It’s been nearly a week since the day of my cousin’s wedding, and the day I got beat by my father. I have that job interview with SM Entertainment in about two and a half hours. With a sigh, I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror and cringed. Truly not a good sight. I didn’t clean the kitchen the way my father liked, and he beat me up again last night. When he beats me up, he tries not to hit me in the face because he doesn’t want the bruises to show. More attention for me that he doesn't need.

He didn’t beat me bad enough to bruise too badly this time, but I do have a small one on my wrist to match the remaining ones from before. My old bruises from that night were just barely starting to go away. He slipped up that night though, when he slapped me across the face I was left with a bruise on my jawline that hasn't begun to fade yet.

I have some on my stomach and arms, but my legs are a whole different story. He loved kicking me once I went down, so my legs usually get the brunt of whatever he dishes out. I had large bruises in different places from my thighs all the way down to my shins.

Instead of its usual messy pigtail braids I put my hair in a side ponytail, with my bangs still in my face. If my hair was all to one side it might make the bruise less noticeable. To make sure though, I added some BB cream to the bruised area on my jae and headed over to my closet.

Outfit-wise I decided to wear pink worn-down converse and huge overalls with a white aztec print t-shirt underneath. This was about as far as I could push it without my father saying something. I went back to the bathroom, put my glasses on, grabbed my bag and headed downstairs to make sure my father was okay with what I had on before I left to go to my interview.

The bus ride was only about twenty minutes and when I reached my stop and got off, a couple of kids in school uniforms scoffed at my outfit when I passed, but it’s not like I’m not used to it.

---

"Hello, my name is Kang Sunyee." I said as I entered the office of the man who was supposed to interview me. He stood and bowed in response. He didn’t even bat an eye at my appearance when I walked in, which shocked me.

"Please take a seat, Miss Kang. I've taken a look at your portfolio and I love all of your outfit sketches. Your ideas are fresh and it’s great to see. I know I said I would be calling you for an interview but you've got the job. No one else even compared in skill against you. Congratulations."

I blinked a couple of times and then grinned at the man. "Thank you so much for hiring me sir, I will work hard!" I reached over the desk and shook his outstretched hand.

“No problem, we’re glad to have you. Did you have any questions for me?” The man asked. I nodded in response. “Yeah, I was just wondering what exactly my position is. As in, who I will be designing for.”

"Oh don’t worry about that, you’ll be meeting them today since they don’t have anything scheduled. I’m just going to have you fill out some forms first…"

---

There were so many tedious forms to sign, my wrist actually went numb. After the forms, I had to get a staff I.D photo taken for obvious reasons. Not that I'm complaining. My I.D pass gives me access to the building at all hours and free use of empty practice rooms outside of work hours if I chose, apparently. I most definitely choose to use that to my advantage.

"So Sunyee-ssi, now that all of that is taken care of I’ll take you to meet the group you’ll be assigned to, come along.” The man told me, I nodded and followed him. It turns out this man was the manager of said group. I never learned his name, he just asked me to call him manager-nim.

We got into an elevator that took us two floors down and he lead me down a long hallway with a bunch of doors and I got so distracted taking it all in, I accidentally bumped into someone.

"Oh, I’m sorry! I didn't mean to!" I bowed and apologized. When I raised my head I was met with Amber of f(x). Whoa. She smiled brightly at me. "Don't sweat it, it's partly my fault anyway." She said nonchalantly and bowed, walking past me and into one of the rooms.

I jogged a bit to catch up with the manager who hadn’t noticed I stopped and he went into a room, waving his hand for me to follow.

 When I walked in, I was surprised to find the group to be none other than EXO. They were all just dancing and being silly but then Suho noticed his manager and stopped the music. All the boys looked over and bowed before taking a seat. I was hiding behind the manager, having to bend a bit because I'm a little taller than him.

I don’t know if I’m ready to do this. I didn’t think the group was going to be EXO!  "What's up, manager hyung, why’d you ask us to come today?" Kris asked. I could tell who was who just by their voices. That’s probably really sad.

"Hello, boys. Sorry to take time from you on your day off, but I thought you'd want to meet your new stylist." He said.

Cue my shaky hand syndrome.

"I don't see anyone, manager hyung.." Chen said, trailing off.

The manager looked from side to side and then realized I was behind him. Crap, I was hoping I’d have a second to collect myself.

"Yah, Sunyee. There's nothing to be nervous about, please don't hide."

 With that he stepped aside, revealing twelve curious boys who all had their eyes on me. Double-crap.

There was a silence and it took me a moment to realize this was the part where I introduce myself. I bowed to the expectant idols and cleared my throat. “Hi everyone. I will be your stylist from now on, please take care of me!"
 
Sehun and D.O were the first to get up. “Whoa noona, you’re so tall! Look, hyungs! We're almost the same height!" D.O slapped Sehun's head.

"Yah, be polite. Hi Sunyee! I’m D.O, it's nice to meet you." He said, bowing slightly. "Sorry noona. I’m the maknae, Sehun, it's nice to meet you!" He said and bowed as well.

I guess he doesn’t remember me from the other day. Not that I’d really blame him because it was days ago and I look completely different.

