Chapter Text
“Just get the things you need,” her mother urged her through the house. “Clothing, jewelry and school things, Noelle, don’t worry about the rest, we don’t have time.”
It felt wrong, it felt like she was stealing, her mother said these things belonged to her but everything her father had ever bought had seemed to come wrapped in a ribbon tied to a promise. Her mother stormed through their house like a hurricane throwing everything she didn’t want destroyed into boxes and suitcases while Noelle stood in her room staring helplessly into her jewelry box.
“Noelle,” her mother hissed, “we don’t have time to be picky bring the whole thing, baby don’t worry about it.”
She closed the box, she didn’t want these things. Noelle put her laptop in the bottom of her suitcase, and began to pull her clothes from drawers. Her mother’s hushed words from dinner coming back to her; starting over and freedom. She looks down at the delicate fabric of the skirt she’d worn to dinner. The dinner her father had missed and runs her hand over the blouses in her dresser.
The soft touch turns hard and she shoves them aside, cotton t-shirts, jeans, leggings, leotards, dance slippers, she skips over the things on top, the things she wore for her father, that took up most of her dresser and closet and she leaves them crumpled and shoved to the side. Her suitcase is sparse and her mother is watching her from the door.
“Come on Noelle, hurry up, we need to go the car is here.”
Her heart pounds when she whispers, “I’m done.”
Her mother raises an eyebrow but she doesn’t scold her. “What about your jewelry box?”
“I don’t want it.”
Her mother nods. “You should take it; sell them if you don’t want them.” She glances at her watch and steps into her daughter’s room, picking through the dresses in her closet. “You could sell these too,” she smiles back at her, “if they don’t suit you.”
Her suitcase is full in minutes with her mother’s help, full of things she can sell, the money is yours, her mother tells her, and these things are yours. Nothing had ever seemed to belong to her but her mother insists. Take them with, sell them, do what you want.
She watches out the window of the car, the raindrops on the glass catch the light from the oncoming headlights and she traces them as they trail fairy lights on the outside of the glass. She recognises the home they arrive at, they’d been to many dinner parties with the Han’s and her father’s company had been in talks with C&R for over a year. She’d been presented here more than once since then.
The Hans stand in the hallway when they enter, Mr. Han pulls her mother into a hug and his so, a year older than Noelle, stands to one side his face is neutral. He seems bored, as though he’d rather be anywhere else.
“How did it go?” Her mother asks pulling away.
Her father’s sudden meeting had been with Mr. Han at the C&R building and it all clicks for Noelle. Of course she’d seen the man at the studio during dance classes, she’d noticed the extra flowers there too, and the new earrings her mother wore. She was not a stupid child, her father was a cold man and her mother was a delicate woman, it hadn’t been the first time Noelle had seen this behavior.
It was the first time her mother had left.
“It went as well as it could have,” Mr. Han frowns.
“How mad is he?” Noelle speaks softly, her eyes darting between her Mother and Mr. Han. She takes a step back when he looks at her.
She’s tall, not just for a 15 year old girl. Taller than Jumin Han, almost as tall as the elder Han and when he looks at her there is none of the condescension she’s used to, none of the ire.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he smiles at her and behind him Jumin snorts.
She wants to ask him if he’s sure, wants to ask him how safe they really are here, but she doesn’t want to push her luck. Mr. Han has always been kind to her, always had kind words when her father rattled off her resume like a prized animal. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a man, and she’d never met a man who’d wanted to listen to her. Who’d tolerated her questioning his version of truth.
So she nods and looks at her feet.
“Jumin why don’t you show Noelle around and take her to her room?”
The boy behind the man nods and she watches his feet as he steps towards her. She’d been introduced to the boy in front of her before, he’d been quiet and she knew little more about him. The girls from her school whispered his name sometimes and some of them had pictures of him cut from magazines in their lockers. There were other boys she’d met less times and knew better.
But he gives her a small smile when he reaches for her arm. “Would you like something to drink first?” He asks with very little feeling.
She shakes her head and Jumin Han leads her through the house with a gentle hand on her elbow. The kitchen, the study, the sitting room, they step into each as he announces their purpose and moves on.
“This is your bathroom, and someone should have brought your things to your room already,” he nods to the door next to the bathroom and they stand there in awkward silence for a moment.
Noelle doesn’t know what to feel. She can’t quite understand if it’s relief or trepidation and she watches the boy across from her, he’s taking her in, quietly evaluating her and she feels suddenly more at home. She straightens her back, raises her chin, and considers listing her talents.
Whatever he thinks of her he doesn’t say, he only turns and begins to leave.
“W-wait,” she calls after him, panic rising in her chest.
He turns around, the bored look from earlier has returned.
“Is it ok,” she asks, “that we’re here I mean?”
He shrugs. “Your father was quite angry.”
She can feel the blood drain from her face. She works very hard to not make her father angry and this boy in front of her mentions it with a shrug. As if it were just a thing that had happened, as if it was simply inconvenient. She swallows.
