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The night before she got sent to the Aberrant Corps, Tsubaki Sumishiro wrote a list.
Not a packing list.
Not a list of all the people she wanted to say goodbye to.
But a list of rules.
Seven rules to follow to survive.
Seven rules to abide by to live.
Seven rules to comply by to make it to level five.
Tsubaki had lived by some of these rules since she was born, even if she didn’t know it at the time.
Other times, they were hard lessons, but ultimately, they would help her navigate the Corps.
That’s what she told herself, anyways.
Tsubaki is one of the more normal-seeming people in the lunatic-filled Aberrant Corps. But she gets anxiety attacks a lot.
Tonight is one of those times.
She was already tossing and turning in her cot because of Officer Cha’s briefing to them earlier today:
“…Cell 5… wiped out… Begonia Group members… joint mission with Cell 4…”
The words echo in the back of her mind like it was a god damn cave. It’s all she can think about.
They’re going to be fighting the real deal. Not just your average grunt, but battle-hardened, illegal aberrants.
They are so fucked.
Her mind is racing at thousands of kilometres an hour, neurons firing like no tomorrow, and her heart is pumping so loudly it might wake Dahee, and her palms are so clammy-
Shit.
The urge to flee is too strong. Tsubaki can’t take it anymore. Her legs are itching to run as fast as they could to get away from everything. So, she gets up.
She tries to get out of the room as quietly one can do when under such tremendous anxiety, knowing that Dahee would follow her if she is awoken.
But once she’s out of bed, a realization strikes her.
Where do I even go?
She can’t go to the gym. She knows Sayeon sneaks out to there every night to do who knows what.
She can’t go to the rooftop, because Ryujin often comes back from there smelling like cigarette smoke.
The bathroom’s too risky; someone might need to piss and see her, and that wouldn’t do.
So Tsubaki ends up in the janitor’s closet.
By the time she slams the door closed as silently as possible, she has to sit down. She’s dizzy, tired, sweaty, and just a mess.
Taking a shaky breath, Tsubaki tries to calm herself down the only way she knew how: by going over her seven rules. Because if she followed them, everything would turn out fine.
Rule 1: Observe Everything and Stay Vigilant
Tsubaki might seem like a quiet kid, but really, she’s watching everything you do.
She sees how Taeho looks at Sayeon, hears how he rants about her in particular. She notes down the slight twitch in his face, the tiniest bit of jealousy he shows, when Ryujin takes her attention. The tension is always palpable whenever Cells 3 and 4 are in proximity of each other.
Tsubaki learnt all her roommates’ routines as well. That’s how she managed to sneak out of their dorm undetected, after all. And why she’s in the damn janitor’s closet.
It’s how she managed to avoid getting hurt despite her cellmates’ recklessness; by avoiding Jungwoo’s spear by mere inches because she saw him activate his essence in the corner of her eye, and by learning how large Taeho’s explosions would be by noting down the correlation between bomb size and explosion radius.
The sheer anxiety that comes with abiding to this rule all the time might be taxing on her body, but in the Corps, she’s got to give her all. It’s a 20% survival rate she has to beat, after all.
Rule 2: Always Locate Potential Escape Routes
Huff, huff, huff.
Tsubaki was struggling to breathe. She was in one of the cupboards of her afterschool care program.
They just got raided by the Begonia Group.
Through the tiny sliver of a crack, she was able to see them line up all her classmates single file, chained together like prisoners of war. The bodies of the caretakers were thrown with little care along the wall opposite to where she was hiding, so she had to suffer seeing the faces of those who practically raised her, lifeless.
She heard the march of footsteps towards the back exit, the slamming of the door, and only then did she dare to move a muscle.
It paid off to always plan for a worst-case scenario, but now she can’t stop. How much is too much planning? Is it too much when her mind keeps running in circles, thinking of all the horrible ways that they could die on their next mission? Is it worth it to have to imagine the faces of Dahee and Jungwoo and Taeho bleeding out, with the life draining out of their eyes?
Rule 3: Remain Inconspicuous
Tsubaki wasn’t always the forgettable girl she is now. It was only when she moved to Koryo when she realized that it does more harm than good to stand out.
“Here’s our new student Tsubaki, class! Sweetie, introduce yourself, please.”
“Hi, I’m Tsubaki, and I’m from Japan! Nice to meet everyone.”
Throughout the whole day, she was bombarded with jokes about her name and how difficult it was to pronounce, and puns in the Korean language that she didn’t understand, and jabs about her foreign nationality, and so on.
It was never ending. That’s when she swore to never stand out ever again.
