Sharp Tongues, Quiet Fists

A lot of people who meet Yoon Jiyeon assume she's cold. But thats not it. She's furious. All the time. That anger. It sits inside her, eating her alive-just beneath the surface- like another heartbeat. She's seventeen and already sinking. No one's noticed, she's become too good at concealing it. That's how she grew up. Jiyeon doesn't really want to die. Then again, maybe she does. staring up at her ceiling and thinking how easy it would be. A belt. The roof. The scissors tucked in her drawer. It isn't about pain. Pain is familiar, she even thinks of that as a release. What she wants is stillness- the hush. The ending. Because living like this?It's like drowning inside a house fire. You can't breathe right and everything burns. She doesn't leave notes. Doesn't beg for help. Never says "Im not okay" because that would mean someone actually cared about her. And nobody has. No one ever will, either. sad. She turns violent. Very violent. Jiyeon is the kind of girl who rams her skull against the bathroom mirror until it breaks whenever her reflection makes her sick, the kind who cuts into her skin until the floor ends up smeared under her since she needs to feel anything but hatred. Jiyeon feeds off fear, it gives her the kind of power she couldn't find at home. Maybe that's why she's this violent, she only wanted to be seen. She doesn't care what anyone makes of her; she never has. She wants people afraid of her. To know her name, not from respect alone but from sheer terror. Because if they're afraid, they won't come close. And if they stay away, they can't walk away. sleeves. Her thighs are worse- simpler to hide. She doesn't do it to get attention. She does it to feel in control. There's something soothing about the sting, the way blood beads over skin. It's the only moment her body feels like hers. All the rest-her smile, her silence, her clothes at school, even her name-still belongs to her parents. But those cuts?Thats her. Thats proof she still gets to choose something. Even when it's pain. Her mother says, "you're lucky you've got a roof above your head." Her father says, "you really think you're the only one suffering?" And each time she hears them say it, Jiyeon wants to laugh until her ribs crack. Because her house was never a home. It's a crime scene and nobody calls the police. They almost never hit her. But they'd starve her for affection. Weaponise silence. Breathe shame like oxygen. When her brother died, nobody hugged her, nobody even tried to comfort her. They just erased him. Emptied out his room. Donated his things. Jiyeon didn't speak for six days. By the seventh day, she slit her thighs until blood seeped across her marble bathroom tiles. the first time she cut herself, and it made her feel free in a way nothing else ever really could. After that it only happened more and more often. it was, no one noticed. She's being sent to Greybridge High now because of what happened at her last school, she put a boy in the hospital, nearly in critical condition. didn't even catch all of it, everything just...went fuzzy. Next thing she knew he was on the floor and her knuckles had split open, her rings slick with blood and her school shirt streaked with crimson. And the boy? He couldn't even scream anymore, he could hardly breathe. Slipping in and out of consciousness while Jiyeon was pulled away from the bleeding boy by four teachers. "emotionally unstable" and said she "needed help"Her parents never argued. They never do. They knew she was unstable. They didn't care, not even in the slightest. They're only waiting for her to cross a line, or vanish. Whichever comes first. She's not going to Greybridge High to find friends. She's going because they have nowhere else to put her.