“Of course our security guards are on duty twenty four hours a day,” he follows up quickly, realizing what she was really asking. “You’re completely safe here.”
He turns stiffly and walks away.
You’re completely safe here. She’d never been safe anywhere and she didn’t exactly trust the words of a barely 16 year old boy. Even if she was safe here what happens when she starts school. Would she be going back to the girl’s academy? What about her mother’s dance studio, would she be safe there? Was her mother safe?
*
It’s coincidence that he’s in the office when his father is meeting with Mr. Lee. He’d thought to check in and ask if his father would like to go out to eat or would he be working late but found himself standing outside the smaller boardroom listening to Mr. Lee shout.
It was late and the office was almost empty, and Jumin could see security inside the room with them. He trusted his father was safe from any physical harm but from the sounds of it there would be no lack of reporters hounding them. His father’s reputation and by association the reputation of the company would suffer, at least briefly, from whatever exactly was happening between those two men.
Jumin had his suspicions of course, it was obvious his father had been seeing someone for some time now, and the fact that Jumin had not met this woman meant that there was something sordid about the relationship. For all the care put into Jumin’s education the emphasis on his place in the company, his father did not hold himself to the same standards.
There is the screech of chair legs against the tile floor and the clatter of furniture and Jumin finds himself glancing inside the room. Two of his father’s security guards are holding Mr. Lee by the elbows and turning him. Jumin steps out of the doorway.
“—can’t do this to me Han!” Mr Lee shouts. “She’s my daughter, mine! You couldn’t just sneak around like a normal person could you? They’re mine,” he shouts again.
Mine. Jumin remembers the man from dinner parties, the way he presented his daughter was the same way he presented his assets when he negotiated with the board. He’d have her perform for a room full of men. She was being groomed to be some rich man’s wife. He remembers watching uncomfortably as they all but checked her teeth.
Mr. Lee is escorted past Jumin and into the elevator.
“You couldn’t have done this at the start of the Holiday, could you?” Jumin asks as his father steps out of the room.
His father smiles, his wide carefree smile. “He’s all bark, son.”
Jumin thinks back to the way the Lee’s responded to the man who’d just been forcibly removed from the building and isn’t convinced. “There will be a lot of barking reporters outside of school next week.”
His father only shrugs. “What happened to your plans tonight with that friend of yours.”
“It was a stupid movie so we left. Jihyun’s sister is back for the holiday so he decided to go home, I thought you’d like to get something to eat,” Jumin trailed off.
“What a happy coincidence, you can be home to greet them.”
“Greet who?” He all but scowls at his father as he leads him out of the building and into the car, he knows who his father means.
“The girls, Jumin.”
“Mr. Lee’s wife and daughter,” Jumin corrects his father.
This time his father’s smile falters. “Not any more Jumin, Sun and Noelle will be living with us now.”
“What about Mr. Lee?”
“Taesoo Lee has nothing we want, his business is failing, he’ll be leaving to do damage control overseas in the next few days, you worry too much for a teenage boy.”
“You worry too little for an old man,” Jumin grumbles.
*
“Where is she?” Jihyun leans around Jumin peering into the rooms behind him, his pale blue hair falls in his eyes and he smiles.
“In her room,” Jumin says quietly, trying not to sound as irritated as he was.
“Introduce me,” his friend demands, taking Jumin by the shoulders and turning him towards the staircase.
“Why?” Jumin scowls and turns back to the door. School starts tomorrow and there were still reporters hiding in the bushes.
He’d been given instructions to looks out for Noelle daily, pep talks from his father, soft teary eyed requests from her mother and he was already bored of it. How could he look out for someone who avoided him?
“She’s going to be your sister isn’t she?” Jihyun smirked. He’d been making this joke since the night Jumin had called him, exasperated with his father.
There’s a sound on the stairs and Jihyun darts past him stopping at the banister to squint at the hallway above. Jumin can see the way his friend’s face shifts with the thought of calling out and he groans.
“Can we just go, she’s not going to come out.”
“Hmm,” Jihyun hums thoughtfully and joins Jumin, a heavy arm around his shoulder, “is she shy?”
He starts to say yes, mumble some sound of approval but it dies in his throat, shy was not the right word. Jumin frowns and Jihyun clucks his tongue.
“Were you rude to her?” He smirks.
“No,” Jumin grunts and pushes the other boys arm off his shoulder.
“Then why the face?” Jihyun’s playful grin was gone as they stepped out the door.
Jumin slides into the passenger seat of his friends car, he still had no desire to drive his own car despite offers from his father, he’d attempted lessons just after his birthday but found them boring and he’d been no good at it.
“So?” Jihyun asked accelerating out of the driveway much too fast for Jumin’s liking.
He didn’t know how to answer. Shy was how his father described her when he’d brought it up, but Jumin had a hard time imagining the girl he’d seen perform on command as shy. Timid was not quite right, nervous was closer. Jumin just shrugs, it didn’t seem to be any of his business.
