"How are you feeling Lieutenant Kim?"
Jennie closed her eyes as a tight pain ran around her head, her hands curled around a cold metal as a low groan rose from .
"My head hurts." she mumbled through gritted teeth.
"I'm sorry to hear that," a newer voice chirped in a silvery tone, "Would you like me to increase the amount of endorphins in your system?"
Jennie's head spun as she nearly fell off the table, a loud crash followed soon after; a voice attempted to catch her attention but it failed, she could only hear the deeper voice of a cheery female echoing through her skull.
"Who is that?" she asked, her eyes scanning the pearly white room and then the taller woman who stood and anxiously picked at her white coat.
"Sit," she pleaded as she pulled Jennie back onto the table, "Please Lieutenant."
Fingers gently pressed against her scalp, sending muscle twitches and spasms up and down her spine. Her face appeared within her vision, strands of blonde had strayed from her tight ponytail and her lips fluttered as hushed words fell from her tight jaw.
Jennie raised a trembling hand to meet hers.
The freezing touch of metal shot into her fingers, a sharp gasp flew from as she stared back at the blonde doctor.
"What'd you do to me?"
Jennie's finger flew wildly against her scalp, her hand searched feverishly for the familiar warmth of pumping blood and tender flesh; she found none, instead she found the icy metal that coated the side of her skull, it stretched from a little above her ear and ran to the base of her neck.
"Jennie," the woman said firmly as she dragged her shaking hands back to her side, "You got caught in some unexpected gunfire Northeast of Seoul, you died- But I brought you back... Do you remember any of this?"
Her memory was a field of flying dust and settling clouds, even if she did search she was sure she would find nothing but abandoned memories and forgotten causes.
She shook her head softly and murmured a quiet, "No."
She recoiled from her touch, "Do you remember me ?"
Jennie stared back at her, her hand slowly floated up and caught a few strands of her blonde hair between her trembling fingers; there was a twinge of remembrance that danced around her memory, the ashy smell of cigarettes that clashed with the sweet scent of roses and a familiar Australian accent that spoke faded and forgotten words.
She blinked for a few seconds before letting her hand drop onto her lap, "I don't. I'm sorry."
She stood with her shoulders straight and chest aligned, "Don't be."
(Something in her shattered that day, not that Jennie ever noticed).
Jennie glanced down quickly before looking back at the taller woman, her soft looks had melted into a quiet melancholy.
"Who are you?" she asked with a trembling tongue.
The woman hesitated, Jennie saw her tongue flick only slightly before a frown coiled weakly around her lips. "Park Chaeyoung, but you called me Chaeng."
"Chaeng?" Jennie asked softly as she clung onto her freezing hand, "What did you do to me?"
She sighed before speaking. "I had to bring you back- But the bullets destroyed you, so to bring you back fully, I had to fill in the spaces you lost."
"So what's this?" Jennie asked as her hand trailed across the metal that covered the side of her head.
"It's how I brought you back, it's going to help you- I promise." Chaeyoung explained.
"She's right Lieutenant, I'm only here to help you." a voice added.
Jennie distorted the voice till it became nothing more than the white noise that followed the sound of zooming bullets, (even with everything else gone that sound had never left).
"Is it," Jennie begun but her voice trembled and she began to fumble on the words, "Is it supposed to sound like a girl?"
"It can, it- Or she, appears as whoever comforts you most. For some people it's men for others it's women. She's designed to become whoever makes you the happiest."
Jennie's tightened into a firm line as she glanced around the room.
"You can call for it-" Chaeyoung paused with an awkward smile, "Sorry, her."
"How?"
"You have model 8816, just say those numbers and she should appear." Chaeyoung explained.
Jennie looked to the girl with hesitation visibly taking root within her eyes. "8816."
Light fractured and formed and then fractured again as a woman formed before her eyes, blue split into shades of purple while orange shattered into red and yellow.
