go "phd in napping" nam soon (고남순) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unpresidential) wrote2014-08-06 07:17 pm
unpresidential) wrote2014-08-06 07:17 pm
Entry tags:
app; ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cerealia
Applicant Info
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Go Nam Soon (Korean)/Nam Soon Go (Western)
◎ Character's Canon: School 2013
◎ Character's Age: 19
◎ Canon Point: Post-tv series, pre-novel conclusion.
◎ Background/History: episode recaps, but here’s a briefer chronological summary of events:
Nam Soon was born and raised in Suwon, a city located just about an hour away from Seoul; his mother died when he was fairly young, and his father was a largely absent figure in his life due to long working hours and a seemingly prominent problem with alcohol. As a result, he didn’t have much direction or influence in his life, save for his mother’s request for him to graduate high school.
In elementary school, Nam Soon met Park Heung Soo, and they became fast friends. As the tallest kids in the class, they were like the “adults,” or the “protectors” in some way, and they formed a very close bond that remained for years. Nam Soon would go to Heung Soo’s soccer games to support and cheer on his friend. They’d share meals and have sleepovers, and constantly act as emotional support for one enough through thick and thin — whether it was something like soccer, Heung Soo’s sick mom, or the absence of a family in Nam Soon’s life, they always had each other’s backs.
But as Nam Soon got older, the lack of structure in his life began to lead him down a darker path. He started to become a delinquent in his middle school years; he not only got involved with the local gang culture, but gained a reputation as the Tsunami — the best fighter in Gyeonggi Province. His name was known all over for that, and he was a real troublemaker. Anything from stealing money from vending machines to getting into major fights was fair game. The only constant he really had was the fact that Heung Soo stuck by him through thick and thin to bail him out of trouble. Heung Soo had even made a promise to watch over him and keep Nam Soon from getting arrested or going off the deep end; There was a limit he set to the trouble his friend could cause and he was determined to adhere to it, even if it meant fronting the money and bailing Nam Soon from situations that legitimately weren’t his fault.
It all changed in an instant, though. When Heung Soo had the potential to be scouted to go to Seoul to play soccer, it scared Nam Soon. He feared being left behind, so when he knew the gang would have to beat up Heung Soo to release him from their numbers, Nam Soon went too far. His anger and jealousy over what could be prompted him hit too hard, breaking Heung Soo’s leg as a result. It was a one-shot career killer, and the moment that changed everything. When he tried to visit Heung Soo in the hospital, his fear of being left behind and unforgiven for his deplorable actions prevented him from going in. He turned his back and walked away. Nam Soon dropped out of school and spent a whole year as a recluse, doing nothing more than eating and sleeping in his room. He couldn’t face the world, but he also realized he couldn’t do that forever. Nam Soon ends up moving to Seoul (in an effort to forget all of his memories with Heung Soo in Suwon) and taking a high school entrance exam.
He was no longer the same, though. He remained quiet and reclusive, largely minding his own business and sleeping through much of his day, even in class. He didn’t tell anyone of his past, not even that he was a year older than them (which by cultural standards is largely unheard of, and causes quite a ruckus when later discovered). Nam Soon wasn’t unfriendly, though. At Seungri High School, he did get along with a few of his classmates, often looking out for them in subtle ways. This went especially so when it came to Oh Jung Ho and his lackeys, the top dog bullies of the school. Even against them, people he could easily take down, he remained mild mannered and took the hits dealt to him.
Nam Soon would stand up to them when necessary, but not any more than needed and he always held back his instincts as Tsunami. His classmates and teachers alike viewed him as a mild-mannered student with good intentions, though not one who was particularly book smart or motivated. He was the type who would rather keep his mouth shut and get in trouble than make a bigger issue of things.