“I couldn’t say,” Jumin admits. “She doesn’t come out of her room enough for me to speculate.”
It wasn’t even really a lie. Jumin had his suspicions. The way her father and said the word mine that night often echoed in his mind when she’d leave a room as he entered, or when she’d sometimes drop her cutlery when his father spoke to her at dinner.
*
The boys had been in the foyer when she’d made to leave for her mother’s studio. Jumin’s blue haired friend had seen her; he’d practically pushed Jumin out of the way as she raced back up the stairs. She’d leaned against the wall waiting for him to come for her but he didn’t.
She didn’t know why she was breathing so heavy, why her chest felt so tight, the more her mother said she was fine, the more Mr. Han said she was safe, the less fine she felt, the less safe. It was if every man could be her father in disguise. Every raised voice was him here to take her home.
She drops down on her heels and presses her face to her hands and tries to control her breathing as she hears the door close. She’s still shaky when she stands and hurries to the car she knows is waiting outside for her.
“You’re late Miss Lee, your mother has already called asking about you.”
“Sorry Mr. Kim, I couldn’t find my slippers,” she lies. Her mother was already frustrated that she avoided the Hans but Noelle could barely get through a meal. She felt constantly unsafe and all her mother’s boyfriend did was feed her the same platitudes her father had given on his good days.
Then last night they’d finally told her that she would be switching to Jumin’s school.
“The school would like you to test to skip a grade, maybe more,” Mr. Han had said a proud smile on his face as though her were her father.
“No thank you,” she’d said before walking back to her room.
Jumin had snorted and her mother had followed her, scolded her, but Noelle didn’t want to stand out, dancing was enough, she liked it. She wasn’t going to go back to her vocal coach and she wasn’t going to skip any grades, she was going to be quiet and normal and try not to draw any attention to herself.
“What took you so long,” her mother hisses from the door of her class as Noelle drops her bag on the bench outside one of the practice rooms.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find my, uh,” she shrugs.
Her mother shook her head. “Hurry up we don’t have time to run your routine between classes now, we’ll have to stay late.”
Noelle didn’t mind staying late, she loved coming to the studio early in the morning when it was quiet and she was the only person here, no finger prints on the mirrors, no little faces pressed against the glass as she rehearsed. Staying late was almost as good, only her mother there, a cluck of her tongue to let her know she’d stepped out of form or was off on her count.
When it was just the two of them they could laugh at her mistakes, rehearsing was relaxed, and her mother would dance along side of her. Noelle sighs entering the room of grade schoolers practicing for the spring recital that weekend.
Maybe when things didn’t work out with Mr. Han it could be just her and her mother.
Her mother leaves her alone in the empty studio after watching her rehearse her routine for close to an hour and the moment she hears the door latch behind her Noelle changes the music, runs her routine adjusted for something more contemporary, she runs it a few times aware of the smile on her face for the first time in more than a week and even finds herself singing along. She wonders how much money she would have to slip the sound guy to get him to accidentally play this at the recital instead of the piece her mother had chosen.
She’s drenched in sweat when she finally calls the driver, stepping out of the studio without changing or pulling her sweater on she locks the door behind her and opens the door falling into the Sedan only to hit a wall instead of leather seat.
Jumin frowns at her, an uncomfortable look on his face.
“Sorry,” she mumbles sitting properly in her seat and fastening her belt, the smile she’d been wearing gone.
“What were you doing?” He asks, his scowl softening slightly.
“I thought it was empty I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
She watches from the corner of her eye as he tries to control his face, soften the harsh set of his jaw. “No, in there, what were you doing so late?”
The sun is just starting to set and she considers that she definitely stayed a lot later than she had thought. “I was, uh, just dancing.”
“Rehearsing for your Mother’s show this weekend?” She wonders if he’s trying to get to know her or if he’s just pretending to be interested because someone told him to be kind to her.
“No,” she still doesn’t look at him; she presses her sweaty face against the cool glass of the window and watches the city speed by, “I was just dancing, just for fun, you know.”
She sees him shrug out of the corner of her eye. Goosebumps break out across her skin as the AC hits her. She shivers and starts to dig through her gym bag for her sweater. She tries not to notice the bag sitting neatly between Jumin’s feet.
*
Noelle had gone directly to shower when they got home, he hadn’t expected to have to share the car with her when Driver Kim had picked him up from Jihyun’s but he was more surprised at the way she left her mother’s studio.
Jumin had never seen her smile, not genuinely smile, but she almost skipped through the doors, twirling around in her leotard with a fluttery skirt tied about her waist before she locked the door, he definitely had not expected her to fall on him when she opened the door to the car.
He tried to be kinder when he spoke to her but she still froze up, sliding as far from him on the seat as she could and refusing to look at him when he spoke to her. It was more than frustrating.
Jumin stands outside Noelle’s bedroom door, he knocks but there’s no answer. He can hear music playing loudly on the other side of the door and he makes a mental note to discuss music with her should he be given another chance to attempt to have an actual conversation with her. He knocks again and waits.
