At Musseulmo High School, a student known as Poor Girl Kim Ok-vin drifts through the hallways with a stuffed doll strapped to her back, which she calls Poverty. She comes from a very poor family and shares a one-room apartment with her chronically ill mother Im Ye-jin, whose mounting debt weighs heavily on both of them. To help pay her mother's bills, Poor Girl has turned to prostitution, bearing a heavy burden of guilt and shame that has driven her to contemplate suicide. Her only friend seems to be the doll, until a new client arrives and subtly shifts her world.
That new client is a cross-dresser Lee Won-jong who is looking for a girl to play sisters with. Poor Girl finds a rare connection with him and begins to open up about her troubles, sharing the weight she carries and the fragility of her situation. She also confides in her secret longing to date her classmate Anthony Park Jin-woo, a boy who seems to live in a different stratosphere of privilege.
Anthony comes from a wealthy background; his adoptive Swiss diplomat parents have given him a life of comfort and superficial polish. At first his behavior is shallow and materialistic, a shield that hides deeper uncertainties. That façade begins to crack when he encounters Double Eyes Lee Eun-sung, the sister of Cyclops Lee Kyeon, a social outcast at Museulmo High who is mocked for his single eye and routinely the target of cruel jokes. Captivated by Double Eyes at a restaurant, Anthony falls for her almost instantly, unaware of the truth she hides—a secret that could complicate their budding romance.
Meanwhile, the school’s atmosphere starts to shift in eerie ways. The students who rarely cared about exams suddenly become obsessed with studying for college entrance tests, even at the expense of dating and normal teenage pleasures. This quiet upheaval suggests that something larger is at play, pulling at the students’ priorities and testing loyalties, friendships, and the lines between desire, duty, and survival.
The film weaves together a broad tapestry of characters that enrich the central relationships. There are moments of tenderness and tension as Poor Girl’s precarious life intersects with Anthony’s world of privilege, and as Cyclops and Double Eyes reveal layers of vulnerability behind their outward exteriors. The story is told with a measured, observant eye, balancing sympathy with candor as it examines how social pressures, personal trauma, and the longing for connection collide in a high school that feels at once ordinary and uncanny.
The cast thread runs through several memorable appearances that add texture to the narrative. Kim Soo-mi appears as Cameo, bringing a sharp, knowing presence to a scene of brief but telling significance [Kim Soo-mi].(/actor/kim-soo-mi) The film also features Chung Chung-hoon as Homeless, grounding the darker undercurrents in a stark, human reality [Chung Chung-hoon]. The world of Museulmo High is further colored by Seo Jeong-gyu’s quiet Announcer, a small but steady thread in the campus tapestry [Seo Jeong-gyu], and by a network of friends and onlookers who populate the margins: Yoo Gun as Anthony's spiked-hair friend, Nam Ho-jeong as the Vice President Girl, Hye-won Park as the Class Monitor, and Lee Min-hyeok as Anthony's pompadour-wearing friend [Lee Min-hyeok]. The recurring figures of Double Eyes and Two Eyes are portrayed by Lee Eun-sung, whose dual roles echo the film’s themes of visibility and perception [Lee Eun-sung].
