Konan Application (grocerverse)
Your name → Louise
Personal journal → croisee
Your age → 16
Contact information →
Email: theexplodingswissy@yahoo.com
AIM: swisswaterdecaf
Gtalk: theexplodinggravy
Character applying for → Konan
Character's age → 22 (and turning 23 on February 20!)
PB model → Jessica Stam
Job position → Clerk (Books and Magazines Department)
Background/Biography →
History
Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she sees a flash of bright orange (or is that red?) before it fades to a clear, night sky with the stars shining brightly overhead and the warmth on both her sides as comforting as the dizzy elation she feels when light streaks across the horizon; she remembers wishing, wishing "May this moment last forever." But when a hand settles lightly on her own, she wakes up and the euphoria is washed away like a river in its natural downward course.
Truth be told, Konan does not know where she originally came from. Her earliest memories consist of laughter and excitement, the harrowing danger of being caught by the nuns doing something that should not be done (eat your vegetables, recite your prayers, go to bed early) in a Catholic orphanage, where she grew up and learned and made friends and lived.
Of all the children, two she held dear. For there was Yahiko to cheer her up when her paper cranes don’t fold the proper way and Nagato to receive her smiles and hold her hand. It was peaceful and Konan never asked for more, never looked for what could have been if she didn’t tie herself down to the orphanage. After all, she was fed, clothed and taught. (And she was one of the better students too, never failing to study until the wee hours of the night in order to make her teachers proud.) It was the perfect life, for her at the very least, and while the other children dressed and primped for their potential adopters, Konan never found the need to do the same.
It wasn’t to stay the same way however.
A few months before she was to turn thirteen, a couple came into the orphanage with the intent to adopt a child to make up for all their years of fruitless marriage. The children were asked to line up, side-by-side, and as the woman walked down the aisle with her husband’s arm hooked around her waist, Konan hoped and prayed that neither her nor Yahiko nor Nagato would be chosen because what would happen if either one of them was taken away and oh no oh no oh no they were looking at her-
That night saw her to another household, in another room, without the comfort of her friends and peers and all the people she knew. It was a transition from her previous life, and the only tangible remembrances of the one she had previously led was the rosary that she held in her hand and the bruises on her palm as her fingernails dug into flesh when she realized that there was nothing she could do to stay.
And so Konan began going out of the house more, hanging out with the people a devout Catholic girl would not be caught dead with. She still went to her new school and aced her classes to keep her parents satiated but after the last bell had rung, she would stay in the parking lot and smoke one or two cigarettes, imbibe alcohol, even partake in drugs. She came home even later and later and her parents became even more worried and worried - especially when she started wearing dark eyeliner and changed her wardrobe reflect a darker demeanor. But Konan’s two lives, one as the student and the daughter of her not-family, and another as the person that even she didn’t quite acknowledge, coexisted.
That is, until she came home with her hair dyed a dark blue and a piercing under her bottom lip.
It was a spur of the moment thing, she explained to her hysterical mother. She was drunk and they had convinced her to- Why was she drunk, her father had asked. And it led to an embarrassing inquisition in which her drug intake was discovered and more tears were shed by her mother. Her father had looked at her, before clutching his chest and falling down in a stroke that would leave him paralyzed for the next three years of his life.
It wasn’t something she had expected; it wasn’t something that had been planned. The sight of her parent, even if he wasn’t biological (but he had given her a home and food and education and he cared for her), fighting for his life at her feet (because of her, it was her fault, hershers) compelled her to quietly pack her bags when her mother said so, and ride the van to the nearest rehabilitation center.
It took her three years, but a resolution had grown in her from that defining moment of her life. She was going to do all that it took so that her parents would never be disgraced again. What had she given back to them, but headaches and anxieties and problems? They merely wanted a child of their own, and they took care of her as best as they could. She had been so engrossed with the wishful thinking that they might, might, bring her back if they weren’t contented with her that she had receded in her self-imposed shell of comfort with only the memories of Nagato and Yahiko to accompany her.
(She longed to see them again, almost with a sense of desperation. But this was not the way she wanted to go about that need, no.)
The rehabilitation did her well and eventually, all thoughts of the two boys she had left behind receded into dreams - fitful at first, those that gave her more turmoil than rest. But she had adapted and they came sparingly. Sometimes, however, she would wake up in the darkness of her room and imagine that she could still hear children’s laughter.
Three years later, at eighteen, she left the rehabilitation center only to witness the death of her foster father. (Had everything she had underwent in all the entirety of those three years been for nothing?) Soon after, her adoptive mother died as well from the stress and the worrying. They were buried as the sky cried the tears that Konan refused to shed.
And she told herself that she was not going back to her old ways.
(And she told herself.)
Konan finished her high school years, working many different part-time jobs to sustain herself. She moved into the second floor of a quaint apartment complex with an elderly landlady who would bring up hot noodles every Thursday night and tell her stories of her son who ran away from home. (“He must be the same age as you, dear.” Konan would nod, and drink her tea serenely.) At times, it would cross her mind to visit the orphanage where she once lived but the sole picture of her parents on the mantelpiece reminded her of what had happened the last time she let herself be eaten up by the longing.
(In the end, she took down the photograph but the dark layer of dust that had accumulated over the surface where the picture frame had once been could never be washed away.)
Currently, she is in her final years of college - majoring in fine arts. Looking for an available job landed her in Konoha Mart where she, just recently, started working as the clerk in the Books and Magazines department.
