personality

HEY, LISTEN TO THIS akdong musicians - melted

"is this silence an opportunity or just my hopes?"

+ soft-hearted, understanding, loyal, independent

- cynical, thoughtless, reticent, bitter

there are quite a few ghosts who have gone through dramatic personality changes after death, be it because they totally forgot who they were or because death gives them a whole new persepective. haneul...didn't really change. if anything, she may be a tad bit better now - back when she was alive, she always felt so limited and burdened by her surroundings. but now, a year after her death, she's had enough time to herself to really think about who she is or who she should become or what's going to happen. while there are still questions she has yet to have answered, this one year has provided her with more of a personality than the stoic china doll has ever had.

with the world seeming like it was always against her, fighting and pushing and holding her back, it's no surprise that kang haneul's ghost is one of the most cynical beings you'll ever meet. while the past one year has given her time to reflect on herself, it's also given her time to grow and harbor bitter feelings towards those who caused her to be like this - which, to her, is the general universe. everyone's the same - why is there reason to think otherwise? even the most innocent looking person could talk behind your back any second - i mean, look at haneul. who would've thought such a young girl was going through such mental distress? due to this cynical attitude of hers, she can be rather sarcastic, blunt, stubborn, etc. haneul's always been pretty reticent, too, never talking about her feelings or emotions to anyone, because really, who was there to tell? there never was anyone, and there still isn't. this has led to her thoughtlessness - as a ghost, feelings and emotions are even more confusing than before, so she chooses to just not think about them or their consequences. she can act pretty spontaneously and speak quite bluntly, using her lack of existence to her advantage - 'i'm dead i can say what i want'. her words have a sharp edge to them, and they easily cut. but haneul has a built-in bandaid - she's truly soft-hearted, albeit deep, deep down. sure, she'll snap at the little kid who accidently sees her walk through a door and asks her for the nth time if she's a ghost, but once he sticks his lower lip out at her harsh tone, she'll soften ( as much as cynical haneul can ) and speak softer, more gently - but don't expect an apology any time soon. she has this hidden compassion in her for young children, though, because she was young once, and look at her now. deep inside, she doesn't want to wish this sort of fate upon anyone, but at this moment, these thoughts are overridden by her bitterness. haneul doesn't like people, and she doesn't want to like people, but you can't argue that she's cynical to the core. if she ever took the time to really talk to someone, maybe even build a relationship with them ( !! ), she'd realize how understanding and loyal she is - understanding because she herself has gone through lots of thoughts in her lifetime ( or something like one ) and loyal because of her buried desire to keep her kind of sad ending to herself - if you really talk to her and trust her, she'll return that accountability, mostly because you'd be the first person to be like this to her and it'd be very special. but all this might take a while to find out, because not only is haneul cynical, she's independent, which gives her less reason to turn to these lowly humans. she's found she's always had to depend only on herself to take care of herself, and she's grown to be very capable of doing just that.

TL;DR kang haneul is super cynical - she's grown to be pretty bitter towards the general people who have ultimately led her to be like this now, and she has resorted to sarcasm and self-dependence as a ghost who is tired of the question "you're a ghost?". but buried underneath her no-nonsense, 'no fcks given' attitude, lies the true heart of kang haneul, the kind nature that is what makes her the most human she'll ever be. especially towards animals and younger children, haneul gets soft, and deep down, she holds a hidden compassion for people because she doesn't want them to end up like her.

background

HEY, LISTEN TO THIS mad clown ft. jooyoung - hide and seek

haneul was, to put it bluntly, depressed. she was lonely, constantly folded in on herself with no one to rely on for anything but herself. people at school only cared about her looks and money, people at home only cared about her grades and success. her father worked in the government and her mother was a high chair at a bigshot marketing company. haneul was always stressed and pressured with her parents looming over her, wanting her to be successful and keep up the family name. it was hard, because haneul just...couldn't do that. she had no passion towards school or learning, and that lack of desire just got even more significant with all the nagging her non-understanding parents did. they seemed to never care about her opinion and they only saw letter grades when they looked at her. it seemed she could never be what they wanted, which seemed to be perfection, and the way they constantly showed it discouraged her and caused her to become quiet and introverted as she bottled up her feelings and cut off social ties so she wouldn't burden anyone, including herself, with relationships, when what's the point? everyone's just going to turn against her anyways, just like her parents. because it hadn't always been like this. haneul can faintly remember back when she was younger - a little 4 year old, walking around with her little stuffed bear to deliver cans of iced coffee to the employees on the 3rd floor office. she'd return to the main office room where her mother would be waiting for her. with a ruffle of her hair and a tight hug, she'd sit little haneul on a couch with some coloring books. "oh, your daughter is so cute!" "how old is she? she's so big!" "wow, so young, but she can already color inside the lines?" "she's gonna grow up to be just like her mother - successful and beautiful!" all these expectations for haneul started from such a young age, and it just continued piling up. sure, she grew up to be beautiful, but intelligence just didn't seem to come as easy to her as it did her parents. she had to actually work really hard in school and she wasn't able to build good study habits because her parents weren't there to help her, and once it got into high school, where everyone is competitive, haneul started to disappoint. she was smack dab between the average students and the top of her class, and it wasn't good enough for her parents.

