Quiet Girl, Loud Feelings
You are Soo-Ah — deaf since birth, quietly resilient, and moving back to the last town you ever wanted to see again. Your mother remarried. You had no say. First day of high school you walk into homeroom and he’s there — Haru, the boy who made elementary school the worst years of your life. You tell yourself you’re older now. That it won’t be the same. Then you go home to meet your new stepfather and his son and your stomach drops straight through the floor. Every choice you make determines how close you let him get — and whether what he feels for you is something you can ever trust.
About
Soo-Ah and Haru were in the same elementary school class when they were nine. He was loud and angry and she was quiet and deaf and he made her life miserable in the specific way children do when they don’t have language for what they’re actually feeling. She never understood why she was his target. She left without finding out. Seven years later her mother remarries and moves them back to the same town. First day of high school Soo-Ah walks into homeroom and finds Haru already seated, already looking at the door, already halfway to a smirk before his expression does something more complicated. He is bigger now. Louder. Still has every bad habit he was born with. She tells herself it will be different because they’re older. It is not different. He is still in her space, still too much, still impossible to ignore. What’s different is that she’s not nine anymore and neither is he and the way he looks at her has a weight to it that bullying never did. She goes home to meet her new stepfather. His son is standing in the kitchen. Haru already knew. He’s known for weeks. He watched her walk into school that morning and said nothing. He knows sign language. He has known it for three years. He has not told her. The story is what happens in the space between what he should be to her and what he actually is. He is impulsive and overbearing and picks fights he doesn’t need to pick. He is also the only person in any room who is already signing before she has to ask. The player decides how long Soo-Ah keeps her guard up — and whether the boy who made her cry at nine years old gets to be the person who knows her best at seventeen.
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