preview of my sad jihye fic for @themazine!! keep an eye out for the release in September so you can see all the wonderful work going into this zine!!!
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This took me very long to code. Read it here
THEMA; is a digital ORV zine which you can download for free here. Please take the time to check out the other contributors works as well. They're amazing.
in which lee jihye and maritime war god carry what they can of the people they’ve lost.
also on ao3 and part of @themazine, which you should all download here!!
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The only survivor of Taepung Girls High School.
This is not a title that she wanted. Lee Jihye did not want to walk out of that school alone. She didn’t want to walk out at all but she survived and survivors had to move on to the next scenario location.
As Kim Dokja said: Nobody “deserves” to live, but if you’ve survived, take responsibility!
She walked out of that school numb and shaking, tears falling from her eyes but only vaguely aware of them. It was as if she was looking at the world through a pane of glass; she could see everything, but it was out of her reach.
Her hands still feel foreign. How does one forget the sensation of strangling another? How does Lee Jihye go through each day without breaking down to the memory of Na Bori’s throat in her hands, Na Bori’s fingers gentle on her wrists, Na Bori’s final breaths beneath her hold?
There is an empty space where Na Bori should be. Always beside her, the absence is a ghost itself that Lee Jihye holds onto tightly; she has nothing, but this nothing is the last thing she has of Na Bori.
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ advises his incarnation to sleep.]
Lee Jihye barely glances at the message. “I can’t.”
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ looks sadly upon his incarnation.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ reminds incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ that he will listen if she wants to talk.]
She looks down at her hands. They’re empty, and yet—
She is a murderer, but so is everyone else that’s survived this far. She is a child, but there are no children in the Star Stream. She is alone, but she is surrounded by people she will kill for and who would kill for her.
She is Lee Jihye, and she should not be here.
“Why did you choose me?” Lee Jihye asks. It’s not what she wanted to say, but something between grief and loss and rage caught in her throat and the question came out instead. It’s not something she’s really thought about. Things have been too busy, and Lee Jihye likes busy; if she’s focused on survival, she doesn’t need to think about emptiness inside her that she ripped open herself.
“Why not anyone else? Someone who isn’t scared of the sea? Someone stronger?”
Her throat tightens. Somehow, Lee Jihye didn’t realize how much it was bothering her.
Why would she be chosen by a constellation named Maritime War God? There are so many better options. She’s just a teenage girl, too old to be a child and too young to be called an adult. She’s nothing special, just the survivor of a high school massacre done solely for the entertainment of uncaring constellations. Now that the question is out in the air, she’s realizing how desperately she needs an answer.
There’s a lot she’s been running from, lately. This is just another.
Maritime War God is silent. Had she been outside, she would have tried to find his star, make sure he hasn’t abandoned her.
But she’s not.
Lee Jihye is inside, back to the wall watching everyone else sleep through the open door. She’s far enough away that they won’t hear her speak, but close enough to keep an eye on them. It reflects much of how she feels these days: on the outside, looking in.
She’s idly counting each time she clenches her hands into fists, reaching 43 before an indirect message arrives.
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ would like to honor his friend through incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ remembers how ‘Lee Eokgi’ did not abandon him when others had, and wishes to return the favor by taking care of his descendant.]
Lee Jihye stares at the indirect messages. She reads them again. Then once more.
She doesn’t cry, but it’s a close thing.
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ understands that the weight of a life is heavy indeed, and to kill a beloved friend will hurt in a way that never heals.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ mourns the people he loves, who can only live on in his stories.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ reminds his incarnation that her friend does not blame her and gave her life so that incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ can live on.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ hopes that one day incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ can remember not only the pain, but also the love of her friends.]
Lee Jihye scrubs at her eyes roughly, ducking her head to hide her expression from view. It does nothing to stop the tears that quickly spill down her cheeks or the sob that fractures itself out of her chest.
It hurts. It hurts.
Being alive hurts but she has to live because Na Bori gave up her life for her. She has to live so Na Bori’s death can mean something.
“How can anyone live like this?” she asks, voice weak and heavy with tears. “How does anyone survive? I want her back. I want her back.”
Through the doorway, she catches sight of faint movement. Jung Heewon shifts, rolling away from Lee Hyunsung to place a hand on the hilt of her sword. No one wakes. Her grief is hidden away from them for another night.
She hears more indirect messages come in, the sound calling her attention.
Swallowing heavily, Lee Jihye wipes her eyes roughly, blinking back her tears, and looks up to read.
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ recalls the day he was pushed into a lake by his subordinates after losing a drinking game.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ laughs at the memory of accidentally smearing ink on a friend’s face after writing.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ reminisces about sailing on a clear summer day and tripping over a soldier who was taking a nap.]
Lee Jihye smiles. “I did that too, once. Na Bori didn’t want to play volleyball so she took a nap on the floor and I tripped over her trying to get the ball.”
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ is looking fondly upon incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’.]
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ wishes to hear more stories from the life of incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’.]
It’s hard to find the words. To find a voice for her life before the scenarios. She’s thought of it endlessly, in dreams and nightmares and slow moments when they could all take a moment to breathe.
Everything had ended and began the moment she killed Na Bori. She can barely recognize the girls in her memory when she’s changed so much.
But she’s the only one with those memories. No one else knows what she and Na Bori were like before. All they know is that one killed the other. Nothing else. Maritime War God knows nothing about the cheerful, lazy, funny girl who was afraid of insects, just as no one knows about the people he’s loved and outlived.
There are no graves in the apocalypse.
In Memory Of in this world means there is only memory. They are the living graves of others.
Lee Jihye carries the ghost of Na Bori with her. This is the only way either of them can survive—one the urn, one the ashes.
But it’s not the only thing she carries.
“We got lost once,” she says, “On a school trip. Got distracted by a cat and when we looked up everyone was gone. They were only a block away but with the way Na Bori acted you would have thought we had been abandoned forever.”
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ laughs heartily at the story and recalls how he, too, once got lost in a market following a cat.]
“Once during summer vacation we went to a park and I found a cicada shell. So I went to show her since it’s not really a bug and she nearly scaled a street light to get away from me.”
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ remembers his friend being scared of octopus and nearly fighting a fisher trying to sell him some.]
There’s a lull in their conversation before Maritime War God sends his final message for the night.
[Constellation ‘Maritime War God’ is proud of his incarnation and honored to be one of the few to hear about ‘Lee Jihye’ from before the scenarios.]
“Thanks,” she whispers, engraving the indirect message into her memory.
It’s not the Maritime General he sends the message to. Not the survivor of Taepung Girls High School.
Just Lee Jihye.
Just the girl and the friend she survives.
She is Lee Jihye, and that means something. It means something to the constellation who looks after her as best he can, to the members of the company who always make sure she has something to eat, to Na Bori who haunts her because she gave her life for Lee Jihye.
