#practice challenge

Looking back, Ivy isn’t sure she could say her childhood was idyllic. There was love and family and creating new worlds with Kennedy, but there were heartaches too. Watching struggle of her father as he built Min Industries from the ground up in Illéa. Witnessing her mother battle against the harshness of her grandparents (though in particular her grandfather). Pleading with each one of them to stay just a little bit longer at bedtime instead of going back to work.

She understood why they left. But it got harder to watch them go each time.

She was well taken care of, given the best of education and opportunities. Swim lessons at two years old, horseback riding lessons at seven. While Ivy stood steadfast at her parent’s side, Kennedy was always the one to pull away. Ivy wanted to make her family proud. Her little sister cared more for finding life away from pesky lessons and the family’s reputation. She believed there was more to discover beyond the walls their parents had created. “Don’t be such a suck up! You really think all this is going to matter in the end?” Kennedy had asked her once. Ivy didn’t have an answer. Not when she yearned to be a part of both sides of the Min coin. Parents or Kennedy. Parents or Kennedy. She wondered if there would be a day when she would have to choose.

Nevertheless, Ivy loved Kennedy and Kennedy loved Ivy. Different in motives but similar at heart, they never strayed too far from one another. If there was one defining feature of Ivy’s childhood, it was her spirited little sister. 

↳ exposition

「 the shoes of parents & grandparents to fill 」

Seo-jun Min and Ha-eun Yoo had nothing to offer one another when they first met. Ha-eun was a quiet, demure oncology nurse working at a small hospital in Seoul. Seo-jun had just graduated from university loaded with student debt and a degree in business he had no clue what to do with. When they found each other, suddenly they had everything to offer. Life moved quickly then. After only seven months of quaint dates between Ha-eun’s long shifts and Seo-jun’s failed business ventures, they eloped. A year later, they had a son. Jae-sung. Another two years passed and they were blessed with a daughter whom they named after the lilies that bloomed outside their home. Nari.

At three years old, Leukemia was all that was left of their daughter. She passed in her sleep, cradled in her father’s arms.

In their path to healing, Seo-jun and Ha-eun packed up their son and moved to Illéa where opportunity and a fresh start called to them. Together, they knew what they could devote their lives to: a medical research company dedicated to provide medical care to all in need and to find a cure for pediatric diseases. By the time Jae-sung was 18 years old, he knew that his legacy was to carry on his parent’s dream of avenging Nari’s short life. He honored that legacy.

Then he met Kathleen.

Kathleen Adair was the most intelligent, strong-willed woman he had ever met. He trailed after her their freshman year at Brown until she finally relented and allowed him only one meal. Just one. “Then it’s going to be the best meal of your entire life,” he declared rather confidently. He didn’t know she had watched him as often as he watched her. The meal was terrible, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Alright, Jae.” The nickname only she had ever managed to pull off. “I’m yours.”

His parents vehemently protested. “She’s not suitable. She doesn’t understand what it takes to be a part of this family.” He knew what they really meant. She’s not Korean. He thought small mindedness had been left behind after the last war, but he understood them too. Still. Nothing was going to stop them from marrying as soon as they graduated.

At 25, Jae-sung was pronounced CEO of Min Industries. At 25, Kathleen was announced as the youngest graduate professor of biomedical sciences in the history of the University of Allens. They liked to compete with one another.

Their daughters became their lives. They also became the lives of their grandparents. Though it was never said aloud, Ha-eun and Seo-jun could see Nari in the softness of Ivy’s smile and in the light of Kennedy’s eyes. Respecting their family’s traditions and honoring the legacy of the work put into the family’s company was often emphasized. Legacy. Kennedy was smothered by it. Ivy was enriched by it.

↳ conflict & rising action

「 an energy unmatched 」

Death was always unexpected, always tragic. One person could have the breath stolen from their lungs, yet it was the people left behind that sank under the weight of their grief. That ached for years and years to come.

If Ivy could describe the year she turned 19, it would be with one word: grey. The grey of the clouds that taunted the guests of Kennedy’s funeral with rain that never came. The grey pallor of her mother’s expression just before she fainted after barely eating for a week. The disappearance of Ivy’s best friend had shaken her spirit in a way she never thought was possible. Were daughters destined for such an untimely end in her family? It felt like it. Nari and Kennedy. The grey of their portraits displayed on the mantle above the fireplace.

Ivy would sit in front of that picture for too long, furious at how her parents had chosen to memorialize the life of their second daughter. Kennedy was light. Yellow and orange and pink, fiery and beautiful. How could she have been reduced to nothing but a dull, humiliating grey? How could she be... nothing?

