S102 - Hawthorne, Shu

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Name: Hawthorne, Shu
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Animals, drawing, hiking, social media

Appearance: Shu is a little over 6' tall and weighs 150 lbs with an unremarkable, somewhat lanky build. He is mixed-race with a Caucasian father and a Japanese-American mother. He has pale skin but can tan easily which is most evident during the summer, although his face tends to be a little tan regardless of time of year due to sun exposure.

Shu has a beautiful face with soft, androgynous features. He has a heart-shaped face with thin lips, thin dark eyebrows, and a small, round nose. He has small, monolid eyes that are green with prominent eyelashes. His hair is naturally brown with dark undertones but he keeps it bleached to an ice white color, taking care so the roots don't show too often. It has a thick, straight texture and reaches down to about the nape of his neck.

Shu has a soothing, calm voice that is higher pitched than most men, and his mannerisms are rather low energy and subtle. He never violently shouts or gets visibly angry at people, but he does become annoyed very easily if his words are misinterpreted or he finds someone to be a bore to talk to.

Shu usually dresses in muted color schemes and opts for simple masculine clothing. He has no piercings and doesn't wear makeup, but he does use skin creams and hair products regularly as he values his hair and clear skin quite highly. On the day of the abduction, Shu was wearing a black long-sleeve Henley shirt, an olive green N-3B parka, blue jeans, and black sneakers.

Biography: Shu was born on October 9th, 2003 and is a native to the Marlborough, MA area. His father, Robert, is a graphic designer and works from home. His mother, Naomi, was a drummer who played in an indie all-girl goth rock band called Hex Chromosomes in the late 1990s to early 2000s; unfortunately when Shu was around 2 years old, she would die in a bus crash while on tour. As he lost his mother at such a young age he didn't feel particularly saddened, though when he got older and could understand the concept he felt like he missed out on the experience of having a mother. Robert dated a few other women after Naomi's passing but never remarried, so Shu more or less spent his entire life with just his dad at the house.

Shu was very socially awkward as a child, having trouble making friends as he was never sure what to say or was disinterested in talking to others. As such he was seen as a social outcast and, along with his short stature in elementary school, this made him a prime target for harassment and bullying. Shu tried to get help early on, telling his teacher or asking for advice from his dad, but as most of them downplayed the situation or made it worse with bad advice, or in Robert's case just telling Shu he needed to man up and stop being sensitive, he just took it and let it escalate until a nasty physical confrontation happened on Shu's way home from school in the 5th grade. This led to Shu being pulled from his current school at the time and instead moving and enrolling in the Salem area. Despite eventually seeing a therapist through middle and high school, Shu still internalized the bullying from these years along with the unhelpful response from the adults supposedly in charge which gave him a big distrust complex, rationalizing that people are probably vile or have an agenda of some sort and that those in authority positions will not help you even if you seek it so you are always going to be pretty much on your own. As a consequence from this experience he would also become much more confrontational with people, challenging any interactions he interprets as personal attacks.

Due to his poor experiences for most of his childhood, the only people Shu trusts are animals as he believes they have no malice and would never willingly hurt people for no reason unlike humans. In the 3rd grade the family adopted a Jack Russell Terrier named Pepper from an animal shelter, and from the moment they got her Shu considered her his best friend. He regularly takes care of her, making sure she gets adequate playtime and walks around the neighborhood. Otherwise, Shu would also gain an interest in watching animal documentaries or reading about them in scientific literature and the like, specifically ones about canines. He would also start to develop a real interest in art and drawing at this time as stress relief and needing a creative outlet, with his preferred subjects being scenes of nature and animals, especially favoring scenes with some sort of wolf or nighttime imagery.

Later in middle school Shu would start going on walks and hikes in the wilderness, originally as a way to clear his head and get some exercise out of the house, but he would later start using these to take reference photos and inspiration for his drawings. On one of these hikes in junior year of high school during the pandemic he'd eventually run into fellow student Kiera Hayes. He already had an interest in her due to finding her pretty and already having a bit of a crush on her in school despite his general avoidance of people, and the two of them ended up talking past just exchanging pleasantries and would start to date each other. The two are still together going into senior year, but due to his prior traumas Shu still keeps her at a distance and has trouble opening up to her to the point that he's unsure if he actually loves her and wants to keep dating or not.

Shu would also start posting his art online on Twitter and Instagram where he posts his original work along with fan art for various films or video games he enjoys. He's gained a small but respectable following for a high schooler and has even received commissions which he uses as a source of expendable income. Although the money is nice, Shu mainly uses it as an ego boost, going so far as to remove negative comments or block particularly problematic people.

Shu does well in school, averaging As and Bs across the board with no real deficiencies in subjects, though he particularly likes English if he had to pick one. Socially he is a bit of a floater and an outsider, not having anything close to a wide berth of friends and having a reputation of being someone extremely aloof but very pretty. He doesn't really consider himself to have any deep relationships with any of his peers including Kiera and maintains emotional distance from everyone as a defense mechanism, hardly ever letting himself be vulnerable. He also has a poor relationship with his father, as even to this day he does not find him as someone to rely on for any sort of emotional support; Shu has a tendency to keep things from him, as such.

After Shu graduates high school he has thought about continuing his art career and possibly going to college, although right now he feels rather aimless and unsure of what he actually wants.

Advantages: Shu has a fairly active lifestyle from his experience with hiking, which gives him a good amount of stamina and will let him not tire out so easily compared to more inactive peers. He is pretty observant, both from his art skills and general paranoia when it comes to interacting with people, so he'd probably have a hard time getting fooled by others.
Disadvantages: Although he displays himself as a competent person in public, Shu is also very fragile and antagonizes anyone who contradicts or challenges him, limiting his entire social game if he tries to recruit someone with an equally strong personality. His trust issues may limit his options as well, jeopardizing his survivability in the long run.

Designated Number: Student No. 102

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Designated Weapon: Spool of barbed wire and wire cutters

Conclusion: Fragility is relative. Everyone breaks here. Some simply persist after that. - Tracen Danya