Lust Contracts

Superficial Perfection

“Having a nice figure and a beautiful face sure is nice. I wished my eyes were as pretty as yours and

my lashes as long…” one of my friends said before she sighed.

“That’s right and your waist is so slim all the time no matter how much you eat. How do you manage to

control your weight?” another girl asked curiously as they both stared at me from across the tea table.

Having afternoon tea with the girls was part of how we spent our school time in the afternoon. It was to

ensure that we knew how to properly socialize and practice our manners at the same time. By this time,

I was so used to receiving these compliments on my looks that it no longer surprised me or made me

feel happy about it.

Despite how people tend to compliment me on my looks, I never once felt proud of these traits that I

was born with. I didn’t put any effort in making sure that my eyes were round and wide or for my lashes

to be long. I was simply born like this and coincidentally how I looked happened to match with society’s

perception of beauty. In other words, I was born lucky…or so I had thought. Exactly because I didn’t do

anything, I didn’t feel like I had achieved anything at all in my life so far.

“You should eat healthy food and fruits. Cutting down on cream and scones might be a good start for a

slim waist, don’t you think?” I replied teasingly before smiling warmly at them.

“Piano class is so boring. I prefer cooking so much better,” one of the girls said.

“If you can play a couple of pieces, that will be good enough to pass…” I said truthfully.

The thing that I had figured out about these classes was that they weren’t designed to teach us to

master any real skill. Rather, they were designed to quickly teach us just enough to impress our future

husband and his family. For instance, you could pass the piano class if you can play a few classical

showcase pieces that would make you look good if you performed them at a family gathering of sorts.

Essentially, practicing those few pieces until you learnt it by muscle memory was good enough for you

to graduate from the course. There were cases of girls passing the course even though they couldn’t Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

really read the notes on the score paper.

The same applied to the other classes as well. For instance, you could pass cooking if you could cook

all the menu on a particular course from starters, main, and dessert. If you practiced cooking those

repeated menus enough, anyone could pass. That didn’t mean that you could cook anything else off

the menu or that you understood anything about the basics of cooking.

All in all, I quickly came to realize how superficial everything that we were learning was. That realization

led me to realize that whatever life was waiting for us after graduation and our marriage to our ideal

husband would also be fake and superficial at best. I spent the final year of my high school faking every

single smile and laugh. Since I had figured out that everything was meaningless, I lived my life in a

meaningless way as well.

Unsurprisingly, the concept of love wasn’t something that was taught or ever talked about on the school

grounds. I figured out a while later that love was a dangerous concept that would threaten the very

foundation that the school and the parents have worked so hard to jointly create. That’s right, love

could make you rebellious and could lead you astray.

Love could be misplaced and make matching us girls with our potential husband more difficult.

Therefore, love was not necessary and not spoken of or encouraged. I would come to learn about love,

lost, and betrayal later on when I entered university.

…

So far, I have devoted my life to playing the role of the perfect daughter that my adoptive parents

wanted. I had to admit that having no one left in my life apart from them, made me that much more

desperate to please them. I fought very hard on a daily basis for their acknowledgement. The small nod

that my father would give me when I showed him some honorary award that I had won from school

used to be the highlight of my life.

Whenever my mother’s friends would come over and they would compliment me in front of her for my

beautiful looks and my perfect mannerism, my mother would smile proudly. She was happy to show me

off in front of her friends. Although that made me feel slightly uncomfortable, I was fine with it as long

as it made her happy. The undeniable fact was that I didn’t know where I would be and what harsh life I

would be living today if these two people did not adopt me that day.

However, there were some things, although very few, that I refused to give up on. One of that had to do

with the scar on my back that had refused to disappear from my younger days. No matter what, I didn’t

feel comfortable getting it completely erased.

“When are you going to get that hideous scar lasered off? You keep putting it off!” my mother nagged in

a loud voice.

In my own defense, the scar wasn’t anywhere near ‘hideous’. Over the years the scar had naturally

faded into nothing more than a patch that was slightly lighter in color than my skin tone. Furthermore,

the scar was located where the back of my bra would usually cover some of it anyways. So, unless, I

was seen completely naked, it was very unlikely that anyone would ever see it.

“It’s gotten better already. I don’t think it’s necessary to undergo any procedures,” I replied meekly.

“That’s not good enough. What are you going to do if your future suitors mind? They’ll turn you down

because of this scar on your back!” my mother spat as she glowered at me.

“I don’t want to completely remove it…please…” I pleaded softly.

--To be continued…