#mi.me4

[mimedusa-blog]

do you still love me

honesty hour

she frowns deeply at that. 

does she?

qian isn’t someone she should love. people like them simply can’t, and they’ve left graver wounds on each other besides. what they’re engaging in isn’t supposed to involve any feelings of the sort. it’s purely a physical release, and one that jinah can easily obtain from others (and, on the times that she and qian argue, does on occasion). the problem here is that she always goes to qian first. as soon as she knew the woman was around she had confronted her, they had their little fight, and it devolved into whatever this was. as horrible as jinah is in assessing situations like this, she’s smart enough to know that it isn’t good. 

she frowns again – no, it can’t be.

but whatever’s forcing the truth out of her is doing it in painful fashion. it feels exactly like pulling something old and rusted out of her chest, serrated and raw, twisting until she realises that there’s a reason qian has always been the first she runs to; qian has always been the one she thinks about even when no one mentions her name. there’s a reason thinking about her name makes jinah want to recoil into the deepest recesses of her madness and stay there, and a reason why a call or a message can bring her out of it just as abruptly. there’s a reason why she can’t let go, and a reason why she tails her every now and again to make sure that she’s safe, or that she hasn’t pissed off the wrong person, and why she did, can and will kill anyone else who tries. 

qian has hurt her the most and loved her best. just like her father. and here she is, crawling back to her, to that pain, to that hurt, to that love, even though she knows it’s unrequited.

“yeah, i love you. so what?” she answered quietly, still scowling, not looking up from the hole she’s about to burn onto the floor. why is this happening when she’s sober? this is the worst time for that confession to come out. she takes a step back. “don’t make a big deal about it.” 

in the next breath, she turns around and goes, walking away as quickly as she can from the woman who’s surely laughing behind her back. 

[mimedusa-blog]

Do you think you’re a bad person?

honesty hour

 she shrugs again at this one, indifferent. “yeah, probably.”

‘bad’, in the moral sense? definitely. she may not understand other people now, but she’s no idiot. she knows people grow up being taught that there are certain ‘bad’ things that one must never do: steal. cheat. lie. kill. she ticks all the boxes and would go beyond, if she was ever in the mood for it. people call it cruelty, but she’d call it creativity. it’s a form of entertainment that they all hate to admit that they gobble up anyway: in the media, in fiction, and whatever the fuck else they consume violence on. 

‘bad’ in the subjective sense? no. she didn’t grow up like other people. father instilled in her and insisted in his ‘teachings’ and his ‘training’ that killing is something to be proud of. it’s a badge of strength, courage, and most of all, it was multi-purpose: sending a message, ridding the world of trash, releasing some tension and anger – you name it, and he would come up with a reason for it as easily as a parent would teach a child the alphabet. at one point, she didn’t understand it. now, she understood completely, at the expense of understanding everyone else. 

"but do i give a shit? probably not.” 

[mimedusa-blog]

what made you so cruel?

honesty hour

there is no single reason. there’s a whole parade of them that marches out of her mouth: “my father. my mother.” as she spoke, her voice held no trace of hate or regret; no such hint of remorse or desire to impart some cruel revenge, even when she finally said a name she hasn’t said in a long time: “qian.” the final one held a touch of – something. not nostalgia. not melancholy. it was hard to place in the tone of her voice which emotion it was, exactly, because she didn’t know, either. 

and, still, she could enumerate each one except for herself. she liked to think she held no blame, though she knew she did. not that it made it any easier; killing wasn’t as hard a burden as other people made it out to be. if anything, it was a relief from the cruelties of the world. “other people make you believe that they love you,” she began again, “that they won’t leave you. that they’re yours. but that’s just not true, is it? here’s the scenario – hypothetically speaking, of course: father locks you up, mother does nothing about it. when he died, of course she had to follow. and the love of your life locks you up, too. she abandons you, just like everyone else, and makes sure that she abandons you in a place where she knows you’ll suffer. she knows your deepest fears because she said she loved you to get it out of you. you’re in that place for... who knows how long. a lifetime. five years. then you come out with no one and nothing. so where are all those people who made you into what they wanted you to become? who will you be after that?” she shrugs, stops, and sighs. “look, maybe we’re all just lonely and bored. if i’m cruel because i embrace that, then so be it.” 

[mimedusa-blog]

what do you still hope for?

honesty hour

the old jinah would’ve said: to still be a good person.

and she – no. 

no, that isn’t right at all. not now, not when she’s like this. that’s a past jinah that deserves to stay buried. she knows that that’s futile; it’s an impossible thing to wish for that not any deity can simply grant with a snap of their fingers. no amount of money can pay for the identity she’s lost, can repair the mind that doesn’t even feel like hers on bad days. and hope, really, is for fools who have dreams. 

