BGM: Breakeven by The Script

Pink sofa

Pink lampshade

Pink bed sheets

Pink bed

Pink curtains

Pink cabinet

Pink frames

 Pink coffee maker

Pink toaster

Pink plates

Pink kitchen utensils

Pink flowers

Pink pots

Pink speakers

Pink television set

Seriously, this girl has a disease—a PINK disease.

Every single thing in here is pink.

I opened the wooden cupboard and took some coffee.

AH! Hangover’s the worst.

I grabbed a warm pack and soothed my aching back muscles. Apparently, sleeping in that cold floor in the mausoleum can cause muscle cramps and even if I freaking knew that fact, I woke up with a sore body.

I hurriedly went home, noticing that I’ve been gone for a while and my new roommate might look for me.

The last thing I need is a search and rescue warrant from her.

But she’s not yet here.

I guess I’m off the hook.

A cold breeze entered the slightly opened windowsill near the kitchen.

I saw the city landscape painted in its ever so glorified way outside the window.

Still the same, eh?

I closed the sill completely, reminiscing those times I had in Korea.

--

Unlike all the preconceptions of my American colleagues, I wasn’t born in a wealthy family.

Heck, I don’t even have a family.

Mrs. Hyohyeon Kim, the orphanage’s caretaker, told me that I was found by the police crying alone in a garbage dump near the red lights district when I was three. I was covered in dirt and my exposed feet were injured by a big shard of glass. Thus, they named me Kwon Yuri.

Nobody came for me in the police station even after a ‘Found’ ad was posted so the police took me to the city’s orphanage. I felt like a puppy being tossed around by people who doesn’t want anything to do with me.

I was unwanted.

They think I was deadweight.

The orphanage is the same.

It doesn’t want anything to do with me.

And it was only out of obligation, out of its ng name, that they took me in.

I felt the intensity of disgust the moment I step my foot in the orphanage’s dormitory.

It was crowded.  

And crowded is an understatement.

There were three children sharing a single bed.

And the food was porridge—a cup of porridge for breakfast, a cup of porridge for lunch and a cup of porridge for dinner.

The bigger kids would usually frighten the little ones until they give their shares. All commodities are manipulated by them.

And I was three back then.

And I was little.

I used to sneak in the bathroom with my food under my shirt to make sure I can nourish my thin fragile body with whatever nutrition left in that meager soup.

It was a ‘dog eat dog world’ I lived in.

No one to care for but myself, only myself.

Until one night, after I’ve made sure that I’ve stacked my shirt with some crumbs of bread from a trash bin I’ve learned to collect from, I heard someone weeping in the bathroom.

The bathroom was my safe haven.

It was the only place in this hell that I can eat my stash of nourishment.

It was my secret refuge.

And it irritated me that someone else is in there.

“YAH! You’re not supposed to be here. Get out.” I demanded.

I was five then.

And the weeping kid looked smaller.

Therefore, I am more powerful.

I am the boss.

The child looked at me with her eyes filled with tears and suddenly hugged me.

I was dumbfounded.

Nobody has ever hugged me.

I have no memories of anyone hugging me.

And now I do.

Her small fragile hands tightly intertwined around my back.

Her reddened face buried in my feeble chest.

“Please, *sniff* don’t leave me alone. *sniff*  I promise I’ll be good. *sniff*  Taeyeon is not a bad kid.  *sniff* I promise I’ll listen to you. *sniff*  Please don’t throw me *sniff*  in the dark. *sniff* I’m scared.” I heard her mumble between sobs.

She must be new to the orphanage. I remembered how I was when I was also new, the bigger kids instantly tried to project all their mean attention towards me. I was the target of mockery until another child enters this hell.

She must have been bullied…just like me.

Unwanted… just like me.

Alone… just like me.

And suddenly I felt stronger.

I felt like a wall that she needed to lean on.

I felt a shock of worth crawling beneath my skin.

I felt alive.

I hugged her.

“Nobody can hurt you. I’m here.”

And I saw her lips curved into an angelic smile as she drifts off to her dreamland.

--

The day we became of legal age, the orphanage let us go. Taeyeon and I decided to live together in downtown Korea. We would do part time j