#inf:file
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. NAKANO, Mai.
PERSONAL. Nakano Mai, born on 30/04/1999 ( age 18 ) in Cardiff, Wales. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Social Studies Department, coursing latin language and psychology. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BF-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Gardening Club, as member, and the Swimming Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as co-leader.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
HISTORY.
mai is born as the youngest of two. her parents are amji graduates, her brother a dropout.
however, unlike her brother, she was not born in osaka, but cardiff instead. her brother says it’s because her parents found better jobs there, but she comes to learn that they were not just seeking a fresh start, but an escape.
her friends start talking about how excited they are to go to high school, so naturally, mai shares their enthusiasm with her parents and brother one night during dinner. she pretends not to notice their blank stares and the way her brother’s grip around his fork tightens.
the walls in their house are thin and she overhears her brother arguing with her parents, yelling at them to not send mai to amji. it goes on for another half an hour, then the door slams.
her brother comes back to visit two days later and he brings something with him. a box with the word ‘amji’ scribbled on the side. he hands it to her, telling her that if he can’t prevent it, he can at least prepare her for what’s to come.
two months before the entrance examinations, she’s on a flight back to seoul with her mother. there’s a reason why they’ve been teaching her the language since she was a kid.
the examination comes and goes. she returns to the apartment her mother rented out for the two of them to find a letter from the school waiting for her. she’s been accepted.
hidden inside one of the books on her bookshelf is a smaller journal, her brother’s name scrawled on the first page, detailing all the incidents and mysteries he’s encountered during his first and only year in amji.
in her first month at the institute, mai learns that her brother wasn’t lying in his journal.
LIMITATIONS.
REWIND TO: january 2016. 3/f, main building, amji institute.
they do say that curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back. but cats only have nine lives. this one is running on her last one.
not only does her brother’s journal detail this particular myth, but the database compiled by her seniors on the forum her club contributes to so much. she has to investigate this legend, she has to see whether it’s true or something to give the benefit of the doubt to. she needs an answer.
except, there’s a problem.
she enters the girls’ restroom, followed by two other club members who were very insistent on not letting her do this on her own. “i’m telling you, mai, the stall is locked.” one of them says, clearly unnerved by this. she ignores them, standing in front of the infamous locked bathroom stall.
out of order.
“see? i told you —”
“i got this.”
ignoring the uneasy feeling in her stomach, she walks into the next stall, putting down the cover of the toilet to stand on it. her friends look at her in worry and she offers them a grin. “don’t worry, i’ll be fine. it’s just a myth after all, right?” there’s a teasing lilt in her words. it’s more directed at the spirit that haunts the stall next to her than it is to her friends though. the least she can do is rile the spirit up a little to get some action.
“just help pull me up when i’m done.”
she has to tiptoe to pull herself up and over into the next stall, letting out a little grunt when the makeshift wall digs into her torso. there’s a bunch of cob web in the corners of the stall, but other than that, it looks pretty normal to her. she sets the toilet cover down and takes a seat, waiting.
“you good?”
“yup, i’ll let you know when to pull me up.”
the uneasiness in her stomach blossoms into dread and she tenses up. it feels like something — someone is watching her from every direction, but she can’t bring herself to move. it’s not just the sudden fear running through her veins that paralyses her, but something else entirely. she can hear her friends trying to talk to her, but the words get caught in her throat. she focuses all her energy into moving her pinky finger in hope of breaking whatever trance she’s in.
in what feels like eternity, her finger finally moves and her body relaxes. “you guys can help me up now.” her voice gives away how shaken she is. when they pull her up into the next stall, she’s sweating and her knees feel weak.
“hey, are you alright?”
she gives them a weak smile, heading to the sinks to splash her face with some water.
“it’s all good.”
ASPIRATIONS.
REWIND TO: april 2017. g/f, main building, amji institute.
mai grew up as a curious girl, always asking questions and looking for answers. her thirst for knowledge could never be quenched. her brother always joked that her insatiable curiosity would lead to something bad eventually.
that joke has been lingering in her head ever since she started studying in amji.
hence why the institute’s library is often graced by her presence. but the amount of available books could never overcome the need to get her hands on something from the restricted section. they especially itched for the book of the occult. unfortunately, her grades and behaviour ( the things she does for the club) never really got her the ‘alpha’ label, so she can only watch from a distance as alpha students take stuff out from the restricted section.
would it be bad to admit the only reason she tries in her studies is to get that privilege?
an alpha student she recognises walks in and an idea pops up in her head. she might as well try her luck. “hey.” she waves them down with a smile and after hesitating, they sit across from her. she gives it to them straight. “i need you to get something for me in the restricted section.”
their brows raise, not entirely convinced, and she sighs. “look, i’ll pay you, okay? just help a girl out here and get me this book,” she scribbles the title of the occult manual onto a page from her notepad and tears it out, sliding it across the table. she almost laughs because this seems like a shady drug deal when it’s all for a book.
“look, is like, fifteen thousand won good enough for you?”
they take the note and head to the librarian, returning back to the table after a few minutes with the manual in hand. mai grins at them as she hands them the payment. money was never really a problem for her. “great, thanks a lot, dude.” setting the book down, she begins to flip through the pages, only to find a handful of missing sections, torn away from the spine of the book.
“strange.”
she spends another two hours in the library, absorbing as much information as possible, noting down anything important in her notepad. when she does leave, she makes sure to just leave the book on the librarian’s desk without being seen.
still, it’s not enough.
she needs to know what’s on those missing pages.
BEHAVIOR.
REWIND TO: september 2018. somewhere in amji institute.
mai has never really been fazed by the comments from some of her friends outside the club, telling her that she shouldn’t waste her energy on fairytales and what not. she’s used to it by now, and they’ve stopped telling her those things anyway.
well, that is until today.
it’s the start of the new school year and this time, she’s one of the co-leaders of the psic. she only brings it up once when she’s with her friends who are unnerved by the topic. she likes to think they’re only so bothered because the lore she’s investigating frightens them, which is why she’s stuck around for so long.
there’s a real struggle when you aren’t allowed to bring your phone into the building, and she hasn’t been the best at remembering to buy a wristwatch. she’s in the middle of talking with her friends during lunch when she glances up at the clock in the canteen and realises that she’s about to be late to a psic meeting.
“oh shit. sorry guys, i gotta go to a club meeting.” she takes one last bite from her meal and hastily gets up, nearly knocking over her juice in the process.
“i still can’t believe you’re in that club.” one of her friends casually says, which causes mai to slow down a little. they’re just worried, scared, afraid of the unknown, she tells herself, letting out a short laugh.
“technically, it’s not a club. but don’t tell anyone that.” she jokes, picking up her tray and waving at them before power-walking out of the cafeteria.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. SHI, Jiahn
PERSONAL. Shi Jiahn, born on 11/23/1999 ( age 18 ) in Seoul, South Korea. Currently receiving partial scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing computer science and pre-calculus. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AM-04.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Debate Club, as member, the Red Football Team, as member, and the Prefect Program. Associated with the Council, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: mentions of abuse
HISTORY.
was born in a very conservative, closed-minded household and raised on an idea of obedience and study as well as physical discipline
family has always had an obsession with social climbing and putting themselves forward as if they were elites
jiahn never had “his thing” like his athlete siblings, thus, he got very thorough with academics after feeling out the capacity of his own mind
definition of a middle child syndrome, had to learn how to sell himself to his parents
with that said, he became charismatic and comes off as open, easygoing and harmlessly opportunistic, can talk himself out of mostly anything and get along with anyone
upon entering amji, pushed a bit too far as the entirety of his first year was jiahn studying to exhaustion to top his peers
thus, developed some serious health issues (completely worth the rank and partial scholarship, in his opinion)
gradually he started using the set of character traits he possessed to his own advantage to manipulate his way into high academic scores
the energy and aura he puts forward often leads strangers to believe he is anything but a science department student
loses some of his aura during classes, where he’s very serious and obedient. always ready to take in information and put thorough notes down
almost unrecognizable off campus (trendy, current, a bit moody) and on campus (clean-cut, put together)
the club jumper. in year one he was a part of the science club, in year two he visited the drama club, for his last year jiahn chose debate club. in reality he was just seeking people out to see who are and aren’t threats
LIMITATIONS.
the thing was that shi jiahn was so detached from the world (or, arguably, so infatuated by it’s very peak), he held very little outright fear. especially with the council acquaintances and the prefect secrecy on his side. driven by one goal only – to rank on the top – had him blindly disassociating himself from the feeling of fear while he drowned in envy towards anyone who exceeded him. but he didn’t fear being less than someone else, no. simply because he never went past the overpowering need to pass others instead of dwelling on it. it drove him forward. second and third just wasn’t an option.
fear came into view once real world stepped upon his heels just as the third year of high school started, questions of future rising. sure, jiahn would probably graduate, end up in a high-ranking university. but what’s next? he held no vision of a future and where he wanted to be, the obsession with the ranks cutting his train of thought into short-lived, useless strategies leading him into a dead end. the sole truth was that having went in blindly into science just to get a pat on the shoulder from his family ended in an underdeveloped outlook on reality. no plans, no long-term goals. just an overwhelming need to be best without any underlying emotion having touched upon that.
jiahn didn’t know who he wanted to be. or who he wanted to become. or, rather, who he will be and become. he feared the future – something much less tangible than spiders, heights or the dark. yet, much more inevitable that most of the tangible fears. he also feared karma. because only the deities know how much pretending he’d done and how much people he threw, passed and crossed to get to the point he was at.
‘was it really worth it’ was the musing that remained in his head, resurfacing each time jiahn passed his own reflection in the second floor mirror. just like him but also not, starring and judging with that smile (does he really smile like that?). the same one that introduced him to major mood swings and emotional breakdowns behind closed doors, traces of his own reflection lingering in his mind until he snapped back into reality with a nosebleed.
ASPIRATIONS.
validation. what a silly thing to live for, yet, it kept him so incredibly alive.
it started at the very core of jiahn’s existence. he never got the spotlight in his family, being the middle child in every definition of the syndrome. the way his family acted towards the oldest – the most mature, the most talented and forward; and the way they acted towards the youngest – the sweetest, smartest and unbeatable. every goal he reached was overlooked by another score his brother made during practice or another flower his sister drew with an uncanny resemblance to the one of his dinner table. he wanted that, too. the tap on the shoulder, the verbal validation. but he wasn’t all that, lacking things people would dote upon.
there was no other road to take than to make himself into something in a trial and error method. to play with gestures and words until he became likable. until he could sell himself in gold. until he could charm his parents into paying attention to him and the academic career he could put forward as his best achievement.
maybe that’s where the obsession with ranking came from. the search from compliments not only from his parents but from other people around. there’s no feeling better to get high on, jiahn’s addicted. enough to lose sense of morality. and when he feels enabled, when he felt power on the tips of his fingers, one that could help him gain bigger doses while playing dirty, it was worth it (wasn’t it??)