So when Heung Soo transferred to Seungri, everything began to change again. He had an opportunity to make things right, and boy… did he try. On more than one occasion, he went out of his way to do things for an unwilling Heung Soo, much to the surprise of other students (and the ire of Jung Ho). He came to Heung Soo’s defense at every turn in an effort to keep him in Seungri, and made his threats to Jung Ho to leave things be. Things came to a head eventually with provocation from Jung Ho, unleashing the reckless Tsunami persona briefly and thus leading Heung Soo to believe that Nam Soon’s pacifist actions were little more than a farce. There was a lot of conflict, a lot of Nam Soon meddling in other people’s affairs (for their benefit) and a lot of other nonsense in-between. When Heung Soo requested that Nam Soon throw away what was most important as compensation, Nam Soon elected to leave school — not because he cared about school, but because the most important thing to him was actually his ex-best friend.
It was to little avail, and eventually, the faculty getting wind of the past conflict between the two leaves them with an ultimatum written into the school’s policy — a victim and assailant cannot be in the same school, let alone the same class. Nam Soon chooses to quietly withdraw from the school and transfer, only to be stopped by Heung Soo, who lays claim to the fact that they weren’t victim and assailant, just unlucky friends trying to make up and put the past behind them. From that point forward, the two start to work through their differences, despite it being a long road. With that largely behind them, they begin to work together more to help their classmates and teachers — including Jung Ho, despite how often he’d wronged them. By the end of the TV series, the two are quietly celebrating having made it to their final year of high school and looking towards an uncertain, but brighter future.
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? No.
◎ Personality:
Most who meet Go Nam Soon will see him for exactly what he appears to be: A quiet and mild-mannered teenager who doesn’t seem to have much direction in life. And for the most part? That’s pretty true.
Nam Soon is the type of person who gets through days with the intent of skating by with little fanfare. He wakes up, goes to school — often napping through his classes or simply spacing spacing out — he eats, does his part time job, reads manga… many things a normal teenager would do. Unlike most of his classmates, he doesn’t study hard; in fact, he doesn’t study at all. His only intent with school all along is simply to graduate, not go to university, so for Nam Soon, something like that is just a wasted effort. For the most part, it seems like he wants to mind his own business. But the truth of the matter is that there’s much more lurking beneath the surface than he lets on, and it’s not until very specific situations present themselves that the stoic nature he carries shatters.
He wasn’t always that sort of person, and it’s the experiences in his life over or a quick and biting period of time that changed him. Three years prior to the start of the series, Nam Soon was absolutely nothing like what most expect of him. As a sixteen year old, he was brazen and hot-tempered, a kid on the wrong path while leading a band of middle-school thugs as a gang. He got into fights so often, and fought so well that he earned the nickname Tsunami — known and feared by many as the best fighter in Gyeonggi Province. He was fast on a path to growing into an adult who was just a gangster, and the only thing that kept him grounded from that at the time was Park Heung Soo, his childhood best friend and the person who made him an eternal promise to watch over and make sure Nam Soon didn’t go so far as to do something that would land him in prison.
The two of them together were something of a dream team, their traits balancing one another out. With Heung Soo, Nam Soon had a tendency to be a bit different. He was more like a playful kid, loud, mischievous and full of laughter. They were an inseparable duo who generally brought out the best in one another, even if the fact that Nam Soon had dragged Heung Soo down in a sense by getting him involved with the petty gang activities.
All of that changed when Heung Soo was going to be scouted to play soccer in Seoul, though. He wanted to support his best friend, of course. Soccer was Heung Soo’s dream, and Nam Soon always went to his games and cheered him on. But still, the idea of Heung Soo leaving him was a bit too much handle; his best friend was the only person he had to lean on in tough times when he was really without any prominent parental figures or siblings. He feared losing his best friend and that fear ended up channeled through a fit of anger and jealousy. When tagging Heung Soo out of the gang (a tradition in which beating them up frees them of the obligation, much like it lets them in as initiation) as his coach had suggested, Nam Soon took things too far when channeling those feelings. He smashed Heung Soo’s leg, breaking the bone and leaving him permanently unable to play. Nam Soon knew his friend would be mad, or hate him from such a heinous action, so when he made his attempt to visit the hospital, seeing Heung Soo watching him angrily through the window instilled a fear of loss and guilt in him so heavy that he couldn’t handle the burden. He turned and walked away, unable to face it.
