swxtched. | jhs

NULLA, switched.

(NOTE: SOME CHAPTERS MAY BE IN DRAFT MODE FOR REVIEW.)

❝ where flesh met plastic at the elbow. ❞

A GIRL'S BROTHER once said that if she doesn't have anything nice to say, then shut up.

Maybe she should've at this moment— which, of course, didn't make her weak. Ridiculous. Everyone knows that she's so glad to finally be here in class with twenty or so pairs of eyes ogling her. Perhaps if she appeared "normal" to them, not everyone would stare so outright, but she apparently isn't going to be treated that way.

It's just an introduction, she reminds herself, staring down past her frozen hands. There's a thinly-sliced bleached sheet of a tree with some pen ink artfully scrawled on it. "'Hi'—" she croaks and stops.

She breathes in. Slow.

"It's okay," Miss Son consoles. The student closes her eyes to discreetly roll them to the back of her head.

Miss Son really gave it to her. Behind Miss Son's sweet smile, she probably saw her new student walk through the door and thought, Nice, another person to grade, because if the student's sleep-deprived eyes had anything to say, she can already tell that this one is probably not going to be a ray of sunshine in her rainy years of teaching. The air of cheerlessness that follows the student practically screams, "I don't participate in class" and, "I'm just trying to graduate."

So, why? Why would teachers put a student like her on the spot whenever she'd transfer late in the semester? How does this kind of thing get harder and harder to do? She's already done the same introduction three times before.

Is this a story they hope to laugh about in their teacher offices? Is that why they do it?

"Hi everyone. My name is Min Geurin," the student says. Her eyes instantly lose focus.

She can only imagine the looks on everyone's faces— the judgment, the curiosity, the talking. The questions.

The only student who wasn't paying attention finally looks up. He blinks and rubs one of his eyes with the back of his thumb, glancing once at her. With a yawn, he casts his eyes down to his lap. But then he looks up again. 

He squints at the new girl for a second, eyeing a particular part of her. What is that? He blinks a few more times. Then his eyebrows shoot up.

"I heard she lost her arm in an accident."

"I heard it was a disease."

"She was probably born that way."

"Is that why she transferred here? Maybe she was bullied in her old school or something."

"Maybe it's because there are better doctors here."

"Guys," he said to shut everyone up, although he knew he probably sounded like an ignorant idiot, "how do you even know if those rumours are true? She's probably fine."

The new student promptly shoves her paper under her arm. No one would ever know what else Min Geurin wrote as she starts spewing out something unscripted, "You've probably already noticed, and I mean... it's hard not to notice. But in case you didn't pay attention at all, my arm was amputated last summer."

Jung Hoseok sucks in a breath. 

Whoa.

"And people call me Green. Like the English colour for chorok." With a small flick of her upper arm, Geurin's— Green's— prosthetic hand clenches the paper held in it, crumpling it. It catches everyone's attention. She turns to the teacher and hangs her head for a moment. "That's all, seonsaengnim."

Whatever, she thinks with finality. I'm out of here in less than a year.

Green looks up, and— click.

She's trapped in a moment of locked eyes. There's a boy with guilt and rare concern, and a girl with apathy and haste with a tad of relief.

And then they tear away.

Green was absent for the first two months of school, and everyone thought she was going to be the next big talk. In a school where nothing much happens, many found themselves desiring someone or something interesting to come their way.

But with her monotonous eyes, wispy short hair and— well, she seems a bit sickly and pale and those lips are a bit over-chewed— students were graced by the presence of a sleep-deprived, vampire-looking, apathetic amputee. 

Green passed. Definitely the next big talk. 

"Thank you, Geurin," Miss Son says, clearing her throat, realising with reluctance that Green has finished speaking. Miss Son is so nice. Geurin has a hard time believing it. "Since you didn't read your introduction, would you care to at least share something you'd like for us to know?"

"I'd like to sit down now."

Miss Son smiles and closes her eyes. "Okay then. Welcome, Min Geurin, to Class 3A. I hope we'll all have a wonderful senior year together."

Who knows? Green sits behind Hoseok and stares past his back, trying her hardest to ignore the lingering stares. Senior year, surprise me, she thinks.

Which she will regret later.

//

by unknown reasons, an amputee switches bodies with a dancer.
『 written on 2017.08.03. | revamping in august 2021-2022. 』

//

STATUS—COMPLETE ; EDITING PROCESS

NOTE—ayo wassup homies here's my cliché idea

DEDICATED TO—a girl at my high school who has down syndrome. she is the sweetest and purest girl i've ever met. i hope people would recognize that everywhere she goes.

FEATURED PROTAGONIST:
「 SON HWAMIN as MIN GEURIN 」