BEHAVIOR.
jiahn didn’t know the capacity of the personality traits he trained himself to have until he entered amji. nor did he fully understand how easy manipulation was when in contact with the right mindset and people.
he was malicious only to the point at which he was selfish. and jiahn was selfish for one thing only – a rank and the validation that came with it. having previously exhausted himself with working to keep himself a top-tier student, he’s since found much easier ways to enjoy the sweetness it brought. sure, jiahn still studied and enjoyed the academic road just as much as he enjoyed picking the fruits his constant presence in the library grew. but with shortcuts it became much less exhausting and spared his health.
there was little to no remorse in the acts of animosity. the first one to fall under it a fellow council member he had originally been plotting with about the topic of exams a year ago. all good and dandy until he became a red flag in jiahn’s book, a prefect report hanging over the head of his acquaintance in a matter of days. report of an unrelated matter, of course, jiahn wans’t at all dense. the situation ending in jiahn shrugging straight into their face
“sucks to be you, be more careful next time.”
still, all the dangerous he was had been covered by multiple layers of mirage. it was easy to miss it because he had been selling himself in the best and brightest of colours to his parents his whole life. jiahn had trained himself into becoming seemingly positive and friendly. in broad daylight he jumped at opportunities to climb over heads in the most innocent of forms – extra curriculum and engaged conversations on subjects with his teachers during parts of recess. like a clean-cut student should, he was always on time and focused in classes, his uniform neat and pressed to each seam. while characteristically social and approachable in the corridors, he set himself to be a modestly smiling victory to the point it was hard to believe that he was a part of the council. maybe he isn’t, maybe he just genuinely gets along with everyone? some whispered.
mind games. how fun.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. BAE, Euiin
PERSONAL. Bae Euiin, born on 07/02/2001 ( age 17 ) in Seoul, South Korea. Currently receiving full scholarship.
ACADEMIC. First year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing history of music and photography. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AM-03.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Science Club, as member, and the Blue Football Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: abuse, neglect, torture.
HISTORY.
eui-in, the only son of the bae’s. born into a family that has been deemed perfect by the constant eyes on them. his father is a world-renowned pianist and composer, whilst his mother is called the queen of songbirds. everyone knew eui-in’s bound for musical greatness, a prodigy in the making.
his first words to learn were not mama or papa but do re mi. his first book to read was not of little red but of musical notes. at the tender age of 3 he’s taking music lessons, at the age of five he’s already playing the piano like little debussy. eui-in was thrown into the world of music without as little of a choice, it will be his life, it is what he’ll be doing for the rest of his life.
school was supposed to be his home away from home, but the boy found no escape in that – how could he when school was home too? he was home-schooled only by the finest teachers of the country, his parents made sure of that. eui-in deserved only the best to become the very best. he was like a little rooster getting groomed for a cockfight, a little rooster his parents could brag about and bet on.
life was starting to feel nothing but an on-going series of trying to please his parents, trying to prove himself worthy as their son, trying to exist for their dreams and expectations. but eui-in didn’t want to simply exist, he wanted to be alive.
his ticket out of this personal hell of his come at the mention of amji institute. his parents, having heard of the prestigious school through their circle of elite friends. naturally, they weren’t going to lose out on a chance of proving their son’s worth and didn’t even bat an eyelash at the idea of sending their eui-in away. it was a whole different story for eui-in however, this was his chance, and so he took it, doing the best he can to pass the entrance exam, even managing to snag a full scholarship through his outstanding grades on the entrance exam.
that’s how eui-in, the perfect son, the son everyone dreams of having, found himself in front of the school gates with an anxious heart – little did they know he was broken, a broken little piano whose strings have given up, a little piano whose keys could not play the right note, a little piano who’s in desperate need of mending.
LIMITATIONS.
“i’m sorry!”
“i’ll do better!”
“it won’t happen again i swear!”
these words echo through the house, desperation laced through my every syllable, tears staining my face. i’ve done wrong, i’ve made a mistake, so this is what i get, this what i deserve. my parents say they’re doing this because they love me, that i should be thankful. they say these were gifts, presents to better myself, not all would be as kind as them. they say this was for my own good, so i could learn, so i could grow. i believe them, i hold on to their words as i sob in pain. knees grazed with cuts from the mung beans i’m told to kneel on. arms sore, screaming from the many heavy books i’m told to carry. skin tainted and red with a decoration of slashes from their heavy leather whip. i wince in pain, i take it all in, i pray for it to stop.
but it doesn’t, this was normal, this was nothing out of the ordinary, this was my every day. i am their perfect child, and being perfect means having no mistakes – big or small. i am their perfect child and they will do everything in their power to keep it that way.
ASPIRATIONS.
“tag you’re it!”
“hey no fair! come back! you got a head start!”
i can’t help but let a smile form on my lips, my eye on my camera’s viewfinder trailing at them running as i capture the moment from my room’s window.
it was a great day to be outside, to play. the sun shining bright, the wind ruffling through the trees. i want to feel that, the sun on my face, the wind on my hair. i want to run, i want to play, i want to have fun. i want to be just like them, to be carefree, to be happy, to be a kid.
i’ve never had that, not even as a baby. i was thrown into a world full of expectations and perfection, no room for fun, no room for kids. i have to live up to their beliefs, live up to their excellence, live up to their dreams.
but these dreams, these dreams are not of mine. all i really dream for is to feel alive inside. to be able to feel the warmth of the sun, to be able to run free in the wind, to be a kid – those are my dreams, dreams that i think are far from my reach.
BEHAVIOR.
fitting in at amji was hard at first, it was usually him and just him. he’s never had experience in making friends, so eui-in’s first few months was rocky to say the least. but as time went on, he’s found friends he could rely on, friends he could have fun with, friends he thought he’d never had. slowly he was finding amji a place to call home, it was better, so much better than where he’d been.
joining the paranormal studies and investigation club was really something he hadn’t planned. eui-in was the type to get scared easily, so he steered so far away from that club. one day however, whilst holding his ever so trusty polaroid camera, it suddenly went off and captured on its own. eui-in really thought it was his camera glitching but when the photo develops, a peculiar silhouette could be seen. he couldn’t tell what it was, just a figure enveloped in white at the corner of the photo.
eui-in tries to figure things out by himself, trying to find rational reasons of how, what, and why it could’ve happen. he looked at every inch of the problem but he couldn’t find anything so the boy surrendered the photo to one of the members of the club, hoping they could have any information on it. after a few days he was called in by the club, asking if he would like to be a part of them, as one of their photographers. sure, eui-in liked photography but he wasn’t sure if this was the type he’d like to pursue but his curiosity, it seemed, got the better of him yet again, and that’s how eui-in found himself in the club.
as far as fitting in goes, eui-in did pretty well, he was a curious cat after all and a sucker for mystery and adventure, so he did not have a hard time acclimating to the club. it’s just that the boy vows never to go investigating alone ever again, ever.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. KIM, Taewoong.
PERSONAL. Kim Taewoong, also known as Danny Kim, born on 12/18/1999 ( age 18 ) in Seoul, South Korea. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing history of music and fashion design. Currently ranking in Gamma Tier, assigned to dorm room GM-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the School Band, as leader, and the Blue Football Team, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: violence, domestic abuse, suicidal idealization, alcohol abuse
HISTORY.
Born in Seoul but moved to the U.S. at age 4 and lived there until he was 14
Moved back to Seoul to get used to the Korean education system and study for the Amji exam
Father is the CEO of a major cell phone company that Danny’s grandfather established before retiring, mother was a ballet dancer
His mother was basically forced to abandon her career after marriage to stay at home and look after Danny, became depressed and even more so when the family moved to the U.S. and she lost contact with her family
They moved both to make more money and keep safe from people who wanted to extort the family
Danny speaks English better than Korean and likes the overall freedom he had in Highland Park, Texas
Awkward relationship with his dad
Didn’t want to go to Amji
Extremely depressed from ages 9 to 17
LIMITATIONS.
He remembers the first time his father swung at the woman that gave life to him. It was not the first time he had done it, no; but it was the first time he ever witnessed it. The boy was seven and could put two and two together—not why mama cried so much out of nowhere and not why she wore only long sleeved turtlenecks—but why she wouldn’t look at him whenever he caught a glimpse of her bruised neck and or face and asked about it.
Perhaps his father had thought that Danny was asleep. He should have been, at least;
but the ruckus downstairs was enough to wake him up. He knew his father would often either arrive home late and inebriated or not at all. That night happened to be one in which, he later learned, a business meeting went wrong and a few extra drinks were poured to compensate. Hearing the shattering of glass and the cries of a voice he knew and loved, the child cautiously stepped outside of his room and located the sound—downstairs, the living room being directly below the staircase and in partial view. There he witnessed the first punch.
Terror. Helplessness.
What more could a little boy feel hearing his mother whimper and his father spout insults with every hit? He didn’t know what to do. It took years for him to ever think of what to do. That night he went back to bed with the door latched tight. Tears fell down his cold pillow and kept pouring until he fell asleep.
When he grew a little taller, a little stronger, he thought he knew what to do.
Twelve, blind with desperation and rage, twelve, a knife from the kitchen he had snuck into his room just in case his father came home that night.
Twelve and sobbing, shaking, his father held at knifepoint. Twelve and torn. His father was always so kind to them when he was sober; he loved children, he gave to the poor. Yet he transformed into a monster once the liquor entered his body.
He didn’t want to kill his father. He wanted his mother to stop screaming. He wished the God his mother would ask him to pray to was real.
The attacks stopped after that night. Nobody spoke of it—nobody outside of the three of them knew.
All that mattered was that it stopped.
ASPIRATIONS.
They say a child is a blessing, brought into this world to sprout fruition unto society by its own little hands. But what will those hands bring? Perhaps they will save lives, as natural-born healers. Perhaps their voice will be carried into the wind with the birds, the notes of a child’s song reaching high and touching hearts.
Though, perhaps in this life, too, there are children who bring agony onto others; not by the will of the young, but as a byproduct of whatever evils fill their environment. An adult, towering over any little one, may let their offspring fly and reach for the stars—or cut off their wings before the child is aware that they have the means to take flight.
Nobody craved, hungered for, lusted after the ability to grow wings and take flight more than him. At least, that’s what he always felt.
He felt it when he would gaze at the night sky and back down at the three stories below him. Was it high enough to do it? To give him what he wanted? Freedom—from life itself.
Eventually the family moved back to Seoul. High, high up in the sky; their apartment was on the 20th floor.
Exams this, culture that. Money this, manners that.
In a world hungry for capital, his stomach growled only for the eternal slumber.
BEHAVIOR.
Some people are born social butterflies. Danny is one of those.
He’s only a gamma, and frankly, studying is just not his cup of tea, but at least he has friends and his music. Maybe it’s the fact that his dark gray hair has traces of faded purple in it, maybe it’s the fact that he’s possibly the only male student that sneaks into class wearing eyeliner on a daily basis— “My eyelashes are just long and thick like that, ma’am, I swear!” — Danny, as friendly as he is, tends to find himself feeling more at home with the outcasts than with the rest of the student body. He feels himself truly come alive on the weekends; clad in all-black, a leather jacket and leather pants, black combat boots to match, piercings he keeps in his pocket to wear off campus. In such a tense, strict environment like Amji, Danny isn’t exactly problematic—he does most of his homework on time, he’s not disruptive, he’s not mean, he wears his uniform properly and respects the higher-ups— but his inner rebel, that repressed goth within, makes him feel like he’s constantly on thin ice. He’s leader of the school band, but he sure wishes he could form an actual rock band and play the guitar onstage instead of the sax. One can only play careless whisper so many times.
Still, he’s private about his home life and avoids conflict as much as he can. He is gentle, if a little oblivious, but he’ll snap if provoked too much. Amji has helped keep his depression at bay; he is busy and surrounded by peers. He’s intrigued by the paranormal aspects of the institution, but is afraid of getting too involved. He also wishes he didn’t have to keep his 6,500won per sharpie tattoo business so lowkey. It’s a steal!
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. LEE, Shihyun.
PERSONAL. Lee Shihyun, born on 19/08/1999 ( age 19 ) in California, United States. Currently receiving full scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing photography and history of fine arts. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BF-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Visual Arts Club, as member, and the Swimming Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: mention of drugs, underage drinking.
