“You are not like other girls.”

“Hmm?” She turned to see his deep, impenetrable eyes, curved with adoration, staring directly at her, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Well… I’m a foreigner.”  

“I guess there is that.” Mark chuckled, resting his chin on his hand like a languid, carefree child, “But I will say there is much more than that. Most girls I know are quite similar to each other, good people, mind you, but similar. You are a wholly different species, even your name is special. Where’d you get it, anyway? I assume it isn’t a birth name, Son.”

She decided not to elaborate, and luckily the entrance of the football team captain made elaboration no longer necessary. Ethan Cowell, the fair-haired boy stood six feet tall, bulbous, and muscular, he looked just about like every jock from every American high school movie Son had seen when she was a child; Western media’s influence reached further than their borders. 

“Mark! My brother!” Ethan and Mark embraced each other, “That was a dynamite party you held on Friday! The house’s good, huh?”

“Yeah, yes it is.”

Son was not good with faces. The term facial blindness didn’t enter her family’s lexicon until she was diagnosed with it during the middle school entrance check-up, before which her inability to recognize faces was always attributed by all different people in her life ranging from her parents to her teacher to classmates to a lack of concentration, a callous attitude, or a misaligned habit of an only child. Convinced by others that her condition was a mere product of her personal failings, she practiced observing facial features obsessively in the hopes of learning recognition through sheer effort; it didn’t work, but what the practicing did achieve was granting her an acute sense for microexpression and involuntary tics.

So when she saw Mark’s expression when answering Ethan’s benign, she instantly realized something was awry. 

“The house was good,” Mark answered with a forced smile. 

“Heard you about to run for government? About damn time! We are going to do some great things for the school, for all of us! I have always told people that you would make for a great leader. Am I right or am I right?” 

Ethan’s cronies laughed in agreement. Mark just awkwardly waved at them.

“Student government, huh? Didn’t know you are such a goody-two-shoes.” After Ethan and his men left, Son commented in an effort to cheer up Mark as he looked gloomy and tired. 

“No goody two-shoes run for the government, Son.” Mark answered with a chuckle, “Power-hungry people do; greedy people do; desperate people do. This government is responsible for the high school, the middle school, and the primary school population; do you really think anyone sane would willingly subject themselves to the whims and wills of those incoherent brats? Have you heard the way they talk? Skibidi gyat!” 

Son had no idea what those words meant; it wasn’t in her vocabulary book. “They are kids. Kids like being… kids.” 

“Oh no. They are the devils, alright? Especially the middle schoolers. They resent us for holding the entire student government. A rule in this place to go by is that never the twain shall meet, don’t interact with people below your grade, it would do you no good.” 

There were a lot of rules in this place. Invisible barriers and unspoken consensus that everyone instinctively -- at times even ritualistically so -- followed for the sake of self-preservation and collective cohesion. The schooling district was vast beyond measure, its eight cardinal wings were each occupied by slightly different demographics, with the middle schoolers and primary schoolers occupying the Southern sections. They ostensibly followed the rulings of the student government, but most would agree that the middle schoolers held a much firmer and more intimate chokehold on the primary school population than the government ever had. Even within the high school population, huge chasms of arbitrary categories could be found on top of the hierarchical structure of social capitals; for instance, the students that passed the age of eighteen almost exclusively dealt with other students of adult age. 

Son found all these rules confusing, but Mark was always there. For someone who had just arrived in the country less than weeks ago, she assimilated to her surroundings incredibly well, all thanks to him. 

“Hey Son. I’m going to the pier this afternoon. You wanna go take the walk with me? I can show you around the coast?” Asked Mark in his forever casually cool voice. 

“Who else is coming?” 

“Ugh, no one? I can bring my family dog with me if you want?” Mark joked. 

So is this an invitation to a date or not? This would be the first time in her life anybody had asked her out, and heatwaves rose all throughout her body, she could feel her cheeks burning while nodding to Mark’s question. 

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“Son Syun. What a stupid fucking name this is? What did Mark tell you?” 

The rope tying her hands behind the chair's back was made of hemp, possibly soaked, she couldn’t affirm those suspicions though. The sofa chair beneath her was shaking every time the girl slapped her across the face; she was slapping her in the loudest way possible, just to prove the point that no help would ever come, no matter how loud she screamed. 

Son wasn’t screaming. Her cheeks had grown numb and blood red, her vision blurred and ringing in her ears, but she didn’t scream. She just sat there, taking the beating.

“Now, Son. Sonny. My son.” The boy said as he circled her chair. “This can go two ways. One: you give us what we want, we strip you and take some photos for blackmail materials, but we will leave you alone. You can spend the rest of your high school life in fear, but not suffering. Two, you are trying to act tough…”

“And what will you do… kill me?” Asked Son, head swinging from one side to another, “This is not how murder occurs… cough cough… you want something from me, it’s motivated… by reason, not passion.” 

“Of course we ain’t gonna kill you.” The boy said, “That would make national news! I’m not gonna get life for a loser like you? No, no. We will just ruin your life, right here, right now, and then get away with it.” 

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