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[Get some exercise, Jewel Parker. Try not to collapse from being so frail.]
The hesitation Jiyu had felt about whether to thank him for helping her up evaporated instantly.
[Let go.]
Barely regaining her composure, she shook off his hand.
[Tsk. After I went through the trouble of helping.]
Clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes, Hunter spun around and began to run. He kicked off the ground with force, picking up speed as if to catch up with the children ahead. Before long, his retreating figure was hidden by the lush roadside trees.
Jiyu turned around, limping on her sprained ankle. She had to return to the base camp where the first-aid kit was to disinfect her dirt-caked wound and apply a bandage. Then, a few steps behind her, she locked eyes with Sienna, who was standing still and watching her.
With a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, Sienna scanned Jiyu from head to toe before shaking her head slightly. Then, she let out a short laugh.
As if such a thing were impossible.
[Are you okay, Olivia?]
Sienna asked as she started running again, passing by her.
[Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks, Sienna.]
Jiyu answered quickly, but Sienna moved away without looking back. Jiyu let out a sigh and bit her lip.
I should have just played volleyball.
The next PE class.
The sixth-grade girls of Aster School seemed to have collectively succumbed to the autumn heat. The "popular kids," including Sienna, were collapsing like frail ladies upon the bridle path of Central Park.
Hunter Hamilton, running at the front of the Alton School group, breezed past them with ease.
✾ ✾ ✾
Jiyu stood before the mirror wearing an ivory satin dress that reached her knees. The golden sash tied around the waist of the dress and the matching Mary Jane shoes shone brilliantly.
"Put on your gloves, too."
Ae-jeong held out a pair of white satin gloves to her. Then, looking into the mirror with a proud expression, she adjusted Jiyu's hair. Exercising a skill she hadn't used in a while, she had loosely braided the hair on both sides like a flower crown, securing them at the back of the head with thin ribbons and letting the rest fall naturally.
Recently, the popular kids at Aster School spent all their time talking about the dresses and shoes they would wear to "Cotillion Class."
Cotillion Class was a course where children between the ages of eleven and thirteen dressed in suits and gowns to learn social dances like the waltz and foxtrot, along with manners and etiquette.
The final remnants of the era of the "Debutante Ball" were being kept alive through a very small number of children from the upper class.
Of course, it wasn't a class anyone could enter just because they wanted to. There was no information available to the public, so one couldn't even obtain the application documents without connections, and a recommendation from an existing member was required to enroll. "Recommendations" were the most effective safeguard used by the upper class to keep their world exclusive.
"It's such a relief that Hunter's mother wrote your recommendation. You might not have gotten in otherwise. As expected, living next to a rich house means the crumbs that fall are bigger."
Ae-jeong giggled, gave Jiyu's outfit one last scan, and gave her a light push on the shoulder.
"Let's go now."
Jiyu let out a sigh that felt as if the ground were sinking.
She didn't want to go to Cotillion Class. She didn't like the dress, which looked like something a six-year-old flower girl would wear at a wedding, and she didn't want to dance the waltz with boys who ran around screaming like caged animals in a zoo.
However, it was impossible to break Ae-jeong's stubbornness.
With a resigned face, she dragged her feet as she followed, then suddenly asked:
"Is Hunter going too?"
"Of course. I heard his family has attended for generations. Apparently, Lauren had a hard time because he threw a fit, insisting he wouldn't go because of his fiery temper."
Knowing she wasn't the only one being dragged there against her will made her feel slightly better. Jiyu let out a small smirk.
Hunter Hamilton dancing the waltz with girls.
It sounded like it would be an amusing sight.
Screech, screech.
With every sluggish step toward Park Avenue, the soles of her shoes scraped against the cement floor.
"Jiyu, are you crawling? We're going to be late! Walk faster."
Ae-jeong, walking ahead, looked back with an impatient face and urged her on. Jiyu snapped back sharply.
"My feet hurt, I can't walk! I told you I hated these shoes."
"What?"
Ae-jeong approached in one stride and crouched down in front of her.
The glossy Mary Jane shoes were too stiff. Because they were expensive and meant to be worn for a long time, they had been bought one size too large, causing Jiyu's feet to slip with every step. Whenever her toes hit the front of the shoe, the tight strap dug into her ankle.
"Mom, get up! What are you doing!"
Flustered by the attention of passersby, Jiyu pushed Ae-jeong's shoulder. However, Ae-jeong ignored her and unfastened the ankle strap. After inspecting the reddened toes and ankle, she clicked her tongue.