HISTORY.
the lee family started developing their name in california as the family first moved there after shihyun’s father first got out of law school and opted to live by the seaside. there wasn’t a specific reason why he picked the place but he settled for the states until he had gotten married.
his wife, her mother was clouded in mystery to her but to her father, she exuded charisma and charm when he met her in high school. high school love birds? it seemed like so. however shihyun never really met her biological mother but the two once shared similar qualities back when shihyun attended high school.
her mother was a drug addict, heroine and it still seemed clear that it was the case once their daughter was born, which forced her father to call for divorce and leave her for the sake of shihyun’s safety. he called her a negligent mother and saw no possible way for her to keep seeing shihyun which had broken the woman as she might have clearly loved her child from the very beginning. her father ultimately took custody of their child.
she was raised in california until she was approximately fifteen years of age despite her father seeing it as a risk. he had also remarried not too long after his break up with his former wife but eventually that lead to shihyun assuming the same woman was that, her biological mother. things were normal for a couple of months.
before the move to korea, lee shihyun was once described as a runaway teen at the age of fifteen for approximately three days. throughout that time, she dabbled into drugs and possibly underage drinking with those older than she was and admitted that it had been the first time she had felt free in a long while. her father assumed it had been her way of rebelling but whatever happened during her time away from home, still manages to stay buried.
when the legal action against shihyun’s father and his wife managed to resurface, that was when he and shihyun were forced to move back to korea before she could even discover her real biological mother’s whereabouts. it wasn’t just her as her father was offered a permanent job as one of korea’s prominent prosecutors and district attorney. the lee family had become a distinctive family.
her father never attended amji but he had knowledge on the school, knew how famous the campus was and he was glad that it was a place that would cater to shihyun’s interests. it was one that he thought he must send his daughter to and since they had all the money in the world given his profession, it was entirely possible to give shihyun a full scholarship. shihyun was the center of his world, wants to tuck her away and keep her away from what could change her; by her being surrounded by what he thought to be a campus that could give her a new perspective.
LIMITATIONS.
it was around 10 pm on a sunday, her dorm room was open ajar while she relaxed from up top her bed unable to sleep. it was freshman year, about a month of attendance. she didn’t care whether or not there was at least one person around to possibly listen to her outburst because it didn’t happen often while usually her outbursts happen elsewhere, like the watchtower or the lake before curfew.
so she was always glad when her father manages to send her some monthly cash, which she occasionally uses to have her things paid for, like weed occasionally on the weekends which has become rare now due to high surveillance. though there was no way she was allowed to smuggle weed in amji, shihyun always had some sort of way to sneak some in without anyone noticing, less likely during school hours and hiding it inside a soap container, stashing it under her bed. shihyun didn’t completely quit like she promised but it was her only escape whenever anxiety kicked in. lying in her dorm room, substances filled her lungs as she mindlessly looked up at the ceiling from her bed.
she slowly realizes that this was an all new level of confined, caged.
her dorm walls were half covered with nothing but memories, ones that she personally took and brought from home before she got admitted to amji. she didn’t know why she did, actually. maybe there was a part of her that wanted to have something to connect back to in terms of her old life no matter how hurt she could be by it. shihyun reluctantly sat up from her bed, nonchalantly walking over towards the pictures to “reminisce” but not before discarding the cigarette from her mouth before the smell even got the chance to travel.
there was one photograph with her and her dad, from when they managed to hike all the way up a snow filled mountain when she was eight. they looked close compared to now which would ignite something inside her whenever the thought came to mind while it was hard to imagine him as a prosecutor when her father was so good at lying to her for most of her life. the feeling could hardly be described as fear but maybe it was. looking at the photograph with her and her dad ignited something inside her but the next picture seemed to have made the flames spread faster.
“you big fat liar…” shihyun actually wanted to scream, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was possible she could be the only one awake in the female dorm right now.
her father and her step-mother looked somewhat happy in that picture. shihyun used to think they were absolutely happy together and the fact that she used to feel so secure and happy herself but realized she had been stupid to think that was true. this was hardly her confronting her own feelings; she was used to hiding them as she locked herself inside her dorm room silently having a mental breakdown with no witnesses.
shihyun ripped off the photograph from the wall, letting it slowly fall on the carpet.
abandonment was one fear, especially when she was worried whether or not she’d be back on the right track with her father. did he have more lies to tell? more secrets to hide? things even started to become worse when her biological mother never returns her letters and emails anymore which left a bitter taste in her own mouth.
shihyun sat down on her bed with her head buried in her hands.
ASPIRATIONS.
the watchtower was the perfect place with the best view of the stars; no planes though because amji apparently never sees those. it was difficult when she was confined from campus, to the forest all the way to hwajang village when the world over the watchtower and below the mountains were so much more. but shihyun won’t get anything out of it by just staring, though it’s funny. shihyun found it easy to find a new perspective through a camera lens, behind a pencil on paper which lets her capture the moment.
shihyun lifted the camera that hung around her neck, snapping a quick one from above and below the tower but what immediately caught her artistic eyes weren’t just the skies full of stars but the flock of birds which just happened to fly passed by the view of her lens. shihyun was jealous of them. they could immediately fly free wherever they pleased without restriction while she was stuck on campus. it was the back light of her camera that was giving her a drop of inspiration whenever she takes the snap, there was always something mysterious that laid beyond the horizon as if shihyun felt someone looking after her.
she didn’t want to think about the potential presence of ghosts. possibly her dad, no matter how much she expressed her distrust in him.
after awhile, the birds she had seen earlier had disappeared as they might have gone home, far and far away. shihyun wishes she could be like them and it was nothing like california because at least by the time she ran off on her own, there were new places to see and new people to meet.
“dumb birds. i wish i could be like you. go anywhere i want.”
BEHAVIOR.
lee shihyun, for the most part thought she’d make a bad impression when she entered campus for the first time knowing how she can be sometimes; irritable when she was nervous about something. the tattoo that she recently just got that was somehow still secret from her father was the leading cause which was safely hidden under her thousand dollar cashmere sweater that day. even though shihyun eventually settled to attend amji, there was still no doubt that if she had a choice in the matter, she would have chosen art school instead.
her interest was more towards photography and journalism, centered around art since she had such an eye for it but later took an interest in the psic in order to find out more within the walls of amji, like working on an angle possibly for the world to see because why not? multiple suspicions lingered beyond the school and shihyun heard rumors all the time and life needs a little mystery now and again. shihyun expressed her interest in leaving amji despite it being such an elite school; struggling to stay afloat in terms of academics on her first day before she settled and it was already clear to her that the strict rules on campus didn’t exactly make it all too fun. it was bittersweet; that she wasn’t always used to being a straight a student or someone who wasn’t such a mess.
the psic weren’t exactly appreciated but that was okay, shihyun never really cared what anyone else thought and most of the student body leave them alone to their own devices anyway. while shihyun wasn’t too engrossed in the club unlike the rest of it’s members, it was more like she started off as an amateur in terms of knowledge at the beginning. still, researching the paranormal and supernatural essence of the school was still fun and it had given her something to put her time into, (sometimes) the opportunity to ditch class and it potentially gives her an angle to write about in her journalism studies which leaves her to put in a good amount of effort for the group.
shihyun is a charismatic, charming individual but she wasn’t always. shihyun was a mess, broken in some way, shape or form but managed to mend herself together for the sake of saving face, trying to stay afloat regardless of her troubled past. shihyun seems to hate half of the student body, describing most of them as snobs, posers and especially any of those residing in the council while preferring those who strives to make worthwhile changes at the school, if need be anyway. shihyun already hit most of the stages of a rebel teenager when she was a runaway but tries her best to act like nothing has changed now that everything has been swept under the rug. shihyun was like a force of nature and not exactly an angel
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. HONG, Rina.
PERSONAL. Hong Rina, born on 13/01/1999 ( age 19 ) in Hong Kong. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing human autonomy and biochemistry. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AF-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the School Band, as member, the Fencing Team, as member, and the School Parliament, as extracurricular officer. Associated with the New Movement, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: domestic abuse, violence.
HISTORY.
hong rina is born the second in line for the throne—that is, the family empire situated in hong kong—and a silver spoon tucked under her petite mouth.
growing up, neither the oldest “reliable” one or the youngest “baby”, the role of the middle child is one rina resents throughout her childhood—one where she is constantly ignored, short end the stick, yet wholly expected to represent the family name to her fullest.
days of youth are spent under constant duress to try and fit the mold her parents crafted for her. days spent tearing down insecurities and what’s life of her girlhood. days devoted to perfection. days slaved away for fruitless outcome. the company would not be hers. mother’s love would not be hers. what did she—the middle child—have then?
thirteen, she discovers a nasty secret. discovers mother’s battered body in black and blues. discovers father’s temper and clenched fists. discovers a picturesque family is just that. picturesque. frail, ugly, on the brink of collapse.
keeping her secret is like allowing a rot to fester within her. an ill timed, unwanted, awakening of something creature-like in the face of father’s abuse and her siblings demeanors (there is a hierarchy even within families). something savage. something temperamental.
rina quickly grew shrewd. scorned. spiteful. a damning trait that follows her into the steps of amji.
the decision for amji was simple. it was far. far enough to keep her out and away from her family. far enough for her to breathe.
admission was easy. success (and nepotism) is genetically coded into her blood. but being far hadn’t meant she could be her own self, that she ceases to represent her family in everything she does. doesn’t mean the noose tied around her neck would be loose enough for comfort.
LIMITATIONS.
FEAR IS A FOUR LETTER WORD. as is love. as is pain. incidentally, rina experiences them all in that order.
father’s presence in the house is nonexistent. a man governed by business. slave to the stock market. it isn’t often that he would be home. much less in time for dinner.
yet he is here. wedged into his usual seat at the front of the table. mother’s hand shakes when she grips her glass. it doesn’t go unnoticed.
rina never knows if she alone cares the burden of the family secret. if her siblings live life in the unknown or whether they just plain don’t care. but young and impulsive, she acts without thinking. storming into father’s study with empty threatens and dainty fists.
he never touched her. let me be clear on just that, the ceo of a multimillionaire empire does not need to impose such a thing on a child to fill her to the brim in terror. to dangle the threat of what he might do—could do before her.
(here, she realizes. it isn’t that father never paid her any due attention, it is the fact that he never cared about her existence to begin with. or, perhaps, simply the fact that he is incapable of caring.)
but what is it a child can do?
what is it that she can do?
nothing. the answer is nothing.
ASPIRATIONS.
THE FIRST TASTE OF FREEDOM HAS HER HOOKED. exhilarated.
let me paint a picture for you: summer before amji is one spent selfishly. is one spent in defiance. is one spent squatting in a close friend’s small apartment in lieu of returning home. (fuck home) one spent without the noose her parents has tied around her neck. one spent living like dogs, living on a budget, living to her wants.
they don’t bother to send for her. good riddance if she doesn’t return.
but all good things must come to an end. rina does not stray for long, does not find it in herself to be able to leave her mother alone in a marriage that terrorized her.
by her return, however, she is already spoiled. defiance rotted into her molars quick, and rina wore her newfound persona like second skin. butted heads with her mother, her siblings, her father occasionally. sharpened her tongue for battle, her canines and claws.
then, she realizes, what she wants is beyond freedom. beyond breaking free of the cookie cutter mold that has encompassed her entire life. rather it is the fight, it is the spark. it is something to indicate that she is living. breathing. here.
attention. the folly of it all.
BEHAVIOR.
