.

I was given detention for that entire week, cleaning up the classroom by myself. I thought Hyungsik, who came in for me on behalf of our working father, would have been disappointed in me. He didn’t say much until we were closer to home, and he patted my head. His simple touch made my tears spring out as I wailed in the streets. He held me until I calmed down, wiping my tears, and smiling.

“So, how bad did he look after you were done?”

Hyungsik didn’t tell our father about my fight. Everyone else knew and both Jinyoung and Jimin stalked Jaehyun down to give him their own punches, to which they were also punished for. Chanyeol took it upon himself to teach me how to fight. He didn’t pit himself against me, instead he would always have Oh Sehun, the boy who lived down the road, be the recipient of my weak punches until one day—when I was thirteen and he was fifteen, that I really did make him cry.

That fight started it all. I spent more time with my brothers. The girls in my grade were already afraid of me. Jaehyun apologized and he became one of my best friends. It took him a month of being approved by my brothers before I could call him my friend. He introduced me to Taeyong and Doyoung. Zelo didn’t come in until high school.

Every summer, while girls would sit by the pool side, getting tan or showing off their growing prepubescent bodies, I would be out in the fields playing with the boys.

My father didn’t think much of it and just enjoyed seeing me smile again. His daughter was happy and so he was content.

Irene would still every so often read me the latest teenage magazine and introduce me to the hottest bands that had the cutest members. I would fangirl but not enough to trade in my basketball shorts for a skirt. I did have one friend who was a girl that was a couple of years younger than me. Kim Yerim moved in a few houses down when I was eleven and she was nine. We were the complete opposite of each other. She reminded me of the me when I was younger. Those were some of the reasons as to why I liked her; other than her sa