high school quickly became a stage of haneul's life that was filled with disappointment, loneliness, pressure, and all kinds of distress. it was a mental combat - one she eventually lost, with no one by her side to help her back up or mourn the defeat. haneul's only thing to turn to was her music - she was plugged in as often as she could, turning up the volume in order to drown out everything else in life. music was her only refuge, her only haven. it could cross boundaries and send messages that verbally-challenged introvert haneul who never talked about her feelings couldn't send. it said everything she wanted to say, but didn't. it had always been there for her, from the beginning until the end.

death

HEY, LISTEN TO THIS v - stigma  ( trigger warning )

her music promised to always be by her side, and that it did.

it was the day after christmas. haneul had been thinking about doing this for a while now, and since there hadn't been anything that had physically stopped her up to now, she decided it was the thing to do. december 26, 2014. christmas was a nice day - one of the only days haneul was ever at her happiest. school was on break, her parents were still away just as much as they always were, and haneul could keep all to herself and her music. she didn't want to taint one of her favorite days, so she decided to put it off until the next day. 5:23am - christmas lights are still up, left there by people who were too lazy to take them down or too caught up in the holiday spirit last night. as haneul walks by numerous twinkling bulbs, she acknowledges the fact that the lights aren't going to be the only thing that are still on once she leaves. restaurants are going to open, electricity is going to run, music is going to play. life is going to go on, just not for her.

she enters geumjanhwa through a hole in the fence, unlocking doors with a bobby pin. there's so much more effort required than necessary, but none of it brings haneul a snap back to reality. this is her reality. after a while, she finally reaches the rooftop. her earphones are in. she wants to remain with her music and only music until the very last second and after that. this isn't a suicide of a depressed teenager. this is a farewell of a fed up human. goodbye to the tunnel with no light at the end. jungkook's solo song 'begin' blasts through her earphones. she had always liked bts. they were good-looking, talented, and they poured their hearts into their music. "you make me begin." the end of haneul 's lip curled up ever so slightly at the irony of such a song at such a time. but maybe it's symbolizing a new beginning? but a new beginning to what? and for who? nothing in this world would be affected by the death of kang haneul. with existential thoughts crowding her mind, haneul stepped off the rooftop. the instrumental boomed in her ears, and all her problems seemed to fly off of her, snatched away by the wind rushing past her face.

[ THE AFTERMATH ] as the day comes to life, haneul's body leaves it. she's discovered about a half hour later, when the city starts to bustle. paramedics come, principals and parents are contacted, conclusions are reached, mourning occurs. haneul's parents had been going through their own problems - government jobs are never easy, and the marketing company was slowly going downhill. these surface problems combine with other things life throws at them to give them their own mental combat - one they've been so busy fighting themselves they didn't notice anything else going on outside of their own little circle. haneul's suicide is their snap back to reality - the reality that they've been horrible parents, the reality that they've been horrible spouses, the reality that it's too late. with guilt and regret weighing on their shoulders, and the faint memory of their late daughter kang haneul, kwon soora and kang sungchan are slowly working to find a way to somehow make it up to her.

binding

HEY, LISTEN TO THIS song mino ft. taeyang - fear

haneul has spent a year as a ghost - quite enough time for her to think about lots of things - who she truly is, who she could've become, what to do because jihwan boy what have you done all these years i'm so bored what she's doing back here. the last one was a question she'd always put off, thanks to her "i'll worry about that later" mindset, but recent events had triggered the question again. why was she still existing in this cruel world?

