As a little kid Minji always played second fiddle to her twin brother, Minhwan. It wasn't that her parents didn't love her, or weren't proud of her, just that her brother always managed to do better than she did. Her brother also put no effort into anything he did, and showed no signs of ever wanting to, so her parents tried to coax Minji into trying a little harder in school. Not wanting to seem like she was putting effort into things her brother could do effortlessly Minji began to study on the sly. For all the good it did, while she moved herself up to second place, her brother still consistently did better in school than she did. Her parents, not realizing that she was actually studying, kept prompting her to try! Just try a little more and she could do better than her brother!
Completely unaware of the fact that she had tried. That she'd put in her best effort, and it still wasn't good enough.
It hurt, but it wasn't something that Minji ever blamed Minhwan for. Minhwan was smart, so why shouldn't he do well? It was stupid to think he should dumb himself down for her sake. Besides, there was no pride in doing better than someone because they let you.
But there was no fun in trying at something when you weren't going to do well, so Minji stopped trying. She didn't like the feeling of losing, and apathy was a much easier way of dealing with her issues.
As the years went on she got to know Minhwan's best friend, Jaejin, and as often as she could inserted herself into their time together. They were obnoxious shits together, but Minji was content enough. Lucky for her, because shortly before high school she lost almost all of her female friends.
She'd always been closer to a small handful of boys than she had been to girls, and always been a bit odd. She was loud, made crude jokes constantly, laughed obnoxiously, and wasn't always that self aware. Still, most of the girls accepted her for who she was and would still spend time with her. At least, until they were around thirteen.
It started off small, they started to "forget" to invite Minji to things. When Minji found then and invited herself along, they forced smiles and let her, but later that day when they found a place to eat would always find a table that was one too few chairs, forcing Minji to sit on her own. Then even at school they would start to laugh at everything she said. Not at jokes, mind you, at everything. Whenever Minji opened her mouth they started giggling, like Minji's very existence was some kind of funny joke.
That one hurt too, but Minji would be damned if she was going to stick around and let them see it bothered her. She threw herself with more force into Minhwan and Jaejin's business, and took petty revenge by spreading small but unpleasant stories here and there about the girls that were shunning her.
High school meant a new start, and a new friend. While she didn't really have a rich friend group, Minji still had a few people willing to spend time with her. Only a few though, because what had started off as a way of getting petty revenge was starting to become habit. Spreading things around the school proved to be an effective form of entertainment and a good way to get people to listen to what she has to say, and to keep things circulating and to make sure people listened to her Minji would spread as many true stories that she could find as well. Eavesdropping and immediately passing on what she heard to the next person. While she still made up a story every now and then, her newfound hobby shifted more into spilling everyone's actual secrets.
It didn't win her a lot of friends, but it did earn her a nickname, Gossip Queen. Minji was known as a terror in the school. Loud, occasionally shrill, gossipy, unable to keep a secret to save her life, often volatile, and arrogant to boot. While she was no Minhwan with her grades, she was still ranking high on the charts, and knew she was naturally intelligent. She goofed off every bit as much as the boys she spent so much time with, and had no issues disrupting class.
But she was content. She had friends and people acknowledged her, and that was enough.
Then the worst person that could have ever stepped into her life stepped into her life. And the worst part of it was that he didn't even directly involve himself with her.
When she first saw Sejoon at school she didn't think too much about him. He was a guy that studied hard, and seemed boring. He also had an intense hate rivalry with Minhwan, and starting as a joke Minji tried to egg them into some sort of strange relationship with each other. What she didn't count on was that Jaejin would also enter into something with Sejoon. And before she knew it both of her boys were busy fucking someone she thought was supposed to be a goody-two-shoes. The three musketeers (something only she had deemed them) were broken up, and she scrambled to catch up to them so she wasn't left too far behind.
Her solution? Toss herself at a guy that would never possibly want her.
When she'd first seen Yejun from a distance she'd thought he was attractive and snuck a picture of him on her phone. It hadn't been much more than that, but occasionally she would loiter around areas she'd seen him before in hopes of catching sight of him. "Hot oppa" that she didn't know anything about, but liked the eye candy. She spoke to him one day on whim, and when he didn't immediately tell her to get lost decided to keep flirting with him. Or at least flirting at him.
It didn't get really bad until Sejoon stole away her boys though, that was when Minji's behavior started to become stalkerish. She paid people to get Yejun's phone number, she showed up where he was all the time, demanded his attention, wanted to spend all possible free time with him. If asked she probably wouldn't have even been able to give a good explanation for it. She barely knew anything about the man's personality, but she'd fixated so hard on him, pinning some weird desperate hope on him, that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Besides it was safe. He'd never actually date her. She could toss all her affections at someone without actually having to worry about someone wanting to date her in return, something she wasn't sure she wanted if she couldn't find someone she actually liked. Really though, with her reputation at school most of the boys there would probably be hesitant to start a relationship with Gossip Queen Minji.
This arrangement didn't work out so well for Yejun, however. Being stalked by a high school girl is uncomfortable at best, terrifying and worth calling the police at worst. Luckily he didn't call the cops on her, but while he would help her if she injured herself, he would reject her openly (and sometimes harshly) if he had to.
This also hurt.
Minji never liked things that hurt, so she had a dilemma. Which hurt worse? Being rejected or being on her own?
... Being on her own.
So she persisted.
And sometime in all of this she met Sinjoon. Sinjoon was weird to her, which says a lot considering what a strange girl she was herself. He was an artist, and he didn't always talk a lot. He ignored a lot of what she had to say, and was so dry with his replies that sometimes she wanted to strangle him. However, he gave her the attention she was desperately seeking, so she reluctantly accepted spending time with him.
