Character Studies (P-PP Edition)

Hanjun is twelve when he writes his first will. He’s not quite sure what a will is, only that his sister is writing one. So he writes one as well, on the back of his crumpled math homework one sunny afternoon, a silly little thing full of books and candy and sparkly shiny stones.

Then there’s cold concrete and shrieking wind and a voice begging her to understand, that it doesn’t have to be this way, that there could be so much more—

The next day, Hanjun forces words through a throat screamed raw and realizes the voice was his.

He writes his second will that night, pen digging through the paper and crying the tears that refuse to fall from his eyes. His friend watches on. Fourteen year olds aren’t legal witnesses, but witnesses don’t matter when it’s a will written by a child.

“Lilia,” he asks abruptly, “d’you want anything?”

“Your knife,” she says. “Drew would like your books,” she adds nonchalantly.

The children of the slums have no fear. Death is their oldest friend, so they do not fear death. They treasure a single piece of bread more than a blade coming their way.

Hanjun wasn’t born into the slums, but he is a quick learner. This lesson carved itself into his bones with every snide laugh, every fatality statistic, every charity that looks at him with soft eyes and thinks he doesn’t hear their whispers about how he might not make it, about how he’s alone in this.

It doesn’t hurt. But it does stick.

He writes a new will every year, even though they don’t really matter in the slums. If he dies, all his things will be lost or burnt or scavenged. He likes to think that his friends will get to his stuff first, but he knows better. If he dies, his friends would be right next to him, taken out at the same time, because there’s no way they would let anything happen to each other.

But he writes, because the reminder that it might still be okay, even if he doesn’t make it, makes something in his chest twist and calm in tandem.