#x interactions

jj, as usual, still has too many questions and not enough answers. usually, they're about mundane, unimportant things, for example: what is the exact weight of a propeller sturdy enough to lift a pig into the sky? has there ever been a case of a demon dog? is it too late to find out who the zodiac killer was?

a more important question, and the one most present in his mind these days: what the hell happened to me out there?

maybe he has some answers. he has more than he did a few months ago, at least, but he thinks he has some extra questions now too. whatever happened to him is related to kaiser, surely; he doesn't think seeing him would've caused such visceral dread that he threw up if he didn't have some unfathomably terrible memory with him. he doesn't think he would've had new dreams of that same white room-- with bright lights, trapped, and the muffled voices --if kaiser didn't have something to do with it. he doesn't think he would hate the med wing and balk at the mere mention of meia's science labs if it wasn't all connected.

so, he was probably kaiser's science experiment. that's one answer. it comes with more questions, too, though: is he why i lost my memories? was it an accident? did they erase them so i wouldn't remember what they did to me? do they have my memories in a jar somewhere in their creepy lab? will i ever know the truth?

maybe he's better off not knowing. people have told him that before, and maybe they're right. jj doesn't necessarily do what's best for him all the time, though; there's a lot he'll sacrifice in his pursuit for knowledge, and maybe all he'll unlock is misery and more trauma alongside his memories. maybe, this feeling that he is missing a part of himself-- that he isn't truly himself without his memories --will give way to a him he doesn't like.

there's a lot he doesn't know, and he hates that.

there's someone new that knows a lot, though, mainly because she can leaf through other people's brains. well, she's not really new, apparently; she's just essentially back from the dead, and she's already the new leader of team crow. jj finds how much meia trusts her interesting; he finds her interesting, so he decides he'll find her himself-- in person, face to face.

he has to think, if i were someone that could hear everyone else's thoughts all the time where would i be? somewhere quiet, probably, away from people so he could hear himself think. he looks around some other places, then sets his sights on the roof. he's seen her around a little bit, he thinks, so he's pretty sure he recognizes her when he arrives.

"hey," he calls. "you're the new telepath on the block, right?" maybe he should engage in some small talk, or exercise good manners, but he decides to cut to the chase. "you see, you can hear people's thoughts or whatever, and i'm missing some. memories, to be more specific. i don't particularly know where they went but i'm wondering if they're still in there--" he taps the side of his head with a finger, "-- at all. would you be able to tell that if you dig around in my brain?" that's what's most important, but he remembers he forgot something else that's far less significant, but still important. "oh, i'm jj by the way."

    the demon’s fist is not a particularly affectionate collection of children. understandably so, certainly, but it makes times like these difficult for mara, likely for most of them. there are things that should be said because even though they aren’t at the heart of this, the effects are felt everywhere. people are frightened at the possibility that their city is next. families are faced with the reality that loved ones in metropolis are gone. superman is  -- well. mara won’t speak on something like that, can’t speak on it. 

   her team is...a family. will they ever admit to it ?? could they ever really interact in the same ways most families do ?? it’s not likely. but it’s still significant and it still brings forth something from mara when she returns to their base and sees nightstorm, alive and well, even though she already knew that he was, even though they’d have no reason to be involved in a city like metropolis. she stops just a few feet from the threshold of the door, somber and unnerved as she considers him. 

jj is annoying. he’s heard it many times and accepted it as fact. rather than fret over it and try to change who he really is, he decided a while ago that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass. he survived a year without anyone else and was ready to spend the rest of his (likely short) life the same way, but he’s here now, and has gained the joy of free wifi (see: celest.) that’s worth it.

in some ways, it is nice to not be alone. jj does recognize that people have their own unique experiences and knowledge to share. does he think he could survive on his own? yeah. does he think he can learn a lot more in meia than he would out there? hell yeah, and ultimately, that’s what matters most.

no; what matters most is remembering, and meia has certainly helped him with that too. well, not really; he still doesn’t remember anything. he knows what other people told him happened, but he still can’t be positive this isn’t all some elaborate fever dream or scam meant to trick him in particular. (he doesn’t actually believe that, but he thinks so much; it passes through his brain from time to time.)

today, his mind keeps going back to his father, and what his brother told him happened the day he turned into a demon, and the day jj, juhyuk and their mother came to seaside. he keeps searching for his last memory before it started slipping away, but it’s like the timeline is all mixed up in his head. he was 15 years old when they arrived at seaside. he knows this because it’s what juhyuk told him. what’s the point of having a mind enhancement when part of that mind is gone? what good does reading fast or being able to measure angles just by looking at them or figuring out how to fix most anything do if he has no way of measuring or fixing himself?

he goes to the library, as he often does, with the intention of checking for material he hasn’t read about memory loss. could it be the dark scar his demon father left on him? did the dark energy drain memories out of him? but why would his memory suddenly pick back up again as if nothing happened? why didn’t he completely lose his mind?

how much darkness does it take to lose a mind? his father fought it long enough to use his newfound strength to fight back enemy demons for the rest of his family only to give in to the void eventually, nearly taking jj down with him. where is the line?