"Hello Lieutenant," the woman greeted with a warm smile, "According to your remaining memories and preferences, this form increases the most amount of dopamine and serotonin within your brain; if not I can inhabit a new form if you'd like."
Jennie's eyes ran over her face, dark eyes and hair, and unlike Chaeyoung not a single strand of hair had been bent out of shape, there wasn't a part of her skin that hadn't been smoothed over and then smoothed again; she looked as if an artist had spent their entire life smoothing and carving something divine out of their most beautiful block of marble.
She seemed so close to being human and yet she looked to be something closer to heaven, Jennie felt a twinge of divine longing; she so painfully wanted to run her fingers over her broken feathers and she so desperately wanted to balance the shards of her halo on the tips of her fingers.
(Even if it cut through her hands, she wouldn't care. God, she just wanted to hold something beautiful without it breaking).
"I have changed my name to Kim Jisoo for your comfort; I can change it again if you'd like."
"No, you're perfect the way you are." Jennie mumbled in awe with a vibrant blue tint covering her face.
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"It's nearing five in the morning Lieutenant, shouldn't you try going to sleep?" Jisoo asked.
Jennie tore herself away from the bright computer screen, she glanced over to see the woman swinging her legs and glancing around the room with a smile shrouded by her glowing eye, gleams of bright blue circled and filled her iris; and despite it all Jennie still saw fragments of a human within her, in the way she spoke with her hands and the way she could almost feel warm puffs of air cloud around her nape and a fleeting brush against her fingers when the nights became cold and she found herself falling asleep alone again.
"I can't sleep." Jennie replied softly.
"I could increase your amount of melatonin."
Jennie shook her head, "It's not that I can't- It's. It's something else."
Jisoo stopped swinging her legs and looked back at her, "Is it what you see when you're asleep?"
Jennie froze, the fragmented yet eardrum shattering booms and crashes replaced the sound of quiet typing and faint musing; the walls split open, dust flew up and blood splattered, shouts poured from bloody wounds and gritted teeth.
It all blended into a painting she had known too well, her fingers could trace across the wounds and the dark scars that tore into her weathered skin would ache in remembrance of bullets diving into her sides and shrapnel tearing into her flesh, leaving her body a mangled clump of stringy muscles and tangled veins.
Her body had crumbled into a deserted battlefield, scars from wars left undone and once gentle hands that had been shaped and sanded into calloused weapons.
Something had barely fluttered against her cheek as Jisoo's face rose into her view, her blue eye had never been dimmer, the blue flashed and flickered as her hand barely drifted above her tear stained cheeks.
"You're not there anymore, okay? You're here with me." she said and repeated till the shaking faded into a slow tremor and the tears dried but the red eyes remained.
"I never left," Jennie mumbled through choked back tears, "I never made it out."
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She had become soft, her rough edges and jagged curves had been sanded away from gentle hands that were crafted by millions of light strands.
It seemed so heavenly Jennie almost didn't believe it.
During the quieter moments, Jisoo convinced her to go onto the rooftop because, "fresh air is good for you, did your mother never tell you that?".
"I dunno." Jennie would reply as she sat cross legged.
(Not that it mattered, she would only go if it was Jisoo who told her to).
Thankfully Jisoo thrived in the silence, she pranced around the rooftop looking up to the stars as if it was the first time she had ever seen the sky.
"You see that one?" Jisoo asked as she pointed up to a random cluster of stars.
"No." Jennie mumbled back as a dull ache began to consume the back of her neck.
Jisoo gripped onto her left arm, she pulled it left and right, stopping at the stars that eventually connected to form a few random lines and pockets of space.
"See it now?"
"Not really." Jennie said with a weak chuckle, her eyes had already been lost in the indigo sky that painted over her skin and the stars that showered themselves across her nose.
She swallowed the words that formed at the back of , but the thought remained:
"God, you're so much more beautiful than any of these stupid stars."
She wanted to say that stars only shined in hopes of rivaling her beauty, that they burned only to catch her attention.