Perhaps sticking out in the Corps for an outstanding performance would help her rise through the ranks quicker. But she didn’t want to risk it. After the scratches she’d come home with because she was different, the swollen burses that she’d receive, and the pain that came with not knowing why she was discriminated against, she couldn’t bear to think of how much worse it could be in the Corps. Everyone there is superhuman, after all. A loose-lipped comment and she’d have her lights knocked out before she knew it.
That’s why she always shakes uncontrollably whenever she has to speak. She can’t afford to say the wrong thing. She’s seen Taeho’s rage; she’s walking on eggshells yet again.
Rule 4: Do Not Form Attachments
When Tsubaki and her family moved to Koryo, her parents disappeared from her life. It was a gradual process; before she knew it, they were almost non-existent.
She knew that they had to go out and make money; after all, the cost of living was astronomical, but that didn’t mean they had to crush her soul every day. She felt betrayed by her own parents, crushed by their lack of love after showing her so much before Koryo, wishing that they had never moved in the first place.
Everything fell apart even more than she thought it could get when she found evidence that half the time, her parents weren’t even working; they were staying out late getting drunk or high.
She was devastated.
Not only had they been lying to her, but they also chose drugs over her.
Every part of her crumbled into pieces.
She’d never be able to have a healthy human relationship again, not with how her parents’ actions stabbed her hard in the back; when gave them all the trust and love she had, she was repaid with nothing.
Rule 5: Avoid Arguments and Confrontation Whenever Possible
Shortly after the devastating discovery of what her parents were doing, Tsubaki confronted them: after all, isn’t it best to be honest with each other? Is that not how healthy relationships worked?
Tsubaki never got into arguments again after that incident.
She still remembers it as clear as day: she came home and both her parents were present and seemingly fine, so she asked them about the receipts and needles and bottles that she had found in their room.
Multiple yelps of pain, screams of frustration, and pent-up emotions being released later did she realize how big of a mistake she’d made.
It really fucks you up when your family gets into a physical fight.
It really scars you when you find out that they weren’t sober, and that you picked the worst time to confront them.
It really puts you in a terrible state when you see the blood oozing out of people that you love, that you can’t stop loving, no matter how badly they treated you.
Rule 6: Trust Gut Feelings
One day after school, Tsubaki was walking home when she felt sick to her core. Something was off.
She tried to ignore it; after all, what could it possibly be? She was probably being paranoid again.
But it got too much. Her gut was screaming that something was wrong, and almost without permission, her muscles broke into a run.
She ran, and ran, and she could hear heavy footsteps following her, even though there seemed to be no one there. There was a rhythmic beat to it, and she could tell that they were not tiring. But she was.
There was a random grocery store nearby, so she yanked open the heavy glass door and dashed into a random isle, hoping to lose her pursuers. Tsubaki dove out one of the other entrances and climbed up a nearby tree to hide.
It took almost an hour for her to feel safe again. She only dared to peek her head out when the feeling in her stomach finally stopped.
That night, there were reports of invisible aberrants kidnapping children on TV.
Rule 7: No One can be Relied Upon
It took a long time for Tsubaki to finally muster the strength to talk to someone about what happened between her and her parents.
She couldn’t ever forget the look on her best friend’s face when she told her everything that happened. Including her aberrancy manifestation.
The very next day she wound up in the principal’s office.
Tsubaki was crushed.
Not only had her parents abandoned her, but her best friend had ratted her out to the Aberrant Corps.
She trusted that girl with her life secrets, and that’s how she got repaid?
She sees her ex best friend in Dahee. Dahee’s too nice. She seems like she’s trying too hard to befriend Tsubaki. And Tsubaki knows that no one wants to befriend her.
That’s why she’s in the damn closet in the first place; she has no one else to turn to but her clones. Her clones, manifested from the sheer desire to be loved, to be hugged, to hear someone tell her that everything’s going to be alright.
Because she doesn’t remember the last time she heard those words from anyone else; those who are kindest to her turn out to be the biggest betrayers.
So, she cries. All of those feelings that she’s never been able to express ever since coming to the Corps flows right out of her, like a flood of water during a tsunami. Maybe she should be called Tsunami Sumishiro instead.
Her clone chuckles, but doesn’t make a sound. The tears that flow from Tsubaki’s eyes blur her vision, but she knows what she needs right now. She throws her arms around her clone, but she falls through and lands on the cold, hard floor of the closet. Depressing.
Tsubaki remembers the warm hugs that her parents used to give her. She loved being able to snuggle against them, feeling their heartbeats as one.
But her clones are intangible, and her memories are fading.