In seventh grade, during the daily sixth-period lunch, hordes of 12-year-old girls would gather like bacteria clusters around two particular tables aligned along the central tiles of the cafeteria floor.

What brought these girls — tall and short, blonde and brunette, outgoing and quiet —together in this cult-like fashion? The answer was simple: Korean Pop, better known as K-Pop.

 Every day, as soon as the bell struck 11:53, we rushed into the cafeteria like salmon flowing with the river’s tide, armed with the latest K-Pop-related headlines from E!, our aesthetic Spotify playlists complete with the latest releases, and sleek photocards that captured the perfect faces of our favorite idols. We donned the printed logos of BlackPink, BTS, and Twice on our $50 hoodies like badges of honor and scoffed at the girls who would rather fill their AirPods with Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande.

We’d coordinate our outfits for upcoming concerts, like soldiers preparing for Armageddon. Wonho leaving Monsta X after the reveal of his criminal past was our Watergate Scandal. The prospect of BTS breaking up in 2024 to attend military service prefigured the fall of the Roman Empire. Rescuing Rosé from YG was our #FreeBritney movement.

 Some of the girls joined our school’s dance troupe and danced to hits like “Feel Special” and “Boy with Luv” during talent shows. Others fantasized about becoming trainees for the biggest companies in the business, praying for a chance to debut as part of a fresh new girl group someday.

 Some of the girls, like me, were simply ugly ducklings who idolized anything “beautiful.”

 You might think that being bombarded with images of girls with flawless complexions, perfect teeth, and hair that belonged in a shampoo commercial would be torture for pimple-faced, buck-toothed, and shaggy-haired seventh-grade me. But, no — it was actually quite the opposite.

 I religiously zoomed in on my favorite idols’ Instagram photos, carefully analyzing the way they applied their makeup and styled their hair. I searched “Kpop makeup tutorials” and “How to do Aegyo-Sal makeup” on YouTube day in and day out.

 After months of heavy research and multiple Sephora shopping sprees, Picture Day arrived.

 Picture Day would be my chance to show off the cache of cosmetic skills I had acquired over the last several months in the comfort of my bedroom. I combed out my unruly bangs, traced my monolid eyes with subtle brown eyeliner, carefully applied glitter just below my eyes, and rouged my lips with bright pink lip tint before finishing it off with clear gloss.

 I stepped back from my mirror. For once, I didn’t agonize over the knots in my hair, the unevenness of my teeth, or the new pimples that had found their way onto my face overnight.

I saw —and felt immense pride for — a girl blossoming into a beautiful woman.

 I arrived at school that day with my head held high.

 My fourth-period social studies class filed into the auditorium, where the yearbook photographers had set up all their equipment. Several other classes had gathered in the rows of seats. Clusters of girls adjusting their hair and primping on a few final layers of lip gloss littered the aisles with compact mirrors and combs.

 A few rows down sat my crush, whose class was also there to take their pictures. He was looking around the auditorium mindlessly in boredom. After a few seconds, I caught his eye.

Smiling eagerly, I lifted my hand to wave at him. But before the word “Hi” could even come out of my mouth, he immediately burst out laughing like a hyena, turning to his friends and whispering.

 I could’ve sworn I heard the words, “What’s with the clown getup?” and “What the hell did she do to her face?”

 Within the next ten seconds, five of his friends turned to look at me, and as each of their gazes took me in, they began to snicker and whisper under their breaths.

 “Oh, man…is she that desperate for attention?”

 “No amount of lipstick can cover up how screwed up her teeth are.”

 “Ewww.”

 I felt like a zoo animal.

 The voices of the photographers directing students to tilt their heads slightly toward the camera and the chatter of girls around me asking each other if their hair still looked good began to meld into a distorted, uncomfortable chorus. A pounding like the beat of a bass drum began to reverberate through my skull.

 I ran out of the auditorium, barely able to hold my tears in before I opened the door to the girls’ bathroom.

 I locked myself in the corner stall and cried for a full ten minutes, my breaths shaking as my uncontrollable tears and hands smeared the makeup look I had worked so hard to put together that morning.

 By the time I mustered up the courage to look in the mirror, all evidence of my hard work

 was gone, save for a few random specks of glitter dotting my cheeks and eyelashes.

