➥ added a note: Linh was born naturally cheerful. From a young age, she’s always been loud, social, and kind of irritably energetic. She's rarely weighed down by heavy emotions and has never been the type to sink into deep sadness or depression. Most of the time, she simply doesn’t take things too seriously, and not because she’s avoiding them, but because that’s genuinely how she sees the world.
➥ Her mind moves quickly, and so does her mouth, often joking or teasing without thinking about whether it might go too far. She is sometimes mean, but she also doesn’t always care if she is. Her carefree nature sometimes makes her a little invasive or overly blunt, but in her eyes, it’s just harmless.
➥ Linh loves to poke and prod the people around her. Annoying others is almost a hobby for her, she talks so much. She thrives in loud environments and is often the one creating the noise. Her overly extroverted nature can be overwhelming for quieter people.
➥ When it comes to serious situations, even something as heavy as her cancer. Linh tends to approach them with the same lightness. She genuinely doesn’t view her illness as looming death. To her, it’s just something she has to deal with, and she's fully confident she’ll live through it. That’s part of why she doesn’t talk about it much, she sees no point in worrying others or making a big deal out of something she thinks and hopes will pass.
➥ However, when Linh does get serious or dispondent, it’s a sign something is causing her major distress. She’s not good at expressing pain or fear in obvious ways, she'll probably be out of it for days on end.

➥ added a note: Linh Huynh grew up in poverty, in a cramped farmhouse in a province with ten family members. Her family barely scraped by, relying on the little profits they made from selling sesame crops and sugarcane. Life was difficult, but Linh remained a carefree child. Despite their struggles, she was very cheerful. She excelled in school aswell, and was very social in her town, everyone knew who she was.
➥ At twelve, everything changed. Her father received a rare work opportunity in Korea, and Linh left behind the familiarity of home for a country where she couldn’t speak the language. She entered secondary school in Korea and quickly found herself lost. Her Korean was poor, and the cultural gap was wide. She was relentlessly bullied for being a foreigner. She didn’t fight back and spent months homesick and alone. That was until she met Yuna Kim. Yuna was everything Linh wasn’t, wealthy, fluent, respected amongst the school. They were paired through a school buddy program, and despite their differences, something clicked. Yuna became Linh's Korean tutor and best friend. The two quickly became inseparable, and for the first time since moving, Linh didn't feel alone anymore.
➥ One day, while Yuna was absent to the common cold, Linh was ambushed after class. Three girls dumped nitric acid on her as a cruel prank. A boy from the neighboring class saw it happen and rushed to her defense. His name was Hwang Jeonghyeon. He was one of the male students a ton of girls crushed on, he was quiet, athletic, well-liked. Linh couldn’t believe someone like him had not only noticed her, but stood up for her. From that day on, something shifted between them. Jeonghyeon started paying more attention to her. He waited for her after class. Walked her home every day without fail. At first, he brushed it off as “practice” for Taekwondo and the career he hoped to pursue as a bodyguard, he promised to protect her also because of how much she was getting picked on. With Jeonghyeon around, the bullying stopped. The girls who once picked on Linh, now avoided her altogether. And for the first time since arriving in Korea, Linh felt safe.
➥ They grew closer with every walk home, they even started to spend time together outside of school. He started to feel less like a protector and more like a part of her. Over time, the distance between them dissolved until they were inseparable, second only to her bond with Yuna. Almost two years passed, somewhere between the end of 8th and the start of 9th, they became a couple. They were the couple everyone admired throughout high school.
➥ High school slowly became a place Linh genuinely enjoyed. Her Korean had improved a lot, no longer clunky or uncertain. She felt more confident speaking to people. The bullying faded into memory. People started getting to know her, not as the quiet foreigner, but as Linh, bubbly, loud, hyper, and never serious. She started joining clubs and trying new things, eventually becoming president of the Hip-Hop Dance Club. She loved dance, it was an outlet for how much energy she had since he was extremely hyper. It was a hobby she was passionate about, and recieved a lot of praise for by her peers. She felt like she finally belonged.
➥ Until everything changed again. Linh was suddenly diagnosed with leukemia at age 17. It began with fatigue she brushed off. Then dizziness. Then bruises that didn’t fade. A blood test confirmed the worst. Cancer. She told only two people outside her family: Yuna and Jeonghyeon. They sat with her through hospital visits, appointments, blood tests. The sickness came in waves, periods of intense illness followed by complete normalcy. But even in her worst moments, Linh never became depressed. If anything, the diagnosis deepened her gratitude for life.
➥ But then, just months after her diagnosis, Jeonghyeon broke up with her. He gave no reason. No closure. Just silence.
This broke Linh, he was her highschool sweetheart, and they were so close. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t personal. Maybe he was overwhelmed. Maybe he didn’t know how to handle watching her be sick. Yet, his absence affected her a lot more than she showed. Four months later, he left for Japan, still without explanation. He disappeared from her life entirely. For the next three years, Linh lived with the ache of not knowing, wondering if he had truly left for work, or if it was because she had cancer. During this time she only had Yuna.
➥ Linh began to carry her sickness in secret. She stopped telling people when she was feeling weak. She downplayed every symptom, every hospital trip. She made jokes about being tired. She laughed off her weight fluctuations. She smiled through the days she could barely stand. She wore extensions to hide the fact her hair was thinning from treatments. She lives her life like she was healthy, by pretending it was nothing, she stayed happy.