Closed PV Like a ticking time bomb Lucia Fox

[ @Eun-ji Lee Hunt ]

It had only been about five minutes into her and Carolyn's first dance practise since the summer holidays when Lucia made a mistake, and since then she just hadn't stopped. She blamed herself, of course. She just hadn't practised over the summer - excuses had been made and time had been wasted on other things - and it was all her fault. She just... hadn't felt like it. And as weak as the excuse was, it was still there.

The one good thing that the summer holidays had done for Lucia's dancing was the clothes which Ebony, Briar and Willow had gotten her for her birthday - a wrap skirt, leotard, and pair of ballet slippers respectively. They weren't overly fancy (well, actually, they weren't fancy at all, apart from perhaps the colour of the skirt, and were probably the cheapest that Ebony could buy them), but they were beautiful in Lucia's eyes, and she loved them with all her heart. But then she'd gotten to the ballroom, where she'd arranged to meet Carolyn, all bubbling over with eagerness to show her dance partner her new outfit, only to discover that Carolyn had also gotten new practise attire - and her sky-blue dress was about a hundred times more beautiful than Lucia's leotard was. Trying not to seem dejected, Lucia hadn't even mentioned her new clothes as the two girls greeted each other.

Then Carolyn had said she had a new name now. Eun-ji. Apparently, it was Korean. This made no sense to Lucia - wasn't it illegal to change your name until you were eighteen? Maybe Carolyn - no, Eun-ji - hadn't officially changed it. Maybe this was like a new nickname? Lucia was too worried that she'd offend Caro- Eun-ji if she said anything though, so she'd just nodded and changed the subject.

And now she was making mistakes, and Caroly- Eun-ji! - was just as perfect as ever, if not even more so, and she was so obviously trying to be nice about Lucia's lack of anything remotely relating to technique that it was almost a relief when she snapped. Lucia bent down to hide her face, under the presence of rubbing her right foot, which she'd just accidentally stood on with her left. It was a miracle she'd managed to catch herself on Carolyn - no! Eun-ji! - before she fell over. "I'm sorry, Carolyn, I really am," she winced, not even noticing her mistake. "I am trying, I swear, I just..." I didn't practise over the summer. That was all Lucia needed to say. But the Ravenclaw was on edge now, and Lucia was incredibly unwilling to push her any further off the metaphorical cliff. Better to keep this to herself for now. Then, Lucia suddenly realised something. "Oh, Merlin. I did it again, didn't I?" She ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry. Eun-ji. Not Carolyn. Eun-ji. Merlin. This is confusing. Why did you even change it?!" Lucia was babbling, as she often did, and she didn't even realise what had come out of her mouth until it came out. Her eyes widened as she ran over what she'd said once again in her head. Too late now...

IC Date September 4th, 2021 Blue in English, Red in Korean

Eun-ji unconsciously let Lucia use her as support but let go as soon as the girl looked stable enough to stand on her own. The Hufflepuff was stuttering and trying to explain why she did so poorly yet only succeeded in apologising and bringing up her old name. "Carolyn..." It was like she was thrown back to the Hunts' manor where everybody refused to listen to her wishes. Discarding her opinions as if she was a mere puppet rather than an actual human being. Lucia didn’t mean to do that of course but at this time the Ravenclaw’s patience ran dry. “Nae mal an deutkko itjjana!” You are not listening to me! Eun-ji only realized her mistake once she was done with the second outburst. She was not yelling per se but it was pretty clear how annoyed she was. Well… Not annoyed. Frustrated would be a better word for it. Frustrated to the point of tears but of course Eun-ji never cried in front of others. She would not let the tears fall. Instead, she blinked them away as she always would.

The Hufflepuff was unlucky. She was not the sole source of her outburst rather she was simply the last drip of water before the dam broke. It was truly unfortunate that this happened in presence of one of the few people Eun-ji dared to call friends. “I'm sorry.” She finally gathered her wits and apologised, mirroring Lucia’s previous gesture of running a hand through her hair. It must have been confusing for the other girl since she went off in Korean. The Ravenclaw was honestly glad she tended to curse in her other language, this way at least people didn't know the exact words and would’t be hurt by them. Small comfort but still...