His fear of losing his best friend forced him to sever the ties; his guilt and pain over doing such a terrible thing to his best friend shut him down. Nam Soon spent the next year in a practically comatose state, doing nothing but sleeping and waking up occasionally to eat. He immediately stopped all his bad acts in the process: The gang, the fighting, smoking… everything, cold turkey. When he finally realized he couldn’t just spend his whole life that way and enrolled in school, he held to that standard. He was quiet and emotionless, stoic and unflappable. Even in the face of other bullies, he’d generally just take their hits instead of fighting back, even though he was fully capable. He didn’t want to be the person he was when he ruined his best friend’s life. Nam Soon spent all of his days being largely reclusive and hating himself (“The thing I want to throw away… is myself.” he says, when asked of a burden he wants to rid himself of. He literally views himself as trash, even years after the events of that night), and living tortured by his past.
This isn’t touched upon as much in the TV series proper, but the novel expands on just how deep his feelings run. Nam Soon often has nightmares about Heung Soo, all differing situations. He would dream about being back in Suwon and on the streets, about being beat up by Heung Soo for what he did. The worst dreams of all were the ones where he and Heung Soo would reconcile — those are the ones that usually left him waking up in tears. It’s not a side of him others see, of course. Song Ha Kyung is really the only person who gets any initial notion to how deep his self-deprecation runs, and at that, it’s without any real reason.
Nam Soon’s reformation has a lot of small nuances, and many of them are completely influenced by the memory of Heung Soo. Overall, he becomes a better person — he doesn’t cause trouble, and he’s not particularly malicious. If anything, he winds up picking up some of the mother-hen tendencies his best friend possessed. When special needs student Young Woo is being bullied, he throws a book to distract the perpetrators; when Young Woo throws a chair out the window to stop Jung Ho from literally kicking the crap out of Nam Soon, Nam Soon covers for him. He never outs Young Woo or puts him at risk for getting in trouble, though he never admits his own wrongdoings either. It comes with the territory of loyalty, something that is strangely important for Nam Soon despite his own betrayals. He doesn’t like people who snitch, and he makes sure not to be the one to do that. He often won’t even defend himself from accusations, even if he knows he’s innocent just to keep others for getting into trouble (or in the case of Jung Ho, Yi Kyung and Ji Hoon, causing more trouble). Nam Soon believes that the school and teachers alike are not so unjust as to expel students without sufficient evidence or reason, and he holds steadfast to that no matter how many times he faces it.
It’s not the only way his budding protective instincts manifest. On more than one occasion, he comes to Ha Kyung’s rescue, offers her advice, and generally does right by her. When she passes out, he’s the only one to leap into action to get her to a doctor, and he stays at the hospital until she wakes up. When her textbooks get destroyed, he hands off the ones he’d attempted to buy for Heung Soo to her. He looks out for others as well — Teacher Jung especially, which is probably one of the more surprising ones.
His relationship with her is an interesting one, because they seek to protect each other in very different ways. While she looks out for Nam Soon to keep him as a student and give him a future, protecting him from an administrative (but caring) point of of view, he goes about things differently. He not only looks out for her from a physical perspective (stopping Jung Ho from hitting her, as an example), but also as a teacher. Any time her job is in danger, he steps to the plate as Class President (surprising enough to all, given how he was so against that to begin with) to keep her in the classroom. Nam Soon has an instinct to meddle and protect others, even those who’ve wronged him in the past, and that’s all thanks to his many years of friendship with Heung Soo.
There is a side of him that remains sensitive and desperate, especially where Heung Soo is concerned. All he wants is to make things up to his friend and try to surpass his guilt, especially once they become classmates again. By the end of the series, he does largely overcome the very empty and broken sentiments that fueled him through most of the series, but he has a long way to go before he’s healed. He still has a lot of worries and insecurities when it comes to Heung Soo and their mending friendship, and he still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do with his live beyond simply living. Nam Soon has little purpose or direction, and it’s something he seeks and begins to worry about more in the latter portion of the novel.
