“.”

I felt cold hard snow cut right through my cheeks and forehead like shards of glass. Then felt the cold hard ground. “Oops! Sorry, we were aiming at someone else” funny, seeing as I’m the only one within their perimeter. “Be thankful, we gave your cheeks some color!” I hated their laughs. I hated their pretty faces. I hated how everyone liked them. I hated how they got everything I’ve always wanted. I hated them because they always had me hating myself… Now, who exactly are they? Im Yoona, Kwon Yuri and Jung Jessica, better known as the school’s Queen Kas. Each of their mothers are very well known in the fashion and design industry. It didn’t help that they were really good looking either. Each of these girls live it up in the sophisticated and fashionable class of Seoul. Everyone parts like the red sea as they strut down the hallways of EM Entertainment Academy, my school.

The SM Entertainment academy only accepts a certain amount of students each year who are selectively chosen by the school directors through audition videos. They offer courses that will lead you to success in the entertainment industry whether you want to be in the spot light or in the background. It’s definitely cut throat to get in, and at the end of the year there are auditions to try to keep your place for the next school year! But you get to meet new people and new talents every day. Each student has to take your typical high school classes (history, languages, math, sciences) but we also get the chance to decide what other classes we want to participate in! People that attend this school basically live here with the amount of things we participate in, so there are on campus dormitories. The school is prestigious, and filled with different students whose parents all range within the spectrum of the status quo.

My name is Jung Jaemi. I was adopted into the Jung family when I was really little. My adoptive parents found me on the side of the street one day, on their way to church with their son, and picked me up. We tried to find my parents, but I had no idea or memory of who they were. All I knew was that my name was Jaemi and that I was four years old. I sure as heck didn’t look pure Korean either and it didn’t seem like anyone who happened to lose me, were actually looking for me. I grew up knowing the Lee family as my only family. Their oldest and only son was the one who inspired me to get into the school in the first place.

“Yah, Jae… you okay?”

Key... Or better known as Kim Kibum. He was my only friend in this school. I opened my eyes to see him standing over me with his trade mark Diva pose and smirking. “Your uniform isn’t going to get any cleaner by lying in the snow” he offered me his hand. I took it and got up while brushing myself off. It was minus 25 today and I had a wet uniform, just my cup of tea. “I don’t see why you put up with their bull Jae… If I were you I’d rip their extensions out” I opened my mouth to defend myself but couldn’t. He rolled his eyes back at me and dragged me into the nearest girl’s bathroom.

Yes, girl’s bathroom. In short story, Key is the only willingly open homoual guy in the school, and homophobics and those in denial like to segregate him. We’re a match made in heaven, two people hated by the rest of their school for absolutely no reason at all. “Good thing I have an extra winter uniform for you” he pulled out the spare female uniform that the guys had pranked him with at the beginning of the school year.

We both go back to when my brother participated in the reading buddies program at my elementary school. I was hoping to have my brother as my reading partner, but Key got him instead. We became really close friends after that time. He would come over for reading time, and then we’d get to play until his mom came to get him. I was the first person he kissed and the first person he told about his homouality. We both  were sitting in the makeshift fort one weekend while my brother was in the kitchen making us lunch. Our parents all went out together, and my brother decided to babysit instead. It was then when Key kissed me, and a few minutes later he declared that he still liked it when he kissed that third grader, Kim Jonghyun, better. At the time we didn’t think much of it, and as we grew older it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Key had been going here ever since grade seven, like me, and in a few months we’d graduate and go off into the entertainment industry to further grow in our careers. However, Key’s grandmother wasn’t doing so well and his family had decided to move back to Daegu where she’d be happier, meaning I after graduation I’d be doing this alone.

‘You’ll always be alone.’

 “I can’t stand this…” I sigh Key closes the stall door with both of us inside.