I made it back to the auditorium just in time to be the last student to get their picture taken. I smiled half-heartedly as the tired cameraman snapped my photo without even asking me to angle my head just slightly toward the camera’s lens.

For the rest of the day, I covered my face with my unruly split ends and hid my teary eye behind my curtained bangs.

 After that, I buried my eyeliners and eyeshadow palettes deep in my sock drawer, never to be seen again. They were reminders of my forbidden femininity, of no greater value than — in the words of my crush’s friend — “clown getup.” I swore never to touch any form of makeup ever again.

 ***

 That was, until the date of my eighth-grade graduation rolled around: a major event to mark the end of my journey in middle school and celebrate the prospects to come in high school.

 Mom had noticed over the years how I hated getting my picture taken. I firmly blocked the camera with my hand each time she tried to snap a candid during vacation. I almost always willingly hid in the back of all club and sports team photos despite standing at a mere five feet tall.

 So, she insisted we book a makeup appointment a few hours before my graduation, hoping that a visit to the beauty salon would reawaken my inner girlish desire to receive a makeover.

 As I sat in a plush chair in front of a lighted boudoir mirror, faced with a selection of twelve shades of blush, five brands of eyeliner, twenty-two makeup brushes, and about fifty selections of lipstick, I told myself to close my eyes and wait for it to be over.

The makeup artist was a thirty-something-year-old with bleached blonde hair, several piercings, and rose tattoos running down the length of her arm. She sighed after cupping my chin in her hands to wheel my face around so she could analyze it from all angles.

 She started by applying a thick layer of pale foundation to my face. I closed my eyes through all of it, letting the brush tickle my cheekbones and channeling all of my willpower into not licking the lipstick off right after she applied it.

 She eventually got to the eyeliner, which I deduced after feeling a wet, cold sensation fall over my monolids. I began to twitch, and — unable to control myself — I opened my eyes as soon as the brush finished inking on my face.

 At first, I couldn’t see anything above my eyes. Only when I narrowed them down did I begin to see a faint impression of a wing forming at the corners.

 “N-no,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

 I jerked my hand out, reaching to grab the eyeliner from the makeup artist. Shocked, she timidly handed over the Night Black ‘Liner in shade 4C.

Recklessly uncapping it, I brought its fine tip to my face, quickly tracing a line from the edge of my eyebrow to the skin right below my lower eyelashes. I complemented the stroke by tracing a thick line across my upper eyelid.

 I repeated the process on my right eye, carefully replicating the bold cat eye I had somehow painted on my left.

 I blinked once, twice before handing the eyeliner back to the makeup artist. She looked in the mirror, a mix of surprise, appalment, and an odd sense of admiration in her eyes. She  shrugged and picked up the lengthening mascara.

For some reason, I didn’t care what she thought or said with her passive-aggressive  gestures. For the rest of the session, I couldn’t take my eyes off the creation I had made around them.

 Sure, the lines were messy and even somewhat jagged around the tips. The look was too bold — too ostentatious — for most K-Pop idols’ debut performances or most girls attending their middle school graduations. Mom would not give the makeup artist a tip for the poor craftsmanship.

 But for the first time in nearly two years, I smiled in front of a mirror. That smile would stay on the car ride to my eighth-grade graduation. It would be immortalized in all the blurry photos taken by my grandparents, who couldn’t figure out how to use iPhone cameras. It would be front-and-center in the glossy photos printed on the front page of the town newsletter.

 That smile would stay when I walked into my first day of high school with another bold cat eye. And it would stay every morning for the rest of high school when I would experiment by adding new designs to my eyes — from two dark teardrops to a collection of small black hearts.

 Soon enough, I reintroduced glitter, eyeshadow, and lipstick to my palette. Blue, yellow, violet, red, silver — I made it my mission to put every color in the rainbow in the makeup stash at the bottom of my sock drawer.

 My face was no longer an imperfection of my being that I needed to correct but a canvas for a new painting every day. I didn’t need to tint my lips or dab glitter on my eyes in the style that was “trending,” as YouTube tutorials were no longer my creative gospel. I learned to scoff at the comments that told me I wore “too much makeup” or called my eyes “clownish.”

 I learned to embrace the joy I felt every morning when creating a new version of myself: today’s version, which would be just as beautiful as the me from yesterday.

This was written by our contributing writer, Katherine Zhao.