Ah-Ri jabs a hand forward, colliding with the makeshift dummy she made. In all honesty, it’s really just a pile of pillows tied together with some spare string on a wooden board.

Sweat trickles down her flawless pale face, and her ponytail bounces in rhythm with her movements. Ah-Ri is in the zone, nothing can break her streak right now.

She hears a thump from downstairs. It’s heavy and loud, pushing at her room from the other floor below her. Her foot steps slightly to the left, and in return, her hand misses the intended center of the dummy.

How many times has this happened? Ah-Ri counts this as the sixth time. The sixth time her parents bumped into a chair, tipped a cup over, or smashed into the table, ruining any sort of concentration she tries so hard to obtain. She lets out an exasperated sigh, burying her face into the pillows.

Knock Knock!

Ah-Ri hears the sound of the door being hit, and unwillingly, she turns away from the training dummies and answers it. Unfortunately it’s her rich, more-than-slightly materialistic parents, whom she hates.

They stare hard at her, attempting to appear intimidating and superior as wealthy people tended to do. Unfortunately for them, Ah-Ri’s tall frame for a girl her age makes her seem equal to them.

“What are you doing here?” Ah-Ri asks with an intimidating stare obviously annoyed by them.

“We need to talk to you Ah-Ri,” her dad responds.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Ah-Ri tries to shut the door, but her father with his large strong hands stop it for shutting.

“Stop it young lady,” he growls, hovering over her with the few inches he has on her height.

Ah-Ri takes a step back, hating that she has to live with them, that she was born into and from them, that they could possibly have any right as to call her their family. 

“What?” she mutters, working out a crick in her shoulder from the hours of practice.

“Look at me straight in the eyes. Now,” her father says in his deep husky voice. Ah-Ri looks him straight in the face, her eyes  

showing that she could care less about anything her parents have to say. She still does as they command, however, because she wants to show them that she at the very least had manners.

“You need to stop.”

“Stop what?!” she immediately replies, her voice a sharper tone than she earlier intended it to be.

Her father gestures to the practice area she set up almost a year ago, though his movements are more like a sloppy flop of the hand.

“You know what it is, this!”

Choosing the moment to jump in, Ah-Ri’s mother takes her daughter’s hand, going for the gentle approach. “What you’re father is saying is that this is simply not ladylike. Not at all appropriate for someone like you.”

Ah-Ri knows what they’re getting at. It must have been showing in her eyes, as her mother’s makeup-caked face darkens slowly.

“You can’t change me to what you want.”

“You are our daughter, we have the right to,” her father snaps. 

“NO YOU DON’T!” she retorts, shrieking at her father. He steps back, surprised. Ah-Ri has never snapped, at least not like this before.

“I may be your daughter, but you can’t control what I do as my own person. I want to do martial arts, you can’t change that. I don’t want to be that lady-like daughter you dreamed of.” At this, her mother flinches, slipping a bit behind her husband.

“I’m sorry. But I just don’t care. You can’t control what I love to do.” She slides her calloused fingers up the frame of the door. “At least I have manners.”

Her parents’ eyes widen in surprise. Years of stress and strain all leading up to this? Both observe their daughter’s face, now drastically different from the little angel years ago. 

She just defied her parents.

Her face, instead of its usual pale glow is now a puffing red. No one would have been surprised if steam started blowing out of her ears. The stress of being controlled and fighting for independence is starting to take its toll on her. She never thought that a simple need would escalate into weekly, almost daily, arguments with her parents.

Her father snapped out of his shock sooner than Ah-Ri’s mom. He pointed a finger at the girl, almost a young woman.

“You’re out of control.”

“Thanks for raising me like this,” Ah-Ri spits, feeling almost guilty as soon as the words tumbled off her lips. All she ever wanted, all she still wants, is to be loved, truly loved. Slamming the door without waiting for them to back away from her room, she locks it, doubly-so with the chain at the top.

The adrenaline from the quarrel was draining her. She feels like her muscles are slipping away, all that hard work to prove herself, gone.

She goes to lie down on her pillow, rethinking about everything she said to them and what they said to her. “Do they really love me as their daughter?” She ponders, knowing that parents were not supposed to be controlling and materialistic. “I just want to be loved for who I want to be, for who I am,” are her last thoughts before her eyes start to well up in tears.

“Mama, papa…” she whispered hoarsely. The weight of the world lifted itself from her shoulders as she drifted off to sleep.

“I’m sorry.”

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Author’s Note: 

Hope you like the first chapter! ^^ I’ll try to update regularly.~ Spread the fanfic please~ ^^ Support much needed. c: