#mi.me2

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ who exactly are you? ❜❜

a starter : only a kiss

this isn’t the first time they met.

jinah chalks it up to coincidence. this isn’t the first time jinah’s saved the girl from an awkward encounter, and this isn’t the first time she’s seen the girl, either. once, she had been there to help jinah get out of a particularly messy situation by pretending to be her friend in passing. she didn’t get her number then because it had been inconsequential, because she walked away quickly after that in an attempt to get out of the general vicinity. there’s no way they keep saving each other by accident, and now, again, jinah’s wiping alcohol off of her perfectly white top after she broke a glass over a man’s head for the same girl. the man’s friends drag him away quickly after that, but jinah’s temper doesn’t dissipate as quickly.

at least now she’s slightly drunk and a little braver.

“i was going to ask you that,” she points out, thanking the bartender for the tissues he hands her way, and pats down her front. “i keep seeing you and i don’t know why. are you following me? trying to get in trouble to attract my attention or something?” she pauses and finally looks up. “that’s kinda cute, actually. you’re kinda cute. so who are you?”

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ how can you smile in moments like this? ❜❜

a starter : wrong number

when she called the number to pick her up from a recent kill, she doesn’t expect a new face. or maybe she called the wrong number. she’s sure, of course, that she called the right clean-up crew, because it was the same person who answered on the phone every single time, but this driver is new – oh. right. it was the number she found on a card clutched in the dead woman’s hand. she decides to say nothing of it, and go with the flow. 

“what? it’s fun.” she doesn’t take off her mask yet, and settles in the dark back seat covered in blood that is entirely not her own. her hands are still trembling from the adrenaline, the excitement of the hunt, and she even laughs a little, covering her mouth with the back of her hand like that’ll muffle the noise in this small space. “i asked for a ride, as per usual, and not your twenty questions or your judgement, thank you.” she looks up then, and places her hands over the driver’s seat, at the driver’s shoulder. she means to spook her a bit. maybe if she asks really vague questions, jinah will know whether to get out of this car quicker than she normally would. “so, what’s your name, honey? you drive around people like me often, or what?”

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ i don’t know if you know that you have an annoying personality. ❜❜

a starter : rebellion

jinah doesn’t make a habit of getting to know many of her colleagues. in a pit of snakes they’re all just clambering and crawling over one another, vying for space, for sustenance, for glory. it’s a snake-eat-snake world out here, so she doesn’t pretend that she’s on anyone else’s level but her own. it just so happens that she’s pretty damn sure she’s better than a good half of them, including this one. she would’ve carried on snubbing him had he not spoken up when they passed each other by, and she raises her eyebrow, turning a little by her heel.

“excuse me?” normally, she wouldn’t be this easily provoked, but today can easily be qualified as a shitty day. she and qian fought (again), she’s been told off for maxing out her credit cards (again) and she generally isn’t having it anymore, especially if it’s unwarranted. (to be fair, she did explicitly and quite obviously pretend that he wasn’t even there even when he tried to strike up conversation.) it’s not her fault she’s not ready for any kind of niceties or politeness. “listen, buddy, does it look like i give a shit about your opinion? i don’t know if you know that you have an annoying personality, too.” 

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ i see through all your lies. ❜❜

a starter : poker face

jinah doesn’t gamble.

she likes it too much to do it too often. jinah doesn’t get obsessed, but she does get very invested in these games, and it either ends up with her paying all her credit card debt for the briefest of moments, or owing even more, that she has to call jieun for help. it might be a once-in-a-while thing, but it definitely has more than single-moment consequences. 

but she’s here for work, truly. call it scoping out her playing field, getting to know the world of her next victim. she doesn’t know any of these people, and it’s just as well that tonight, they all happen to be wearing masks. jinah especially got a greek tragedy mask for the night, and smiled beneath it as she’s accused of being less than a wonderful liar. the absolute fucking nerve of this guy! “oh?” she doesn’t give much more than that, and laughs a little, holding her cards close to her chest, before setting them down flat on the table. “i’m afraid you don’t, darling. i fold.” which, in her terms for the night, truly means: shove it, asshole. you don’t know jack shit. – and this, she hoped, he could ‘see’, too. 