There’s no answer.
He sighs and knocks one more time, when she doesn’t answer he turns the knob slowly and is surprised to find it’s not locked.
“Noelle I—”
She screams.
Or rather she begins to scream and then she stops and clutches at her chest. Her hair is down, hanging in damp ringlets to her waist and she’s dressed in sleep clothes already, she’d been dancing and Jumin chuckles softly before he catches himself and thrusts the bag in his hand towards her.
“What, uh, what is it?” She asks softly, still not making eye contact with him.
“A school uniform.”
She frowns. “Oh?”
“Jihyun’s sister is visiting, she was going to get rid of it but I thought you might want one to wear while you wait for yours,” he’d remembered overhearing her arguing with her mother about blending in and asked for the uniform. Mrs. Kim had been only too happy to help and Jihyun had looked smug.
“I’ll probably have to take the skirt out,” she frowns at the bag,
“She’s tall too,” he adds.
Noelle takes the bag from him but she doesn’t look into it. She stands very straight and stares at his feet. “Thank you Jumin.”
He’s turning to leave when she calls out to stop him. “Can girls,” she stops when he looks back at her, looking away when he makes eye contact, “at my old school there were trousers for the girl’s uniforms, can I, can I ask for that here?”
Jumin frowns, but he hears her inhale sharply and he tries to soften his face. He hadn’t noticed any girls wearing pants, though Jihyun would say he noticed very little about the girls. He sighs. “I don’t know.”
*
It was so much bigger here.
They’d assigned another student to show her around on the first day but she was still lost. It was huge and every wing looked almost the same, she kept forgetting which colour represented her year and she found herself at the wrong locker more than once a day.
Jumin often left school with his blue haired friend, and she was left alone in the car with Driver Kim. She’s late again today, in the wrong hallway for the third time. She realizes this as she tries the locker for a second time.
Noelle turns on her heel, her skirt flares a little and she’s glad to have her new uniform, with pants, sitting at the bottom of her bag. Someone tugs at her skirt from behind and she turns around pulling it back down, smoothing it out.
An older boy chuckles, it’s not an unkind sound but something about the way he smiles at her makes her nervous.
“You’re the new girl right?” He asks, catching up to her and pulling on her bag.
She shrugs.
“Lee right?” He moves in front of her and she doesn’t realize she’s backing away from him until her back is against the lockers.
“I guess.” She mumbles not looking at him. Two more boys are standing behind him as he stretches out his hands on either side of her, trapping her against the locker bank.
She knows if she stood up straight she’d be taller than him, she knows she could probably push him out of her way and go to her locker, or simply leave the building and find the car, or maybe Jumin, go home, forget about this pushy boy.
“You guess,” he almost giggles.
She wonders if her Father was like this boy when he was young, did he make girls uncomfortable, did he push them around and pull on their things? Was he always the way he is now or did he become that way somewhere along the line?
“Hey,” the boy calls out to her. She jumps when he snaps his fingers in front of her face and pushes her hair away from her eyes. “You know I could help you out.”
In contrast to his chuckle the offer of help sounds less than kind. She slides a little farther down the lockers and holds her bag in front of herself. “No thank you.”
She’d meant for it to be firm but it was barely more than a whisper. She can hear people at the end of the hall and she wishes she find it in herself to call out to them.
“Polite,” the boy whispers and smiles, he drags her long braid over her shoulder and runs it through his fingers. “I can work with polite. You know I heard about your Mom, you could probably use a friend.”
She recognises the tone, it’s the same tone she’s heard at a hundred dinner parties. From men and boys whose hands linger too long on her waist, her shoulder; a thumb on her cheek that grazes her lip while she suppresses a shudder.
“N-No-Ah!” She tries to be firm, stand up straight, push past him but the two boys behind him step closer and his hands slam back against the locker. She yelps.
He laughs again as she sinks to the floor, her braid is still trapped in his hand but she ignores the tug at the nape of her neck as she tucks her head down. “Like Mother like Daughter I heard,” he sneers.
She decides her Dad was not like this boy, his shoes are worn and the seams of his pants are fraying, his uniform shows more wear than her hand-me-downs. Her father had been self made, her mother’s money had taken his business overseas, but he could be charming. This boy was not charming.
“I bet you’re just like your Mom,” he coos at her. Something moves behind him but she keeps her eyes on the floor. There’s the squeak of rubber soles on the floor. “I’m just trying to be nice to you, come on. You don’t want to make me—”
Her braid drops heavy over her shoulder and the boy crashes into the locker over her. She has to scramble to her knees to get out of the way as he’s pulled back and slammed into the locker bank again. She watches Jumin’s friend push one of the other boys towards the end of the hall as she climbs to her feet, the other is nowhere to be seen.
“Dude what the fu—” She hears the boy who’d had her pinned start to shout and she grabs the blue haired boys outstretches arm stumbling forward against him.
