Life’s Steps

Birth day

A squeaky sound echoed in the dark alley, disturbing the quiet night. A couple of loud sobs followed before being muffled when his mother closed the hatch of the baby box installed in the wall of the Christian Orphanage. It was now his new home. An electronic bell rang, alerting a nun who quickly retrieved him from the heated yet so coldhearted small place. She took a thorough look at the newborn, in search of any injuries and ultimately found a piece of paper in between his swaddling clothes. The nun softly uttered the only thing his mother had given to him beside life, his name: “Kim Jong In.”

Childhood

“Seonsaengnim! Jong In is drawing clothes again!” An annoying nasal voice denounced the teenager, too focused on his work to care, stop or hide it, even if he wasn’t drawing the plain and boring basket of fruit in front of him.

“Orphan Kim!” Yelled his middle school art teacher, emphasizing as usual his family status to publicly humiliate him. Art was his favorite subject yet he was hating deeply the one teaching it. The said man snatched his drawing paper and tore it in thousand pieces, making sure his worthless student was unable to recover it. Jong In clamped at the extreme his jaws but stayed still, knowing from experience it was no use to rebel against him or anyone else. Orphans were always wrong in South Korea.

High school Graduation

Cold weather, cold floor tile, cold heart. The nineteen-year-old Kim Jong In was hiding in the toilets of his school. Was it still his school when he was about to receive his diploma? The only thing he really knew was that he didn’t want to go get it. Not in front of a whole assembly full of joyful and proud parents when he, he had no one proud of his achievements. He was the valedictorian student, so he had to give that not so unexpected speech about entering adulthood and business life and yet he was scolding himself for having worked twice, thrice harder than others only to prove he was worth something right now, just to avoid being behind this damn microphone. He didn’t want to give advice, to share wisdom with his nasty, cruel, sadistic or stupid comrades, they were the ones not worth of him.

Fly Out of the Nest

He had never had so many bills in his hand before today. However, he was certain to lack it in no time. It wasn’t enough. Not enough for buying his overly expensive textbooks for his first year of art academy, not enough to rent a decent place to live measuring more than four square meters, not enough to buy all the art furniture required in the given list seeming endless to his eyes. Not enough to eat something other than ramyeon each day. He had to find a part-time job, a place to live near the campus and to make sure this marvelous country was actually covering his scholar fees. He had less than a week before being kicked out of his orphanage. Welcome to adulthood!

Student Life

SNS Jong In thought. He had succeeded to hide his background issue until the end of the first semester but thanks to a former student from his high school, he was bound to wear the scarlet O letter till the end of his four years of university.

Fortunately, at the end of the first one, he was more famous for his fashion design talent than for his lack of bloodline; and for the first time in his life, he had the sensation of really living it and not enduring it. However, he didn’t open to others a tad bit; missing all the good sides of a student life. No parties, no informal gathering at the end of the day, no work group either, no girlfriend, no friend either. Nonetheless, he was experiencing an essential aspect of the student life: Working part time; meaning he was sleeping less than four hours per night to keep up his academic level and to make enough money for eating more than one meal a day. At least his night shift job as a convenience store cashier was allowing him to draw in between customers’ orders.

Encounter

“Kim Jong In meets Leilani Reyes, Leilani, here is Kim Jongin, one of our best students in fashion design,” his mentor introduced him to who was supposed to be his partner for the show contest closing his final year at the art academy. “Leilani is an exchange student from the Philippines, she won a full scholarship thanks to her double successful course as fashion designer and business management. I’m looking forward to your collaboration!” finished the enthusiastic professor with a tap in their backs before leaving.

“Nice to meet you Jong In-shi,” She bowed politely at him. “Let’s do our best to display our talent by working hard till the end of the year!” She reached her hand waiting for him to squeeze it in return. He didn’t know if it was her bubbly way of speaking, her blinding toothy smile or her pleasant manners but something irked him deeply. He displayed a tight smile and forced himself to flabbily take her hand then nodded to her last sentence. 

