The first thing Lee Bo-ram felt was pain.
A dull ache ran through her neck, her back, her arms — everything felt heavy, sore, like she'd been in a fight.
She groaned softly, pressing a hand to her temple. The sheets under her were rough, not the silken luxury she was used to.
When her eyes opened, the ceiling staring back wasn't the elegant white of her room in Seoul. It was cracked, with peeling paint.
Bo-ram blinked in confusion.
"What the—?"
She sat up too quickly and hissed. Her muscles protested. She glanced around — the room was small, cluttered, with mismatched furniture and faded curtains. Definitely not her house.
Then, as if pulled by instinct, she stumbled to the mirror.
And froze.
The reflection wasn't hers.
The girl staring back had golden hair, messy and long, spilling over pale shoulders. Her skin was lighter, almost ghostly white, black eyes almost dark blue when reflecting light. Her body felt different too — her chest fuller, her hips slightly wider, her waist curved. And just beside her left eye, a faint beauty mark glimmered in the sunlight.
Her lips trembled. "What… what is this?"
She touched her cheek — the reflection followed. Her voice sounded strange, soft with a foreign lilt.
"Who are you?" she whispered in English not even realizing it.
A loud knock startled her.
"Emily! You awake or what?"
The door creaked open, and a girl with bronze-white skin, blonde hair, and sharp blue eyes stepped in. She wore a loose tank top and jeans, her posture confident, almost defiant. A beauty mark dotted her nose — like a mirror's echo of Bo-ram's own.
It was Isabel.
"Oh good, you're finally up," Isabel said, her tone brisk,her eyes almost mocking, annoyed mostly. "There's no food, by the way. And you're late for work again."
Bo-ram blinked, still dazed. "Work?"
"Yeah," Isabel scoffed, crossing her arms. "You know, that thing adults do? You've got two hours before the diner calls again."
Bo-ram stared, trying to piece together fragments of a life that wasn't hers. Emily. The name resonated faintly — from her dreams. I'm Emily.
Then the memories came — a flood of faces, laughter, shouting. The orphans all seniors in high school.
Richard, 17 — blond hair blue eyes like Isabels, bronze almost brown skinned, tall, charming, a shameless flirt who always smelled like cologne and trouble. A natural athlete, but jobless and lazy, living off attention and luck. Yet protective, sometimes fiercely so.
Henry, also 17 —dark haired, pale white skin blue eyes, sharing the same height as Isabel, quiet, sharp-eyed, always typing away on his laptop. A tech genius, selfish at times, but the only one who occasionally brought in money.
And Isabel, 16 — the one standing before her now. Beautiful, rude, sometimes jealous, but loyal in her own crooked way. She helped with chores when she felt like it, complained the rest of the time.
Emily had taken them in because of their eye color and that they mostly stuck together when she saw them at times on the streets, but mostly to fill the loneliness that gnawed at her. The three had lost their parents, and so had she. Together, they were a strange, mismatched family — bound more by survival than affection.
And blue eyes.
Bo-ram—Emily—sighed. "No food, huh?"
Isabel shrugged. "You're welcome to buy some with your third job money."
She left, slamming the door behind her.
Bo-ram rubbed her temples. "This has to be a dream," she muttered. "Just one of those weird ones again…"
She looked back at the mirror, the golden-haired stranger staring at her with frightened eyes.
"Well," she murmured. "Until I wake up, I'll have to survive this."
Her gaze hardened, the heiress in her resurfacing.
Frowning Bo-ram now Emily thought,
"Those siblings shouldn't notice the change right, they mostly aren't at home and leaves Emily alone even though she is the one paying for their schooling, feeding and housing"....sigh..
"I'll either strengthen these siblings… or kick them out."
Outside, the faint noise of a bustling city drifted in — not Seoul's refined hum, but America's raw, chaotic energy.
And as she pulled off her worn jacket, intending to take a shower, Bo-ram—now trapped in another life—muttered, half amused, half bitter:
"America looks… different when you're broke."