She screams, and suddenly it’s all a tragedy because it reaches beyond the first layer of his skin. She screams and it’s all lost to limbo in the way it riles him up from the materials of his very bones. She screams and the sound remains prolonged between the cages by his heart, amplified louder in the confines of his mind. She screams and it is suddenly easy to stop breathing, because his lungs respond to her screams in the way they cease, immediately. She screams and suddenly his lips part, remaining ajar as if to scream himself.
He wants to scream with her but his own remain silenced, only left to eat him from the insides.
He is patient with her, and he only moves when all the sound leaves her; he only acts when she is finished, when all noise has left her systems to be bare for him. And then he only pulls her closer, pushing bodies together and letting his warmth overwhelm her lack of it. Every limb holds her, dear and with promises that come with a sense of completion. She trembles in his arms like an earthquake and he remains still like aged bedrock beneath the shaken dirt above. There is a storm inside of her that she has let him into momentarily through her thunderous shriek; the typhoon only rages on and it hits his body too, but he is ready for impact.
It’s maybe a far fetched idea, and it may only work in films or in fictitious worlds they may only dream of – but he deems it’s worth a shot. Then soon his palms slip from her sides and they graze up the length of her arms, squeezing her shoulders once before they climb further up the mountain. They finally come to her face and his hands hold her cheeks. His touch is gentle, never empowering and only soft. Their eyes meet and he gives her a smile, which says more than words ever could for him. He displays courage through teeth, strength through the curves of his lips. They exchange that gaze for a while and he holds it.
And then he draws near, closing his lips upon hers. Once again, there are no words with their met lips and he does not dare to murmur against them. He does not speak and only kisses her, to remind her of his presence, of his sense of being present and here. He confesses what he cannot through letters by the movement of his lips against hers. It is a language only the two of them understand, so he confesses, everything that possibly flashed his mind.
( I love you. )
( I’ll love your hands, no matter if they’re stained with red or black. I’ll still love you when you wake trembling, screaming as you are now with your hands around my throat. I’ll love the way your fingers are around my neck and the way you are the one reminding me how dear every breath is. Call me mad, but I’ll love the way you make me choke, and I’ll love you even more as you breathe into me when the shadows pass you the moment our eyes meet again.
I loved you before as a shattered piece not belonging to the rest of the puzzle. I will love you even more now, because there is beauty in your scars and there are stories I still have yet to hear from your lips embedded between the lines of your palms.
I will love you sane or insane, because I am neither sane or insane. I will love you on the ledge, and I will love you as you lose balance in your feet. And I will definitely love you as you fall into my arms after the fall, and I’ll love you as I murmur by your ear, “that fall wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I’ll fall in love harder when you tell me how you kept yourself conscious alone and away from all of civilization, and I’ll fall even harder when you tell me how you’ve endured through it all and that amongst all of it, I was somewhere in your mind too.
I will love you when I open the door and find you by the sink, the water running and wasting away as you try to cleanse something I cannot see with my eyes but view only through my heart and in the way your hands jitter helplessly in my own palms. I will love you all over again as I kiss each of your fingers, and dare not dip my hands into the running water besides us. I will love you as I touch all over your hands with the desire to share the red with you, because what’s yours is mine and what is mine is yours.
I will love you surely and slowly, especially when I see the way you were never whole to begin with the moment their hands had way with you. I will love you and remind you that is okay to not be whole, because I will complete you in the hollow spaces of your body which you cannot fill as a single, breathing soul.
I’ll love you when you tell me the voice in my head speaking to me ever so softly that you were still alive was you all along, after all this time.
I have loved you because it was you all along.
I love you because it is still you, all along.
I will love you because it will always be you, all along. )
She carries the weight of the world on her shoulders like Atlas. Slumped shoulders, a hunched back, and the phantom creak of bones haunt her every waking day as her body struggles under the burden of seven point something billion sinners. The secrets of the city weigh heavy in the cradle of her arms and the close of her lips. The sins of every person she meets -- the moans and groans of the unfortunate, the depraved, the ravaged -- and tragedy of the city itself, however, is not the heaviest weight to bear. Because nothing is heavier than the monster living inside lock and key in the labyrinth of her mind.
No one has ever told her that being a martyr meant happy endings were nonexistent.
Those who split themselves open at the seams to embrace the shadows and demons people wish didn’t exist inside of themselves are robbed of an opportunity to seize happiness with both hands. Horror and guilt are but by-products of her self-sacrifice. No one asked her to do it. No one asked her to reach out with her trembling hands to take hold of these ghosts and welcome them into cavity of her chest and house them in spaces between her ribs, cage them beneath brittle bones and fragile skin. This skeleton body of hers exists as an abandoned house. A prison for all the parts that people hide behind layers of facades and well-kept masks structured out of paper-thin skin and false bravado.
And Jieun...Jieun, like the goddamned fool she is, holds out her arms and welcomes them all.
She knows what to do with guilt. With pain. With suffering and tragedy. What she doesn’t know is how to deal with his love. It seeps out of him like smoke from a burning house and burns her to the core. His touch sizzles and crackles and her treacherous body bows and crumbles like a rickety foundation with spiderweb cracks formed by his gentle touch, every kiss, his warmth. His kiss shatters the line of deadbolts and locks and the walls she has painstakingly built for nineteen years disintegrates like fire to a thin sheet of paper.
She’s got nothing but a paper heart.
He touches her and she can feel the weight of the world lessen, the hungry shadows retreat (stop snarling, wither and cower under the light she thinks she sees radiate from every inch of his skin), the voices quiet. Blessed silence occupies her mind for a split second until she’s inundated by a violent wave of something akin to happiness.
Jieun almost wilts under the press of his lips (when had he even breached the distance between them? when had he even learned how to silence the rampant howls of the sick, the innocent, and the tiny voice crying for help that is her? when had he known that loving her would make her fragile heart beat like war drums in the hollow of her chest -- something akin to the tune of a funeral march that spelled her impending doom? when had loving him made her so incredibly weak?).
She almost lets her eyes close and succumb.
Almost.