It’s important to note that while he largely suppresses his old instincts as Tsunami, if something seriously threatens Heung Soo, he won’t hold back. That’s truly his only trigger, as shown in the series. When Jung Ho threatens to break his other leg, Nam Soon is quick to jump in and beat the hell out of him, and when he thinks the other gangster will come for them both, he’s willing to step in and take every hit just to keep Heung Soo safe.
At the end of the day, Nam Soon is a quiet kid seeking a purpose in life, trying to heal from his past wounds and transgressions, and trying to grow up and away from a life that ultimately would have been his own undoing. He’s a caring and quiet protector of his peers and someone who just wants to be with his best friend. As far as he’s concerned, that one person is all he really need; it’s his entire support system and without him, Nam Soon just exists as a shell of a person. He’s healing slowly, relearning to express himself and be able to enjoy life like he once did… without the gang lifestyle and violent tendencies, of course.
◎ Powers/Abilities:
Nam Soon doesn’t have any special powers or abilities, but he’s a pretty strong guy. He can hold his own in a fight when it’s necessary, though it’s a much more typical street fighting, thug-like way of fighting than anything formal. Known as the Tsunami and the best fighter in Gyeonggi-do (the nearly 4,000 square mile province that surrounds Seoul on all sides), he was feared by many and his nickname made him something of a modern legend among students.
He’s street-smart, so he’s good for escaping situations where he’s cornered in many cases, and has been seen to fight through groups of thugs much older and more experienced than him. He’s strong and has a lot of stamina. He even lays claim to having “strong bones” when he’s knocked out by a pile desks and chairs falling on him… and walking away with only a scratch on his hands. His ability and skill doesn’t surpass that of a normal human, and certainly not that of even a normal human with more skill (he’s not going to be taking down UFC-level fighters anytime soon with his 145 pounds of body weight), but he can hold his own, and if nothing else, is agile and quick-witted enough to get to safety in a dire situation.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory: school uniform, cell phone (akin to an lg optimus vu 2), wallet, backpack with a math and korean literature texbook inside.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: Fire.
◎ Sense: Sound. Nam Soon has a tendency to be more of an observer, and usually will jump into things because he’s been listening to the things around him first and foremost. It’s almost always what sets him into action, more than anything else.
◎ Seven Character Traits: ( positive: compassionate, observant, reflective ) ( negative: meddlesome, regretful, single-minded ) ( neutral: quiet )
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
a; b;
◎ Third-Person Sample:
When he hears the sound of the phone ringing, his first instinct is to roll over and pull the covers up over his head. It doesn’t really matter much to Nam Soon that it’s three in the afternoon, nor that he’d already gotten up and dressed for the day. Even having done that, even having gotten up early enough to go buy some food for the apartment, he still just wanted to lay down and sleep for a while. He knows there isn’t any real valid for reason for this though, but he just feels so… tired.
Maybe if it had been a more normal situation, he wouldn’t feel so drained. Not that Nam Soon isn’t prone to wanting to sleep, but something about being here in this strange place makes it more difficult. For every one thing he finds that has a semblance of familiarity, there are five that he can’t he fathom are real. He’s lost count of how many times he’s seen something, tilted his head, and was baffled that it hadn’t come straight out of a manhwa. All the same, that’s what makes him the most uneasy. There’s a lot about it that just unsettles him, and the truth is that he has no viable coping mechanism for any of it.
Sure, he’s grateful for one thing, and that’s the fact that he’s not here alone. There is one person by his side, the person who grounds him and keeps him constant. But could a lot of good come of it? They had so much they still needed to deal with, to work through — even if their friendship was recovering at a steady clip, it’s still fragile.Truthfully, he has no idea where it’ll go, or if anything in this new and unfamiliar place could potentially threaten that progress. All the same, he has no idea what to do if anything threatens Heung Soo, either. Back home, it was easy… He could punch and kick and fight his way through anything short of a gunshot wound or a stab to the vital organs. Here? Well, here, everything feels uncertain.
