Jinah’s record was cleaned. Well, a bit. Her six records of mischief were cut down to three records. That was better. Her ranking went up too. She was now third out of hundreds of girls. She was in the Top Five! She was originally forty-second!

          Jinah had to wake up early. Pleased, Miss Han made her toast with jam and more fruits, and scrambled eggs. Jinah was a pretty happy gal, especially after seeing Jaein’s puffy face. She didn’t let this opportunity go. “What’s wrong, pufferfish – have you been up all night crying your eyes out? You’re too red.”

          Jaein glared daggers at her. “Ouch, dangerous,” Jinah teased. “Better look nicer or you’ll scare those boys you tried to seduce away~”

          “Shut up!” Jaein growled, but it was only to Jinah’s amusement.

          “Like I said, be careful~” Jinah cooed, winked, and walked away, her head held high. She sat down willingly on the stool with a smile on her face, until she realized what that meant.

          Makeup and makeup and makeup – curling her hair, heat, ugh. It was hell. It took what felt like twenty hours for the women to finish up on Jinah, but it had only been one hour. Hardly believing that, she was fit into a light green dress that complimented her brown hair and eyes. It was strapless and silky, all one color. The ends curled up in a very delicate way. It looked beautiful. Until it was put on Jinah, anyway. Then her opinion changed.

          The dress was tight and suffocating. She remembered the heated shower room. She heard Miss Kim zip the back up. A green flower on the left side bugged her, but it wasn’t huge, luckily. Her hair was curled and they fell down somewhat naturally on her shoulders. Her earrings were emeralds, her ring emerald too. Her necklace was white gold, thick, with a large green gem embedded in the middle. Her bracelets were pearls and white gold. Everything was so beautiful…so then why did Jinah feel so awkward?

          Miss Kim thickened her eyes with eyeliner, curled her lashes, applied mascara, and brushed a light coat of rose-blush on her cheekbones to define them. She had a green hair band on her head, her side bangs still intact. Her nails were re-painted green. Her shoes were thin heels, silver, bejeweled in green. Miss Kim patted the dress down and fluffed it a bit. She looked at herself in the long, thin mirror. The women all stared at her reflection.

          “Jinah, you’re beautiful!” Miss Han exclaimed.

          “Since when were you this pretty? My, look at those curves!” commented Miss Lee.

          Miss Oh smiled as she said modestly and calmly, “You’re gorgeous, Jinah.”

          Miss Kim held onto Jinah’s shoulders, and looked at the reflection too, with Jinah. Miss Kim thought about how old she was getting, for Jinah, the little rascal, to grow up into this beautiful young lady. Jinah was always beautiful, makeup or fresh, young or mature, but goodness…she was dazzling. “You look absolutely stunning, my dear,” Miss Kim said, watching the confused girl purse her lips in disapproval.

           “I –”

           “Sh. My dear, you look beautiful.”

          Jinah swallowed hard. “I don’t look like me.”

          “What do you mean? I can recognize you! You’re always pretty, but now it’s just a mature-type of pretty,” said Miss Kim.

          “That’s right! You’re gorgeous whatever you do,” said Miss Jang.

          Jinah looked back at the reflection. The girl wasn’t her. She was too formal. She looked tense and unhappy. “I look like a tree.”

          The women erupted into laughter. “My dear, you’d make a very beautiful tree. Now, let’s get going. They’re about to open Callidum gateways in two minutes’ time.”

          Jinah nodded as she walked out of the dwelling. Her feet hurt. Her face tugged. She felt uncomfortable. This wasn’t her. This isn’t me. All this makeup, all this set-up… it wasn’t her. It didn’t feel right. If any gangs wanted her now, it was for her looks, but what happened if she took the makeup off? What if she didn’t wear dresses and heels and curled her hair? She’d be released, and that would be absolute humiliation.

Minjung, wearing a periwinkle dress that had laces, thick straps, and ruffled top came over and nudged Jinah. She looked completely natural in those killer white-blue heels. Minjung was the type of girly-girl that you couldn’t hate. “That’s you, right? Jinah?”

          “Hi. You look great as always and I look like a tree. Now shut up.”

          “No! No, you look so pretty!” Minjung said, examining her boyish friend. “I didn’t know you could look like this. I mean – ugh, you – I’m speechless!”

          “I look like a tree.”

          “No, you don’t, so shut up. You look wonderful. Hey, turn around!”

          Jinah groaned, but Minjung insisted, so she did, her heels clicking. The clicks pierced her ears. This wasn’t her. “I look like a tree.”

          “Stop saying that, you sound like an attention seeker, like you know who. Speaking of the devil…” Jaein walked out with a tight red, short dress. Jinah’s was pretty short too, mid-thighs – but Jaein’s was… were those stiletto heels? Jaein walked around like she had won the lottery.

          Jinah rolled her eyes. “I completely owned her his morning. Anyways, you look great, Minjung! That color really suits you.”

          “Talk about yourself! The green, wow… I love it.”

          “Inrepidus!” The Announcer announced.

          Minjung quickly said bye to Jinah and hurried to her place in the line. And soon enough, it was Callidum, and much too quickly. The gates opened and the girls walked out in a horizontal line, at the very end. In the second meet, the gangs had a feel of the girls. They would talk to the candidates and see their personality, and so on. It was like a greet-and-meet, or a mingling session. “Callidum! Now, gangs! Go experiment!” And the gangs split.

“Which one? That one?” a boy pointed at a random girl. She almost fainted.

          “No, no, from the dwelling next to that – yeah,” said another boy.

          “The girl that’s running – oh, woop, now she stopped,” a different boy said. “Oh look, she has three friends around her…and she just shoved one of them. Do you know which one I’m talking about? Yeah, that one, the one with curly brown hair.”

          “She’s pretty.”

          “Look at those curves.”

          “So, no one disagrees by taking her in?” the boy who pointed at a girl stood up, looking over at his gang members, all sitting in slacking positions around the white table. They were all wearing black with metals.

          One shrugged. “She seems a bit too… complicated. But I guess we can use up our time more quickly this time. So yeah, no disagreement.”

          “Okay, I’ll go pick Green up.” The boy ran off to pick up the girl.

          But one person didn’t really like it. “We’re still picking my sister, right?” he said, confirming with the rest of the gang. No one answered his question. No one even looked at the orange-haired boy. “Right?” he sounded desperate, urgent.

          A different boy shrugged. “Who knows? It depends on which one meets our criteria.”

          One scoffed. “I can bet you that we’ll probably skip this round too, and maybe pick Xiumin’s sister up by his personal request. Green may be pretty but she sounds rough, unlike Xiumin’s sister. Besides, Green’s not the first decent girl we’ve seen. You don’t know what makeup hides. Plus, she’s a Callidum. That’s complicated. We are not running through a release course again.”

          No one really talked after that.

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Third one's up!~

@mushrie: thank you~ And yes! Please look forward to more~

-deardeerhan