In all honesty, the raven-haired girl wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. This was something she had to deal with on her own. She always knew how to keep herself in check, this time it was just a little bit more difficult. She wanted to leave and hide herself in the Ravenclaw tower for some time... Preferably until graduation, thank you very much. Still, as she was slowly calming down, her rational part of the brain finally switched back on and told her it was a dumb idea. As much as she promised herself not to make any new friends this year, Eun-ji also selfishly didn’t want to lose the few ones she already had. If she left now, it could potentially strain her relationship with Lucia and so, despite her embarrassment, she decided to stay.

But where do I even start? It was clear she would have to reveal some personal stuff, which Eun-ji usually tried to avoid and she didn’t want to reveal everything for sure. “It’s my Korean name. My grandma came up with it...” It was still painful to talk about the old woman. She was always there for her, even more so than her parents were. “She was the one to call me that all the time but she no longer can so I made it official to make sure the name lives on. I always liked it better anyway.” Eun-ji didn’t say why her grandma couldn’t. Talking about her passing was still out of question but it was heavily implied and she had a feeling the Hufflepuff would understand. It was also not the whole truth but she didn’t lie either. The only three people that used her Korean name were her Korean grandparents and her cousin. Her grandma was gone however, grandpa was in no state to call her anything at the moment and her cousin moved away five years ago. Of course, her father used it sometimes too but only around his parents so it was highly likely, he would stop doing that now. Eun-ji couldn’t allow that to happen. “I know it’s hard to get used to…but could you try…please?” The witch asked Lucia, sounding somewhat resigned at this point.

Interacting with @Lucia Fox

[ @Eun-ji Lee Hunt ]

Lucia's dance partner snapped at her, nerves obviously frayed, just as Lucia had suspected she would. What Lucia hadn't suspected, though, was the fact that C- Eun-ji spoke in... yeah, Lucia had no idea what language that was, apart from the fact that it wasn't English and probably wasn't French - but, then again, Lucia barely knew any French anyway so maybe it was. It seemed unlikely, though... maybe it was Korean? That would make sense. After all, Eun-ji herself was half-Korean, and her new name was Korean, so it made sense that she would speak the language. Lucia just wished that she did, so she actually knew what the other girl was saying - or, actually, maybe it would be better not to know. Her friend had never struck her as a paticularly 'insulting' person exactly, but everyone seemed like a different person when angry. They said things they didn't mean, or, even worse, they said things they did. Hopefully, whatever Caro- Eun-ji (she was trying, Lucia swore she was! But it was even harder in her head than out loud) had said was one of the former.

It probably was, as it turned out, because Eun-ji quickly apologised. By her awkward stance (practically a duplicate of Lucia's own, if a little more graceful), she was just as fed up with this practise session as Lucia was. This is a horrible way to start the year, Lucia thought to herself, cringing both inwardly and outwardly. "No, I'm sorry," she said remorsefully, voice full of 'yeah-I-did-something-wrong'. The Hufflepuff thought about explaining, but what, really, was there to explain? There weren't any excuses for her to fall back on. Not that she'd use them anyway, right? Eun-ji didn't deserve excuses. Lucia was just out of practise and annoyed at herself, and had taken it out on her friend, and broken the delicate dam which let out her annoyance.

It wasn't great for either of them.

Lucia tried to look like she was sympathetic and sorry as Eun-ji gave her own explanation. She was, she was just... not good at looking like it. It was funny, because usually Lucia could rely on her appearance to look okay, but when it came to sympathy she tended to just look like an awkward ten-year-old who happened to have nice hair. Giving up, she just frowned as she realised what Eun-ji was saying. "Is she..." Lucia blinked. She was fairly sure she got the gist of that. "That's so... nice." What Eun-ji had done could have come out of a storybook, Lucia was firmly convinced. The main character's lovely grandmother passed away, so the grieving yet beautiful granddaughter asked everyone to call her by the nickname she had given her, so as to keep her memory alive. "That's such a... beautiful thing to do." And it was. "I... I will. I promise."

IC Date September 4th, 2021 Blue in English, Red in Korean

In the end, there was a lot of apologizing going on and the situation in general was weird to say the least. At last, Eun-ji was done with her explanation and sighed. People said you felt better once you shared some of your troubles with another person but the witch felt no relief whatsoever. All the talk about leaving your wounds hidden so long they start to fester seemed like a big pile of nonsense to her. There was no feeling of burden being lifted of her shoulders, she was just uncomfortable and judging from Lucia's expression, the Hufflepuff felt the same. It appeared she too, could be quite awkward when it came to certain emotions. Eun-ji was glad that was the case. She hated these type of situations and never really knew what to say. Sympathy would only make everything seem more real anyway. Nevertheless, Lucia asked and she answered. There was no way around it and they both had to deal with that.