She watches the boys face slammed into the locker bank a few times in quick succession before she realizes it’s Jumin who has tackled him.
“Jumin,” he calls out, “I think you broke his jaw.”
Jumin drops the boy and he blubbers as he stumbles away from them, and she realizes that she’s holding the blue haired boys hand, her nails are digging into his palm but he doesn’t seem to notice as he looks softly at her. He opens his mouth to speak but Jumin grabs her roughly by the other hand and pulls her along behind him.
“Your locker is this way,” he says cooly. His breath hitches slightly and she can feel the blood on his hand but there’s no other sign of the brutal beating he’d been giving that boy.
The other boy drops her hand as she’s pulled along behind Jumin.
“Thank you,” she manages to say by the time they stop in front of her locker.
Jumin brushes his hair out of his face and shakes his head. “You need to pay more attention to your surroundings; people will take advantage of you if you always look like a lost sheep, Noelle.”
“I’m sorry.” She whispers opening her locker.
“Jesus Jumin,” the other boy snorts. “Are you ok Noelle?”
She can’t even remember what it was she needed in her locker anymore. She stands in front of it with her back to them and she can feel the tears in her eyes, they spill over as she nods her head.
“Do you have your shoes?” Jumin asks, his voice a little softer.
She shrugs, she’s distracted by the tears on her face, she’s not crying, her breath is steady but she can’t stop the tears.
Jumin sighs heavily and she can hear the other boy chuckle. “Are you going home?” He asks reaching past her into her locker and pulling her shoes out.
“I have a dance class,” she says, her voice is thick.
“Can I drive you?” Jumin’s friend asks as Jumin tugs on the Velcro of her school shoes.
“I think the car is here for me,” she says softly wiping at her eyes. She steps away from Jumin and changes her shoes herself. Neither boy mentions the tears on her face.
“I can tell Driver Kim to go home,” Jumin says looking at her curiously, “if you’d like for Jihyun and I to take you to your class.”
“I’m Jihyun,” the blue haired boy smiles a wide goofy grin and pushes his long hair out of his eyes.
There are still marks from her finger nails on his hand and she blushes. “I-I guess,” she says.
*
Jihyun smiles at his friend sitting on the little bench in Mrs. Lee’s dance studio, they can see Noelle with a small class of four other dancers. Jumin had asked Noelle if he could stay and watch, she’d nervously agreed and Jumin had told him to go home. Jihyun had no intention of going home.
She’d held his hand so tightly at least two of her finger nails had punctured the skin, but she’d smiled when Jumin had drove that boys face into the locker, and something about the quiet way she’d broken down had intrigued him.
He’d met her before, but his mother had always kept him away from the Lee’s. Jihyun was an impulsive boy and he’d seen both his parents quietly arguing with Noelle’s father at more than one event. He’d watched her from a distance, the way she moved and the fact that she could look him in the eye intrigued him he tapped the Polaroid camera in his bag and wondered if he could take her picture.
He pulled it out and snapped a photo of Jumin, he was leaning with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands watching the dance class intently.
“God, Jihyun,” he mumbles not even looking at him.
Jihyun laughs and shakes the photo.
The class files out and Noelle is left with her mother. Jumin sits up watching the two women, Noelle is speaking to her mother imploringly and her mother is shaking her head until for a moment it inclines and they watch a big bright smile spread across the red head’s face and she almost runs to the CD player.
A popular American song starts to play and Jihyun finds himself repeating Jumin’s earlier posture. The look of joy on her face contrasts the cynical lyrics of the song. She’s graceful, he’d had no idea that she danced, though he supposed her father had never made her stand in a room and dance. He wonders what else she can do as he watches her contort her body to the staccato of the violins.
When the song ends her mother changes the music, a Chopin piece that Jihyun knows he should be able to identify. They watch Noelle rehearse what appears to be the same choreography.
When she finishes she seems surprised to see them still there.
“That was lov—”
“Really cool,” he interrupts Jumin.
Jumin frowns at him and Noelle pulls her braid over her shoulder, she looks nervously between the two of them.
“You can tell him to shut up,” Jumin says, still frowning at Jihyun. “He doesn’t realize how overwhelming he is.”
The corner of her mouth twitches a little.
“Jumin thinks everyone is as boring as he is,” Jihyun shrugs.
“It’s not, I didn’t,” she sighs, “You watched my whole class?”
Jihyun nods, his smile splits his face.
“I asked if I could,” Jumin says, his head cocked to the side.
“Oh,” Mrs. Lee stops in the doorway and smiles at the two boys in the lobby, “Jumin, do you have plans with Noelle?”
“Mother tha—”
“Did you want to come with us, Noelle?” Jihyun asks before she can make an excuse. Jumin shoots him a sideways look and he shrugs.
Noelle freezes her mouth still open.
“You don’t have to feel obligated just because he’s an idiot,” Jumin adds.
Noelle looks nervously at them and then to her mother. “I-I think I might go with them, if that’s ok.”
