KILLER CONCEPTS

yenny

October 15th, 2015 

"Seo, I'm not going to hurt you. I won't call your parents, you just have to tell me who did it."

Yenny looked up at the menacing officer and shook her head. "I don't know what you are talking about."

Yenny didn't have a very hard time remembering Lola while she was trying to help Isaac calm down-

"Just deny it. I've gone through enough of this kind of stuff, and if you just deny it they won't have enough evidence. It'll just get swept under the rug, just you wait," Lola had advised with a carefree smirk. She may have seemed completely fine but Yenny could see past her facade to the distraught look in her dark eyes. She knew that Lola's plan wouldn't work, but she went along with it anyways.

The officer snapped his fingers in Yenny's face, bringing her back to present day.

"Girl, we don't have all day here. What happened?" shouted an officer standing in the corner. Yenny swallowed, her eyes flickering back and forth from the daunting cop in front of her to the blinding lamp above them.

"I don't know anything, and if you are going to ask me any more questions, I would like a lawyer present."

"That might be the smartest shit you've said yet, kid. Bring in the black girl." And with that the officer in the corner escorted Yenny out of the sweltering room.

April 20th, 2015

"Ye-eun, get down here right now! I'm not taking you to your ballet lesson if you don't come down immediately!" Yenny's mom bellowed from downstairs.

"I would, if I wasn't too busy covering up the bruises you gave me," Yenny muttered to herself. She never had the courage to say something like that to her mom's face, however, in fear of getting lectured for talking back to her elders.

She dreaded going to ballet, solely because of the costume. It bared all of her arms and legs, and with that memories of past mistakes. For example, the one on her shoulder was from when she didn't reply fast enough while her mom was yelling at her. The one on her thighs were the worst, she tried to escape punishment and reason it out, but instead ended up with twenty-three spankings there and on her palms. Twenty-three used to be her lucky number. How ironic.

She snapped out of her resentful memories and pasted on a smile when she heard her mother storming up the stairs. Before her mom could yell at her once again, Yenny popped out of the bathroom with a big smile. "All done, 엄마! With 30 minutes to spare. Let me just grab my shoes and we can go."

Somehow, that made her mom even more angry because she had come upstairs with the motive of lecturing Yenny. She followed behind Yenny, telling her she needed to go on a diet because she was getting a little chubby, and when was the last time Yenny shaved her legs? She looked like one of those lumberjack men.

The whole car ride was silent. Her mother stared at the road ahead of her, fuming, while Yenny silently picked at her nails. She let out a sigh of relief when she spotted the familiar brown brick building. She couldn't wait to escape from her mom and lose herself in dancing. Ballet was one of the only things in her life that she loved, and it obviously loved her back. Yenny had won countless awards and performed in many prestigious shows alongside her talented friends.

As she walked into the building, smiling faces greeted her and stopped stretching for a moment to tell her about their weekend. Yenny closed her eyes and breathed in. Kensington was one of the only places where she felt cared for and loved; it was a safe haven from home.

When practice finally ended, Yenny made her way to the large room beside the studio that was designated for the dancers to change into regular clothes and reluctantly peeled off her leotard and tights. As she was pulling her jeans back over her bare legs, a petite Indian girl stopped her.

Yenny had met her before and knew her as Avani. She was a nice girl from Mumbai with a nose ring and what her parents called "an attitude problem," but she wasn't a dancer; she boxed. The fighters and the dancers shared the locker room, which meant that Yenny and Avani had had many silent encounters in the past.

"Yenny, right? What happened to your thighs?" she blurted in a thick Indian accent as Yenny rushed to pull up her pants.

"I do martial arts," responded Yenny, hurrying to get the rest of her clothes on and escape the situation.

"Martial arts doesn't give you those kind of bruises," Avani countered. She had a suspicious gleam in her piercing eyes.

Yenny let out a quick "I have to go" before dashing away from possible sanctuary to her mother's waiting car.