But that’s the thing with almost. Almost there. Almost dead. Almost happy. Almost is her own destruction disguised as temporary hope. She chokes on the lingering what if’s, the what could’ve been’s, the i’m sorry’s, and the tiny oh so quiet i love you too and lets his i love you’s systematically destroy her from the inside out. She memorizes every word he spills from his lips to her, his mind to hers, imprints it on the very essence that is her soul, and then she lets herself die a second time in the aftermath of his quiet confession.
When she kisses him back, it is with the fervor of a dying woman with poison in her veins and a thousand secrets etched in the palms of her hands. She swallows his love, keeps it buried in the treasure chest in the corner of her bleeding heart and gives ugly bits of herself in return.
There is war in my blood, Mikoto. Scarlet red dripping from every inch of my soul. No matter how many times I scrub my hands raw (no matter how many times you kiss them better), you cannot rid something that you cannot see, something that exists inside of me. I cannot bring myself to love you yet because I’ve been coded to love tragedy. The suffering of others. The violence and guilt of sinners. It remains infused in the hairline fractures of my bones and the poison traveling through my veins and eating every inch of my body from the inside out.
I’m rotten to the core, love.
You cannot be there to catch me as I fall every time. Because who’s going to catch you when you fall? What will happen when you stumble head first and tumble over the edge and I don’t catch you -- when I watch you hit the ground and shatter? Will you cry when you realize that I can only mourn your broken body when it lies in pieces on red-stained cement, love you only when you’re torn to shreds and snatched away from me?
Oh God, you love me. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not enough. Because how can a boy like you love a tragedy like me?
You cannot seek to rewrite a book that is destined to end in an ellipsis. A book with a fractured spine and dog-marked pages, running ink and smudged words, stained edges, and missing chapters.
You cannot possibly love me whole or love me broken. You cannot love me at all.
Because I am convinced that I am not worthy.
After all, what’s a weed have to offer the sun?
What can a girl like me possibly give to a boy like you?
Her lips part, the words crowd at the tip of her tongue. Her confession lingers, then vanishes. Jieun says nothing.
“Jay you already fucking made a follow forever maybe a month ago, yeah I know but my favorite writers are never appreciated enough, suck my nonexistent peewee – I’m going to appreciate them one last time before I disappear” aka dlvby / vepid / 635mph / reverieo’s follow forever version 1.5 nonsense!
My last thing before uni takes hold of me and never lets me go till probably Christmas break / January when fall semester finishes… haha… [nervous laughter into the distance…] (I HAVE EXACTLY 14 DAYS BEFORE I START UNI SO PLEASE AGGRESSIVELY WRITE WITH ME TILL THEN I’M ON MY KNEES??? Thank you.) Anyway. I just want to let you all know that this summer was probably one of the best roleplay experiences in all five years I’ve pretended to be someone else and you all were apart of it somehow and in contribution so I just, really, really would like to take this time to thank everyone. Because this will be my second-to-last summer on roleplay, it really is important to me and I’m kinda feeling emotional and things!!! I don’t deserve any of you in the least.
So thank you, honestly, earnestly and sincerely. Thank you. – From, Jay-z.
Outside, someone opened their window to look at the rain falling down from the sky. Soojung wanted to do the same but she found herself lost in a thread of thoughts she didn’t expect at this hour. The cat on her left was sleeping peacefully while her mind had been wide awake since the last texts. Confusing her enough to give her a reason to doubt.
Frightening feeling in the middle of the night.
Wide eyes on the phone, frustrated look on her face. What was she waiting for? A sign for nothing but dust. Life and all the drama coming from it didn’t interest her, nothing but pain. The blanket now at her feet, she was waiting for something that may never come.
People would call it hope, un espoir. An undetectable glimpse hiding in the spark of her eyes, a delectable feeling in her heart as if it started to beat for the first time. Soojung had to remind herself words didn’t mean anything, they were easy to erase and forget but deep inside, there was only one person able to make her feel that way, to wake up her mind on a rainy day. Yet, she learnt at a young age, what was gone couldn’t come back.
But her eyes couldn’t lie to her. That was her name.
[ txt / inconnu ] : You know my name, but how do I call you?
Her closest friends would never try to prank her, not with a subject as fragile as this. Soojung felt lost and confused, tired to be played with. That person kept sending her messages and truly, it felt more like arrows digging in the unhealed wounds she had on her skin. Words were nothing important, keep that in mind.
But the shaking hands holding her phone revealed the impact the texts had on her.
[ txt / inconnu ] : Who are you talking about?
Don’t play dumb Soojung.
[ txt / inconnu ] : I never walk away.
If the one behind those texts knew her, then they’d know she wasn’t lying. Never walk away.
Wretched is the name of the feeling clogging her throat, burning a path down to settle like acid at the pit of her stomach. Her veins are on fire; her body disintegrates into ashes. And when she bleeds, she bleeds black.
Breathe, darling. Breathe. She inhales hope and exhales despair.
Jieun remembers once upon a time when nostalgia wasn’t so poisonous. So corroding and treacherous. She remembers when she didn’t feel the need to inflict pain, when she didn’t need validation. She remembers a time when she was always forgiving and considerate and so entirely self-effacing, it was disgusting to look back on. She remembers the smile she’d worn (the one that made her eyes form half moons and hurt her cheeks) whenever Soojung would walk into her periphery, the way her soul became attuned to her presence and her body hummed in anticipation (she’s here. she’s here! her heart would rejoice. and her soul would tingle as though someone had dipped a hand into the core of her and caressed it with utmost affection), the way her heart would stop beating for a fraction of a second and then beat double time as though in the span of one shaky inhale and exhale, her body had thought now was the perfect time to die if she wanted (content and in the presence of someone she wholeheartedly cherished and cared for).
She remembers.
But what Jieun remembers most is her name. The way it sounded coming out of her mouth: slightly breathless, and maybe more than a little relieved. The first time Jieun had said her name, it’d been out of fear. Anticipation. Horror, even. Nothing more than a mere whisper. It had felt odd; the syllables foreign on her tongue. But the moment Soojung had escaped from her mouth, Jieun knew that she’d never forget the taste of it on her tongue: sweet, genuine, and all too familiar. Like salvation. Like deliverance. Like blessed serenity.
