Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

Pieces of curved glass fell from the teeth of a comb.

Haru combed the knots and shards from her hair methodically. Her father had finally gone to sleep, and her mother was sleeping off the night shift. When they came back from church, predictably, the communion wine had sent her father into his typical state. Her mother ambivalently left her to deal with it.

There were enough scars on Haru's scalp that she didn't bleed anymore.

Plink.

Haru cleaned up the shards from the sink with her bare hands, glimpsing her impassive expression in the mirror before tossing them into the dustbin. She then went back to combing, this time actually looking at her reflection. She finished combing her long, black locks and pulled them into a ponytail. Her burn scar poked out from behind her uniform collar.

Haru's fingers ran across her scar. She knew that others talked about her accident like it was some horrible thing that happened to her, but Haneul had stopped her from playing with broken beer bottles when she was three. She cut herself on them when she was four, when she had a moment of defiance against her sister. Those were few, and she regretted the ones she had.

"You know, with the amount of times we have cut our fingers cleaning up the glass, we could probably take up guitar," Haneul had joked. "It's not like we don't have the callouses to work with strings."

Haru had rolled her eyes and said they couldn't afford a guitar. Even as a seven year old, she felt the need to correct her.

Haneul.

Seojin.

Missing.

Haru pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then her tear ducts. Not now.

She swallowed her fears and looked at her reflection - this time, looking into her eyes. She never gave much thought to the features she shared with her parents, but she and her sister looked very similar. Sure, people compared them when they were younger, especially considering the nine-year age gap. Haru still looked like a child in her teens whereas Haneul looked like an adult before even reaching that point. Haru's hair got frizzy in the humidity, especially after her accident. Haneul's always looked perfectly put together, especially after becoming Seojin. Haru's scars were visible. Haneul's weren't.

But their eyes were the same. Warm and sweet.

And Haru's eyes would see Haneul's again.

Arriving at school was uneventful, if uneventful consisted of Haru's books being thrown in the mud in the greenspace near the football field, and a ball being kicked in her direction and barely missing her skull. She had simply shrugged it off and walked back into the building.

The day was mostly exams, which meant that the bullying halted once everyone was inside. Haru wasn't worried either - she'd been studying in the quiet moments at the library, of which there were many. Korean, English, history, math - the answers flowed out of her pencil. Chemistry and Spanish were tomorrow, so she'd have time to study. Chemistry was her hardest subject, but incidentally, it was also the subject she loved most. It was going to be her ticket out of Korea, on her own terms, one day.

During lunch, Haru snuck out before any harassment could inconvenience her. She snuck upstairs to the library, with one singular goal in mind.

Yearbooks.

"The police are going to investigate all easily accessible leads," Rosie had told her on voice chat. She found his distinctly American accent comforting, strangely. "If you are going to help, you need to help in the way only you can."

He was right. Haru was only 18, and a year behind because of her accident. Sure, her grades were good, but being a good student wasn't going to get her into a detective's office. Proof would. But she wasn't an idol, or even a trainee, and the scar wouldn't get her past the front door. And realistically, she couldn't get another job as a janitor in the building, even if it would give her access.

So. Yearbooks. Yearbooks were a good start.

Haru ran her fingers along the bindings of the yearbooks. Academy of the Metamorphosis. 탈바꿈 학원. Haru always felt the name was ironic. Rosie told her about the schools in his country, how they would add words to their names like "triumph" or "victory" to make the parents feel like they were going somewhere that would make their children thrive.

"It makes the parents feel like good people," he told her. "But in reality, it's some Pink Floyd type shit."
*"Did you go to a school like that?"

"God no. But I know someone who did. Nearly killed her."

Haru hadn't asked further.

Haru pulled ten yearbooks off the wall - eight that covered Haneul's tenure at the school, one from the year before, one from the year after. She found a corner to read them in, and got to work.

Haneul only sporadically appeared in the grids upon grids of smiling students, due to missing picture day more than once. She did appear in club photos and the musical theater productions that their parents finally let her do when they realized her being an idol could bring in income. Haru watched through the photos as she went from an extra in The Wizard of Oz at twelve to Gretchen in Mean Girls at fifteen. Haru found herself stifling a giggle at a photo of her sister in Cats, remembering how Haneul had refused to show her photos out of embarrassment.

After Haneul started training, she was even more sparse in the books. There was only one candid photo, and it struck Haru as odd. It wasn't from a musical. It was a play.

Seo Haneul, 11th grade, as Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew"

Haru frowned. Haneul had never mentioned liking Shakespeare. They hadn't even covered his plays in English yet. But here her sister was, performing as Katherine.

Haru put the other yearbooks away, save for this particular one. She started roaming the stacks, looking for the bard. When she finally did find his section, she saw the classics - Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and...that was it.

She frowned. That couldn't be right.

Haru looked through the nearby sections. Sure enough, there were upwards of ten copies for each of those plays, but none for any others. Certainly none for The Taming of the Shrew. This didn't make any sense, she knew from pop culture osmosis that there were way more. Hell, there were even poems by him.

Haru went to the desk to check out the yearbook. The librarian was surprised to see her when everyone else was at lunch, but didn't overtly question it, just assisted her.

Luckily, Haru had other libraries to look at.

After school, Haru went to her part-time gig. She was deeply grateful that the librarians were so helpful. All she had to do was say she needed Shakespeare, and they pointed her to an entire wall of plays and poems. Some were translated, some weren't. Some were annotated, some weren't.

Haru wondered if kids in candy stores ate this well.

Haru figured that it this was an English class, reading the play in English would be helpful, but she found an English-Korean dictionary, an annotated copy, and a Korean copy, just in case. She began to read through the play, focusing heavily on Katherine.

She read through how Katherine agreed to a marriage ostensibly to support her sister, Bianca, and allow her to marry. She read through Katherine's abuse at the hands of Petruchio, the horrific gaslighting he did unto her.

She read as the abuse slowly eroded Katherine's sense of self, to the point that Katherine became a shell of herself.

Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot;
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

Haru heard those lines in Haneul's voice. She read as Katherine and Petruchio kissed.

And she wept.