♡

though her childhood held moments of warmth, her youth rapidly unraveled into scarcity, each year narrowing the space she had to stand in. by the time she was sixteen, the sanctity of home had splintered — her father gone to debt, her mother working night shifts that kept her more absent than present — and se-mi was left drifting between goshiwon rooms and the couches of friends as unstable as she was. school slipped from her grasp, not for lack of intelligence but instead because survival demanded the refinement of other skills: learning which subway bathrooms stayed unlocked, which convenience store clerks would let her linger, how to stretch one meal across a day. in that same terrain, she found the very kids who became her world, all the runaways and users, the discarded. she walked among them as one of their own. at first, her presence was small, be it company in long night hours, fetching water when someone was sick, or keeping vigil so no one had to be alone. sharp-tongued and ever-reckless with herself, she both refused pity and simultaneously gave it freely to those with no one else. over time, her role shifted. she learned which ngos handed out clean needles and condoms, and how to talk to someone spiraling until they came back to themselves. by the time she was a young adult, she became what the papers never named: a street-level harm reduction worker, unofficial and strictly unpaid. still, she was vital to those who knew her, wearing a hardened heart like armature. the profession kept her mired in poverty, but gave her a sense of purpose nothing else had, a defiant belief that survival itself was resistance. she drifts between the margins of survival and solidarity, days consumed by convenience store shifts and delivery routes, jobs that barely cover rent for a goshiwon room she can leave at a moment's notice. her nights are given over to the streets, with no title, no salary, no safety net. only the stubborn persistence to keep others alive even as she burns herself hollow. debt collectors are mean, violent, instilling in se-mi a fear she hadn't realized she was capable of. but she fights, day after day, comprehending the fullest necessity of the thankless work she puts in. if she burns out, it must be on her own terms; never in search of rescue.