Soojung tasted stale now. Like the bitter aftertaste of tea left sitting for too long or hours old coffee. Lukewarm and hard to swallow. Jieun had never meant for them to become like this -- so distant, a invisible chasm created by time and death. She knows she cannot go back to the way they were before she died -- before the island snatched her sympathy and swallowed her whole, only to spit her back out with fang marks etched into her flesh and a void where her heart should be. She should’ve been immune to it all: the indifference, the casual dismissal, the paranoia. She should’ve.
Then why is it that the pulsating throb in the cavity of her chest where her wretched heart pounds pathetically hurt so much?
(Maybe, Jieun would muse later, it’s because attachment is a proverbial gun to the head.)
[ ✉ — saudade ] Jieun.
[ ✉ — saudade ] You know who I’m talking about.
(Jieun’s eyes slip close. Braces herself for the pain.)
[ ✉ — saudade ] So brave. Always so brave. I’ve missed you, Soojung.
The walk from his apartment to their agreed upon meeting place is a journey of little over ten minutes—it’s ten minutes Kai does not intend to rush. He takes his time, steps measured, pace slow, in no particular hurry to rendezvous with miss ‘Alice’. After all, he’d only just returned home two nights ago - hadn’t even had time to settle back into this timeline yet - and already he’s being called out again. At this rate, sooner or later, he’s going to forget which verse is the one he belongs to. And wouldn’t that be such a shame.
A block away and his phone vibrates in his hand, a not-so-subtle signal that Jieun has probably grown tired of waiting for him to show and is prodding him along. He doesn’t respond to the message, nor does he move any faster, continuing at the same leisurely speed he’d maintained on the way there. Not even a minute later he sees her beneath the corner light. “Patience is a virtue my dear, hasn’t anyone told you that?” He doesn’t expect a reply, the question more rhetorical than functional. “So, what’ll it be this time?”
The ghosts of her past swarm all around, their tendrils snaking up her legs, coiling around her waist, draping over her shoulders -- they are an infestation of the mind; their voices poison corrode the false calm she drapes around her like a second skin. Fingernails dig deep into the palm of her hands, forming grooves of half centimeters on the white of her skin. Anxiety does not treat her kindly and paranoia strikes back in the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.
Remember why you’re here.
She knows why she’s here.
Her heart feels heavy. Her eyes are bloodshot. She hasn’t slept for two days, having spent a majority of it thinking, over and over again. Jieun knows once she goes through with this, there will be no turning back. Remember, Mother had told her once upon a time. The truth may not be what you expect and it may hurt so much more knowing. But she’s been hurt so many times before, pain has become something her body readily accepts, braces itself for. She doesn’t mind it anymore. She was used to it, after all.
It’s okay if it hurts. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.
(Reassurance shouldn’t sound so much like a broken record, a dumb mantra.)
She only looks up when she hears him. Doesn’t bother to respond to his words. She has no time for patience. Jieun had been patient for too long. And of all the things she’d learn on the island, it was time waited for no one. So she doesn’t greet him. There’s no how have you been? or where have you gone this whole time? what brought you back? why are you back? They don’t operate by exchanging niceties and feigning camaraderie. There’s nothing friendly at all about their relation.
Business, Jieun reminds herself. This is just business.
As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.
Silence greets her like an old friend when he doesn’t speak, doesn’t answer her as quickly as she had hoped he would; its claws dig into the flesh of her shoulders, its breath putrid and stank of the dead. What did you expect, child? Silence hisses into her ear. You left him. Jieun flinches as something painful squirms its way into the hollow of her chest. (She thinks it feels like a serrated edge of a knife.) You left him to suffer. Where were you when he screamed for you? The blade twists, sinks deeper, cuts her open. Where were you when he begged for you to come back, hm? Let’s face it, darling. Everybody leaves you. And it’s your own fault. Jieun forgets to breathe.
She knows this. She knows it is selfish of her to ask him to stay when all she’s ever done was leave him behind. But, like the naive girl she is, Jieun wishes – more than anything – that he would be the one to stay.
I’m staying – he says. Just like that, Jieun’s insecurity vanishes. Silence shatters and retreats to haunt her another time. “Okay,” she whispers, tremendous relief making it impossible to raise her voice for fear of jinxing it. Thank you.
She doesn’t expect him to touch her hair and she almost shifts away reflexively, but catches herself in time; the gesture reduced to a mere cringe, followed by a tiny hunch of her shoulders. Jieun only stiffens the slightest bit when he says she looks beautiful. Don’t say that, she protests inwardly. I’m not. Instead, she bites her lip and doesn’t tell him what she’s thinking. It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing else mattered right now.
“No.” She can’t sleep. She has not been able to sleep for months. Sleep was elusive – a good night’s rest nonexistent. Her nights are plagued by the dead, contaminated by the screams of those who had suffered and are still suffering. Save us, please! Help me! Jieun closes her eyes and she thinks the taste of blood will never leave her mouth. She doesn’t remember the last time she’d slept. But she doesn’t tell him that either.
Jieun lets him tuck the sheets around her, lets him coddle her – if only because, deep down, she knows with him around the shadows retreated, the voice quieted just a fraction, and she could finally finally hear herself think. Serenity was only within reach because his body was a shield, his voice a balm, his embrace a sanctuary. So she says nothing and simply leans back against the headboard, rests her head against his shoulder, and listens.
Mikoto’s voice is soothing, so incredibly lulling, she finds her eyes fighting to stay open at times. But sleep slips through her fingers like sand and Jieun almost, almost, hears the whispers in the back of her mind again, buzzing like a hive of incessant bees. Feeling anxious, she shifts ever closer, her fingers beginning to curl into the thin sheets, twisting as though the more tightly she held on, the more anchored she would feel.
Will you still love me when you find out just how stained my hands are? Will you still love me when I startle awake, screaming bloody murder, thinking I’m still on the island and attack you with my hands squeezing your throat? Will you still stay if you realize just how damaged I’ve become, how close I’ve come to teetering on the edge of insanity and with one slight push, I might go toppling over? Will you still love me when you find out what the island has done to me and the horrible things that occurred there? Will you still love me when you catch me in the bathroom after a long day of classes, washing my hands, my skin scrubbed raw because the blood -- there’s so much blood..why won’t it come off...? please...please! get it off...GET IT OFF!! help me..please -- won’t wash away? Will you love me even when I’m so broken –
He’s a liar, that one. The voices breach the haze, chill her to the core, and Jieun shudders involuntarily. The shadows lingering at the edge of the doorway waver and then creep forward. They’re coming. They’re coming for you, darling. Shaking her head, she tries once more to focus, her body beginning to curl in on itself as if it knew instinctively that she wanted to hide, to run away again. They’ll never leave you alone. We’ll never leave you. Why do you ask him to stay when you have us? (Go away, please.) Ungrateful child. We were there for you when he was not. We were there when everyone abandoned you. When they thought you died. Come now, dear. Close your eyes and succumb. Let go. Come to us. We’ll help you.