As these thoughts pass through his head, the phone continues to ring; Nam Soon continues to ignore it for a bit longer, too. There aren’t many people to call him here, not the way he could expect Teacher Jung to hassle him if he misses class, or the same for Ha Kyung, Kang Joo, Young Woo or any of the others. Here, the only person he knew who probably cared enough was Heung Soo… And seriously, what the hell would that punk even want right now anyway? His movements are lazy and begrudging as he finally sits up and lazily reaches for his phone. It’s finally stopped ringing — he missed the call. But before Nam Soon can hit the call back button, he sees a text pop up.
It’s Heung Soo, of course.
Once he reads the message, he’s grumbling to himself, making a face in annoyance and shaking his head.
“Aigoo… seriously, this bastard. He can’t even wash his own clothes without his Noona’s help.” What was he gonna do with this guy? Well, aside from help him out and give him hell for his fuck-ups, of course. Help him out, Nam Soon guess… because really, there’s nothing else he could do. And there’s nothing else he really wants to do more than just that.
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Go Nam Soon (Korean)/Nam Soon Go (Western)
◎ Character's Canon: School 2013
◎ Character's Age: 19
◎ Canon Point: Post-tv series, pre-novel conclusion.
◎ Background/History: episode recaps, but here’s a briefer chronological summary of events:
In elementary school, Nam Soon met Park Heung Soo, and they became fast friends. As the tallest kids in the class, they were like the “adults,” or the “protectors” in some way, and they formed a very close bond that remained for years. Nam Soon would go to Heung Soo’s soccer games to support and cheer on his friend. They’d share meals and have sleepovers, and constantly act as emotional support for one enough through thick and thin — whether it was something like soccer, Heung Soo’s sick mom, or the absence of a family in Nam Soon’s life, they always had each other’s backs.
But as Nam Soon got older, the lack of structure in his life began to lead him down a darker path. He started to become a delinquent in his middle school years; he not only got involved with the local gang culture, but gained a reputation as the Tsunami — the best fighter in Gyeonggi Province. His name was known all over for that, and he was a real troublemaker. Anything from stealing money from vending machines to getting into major fights was fair game. The only constant he really had was the fact that Heung Soo stuck by him through thick and thin to bail him out of trouble. Heung Soo had even made a promise to watch over him and keep Nam Soon from getting arrested or going off the deep end; There was a limit he set to the trouble his friend could cause and he was determined to adhere to it, even if it meant fronting the money and bailing Nam Soon from situations that legitimately weren’t his fault.
It all changed in an instant, though. When Heung Soo had the potential to be scouted to go to Seoul to play soccer, it scared Nam Soon. He feared being left behind, so when he knew the gang would have to beat up Heung Soo to release him from their numbers, Nam Soon went too far. His anger and jealousy over what could be prompted him hit too hard, breaking Heung Soo’s leg as a result. It was a one-shot career killer, and the moment that changed everything. When he tried to visit Heung Soo in the hospital, his fear of being left behind and unforgiven for his deplorable actions prevented him from going in. He turned his back and walked away. Nam Soon dropped out of school and spent a whole year as a recluse, doing nothing more than eating and sleeping in his room. He couldn’t face the world, but he also realized he couldn’t do that forever. Nam Soon ends up moving to Seoul (in an effort to forget all of his memories with Heung Soo in Suwon) and taking a high school entrance exam.
He was no longer the same, though. He remained quiet and reclusive, largely minding his own business and sleeping through much of his day, even in class. He didn’t tell anyone of his past, not even that he was a year older than them (which by cultural standards is largely unheard of, and causes quite a ruckus when later discovered). Nam Soon wasn’t unfriendly, though. At Seungri High School, he did get along with a few of his classmates, often looking out for them in subtle ways. This went especially so when it came to Oh Jung Ho and his lackeys, the top dog bullies of the school. Even against them, people he could easily take down, he remained mild mannered and took the hits dealt to him.
Nam Soon would stand up to them when necessary, but not any more than needed and he always held back his instincts as Tsunami. His classmates and teachers alike viewed him as a mild-mannered student with good intentions, though not one who was particularly book smart or motivated. He was the type who would rather keep his mouth shut and get in trouble than make a bigger issue of things.