“I have to go to work. Ask our mentor to give you my intel and contact me after 3 a.m. or before 8 a.m. to schedule our co-working hours please. I’m only not working on Tuesday nights, so ask for my schedule as well to squeeze some work sessions in between my courses according to your own schedule and let me know, bye.” He uttered in a row, bowed slightly and turned to run toward the bus stop, not letting her answer back.

Cooperation

After several attempts to match their schedules, Leilani ended up accompanying Jong In when he was doing his night shift at the convenience store. They were working, meaning fighting from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. then Leilani was leaving hastily even if they were finally cooperating and having great ideas about their final project. It was frustrating the male student but he couldn’t complain considering she was accommodating him beyond what a normal student would have done.

They had a ton of work left and less than a month until D-Day. Both majoring in fashion clothes design, they were organizing a fashion show which included creating twenty-five genderless outfits from scratch, picking fabrics, accessories as shoes, scarves and bags, doing some partnership with jewelries to allow models they still had to choose to look the best possible, working in collaboration with the hairdresser section of the academy to imagine haircuts matching the outfits and begging the skinflint beautician section to do the same. 

Dream

Being both very competitive, they were naturally aiming for the best award prize: two full scholarships in France to learn from the most renowned fashion designers during two years.

Kim Jong In was dreaming to be able to fully focus on his passion without having to handle a part-time job to survive by sacrificing his sleep and time. Leilani wanted to travel and to enjoy the European way of living while building a business plan to launch her own collection and clothes shop.

Friendship

With the days passing, Leilani’s good mood was rubbing off on him, diminishing their daily arguments. They had a better understanding of each other by dint of spending so much time together, anticipating the needs of the other to gain time in their project. Jong In was even delegating some tasks, now fully aware of Leilani’s skills and trusting for the first time someone other than himself. But, while he was starting to open to her, Leilani tended gradually to close in on herself. Her partner noticed slight changes: her vague stare and dark circles, her bloody bitten fingernails, her drooping shoulders. And psychological ones as a feeling of weariness exhaling from her, her lack of patience, being on edge more and more to the point Jong In had to confront her, worried for the result of their collaboration but unexpectedly for her first. She was the first to trigger compassion and worry from him for somebody else. He was starting to care for her as she had cared for him multiple times this past few weeks.

Caring

“Here.” She pushed a box filled with colored cookies in front of him at the end of the first week working together.

“No thanks, I’m not hungry.” He pushed it back next to her, barely watching them. Then, he continued to draw one of the outfits for the fashion show, until his pen stopped scratching the rough surface of the paper when his stomach growled loudly in the empty convenience store.

“Come on! Don’t lie to me Kim Jong In!” She complained, taking a false authoritative tone, trying not to laugh, in the meantime.

“I don’t need your pity!” He snapped back, looking aggressively at her with his frowned eyes. “I will eat perishable unsold food after my shift as always, so don’t bother to worry about me.”

“Well, that’s indeed a pity for you to eat such unhealthy food daily but I’m not your mom.” She retorted frantically before softening a bit. “I just need a guinea pig to taste my new recipe, I want to offer them at the end of the show to everyone who helped and worked with us.” He looked embarrassed at her after hearing her explanation, not knowing what to say to his partner. “So, eat a damn cookie and tell me if they are edible for you at least!”

He picked one and took a bite, munching thoroughly on it and scrunched his nose when he felt a piece of egg shell under his teeth along with too pronounced salted relish. 

“Are they chocolate-chip cookies or salted biscuits with calcium bonus from egg shells?!” He complained, yet unconsciously took another bite while focusing anew on his work, missing her caring smile.

At the end of their working session, the box of cookies was empty and Jong In’s belly full.

The next couple of days, she brought another batch of cookies, this time, all dark brown. “Dark chocolate cookies are easier than the previous recipe you tasted. I’m sure they taste great, check it!”

He did so after sighing loudly as if forced to gulp some poison. “Argh! Are you trying to k