Unfortunately, Joonmyun misses her reaction. He watches the cashier scan grocery item after grocery item, waiting patiently for his cue to swipe the credit card. What he doesn’t miss, however, is the stumble backwards the female takes, noticing it from the corner of his eye but before he can address it the card machine beeps, singling that it was ready. “Oh, that’s too bad.” He murmurs, before realizing that that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say either. Good fucking job, Joonmyun. He thinks while punching numbers into the credit machine with his head bent to hide his mild embarrassment.
After a measured length of time the other woman speaks up again. Her words surprise him and it takes him a moment to soak it all in. Was his brother really lucky to have him? It was an odd sentiment to think about, one he had never actually considered.
“I’ve never been told that before…” He murmurs in response, mind still trying to wrap around the idea of being needed for once instead of being the one who needed. It was almost a foreign concept to him. He was used to being independent, living how he pleased. No one ever needed him and as much as he liked to pretend that he didn’t need others– that was a bold face lie. He needed, wanted, ached for them just as well. “Thank you.”
“This is Yebin,” He finally replies, handing one of the lighter bags to the small girl for her to carry, “And the little sleepyhead here is Moonbin.” The little boy shifts a little in his sleep at the mention of his name but doesn’t wake up. Joonmyun can’t stifle a bout of laughter at the action, patting the child on the head gingerly.
Gathering up as much groceries as he can with his one free arm, he soon realizes that there is simply too many of them to carry by himself. And he really didn’t have that many options. He could either wake his nephew, put him down, and then carry the rest or take what he can, put the children in the car, then come back but he simply can’t leave them by themselves.
The cashier, obviously doesn’t notice his inner dilemma and begins to scan the other girls items. “I hate to ask this of you…” Joonmyun looks her in the eye for the first time, fully taking in her features. His mild embarrassment turns to full blow embarrassment when it fully registers that she was his age, possibly younger. It was definitely inappropriate to ask if she had children. He begins to falter a bit, “I’m kinda out of options but can you help me carry the last few bags to the car…please?”
She counts the number of times her breath hitches in the span of one minute: one -- his response cuts her open, flays her, and leaves her exposed flesh bleeding. Too bad, he said. She winces. Too bad, the ghosts coo in tandem, their voices dripping with sarcasm. Jieun forgets the dead will never leave her alone. Forgets they are housed in between the spaces of her ribs. She doesn’t reply. Too bad, he said. Yes, it really is too bad. Two -- his honesty is like salt on her phantom wounds, his gratitude a hand twisting into her ripped flesh.
Jieun’s face falls. His sincerity hurts.
Three, four. Two steps forward and she’s at the conveyor belt, a gloved hand dipping into her basket to place her items for checkout. She feels rigid, like she’s moving on strings. One, two. One, two. Step. Step. Three, four. Nothing more than a marionette, darling. The dead were always finding ways to slip in between the cracks of her flimsy composure, biding their time, waiting in the dark corners of her mind for her to falter. They didn’t bite. No, they scratched and clawed at her to get her to snap. Nothing more than a tool. Foolish humans don’t see your fangs. You are poison.
Jieun forgets to breathe.
Five, six. You can’t be fixed. (Yes, yes. I can.) “Yebin,” she murmurs, rolling the syllables in her mouth. Yebin. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.” She breathes. The ghosts only laugh louder. She deflates, withdraws. “Moonbin.” A gloved hand lifts, the tip of her fingers barely brushing the back of the little boy’s head, stills. Jieun freezes. She finally remembers her place, remembers that she is not human. She drops her hand, disguising her hesitation by quickly rummaging inside her backpack for her wallet. The smile she gives the wide-eyed cashier is brittle. Freak, FREAK, FREAK!
She’s turning to leave with her bag of groceries in hand, her mouth open to say a polite goodbye when she hears his voice above the clamor of the dead. There’s so much white noise, so much echoing, so much blood. Help me, please. Jieun. Jieun! JIEUN! Please, please...please! You -- you promised. You promised me it wouldn’t hurt. Liar. You’re a liar! YOU MONSTER! You good for nothin’ -- like them -- just like them! I wish it was you. Die -- Ji..eun. He--lp...
There is blood in her mouth. (It’s not hers. The blood and the foul taste of it is merely an illusion.) Her hands shake and she can feel the numbness traveling from the tips of her fingers up her arms. Help me, he says. Jieun can’t. She’s powerless to help anyone. So, she opens her mouth to deny him --
“...okay.” Seven, eight. You’re live bait. “Where’s your car?” Nine, ten. Remember, he’s not your friend.
Why the heck is Jieun such a wonderful muse??? why is she so relatable??? why does she always make me feel things??? why are her imperfections so human and why the heck can I, a human loser relate to a complicated mutant like jieun??? why is she such an eccentric, dynamic muse??? why is jieun so beautiful?? why is she not real, why can I not profess my love to jieun the muse??? why is life unfair??? why do i love jieun the muse so much????
[SMS → 내꺼] a garden... only if you promise to let me grow some cherry tomatoes! [SMS] and carrots!!!! [SMS] we were talking about new material for solar panels that we might be able to install into not just the ceilings but the walls by 2020! it's this new chemical combination we found between indium and gallium, it's really cool... ah I'm really excited to see what we can do with it! haha, i'll stfu [SMS] I still have two hours left (ノД`)/ [SMS] pasta? I know just what kind <3
[ ✉ — 니꺼 ] Promises to grow all the cherry tomatoes (and carrots! even though, I don’t like carrots ;;) Remembers to put them in your salads too~
[ ✉ — 니꺼 ] Solar energy is always something worth exploring, especially if it means energy saving and cutting back on using fossil fuels. Here’s to looking forward to renewable energy in 2020 !!