REPUTATION IS KEY. years spent at amji is no different than years spent in hong kong (father’s boot on her neck; image, rina. mind your image) and rina has slaved (at the cost of her mental and emotional health) months in perfecting her image—her repertoire (parliament officer, first chair in violin, perfect grades, perfect friends, perfect smile)—at amji.
in truth?
she hated it.
what comes with being an alpha student comes with crushing weight on her shoulders—reputation she must mind, persona she must upkeep. she was not atlas, was not made to hold the world up in punishment. certainly not for something she didn’t believe in.
the premise of the new movement is legend. their mantra festers within her, gnaws on her conscience like maggots. she, like majority of the student body, empathizes, could only hope to achieve that level of resistance. you know, the kind that actually makes a difference.
even then her recruitment into the movement is questionable. not without resistance. without suspicion. is she not at the top of hierarchy? looking down at everyone below her? but the inclusion of hong rina isn’t without perks, isn’t without benefits—she, a parliament member, knew entirely too well the ongoings of what the school parliament and faculty has planned and in exchange of information brings a sense of usefulness.
for rina, her place in the new movement, it brings true exhilaration felt sparsely throughout the years of her youth. (encourages, if you will, her moxie, bullheadedness she wears on her chest like a prize)
that is, to belong. to rebel. to tear down each and every thing this school (her father) holds dear to their hearts.
tradition.
fuck that.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. KIM, Youngmin.
PERSONAL. Kim Youngmin, born on 11/02/1999 ( age 18 ) in Seoul, South Korea. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Social Studies Department, coursing french language and psychology. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BM-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Visual Arts Club, as member, and the Fencing Team, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: minor violence.
HISTORY.
his parents are well-to-do property owners in gangnam, and his older brother, meanwhile, a highly respected military general. with a gap of 17 years between the siblings, it’s difficult for them to relate to each other in any way besides blood. this, coupled with the fact that his brother seems to succeed everywhere he goes (including being a well-known amji alumnus), essentially sets youngmin up for failure.
piano class, judo lessons, a boarding school across the city. whatever youngmin’s parents sign him up for, he’s expected to excel—after all, it’s a formula that worked with the first of the kim siblings. youngmin grows up sheltered and privileged, nurtured to be the best of the best. he manages. he has to.
everyone listens to what he has to say except for his own parents. it’s a truth he’s bitterly assessed growing up—the kids at school will do whatever he’ll tell them to, but mother and father don’t like entertaining childish whims. even with the world at his fingertips, youngmin still feels empty.
float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. youngmin likes getting what he wants; he’s only in grade school but he can spin honey sweet words like a professional (even the adults can’t see through his teacher’s pet facade!). it’s not a despicable evil inside him, though—call it misguided naïveté. youngmin barely knows what’s wrong and what’s right.
amji. youngmin thrives in the new environment, taking immense delight in the way people treat him like royalty. even with their clumsy relationship, his dear brother had at least left behind a legacy of sorts at amji, a coveted spot in the council with their family name on it. for this, youngmin is given certain privileges and advantages (it’s not so different from how he’d been living previously, really). he revels in the power like a prince who’s never left the castle—selfish and ignorant, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing just outside the gates.
his first mistake is the black book. the satisfaction he gets from using it drives him to use it often—too often, really, given the now wary way people start to regard him. don’t mess with that one, they’ll whisper. he’ll put you in the book. youngmin can’t tell if he likes being feared or if it fills him with an inexplicable loneliness.
his second mistake is the company he keeps. birds of the same feather flock together, so youngmin spends almost all of his time with fellow council members. he’s too naive to detect the toxicity interlaced in the group, and so he lets his lungs fill up with the sludge, adopts the same strange habits as them. if it were possible in the first place, he becomes even more ruthless.
his third (and final) mistake isn’t even his own. the silent tension between parliament councillors and everyone else had been quite evident from the start, but it isn’t until the name of a parliament member’s darling baby sister ends up scribbled inside the black book that the real issues begin. name-calling, accusations, threats—all because someone is too cowardly to fess up.
with the witch hunt in full swing, youngmin should’ve seen it from the start. youngmin’s being a little too quiet, isn’t he? a parliament councillor comments one day. she stares at him, eyes gleaming. you know, out of all of us, you’re the one that uses the book the most.
with a scapegoat to finally end the conflict with, everyone pounces on the accusation with fervor. but of course, sneers one boy. youngmin used to study with him. it has to have been youngmin. pleadingly, he denies it to the best of his ability, but to no avail—treachery is an inexcusable violation.
and so it begins; the cold shoulder from his fellow councillors, and then excommunication. his rank drops from alpha to beta, word spreading fast that he’s no longer a council member. suddenly, kim youngmin is fair game. you don’t reach the top without taking others down, after all. now that he’s back at rock bottom, the silently brewing retaliation of his enemies awaits him.
LIMITATIONS.
youngmin’s never been in this part of the school. he realizes this a second too late when, in a moment of desperation, he pries open the first door he sees and comes face to face with cleaning supplies. it’s a wretched broom closet; not quite the escape route he was hoping for. he curses, wild eyes snapping up at the echo of footsteps.
youngmin must look absolutely mad right now. under normal circumstances, he’d despise the feeling of being out of control, incapable of going a few minutes without fixing his tie or picking lint off his jacket. but he’s not even wearing his tie now, and his uniform slacks are wrinkled from the impromptu sprint he’d just done. no, this wasn’t normal at all—he was a council member, for god’s sake.
he squeezes his eyes shut for a second, suddenly remembering. keyword, was.
“where’d you fucking go?” comes a voice down the hallway. song kwanghoon from biology is loud, brash, and a stupid gamma no less. youngmin had had the displeasure of being his lab partner for an entire two days before he complained to the teacher enough to switch out mid-course (council perks were a wonderful thing). but song kwanghoon from biology is also twice his size, so youngmin does have some reason to be worried at the moment.
(forget worried, he’s terrified.)
“you’re a fast little bastard, aren’t you, kim!” kwanghoon calls, sounding closer than he was a few seconds ago. youngmin tightens his grip the closet doorknob with bated breath, starting to feel like prey. it’s ironic—before it all happened, song kwanghoon from biology was incapable of eliciting any other emotion from youngmin that wasn’t irritation.
and it was that same irritation last year that drove youngmin to jot down song kwanghoon’s name in the council black book, effectively painting a blood red target on the gamma’s back. youngmin was secretly pleased at how fast things changed for the other, how song kwanghoon’s life at school took a humiliating nosedive. the miserableness in his eyes, the quiet fury thrumming under his skin because he knew he was worthless compared to youngmin. youngmin, the council member—untouchable, like a prince. like a god.
kwanghoon rounds the corner with heavy footsteps, fists curled at his sides. no, youngmin thinks as he bolts into the tiny space, slamming the broom closet shut. you’re not a damn god. not anymore. he manages to click the lock on before the door rattles with the kick kwanghoon aims at it. another kick. another, louder now.
breathing heavily in the dark, youngmin’s never felt so powerless in his life.
ASPIRATIONS.
they’d gone rougher on him today than last week. youngmin winces as he falls into his bed, starfishing on perfectly made sheets. it’s 8pm, not quite curfew time, but youngmin thinks he might just vomit if he tries to eat dinner right now. bread rolls and nausea did not mix.
blindly, he grapples at his bedside drawer until he feels the telltale grip of his phone. a part of youngmin doesn’t quite know what he’s doing or why, fingers moving automatically as he opens his contacts list and scrolls down. outside, shrill laughter rings out from passing students. he can’t help flinching at the noise.
today must’ve been a bad day for his tormentors, he contemplates. if the pain they put him through was at a 4 on most days, then today it must’ve been at least a 7. it’s morbid, theorizing about the mechanisms behind his suffering—but right now, youngmin is too tired to be upset, chest aching in more ways than one. he’s craving comfort.
strangely, it’s a reprieve from his usual coping mechanisms (suppress, suppress, suppress).
just as youngmin pauses in the m section of his contacts, the ache growing in his chest gets slightly more unbearable. who knew fists could do so much damage? he rolls over on his side with a muffled groan, still thinking.
mother. they hadn’t spoken in a while—youngmin hasn’t really had any contact with his family in a month or so, with the exception of the curt letter his brother sent to him in the post last week. long lapses of silence were usually what happened when both of the involved parties don’t really see a reason to keep in touch.
“hello, darling.” youngmin’s mother’s voice is soft, but empty. he doesn’t even realize he’s hit call. “why are you phoning me?”
and, well. youngmin’s not really sure. but what strikes him more beyond the blankness in his mind is how straightforward his mother can be when it comes to matters she isn’t directly involved in—suddenly, the emptiness in his mother’s voice sounds more like disinterest.
youngmin’s doesn’t even realize he’s crying until mother speaks up again. “i’m a bit busy right now, youngmin-ah. i’ll call you back.”
“okay,” he croaks out. “sorry, eomma.” for a person who cries only once in a blue moon, youngmin is impressed with how passive he sounds right now.
“goodbye.” his mother says finally, ending the call with a click. there’s only silence in the room before youngmin rolls back over onto his stomach, pressing his face into his pillow and succumbing to his tiredness.
(the next morning, he wakes up in his dirty uniform, feeling disgusting. mother doesn’t call back.)
BEHAVIOR.
the youngmin that came to amji and the youngmin now are starkly different people. on the surface, he looks the same—perfectly ironed uniform, impeccable hair, a certain confidence in his walk that could rival even the most powerful of kings. but there are discrepancies.
the bruises that color his face in purples and yellows, the bloody tissues stowed away in his bag like a secret. it draws pity out from onlookers like sticky tree sap, and youngmin hates it; these days, he’d rather be despised than pitied. so he’ll carry himself taller, challenging anyone who dares breathe in his direction with a sneer as if to say how dare you pity me?don’t you know who i am? or who i was?
it’s pathetic. he’s all too aware—but youngmin would sooner perish than admit defeat, so instead, he spends his time in solitude. finding alone time is easy; nobody sane wants to be around someone who’s been marked by the council. sometimes, though, youngmin thinks he’s going a bit mad with only his thoughts to keep him company.
vengeance certainly isn’t healthy, but scheming about it keeps him occupied.
after all, if there’s one thing youngmin took from being in the council, it’s that vengeance is the best thing you can get when you’ve been wronged. and one day, when the time is right, that’s exactly what he’ll get: white-hot, ruthless vengeance against the council for what they’ve done against him—and he’ll make sure it happens no matter what.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. BANG, Hyojin.
PERSONAL. Bang Hyojin, born on 18/07/2000 ( age 18 ) in Daegu, South Korea. Currently receiving partial scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Second year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing photography and fashion design. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BM-03.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Drama Club, as member, and the Blue Football Team, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: violence, physical abuse, injuries
HISTORY.
Lived with his grandparents due to his parents busy lifestyle, still prefers living with them even now due to how simple they live
His parents co-owned their own an it company, which was their main focus of daily activities as workaholics
His younger brother was loved by his parents, and like usual, they paid attention more to him than hyojin, even if they were busy with work
Grew up as a social butterfly, always wanting to meet new people and have a lot of friends
That eventually stabbed him in the back, and made him withdraw a bit
Always had an interest in creative subjects because they had freedom in every aspect, which didn’t appeal to his parents, but his grandparents supported him
As he grew up, he became a lot more defensive over his feeling and emotions, pretty much staying quiet about them
LIMITATIONS.
Relationships have become a no in Hyojin’s book. They all go downhill at some point and his own was definitely one that burned to the ground. He was a popular guy, friendly, charming, a good laugh and company. He wore his heart on his sleeve and that was his biggest problem.
He found himself dating this girl, very pretty, very smart, a complete psycho. You’d think, hyojin would have listened to all the guys that had dated her prior, the fact that she was crazy, ready to tear anyone and anything down, abusive and what not. But hyojin didn’t think much of it, they made a good couple, they were the couple almost. Too bad things ended up being true the longer he stayed with her.