So when Heung Soo transferred to Seungri, everything began to change again. He had an opportunity to make things right, and boy… did he try. On more than one occasion, he went out of his way to do things for an unwilling Heung Soo, much to the surprise of other students (and the ire of Jung Ho). He came to Heung Soo’s defense at every turn in an effort to keep him in Seungri, and made his threats to Jung Ho to leave things be. Things came to a head eventually with provocation from Jung Ho, unleashing the reckless Tsunami persona briefly and thus leading Heung Soo to believe that Nam Soon’s pacifist actions were little more than a farce. There was a lot of conflict, a lot of Nam Soon meddling in other people’s affairs (for their benefit) and a lot of other nonsense in-between. When Heung Soo requested that Nam Soon throw away what was most important as compensation, Nam Soon elected to leave school — not because he cared about school, but because the most important thing to him was actually his ex-best friend.
It was to little avail, and eventually, the faculty getting wind of the past conflict between the two leaves them with an ultimatum written into the school’s policy — a victim and assailant cannot be in the same school, let alone the same class. Nam Soon chooses to quietly withdraw from the school and transfer, only to be stopped by Heung Soo, who lays claim to the fact that they weren’t victim and assailant, just unlucky friends trying to make up and put the past behind them. From that point forward, the two start to work through their differences, despite it being a long road. With that largely behind them, they begin to work together more to help their classmates and teachers — including Jung Ho, despite how often he’d wronged them. By the end of the TV series, the two are quietly celebrating having made it to their final year of high school and looking towards an uncertain, but brighter future.
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? No.
◎ Personality:
Nam Soon is the type of person who gets through days with the intent of skating by with little fanfare. He wakes up, goes to school — often napping through his classes or simply spacing spacing out — he eats, does his part time job, reads manga… many things a normal teenager would do. Unlike most of his classmates, he doesn’t study hard; in fact, he doesn’t study at all. His only intent with school all along is simply to graduate, not go to university, so for Nam Soon, something like that is just a wasted effort. For the most part, it seems like he wants to mind his own business. But the truth of the matter is that there’s much more lurking beneath the surface than he lets on, and it’s not until very specific situations present themselves that the stoic nature he carries shatters.
He wasn’t always that sort of person, and it’s the experiences in his life over or a quick and biting period of time that changed him. Three years prior to the start of the series, Nam Soon was absolutely nothing like what most expect of him. As a sixteen year old, he was brazen and hot-tempered, a kid on the wrong path while leading a band of middle-school thugs as a gang. He got into fights so often, and fought so well that he earned the nickname Tsunami — known and feared by many as the best fighter in Gyeonggi Province. He was fast on a path to growing into an adult who was just a gangster, and the only thing that kept him grounded from that at the time was Park Heung Soo, his childhood best friend and the person who made him an eternal promise to watch over and make sure Nam Soon didn’t go so far as to do something that would land him in prison.
The two of them together were something of a dream team, their traits balancing one another out. With Heung Soo, Nam Soon had a tendency to be a bit different. He was more like a playful kid, loud, mischievous and full of laughter. They were an inseparable duo who generally brought out the best in one another, even if the fact that Nam Soon had dragged Heung Soo down in a sense by getting him involved with the petty gang activities.
All of that changed when Heung Soo was going to be scouted to play soccer in Seoul, though. He wanted to support his best friend, of course. Soccer was Heung Soo’s dream, and Nam Soon always went to his games and cheered him on. But still, the idea of Heung Soo leaving him was a bit too much handle; his best friend was the only person he had to lean on in tough times when he was really without any prominent parental figures or siblings. He feared losing his best friend and that fear ended up channeled through a fit of anger and jealousy. When tagging Heung Soo out of the gang (a tradition in which beating them up frees them of the obligation, much like it lets them in as initiation) as his coach had suggested, Nam Soon took things too far when channeling those feelings. He smashed Heung Soo’s leg, breaking the bone and leaving him permanently unable to play. Nam Soon knew his friend would be mad, or hate him from such a heinous action, so when he made his attempt to visit the hospital, seeing Heung Soo watching him angrily through the window instilled a fear of loss and guilt in him so heavy that he couldn’t handle the burden. He turned and walked away, unable to face it.