[ ✉ — 니꺼 ] Don’t shut up. I like it when you talk to me about your studies. It’s fascinating and it makes me happy seeing you so excited. Please never stop.
[SMS → 내꺼] this is... this might be really stupid, but I was sitting in lab today and I was thinking about how if I make enough money one day, I could buy a house for us and it would be our house, and you can live with me and the dogs and we can have more dogs too maybe and we can share a room and and... and other things. I dunno maybe it's a stupid thought but ah... this is stupid!!! ah!!! haha... [SMS] I'll see you later, I want to see you. I'll make dinner?
[ ✉ — 니꺼 ] Our house…I’d like that. With a backyard so we can have a garden too? ㅎㅎㅎ But why were you thinking about buying a house during lab? Please pay attention in class ㅠㅠ
Jieun wants to break him. Reach into the hollow of his chest and grab ahold of his heart and squeeze, wretch it loose and crush it beneath the soles of her feet. There is bitterness brewing beneath the surface of her skin and the telltale curl of a smirk worn crooked on her face.
“Okay.” Hope is a treacherous thing. And Jieun is entirely unsympathetic to his revelation. Yeol had had no bearings on her on a personal level. All she knew of him were hours of recorded videos of the two of them, engaging in their domestic lifestyle before Yeol had disappeared to god knows where. Yeol had been nothing more than a myth. Another pawn in the making. A distant ally. She had felt nothing akin to pain and betrayal when she realized two became one and one became some hollow part of a broken whole.
Kai’s singularity reminded her very much of herself and it had been that flicker of camaraderie that had prompted her to opt in on his crusade. To willingly become a tool at his disposal. It’d been the wrong thing to do, she realized. She was no one’s weapon.
“What are you going to do, then?”
But feigned concern is chipped away she lets compassion spill through because she thinks this the beginning of his end. She knew what it was like to hope, to cling to the what if’s. Hope can be nurtured, bred, to keep a person going. But hope, false hope, was poison of the mind. It ate at a person’s soul with each day that passes and nothing changes.
“Are you going to find him, hm?” Track him down? Demand answers? “Can you even protect him, Kai?” Think.
This is where her compassion vanishes. She has no sympathy left inside her. The island has robbed it from her. Double Helix had sucked her dry of it. She knows what it’s like to hope beyond anything. Miracles don’t happen overnight. This has to be a mistake. Yeol has to be bait. And Jieun had no time for compromised allies. The need to survive has carved the naivete right out from her soul and replaced it with subtle callousness.
Jieun does not care about Yeol. Never have, never will. Kai’s disillusions held no weight over her. Selfishness hardens her spine and she straightens, her hands curling into fists at her side. When she speaks, it is nothing more than a whisper.
“Let him go, Kai.”
He’s better off without you goes unsaid.
(After all, you lost him once. What’s stopping you from losing him again? You cannot hold the spirit of him in the palm of your hand. Set him free and save yourself. It’s better this way.)
[ ✉ > alice ] well then you’d guess rightly my dear
[ ✉ > alice ] fair enough, but doesn’t hurt to ask
[ ✉ > alice ] the usual street’s fine, shouldn’t be too many people still out at this hour
[ ✉ > alice ] see you in a few
Jieun takes no more than a passing glance at the messages before letting out a derisive huff. It would’ve been far better to meet at either one of their places, for privacy’s sake. But paranoia is an ingrained habit, a monster that feasts on her penchant for security, so logic agrees that meeting in the back alley was a far better choice. After all, they were neither friends nor allies. And she didn’t want to be caught dead alone in his place.
She makes it to the meet up place in one piece and slips into the alley, the streetlight at the corner barely passing over the tips of her sneakers. She waits, a beat. Two. The night hums around her. Crickets chirp obnoxiously. Rustling sounds at the end of the alley. The voices begin to whisper. Jieun knows she has mere minutes before she begins seeing elongating shadows creeping over her feet and the perpetual cold freezing her in place.
[ ✉ — time traveler ] I’m here. Don’t make me wait.
nefelibatx – character solidifying meme (no longer accepting bc this bum sent me everything bye. also read more because so mf long i can’t even u.u)
1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?
Seeing as Jieun’s biological parents died when she was really young, she remembers next to nothing about them – save for their names and the articles written about their lives when they were alive and how they supposedly died.
However, Jieun’s adoptive father is a different story. She thinks the utmost of her father, thinks of him so highly, she takes personal offense to anyone who insults him and who tries to belittle or undermine him – be they Double Helix people (like The Elder, for instance. Jieun, as a child, once tried to bite The Elder’s hand for blackmailing her father, and was slapped for it. She got the faint scar at the corner of her eye from being cut by his ring) or his cutthroat business partners.
She also loves her father dearly. As a child, she’d been afraid of both her adoptive parents because she knew the adoption had been arranged by Double Helix and she’d feared the people they had handpicked to adopt her would be abusive and tyrannical like the scientists at Double Helix. She’d been apprehensive, especially towards her adoptive father in the beginning. Always afraid of him because men to a five-year-old were monsters, only they didn’t live under her bed.
Jieun only began to warm up to her adoptive father on the eve of her sixth birthday when he gifted her with a treehouse. The entire process – from cutting and carving and sanding wood to painting and decorating the interior – he did it all while wearing gloves. That way, when Jieun touched any part of the treehouse, she wouldn’t be able to pick up any residual energy. It is one of the few things she can touch with her bare hands. It’s literally her sanctuary.
2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?
Jieun loves her mother as she does her father, perhaps even more. There was a quote reblogged by autotelics a few days ago that read: “Mother is God in the eyes of a child” and I find this quote most accurate when describing Jieun’s feelings towards her mother.
Her penchant for writing notes for Mikoto stems from her mother having done the same with Jieun when she refused to talk to either of her parents during the early stages of the adoption. Her mother, being a stubborn woman, utilized writing as a method of communication and a way to get Jieun to open up slowly. It started with her mother leaving little notes around where she knew Jieun frequented when she’s not hiding under the covers or in her bedroom closet that ranged from breakfast is at 8am, darling. today is pancakes. would you like to pick what’s for lunch? to hello, honey. i didn’t know what books you liked, so there’s a little of everything in the library upstairs. i’m going to order more, but i’d like an opinion to how are you feeling, dear? would you like to take a walk to the lake with me? to i love you. to the stars are shining today. want to come camp out tonight to stargaze to i made cookies. i didn’t know what you liked, so i made a little of everything. please come try some. mum can’t eat it all by herself, etc. etc.