It wasn’t until they were half a year into this relationship. In school everything was nice, romantic, ideal couple that managed to get others jealous, but behind closed doors, there was nothing but shouting, screaming, things being thrown at each other. He couldn’t bring himself to even raise his voice at her, lift a hand to try and hit her, even if her own hands collided with his body, other objects as well. He was scared, those times where she would guilt trip him with how she would leave if he didn’t do something for her, it broke him, it made hyojin not sure what to do, how to do it, or where to even go with this relationship, if he could even call this.
Eventually, when he nearly got pushed off the balcony, after yet another argument over how hyojin had agreed to help this guy with some homework, after seeing his life flash before his eyes, he called it off. With tears in his eyes, he called this whole traumatizing experience off and made a run for it, ignoring the crashing and screaming behind him.
He was scared of letting people in nowadays.
ASPIRATIONS.
He wanted his parents attention, he just wanted it. It was always the same as his parents came back from work, ignored him in every shape and form, paid attention to his brother, asked him about his day, school, homework and girls he liked. It was pretty much the usual during diner, hyojin quietly sitting at the table, not really feeling like he needed to show himself. He was doing well, school being a breeze, his teacher’s emails were almost always left unanswered. He had pretty much given up.
However, all patience flies out the window one day and simply said, hyojin messed up on purpose. He argued with the wrong group of people, and being a teenage boy, it wasn’t hard to imagine him getting into a fight, but that was the tricky bit. He was never the aggressive type, he would never reach out to try and hurt someone. Today was that day. He was the one to initiate it, and with a broken nose, black eye and busted lip, he was sat in the back seat of his dad’s car.
Not even then did his parents show much concern, apart from the lecture he expected to get, he was just tossed a bag of frozen vegetables. That was all the attention he got, and he couldn’t help but laugh at his parents. It was ridiculous, the fact that he went to such an extend to hear them worried about him, make sure he was okay, check up on him, show some interest. No, he got a bag of frozen vegetables tossed at him. He moved to live with his grandparents soon after, with the permission of his parents.
So much for craving attention.
BEHAVIOR.
He wouldn’t call himself the life of the party, or a social butterfly, but he liked to think that way. Even if his past wasn’t pretty, he still managed to smile and laugh, make people laugh and smile with him. He was confident around every group, because he had nothing to really fear, how bad can it all get? He’s already experienced the worst side of people, and it was because he let someone in and allowed them to get the better of him. So he had learned from his mistakes. It was always better to put a barrier around his actual feelings, his intentions weren’t ever said out loud.
Yet, even then, he found himself having large friend groups, almost always having someone who owes him a favor of some sort and they always varied. Hyojin wasn’t known of giving false hope in order to get something, even if he was good at it. A bright smile, some soft words and touch were usually more than enough to get what he wants. However, he didn’t abuse it, he didn’t need to abuse it, because he always managed to find his way around because he was nice to people.
He’s does have moments where his loud mouth gets him in trouble, and he usually backs down, shy smile and a wave of his hand the words “jeez, can’t take a fucking joke, can we?” often heard from him. And it worked, like a charm, every time, people let him be because he was nice and it was rare at the school. It was rare and it was going to break him eventually. The main question was, when will it happen and who would it be the one to do so?
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. TAKAHASHI, Keiko.
PERSONAL. Takahashi Keiko, born on 18/10/2000 ( age 17 ) in Nagoya, Japan. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Second year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing history of fine arts and history of cinema. Currently ranking in Gamma Tier, assigned to dorm room GF-01.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Gardening Club, as member, and the Swimming Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
HISTORY.
keiko is born as the second child to associate economics professor takahashi takeshi (a second-generation zainichi with chongryon upbringing) and advertising director shirota yumiko (a second-generation zainichi with mindan upbringing) in nagoya, though the family moves out to tokyo a year later when takeshi is appointed tenured professorship at waseda university.
her parents are well-regarded figures in their respective fields and work diligently to provide a stable foundation for their two children. keiko grows up without much of the hardships her own parents had faced as youth.
her brother, eight years her senior, sets an example for his little sister to follow. he attends amji institute after expressing his desires to learn korean proper (and not at weekend school or preparing gimjang with grandma) and study in the west for university.
the good-natured keiko is also easily distracted, with constantly flip-flopping interests. they think amji might instill the work ethic and resolve she lacks—and what older brother keisuke emerged from high school chock full of.
keiko undergoes intense private tutoring a year before application season. she barely tests in.
attending amji proves to be a double-edged sword. within her first year keiko quickly hones in on an area of study that she excels at and sees herself possibly pursuing after graduating, but it amounts to little as she struggles terribly with the rest of the school’s curriculum.
her failures don’t faze her; she manages to scrape by with her less-than-stellar performance, choosing to focus the bulk of her energy on things that matter instead: history, nail art, her budding herb garden, neo-noir night, and ghosts.
LIMITATIONS.
dad’s korean is getting worse as he gets older. you’re acutely aware of the hot embarrassment that tinges your ears red when he struggles to communicate with the waitress as he squints with great difficulty at the menu on the wall. what’s that one, second from the bottom? sorry, what was that? can you repeat one more time, please? and then, giving up, we’ll take one, before he turns back to you with a slow smile.
dad. you say, and your voice rises even though you don’t mean to get impatient with him. he’s just trying his best. he probably feels embarrassed, too, looking at the way his upper lip crooks and he reaches a hand behind his head, patting where the hair is thinnest. he switches back.
iyaaa, i’m sure it’ll be tasty. i’ve never had this regional cuisine before.
neither have you. everything about this is new. even having dad sit here in front of you like this is new. mom left a week ago on business but dad said he’d stay with you until you kicked him out. he’s actually leaving tomorrow. you think maybe he’d said it out of guilt for pushing you into this situation in the first place but mostly you think he said it because he loves you.
you love dad, too, even if you don’t have the courage or sense to tell him that right then and there. you pick up your metal chopsticks and nibble on an over-seasoned piece of fried fish cake, savoring this moment for all that it’s worth. when the mystery soup comes out of the kitchen, dad stands up to ladle it into your bowl. plop plop. he tells you to eat up before it gets cold. his voice sounds far away.
you take a bite. it’s comforting. the potato balls are soft and bounce happily on your tongue. the broth is gentle, and warms you down to your core. it’s simple food but emotion hits you like a wave and there are tears welling in your eyes when you look back up. dad.
by this time tomorrow, he’ll be on a plane back to tokyo and you’ll be on your own. you won’t see your family until summer. it will be like this—rare holidays and fleeting reunions—until the day comes when you assume your parents’ place and they are children again. the knowledge was always distantly there but it takes a bowl of hot soup for it to register. you look at dad’s bald spot and the first tear trails down your cheek. dad, i don’t want you to leave. when he sees you crying, he panics like you expect him to and grabs as many napkins as he can from the table dispenser to catch your tears.
keicchan, don’t cry. tochan’s right here. i’ll cancel the flight if you want me to. i’ll stay as long as you want.
you can hear a lump lodged in his throat, too. but you shake your head and shove another spoonful of soup into your mouth. you have to go and i have to stay. you chant the words over and over between chews as dad reaches across the table to hold your other hand. these are necessary growing pains. you have to go and i have to stay.
ASPIRATIONS.
it’s field day and the relay has taken everything out of you, maybe even a chunk of your soul. you lay on the grass snow angel style in the dead of summer. the grass underneath is poking past the fabric of your shorts and prickles at your skin and even though it’s uncomfortable you are simply too exhausted to budge.
your eyes are closed but you hear her approaching you, feet padding softly on the ground until they’re next to your left pigtail. she crouches down and tells you to open your mouth so you do. then she pours water into your mouth. the water is cold and clean. it feels like that missing chunk of your soul has just slipped back into you—or that a part of her has entered you. “thanks,” you manage feebly, and cross an arm over your eyes to block out the sun but more importantly to cover your face. you think maybe the redness from having overexerted yourself will obliterate any chance of her finding out that she’s the one actually setting you on fire.
when you no longer hear her within earshot, you sit up and open your eyes. she’s left a water bottle next to where your right pigtail had been. you chug it down as quickly as you can to extinguish the flames in your face and the water rises in your belly, sloshing heavy.
BEHAVIOR.
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] thinking of just getting my hair done during chuseok
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] but that reminds me
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] [x]
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] ???
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] did you do these yourself or
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] hahaha no i wish
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i just got them done by a friend i can rec you if you want in ;)
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] who omg
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] uhh you might not know her
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] takahashi keiko
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] whattt no we were in the same philosophy section last year i remember her she was cute. and kinda weird lol
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] don’t have her kakao or anything tho so yeah put in a good word for me
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] does she take appointments or smth? and how $$?
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i’m not sure actually she runs a mysterious operation and practically gives manicures away for free like i only paid ten thousand
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] not surprised lol she like never talked during our section meetings and was always sick or asleep
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] she must have skipped hahaha she never gets sick
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] also recall her like.. filling up entire notebooks with flip art. and her handwriting is mad good so figures
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] yeah IT IS omg so nice
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] she’s sweet though!! i don’t see her a lot bc she’s always out with her club friends doing god knows what but she’s super sweet
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] how do you know her then
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] we’re neighbors
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] i’m a gamma bitch remember
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] oh that’s right. dumb bitch
[ kkt ⇀ 구XX ] you wanna stay a dusty hands bitch?
[ kkt ⇀ 왕XX ] love youuu
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. KANG, Iseul.
PERSONAL. Kang Iseul, born on 22/11/1999 ( age 18 ) in Busan, South Korea. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing biochemistry and human anatomy. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AF-03.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Science Club, as member, and the Red Football Team, as member. Associated with the Project Deus, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: mentions of mental disorders and blood
HISTORY.
busan born and raised. at the mere age of 26, her father was well on his way of becoming a successful scientist. her mother, 24 years of age at that time, had a future that was far less promising. she was a writer, never found without her notebook, but had yet to sell her first piece. the pregnancy was unplanned, yet not unwanted. her father made enough money to support the three of them, and her mother could take care of her at home. for a while, they were happy.
few years pass, and her father has made quite the name for himself. he becomes very well respected in the field of human anatomy. he starts to earn more money, and then more and more, and becomes so involved in his work that he seems to forget all about his family.
her mother, on the other hand, starts to slip away into a place much darker. she had been diagnosed with depression before, as well as some vague signs of schizophrenia that had been easily ignored in the past. they become more obvious as time passes, and with the lack of care from her husband and the constant attention she has to give to her daughter, it was bound to go wrong. she breaks.
the stories she used to tell to iseul before bedtime lose their spark. they become stories filled with horror and suffering. stories one would tell around a campfire to keep you up at night. they have the same effect on iseul. she barely closes her eyes at night, yet her mother remains the one person she holds dear.
her mother starts to lose touch with reality. can’t distinguish what is real from what is not. everything is just in her head, but not to her. not to the voices that tell her that her husband is evil. that her daughter is no better than him. the voices that tell her to hurt them. to run away. and she does run away. multiple times, but she always comes back. her father covers up her existence. to the outside world, she is good as dead.
iseul inherits her father’s talent and interest for anything science. her mothers outbursts don’t bother her much, her father’s absence doesn’t either. frankly, she seems to be rather numb. always studying books, or out and about to inspect animals. dead animals. cuts them open and studies their anatomy in hidden places, then writes about all her discoveries.
not all her hidden places are as hidden as they seem. classmates have found her before and labeled her a freak and murderer. surely, she would never hurt a live animal, but she doesn’t fight the insults and rumours either. she simply does not care what they say about her–or if she does, she is very good at hiding it.
there were many more rumours about her at her previous schools and in her neighbourhood. some went as far as to say she would make blood sacrifices to the devil or that she had already sold her soul to him. iseul finds it to be rather funny.
she hates when people touch her without permission. it wouldn’t be the first time she seriously injured someone who wouldn’t stop bugging her or touching her. in fact, she broke the wrist of the first (and last) guy that ever confessed to liking her. it is not so much fear as the fact that she just really dislikes people touching her.
she was sent to amji by her father when both her parents did not seem able to provide her with the care she needed. he, too, had heard about the rumours about his daughter and did not want to harm his reputation any further than had already been done. amji could guide her to put her scientific talents to better use and rid her of her mother’s bad influence (or so her father thinks). it’s a win-win to him.
amji is good to her. she is finally able to study fully not only the anatomy of animals, but human anatomy too. she doesn’t really care about her classmates, or teachers, or anything else, still. she has never really been close to anyone and does not have any desire to be so in the near future either. humans are far more useful when dead.
she doesn’t really see the line between good and bad when it comes to science. science is just that. science. and whatever the outcome of an experiment, whether morally right or not, it is a gift to the world.