She glances at Jumin and he shrugs.
*
She’s slow to open up to the two boys but quick to lean on them. None of them are immune to the whispers when they begin to show up outside her classes walking with her between them until they reach her next one. They make it their mission not to let her get lost, to keep the rabble away.
There is an invisible warning sign on Noelle Lee and everyone knows it.
The boy from the locker is back to school a few days later, eyes black and nose bandaged but his swollen jaw does not appear to be broken like Jihyun had thought. Another week passes and he catches her eyes in the hall one afternoon. The boys step in front of her creating a wall when he approaches.
“I just wanted to apologise,” he mumbles, eyes downcast as Jumin crosses his arms.
Jihyun takes his friend by the shoulder and steps aside. The boy hands Noelle a small bakery box tied with a ribbon and she takes it from him carefully. Her lip curls into a small sneer as he whimpers out some semblance of an apology.
“—I have a sister,” he finishes as a small crowd gathers in the hall. Noelle had been fiddling with the ribbon, Jumin wasn’t even certain she’d been listening until her head shot up, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Noelle demands.
The boys eyes dart around but the crowd closes in around them. He hadn’t expected to be challenged but Noelle stands 3” taller than him and steps towards him. “W-what?” He stammers
“What does your sister have to do with anything?” She insists, dropping her hand and dangling the box by it’s ribbon while she pokes him in the chest with her finger.
“I uh, I guess it’s just if someone did that to her I’d—”
“So if you didn’t have a sister to remind you that girls are people too you wouldn’t be standing here?”
“T-that’s not, I just thought—”
“Apologise to Jumin then,” she frowns, “he’s the only person here you’re trying to understand, and you messed up his hand pretty good when he hit you.” She turns around, reaching out and grabbing Jihyun’s sleeve as she walks away.
Jumin watches the boy for a moment as Noelle and Jihyun walk away, when he turns the ribbon has come loose from the box, and trails out behind them. He shrugs at the boy who flinches, before turning to catch up to them.
“Jesus Noelle,” Jumin scolds coming up behind them standing outside the school.
A few people push past them before Noelle sinks down to rest on her heels at the top of the steps, still clutching Jihyun’s sweater in one hand. “Oh god,” she breaths, the words shaky like her hands.
A gust of wind blows the ribbon out of her loose fist and Jumin watches as it trails off on the breeze. One handed Jihyun fishes his camera out of his bag and snaps a picture as it snags in a tree while Noelle twists his sleeve in her hand and tries to catch her breath.
He still hadn’t asked her if he could take her picture, he’d been working up to it, taking photos of things to do with her. Her dance shoes sticking out of her bag when she changed after school, the spot in the long grass where she’d been lying before Jumin had announced they were late.
Jumin kicks at the rocks on the stairs beside her and grumbles to himself as he sits down, Jihyun stretching his legs out in front of him as she loosens her grip on his sleeve.
“Why would you say those things if you were going to run away,” Jumin asks and Noelle snorts.
More people begin to file out of the school, a girl from Noelle’s class drops the bakery box in Jihyun’s lap as she passes them on her way to catch the bus.
“Thanks,” he calls after her, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
Noelle let’s herself sit on the step, letting go of Jihyun’s sweater all together. “You told me to stand up for myself,” she says softly. “And that was bullshit.”
Jumin nods. “It was not sincere,” he agrees, “he was probably told to, so that one of our fathers did not seek to punish his family somehow.”
Noelle turns to Jumin, her face is red and her brow creased. “No!” She yells at him. “I don’t care if he meant it, my dad has a sister, lots of men have sisters, women make up half the population of the world Jumin, it’s bullshit because he doesn’t care about me, or his sister, he just thinks we’re things, his apology was that he was sorry he tried to take your toy not that he was sorry he tried to hurt me.”
“Hmm,” Jumin thinks about her words and Jihyun shakes his head over her shoulder.
“I’m not a thing Jumin,” she growls covering her face with her hands. “I refuse to be a thing.”
*
“Noelle,” Mr Han starts. His voice is solemn as he looks her in the eyes over the dinner table, her mother glancing away from her.
“No,” she says matter-of-factly. She had suspicions about where this was going, looks from both her mother and the old man had been trailing after her as she passed for the past week. They couldn’t make her, they’d promised.
“It’s not a matter of no,” he speaks again, “we are legally obligated, we’ve tried.”
She shakes her head, continuing to eat. “I won’t do it, I’m not a child don’t I get a say?”
Jumin’s head jerks towards her and she’s almost relieved to realize that he didn’t know either.
“That was the first thing we tried,” her mother admits, “but you’re not old enough to make that choice yet.”
“He’s leaving to go overseas,” the old man continues, “rumors say indefinitely. I suspect he’s paid a lot of money to force us to comply.”
“Is that supposed to make her feel better?” Jumin grunts.
“No,” his father scowls at him, “it’s supposed to explain the position Sun and I are in. I’m sorry Noelle, there is little I can do about this without—”
“And what do I do when he tries to force me to comply?” She spits, dropping her fork.