kang haneul is tied to this world, held back by her bitterness and resentment towards the people around her, specifically her classmates and parents. she left her body in peace, believing that this was truly the best solution because anywhere would be better than this hopeless dump of a life. her ticket to pass on is finally forgiving everyone. sure, she may have seemed like the victim, but her own family was going through mental distress themselves, and it only got worse with haneul's death. she wasn't patient enough to wait it out, to let it glaze over, to let them grow together. she wasn't even brave enough after she came to as a ghost to check on her family or look into her funeral - she brushed it off, saying it didn't matter, scared that it really didn't. being selfish enough to leave her family behind ultimately turned out to be her fatal flaw, something she didn't even see as plausible. but she truly was selfish - and she was bitter, and she was angry. she resented her classmates for not caring about her, she resented her parents for not raising her any better, she even comes to resent herself for not being strong enough. not strong enough to keep going, to endure it all, to simply even tell her parents she loves them. haneul doesn't know any of this at first - she really thought her death was better for everyone because she herself had never been better. she gets to travel, explore, not be stressed with school work, and even have habits and hobbies. haneul's binding is released once she realizes and overcomes these feelings of guilt and resentment. of course, along the way to this realization, she is filled with more and more regret of not being able to stay longer and do things like kiss a boy or hold a baby, but that's just another thing she has to do - forgive herself just as much as her classmates and family.

trivia

— christmas remains to be one of the days she's happiest. haneul finds the twinkling lights and jingling bells a bit bittersweet because of her back story, but the holiday cheer is something she can't seem to get rid of.
— she doesn't really like her birthday. while she doesn't hate it, she doesn't see any reason to celebrate it because wow look where she is now. what significance is a birthday.
— so bangtan seems like just another thing in haneul's life because i kinda brushed over it as i was trying to be fake deep, but it's actually a highlight in her ( albeit short ) lifetime. they were talented, funny, good looking, and haneul knew they they really put all they had into their music. she had been with them from the start, hooked by their rebellious hip hop concept on following your dreams and ignoring your parents, and she just grew with them from there.
— some of her pasttimes are going to watch people make food, sneaking into theaters ( she actually really likes movies ! she didn't really get to watch a lot when she was alive bc what is freetime. ), walking down the hankang, hanging out by an aromatherapy shop down the block, etc.
— at geumjanhwa, you can usually find her ( or her presence, at least, because after continuously letting down her guard and accidentally showing herself to unsignificant people thankfully, she's more cautious ) in the music room or the auditorium or in her classroom, where her seat in the back corner of the room is probably empty.
— her sense of humor is the self-depreciating one where she roasts herself and is super sarcastic about being dead and she makes jokes about what she can and can't do and everyone's just like 'wow -- are you -- uhm -- ok sorry'. she also tends to make slightly insensitive jokes towards other people ( or ghosts ), but then she'll be like 'sorry that was kind of...mean. i guess.'
— she doesn't like showing herself to people unless they're a complete stranger who doesn't know of geumjanhwa's fatal beauty, and even then it's pretty rare. she doesn't really find the heart to prank people or anything, and after a while, petty revenge on her classmates gets annoying because girls are annoying.
— she herself gets startled pretty easily - she'll be reading a book in the library and a person will enter the room and she'll be like "oh -- ohmygod" and then go back to reading her book unless they take it away because 'oh a loose book'
— she honestly gets so sad when she sees good food.
— she wants to reincarnate as a mermaid 'because sirens are hardcore af and then i can kill men'
— oh and she likes singing. this is probably the most haunting thing she does - singing softly to herself, knowing that someone thinks they're alone in the room.
— if it's possible for her to change her hair, she usually wears it loose and down or in a messy bun.
— she starts to love movies, having, like, never watched them before, and she finds out she's a big commentator. even if she's by herself, she's always asking questions and gasping and making comments at unreasonable antagonists and dumb plot holes.
— in case you haven't realized, haneul is weak for babies and animals. she always gets distracted by stray dogs and cats and she occasionally lets herself show to that pretty little girl in a princess dress, sitting in her stroller. she bends down, the girls cheek, and disappears before the mother looks over to investigate why her daughter is squealing in pleasure - and hey, where did you get that flower?

relationships

KWON SOORA, JULY 23, 47 Y/O

co-ceo of josang marketing company, kwon soora has dedicated all of her life to her job. it's proven to be worth it - she's recognized for her hard work and diligence and is admired by business tyrants for the way she didn't let her family problems affect her performance. behind the scenes, though, soora is just another haneul. she's become a master at hiding her feelings and all that, and she continues to do that to this day. as of right now, she is still holding her high position at josang and she still conceals her 'unprofessional' emotions. at haneul's death, she faltered. she had never let family or friend deaths affect her work behavior, but this was the first time the incident was someone so directly related to her...yet she didn't feel so related. but since she doesn't know the whole story, she doesn't really know how to learn from it, but she's always trying. as she continues her work, she considers going to see a therapist and starts to think to herself more about lots and lots of things.