LIMITATIONS.
It is not because she finds her mother standing next to her bed in the middle of the night that she is afraid, nor is it the blood stains she notices on the white of her clothes. Any child would have been screaming or crying at just the sight of it, but not Iseul. What she does is highly unusual for a kid her age, or anyone in general (and frankly, that should be cause enough for concern). Calmly, she sits up in her bed, eyes raising to meet those of her mother.
‘Whose blood is that?’ It is the first question that echoes into the room, but is just as quickly followed by another, ‘did you hurt yourself?’
Despite the various violent outbursts her mother has had before, Iseul knows she means no harm. She is smart–oftentimes too much so. At times like this, she knows her mother is long gone. She is smart enough to know that there is a chance that she might get hurt, but that is not what scares her.
No, what scares her is what comes next.
Her father comes storming in and far too roughly grabs hold of the woman. As expected, the blood had been his. How, or why, or what–it doesn’t matter. It’s when she finds his eyes that her heartbeat rises. This might not be the first time his mother has struck out, but it is the first time she doesn’t recognise the look in her father’s eyes either. It scares her. ‘Don’t hurt her, it’s not her!’ This time, her flat voice finally raises, and it catches his attention for a moment. Iseul notices, and uses it to her advantage. ‘Please.’ Begging, too, is very unlike her.
The silence in the room is one that still gives her the chills. Her mother is as unresponsive as Iseul had been just moments ago–her father’s tight hold does not seem to get through to her, let alone bother her. It is at that moment that Iseul realises there is no saving her mother anymore. Not even her own husband seems to be willing to try; he finally lets go, and storms off right after. No words are spoken, but she knows that her mother is far too gone to come back to her. And that, even to a kid like Iseul, is something very hard to comprehend.
ASPIRATIONS.
No conscience. No morals. Careless, but remarkably perceptive. She might not care much for the rumors whispered whenever she passes her classmates, but that does not mean that she does not enjoy a little fun of her own. Sometimes. Especially when this one girl in particular does not ever seem to shut the hell up. She spits out false news like she owns the world, and everyone else just falls at her feet. Naturally, she is one of the most popular girls at the school, and Iseul just cannot seem to understand why.
Is it jealousy? Not so much as the simple wish for Iseul to get under this girl’s skin for once. Just this one time, she wishes for her to feel terrified just the same way in which she has made others around her feel terrified.
Well… not exactly the same way.
See, this is where Iseul and her classmate are different. Their brains do not at all function in the same way (or, as Iseul would like to say, hers simply does not seem to function at all). It comes as no surprise that her little gift is far from being appreciated. High-pitched screams can be heard all the way through the school building. They light up Iseul’s face in the slightest; it is almost creepy to see the constant cold look in her eyes fade away for just a minute.
Of course, there is only one person in the school that would go as far as to leave the heart of a rat in someone’s locker. She knows it; the school knows it; even her father knows it. Her action goes not without consequences at home, but the school has no proof and her father knows how to make them go mute.
Nobody ever mentions it again, but Iseul will never forget the satisfaction that fluttered inside of her.
BEHAVIOR.
Whether or not her acceptance to Amji has been positive is uncertain. She appears to be a model student. Studies when she has to, never gets into trouble and always manages to keep her grades up high. On the exterior, she seems without flaw. Take a closer look, and anyone would realise there is no bigger mistake.
Within Amji, within Project Deus, she is allowed far too much freedom for someone with this big a lack of morals. Experimenting has never been so much fun to her, and it shows in the way her expression has changed. It is not unlikely for her to be found smiling to herself; but it only fuels to the rumours that have followed her all the way to Amji. Some even say that she is not quite human anymore, but one of the ghosts that has roamed around the building for years. Some mention that when one would go around the campus at night, they can find her in the labs, experimenting on her fellow classmates. That last one quite amuses her, and it would not be beyond her to go ahead and try to do so in the future–but for now, it is complete and utter nonsense.
She is a model student only because she has what she always wanted, and because she loves to soak herself up in it. What would happen if that were to be taken away from her is something worth pondering about; but perhaps it is best not to dig that deep.
If she is anything like her mother, things are bound to get much, much darker.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. BANTHOU, Phichit.
PERSONAL. Phichit Banthou, also known as Pip, born on 02/27/1999 ( age 19 ) in Bangkok, Thailand. Currently receiving partial scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Social Studies Department, coursing japanese language and psychology. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BM-02.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Visual Arts Club, as leader, and the Fencing Team, as member. Associated with the New Movement, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: physical & verbal abuse, mentions of homophobia
HISTORY.
born in bangkok, thailand on february 27th, 2000 to a lawyer and the owner of a large pharmaceutical company
growing up he was very interested in languages and how people worked - he’d quickly pick up the languages spoken in places his parents and he would vacation to twice a year
he was home-schooled from the age of 4 and was soon being loosely referred to as a child prodigy due to how quickly he understood and remembered things
when he was ten his father opened a branch of his company in seoul and relocated the family there
alongside his studies pip was enrolled into multiple dance classes (ballet, contemporary, jazz and tap)
when pip was 13 he was enrolled in a private middle school and immediately made friends thanks to his natural charisma and how well he understood people, and how to get on their good sides
by the time the final exams rolled round pip was among the top (if not the very top) in all his classes, especially in languages and social subjects
his parents decided amji would be the best school for him, and though they had more than enough money to send him there without any scholarship he managed to get a partial scholariship thanks to his grades and participation in extracurricular activities during middle school
LIMITATIONS.
he’s mid laugh when he spots him across the room, eyes fixed on pip. he recognises the look in his eyes, and his blood runs cold at the realisation. despite the crowds of laughing people around him he feels completely alone; there’s no escape from that gaze, the way it pierces him and stops him in his tracks like a deer in headlights.
frozen fingertips, and trembling hands, rigid posture and unblinking eyes - pip feels every ounce of familiar confidence slip from him, through the soles of his shoes and seeps into the floorboards beneath him. he wants to run, to escape, because he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, or if it was even him who did something wrong, or if, again, he was just the easiest thing to focus the anger on, but deep down he knows there’s no escape.
and it terrifies him.
he sets down his glass, trying not to spill any of the bubbly golden liquid within it, before he turns on his heel and heads for the door out of the large hall. he’s brought to these things to b shown off, like a prized possession, but when he didn’t impress, and comply with being shown off like a trophy, that’s when he got angry. that’s when the fire started to grow in the man’s eyes, and pip’s blood would run cold.
he escapes the hall and almost breathes a sigh of relief, until he feels the hand grip his shoulder. his knees almost give out beneath him, and his eyes instantly fill with tears of fear. “please-”
he can’t finish his sentence before the back of his father’s hand hit’s him across the cheek, his heavy ring scraping against his cheekbone, whipping his head to the side. pip’s not scaredy cat - he’s not afraid of the dark, or spiders, or ghosts… but he’s scared of his father.
he’s pushed into a room off the long corridor, but doesn’t quite catch his breath before he feels his legs being kicked out from beneath him, causing him to fall sideways, catching himself just before his head smacks into the wooden floor. “you can’t do anything right, can you?” the man’s words are hissed through his teeth, and pip trembles, shaking his head.
maybe he’s right. maybe pip really is worthless. maybe he’s got nothing more to offer than his brains, and even those aren’t ever good enough.
a cry, pitiful and weak falls from his lips, before quickly being stifled as he bites into the cuff of his blazer, trying not to succumb to the pain in his hand as his father steps on his hand, putting all his weight into crushing the bones in his hand.
ASPIRATIONS.
dappled sunlight casts the warmest of glows over the boys chocolate brown hair, a slight breeze parting the thick locks hanging over his forehead. his pretty pink lips part for his tongue to dart out, licking at his ice cream. beside him walks a girl who’s eyes never leave him, their hands clasped tightly, swinging between them as they walk. every day they walk through the park, sit on the same bench for an hour, and then leave, and every day, pip sits under a tree opposite the bench and watches them.
they got to the high school connected to his middle school, and he’d first seen the boy on his first day of proper school. he’d been nervous about starting at the school with other children, but the boy had taken him to his classroom on the first day, and shown him around during lunch and break times - he made starting school much easier for pip, but pip wasn’t sure he even remembered him. it’d been over two years since then.
pip watches as the girl plays with the boys fingers as they sit talking. the boy smiles down at her, listening intently, and pip frowns. ‘why can’t that be me?’ he thinks. he knows why, of course. he’s a boy - boys don’t like boys, they like girls, and he’s just broken, like his dad always said. pip can’t help it though, he can’t help but wish he could hold the boys hand instead of that girl.
sitting with his hands in his lap, head leant back against the tree, he watches the boy; watches how his eyelashes flutter when he blinks, or how his hair falls so softly across his forehead when he tilts his head at something the girl said. he stares at him as he laughs, watching his eyes scrunch up and his mouth open, shoulders bouncing up and down with glee, and pip smiles - he wishes he was the one who made him laugh.
BEHAVIOR.
the pressure to be the best, to keep his grades up, to stay alpha weighed down on him during his first year, yet being away from home, away from the people he used to go to school with, being away from the things that tied him down before let him grow. learning about people, and their languages, cultures, how their brains worked, and the social etiquette that led people - eventually he figured it out.
pip wasn’t scared of many things; not the dark, or spiders, nor ghosts or heights. the one thing he was scared of was far from him now, could no longer control him, so he embraced himself, who he was meant to be all along. but being an alpha made people assume so much about him that he wanted to change it - that’s how he found the new movement.
at first no one understood why he wanted things to be different; the system benefit him, an alpha student who’d never once slipped to beta. it was because he wasn’t an alpha by choice - his brain put him there with his high grades and achievements in extracurriculars. pip wanted change, and he wanted it big, and loud.
pip wanted to paint the roses blue, purple, green and orange, he wanted to splash the red paint on the walls and say ‘fuck you’ to authorities, but he wanted to do it so smartly that no one knew it was him - he wanted to play innocent, while stabbing all those two faced teachers and people in charge in the back, just like so many others had done to him throughout his life.
time passed and being an alpha began to get boring - he became more outspoken, voiced his opinions louder, and in his most recent term, after so long as an alpha, slipped to a beta. he thought he’d care, but when he found out, he felt nothing, maybe even a little relief that that invisible pressure had finally been lifted.
yet in the back of his mind a niggling fear of his father’s reaction began to eat away at him…
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. LEE, Minsik.