he has yet to find out in all of his research. he has so many questions, and--

when he walks into the library he spots cheng. “cheng!” he exclaims. “i’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he hasn’t, but maybe cheng has some of his answers. he makes his way over to him and sits down across from him at his table, uninvited. “i have some questions for you, actually, if you don’t mind. just like-- demon stuff.”

the benefit of being an underachiever is that you can be back at the safezone just in time for everything to go to shit.

actually, jj and gaeul have been here for a while now. they did about the bare minimum they could as far as scouting went, returned to the safe zone, and were about to start playing tic tac toe with rocks because they had nothing better to do. that's how you know they hit rock bottom (no pun intended, for the most part.) jj and gaeul playing tic tac toe. surely they would've invented a more entertaining game within about thirty seconds, but still. the fact that they even had to consider it.

everything started kicking off when word began to float around that com devices were down. sure enough, jj checked his own only to come to the same conclusion. well, anyone that didn't come to that conclusion would be dumber than burglars from the home alone movies, and they got thwarted by an eight year old multiple times. sure, the eight year old was smart or whatever but he's pretty sure those guys were too stupid to know how to read.

"coms are down agent mist," he reports, even though he's sure gaeul probably knows already too. for whatever reason, they're both out here in the field, so he might as well treat it like an actual mission.

besides, if coms are down, it is a little concerning. celest is usually on top of things like that. it concerns him that he doesn't even know what any of this is for, either. who or what are the senior agents looking for? did they look into it sufficiently? are they sure whatever distress signal they intercepted isn't a trap? they sent the most important agents out there. what happens if the entire team gets wiped out? he has some qualms with this strategy, but he's just a baby agent with even less sway than most because jinx hates him, but maybe jinx should come up with better strategies if she doesn't want feedback.

now's not the time, though. he knows this. lerissa arrives right before jj asks gaeul if they should try to figure out if they can get any coms back online. he pays attention-- watches as she treats suhwan and seoyun who are almost dead? how did he miss that? suddenly too much is going on. his mind races, and where usually he would try to steer clear of lerissa-- nothing personal, it's just the med wing that he has beef with --now, he wants to do what he can to help.

she calls for anyone technically savvy to do what they can to get local coms up, and he looks to gaeul. "i was just about to suggest we do that before she came," he says. now they have express permission, which jj never really requires, but ensures their important business of saving the entire mission won't get interrupted.

he starts off toward the local coms tower, squints at the screws on one of the panels once he arrives, then busts out one of the screwdrivers in his backpack. yes, he packed screwdrivers. he figured all of these agents would bring a plethora of weapons and typical supplies. who else would be prepared for technical disaster? probably only him and gaeul, and probably agent lurker, who's currently out there with the other seniors. that serves as both a comfort and point of terror for him, but he tries not to think about it, and instead unscrews the panel, getting a good look at the wiring inside to make sure everything looks as it should from this angle. if he had to guess, this incredibly convenient meia-wide coms outage is probably a result of hacking, but he wants to check this first-- definitely not because he just wants to see what the inside of the local coms tower looks like.

"hey, somebody stuck some gum in here," he says, only to add, entirely deadpan: "just kidding."

jj doesn’t train much anymore. he uses becoming a tech agent as an excuse now, because really, jj is inherently lazy, and what’s the point when he’s just going to stay in the agency making cool shit anyway? 

alistair is making him train this time, though. he can’t get too complacent, he said. you never know when you might actually need to fight. okay, jj gets it. he’s probably right, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. maybe part of it is him getting punished for being so annoying, too. alistair (and haneul, even) probably needs a break from his endless questions, and he can respect that enough to listen. this time.

it’s the middle of the night, because jj just finished a big project and the weird adrenaline of it is still wearing off. he isn’t ready to go to sleep yet, so training it is, he supposes, because he feels a little restless anyway.

when he enters the training area he has his mind set on, however, he isn’t alone. that’s fine for him, really. he’ll either just mind his business or have someone new to pester but– something about this guy doesn’t look right.

he realizes it’s suhwan within a couple of moments, and after that, processes how...off everything about him looks. his attacks are desperate and inaccurate and not like him. 

admittedly, jj hasn’t been a very good friend to suhwan lately, but he could say the same about suhwan. it’s not fair of him to blame him, though. a demon nearly killed him. that probably takes mental recovery time outside of the physical time, and jj only visited the med wing to see him one time, and aside from wanting to crawl out of his skin, seoyun was also there, so he couldn’t manage to stay for long. 

he’s not sure he can make it up to him now or anything like that. part of him wants to just turn around and leave, because he feels so distant from him now and it...hurts a little. suhwan was probably the first friend he made when he came to meia, and he was overwhelmed with the reality of everything he didn’t remember. suhwan was new to meia just like he was, also there before like he was, even if suhwan remembered and jj didn’t. they had so much in common back then, and...he doesn’t really know what happened.