Jieun still has boxes full of those notes she keeps under her bed in her parent’s home in London.
Eventually, Jieun broke and started writing back and then her first words to her parents were thank you one year after the adoption on Thanksgiving Day.
Jieun still has boxes full of those notes she keeps under her bed in her parent’s home in London.
The point is: Jieun loves her mother.
3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings?
No sisters. Jieun has one older brother, Jongsuk, and has a love-hate relationship going on. She loves her brother, by default. He’s her flesh and blood. She was privy to one extremely private moment when she touched Jongsuk once with her bare hands and because of it, realized that in his core, Jongsuk wasn’t evil. While she doesn’t truly know or understand his reasons for being so involved in Double Helix, she knows she cannot truly condemn him because she loves him. He’s family. Her only family left. However, that doesn’t mean Jieun doesn’t resent him for all the things he does in the name of Double Helix – everything done to the runaways, to those affiliated to Double Helix, and most of all to her.
Yes, Jieun will never forgive him for what Jongsuk made her witness the night before her disappearance, what he made her a culprit of. She hates him for that.
4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?
With her adoptive parents, absolutely no discipline since she was already raised to obey rules by Double Helix prior to her her adoption. Her parents were fairly lenient because Jieun wasn’t a troublemaker nor did she actively seek out trouble and danger. Danger comes to her.
When she was relinquished to Double Helix after her accident, however, is a different story. Discipline is non-existent when punishment for disobedience and failures were aplenty. Scare tactics were common. Dehydration and starvation something Jieun learned was not off limits. Making her witness tortures and punishments were their favorite. Making her watch was something they especially liked to do because they knew she could do nothing to save them and that the guilt will finished what they started when she was brought back into isolation for the night. Equally horrifying is when they made her watch her brother dish out the punishments.
Blackouts at the sanitarium were also things Jieun grew to hate. It’s why Jieun cannot actually fall asleep when all the lights are closed and the room is pitch black. She needs to have at least some dim light seeping in.
5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?
With her parents, yes. Very sheltered. Spoiled, even. They wanted the best for her in all aspects. What she wanted, Jieun got. But Jieun was extremely easy to please as a child. All she ever wanted was a safe place to call home and all the books at her disposal. She got it for however short a time it was.
6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?
Depends from who the question is asking.
With her parents, affection. Jieun’s parents were originally very affectionate people and it pained them to find out that Jieun did not react well to physical contact, especially when she was not expecting it. They learned to always make it a point to say: “darling, mother wants to hold you. can you let me do that?” or “can you give father a hug?” so that Jieun knows to brace herself for the repercussions of physical touch, gloves or not.
7. What was the economic status of their family?
Upper middle class, borderline upper class. Jieun’s father comes from a family who is deeply entrenched in politics, though her father doesn’t align himself with any particular party. He doesn’t want anything to do with The Parliament. Jieun’s mother is from a prominent Japanese family with ties to Yui’s father, who comes from a legacy of samurais.
8. How does your character feel about religion?
She doesn’t. Okay, well – that’s a lie. Sort of. Her view on religion is…complicated, to say the least. What I will say is she has lost her faith completely due to a past event that eradicated her beliefs. (Or so she tells herself.) She’s grown bitter over time and no longer truly believes that a God exists. But she has ingrained habits that contradict this mentality. So, I’d like say atheist–maybe borderline nihilistic on some days.
9. What about political beliefs?
She has none. No comment. Nada.
10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?
Extremely book-smart. Think Hermione Granger. She learns everything from books and has little hands-on experience in many fields. She…wings things as she goes, but she is always striving to be the best at everything. A perfectionist, this one.
11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?
Intelligent. But she is very aware that even the smartest people can make mistakes, so she’s not obnoxious in the way that some people are with their knowledge. She doesn’t try to “school” people or condemn people for things they don’t know nor does she talk down to people. Learning is a process and she is always striving to learn more.
12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?
Jieun sometimes says rather obscure and borderline philosophical things in answer to fairly mundane conversations – no matter who she’s talking to. She drifts in conversations and she sometimes says things without filtering. But take note that Jieun never actually says something she doesn’t mean. Everything she says is important or she wouldn’t say anything at all.
As for pronunciation…seeing as her vocabulary when speaking Korean isn’t as extensive as she would like it to be considering she is ethnically Korean but raised in a English and Japanese (through her mother) speaking household, it is rather pithy and elementary. She has difficulty expressing herself in Korean. Her articulation is also not that great…
13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?
Jieun wanted to like school – she really really did. But, of course, normalcy didn’t last long when Jieun couldn’t understand when her powers began to manifest in the form her of her screaming when she asks to borrow a crayon and then is privy to an abusive moment of her peer. At the time, Jieun had always wanted to believe she was normal, that she could strive to be the perfect, ordinary human child. So long as her powers were controlled. But she couldn’t do that when she didn’t even know what they were and the full extent of what was happening. The school didn’t know what to do with her either, so it was a constant back and forth struggle of sending her to the school counselor and psychologist for sessions to try and find out what was wrong with her.
It eventually led to her parents pulling her out of the private school she was in during the second grade because of bullying. She was privately tutored by teachers screened and hired by Double Helix.
14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected?
No to all the above. She was pulled out of actual school in the second grade, so she wasn’t involved in anything. Let alone have an opportunity.
15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED?
Jieun was supposedly going to attempt her A levels and the SATS, but…things happened. Let’s put it that way. What with the island fiasco and her being on the run/being hunted and needing to be on the down low, that’s not happening any time soon.
16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?
Technically, she doesn’t do anything for a living. Yes, I said it. She never got paid for her “liaison” position when she worked for Interpol and when she was “leased” out to the Feds in the States. She didn’t want money when she was using her powers to find high profile criminals.
Helping people was not (still isn’t) a job, it’s a choice. Her choice. And this makes all the difference.
17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?
Answered.
18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember?