“You say, No,” Mr Han says firmly.
Her mother inhales sharply and Noelle laughs. “I can’t say no,” she snorts, “he says ‘jump’ I say ‘how high,’ he says ‘sing’ I say ‘what key,’ he asks anything and I say no?”
“There will be people with you, it will be in public, you can leave whenever you want,” her mother says softly.
“I can’t,” she shakes her head, “you know that I can’t, you know what he’s like.” She makes a small noise like a sob and drops her head to her hands. “Now he’s bought this time, more money invested in me, what am I supposed to do with that.”
The lump in her throat rises with the pitch of her voice and she’s certain that it’s going to cut off her air at any moment. She doesn’t see Jumin get up, or the look he gives his father but she hears him snarl “you had to do this to her here?” before everything goes white and suddenly she’s sitting on the floor with Jumin kneeling in front of her.
There are shy glances from the tables around them and she’s sweating and Jumin is pulling her up to her feet, she vaguely registers him chastise a waiter, something about her drink, she can’t quite register the words but she knows it’s a lie, something to explain her episode.
Then the cool air hits her face and Jumin is pressing his handkerchief against her forehead to catch the sweat and tears. She takes a few short breaths of the fresh air as he vision clears.
“Jihyun will be here in a moment, will you be alright while I gather out coats?”
She nods, grasping the railing and taking another, deeper breath, “yeah, yes, thank you.”
The first thing Jihyun sees when he approaches the restaurant Jumin had called him to is Noelle. Her back is to him, her hair is loose and she’s shivering, her thin top damp with sweat. He grabs his school sweater out of the back seat before he gets out, leaving the engine running.
“Hey you,” he calls out as he approaches her and she jumps a little.
“You drive too fast,” she says, her voice is rough.
He drapes the sweater over her shoulders and leans beside her against the railing, “where’d your brother go?”
“To get our coats, he’s probably arguing with the old man it’s been a while.”
Jihyun laughs. “Rough night all around.”
She shrugs but a small huff of a laugh passes between her lips.
“So did you want to go home, or should we go to mine? Mom and Dad are still out.”
“It’s been a week Jihyun,” she laughs properly this time.
“I know but that’s what they said when they left,” he laughs along with her and bumps his shoulder against hers.
Jumin frowns as he pushes through the doors already wearing his coat. “My father wants to make sure you know he didn’t mean to upset you,” he mumbles, “and that he’s sorry that there’s nothing he can do about this.”
Noelle shrugs. “I don’t want to think about it right now.”
Jihyun mouths the word what at Jumin but he is met with a scowl so he shrugs and asks again, “What are we doing?”
“You know what?” Noelle says bouncing up from the railing, “I want to get my hair cut.”
“What?” the boys say in unison.
She takes her coat from Jumin and climbs in the passenger side of Jihyun’s car beckoning them to follow through the windows.
“Hair cut,” she repeats, “where do people go for that?”
Jihyun is already pulling out, somewhere in mind and a smile on his face when Jumin asks, “Why?”
“Because I feel like it, and because I literally don’t remember the last time I cut my hair and because it’ll piss him off.”
Jumin snorts, “Is that really a good idea Noelle?”
“He can make me see him, and he can make me sing, but he can’t make my hair grow back.”
“Fair enough,” Jumin shrugs, “you look awful though, should we go home first.”
“My place is closer,” Jihyun points out, “you could probably borrow something my sister left in her closet.”
Noelle pulls the damp shirt away from her chest and frowns. “Is you gym bag still in the back seat?”
“Hmm?” Jihyun frowns. “Yeah I guess.”
“I’ll just borrow a shirt from you.” She unclips her seatbelt and leans between the two front seats into the back pulling the canvas bag off the floor, she digs through Jihyun’s things unabashedly until she finds what she’s looking for and holds it out behind her. “Jumin smell this.”
“What? No?”
“Come on, tell me if it smells better or worse than I do right now.”
“Hey,” Jihyun laughs, “I promise it’s clean, everything’s clean.”
Noelle shrugs and changes in the front seat of the car, she’s not concerned about the boys not with the camisole she wore under her thin top guarding her from whoever might choose to peek at her from the corner of his eye. When the loose shirt is covering her she pulls her arms inside of it and pulls the damp camisole off as well, tossing her things in the back beside Jumin along with Jihyun’s bag and snapping her seatbelt back on.
“Take a before photo,” she teases him when she stops in front of the salon. The borrowed t-shirt tucked into her fitted slacks, and her long hair loose over one shoulder.
He complies while Jumin groans. The first photo he’s purposely taken of her, he wants to agonize over it but he doesn’t, he points the camera at her and she flips him off as he snaps the photo.
“Very tactful, Noelle,” Jumin scolds her and she flips him off too.
“Are you sure?” The stylist asks her when she tells them what she wants.
“Definitely,” she nods.
“Really sure,” the stylist confirms, “just, you know that’s a lot of hair.”