maybe it was suhwan and seoyun getting closer. seoyun, his ex-whatever and suhwan, his good friend. it’s just felt weird ever since, and jj has never been the best at sorting out his emotions. he wants to learn the why behind everything else, but somehow, when it comes to what he feels, he’d rather ignore it.

this moment could be a chance to make things better or ruin everything, but he figures it would be a dick move to just leave when suhwan looks so unwell. to be fair, jj is a dick, but he doesn’t really want to be right now. “hey, suhwan,” he calls, hoping he doesn’t startle him. “are you...okay?”

so far being a junior agent is great. he's actually, legally allowed in the labs-- the weapons labs, not the labs labs, because fuck those --and he legally gets to work with alistair and gaeul. there are so many tools at his disposal that he hardly knows what to do himself. so many ideas whir through his head at once that he can't even make sense of them half the time, so he's not nearly as productive as he'd like to be. he figures it's kind of a learning curve, even for someone that learns as fast as he does, and he'll adjust quickly to the new environment and new tasks.

he figures he should focus on building something useful, like a weapon, instead of the bullshit he made before when he was bored-- not that some of that wasn't useful. it's just different now, having a role he actually cares about, knowing he can contribute something to meia that other people can't, and that they'll actually really listen to him now.

building the weapon is the easy part. the focusing is more difficult, especially because everything is great except baram, who just so happens to be working close to him at this present moment.

jj honestly doesn't really know what their problem is. sometimes it seems like baram wants to be his friend, and sometimes he's pissed off at him for no reason. sometimes jj thinks he's cool and then baram makes everything about himself for no reason, and that irritates the hell out of jj. it's like baram is always begging for a fight, and jj is prone to banter at best, so matters...rarely go well between them.

jj is trying though. he doesn't want to make alistair as angry with him as jinx was, or get kicked off of this team before he really starts, and he doesn't want to make too much trouble for haneul, either. so he's trying not to fight baram, and that generally means not talking to him, but jj can only go without talking for so long, and there's something that's been bothering him.

well, lots of things about baram bother him, but that's not the point. the point is, baram's enhancement is really fucked up. it isn't just the headaches and occasional bloody nose typical for those with mind enhancements; it makes him sick. jj also heard murmurs about his dad working for kaiser, too, and jj doesn't want to assume-- okay, he assumes a lot actually, and a lot of times he's right. this time, though, he acknowledges that it could just be projecting.

he's still coming to terms with the fact that he was probably kaiser's science experiment, and that he has no way to prove it. all he has are dreams and this sick feeling in his gut when he thinks of the man's face, or spends too much time in the med wing, or sees a needle or a scalpel or lights are too bright or a room is too white. there's nothing concrete, and even if there was, it doesn't fucking matter because he still can't remember any of it. it doesn't matter because no matter how much insider information he wants to give the head agents, he may never know what happened to him in there, and that makes him feel sick too.

he doesn't know why it matters if people experimented on baram too. they're both here, and their brains are both broken because of it, even if they're still enhanced.

he doesn't want to admit that maybe he just wants someone to understand, even if it's baram of all people, so instead he'll pretend he's just investigating to find his own answers about what might've been done to him.

"hey, baram, your dad worked for kaiser, right?" he starts, no beating around the bush whatsoever. jj rarely does. "okay, i know that's kind of a weird thing to ask so i'll tell you why i'm asking. kaiser is why my memory is gone. well-- i guess i don't know that, but do you ever just...know something in your gut? and if you're right everything in your head makes sense, mostly? it's like that."

three years ago

it's too nice of a day to not take advantage of it; sun shining in a way that could almost fool you into thinking the world is healing-- like there wasn't just a devastating war, like kaiser and his newly invented superdemons aren't out there somewhere doing god knows what.

maybe in some ways, it is, though. they won; they are building a new home and agency that will eclipse seaside in its brilliance.

jj believes this, but he'd believe it more if they let him help more with the building process. he's still fresh on the scene as far as agents go, being promoted to one shortly before the fall of the former agency, so some of the older agents don't value his opinions as much as he thinks they should. he's mind enhanced, for god's sake; this is his forte. who cares if taking too many measurements and dimensions in his mind gives him a terrible headache after too long? psh, that's nothing.

still, today, he's content to enjoy the sunshine and mostly-fresh air, even if he's not allowed to stray too far from the construction site. it's not like that ever stopped him before, but today he's with jina, and he's pretty sure she would never go for a walk through the dangerous city with him.

even when he's trying to relax, jj still isn't the best at staying still for long, and jina is pretty new to whatever they're calling the remnants of seaside, so he proposed they spar, carefully, because they don't have protective gear and jinseo or someone else will probably kill jj if jina happened to get hurt because of him-- not that jina isn't capable of hurting him.

it would appear what's most realistic is jj injuring himself, because somehow, when he dodges one of jina's attacks, his foot lands on a rock or something, and he tumbles backwards, landing on his back in the grass. he lays there for a moment, more confused than hurt, but he squints with one eye and wrinkles his nose regardless.

from here, he can so clearly see the rising walls of meia against the backdrop of the blue sky, and, "fuck, that beam looks really off from here."