PERSONAL. Lee Minsik, born on 05/14/1999 ( age 19 ) in Geoje, South Korea. Currently receiving full scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing biochemistry and human anatomy. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AM-04.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Science Club, as member, and the Red Football Team, as member. Associated with the Project Deus, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
HISTORY.
born in washington dc, to a highly prolific neurosurgeon and a retired, tetraplegic astronaut. moved to geoje at age 17 to live with his grandparents who have him enrolled at amji.
his father becomes dependent on caretakers, which has his mother file for divorce and remarry in the same year.
his paternal grandfather became a very successful real estate mogul in the late 80s, during which he either sold or repurposed family owned property land as rentals. his grandmother has roots in north jeolla, and married young, coming from an established family of academics and politicians. they’ve tried to instil a sense of filial piety into him, by having him humbled through ridiculous academical demands. friendships were never meant to become a source of comfort, but rather means to end. networking became a skill made important early on.
has a long history of being a cutthroat overachiever who places academic achievements above interpersonal relationships. this is due to parental pressure, and an apathetic and clinical upbringing. he’s never learned how to understand and connect with others because no one has ever bothered to connect with him.
barely interacts with his parents, since he arrived at amji. this is deliberate on his mother’s part.
LIMITATIONS.
There’s a recurring theme to his nightmares. It starts off tame enough. Long winded corridors, the usual, general lack of light, the occasional flash of teeth. It never goes anywhere. Just the same stretch of busted carpet he’s come to associate with his childhood.
It’s scarier when it’s brightly lit. He can see through the large, open glass pane into the living room. The carpet looks new, and whenever he manages to startle himself awake, heaving into his bed sheets, he can almost smell the cleaning agent off it. His mother’s always sitting primly in her love chair. Hair neat behind her ears, so he can see her delicate earrings. And then the walls start to drool. Fat, wet chunks of wallpaper adhesive in nauseous yellow. The usual headache kicks in. And then she hurls for his throat.
Sometimes her nails are a pretty baby pink around his neck. Sometimes they are blue. Whenever he gets a call from his stepfather, in his dreams, her nails turn green. They have somehow become his very own cosmical oracle. Like a shitty mood ring, but less gimmick-y.
She’d been a prodigy. Quick fingers, agile, resilient; and a calm demeanor highly regarded. Her diplomata took up most of their living room. Nothing of her had carried over to Kyungsoo. Just physical aspects, he thinks she probably dissected enough times to reassure herself he really came out of her.
The awards, the photographs, the long white coat but there’s something missing.
It’s not the never ending suffocation that really scares him. Death, he’d always considered alien. There are stages to asphyxiation. The first couple of seconds are without consequence. After up to a minute, acute dyspnea sets in. Then convulsions, loss of consciousness, coma and ultimately clinical death. He’d tried to visualize it. But it’s never about a state of being. It’s always the moment of clarity when he’s awake staring into the darkness of his room, unsure whenever he’s alone. A few times, he’s sworn he’d picked up the vague scent of nail polish remover in the mess of his pillows. He’s unsure of when it started, exactly. Just that he felt the desperate need to hold onto the belief that there was something out there set on saving him. That’s why he studied his horoscope religiously and occasionally phoned spirit mediums on late night TV, asking for guidance. He also consulted a shaman priest once, but felt empty after the seance and developed a profound fear against drums.
ASPIRATIONS.
It started contrary: an ordinary family, an ordinary childhood, and an ordinary upbringing. Throughout his childhood, he’s unable to shake the feeling that they are paid actors, that he’s a different kind of animal altogether. The family photo albums a carefully constructed narrative, the family dinners at his grandparents’ clumsy rehearsal, his mother’s affection a shallow performance, unspooled.
He’s different, special somehow. A strange sense of self manifests itself in an arrogant streak he’s unable to tone down. He doesn’t know how to form meaningful interpersonal relationships because he’s convinced that it’s just all fluff stuffed inside of suits made of skin, mimicking human behavior.
Success is a rough estimate of how relative numbers are to social accessibility.
His father would say it’s an aversion, the way a child pulls away from their mother, his tame way of loving his mother. It translated well onto paper.
It’s stupid. He’d never wanted anything more.
His grandmother sends him to a therapist. He’s supposed to talk. Drawl. Rinse, repeat. There’s something calming about taking the back seat in conversations. Long intervals between words, a coherent selectivity. Passively. Pulling sentences taunt like fisted hair. Lead of awkward burrows. Self-help starters. It’s the only way he knows how to rotate between topics. Successive events that aren’t really all that descriptive anymore. Or of economic importance. And semantics are important. He doesn’t think he’d have survived a modicum of pseudo-personal “misfortunes” if he hadn’t stressed over manuals.
It’s always been, more of less, about coming home. Being hugged. Someone patting his hair down after a long night.
It’s better to repress.
BEHAVIOR.
He’d always considered the conceptual idea of space in passing. An abstract image, if anything. People he knew well, whose opinion he respected, considered it their livelihood, an opportunity. A choice. But his daily five hours of sleep were unsettling enough. His body would inevitably fold and dry if left alone for so long, inside a one hundred and forty kilo heavy suit, wrapping around him like a claustrophobic casket. Arteries shriveled, and lungs weak not knowing how to pump, trying to catch up with stale oxygen pumping through the cold grills of the air tanks. Muscles seized up through disuse. Face shrunken, reduced to a vague visual.
His father didn’t mind the idea as much. And he knew his father to be resilient from experience. All his childhood he refused to bend, a skewed version of outwardly, confucian masculinity. Like reflex, the body unaccustomed to the backdrop of gender construction. He’d never been significantly close to his mother. Both his parents had always been very preoccupied with themselves and very little with him. Sometimes he thinks he sees something in the way his father articulates with his numb throat, coughing up words in between the grainy filter of his laptop screen. Their skype calls never exceed an hour.
It’s weird, sometimes. Thinking about his life removed of Amji. Or Hwang.
He’s at the bottom of Amji’s social food chain for a sobering amount of time. He contends with an inability to communicate. So while school is never exactly challenging, most of his classmates are irritatingly competitive. He learns to maintain a polite distance. It’s only after he wins a national science award for something he barely remembers submitting, that his school life establishes itself a pace.
He joins Hwang’s petshop of horrors. Sometimes, he swears he can feel the rancid breath of death fawning over his nape.
He thinks about the cusp of space, the immense weight of minus two hundred and twenty celsius beating his body dormant. The way two hundred light years away no one knows him as the son of a drooling mess of ruined nerves, or as someone with unassuming presence. A schoolyard reject preceded by his family’s shortcomings. There’ll be no trace of Lee Minsik. Or of Amji.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. JO, Laura.
PERSONAL. Laura Jo, born on 08/30/1999 ( age 19 ) in Vancouver, Canada. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Third year. Registered in the Social Studies Department, coursing psychology and latin language. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AF-04.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Debate Club, as member, and the Red Football Team, as member. Associated with the Sisterhood, as priestess.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: blood mention
HISTORY.
her close family is the first generation of rich in their family tree. her parents got their money from gambling and now manage to buy anything they want.
there are four daughters in total, and laura is the second youngest. the birth order is enough to make her gain less attention, but her sisters were all paticularly good at something, while laura never stood out in anything. they were all highly intelligent, including laura, but her sister simply had an area of expertise.
laura was often insecure about her position in the family as well as how much people actually cared for her. usually sold herself short instead of trying to prove herself. due to this, it also impacted her interactions with other people. most certainly the least popular sister.
she was scared at first of going to amji. both of her older sister had attended and she knew people would probably expect something out of her too. was initially very quiet and just tried keeping to herself, but then something changed.
after discovering her telekinetic powers, laura finally saw some potential in herself. it gave her an extreme boost in confidence as well as a much stronger personality.
now, laura is one of the most popular senior girls. her attitude of knowing she is better than others clearly shows, but peple seem to like that — and so does she.
LIMITATIONS.
her brown eyes slowly slide to the right. they follow the quick feet whose owner is one of her older sisters. the eldest was already making a big name for herself in journalism, and even jackie (who was younger than her) seemed to have found her own vocation already. there were only two daughters left, and she wasn’t the one about to reach her first achievement. the crowd around her stands and cheers when she crosses the finish line as first place, but laura continues sitting. there was pride on the people around her, in every look, in every expression, and none of them spared her a look. her eyes could barely see anything now. a mass of bodies had filled her field of view, and the girl was stuck with her own thoughts. what was left for her to do? “it’s over now, right? we can go?” her fingers tuck at her mother’s sleeve and the joyful expression on the woman’s face automatically changes to something strict. “don’t do that! it’s very expensive.” her mother just as quickly returns her focus to the celebration, leaving her behind. laura continues looking up but doesn’t try anything anymore. there was no point in looking forward, anyway.
ASPIRATIONS.
her hands aren’t shaking anymore. laura still needs to take long breaths to keep herself stable, but the shock of surprise has been gone for a while now. the glass on her hand is filled with water and she had managed to bring it to herself without moving a muscle. she had, actually, moved her fingers a little bit. it helped visualize the process. suddenly, the girl lets go of her drink and it promptly falls to the ground, shattering into multiple pieces. it didn’t work. instead of moving away, or trying to clean it, or even showing any sign of surprise through speech, laura simply continues to stare at her glass. her palm faces down and she asks for a piece to come to her. there’s no way she can know how it exactly works, so the process must be done through trial and error. she would have stayed there for as long as it’d take. a sharp piece swiftly moves away from the floor and flies straight into her hand. “shit.” she did it. it hurts, but she did it. the pain is completely ignored by adrenaline. in some way, it felt good. none of her sisters could do that, she was sure of it. no one could that. it felt good.
BEHAVIOR.
she’s the sisterhood priestess, and it only helps boost her cockiness. the girl who used to be so quiet and simple has since turned into an image of what as expected from a jo daughter. laura now struts down in the middle of the hallways instead of cowering herself next to the walls. she’s no longer scared to show she’s smart either and always makes it clear during her classes. she doesn’t try to be rude to those she judges not to be on her level, but if they don’t have much to offer then they shouldn’t bother her. her sisters, though — her real sisters — will always be the ones she’s closest to. she still understands her position as the priestess as her being better than them, but that would never stop laura from helping and protecting them. she feels like they are the only ones who truly understand her. she likes to believe the sisterhood only gives her more of a relevant status and she’s very proud of it. still, it makes her a bit scared to be on her last year already. her powers don’t work outside of the school, and laura uses it as her main source of confidence. the knowledge and secret of her power is something she’s unsure will ever be able to be replace by anything else. she prefers not to think about that.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. HAN, Seol.
PERSONAL. Han Seol, born on 06/20/2000 ( age 18 ) in Uljin, South Korea. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Second year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing pre-calculus and statistics. Currently ranking in Beta Tier, assigned to dorm room BF-02.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Drama Club, as member, and the Swimming Team, as member. Associated with the PSIC, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: stalking
HISTORY.
older twin to han byul, born just about a few minutes earlier
family is old time rich, from a small town.
shaky family relationship, open secret that father has been having an affair for the past two years.
was stalked from age 10 to 13, and though the stalker was never found it messed with her psyche a lot.
rationalized it as something supernatural, and she’s constantly trying to prove to herself that it wasn’t real.
cool girl, tries to conform to social norms and build herself a solid image while in school, picks her relationships very carefully, and can seem very friendly to some and condescending to others.
has a lot of pressure for success put on her by her parents.
LIMITATIONS.
it is an universal rule that what you cannot see can’t hurt you. she thinks, in retrospect, that’s a load of bullshit, but she doesn’t want to let it get to her. belief is another thing. it’s rudimentary. flaky. a thing to hold onto when everything else gives out.
you can’t summarize a life of hauntings into a single ghost story, unless you’re willing to omit the details, but that would be an admission to some type of truth. so she feared; walking home from school alone in the dark, with some eyes stuck to the back of her head and counting. her parents screaming from the other room. uncertainty. her personified reflection always in her side view.
but she swallows it down. that way is easier. if you pretend something isn’t there, it’s only a matter of time you start to believe it. she’s good at laughing as a strategy for diversion. physical fear is one thing, but the idea of seeming anything more than the cool girl frightens her beyond words.
han seol. that’s who she is; not the one who was stalked, or the one with the fucked up family. han seol.
you can murder a girl and leave no evidence. you can murder a girl and have her still breathing at your feet. these things aren’t mutually exclusive. it’s just that people don’t trust ghost stories, when sometimes they should.
