Children like me are rare... Around twenty years ago, only a small bunch of persons from the upper class were able to allow themselves the luxury of adopting a child and it rarely was in a legal way.  It was fashionable... We are modeled into a classical Korean mold, perfect soldiers, lovely dolls, obeying... What is the most traditional about education has been breathed life into us, in order to prove how superior Korean culture is, so superior that it's even able to get us better in any way. More than all the others, we can't fail.

Fifteen years ago, Our Revered President's father has decided to stop those foster children adoption. He said we were a threat for the lineage... He has ordered that all those who were older than five would have to be sent back from where they were, in any way. As a result : the massacre of a good hundred adopted children. I barely escaped from this. I was four.

Father has insisted for me to study at the National University of the Korean Patriots. I wanted to learn anthropology, to discover the hidden secrets of religions and the history of our country and the political sciences but Father has refused. Girls have to stay at their places. So I'm learning female literature, poetry, art and music. But I'm so bored in class...

Six months ago, my big brother Jong Woon has got married, with a girl from Pyongyang my father has found. I know he doesn't love her and she does not love him, neither. It makes me sad for him. Marriages of love are something very rare. It makes the girls from my class daydreaming about it but they all, like me, will marry a boy they don't even know, one day. Father has not said anything to me yet but I know it will happen. I was never meant for a marriage of love. These are nonsense for the lowest people, Mother has explained. Love between two persons never existed. The only love worth is the love for the motherland.

Father and Mother don't love us.

And yet, I love them. I love my oppa too. I don't tell anyone. I stay the obeying girl they want me to be, even if I dream I could fly away, one day. Even if he never voiced it, I know my oppa loves me too.

When I was a little girl, I had troubles to fall asleep. My nannies didn't know what to do about it with me... I was having very violent nightmares. But I don't remember... All I remember is that, as either Father nor Mother would visit me to help me falling asleep easier, because they both were pretty busy, it was Jong Woon my nannies were calling. He was telling me stories and singing songs to me and I finally met sleep this way.

But even before he got married, I often stayed with him a lot. He was telling me what he has learned in class and that's because he was studying anthropology and politics that I started to get into that as well. At night, I was reading secretly, hidden under my sheets, his school books and others that I stole in Father's library. Once, I have been falling asleep and I have spilled my oil lamp on the bed. I almost have set my room on fire! Father has discovered my secret and I have been severely punished. Ever since, I can't even step into Father's library. I only can go to Mother's... but there only are romance novels there and I don't like it as much.

I would like Jong Woon to come home more often. He has to make a family of his own and so he doesn't live with us anymore. Father has found a job for him as a diplomatic assistant of one of his coworkers whose job is to manage the Streets Army from Hwijongbu, a town that's miles away from Seoul. I'm afraid it makes my oppa change. I don't tell anyone, neither, because I am a girl and I am not allowed to say what I am thinking on such things and also because it could set Father pretty angry, but I am not quite into the Streets Army and the Peace Guardians. They look down on everyone in the tramway or in the city and they scare me. They are supposed to watch out that everything is alright, calm and peaceful but when I see their eyes full of animosity, I am feeling as if they always are ready to shoot anyone compassionlessly. They send chills down my spine. Father is the leader of the Peace Guardinas from the Dongdaemoon area...

In my class, there are not many persons with who I get along fine. Between the lessons, they only talk about romance novels, dresses, jewels and socialite parties. All those girls are from the upper class, but their father are less important in the Regime than mine. So, they think I am an haughty girl, also because I am the best student from my class. I have to be the best. This is what is expected from me.

Despite this, they think my interest for politics and male literature, which is rougher, is an eccentricity. I can hear them whispering in the corridors that it's not possible to be so good in calligraphy, traditional music and paintings at the sight of my odd tastes. But I don't like only rough things. I like the softness and the delicacy of what is taught here. But... it's nothing different from what I always been doing with my spare time until then! Since I am very little, I learn poetry, calligraphy, seulgeum and gayageum. There are no many choices of hobbies, as a girl.

The only one I am getting along with in my class, the only one I am looking at as a friend was with me in High School and she is called Lee Yeon Hee. We were born the same year but Yeon Hee is not like me, she is not an adopted child. She has long curly black hair she is tying into plaits or letting free. When she does so, her hair is floating in the wind just like a flag made with silky velvet, with delicacy and sensuality. She has such a beautiful face with daydreaming brown slanting eyes and a laugh able to warm up any heart, fulfilling the room. A frank and generous laugh, contrasting with her soft voice when she is speaking. Just like any other girls, Yeon Hee dreams about marriage of love and romantic literature but she got her way about the world, an outlook about everything which is not the plain normal thing. Just like me, she knows that we both may want some things very hard, being born as girls, being born as Korean girls, we will never get that thing and our destiny is already set up for us.

