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Park, meanwhile, argues nonstop with his father over driving lessons, and incurs Jamie’s verbal and even physical wrath as he struggles to learn to drive a stick-shift (manual) car. Over the next several weeks, as Eleanor and Park’s friendship turns to romance, Eleanor tries to ignore bullying from Tina and the other girls which comes in the form of menstrual pads stuck on her locker and disgusting, sexually explicit notes written on her textbook covers. The next morning on the bus, Park reaches for Eleanor’s hand and holds it, and both of them feel emotions and desires they’ve never felt before. One night, Park brings a comic over to Eleanor’s house for her to read only to realize, when Richie opens the door, that things in Eleanor’s home life are strange and difficult. When Park forgets to bring comic books one day, he pulls out his Walkman and lets Eleanor listen to some of his New Wave tapes instead-the two of them soon begin talking and discussing the music they both love. As Eleanor and Park ride the bus to and from school together every day, Park notices Eleanor reading his comic books over his shoulder-and soon begins bringing some along for her to read, as well. Eleanor’s home life is impoverished and depressing-Park’s is solidly middle-class and relatively happy, but his embarrassment over his immigrant mother, Mindy, and his clashes with his strict, hypermasculine father, Jamie, leave him feeling out of place and alone. She has recently returned to Omaha to rejoin her mother, Sabrina, and her four siblings in her stepfather Richie’s house, a year after having been kicked out during a cataclysmic fight with the drunken, abusive Richie. Eleanor herself is nervous about the start of sophomore year. When a new girl boards the bus-a heavy-set redhead with wild curls and a bizarre taste in clothing-no one lets her sit down but Park, who saves her at the last minute from the popular kids’ taunts.

Park, who is half Korean, has gone through high school so far hoping to remain mostly invisible. Park takes the bus to school each morning, navigating its fragile social territory by listening to music to drown out the noise of the dumb, popular kids at the back like Steve and Tina-kids who mostly like Park but still make racist jokes in his direction. In August of 1986, it is the start of Park Sheridan’s sophomore year of high school.