His fear of losing his best friend forced him to sever the ties; his guilt and pain over doing such a terrible thing to his best friend shut him down. Nam Soon spent the next year in a practically comatose state, doing nothing but sleeping and waking up occasionally to eat. He immediately stopped all his bad acts in the process: The gang, the fighting, smoking… everything, cold turkey. When he finally realized he couldn’t just spend his whole life that way and enrolled in school, he held to that standard. He was quiet and emotionless, stoic and unflappable. Even in the face of other bullies, he’d generally just take their hits instead of fighting back, even though he was fully capable. He didn’t want to be the person he was when he ruined his best friend’s life. Nam Soon spent all of his days being largely reclusive and hating himself (“The thing I want to throw away… is myself.” he says, when asked of a burden he wants to rid himself of. He literally views himself as trash, even years after the events of that night), and living tortured by his past.
This isn’t touched upon as much in the TV series proper, but the novel expands on just how deep his feelings run. Nam Soon often has nightmares about Heung Soo, all differing situations. He would dream about being back in Suwon and on the streets, about being beat up by Heung Soo for what he did. The worst dreams of all were the ones where he and Heung Soo would reconcile — those are the ones that usually left him waking up in tears. It’s not a side of him others see, of course. Song Ha Kyung is really the only person who gets any initial notion to how deep his self-deprecation runs, and at that, it’s without any real reason.
Nam Soon’s reformation has a lot of small nuances, and many of them are completely influenced by the memory of Heung Soo. Overall, he becomes a better person — he doesn’t cause trouble, and he’s not particularly malicious. If anything, he winds up picking up some of the mother-hen tendencies his best friend possessed. When special needs student Young Woo is being bullied, he throws a book to distract the perpetrators; when Young Woo throws a chair out the window to stop Jung Ho from literally kicking the crap out of Nam Soon, Nam Soon covers for him. He never outs Young Woo or puts him at risk for getting in trouble, though he never admits his own wrongdoings either. It comes with the territory of loyalty, something that is strangely important for Nam Soon despite his own betrayals. He doesn’t like people who snitch, and he makes sure not to be the one to do that. He often won’t even defend himself from accusations, even if he knows he’s innocent just to keep others for getting into trouble (or in the case of Jung Ho, Yi Kyung and Ji Hoon, causing more trouble). Nam Soon believes that the school and teachers alike are not so unjust as to expel students without sufficient evidence or reason, and he holds steadfast to that no matter how many times he faces it.
It’s not the only way his budding protective instincts manifest. On more than one occasion, he comes to Ha Kyung’s rescue, offers her advice, and generally does right by her. When she passes out, he’s the only one to leap into action to get her to a doctor, and he stays at the hospital until she wakes up. When her textbooks get destroyed, he hands off the ones he’d attempted to buy for Heung Soo to her. He looks out for others as well — Teacher Jung especially, which is probably one of the more surprising ones.
His relationship with her is an interesting one, because they seek to protect each other in very different ways. While she looks out for Nam Soon to keep him as a student and give him a future, protecting him from an administrative (but caring) point of of view, he goes about things differently. He not only looks out for her from a physical perspective (stopping Jung Ho from hitting her, as an example), but also as a teacher. Any time her job is in danger, he steps to the plate as Class President (surprising enough to all, given how he was so against that to begin with) to keep her in the classroom. Nam Soon has an instinct to meddle and protect others, even those who’ve wronged him in the past, and that’s all thanks to his many years of friendship with Heung Soo.
There is a side of him that remains sensitive and desperate, especially where Heung Soo is concerned. All he wants is to make things up to his friend and try to surpass his guilt, especially once they become classmates again. By the end of the series, he does largely overcome the very empty and broken sentiments that fueled him through most of the series, but he has a long way to go before he’s healed. He still has a lot of worries and insecurities when it comes to Heung Soo and their mending friendship, and he still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do with his live beyond simply living. Nam Soon has little purpose or direction, and it’s something he seeks and begins to worry about more in the latter portion of the novel.