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ if you don’t intend on speaking the truth, get out of here. ❜❜

a starter : bullseye, bullshit

"i’m telling you,” she insists, hands on her hips and surprisingly stable considering how very, very, very drunk she is. to keep it that way, she places her hand on the high table. she doesn’t remember his name or why they’d gotten into this stupid bet, but this is one of the worst dive bars in town with the best whiskey anyone could ever sell, and its dart board has seen its fair share of jinah’s expertise.

this isn’t the first time she’s dealt with a sore loser, and a guy at that. she doesn’t even try to match his height – she knows her limits, thank you very much, and at the moment it feels like the tiniest shift in posture can make her topple over – but she hiccups and reaches for her drink instead, downing as much as she can before placing it on the table. 

“i’m just really, really good. no training or anything. maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s maybelline,” she drunkenly slurs, hiccups, and laughs, all in that order. what do you get when you give a hitman with a penchant for knives some sharp things to throw? of course she’d want another game. “look – look, how about another round? to prove i wasn’t cheating.”

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ i think life is all about luck. today, you’re not lucky. ❜❜

a starter : the sword

jinah is a knife kinda gal. there’s always something graceful and silent about them, and other than her own hands, they’re somewhat a favourite. they’re an obsession, by jinah’s standards: she has about three glass cases on display and other countless locked suitcases in a storage unit with a dead girl’s name on it. 

when she bought something online, she thought was a knife. it was bigger than she expected.

the thing is, she’s not particular to swords, no matter how well she can use them, and she doesn’t have room for one right now (and, besides, the only swords she collects are from the anime that she likes). she tried reselling it, tried contacting the seller, and still nothing worked. after a scathing review online, the next best thing was to have it pawned for money. she could’ve killed the seller, could’ve had one of their hackers track them down so she could wring their throat and steal all their money for tricking her, but no. that’s even more work than it’s worth.

the entire journey had already been a mentally-exhausting one, and she at least deserved a peaceful ride to the pawn shop. she even waited until the pawn shop was almost closed. everything was fine up until she exited her car, and up until she found herself getting pressed against her car by a man’s arm.

“wow, god, the first time i do something normal, this is what happens?” she sighs, despite the pressure against her throat, and seems to do very little by way of resistance. instead, she keeps an eye on his other hand, and then up to his face. “dude. come on. what is this? a robbery or something?”

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ your name is an alias, your family is screwed up, and you can’t verify your identity. but you want to do this? ❜❜

a starter : the auto shop

she huffs and tightens her grip on his hand. “i paid you to come with me to the car dealership to get a new car, not judge someone you literally just met five seconds ago.” 

to be fair, the more bizarre situation is theirs. she’d been turned away just an hour ago by the guy who ran the place and couldn’t verify her (fake) ID (she makes a mental note to speak to the behind-the-desk people at hydrus about that later), and she said she’d have to go get her husband to sign off on the papers instead. there were surprisingly very little in terms of attractive men who passed by, so when she saw him, she zero-ed in immediately, fed him a whole sob story, and convinced him to sign off on the papers in her behalf. the hefty amount of money she paid him in cash was probably a great motivator, too. 

“okay, so the story is i married you last year, we just moved in last year, and we’re planning to start a family. hence, the SUV. you think i’m frightening and i think you’re adorable. and my name is nayoung. i took your last name, too. you got that?”

[mimedusa-blog]

❛❛ how can you smile in moments like this? ❜❜

a starter : inappropriate

people tended to place too much value on things. the end for all things is inevitable in different ways. everything expires and nothing stays. for now, jinah survives. someone else, however, doesn’t. 

what a shame – the car was nice.

now it’s a wreck of bodies at the intersection. traffic piles up behind the cordoned area. gaggles of gossips gather around the area, right until where they’re allowed, and still from this safe distance they can see the bodies strewn about, discarded, burnt ragdolls from an upside-down car. there isn’t much that’s left by it in terms of form, or general usefulness. she made sure of that. jinah wears black like she’s constantly in mourning, but this is yet just another graceful success. there wasn’t anyone else injured, and they crashed exactly where she calculated they would be.

it was the look on the father’s face that broke her. or, at least, the tongue lolling out of it. it cracks the act and implants itself as a smile that’s gone too soon, but not gone soon enough.

“sorry,” she says, swiping her finger on a stray tear from the corner of her eye. “no, i – i was trying not to cry. tragic, isn’t it? i’m sorry we had to see this – i knew you wanted to relax today, but... to see them like that when we just met them earlier... i’m sorry this is such a shitty café date.”