There are Many Flowers in Seoul

Chapter One

Graduation parties were supposed to be small, informal affairs where classmates would eat together, maybe sing a little karaoke, and reminisce about the years they'd spent together in high school before they moved onto bigger, better things.

How was it, then, that Rose's graduating class had found themselves in a privately rented club for the night with the rest of the school year with a legendary DJ on the decks, catering staff on hand with tables lined with the best international cuisine, and gift bags full of keepsakes from the Silver Lilies jewellery line and signed promotional posters from the now world-famous Abe Takashi's latest movie?

Right.

They were Rose's parents.

Her Japanese classmates clamoured around her while she sat in a booth, her long, black hair tied up in a pony-tail, her uniform pristinely clean and pressed so that it would be flawless on the last day it would be worn, and her face clear of make-up. Rose had never much bought into the excesses of wealth. Like her mother in her youth, she'd always been uncomfortable with flashing the cash and using money to get ahead in life. It was fair to say that the party hadn't been her idea, and that her doting parents had gone a little overboard in celebration of the occasion.

Fluent in both Japanese and English thanks to her mixed heritage, Rose had no problem understanding when her classmates trilled praise and adoration at her.

Not for her.

Oh, no.

The adoration was all for her family.

'Your parents are so cool!'

'I wish I could be your sister!'

'We should have a party like this every year!'

Rose smiled and pressed her lips to the rim of her glass, sipping the non-alcoholic wine and feeling the muscle in her jaw twitch. Silently, she vowed to kill her parents when she got home for this shameful display.

All she'd wanted was a small celebration for her and a few of her friends. Taking them to a family restaurant would have been fine by Rose. Or inviting them over for a private dinner. Hell, she'd have taken the private karaoke booth over this torment.

It was excessive.

It was insane.

She had to get out.

'Sorry,' she excused herself politely. 'I need to talk to someone. I'll be right back.'

Rose edged around the gathered girls, and smiled as politely as she was able at the classmates who stopped her every few minutes to tell her that they'd miss her desperately now they were about to go their separate ways and whatever would they do without her?

In her mind, Rose translated this to mean that they were worried about what they'd do without her parents donating to whatever institution they ended up in next; buying new computers for the study halls, financing brand new uniforms, or covering the costs of school trips overseas.

'Rosey Rose Rose!' Hitomi wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tightly.

Thanks to their parents' close friendship, they were practically cousins, and both understood the stigma of being the only mixed-race girls in their class. Hitomi's father, Robert, was an American, and had an unlikely fan following in the young ladies of the school who idolised foreign men. Hitomi had banned him from all parent events because she couldn't handle seeing girls comparing the covert pictures that they'd snapped of him on their phones.

Rose hugged her friend in return, grateful to have found her in the ocean of wonderstruck teens who'd never attended a party so lavish in their young lives. The pair often spoke to one another in English to maintain some privacy in their conversations; not that it always paid off when their school was famous for its high-quality English language scores.