#pa.park junhee

[paranoiakrp]

         CITIZEN FILE RETRIEVED: HAN SEOKYUNG …

STATS

name / han seokyung d.o.b. / 03.20.95 age / 24 pronouns / they/them  job / baker for the local cafe societies / n/a   groups / vlog squad › audio tech

WHATS YOUR WEIRD?

seokyung knows it’s odd. like, really odd. the looks they’d get bringing old, rotting bones in from outside back into the orphanage, claiming that they just thought their find was neat. too fascinated with their biology classes; sure, there was always that one kid who thought the frog dissection was way too cool, but seokyung was already othered for reasons and the smile and amazed sigh they breathed when slicing into its preserved flesh did nothing to endear them to their classmates.

later, this grew into a hobby. it started innocently enough, butterflies and dragonflies pinned to a corkboard once they had gotten their own apartment like seokyung had seen in movie after movie. it’s not like they were the one to kill the insects — well, most of the time anyway. there was this one really lovely specimen, but that’s neither here nor there. delicately, they made sure to put a glass box around the lizard skeleton they found in the woods once — it was intact, even! it just spiraled from there, though. now, years later, seokyung’s set aside a special room for their little hobby. delighted, they carefully drag their most recent find into the room, gingerly placing the fox carcass on the sanitized desk. as far as their little passion projects go, she was the largest, and possibly the most challenging, but that’s what’s always fascinated seokyung about taxidermy anyway.

WHATS YOUR STORY?

march 20th, 1995: it’s not often that a kid is born with no parents. not literally, of course, mind you — but still, seokyung couldn’t lie and say they had any bonds of blood of their own. they were told they were left at the doorstep of the police department at the edges of seoul. since their mother had covered herself in a cowl, shadows hid her face, and the police weren’t quite able to track her down. at their current age, seokyung surmised she was a single mother, and they tried their hardest not to resent her, even if it was difficult.

fall, 1998: still a young child, seokyung was adopted by a couple who live in junae. their adoptive mother, sunyoung, would later tell them that despite trying, she had never been able to give birth to a child of her own, and she and their adoptive father, dongsung, had secretly gone to the orphanage, as they had lived long enough in seoul due to dongsung’s work that they could return with a child in tow and laugh and say that the child was their own. seokyung doesn’t know how to feel about the secrecy, even now, though their lips are still sealed.

1999 through 2009: seokyung’s early days were ordinary enough for an orphan in junae. they made friends, traded lunches, did well enough to not stand out but not badly enough to stand out either. for the most part, their life was extraordinarily average despite an incredibly morbid curiosity and fascination with life and death, despite seokyung poking at the snake corpse at the park far too much for comfort.

2009: seokyung grows increasingly uncomfortable. they can’t point on how, or why, or when exactly it starts. they just begin to notice everything feels wrong, and sunyoung cards gentle hands through their hair as they tremble at night. comforting, but somehow wrong. like everything exists a little to the left of where it should. uncomfortable. paranoia inducing. sunyoung and dongsung sharing the truth of their birth doesn’t help, but both of them assure them that they’re still, above all, family.

seokyung bites their tongue and hopes that’ll remain true if they spill their feelings, their wrong body, the wrong mind, uncomfortable existence.

march 20th, 2013: it’s seokyung’s 18th birthday. they know they should be absolutely jumping with joy, but their hands shake all day. a lump is stuck in their throat — everything’s been getting worse and worse, and they’ve decided to come clean now that they’re legally an adult should things go south, but constant what ifs circle through their mind. they’ve made their peace with the stupid adoption thing, feeling incredibly lucky to have their mother and father, but that only made it worse.

they couldn’t stand the thought of losing them.

after their birthday dinner, their favorite dish — sundubu jjigae, their mother’s classic recipe — sat warm in their stomach, but seokyung couldn’t help the queasy feeling. concerned, their father asked them what was wrong. it was clear seokyung was far from happy, especially on such an important day. they each took a hand of seokyung’s, noted how cold and clammy they felt, asked if they were sick.

seokyung was silent for a long time, trying to find their words, bury the tears prickling at their eyes. “do you remember the time you promised me that you’re my family, above all?”

“of course.”

“and that it would never change?”

“and it still won’t, xxxx!”

a pause, seokyung clinging to their hands for any semblance of an anchor.

“stop calling me xxxx.” seokyung said, firmer than they meant. the name felt like dead weight on their tongue, even if it was all they were called their life. “i want….i want you to call me seokyung instead.” it was a name they discovered quietly, their closest friend whispering in the dark of their room whenever they had hung out, their one lighthouse.

the silence was palpable, and seokyung couldn’t help but continue, even if all that came out was a frenzied babble, tears finally pouring out of their eyes, a jumble of theys and botched explanations leaving their mouth, some sort of hope for the best despite an expectation of the worst.

it wasn’t until dongsung softly pulled them in that they stopped talking, a broken sob ripping from their throat at the embrace, their father’s gentle apology washing over seokyung.

“you shouldn’t have had to hide like that,” was all dongsung said, but seokyung still felt the deepest love they ever had.

it was still strange, for a bit, but it was obvious that they were trying. half-awkward offers to paint seokyung’s nails from their mother, over-enthusiastic affirmations from their father, but seokyung appreciated it nonetheless,  a gentle kiss on their cheek the day seokyung decided to come out publicly — graduation — and for the first time in ages, seokyung felt free.

2019: seokyung had a niche carved out for themself, and even though they knew nothing would ever be perfect, seokyung is content. they work at the little cafe, their shifts early in the morning — early enough to watch the sun rise over the mountains as they walked to work, headphones in. their shift was over early enough for them to head home, excited to work on whatever hobby was important that night; their hidden room for taxidermy, or the episodes uploaded to youtube, working audio tech for a local channel focused on the oddities of the town, of which there was plenty. mic held high over seokyung’s head, they followed the hosts into the night on many an occasion, nervous anticipation nipping at their heels night after night.