“I grew it myself,” Noelle nods, “So I’m already aware of that. It’s in the way I want it gone, I can always grow it back.”
“Do your parents know you’re doing this?” the stylist tries again.
Noelle sighs exasperated. “My parents are dead,” she lies throwing her hands in the air and lying.
The woman doesn’t believe her.
“It’s my hair isn’t it? It’s attached to my head. I’m going to pay you my money to cut it all off.”
The woman leads her to one of the chairs and the boys sit in the little waiting area while the woman combs out Noelle’s hair. “It’s such a lovely colour,” the woman says softly. “Did you have it done here?”
Noelle laughs. “Nope, it just grows that way.”
Noelle squeals when she’s handed the length of cut hair, she’s excited when the stylist mentions that their salon works with a charity that turns hair into wigs for sick kids and asks if she’d like to donate it, Jihyun takes another photo.
When it’s over and Noelle is paying she watches herself in the mirror. The person looking back is happier than she remembers, familiar for the first time. Noelle sees herself there in a man’s shirt and pants her hair short and brushed back from her face. She tips the stylist well for dealing with them and walks out looking to all the world like one of the boys.
*
“What did you do to yourself?” her father growls when she walks into sight.
Jihyun and Jumin keep back slipping into seats near the doorway where they can see Noelle and her father, where Jumin can see the three people from his father’s security force who’d already been seated there in case he tried to take her.
Noelle’s shoulders stiffen but she keeps walking forward, sitting across from him with her back to them. “I like it,” she says quietly.
He grunts. “You’ve stopped going to your lessons, when do you plan to pick up again,” he presses.
“I don’t,” her voice is small her head bowed, she doesn’t look him in the eye when she speaks.
“Do you know how much I’ve invested into your voice?” His voice is calm, to anyone listening it would sound almost like concern if not for that actual words used. Noelle knows better, it’s a test of her confidence. He wants her to give him an excuse.
“I don’t like singing, I’ve been helping at the studio, I teach one of the children’s classes now.”
He snorts. “Yes, a lot of good that’s done your mother.”
Drinks are placed in front of them as he sneers and she bites her tongue. Her mother could have been something if it weren’t for him, she could have danced all over the world, she could have danced with the Korean National Ballet, she’d had offers from Russia and the UK. But then she married him. They over looked the bruises, and they over looked the tardiness, it was broken bones they couldn’t abide.
“If he won’t pay for the lessons I will do it, you mother can hire someone to teach that class.”
“I want to teach it, I asked to,” she ventures, her voice rising a little and she can hear the chair scrape along the floor somewhere behind her.
“Noelle,” he warns standing, attempting to loom over her. He presses his palms to either side of the table and leans into them as she shrinks down in her seat. “Make it easier on everyone; go back to your lessons.”
She’s not sure when they got there but both Jumin and Jihyun stand on either side of her, her father straightens and sneers. “She doesn’t have to do anything that you tell her to,” Jumin says firmly.
“You won’t have her forever,” he says softly and Noelle can’t speak to argue.
All she sees is the cold fury in his eyes and the only thing she can bring herself to do is grab onto their sleeves. She wants to pull them back to warn them what comes next but Jumin laughs and she feels like her heart has fallen through the floor.
“Maybe so,” he says and she can hear the edge in Jumin’s usually cool voice, “but you’ve lost her forever.”
She closes her eyes, she knows what will happen but she can’t make herself speak, the lump in her throat choking out any noise she might try but there is no crack, no sound of skin against skin, no shouts or reactions or anything she expects. Just a satisfied sound from Jumin and soft words of comfort in her ear from Jihyun, and when she opens her eyes her father is walking out of the building next to a man with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“You did so well,” Jihyun says softly smiling at her and helping her stand.
He leaves too much money on the table next to the full drinks before he turns to her.
She collapses into his arms, great sobs of relief racking her body.
*
[Kim, Jihyun]: So how are you going to reward yourself
[Lee, Noelle]: For what?
[Kim, Jihyun]: For standing up to your Dad.
[Lee, Noelle]: I think you misunderstood what happened yesterday, pretty sure Jumin stood up to Dad and I broke down in public, again, not sure that warrants a reward.
[Kim, Jihyun]: Come on, you didn’t cry until he was gone, that’s like a thing right? Celebrate the little things.
[Lee, Noelle]: You’re an idiot.
[Lee, Noelle]: What are you doing?
[Kim, Jihyun]: Colouring my hair.
[Lee, Noelle]: Really?
[Kim, Jihyun]: No that’s a lie, this blue is natural, forget what I just said.
[Lee, Noelle]: Jumin is at the office, and Mom won’t let me come to the studio until she knows Dad has left the country, can I come over?
[Lee, Noelle]: I’m bored as hell.
[Lee, Noelle]: please?
[Kim, Jihyun]: lol K
[Lee, Noelle]: K?
[Kim, Jihyun]: yep
[Lee, Noelle]: BRT