The rest of them all stood up individually, greeting me with warm smiles. "Hey, I'm Kris! Nice to meet you." He said in English. "Hi Kris, it's nice to meet you too! Please treat me well." I replied in English and bowed. He looked taken aback.

 "Whoa, noona your English is good!" Sehun commented.

I smiled at him. "Yeah, I had to learn so I could call my mom and sister in America from time to time, also I just think English is fun to learn and speak so I taught myself.”

My nervousness was slowly washing away. Despite the fact that they’re a super popular idol group, they’re all really nice and easy to talk to.

"Noona, you have a sister? How old is she? Is she pretty?" Kai asked, earning a smack on the head from Kris.  "Yes, she's my twin sister. We're both twenty-two, but she got all of the looks. The only thing we have in common really is our hair, eyes and height." I said with a chuckle.

 Kai nodded and smiled to himself. I’m going to have to make a mental note to warn Sunmi if she comes to visit anytime soon.

Chanyeol and Tao stood up, being the only two who hadn't introduced themselves. "Hi, noona! I'm Tao, it's nice to meet you!" Tao said excitedly, shaking my hand.

"Hi Tao! It's nice to meet you too.” I told him with a small smile.

He went and sat down again next to Xiumin. Chanyeol turned to me, and I expected a big smile and a greeting similar to Tao's but I received far from it.

"Hi, I'm Chanyeol. I'd say it's nice to meet you but I don't even know what you look like. How am I supposed to see your face with your bangs covering one half and those glasses covering the rest? Ever considered a haircut and some glasses that are, I don't know, normal?"  He asked bluntly, scoffing. I heard a lot of 'Yah!''s coming from the other guys. 

His comment made my eyes sting and I just know this is going to end in tears. I really wish I wasn’t so damn sensitive, but I don’t really blame him for his words, even though they were harsh.

"Oh um, sorry.. Even without my hair in my face and these glasses there isn't much to look at anyway I'm afraid." I turned to the manager while biting my now quivering lip.

"I'm sorry, manager-nim. I need to go, I have to get home to make dinner for my father. I promised him I wouldn’t be late."

It wasn’t even a total lie, whenever I’m late he beats me, but I still had an hour before I had to be home. I just wanted to get out of there.

The manager simply nodded and I turned to everyone else, avoiding looking at Chanyeol. "Bye guys, It was nice meeting you."

I bowed to them and when I did, a teardrop hit the ground. I wiped my face and wasted no time before I my heel and exited the room.

---

I ended up getting beaten by my father when I got in even though I was early because he wasn't in a good mood. What else is new? After he’d eaten and consumed a few more beers, he passed out on the couch. Typical.

I took this as an opportunity to sneak out and grabbed my bag along with my SM I.D card and headed to the building yet again. This time, I was wearing sweatpants, sneakers and a baggy sweater. As I made my way to the bus stop I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and then pulled my hood up over my head.

Once I got to the building and found it mostly deserted. Good. I headed to one of the random practice rooms and opened the door. The lights were off and no one was in there so I closed it behind me and set my stuff down in a corner.

Now that I was on my own, I took off my sweatshirt and straightened out the tank top I was wearing underneath. I put my glasses inside my bag and left my sweater on top of it.

My bruises obviously still showed but at this point I could care less. It’s not like anyone was here anyway. I plugged your iPod into the little docking station and began to dance to EXO’s ‘Growl’. The choreography was too fun and I loved dancing to it.

-Author’s POV-

Chanyeol was walking down the hallway to the practice room he was at earlier, where he left his phone. As he was walking down the hallway, he heard Growl coming from the practice room he wanted to go into and peeked into the small window that was on the door.

Are one of the boys practicing? I thought they were all at the...Whoa.

His eyes widened when he noticed it wasn't one of the guys dancing, but a random girl. He didn't realized this was the same girl that he’d driven to tears earlier. However, Sunyee was dressed in close that hugged her figure, rather than hid it and her face was free of her ridiculously long bangs and her glasses.

Chanyeol didn’t move from where he was standing for a little while, he was captivated by the way Sunyee moved.

Before he could think better of it, he entered the room. She danced until the song reached it’s end and shut off the music, as it had repeated a few times already.

After turning off the music, Sunyee turned to grab her bag and noticed Chanyeol standing there, staring at her. 

"Hi," He said, taking a step towards Sunyee. As he approached, he noticed a bruise on the side of her cheek, making his eyes widen. He looked her up and down and saw the bruises that ran along her arms as well as the ones on her calves that were visible because her sweatpants had been rolled up. The sight worried him.

Sunyee was still standing there in shock. Why is he talking to me? How could he after all the rude things he said to me earlier? She thought, angrily. Then she realized he wouldn't be able to tell who she was because she looked completely different. Noticing the way he was looking at her, Sunyee looked down and mentally smacked herself for forgetting her bruises were totally visible.

It took Chanyeol this whole time to realize it, but now that he was looking at her closely, he’d realized that the girl in front of him was the one he’d met on the bus last week. She didn't have any bruises on her then... I wonder what happened. He thought.

Before he could ask any questions or register what was happening, Sunyee rolled down her sweatpants, collected her things and walked out of the room. 

Author's Note

Big thank you to Mystery_A for upvoting my story and being one of my loyal former subscribers who came over to this story! <3