Personality
Konan exhibits that cold sort of beauty which, rather than have people crowding around her, draws them away. Cold and apathetic - at first glance, she would seem as such. Come closer to her, however, - maybe even bother to talk? - and you would see that she is disarmingly polite beneath all that intimidating exterior. She keeps mostly to herself and would rather stay out of activities that require mingling, unless it is required of her This does not mean, though, that Konan is completely shut off from reality. There is simply that layer which separates herself from the others (and the emotions she would rather keep to herself) carefully built out of rigidly-defined formality and the strange reluctance to open up and let other people see who she truly is.
Get closer to her and you will see that she cares in her own little way - from that missed call in your phone that abruptly ends in a soft “Call me back” or those tiny paper origami she seems so keen into leaving on your coffee table. It would just take a bit more time for the trust to fester and when she does let you in, you will be surprised at how much there is beneath the surface to this woman.
Appearance
The first thing that people are wont to notice of Konan is her hair, almost always held up by a simple, black clip with some strands that fall to frame the delicate oval of her face. A rather simple hairstyle undermining the fact that her hair is blue. She never dyed it back to its original color as it serves as a reminder to her of what had happened and what she had let happen in her hard-headedness and ignorance. She has a slender build that would not suit her otherwise (she had appeared too lanky in her adolescent years, admittedly) with long legs that she always keeps covered in a pair of black slacks or with her favorite red and black coat. Unlike most people of the current age, Konan likes to dress conservatively and, as a product of her religious upbringing, looks down upon those who show more skin than there is enough cloth to compensate.
Her eyes, if not framed by her glasses (when she is either studying or reading), are dealt with copious amounts of eyeshadow and eyeliner - a habit she has never really discarded throughout the years. Besides, she reasons out, there are simply marks and blemishes that a woman wants to cover. Contrary to this, however, her face is marred only by the small, almost unnoticeable mole on her temple.
The way she walks is as subdued as her manner of speaking, but Konan has always been grace personified, an elegance incapable of describing with the proper amount of words. Beauty is ephemeral, a superficiality that the world seemingly cannot get enough of, but Beauty is also Konan with her high-set cheekbones and the insubstantial features of her visage that appear as if the delicate hand of a sculptor had carved her out of marble.
Hobbies
Konan enjoys a good piece of literature as much as she enjoys a warm cup of tea. She would rather settle down on her couch with a book in hand than partake in social activities or gatherings (though, unfortunately, she has not been able to escape such meetings). Reading is a form of reprieve, when she lets her mind be taken over by the book with which she has surrendered her attention to. Attending work in Konoha Mart is more bearable, as she spends most of the time sitting quietly, hidden behind her glasses and some reading materials, perhaps even a magazine.
Another one of the activities she enjoys is making the intricate origami pieces that she had always been doing ever since she could remember. There are several designs displayed on her mantelpiece and she is rather proud of them, in her silent and subdued manner.
If one is searching for Konan and could not find her in either Konoha Mart, the university or her apartment, she could be seen in a nearby café where she has become a regular - always near the back in one of the more secluded tables.
Sample RP →
First Person Sample
(I wasn’t sure whether this meant just a journal sample or writing in first person. I did the former but if you’d want writing prose form in the first person then I’ll do one!)
I finished The Catcher in the Rye for the fourth time. Even after much re-reading, Holden Caulfield still has not reached out to me as all the others seem to be saying he did to them. Perhaps I simply have my own opinion of people, or it must be the age difference.
It surprises me that the section of Konoha Mart I work in was filled with people today. I hardly had time to open my book, as person after person asked for assistance. Such a bizarre happening, indeed. I don’t seem to have heard of a book sale happening, or a sudden indulgence in adolescents to read.
(They hardly ever pick up any literary piece nowadays.)
Third Person
He looked lost, a child who did not appear to be past ten, with his dark eyes darting quickly from side to side and his vivid orange hair standing out as he walked past rows of books and magazines presumably in search for someone. Konan, for the first time in more than five days, could almost feel the warmth on top of her hand and remember the vague sense of euphoria that had prevailed in her nighttime reveries. They had the same build, practically the same height, and his nails looked as if the last thing that had passed over them were his teeth. Nostalgia welled up around her like a dangerous cloud.
“E-Excuse me, Miss?”
And reality came crashing down upon her as the boy spoke. (Because there were so many inconsistencies: The pitch of his voice was not right. It was too high. He would never fiddle with the hem of his shirt as he spoke, even if faced with an unknown situation that was normally wont to provoke fear and dread in a child of his age. He was-)
“Yahiko.”
He blinked. (The boy. Not Yahiko.) “I-I’m sorry?”
Konan let out a breath, releasing her hold which she had unconsciously tightened around the magazine. “May I help you?”
He bit his lip (another inconsistency- stop thinking about inane matters) “I-I’m a little bit lost. My mother...”
Konan looked straight at him, her blue eyes staring straight into the boy’s panicked ones. There was work to do, or else why would she have taken the time to apply if she would simply think about bygones? She had had enough experience to know that personal matters should rarely, if at all, interfere with work issues - especially if such matters involved much of what she had been trying to bury beneath piles of dust and dirt and copious amounts of disregard. And so she asked him if he could describe his mother, but even as she tried to pay strict attention to his words, they all blurred in the end and the voice she heard was that one of a boy she had known a distant time ago.
(“That’s a beautiful paper crane, Konan!”
And he smiled.)