Everything. She remembers everything: the pain, the joy, the suffering, the guilt. But the one thing that she holds dear to her heart is meeting hydriade. Despite everything that had occurred before and after meeting her when Jieun was in Seoul for a murder case, Soojung will remain the blessing amidst all the tragedy.
Soojung was and still is her lifeline. Her own personal beacon of hope, if you will.
19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?
Answered.
20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced?
None. She has never experienced any of that on a personal level. Events like 9/11 were “experienced” second-handedly. If that even answers the question…
21. What are your character’s manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate?
Well mannered. Say please and thank you. Be courteous. Treat others the way you wish to be treated. Respect is a two-way street. Give and take. Those kind of mentalities. Jieun does not believe in heroes. As for who they hate: Double Helix : ))))
22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner?
Answered.
23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?
Trust, communication, mutual respect, sincerity. As for the other question…I’m not telling you : ))))
24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?
???? I’m gonna skip this question. Because I really don’t see the relevance. And the answer is probably: none.
25. What are their hobbies and interests?
Yoga. Meditation. Collecting postcards and vintage and/or limited editions of books (specifically fairytale and mythology books). She also likes ordering the kid’s meal at McDonald’s because she gets to collect the toys that comes with it and waits until she has a lot before she donates the toys to local orphanages. Reading. Leaving little notes for Mikoto. People watching. Picking flowers. Playing with Bey, Yonce, and Yeonsoo. Coding, creating programs. Stargazing. Cooking…er…experimenting in the kitchen.
26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?
What home? Jieun no longer has one :/
27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality?
Answered.
28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?
Mate is a rather animalistic way to put it.
But to answer the question: Jieun is currently in love with Mikoto.
I can write a whole dissertation on this, but to summarize: Mikoto is her better half. He is literally the sun in her life. The one who penetrated all the walls she built to protect herself and found a home in her heart. On a soul deep level, Mikoto will be the one to get Jieun to drop her guards and live.
As for how Jieun made her choice – it was never a choice to begin with. It just happened. And that, in itself, is what makes Mikoto so special. Jieun didn’t think, simply reacted to her feelings. I have a whole drabble/oneshot thing I’m working on about her realizing her feelings for him, so I’ll stop here.
29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?
Weaknesses: tendency to compartmentalize and bottle up feelings, a reluctance to open up or fully trust anyone, her insecurity regarding her place in people’s lives, her penchant for self-sacrifice and acting on her first instinct to run away and hide, instead of fight head on, self-pitying at times.
30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?
Yes, Jieun is actually holding many things from the pasts – secrets. Like the fire at the sanitarium, the deaths (murders, she suspects) of the Winter Children or formally known as the Zodiacs to Lotus and the disappearance of the Sisters. Her parents’ actual involvement in Double Helix (why The Elder is so keen on watching them, watching her). Jongsuk’s real motives, his reasons for being so entrenched in Double Helix’s dirty deeds. So many things !!!
Jieun is always someone who gives second, third, chances. But there are certain things – people – she will never ever forgive.
31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate?
No, Jieun does not have children. Does not plan to have any in the immediate future. But some day…yes, she wants to have a family of her own.
32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?
Depends on the severity of the situation. Sometimes, Jieun would panic a little first, especially if it’s a situation she hasn’t anticipated. But, most times, she would react as though she already expected it, given her tendency to over-analyze everything.
33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?
No, Jieun does not drink. At all. Really, she hasn’t had an opportunity to try, so she doesn’t know her tolerance for it. She’s probably a lightweight, though. No drugs – as in marijuana, cocaine, etc.
If by drugs, it’s medication…then yes. The Daisy cure in the form of injections. As I already mentioned in this headcanon meme, Jieun is slowly dying. (You can read the “secrets” section for more information regarding her health there.)
34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous?
Hell no to self-righteous. More like self-pitying to a certain extent. While Jieun is not one to harbor hatred as negative emotions are so deadly to someone as emphatic as her, she does hold a considerable amount of contempt towards Double Helix and a degree of it towards her own brother, Jongsuk. She hates their ideologies and the beliefs they tried to shove down her throat (her brother’s throat), everyone’s throats.
35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?
Answered.
36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?
Well, Jieun doesn’t like to suffer. (Who does, anyway???) She’d just rather it was her suffering than someone else. Casually mentions she’s like Kaneki Ken from Tokyo Ghoul in that sense hahahaha.
37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?
“Living in memories” – took the words right out of my mouth. Jieun is constantly living in memories – her own, other people’s. She can’t help it. Every person she has touched and every object she has touched (on purpose or accidental) – their innermost secrets, their thoughts, emotions, their past, Jieun is privy to all of it.
In her dreams, she relives them. The nightmares, the memories. They are very, very real in the dream realm. So real, she can never fully differentiate what is fiction and what is reality until something/someone jolts her awake and she realizes she’d been asleep the entire time.
38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?
Jieun has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and learning, so she will never be negative when facing new things. Apprehensive, yes. Especially if it’s something she feels she can’t do or find difficult. But that doesn’t mean, she won’t try. She’ll try and try and try until she dies trying masters it.
In terms of facing unexpected events/circumstances, perhaps scared. Because Jieun hates not knowing things and if she doesn’t know something is going to happen, how will she plan? She has contingency plan after contingency plan for every little thing because paranoia refuses to leave her alone. One mistake can cost her her life and she can’t afford that now that she has someone to live for.
39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid?
Jieun doesn’t ridicule anything or anyone.
40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?
Jieun’s sense of humor is rather dry. Sarcastic, even. It might seem like she has absolutely no sense of humor since at a passing glance, she never seems to smile or laugh at anything. Terrible puns really get to her and she’ll laugh for several minutes straight.
41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?
Jieun is very aware of who she is in relation to other people. But as to who she is, Jieun is about as aware as I am. She has moments where she has these identity crises that keep her awake at night, make her get up and pace and ponder and dissect. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? What is my purpose? It plagues her not knowing or having an answer. The unknown has always been something Jieun has tried hard to avoid when necessary and analyze when her brain refuses to leave it alone.
Uncertainty is something Jieun has a hard time dealing with. So is insecurity which gets her when she least expects it and then she lingers on it for hours, days. She’ll begin questioning herself, wondering if she’s good enough. Her penchant for bottling up her feelings/compartmentalizing is a major flaw, despite having developed this as a coping mechanism. It’s second nature for her to avoid speaking of her discomfort, sadness, or negative feelings and to just hold it within herself and wallow in it. Her need to help people also results in her opening herself up for pain and suffering. I would say she has a bit of a martyr complex.