In a fit of emotion blurred by tears, Ivy snatched the picture and threw it to the floor. Pieces of glass flew everywhere and the portrait lay folded under what remained of the black frame. Seconds later, Ivy was on her knees trying to gather the broken fragments. Smoothing away any wrinkles on her sister’s face and ignoring the blood that seeped from where the glass had begun to cut her legs.

When she was found crying, bleeding, clutching the picture to her chest, Ivy was rushed to the hospital to have 12 stitches placed on her knees and shins. Her grandparents blamed her parents, her parents blamed her grandparents. “Why weren’t you with her?” “Why do we need to be together every second of the day?” “Because daughters need their mothers!” Amidst the arguing and cries of her family in her small hospital room, Ivy stayed quiet. She knew what they were really blaming each other for anyway.

Ivy never again lost herself the way she did that miserable afternoon. She didn’t want to be another reason that made her family yell the way they did. Instead, she found different pictures of Kennedy to keep with her and around her home.

Pictures that helped everyone remember Kennedy’s unmatched energy in vivid, beautiful color.

↳ climax

「 vassar & beyond 」

In August, the eldest Min sister was gone to school. In November, the youngest Min sister was gone forever. Not an ideal start to an undergraduate career. Instead of letting Kennedy’s death hinder her education, Ivy buried herself in her courses. A distraction from horribly sleepless nights and not a friend in sight. At the start of sophomore year, Ivy’s roommate Alba took one look at her and declared her hers. With a new friend in tow, Ivy found people exactly when she needed them. They brought a part of her back to life.

Alba. Leo. Wren. Dimitri.

Though Ivy was strongly encouraged by her parents to choose the major of Science, Technology, and Society, she found that she enjoyed her studies. Learning about the effects of global pandemics, health inequalities, or bioethics opened up her world to ideas she’d never considered. (So did her film minor, but even then she was too afraid to consider growing that passion into something more concrete.) Alba had been skeptical of Ivy’s predicament. “Your parents can’t force you to work for them. You’re an adult.” Perhaps not, but losing another daughter was inconceivable. Not when Kennedy almost broke her family apart.

Approximately one week after celebrating her graduation, Ivy began her prompt employment as a junior associate within her father’s team of business heads. The whispers of nepotism behind her back never bothered her, comforted by the knowledge that her takeover of the corporation wouldn’t take place for years to come.

By July, those hopes were squashed by Jae-sung’s proclamation that within the month, she would be announced as the next head of Min Industries. Interviews were organized, contracts were drafted, all faster than Ivy could come to terms with. Set to take the mantle by the time she was 24. 

One year. One year until she was thrust into a world she felt she had no business being a part of. She was deeply frightened of the beyond and frantically searched for any way out.

July 27. The announcement of King Raphael’s Selection.

↳ falling action

「 a wayward path forward 」

Running away from family was new for Ivy. That had always been Kennedy’s expertise. Ran straight to her grave. Filling out the Selected application was even worse, from laughing with her parents at the absurdity and throwing the envelope away to digging in the trash bin at 2 in the morning. Submitting it during a feigned trip to the library. Even afterwards, she had convinced herself that the likelihood of being chosen was practically inconceivable. Vizzini would’ve been proud.

The leak was the tipping point. The office had been abuzz with the news of King Raphael’s extremely public error, but Ivy was none the wiser until Alba’s incessant video calls forced her into lunch. It took two sentences for Ivy to slam ‘end’ and dive straight into Tweeter. “Did you see? King Doof-ael leaked the Selected names.” If Ivy had stayed on the call, she would’ve discovered that her name was safely tucked away on a slip of paper until that evening’s Report. Instead, she panicked. Her father noticed. The truth was revealed. All before her name was even officially announced.

Screaming in the Min and Adair household hadn’t been heard since Kennedy’s accident. Neither parents or grandparents thought Ivy would be the one to bring it back, drowning out the poor voice of Justin Timberpond once her name had been aired for verbal confirmation. “Why have you chained yourself to such an archaic tradition?!” “You’re bright! Capable of greater things instead of a meaningless throne!” “That man has already proved himself incapable of leading a country if he needs to find a wife this way!” For once, they were a united front. Against her. And for once, she didn’t care that they yelled.

Each day leading up to her sendoff had been a battle. Long talks with her mother that always ended with, “I’m making a different choice. Different does not mean wrong.” Jae-sung pleaded for her to let someone else go, her grandfather all but ignored her. Even Ha-eun came to Ivy with her renowned mandu dumplings and naengmyeon as a scapegoat to discover the real reason as to why her granddaughter had up and unsettled every plan set in motion.

Ivy kept her truth to herself, as she almost always did. She didn’t know what her life would look like a year from now and it thrilled her, despite the pain buried deep in her chest. All that mattered was that she had taken every possibility and turned it into a wayward path forward. Forward.