"Tsk. You haven't even gotten blisters yet. This much is fine, so just bear with it. Pretty shoes are supposed to be uncomfortable."
"I want to go home. My feet hurt too much to dance."
Jiyu remained stubborn. Recently, she had begun to talk back to Ae-jeong more often. Her own assertions had grown stronger.
"Don't talk nonsense! Kids these days have as much patience as a bird's dropping on the street. When I was young, once I bought shoes, I wore them for about three years until the soles fell off. New shoes are supposed to give you blisters, which then pop and turn into calluses—that's how they stop hurting."
Ae-jeong had suffered through all sorts of hardships growing up as an orphan without parents. To her, this level of discomfort didn't even qualify as "uncomfortable."
'I wonder who she takes after to be such a fragile child,' Ae-jeong grumbled inwardly. It was a good thing she was living in luxury thanks to meeting the right parents; if Jiyu had been born an orphan like her, she would have been perfectly suited to starve to death.
Ae-jeong gently rubbed the reddened toes. Unlike her own feet as a child, they were soft, without a single callus.
'Feet as white as a rich girl's, yet she complains of pain even when given fancy shoes.'
She smiled bitterly with a mixture of irritation and pride.
She had no intention of passing down a life of struggling like a desperate fighter to Jiyu. The stench of poverty that rose like a nightmare when she closed her eyes, the endless hunger that could not be filled no matter what she ate, the shame born of ignorance, the despair that clung like a leech. Jiyu had to live without knowing any of those things.
An elegant and refined daughter of a wealthy house.
That was how Ae-jeong intended to raise her only daughter.
"Listen to me! I'm doing all this for your own sake. Put your shoes back on, quickly."
Ae-jeong pressed her. With a pout, Jiyu began to walk again, scraping the heels of her shoes against the cement floor.
Cotillion Class was held every other week at Whitmore Hall, located on the first floor of a majestic landmark building on 84th Street, Park Avenue.
As she entered the building, Jiyu's steps became heavy. It was partly because her feet hurt, but also because of her chronic shyness, which she had yet to overcome.
Her best friend, Chloe, had wanted to come, but since there was no one to write a recommendation letter, she couldn't obtain the application documents. Unable to watch this, Jiyu had asked Ae-jeong if she could ask Lauren for a recommendation for Chloe as well. Ae-jeong had ignored the question without a word, looking at her as if she were absurd.
To think she had to go alone to a place where the popular kids would undoubtedly be gathered.
Furthermore, she had to dance with a boy she didn't know.
Her heart shrank. Any sliver of curiosity about Cotillion Class was overwhelmed by her familiar aversion to the unknown.
"Mom, I really don't want to go. I think my stomach hurts a little..."
Standing before the doors of Whitmore Hall, Jiyu clutched her stomach and pleaded with a deliberately pitiful face. However, Ae-jeong glared at her and unleashed a rapid-fire torrent of words.
"Again, again, again, Jiyu Parker! Stop talking like someone who's forgotten where they came from just because they're living in luxury! Do you know how humbly I had to act toward Hunter's mother for the past few months just to get you in here... Anyway! When you marry into a wealthy family later, remember that it's allll thanks to me!"
Jiyu looked around with a flustered expression. As Ae-jeong's exceptionally loud voice echoed up to the high ceiling of the lobby, Jiyu's sensitive eardrums vibrated. She worried that someone might actually understand Korean.
She was embarrassed by Ae-jeong, who spoke such anachronistic things so brazenly. And whenever she felt that way, she suffered from the guilt of being ashamed of her mother.
She knew Ae-jeong loved her dearly. She loved her mother too. But sometimes, the way she was pushed forward unilaterally and relentlessly felt suffocating. There were times she wanted to scream and rebel, but she didn't have the courage to actually do it.
Because it was obvious that her mother would be shocked and saddened.
With her characteristic boldness, Ae-jeong flung open the doors of Whitmore Hall, which were adorned with classic relief decorations. Although they were five minutes late, the noise filling the hall pierced her ears, suggesting the class had not yet officially begun.
Grabbing Jiyu's wrist and stepping inside, Ae-jeong pulled her out from behind her—where she had tried to hide as she did when she was little—and pushed her forward.
"Go on and take a seat!"
Jiyu hunched her shoulders, scanning the surroundings with only her eyes.
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