creepyfic is creepy

[shadowsong26]

Title: Make It Go Away

Author: shadowsong26
Challenge: Individual Themes
Chakra/Themeset: Fire/Ashes
Character: Ji Yeon, Sun-Hwa, Jin-Soo (OCs), Joo Dee

 

dirty little secret

 Sun-Hwa and Ji Yeon were identical twins, same eyes, same smile. They lived alone with their father and their older brother. By the time they were fourteen, they were the acknowledged beauties of their neighborhood in the Middle Ring. No one knew this better than their eighteen-year-old brother, an apprentice jeweler, who specialized in repairing settings for pearls. Pearls were oddly rare, given that they were one of the primary exports of the Fire Nation, after spices. All of the schoolbooks that dealt with such subjects said so. Ba Sing Se was more than wealthy enough to have many more pearls than the twins' brother dealt with.

It started that year, when Jin-Soo brought home a pair of simple, though exquisite, pearl necklaces. One was white pearls, he gave that to Sun-Hwa, and one was black pearls, that one went to Ji Yeon. He clasped the strings around their necks one by one, his hands lingering a few seconds longer than they should, his eyes a few inches lower than their necks, and smiled. "This'll be our little secret, girls. Our special pearls."

Enchanted by the pretty gifts, the twins couldn't help but agree.

Later, other pearls got added to the secret, rings and bracelets and other pretty things, and the nights he gave them to his beautiful girls were always such special little secrets.

shut up!

Ji Yeon was the one who snapped.

It had been going on for twenty long months. Sun-Hwa had had to go to the special doctor in the Lower Ring three times, and she herself had gone once. And after twenty months, it looked like her twin would have to go back a fourth time--it didn't make sense, the disgrace should've been equal, they were identical and he favored them equally with his special pearls--and it was Jin-Soo's great misfortune that he came with gifts the same night the girls discovered this.

Ji Yeon presented herself to be the first to be decorated. She was wearing all of his earlier gifts--he liked them to do that--and his favorite nightgown, the one that was barely opaque and a few sizes too big.

He didn't even see her take the pearl hairpin out of her braid.

that never happened

"What did you do?" Sun-Hwa whispered, whey-faced, frightened, staring at her sister's newly-dyed nightgown.

"We're free," Ji Yeon whispered back. "We're finally free."

not sorry enough

Ji Yeon was arrested within hours.

She remained silent at her trial, refusing to explain why, why she'd murdered her brother. Luckily for her, his posthumous convictions for theft and embezzlement saved her from execution, but she was sent to spend the rest of her natural life in prison for this heinous crime.

When the judge told her, she smiled, just like she and her sister had always smiled, even after the worst most painful nights of the last twenty months, even after the trips to the special doctor, and kept her silence.

i wish i could tell you...

Ji Yeon had been in prison for six months when the tall man came to her cell.

"I'm told you won't eat," he said.

She had been silent since her trial, and she wasn't about to break that silence now. She wouldn't for anything short of Sun-Hwa coming to see her, something that hadn't happened since the night Jin-Soo died.

"Prison is an unpleasant place," the man continued after a moment, trailing his gloved hands along the bars. "But there is another way you can pay your debt. If you're interested."

Ji Yeon looked up at him.

He smiled. "You're a perfect candidate for a very special civil service. And you'd never have to come back to this awful place again."

She hesitated for a moment, thinking of the sister who was lost to her, then she closed her eyes. "I'm listening."

embarrassed

Sun-Hwa waited nervously in the captain's office, a year after Ji Yeon's trial. After she'd been there nearly ten minutes, he entered. "I apologize for the delay, miss. The Director had something he wanted me to take care of."

"I-it's all right, sir," she murmured, hating herself for the stammer.

"So." He sat down behind his desk and steepled his gloved fingers. "I'm told you're here as a volunteer."

She nodded. "I'm t-told you can make people...forget bad things that have happened to them, in exchange for th-this service. You can make me f-forget what m-my brother and s-sister did..."

"We can give you a new life," the captain summarized neatly.

"Y-yessir. And, s-since my father died..."

"You have nothing left to tie you to the one you're living now." He was very good at getting to the point. He had already pulled Sun-Hwa's file, and was familiar with her tragic story. The thieving brother, the murdering sister, the father, dead of grief, trying to support herself since, but unable to, not with the stigma and the pain. And a pretty thing, too, and just within the age range to suit the purpose "Very well, miss." He smiled at her, stood up, and offered his hand. He could feel hers shaking through his glove. "I'll take you to a place where you'll never feel pain like this again."

you don't need to know

Joo Dee passes another woman dressed like her, with the same eyes, and the same smile. "Good morning," she says, pleasantly.

"Good morning," the other woman echoes. "Where are you going?"

"I am going to the train station. I am meeting someone important and showing them our wonderful city."

"How exciting for you! It is so wonderful to tell strangers about our perfect city."

"Yes it is. I am sorry to be rude, but if I do not leave now, I will be late."

"Of course. Good morning."

"Good morning."

They share an identical smile and go their separate ways.