Jae-eun has thought about this for a long time now, about getting a tattoo. Back home, it would have been another mark against him, would have made him look like a criminal, though not in the ways he is and not in the ways they already regarded him as being. That part doesn't bother him; he didn't belong in too many ways for one more to matter. It's more that they're
expensive. They're expensive and he doesn't have a job and he worries about that. Sihyun never makes him feel like a burden — Jae-eun can do that perfectly well on his own — but the fact remains that he balks at spending that much on himself under his current circumstances.
( CW for mentions of self-harm. )The process is a long one, and it
does hurt at times. It feels good, too, though, and the physical part doesn't matter as much as the thrum of excited nerves as Ginny works, the buzz of the needle unexpectedly soothing. When it's done, he could swear his heart stops for a moment, relief seeping through him to the bone. He knows where the letters are, could still trace them if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. They're hidden now, tucked between flowers, vines, and leaves — some leaves that look like music notes, some vines that are also piano keys. He's not sure he'll ever be able to feel the same way about music, that he'll ever recover how easy it was a long, long time ago, but it's still a part of him, too. And this, this is beautiful, hope growing over despair. Ginny pretends she doesn't notice him getting teary-eyed as she goes over care instructions.
"It looks good," Sooyoung says, grinning. He's seated outside Bakery Bitna a few days later, and she's got her daughter on her hip. "You have to give me her number. I've been thinking of getting something done." When noona heads off with her baby to continue with her day, Jae-eun stays where he is, fingertips brushing over the fresh ink, his injeolmi and coffee half-forgotten. The feelings are, as always, complicated and sometimes contradictory, but the last few days, he's felt lighter, too.
[ Find Jae in the little Asian district in the Northwest of town. A good time to meet him or reconnect!! He's unlikely to go into any detail at all about what he covered up or how it got there or why. Open until this says otherwise. ]