"My little girl is growing up so fast," Minah's mother said with a proud smile as she fixed the ribbon on the girl's shirt collar. Right below it was a shiny silver plate that, with nice black writing, spelled out the name, Kim Minah. With a fake groan, Minah playfully slapped her mother's hand out of the way before grinning, showing her clunkly blue and black metallic braces as she did so.

That same, playful girl smiled bitterly as she now stared at the empty space in front of her. Her hand reached down to her nameplate, the color now gold instead of silver. It was a symbol; the gold nameplate meant that it was the last year of highschool, also known as hell, before going to college with completely new people. It was something that Minah and her mother always talked about dreamingly, but at that moment, her mother wasn't there to see the new color of her nameplate. Neither was she able to be there for her to fix the clumsily tied ribbon on her uniform.
 

"Mom, my name is now on a gold plate, like we had always yearned for," Minah said softly, her hand still holding the pinned-on nameplate, near her slowly beating heart. "I wish you were here to see it."
 

Those were the last words she spoke before silently trudging her way to the long day of hell.

"Make way, the ugly freak is coming!" a student shouted before mocking laughter filled the entire hallway as everyone lined up on the walls to create a path for Minah to walk through. She was hesitant to go through the clear pathway, but seeing the faces of the students scrunched up disgustingly while laughing made her realize that they weren't planning on moving until she finally walked through.
 

"Give us a smile," the cause of the disruption, Wonshik, teased as Minah was passing him by. She rolled her eyes behind her glasses, knowing that he was saying that to simply make fun of her braces. The joke was a bit old, considering that Minah got her braces off almost half a year ago-- months before summer vacation had started. But it wasn't like they could know anyway since she never really opened during her stay in school.
 

Footsteps were heard from behind as an uninvited person was walking in the cleared path behind her.
 

"Wait," Wonshik called out as he held the person by his arm. "She didn't finish making her way to her locker yet. Don't you know her? She's like the school's royalty."
 

Minah cringed at the abundance of sarcasm put into that one dialogue.
 

"What are you all doing? Everyone's here in sc