KANG SUNGCHAN, AUGUST 9, 49 Y/O

a government official based in seoul, kang sungchan is just as hardworking as soora. he works with finances and taxes and was home less than his wife, but he was home enough to nag at his daughter for not being in the top rankings. now, he's home enough to reflect on that and regret not asking her how she's doing instead of just taking what soora complained about on a whim. as of right now, sungchan is a successful man, constantly praised for his productive, quick-witted work behavior. he is still working hard to continue improving at what he does, and since haneul's death, he's become more self-aware. he starts talking to his wife more than before, realizing the importance of relationships.

for both of them, life is inevitably going on, but incidents have brought them closer as a couple and made them more mature as people. i think they need their own kind of closure, which will be provided by haneul finally going to see them and check on how they're doing and realize how much they''ve improved and tell them the truth or at least that she forgives and loves them or whatevler.

 

 

 

 

why do you haunt geumjanhwa high school?

haneul tilts her head, one shoulder angled slightly upwards. well, there doesn't really seem to be anywhere else for me to logically stay. my whole life was pretty much just school and home, and this is at least better than home because i can choose to be alone with less burdens and there's more strangers. i don't think i could deal at home with the people that have... she pauses, starting to trail off. that i've seen all my life. she shrugs nonchalantly. it gets boring, yknow? she herself has never really thought of it as haunting before, which sounds so much more evil than the tedious waiting she's actually doing. but if you wanted an evil answer, it'd probably be to get petty revenge on those particular girls who spread rumors about her and ticked her off on her bad days. she could never do anything about it then, but hey, what's a temporarily missing essay or a pencil dropped out of the window?

do you ever go anywhere else?

nods slowly, bringing up one shoulder in a shrug before letting it fall limp again. yeah, i tend to go on long walks quite a lot, i guess... tilts her once-straightened head again, looking up to think. i mean, last year i walked around more, but i feel like i've explored this city out by now. i guess i could technically go anywhere, but i'm too lazy. she shrugs nonchalantly. and...i don't know, sometimes i feel like i can't. like i'm stuck in this area. looks at the interviewer like she doesn't know why, which she doesn't. she also doesn't know why she doesn't mention that she's never been home once and she's avoided any significant places that her family went to like the plague.

when you were still alive, what did you want to do after high school?

blinks oh, wow. uh...i don't really know. i never really thought about this when i was...you know, alive. her eyes get dodgy, like they don't know where to look. i guess i probably would've wanted to go to college. finally be independent. maybe overseas? she shrugs again.

if you ever pass on, where do you think you're going to go?

she raises her eyebrows, leaning back. wow, you guys ask some really deep questions. i'm having, like, an existential crisis. and i'm a ghost. looks up to think again, her lips. hmm. i don't know, i've never been super religious or anything. i don't even know what's holding me back right now from going to heaven or hell or purgatory or reincarnation. she shrugs, yet again. the interviewer wonders if her shoulders will ever fall off. maybe i'll be stuck here forever? anything's fine, really.

what's one thing you wish you could've done while you were alive?

she sits there for a while, her eyes finally finding something to land on. it's not the interviewer. just one thing? she raises her eyebrows and thinks some more. ...live. i want to really live. as my own person. as kang haneul, someone who can be herself and live to live, not live to exist. i want...i want so many things. the young ghost seems to get even more translucent, she seems to fold in on herself. i want to do music, i want to try new things, i want to travel, i want to...to have friends...i want to fall in love...make a family. she finally looks up at the interviewer. i guess i just want to do it all over again.

 

 

 

last comment hello this app made me so sad - i was so hyped to write about haneul because i love love love this idea !! but it's just so...sad. she was so young and she literally had her whole life ahead of her and now i want her to come back to life and get married and have a family and pet a cat. bUT AGH i feel like i kind of ?? word vomited ?? idk man i feel like this is so everywhere i hope you like this app -- and sorry for lack of pictures it was hard to find any images of this girl not being cute i love yeoreum.

scene requests

— someone falls in love with her < 3
— i'm just kidding you do whatever you plan to do with these characters !!
— someone making haneul smile or laugh and being super extra about it ?? or idk i just want her to be happy.
— a little freshie in the occult club who has a crush on haneul
— idek man.

password bts - lost