ASPIRATIONS.
every second she craves the sweet relief of adoration to fill her up. that’s a poetic way of saying it. there are many types of hunger, and she can say she’s experienced every single one.
expectations towards her are one-sided. so, yes, mother and father put her up as the shining family star, the salvation of the rotting corpse that is their old town glory. isn’t it natural that she’d want to achieve that? some would call it desperation, but han seol is never desperate for others. they’re desperate for her.
(it’s not as easy to believe that as it might seem.)
so when does the abundance of this type of reverence become a burden and a cause? these things are heavy to lift, you know, and she’s smaller than she looks. when do you fuck over your own sister for the sake of the order that you are used to (that you need)? when does living become a neck to neck fight on the daily?
nobody adores her. maybe, some like a projection of her that’s tender to chew on, and better to digest. maybe, that’s the answer to this. she doesn’t crave sweet love or everlasting devotion.
she’s a monster who feeds on attention. she’s a hungry child. pick and choose which definition you like best. god knows she’d let you.
BEHAVIOR.
there’s a certain level of self-cautiousness you need to possess to survive an institution like amji.
she measures her words and responses. she’s always been good at this. there are people out there she needs to impress, but in the end this social hell all boils down to simple measurements, trial and error. amji brought out the worst in her, some might say. you can’t fight a system, she thinks, so it’s best to conform early on and master what you can.
so she picks and chooses her crowd very very carefully, because, well, she can’t afford to waste time on people that can get her nothing in return. it’s more than just smart planning. she always felt like she belonged to something bigger than small town cool cliques who can’t pay their beers in the supermarket. amji is the thriving ground, carefully constructed for people just like her.
her participation in the paranormal club is kept hush hush, for obvious reasons. she can’t have the student body thinking she’s some kind of a freak like the rest of them. that would be image suicide, but she’s unwilling to waver in her need for answers to questions she has long posed inside the comfort of her own mind.
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. YI, Doona.
PERSONAL. Yi Doona, born on 02/24/2001 ( age 17 ) in Busan, South Korea. Currently receiving full scholarship.
ACADEMIC. First year. Registered in the Science Department, coursing human anatomy and pre-calculus. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AF-03.
SOCIAL. Participates in the School Band, as member, and the Fencing Team, as member. Associated with the Sisterhood, as rogue.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: physical abuse, thoughts of suicide
HISTORY.
Aside from her father being a former student at Amji, Doona’s grandfather (a war veteran, cursed patron of this patriarchy) was a close friend of the school’s founder.
Her name still carries weight in the school (to some extent, at least), though she refuses to acknowledge it.
Doona was never particularly close with her brother. They were away from each other for the most part; Daewon stayed by their father, while Doona was left to her own devices.
She hears the other girls’ voices best when in high spirits, which is a rarity in itself; otherwise, she chooses to shut them out, a trick she learned by sheer force of will.
Her true passion lies with music, but her father could care less. The only thing she’ll be is a military doctor.
Daewon’s death during his time at Amji remains a mystery to the Yi family; Doona actively tries to look for him in her downtime, not out of filial attachment, but as a means to escape her burdens.
LIMITATIONS.
Doona had always been afraid of her father.
He was a scary man, with beady eyes and a burly figure that loomed past six feet. He was the boogeyman under her bed, the darkness lingering in the corner of her eyes. She remembers finding him repulsive as a child, disliking the gloom and doom that seemed to come off him. Something about his presence made her stomach churn. It was a mystery how anyone could find him appealing to the eye.
The only person her father seemed to like was her older brother, Daewon. Daewon had always borne their father’s expectations, while Doona enjoyed her place in the shadows. As expected of the patriarchy. It was biological predisposition, roles assigned at birth and whatnot. Daewon would follow father’s legacy in Amji, and Doona sent away to an all-girls school. In her head, it was set in stone. She never questioned her fate as the lesser child, both in birth order and in sex.
Daewon’s death rattles their family. They bury an empty casket when police investigations fail to produce a body. Mother is most affected. She prays and weeps in mournful routine and holds countless vigils for her son’s safe passage to heaven. But father does not feel. He finds no joy in crying over spilled milk. If there is loss, then one should compensate.
If you lose a son, compensate with your daughter.
So he beats her into the shell of her brother. Her father is as dark as she’d thought him to be. He grabs her by the hair and pulls, until he thinks she’s bowed back enough. He breaks her and builds her into the monster he wants her to be. Father never held her as a babe, and now she understands why. His touch is only meant to ruin, to tear things apart and discard what he deems unimportant.
ASPIRATIONS.
There’s a girl in her class.
And yes, there are many girls in her class, but this one…stands out. It’s not an articulate description, but neither is this girl—this swashbuckling, trouble-making girl, with wild hair and even wilder eyes. Everybody at school knows her name, and not for good reason. She’s exactly what she should avoid and yet Doona has become so taken with her.
She admires how she doesn’t fit anywhere. She forges her own path, makes her own rules, lives her own life. She creates her own truth and swears herself to it. She couldn’t take away her darkness, but she places stars in Doona’s eyes and it’s more than enough. They hold hands until Doona can’t tell where she starts and where the girl begins. They kiss until night turns to day, until her lungs beg for breath and her lips tingle all over.
They love until the girl is taken away.
Or rather, the girl takes herself away. Because a wild child can’t be tamed. Because they had to stop somewhere. Because she doesn’t fit anywhere. The last one is most difficult to swallow. Because Doona used to admire her for it. Because Doona used to crave for it. Because Doona thought she fit best by her side, holding her hands and kissing her senseless and breathing into her the life she thought she’d lost.
BEHAVIOR.
The shell of a girl is what she is. Hollow and broken and damned for eternity, like most kids in this circle of hell. She has her father to thank for her easy assimilation to Amji. Key word: easy, because it really shouldn’t be, not for any normal kid.
She’d kill for any semblance of normalcy.
She goes over the basics everyday. Yi Doona, seventeen. Fears Father most. Craves for death twenty-four seven. It’s not that hard. She speaks less by the day, heart withering, spine cracking, eyes glossing. Yi Doona. The scars have faded and the bruises have healed but they’ve made their marks nonetheless. Yi Doona. Spine cracking, darkness blooming, carries the family name like a prisoner in balls and chains. Yi Doona.
(There are voices in her head that she keeps repressed.)
She says her name over and over and over again until it feels foreign on her own tongue. She burns through her routine until she feels foreign in her own body. She looks at her family until they all feel like strangers. She keeps looking through the motions until the frames blur together. Empty, empty, empty. She finds that something ends to when she keeps doing.
Her heart keeps beating. When will it stop beating?
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HERE YOU LEARN KNOWLEDGE BEGINS WITH FEAR.
STUDENT FILE. NA, Suji.
PERSONAL. Na Suji, born on 03/03/1999 ( age 19 ) in Andijan, Uzbekistan. Currently receiving no scholarship.
ACADEMIC. Second year. Registered in the Art Department, coursing photography and history of music. Currently ranking in Alpha Tier, assigned to dorm room AM-02.
SOCIAL. Participates in the Drama Club, as member, and the Red Football Team, as member. Associated with the Project Deus, as member.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
CAUTION: drowning, drug use
HISTORY.
born in a military base in andijan, uzbekistan to a doctor and his wife
moved to yekaterinberg, russia when he was two years old (spent a lot of time in lake turgoyak with his friends)
lived a relatively peaceful life and enjoyed natural talents in science, arts and sports: he excelled the most in language and science subjects at school, could play the violin with mild fluency by the tender age of nine and partook in many musical concerts, and began swimming professionally by age eleven, competing in both local and international competitions. spent a lot of his time traveling
his parents, both originally from south korea and believing that he was much more impressive than he gave himself credit for, wanted to reconnect him to his korean roots. so they suggested that he continue his studies in south korea
he applied to a handful of schools and got into all of them. following his mother’s suggestion to enter amji because a good friend of hers who serves in the state council went there.
LIMITATIONS.
he was barely fourteen, small and excited and cold as he sat in the back of his friend’s father’s van. giddy with anticipation (and a little sick with anxiety) as they drove by trees and unknown streets. and slowly, slowly, slowly, the city disappeared behind them.
sweaty palms. he tucked them into his coat sleeves and under his knees, and his hands were shaking just slightly, but he laughed to a joke about the sky.
they pulled into his friend’s grandmother’s cabin and ran to the lake in the backyard, hidden just behind a thicket of trees. and they jumped in without a thought, without another word, without a care in the world. laughing and shivering in the near-winter water, they braved the blue and carried on the afternoon in endless conversation and tireless competition.
games of chicken and hold your breathe underwater and let’s see who can swim the fastest, the farthest. it’s the blood under the water that gets him. his friend, too small to be in water that deep, cutting a gash in his foot against a rock.
he panicked and wailed and started to drown, and no one could really swim to where he was thought they tried and they tried. it was unnerving. they said they found water in his lungs, and he was pale as a piece of paper when they finally dragged him out to shore.
to this day, suji still wonders if that boy died. if he died and came back to life, if he could have died and it would have been their fault. and he has worked as an accessory, but never to murder. to this day, he wonders how that boy could have gone. and there are so, so many ways to go, he thinks.
it was terrifying, to say the least. a kind of scary, a kind of waking up.
ASPIRATIONS.
it’s a few hours away to another city. some interschool swim meet. and he wins a lap by a bare second and a half.
wanting to win the next round and the next, until he gets the big trophy on the stand (MVP, embossed on the plate underneath) is the first and last time he wants something so badly.
it’s a raw, young kind of emotion. a little too intense for something that seems so small. and it’s the kind of thing he doesn’t really realize until he’s older and feeling much less intensity at much less frequency.
and it’s not that he wanted the trophy, or wanted to brag, or wanted to be so big that everyone could see him. it’s something he feels in his heart, somewhere beyond ribs and woodworks.
and it’s simple, no flashing bright lights or broken bottles and cracked fireworks. no blinding epiphany or dramatic thing. but its a single moment that sets him up for life, instilling competitiveness inside of him when his parents never demanded much. teaching him the value of ambition when he already had everything he could ever need. nurturing a curiosity that had already been planted years and years before.
it’s an experience and a lesson, though he didn’t know it at the time.
BEHAVIOR.
suji likes to think that he hasn’t changed much. though he’s quieter, and speaks less, and sees less than he did before. though he punches harder than he did before, feels more anxious more often than he did before, though he asked his dad to sign off on a medical marijuana for anxiety form for his eighteenth birthday.
much of the change that he has gone through after entering amji can be attributed to two distinct things: his departure from the swim team and, of course, his involvement with project deus.
the events that took place within project deus, though surprisingly not as shocking as it should have been to him, did dent his state of mind to some degree. going into amji, the institute all pristine and well, he never expected to see so much violence, so much blood, so many wounds and cuts and bruises. and now he knows what human flesh being sliced apart feels like, what the smell of a thousand chemicals can do, how darkness in direct sunlight appears.
though it’s a change none too dramatic, the kind of change you expect to see in someone growing. he still likes most of the same things, art and science and sports. and going out with friends, and spending time basking in the world.
but now he knows so much more than he could have ever hoped to know, now he wants to know more than he ever could have dreamed. now he has experienced a thirst that he can’t seem to quench, and now he keeps emptying his heart to make space for harbored secrets.
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