It’s important to note that while he largely suppresses his old instincts as Tsunami, if something seriously threatens Heung Soo, he won’t hold back. That’s truly his only trigger, as shown in the series. When Jung Ho threatens to break his other leg, Nam Soon is quick to jump in and beat the hell out of him, and when he thinks the other gangster will come for them both, he’s willing to step in and take every hit just to keep Heung Soo safe.
At the end of the day, Nam Soon is a quiet kid seeking a purpose in life, trying to heal from his past wounds and transgressions, and trying to grow up and away from a life that ultimately would have been his own undoing. He’s a caring and quiet protector of his peers and someone who just wants to be with his best friend. As far as he’s concerned, that one person is all he really need; it’s his entire support system and without him, Nam Soon just exists as a shell of a person. He’s healing slowly, relearning to express himself and be able to enjoy life like he once did… without the gang lifestyle and violent tendencies, of course.
◎ Powers/Abilities:
He’s street-smart, so he’s good for escaping situations where he’s cornered in many cases, and has been seen to fight through groups of thugs much older and more experienced than him. He’s strong and has a lot of stamina. He even lays claim to having “strong bones” when he’s knocked out by a pile desks and chairs falling on him… and walking away with only a scratch on his hands. His ability and skill doesn’t surpass that of a normal human, and certainly not that of even a normal human with more skill (he’s not going to be taking down UFC-level fighters anytime soon with his 145 pounds of body weight), but he can hold his own, and if nothing else, is agile and quick-witted enough to get to safety in a dire situation.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory: school uniform, cell phone (akin to an lg optimus vu 2), wallet, backpack with a math and korean literature texbook inside.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: Fire.
◎ Sense: Sound. Nam Soon has a tendency to be more of an observer, and usually will jump into things because he’s been listening to the things around him first and foremost. It’s almost always what sets him into action, more than anything else.
◎ Seven Character Traits: ( positive: compassionate, observant, reflective ) ( negative: meddlesome, regretful, single-minded ) ( neutral: quiet )
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
◎ Third-Person Sample:
Maybe if it had been a more normal situation, he wouldn’t feel so drained. Not that Nam Soon isn’t prone to wanting to sleep, but something about being here in this strange place makes it more difficult. For every one thing he finds that has a semblance of familiarity, there are five that he can’t he fathom are real. He’s lost count of how many times he’s seen something, tilted his head, and was baffled that it hadn’t come straight out of a manhwa. All the same, that’s what makes him the most uneasy. There’s a lot about it that just unsettles him, and the truth is that he has no viable coping mechanism for any of it.
Sure, he’s grateful for one thing, and that’s the fact that he’s not here alone. There is one person by his side, the person who grounds him and keeps him constant. But could a lot of good come of it? They had so much they still needed to deal with, to work through — even if their friendship was recovering at a steady clip, it’s still fragile.Truthfully, he has no idea where it’ll go, or if anything in this new and unfamiliar place could potentially threaten that progress. All the same, he has no idea what to do if anything threatens Heung Soo, either. Back home, it was easy… He could punch and kick and fight his way through anything short of a gunshot wound or a stab to the vital organs. Here? Well, here, everything feels uncertain.
As these thoughts pass through his head, the phone continues to ring; Nam Soon continues to ignore it for a bit longer, too. There aren’t many people to call him here, not the way he could expect Teacher Jung to hassle him if he misses class, or the same for Ha Kyung, Kang Joo, Young Woo or any of the others. Here, the only person he knew who probably cared enough was Heung Soo… And seriously, what the hell would that punk even want right now anyway? His movements are lazy and begrudging as he finally sits up and lazily reaches for his phone. It’s finally stopped ringing — he missed the call. But before Nam Soon can hit the call back button, he sees a text pop up.
It’s Heung Soo, of course.
Once he reads the message, he’s grumbling to himself, making a face in annoyance and shaking his head.
“Aigoo… seriously, this bastard. He can’t even wash his own clothes without his Noona’s help.” What was he gonna do with this guy? Well, aside from help him out and give him hell for his fuck-ups, of course. Help him out, Nam Soon guess… because really, there’s nothing else he could do. And there’s nothing else he really wants to do more than just that.