Jessica really didn’t want to be here. She really really really god honestly didn’t.

But Stacie had nagged at her until she thought her ear would fall off, saying that Jessica had to be at the opening night of her ‘own goddamn showcase’, as the woman had so kindly put it. That and the fact that the meddling woman had threatened to set the ‘ten-inch’ Neanderthal on her again if she didn’t go. Jessica had practically run out of her studio and almost smashed her face into the glass doors in her haste to get away. There is no fudgin’ way she’s going to let ten-inches of anything poking anywhere near her!

Jessica had always disliked going to her own showcases.

She would rather spend hours upon hours by herself, setting up her work, opting to stay late into the night to get things exactly how she wanted them. The gallery owners often liked and trusted her enough to give her the keys to allow her after-hour access. That or they pitied the ‘poor blind girl’ and thought her incapable of doing much damage in the first place. Jessica smiled at that thought. She really could do a lot more than people thought to credit her for.

Jessica would hangout at the galleries by herself after hours, just sitting cross-legged in front of her photos and admiring them in the comfort of her solitary familiarity. This was when she was most relaxed and felt the most accomplished. To her, her works were meant to be enjoyed and appreciated in quiet soothing silence. In the peaceful tranquility of stillness and the beautiful solitude of seclusion from the world, that was when her works shone as Jessica meant for them to be seen. And not in the pretentious pompous buzzings of ‘who’s doing what’ and ‘who’s dating whom’.

It honestly ruined everything. She would even go so far as to say that it tainted the integrity of her work. These people were only concerned with looking like charitable benevolent do-gooders, playing to outdo each other in seeing who cared more about the ‘poor blind children’ than the next pompous . Take away the cameras, take away the press, take away the opportunity to be photographed next to who-and-who and so-and-so, take away the possibility of the entire New York bearing witness to just how freaking ‘kind’ they were…and you would have an empty gallery with only the occasional curious mind walking by.

But…if placing her works to be sold in such fake and conceited events meant that she could help children just like she used to be? Then Jessica was more than happy to do it.

Besides, no one even knew she was J. Jung. Jessica had made sure of it.

To these ostentatious, arrogant ‘upper classes’, J. Jung was some hotshot male photographer who gave them the occasional opportunity to flaunt their wealth and make themselves feel like a million bucks for having ‘helped the poor and needy’.

Did you catch that? Male. M-A-L-E. As in ‘an individual that produces small usually motile gametes as spermatozoa or spermatozoids, which fertilize the eggs of a female,’ as stated in Webster’s dictionary. Because to this day and age, having ovaries instead of balls still meant you were not as likely to rise to the top of anything. The corporate ladder, the scientific community, the political sphere, the artistic world. You name it. All topped by males if not also dominated by those testical-packing individuals.

Jessica wasn’t particularly a radical feminist. But she sure as hell did not appreciate the fact that on her first debuting showcase that would present her to New York like Rafiki presenting Simba to the Serengeti, the presenter had simply defaulted to introducing said ‘anonymous’ photographer as a ‘he’. The man hadn’t even bothered to ask! Because in this world, if you are credited as ‘unknown’ or ‘anonymous’, your gender, as in your entire physical genetic makeup defaults to XY. How incredibly uplifting.

This was well before ‘J. Jung’ was known to the world. Jessica had not wanted the fact that she was visually challenged to be a selling point. She wanted to find out for herself if her work was worth anything in the eyes of others apart from herself and her friends and doting parents. Because seriously, no parent is going to bash their child and tell them they at their dream job! Parents are hardwired to look at a simple stick drawing and see it as befitting of freaking Pablo Picasso’s praise. Jessica’s parents even more so than others as they wanted to provide their daughter with ten times more encouragement in face of all the challenges she would come across. And Jessica loved them for that.

So to prove her worth, Jessica had withheld her identity to the society; even as she did now, years later. At first, seventeen-year-old Jessica had been angry and upset, but then a curious thought came to her. During that time, she was going through a superhero phase, having found herself attracted to the idea of having superpowers, much like how her own abilities seemed to baffle those around her. The thought of having a hidden identity appealed to her, so the young photographer decided to capitalize on the case of mistaken gender identity, amused with the th