“something– or someone – who’s just mine.” she finally decides, having taken her time to truly think about it, and whether or not this is the truth or just another lie she’s convinced herself into believing is the truth. “just – maybe – someone who i can sit on the couch and cuddle and watch movies with, without having to be bored about it. someone who doesn’t boss me around. someone who doesn’t make me feel bored.” that makes her frown upon saying. “everything and everyone is just so boring, you know? but if i don’t get someone, then i hope i get a raise so i can buy more things. i think i might die of boredom if i don’t have any fun at all!”

[mimedusa-blog]

who do you care about the most?

honesty hour

“myself.” she answers quickly, and honestly, it’s the first answer that comes to mind. jieun might be a close second, or jaehyun when she’s in a good mood. (maybe even qian, above everyone else, but only when she’s in the appropriate mood to feel things.) if there’s anything her experiences have taught her, it’s that she has to look out for number one. look at how caring for other people has turned out for her! nothing good ever comes out of it. nothing good comes out of any intense care for anyone other than herself. eventually, people will disappoint her, or betray her, and that’s just how people are.

she doesn’t elaborate how thinking about qian, even in passing, makes her previous answer already seem like a lie. had she lied? she can hardly tell. the memory of her bleeding on the ground makes her almost flinch at the ghost of a feeling, and all the other ones that inevitably come with it. no – it’s just another reason for her previous answer to be the correct and honest one. it has to be. any self-respecting person – especially one who holds themselves at a higher standard than the rest of the world – would rationally come to the conclusion that lingering on these useless feelings won’t do her any good. (so why is it that she finds herself second-guessing an answer she believed was the honest one?)

[mimedusa-blog]

what was the biggest turning point in your life?

honesty hour

there are plenty. she wants to say when her life began – she didn’t ask to be born with ‘a few screws loose’, as some other people may call it – or perhaps when she met nayoung and formed a point of reference of what life would be like if she actually tried to be more human than the monster her father raised her to be. maybe it was when her father first showed her how to kill a living thing, increasing in targets until he died just before he could teach her the best way to kill a person. maybe it was when her mother died, and young, grieving jinah found her body, as if god herself didn’t want jinah to heal from anything at all. prison, after all that, seemed like nothing.

“when i loved someone,” she began cautiously, frowning a little. the word itself feels foreign on her tongue; poison to a snake. “or... i guess... when i learned what it’s like to...feel something other than fear or selfishness. that gives you something to attach to, and my father always said attachments are useless. he’s right, and i should’ve listened to him.” and, because she cannot lie, she continues, prompted by some immovable need to get this out of her system to purge her thoughts of it completely. “i... don’t think i regret it, though. it’s just...a turning point. that’s all.” 

[mimedusa-blog]

do you find pleasure in killing? why or why not?

honesty hour

for the first time since this bout of questioning began, she breaks out into a smile that could’ve outshone the sun. no one else would’ve suspected that the subject of the question could incite this reaction from her. “yeah!” she answers enthusiastically. she was assured that nothing outside these four walls would ever get out, and she checked the credentials of the person herself. therapists always hold the weirdest secrets, and ones assigned to people like her even more. it must be a way to stabilise killers, she guesses, and it’s not something she’s extremely opposed to, but sometimes the questions can get dull. it can get too deep, or too boring, or too personal, and neither of these three are appealing. but when it comes to her job, she can be a bit of a workaholic, especially when – “it’s the only time i feel any great thing that lasts for more than a second, you know? sex takes a good second place to it, but – gosh, you’d know if you experienced it!” she’s gushing a little now. it’s a bit embarrassing but they’ll get nowhere if she lies now, and it’s good to tell the truth every once in a while. the truth gets people to trust her, and it’s much easier to lie later on. “they just...sink in into themselves, forever and forever and forever. isn’t that interesting? like they’re trapped forever into themselves with no way out, and every single way out. you just – ugh –,” groaning, because the words fail her now, and she settles in her seat and settles with the final answer, “it’s amazing.” 

[mimedusa-blog]

is there a gang you wouldn't do any freelance work for?

honesty hour

for people like her, there is an extreme disconnect between how she perceives the world and how others do. she knows they do, and it takes effort she does not want to make to understand it from their point of view – and even then, she can’t. it’s too difficult now. before, she had points of reference; people to tell her what to do, what to feel, what was right to say and what wasn’t. now, it may seem like betrayal, and logically, she knows it is, but working for another gang – so long as it doesn’t conflict with hydrus’ interests – doesn’t seem like a bad idea. “no,” she answers, finally. there are some that she’d certainly be reluctant to work with. some with loyalties she’s not sure about. columba, for example, is a gang to watch out for; so is lynx, because she’s hesitant about whether they’ll be fooled by her antics or not. they’re too smart, and that’s always a bad thing. 

look at what happened to nayoung.

“if the price is right and if it doesn’t harm hydrus, i’d be down to do it. no one got anywhere without working together every now and again, right?” see? – isn’t that a great attempt at sounding (sym)pathetic and human? no? “but,” she adds quickly, “only if hydrus allows me. as much as i hate people telling me what to do, i’m pre~tty sure it’d cause a bunch of trouble to piss off the best gang on this stupid island. who’d be stupid enough to do that?”