"Is she..." The Ravenclaw cringed as if the question caused her an actual physical pain. The question was left unfinished and it would be left unanswered as well. In any case, everything was probably pretty clear from her body language alone. She wasn't going to spell it out for the other girl. "I...suppose it is..." Eun-ji said instead when Lucia deemed her gesture as nice. To be fair, she wasn't sure if that was her main intention. Probably not...the initial reasoning for the name change might have been a bit more selfish but it felt good to hear those words so she accepted them anyway. "And thank you," she added once her friend promised to try. "I'll try to be a bit more patient about it too. I just had a bad day...none of this is really your fault." She waved her hand nonchalantly, dismissing the issue. She just wanted to be done with all this and go back to normal. "I sure hope YOU got to enjoy your summer. Did you go the summer camp?" She made an effort to smile a little to bring the tension further down.

Surely Lucia would appreciate the change of topic as well. Eun-ji just hoped she didn't poke a sensitive subject with that one as well. She knew at least one more person who didn't enjoy his summer too much. It would be unfortunate if Lucia belonged into that category too. She wanted to end this all on a positive note.

Interacting with @Lucia Fox

IC Date September 4th, 2021 Blue in English, Red in Korean

So she did poke into a sensitive subject because of course she did. Why did everybody seem to be so miserable this year? Or was it because you tended to surround yourself with similar people? Eun-ji doubted that was the case. It was just an unfortunate coincidence. Nevertheless, she nodded in understanding. “I see…I’m sorry. Perhaps we’ll get to go this year then.” She would not pry into the matter further. Lucia didn’t look like she was keen talking about the matter and the Ravenclaw honestly wasn’t either. She was good at listening and giving advice but comforting others was not necessarily her forte. I should probably stop asking people about their personal life. That was not doable of course if you wanted to preserve any kind of relationship but it would make everything so much easier.

“Oh…I thought I haven’t seen those before. They are very cute.” Eun-ji said with a more sincere smile this time. She really did think so and she was genuinely happy for her friend. “Also...I do apologize for mine.” She grimaced at her over the top outfit. “I did not get to choose. I’d much prefer something similar to yours.” The girl admitted with a sigh. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful but these fancy outfits just felt so unnatural on her. Lucia would know what she meant though, right? After all she did wear much simpler clothes to all their prior practice sessions so the Hufflepuff should know her taste in clothes by now. Admittedly, her maternal grandmother had a good fashion sense but it was not Eun-ji's style. Maybe she would get used to her fancy wardrobe eventually but for now, she just felt incredibly awkward.

Interacting with @Lucia Fox

"That would be fun," Lucia agreed. She'd been to summer camp in the summer between her and Carolyn's (no, EUN-JI'S) first and second years, and that had been fun. From what she'd heard of the summer camp she'd missed out on, that had been fun as well. Of course, fourth year was ages away and plenty of things could happen in the space of a school year, but Lucia was confident that she would be able to go to summer camp next time around.

There were some people who used the word 'cute' as a compliment, and some who used it as a patronising passive-agressive insult. When she'd first entered Hogwarts, a naïve eleven year old with next to no social experience except lessons in how to talk formal and keep her mouth shut, Lucia had had a hard time working out when people were being sarcastic or not. Now, after two years pretty much surrounded by people 24/7, she was quite a lot better at it, but she didn't need her new sarcasm-detecting skills when with Eun-ji. The Ravenclaw girl was easy to talk to, and that was one of the reasons Lucia liked her. If she said Lucia's outfit was cute, she meant cute as in cute, not as in childish. "Thank you," she smiled, smoothing down her skirt. The Hufflepuff wasn't expecting Eun-ji's next words, though. While she did appreciate the fact that her friend preferred simple clothes, the outfit she was in wearing was beautiful. Although, admittedly, it was perhaps a little too fancy for dance practise on a Saturday morning. "It is very pretty though..." Lucia began, and then paused. "But maybe a bit much."