Work Text:
TO FREE THE SELF...
Lee Jihye
INT. TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
Murmurs emanate from inside a classroom. It’s a few minutes before seven. Two girls are sitting across from each other. Their voices are indistinguishable. Then, suddenly: a loud Ku-gugugu noise. Sounds of drums being ripped apart.
DOKKAEBI
Oh, my. The channel here opened up sooner than scheduled. Ah, ah, can you hear me?
We see glimpses of pandemonium. Screams travel from ear to ear. There’s blood on the walls, blood on the tiled floor, blood on the school uniforms. Two, trembling hands. A cold body.
In the middle of it, a girl stands alone.
CUT TO:
TEXT OVER BLACK:
“Write a poem for your fourteen year old self. Forgive her. Heal her. Free her.” —Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Questions for Ada
BEGIN OPENING CREDITS.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. 3RD WORLD LINE, TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
A loud Ku-gugugu noise. Sounds of a drum being ripped apart. A distorted voice.
NA BORI (V.O.)
Jihye-yah...
Lee Jihye strangles Na Bori. Her hands keep trembling. Na Bori’s body falls back, limp.
NA BORI (V.O.)
...it’ll be alright.
INT. 76TH WORLD LINE, TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
NA BORI
You must survive.
Na Bori’s body falls back, limp.
Lee Jihye, 17, is the sole survivor of Taepung Girls’ High School’s Class 2-B. She stares at the space around her as if a God watching could lift her burden.
INT. 431ST WORLD LINE, TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
The scene is set on a landscape of corpses. Bodies to bodies, filth to filth, skin to skin. Jihye feels as if she’s cut a part of herself from her body, too. This body of hers, everlasting, is fighting to get its flesh back to revive itself. It endures history. It’s gone. It’s over.
It’s returned to Na Bori.
LEE JIHYE (V.O.)
I think there are things I’ll never be able to put behind me. I don’t know how to feel about it, even now.
MONTAGE:
Jihye in the broadcast room, playing music. Nothing else exists in this moment but her.
Jihye walking to the convenience store only to not buy anything.
Jihye taking a disc out of a DVD Player, furiously dabbing her cheeks with tissues. Na Bori is seated closely behind her in fits of laughter. The movie wasn’t particularly sad. Still, hours and days and months after, Bori continues to call Jihye a crybaby.
Jihye running.
Jihye skipping night classes.
Jihye riding the subway home, unaware of the world that will begin to die tomorrow.
Jihye falling asleep. It’s been a long, long while since she’s done it without guilt.
LEE JIHYE (V.O.)
Say, Bori-yah. Am I allowed to have these memories? When you know what I’ve done just to remember?
The morning comes. A new scenario begins.
LEE JIHYE (V.O.)
Say, Bori-yah...
INT. 952ND WORLD LINE, TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
LEE JIHYE (CONT’D)
...can you not look at me with those eyes?
Everything begins anew. Lee Jihye is here, still, again, perhaps forever. She always seems to find her hands on Na Bori’s neck, gripping, tightening. Until their last breath leaves them both. Yet stubbornly, as if a grudge immortalized to bone, it keeps Jihye alive. Na Bori’s lifeless eyes engrave themselves in her unending memory.
The Lee Jihye that comes out of that classroom can no longer love without the tallest disgust in her. Past that scenario, it is ever-there, ever-existing, ever-despicable. Between Na Bori and the true body of a God: which can she bear to look at more? Which cannot kill her in a way the world hasn’t already tried?
CUT TO:
INT. 1865TH WORLD LINE, TAEPUNG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT
To free the self, you must...
Jihye hands Bori a small box. It’s covered in a crinkled wrapper.
LEE JIHYE
Bori-yah, here.
NA BORI
What is this?
To free the self, you must...
LEE JIHYE
Don’t open it right now, okay? Open it ten minutes before seven.
NA BORI
(hesitant)
You didn’t, like, put insects in this, right? You know I can’t take that. I have a weak heart.
Lee Jihye has not once forgotten a single thing about Na Bori. Her heart the least of all.
LEE JIHYE
No. Don’t worry, Bori-yah. I’ll make sure you won’t die.
To free the self, you must learn a terrible language: forgiveness.
EXT. 1865TH WORLD LINE, ATHLETICS FIELD - DAY
A figure is running on the track across the fence. Her short hair flows back behind her, swinging, free.
JUNG HEEWON
Isn’t that your friend?
Lee Jihye only nods at the question.
JUNG HEEWON
Jihye-yah. You don’t have to go back.
That figure, the breathing Na Bori, continues to run. Jihye follows the shape of her back. She finishes a lap and runs again. It looks tiring. She looks alive.
There is a want, in Jihye, so harrowing. It calls to stay. It calls to this Bori, the one she saved, the one who didn’t have to die by her hands. But this Na Bori, though real, though warm to the touch, is not a device she can use to absolve herself from her guilt.
More than ever, she understands now, why they keep ending the world to save one person. This Na Bori isn’t hers, and will never be. Even if she stays. Even if she grows old holding her hand forever.
Jihye turns to Heewon.
LEE JIHYE
We made a promise to cross the world line again and return home.
JUNG HEEWON
It’ll get lonely once we return. After all, what exists here doesn’t exist on the other side.
LEE JIHYE
(smiling, pointing to the side of her head)
I won’t be lonely. They’re all in here.
CUT TO: BLACK.
Some forms of forgiveness are false; they choose to leave it behind completely, which is not forgiving. Some carry it with them until they are buried with that forgiveness.
Jihye, however, learns to speak it.
LEE JIHYE (V.O.)
Bori-yah. I’ll allow myself the memory of you.
END.