There was so much she wanted to say, to confess, to blur out, but Jennie thought there was something beautiful in the unsaid.
(Even if it meant she would be drowning in the unspoken).
"It's Ursa Major." Jisoo said with a smile.
Jennie's torn muscles formed a crooked yet gummy grin, "So why do you like the stars?"
"There's a theory that humans were made out of stardust," Jisoo explained with a quick glance towards the sky, "If it's true. It means you're made out of stardust."
Jennie was confused but she couldn't help herself from chuckling, "And?"
"Well I think you were made out of Ursa Major's stardust." Jisoo replied with an innocent grin.
Jennie's eyebrows furrowed, "Why?"
"Ursa Major was put in the sky because Zeus loved her so much he couldn't part with her- He loved her too much to just let her die."
Jennie thought stardust was made for people like Jisoo, people who carried galaxies in their eyes and shined brighter than any Sun could. She knew the uncharted darkness of the universe was made for people like her, she knew she could only exist if dreary blackness would consume her whole.
But she smiled anyways, "That still doesn't explain why you like stars so much."
Jisoo let out a sigh before reclining onto the ground, "The stars made you Lieutenant. I love them because they made you- If it wasn't for them then who would I have?"
"Somebody." Jennie replied.
"I don't want anyone unless it's you."
(Nobody wanted Jennie for just her, they wanted her for her agility, her impressive marksmanship, her resilience in combat. No one wanted Kim Jennie, they wanted Lieutenant Kim).
But Jisoo wanted her and that felt so much more than enough.
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A cool breeze brushed across her legs as she sank deeper into the mattress, she blinked slowly as Jisoo began to ease onto the bed too.
A warm yet faded grin graced Jisoo's face and Jennie couldn't help but think of the billions of light particles that refracted and split to build her smile, the thousands of audio spectrums that were stretched and spun to form a low rasp that floated between the worn sounds of book pages flipping in the wind and the ballads of birds.
She seemed so alive and yet she was too holy to be truly human, she never got tired after hours of planning and training, her temper never waned thin; she had always been a soothing voice in a sea of shouts and demands.
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"Jisoo? Can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
Jennie gnawed on the tender parts of her inner lip as she stared back at the reflection of all heavenly and earthly beauty. "Are you real?"
Jisoo chuckled lightly, "I'm as real as you want me to be."
"No," Jennie said with a soft shake of her head, "What do you want to be?"
"Anything that makes you happy."
Jennie's frown dissolved into the sea of her pale skin and a new pinkish smile twisted her lips. "Why?"
The light stopped bending and twisting and Jisoo's smile looked as if someone had stuck it there with bolts, but the blue began to whir and spin around her pupil; a quiet hum began to radiate from her, yet her lips never moved.
"Why?" she echoed.
She hesitated, her face barely scrunched and her lips trembled while her eyes seemed to quiver. "Because I want you to have the life you deserve."
Jisoo knew life was cruel, the thousands of years of human history had been a brutal teacher; but she wanted nothing more than life to be a kind lover to her, she wanted Jennie's throbbing scars to be filled with the night sky and the moon's tender glory, she wanted her battered skull to be brimming with the glow of the sun and a thousand stars.
She wanted nothing more than for Jennie to know that people like her only existed in myths and stories.
Her hand lurched forward and grasped onto Jisoo's.
Jennie found something soft and tender within the sea of fracturing lights, in the way Jisoo's fingers grazed the top of her knuckles as if her sharp mechanical edges could cut her in a way no one else could; and she found an unexplainable beauty in the way her blue light flickered and faded till a dark shade of brown filled her iris.
She found a life kinder than her own in those eyes, a life where her scars had been long faded and the only memories that frolocked within her mind were the ones that filled her with nothing less than holy bliss.
No bullets, no shrapnel and no battlefields, just the quiet whir of Jisoo's eyes and the muffled sound of pages turning.
She felt Jisoo's grip tighten like she was afraid that Jennie would be consumed by fate like all the heroes before her; beautifully and then all too tragically red.