Irene Park was an outcast, a target, and most commonly known as an alien. She was a 13-year-old South Korean girl living in Los Angeles, California.
Irene's family did nothing to help this. In fact, they only made it worse.
Irene was adopted by her aunt and uncle, who hated her. Her cousin Karina was a bully, part of the clique of mean girls in her middle school. Her aunt wrote mushy romance novels that Irene was forced to read against her will, and her uncle was the CEO of a large hotel company.
At the moment, Karina's boyfriend, Adam, was at the house. The two were downstairs cuddling and watching a romance movie. Irene didn't understand Karina's boy fanatics. Boys were just mean, immature bullies that called her names whenever she walked down the hallway.
Irene decided it was best to stay in her room, rather than get caught up in some kind of fight with Karina or Adam. It proved to be a good idea when Karina came upstairs to tell Irene that she was thankful that she had "kept her deformed nose" out of her business.
Irene hurt inside when hearing the insult. Her nose wasn't deformed, it was flatter than Karina's because she was Korean & Karina was American. But, that was how she was treated.
Irene could also speak Korean, but that wasn't allowed. Only English, but English was hard for her. Karina would tease her about that all the time.
But it wasn't always like this.
Once upon a time when Irene was younger she used to live in Korea with her mother, father and sister Jia. The family wasn't rich but they were extremely close. Irene and Jia were twins, fraternal twins though. They were best friends, always together. The girls would practice dancing and singing together everyday, hoping that one day they would be able to shine like the beautiful girls in the music videos that everyone loved.
They wanted to be kpop idols.
When they were 11, they both auditioned for an entertainment company called Chadwick Labels. Irene had failed but Jia had passed. Jia moved on to become a trainee at the company, moving away from home and Irene.
That's when it all fell apart.
Only two weeks later, her parents had died in a car crash and she had been shipped of to the US to go live with her aunt, uncle and her bully of a cousin Karina.
She desperately wanted to become a singer, desperately wanted to debut. But she was trapped at 34 Mariposa Circle on the other side of the world. She was farther than ever from reaching her dream.
She had practically given up. She thought she couldn't do it. She wasn't good enough.
She thought she would always be The Alien.
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Unwanted & Unknown: The Alien
Teen FictionIrene and her sister Jia have been separated since they were 11 years old. Jia is now making her debut in Korea. Can Irene follow her footsteps and prove everyone who called her The Alien wrong?