“Give me the wet clothes, I have a plastic bag. Then why don’t you leave the school? Go to regular high school.” I glare at him. He always had to be so unsympathetic when I was having a moment. “Hey, don’t give me that look. You know damn well that you can switch out whenever” I stuffed the wet clothes into the bag he was holding. I knew my parents would accept my decision to leave, but I just couldn’t. Not while he was still here…

“YAH! Jung Jaemi, don’t you dare cry” he grabbed my face in between his hands. It was moments like this, where Key was Kibum. I wanted to speak, to say anything really but all that came out were silent tears. Key’s fierce side disappeared as he pulled me to him, gently running his fingers through my hair and rubbing my back. “You are beautiful. You are meant to be here. You are you and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Now show me that smile that looks so great on you” I smiled at Key honestly. He knew exactly what to say to make me feel better. I wasn’t that tall or short, I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t thin either. I wasn’t curvy and I wasn’t flat. My mother, who adopted me, told me I was extremely beautiful and pushed me to go towards modeling, but I didn’t think so.

 He pulled out a small hanker chief that was in his pocket and pressed it up against my cheek. I was now dry in a comfortable uniform, and there were tiny cuts that remained on my cheek from the ice in the snow ball that mauled my face. “aish, how am I supposed to be okay with moving knowing that you’re still as big of a baby as ever?” I lightly punched him in the shoulder, fully aware that he was only joking and he gave me a genuine smile back. “Ready?” I looked at Key, holding his hand. “Always. The world is just never ready for me” Then he was back to being Key-va that he was best known for.

*

“I’ll see you after class babe. Make good choices!” Key slapped my as we began to head opposite directions for our class. I gasped, but then smiled, shaking my head at my best friend. I began walking still looking behind me, as I watched Key’s figure disappear in the sea of people, only to bump into a very sturdy chest. I had dropped all my books, and hustled to get them back together, when a hand grasped my wrist. Lee Donghae, one of the schools King Kas, was in front of me speaking to me.

“Hello? Are you okay?” I snapped back to reality.

“Uh, yeah I’m fine sorry about that” I picked up all my stuff and tried to sneak by him, but he blocked me every time I tried.

“I hope I wasn’t the one who gave you that cut on that pretty little face of yours” he brushed his fingers on my cheek, looking at it seriously, seeing the slight tinge of guilt in his eyes.

“It’s fine, just some girls this morning, that’s all” I brushed his hand on my face and took a step back. He looked shocked.

“That was you? Dammit Jess, you always take things a little too far…” he mumbled the last little bit and frowned. I started to fidget, feeling like he was observing me. “Listen, I’m sorry for how far she went. But in her defense she didn’t even throw the snow ball. She was only going to talk to you about how big of a hard time you’re giving her. You don’t look like the type to make nasty rumors about someone.” I make eye contact with him and glared. So she told him this was my entire fault?

“Let me ask you something. Do you ever see me in the lunch room? Talking to other people in the hallway? Talking to people in class?” he shot me a questioning look. “I bet you didn’t even know that we share a good majority of classes together”

“You’re a year younger than me. How could we share classes?” I shook my head.

“I skipped a grade. Don’t change the subject. Maybe you ought to tell your little girlfriend that she ought to stop talking about me and my gay friend. For the record, she was the only one wearing gloves. Everyone else beside her had no mitts on, so don’t tell me that they were willing to wreck their expensive manicures to throw a snow ball that hit my cheek and temple!” He looked taken aback. Shock was written on his face, yet that slight tinge of guilt still remained in his eyes. I realized what I had said, and abruptly turned around to leave and save myself. Jessica was really possessive, and never liked it when another girl that she didn’t like so much as uttered a syllable to him. I was making my escape fine, until he grabbed onto my wrist.

“Hey wait! You mean you didn’t spread any rumors?” I looked away and didn’t say anything. The more I said, the more Jessica had a reason to pick on me. “Look, I don’t know what you or she said to each other, all I know is that you’re both hurt. I’ll talk to her, get her to solve things in a more civilized manner. She’s actually a warm hearted person. Beautiful, smart, caring…” I didn’t wanna hear about his girlfriend, I just wanted them all to leave me alone and to get on with my life.

“I have to go, class is starting soon and I don’t wanna be late because of some fish” I walked away from him, to my first class, knowing that he was still staring after me as I walked away.