If only I could find a way to make it go deviant...

Last year, back in High School, I was in a co-ed class. At the university, girls and boys are separated because we can't choose the same matters but before that, all along school, we are mixed. Latter, we will get married and have children so the opposite has not to scare us, like it was the case long before with our grandparents, when the girls who were dreaming too much were letting themselves die from the love pain.

In the middle of the year, our main teacher has called me and asked me to welcome a new pupil. He has told me the pupil was no good at mathematics and chemistry and has asked me to help him. I already was the best student from my class. But I don't like mathematics and chemistry. I have to work very hard and to focus a lot to understand them well. Despite this, teachers only see the marks and not the efforts collected to get it and so I was in charge to help him.

The very first day, when he has arrived and has been introduced to the whole class, I couldn't look at him nor talk to him. I was shy because he was very beautiful. And the other girls and even the boys, everyone was attracted by him, he has become the gravitation center of any of them. And Yeon Hee and I, too quiet, we never came close to him. I was supposed to help him, but he did not look interested by school and he had no problem to get fit in. So I gave it up... Then I have got scolded because his marks in mathematics and chemistry were still bad and I have been forced to give my support to him.

Oh but I forgot to tell... His name is Kim Kyung Jae and he comes from an Incheon family who has settled down in Seoul to come and help the Mayor. His hair is as dark as a starless night, his delicately slanting eyes sometimes can express something pretty soft, and other times, a lot of coolness and he doesn't smile often, but I like it better than those idiots spending their time laughing for no reason.

And in the end, I have learned to know him better. He has a particular character that I really like. He is not smart like the other boys, he is more fragile and more secret too, but his lonely and a bit wild sides are really pleasing me. He has become my best friend. Everyday, he was walking me home instead of taking the tramway or a rickshaw. We used to talk about many things. Sometimes, he would buy me an ice cream or we would have a tea at the Market Place.

By the end of the year, I was sad because I thought Kyung Jae would not come at the National University of the Korean Patriots, because of his marks. He said it was nothing serious but I did not agree. I did not want us to be parted and I started to cry. By crying, I have realized he was much more than a friend, but once more, I did not tell anyone. Girls can't express their feelings in front of the boys, it's very bad-mannered. Meanwhile, Kyung Jae has promised to work harder to be able to come to the University with me... And he did it! I could not believe it...

To celebrate our graduations, Father has accepted for me to do a little party in the garden of our house. There was Yeon Hee, of course, and some other persons from our class, and there was Kyung Jae. Father and Mother were happy to see I was friend with people which families were implied in the good way to work of the Regime and whose role were important for the Motherland and for the honor of Our Revered President. But I am in a school for chidren of the State Senior Civil Servants so it was not my real purpose. Mother has insisted for me to wear a traditional hanbok and to play music for everyone but I was very not at ease to play in front of Kyung Jae. Yet, I play since always for Jong Woon, Father and Mother and for my cousins when they visit us but it is never the same than playing for the boy who you are in love with.

I went to find refuge at the shades of a tree a little latter, when everyone was having a nap. My nannies were asleep too, Father and Mother were not there and Jong Woon was absent since he has another graduation party to go to. With a bit of ink and rice papers, I settled there to paint flowers to offer to Yeon Hee to thank her for her friendship. Kyung Jae has came to see me. He has sat behind me and as I was still painting, he has took my hand speechlessly and has guided it on the paper. I was feeling his breath on my nape and it has made me very nervous. He has put a slight kiss on my cheek and I was very scared someone might see us, so I fled instead and I let everything in state.

Ever since, we are together at the University but I cannot see him that often, since we both are in separated classes but sometimes, we meet each other in secret. Hidden from the eyes in the library, we go looking for censored poetries. I heard there were collections with very subversive stories between a man and a woman, and it intrigues me a lot. Once, we have found a book with illustrations, it was very embarrassant. We hid it between two shelves but when I wanted to show it to Yeon Hee, it has disappeared.

Now that Jong Woon has left home and I can't go to Father's library, these are the only moments when I can allow myself to break the rules a little and to kill my boredom.

I am aware that life that is made for me is more beautiful and effortless than the ones of the girls from the Popular Universities, who are going to work in the fields for their whole lives but at the same time... I am feeling as if I was the nice hummingbird in its golden cage owned by the University's library's manager. I am wearing beautiful shimmering colorful outfits, I make the ones who adopted me proud, but what is in front of me are bars made out of a precious metal which I could never cross. I have to keep my wings closed, because one has decided for me that never I could spread it to fly away as I would like to.

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Well... No readers at all? Silent readers? This fiction is so dear to me... Please, give it a little try... (though I know I can't force anyone). Anyway, thanks if you have read it! It's already a great deal for me! ♥ If you have liked it, could you let me know?