Her tendency to observe, catalogue the little things, means she notices everything. She just chooses not to mention or say anything. Nothing gets by her. Nothing. She makes a fantastic listener and is extremely loyal. Once she dedicates herself to you and trusts you, she will open up. Whether she truly opens up to anyone remains to be seen, but there are one or two people Jieun has already opened up to in the past and in the present.
42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?
To be happy and freedom are the two wishes that come in tandem. Jieun just wants to live, as a human being – which isn’t really possible in the technical sense because reality is, she’s a mutant. Living and existing are not synonymous and all her life, Jieun has merely been existing as a pawn in a chess game she didn’t even know she was playing, a pawn to be used whenever people needed her. A tool always at someone else’s disposal. A marionette moving with every tug of a puppeteer’s strings. Jieun hates it. She wants to live by her own accord.
She already sacrificed a part of herself – hell, Jieun died. Lee Jieun on paper is dead, her body lost in the Pacific, never recovered. If it means she has to die again for Double Helix to be taken down, Jieun is willing to die a second time.
Because, after all, there is liberation in death.
43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back?
Jieun’s entire existence is a secret. She is made up of secrets – hers, yours, your friends, strangers, the dead. She is a literal secret keeper for the living and the dead. And these secrets have always come back to haunt her in broad daylight, in the dead of the night, in between the lull of a rainy Tuesday morning.
Secrets are what forces Jieun to be so reticent even in the company of those she cares deeply for. I don’t foresee Jieun ever spilling all her secrets because even if she does, she’ll obtain more. Her ability to steal and keep secrets is what makes her such a powerful asset (and an adversary not to be underestimated) to Double Helix in the first place.
The one person to which Jieun has started to open up slowly to is Mikoto.
44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?
Very badly. Her greatest aspiration has always been to live freely, away from Double Helix’s toxic influence and surveillance. The only reason she chose to align herself with Kai’s vision to destroy Double Helix is that the result would be they all get to live the way they want.
Currently, Jieun is working with both Akira and Yui on executing a plan. With Jieun as bait, Yui and Akira will be working behind the scenes to systematically infiltrate Double Helix (first through its connections, then up the rigid hierarchy) and destroy it from the inside out. Yui has already contacted a supposed ally (Dahlia), who has already infiltrated Double Helix and has been gathering intel for her for years. An enemy turned spy. Though, Jieun herself does not trust this ally of theirs because of their complicated history. But desperate times calls for desperate measures.
45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?
Jieun may seem idealist and seem to possess the qualities of a dreamer, she is actually very much rooted in logic. She is a thinker and entirely focused on planning before execution. More an analyst than a pioneer or go-getter. Her role as support and defense in Kai’s plan to take down Double Helix (prior to her betrayal) has always reduced her to the sidelines. Her inability to fight physically because she’s small and relatively weak and highly untrained in combat or even basic self-defense is a flaw. Jieun is definitely not all action and never will be, despite what the island taught and did to her.
46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body?
She is short in stature – petite, standing at 162cm. However, according to BMI index, she would be categorized as underweight for her height seeing as she weighs about 95 pounds. She’d been starved once upon a time and due to other factors, her growth stunted and for a brief period was malnourished as a result of starvation and neglect.
Jieun is extremely self-conscious of her body. She always finds something to nitpick about: be it her scars, the bruises that form easily on her skin, the way she can count her ribs if she just sucked in a deep breath, the tiny needle marks –barely visible to the untrained eye – on the bend of her arms and on the nape of her neck, the brand of a cross between her shoulders, the scar from getting impaled in the chest, etc. No matter how small a flaw, she will catalogue it and that insecurity will bubble to the surface when she least expects it.
47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?
Jieun used to want to project a happier image of herself or rather a stronger version of herself to prove that she will not bend or break under Double Helix’s ministrations and attempts to whittle her down to a mere shell of herself. She still projects a somewhat stronger version of herself now that she survived the island ordeal if only so she does not succumb to the demons plaguing her.
It’s a constant struggle, emotionally and psychologically to be strong in all aspects. It’s taxing and it almost always backfires and she pays for it in the form of severe nightmares and through reliving her memories (hers, someone else’s – it doesn’t matter) in her dreams.
In the past, Jieun wanted more than anything to be visible. For people to notice her and acknowledge her. But it was a childish dream because she can’t be noticed, visible, in the spotlight. Because there are repercussions. There always are and it’s taken her years to learn that being invisible is a much better option. For survival’s sake, especially now that she’s being hunted.
48. How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?
She doesn’t gesture very often. Usually, it’s only when she’s nervous trying to explain herself (see question below), when she’ll be kind of waving her hands as if that will help her brain summon the words she wants to say correctly in Korean faster.
49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?
Soft. Very soft. It’s why she’s often overlooked or talked over because she is not really someone capable of raising her voice for the sole purpose of being heard above the clamor of other people vying for someone else’s attention. In Double Helix, being in isolation with rarely anyone to talk to on a daily basis, forged her silent demeanor. She speaks, yes. When spoken to. When she has something to say. Listen when she talks because she never says anything for no reason. There is usually hidden meaning, subtext, layered in her vernacular. She’s the type that notices everything, but chooses not to say anything unless absolutely necessary.
When she’s nervous, she has a tendency to find it hard to articulate herself, especially in Korean. I would say her vocabulary would be at middle school level at best and she often gets extremely frustrated with herself when she can’t find the right words to express herself. She’ll stumble over her words, probably wrack her brain for English or Japanese equivalent, and then try to gesticulate or mime what she’s trying to say. If she’s still not understood, she huffs and sighs and tries all over again until she’s red in the face.
50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?
Jieun looks like she’s perpetually lost in thought. She has a habit of drifting in the middle of conversations and gets lost in the voices whispering in her head, in background noise, in distant chatter. Sometimes, it’s hard for her to focus on one thing at a time and she gets overwhelmed. Neither frown nor actual smile (except when in Mikoto’s company does she smile because it comes naturally in his presence). Just…lost, really, is the best way I can explain it.
