You're only interested in fighting the system, not reforming it. What does that do for you?
Sayeon Lee to Ryujin Kang, Ep. 28 - Capture the Flag
Sayeon Lee is the central protagonist of Hand Jumper. She is the daughter of Sara Lee and the younger sister of Samin Lee. Although her goal is to "make the world a better place"[1], her actions to achieve this are often manipulative or morally questionable. [2] Sayeon is determined not to follow into the footsteps of her family, all of whom were infamous aberrant criminals. At the age of 18, she reluctantly joins the Aberrant Corps and becomes a member of Cell 4 alongside Iseul Kim, Ryujin Kang, and Min Woo.
Appearance[]
Sayeon is a young woman of above average height with a slim build and fair complexion. She has dark blue hair, eyes and wears red glasses. According to Sayeon, she takes after her father more than her mother, though there are individuals that say she resembles her mother. She considers her appearance as "not very memorable" and "plain".
Before entering the Corps, she was usually seen in her school uniform and had long hair. After entering the Aberrant Corps, she now wears the Aberrant Corps uniform and has short hair after Min lopped off a side of her hair while trying to trigger her essence activation and Dahee having evened her hair out.
Before receiving her uniform, she wore a beige long-sleeved shirt with black pants.
Personality[]
Having been the top student of her entire high school, Sayeon is shown to be disciplined and hard-working. Though she becomes easily flustered, she also has a calm, calculating side that emerges in dangerous situations.
Sayeon harbors tremendous guilt over the death of her childhood friend's father. As a result, she has developed a rigid stance against all forms of crime, especially illegal Aberrancy. Her black-and-white moral system puts her at odds with sister Samin, and fellow Cell 4 member, Ryujin.
History[]
Sayeon Lee was born into the Lee family of criminal aberrants. Her mother, Sara Lee, died when Sayeon was still young, leaving her older sister, Samin Lee, to raise her.
Because Samin was not able to watch Sayeon all the time, Sayeon frequently stayed at the home of her friend, Jugyeong Baek. Jugyeong's father, noticing the absence of Sayeon's parents in her life, visited Sayeon's home to confront her current caretaker, who turned out to be Samin. Samin knew that Jugyeong's father was a police officer, so she killed him before he could file a report on them. This murder completely shattered Sayeon's trust in her older sister.
Vowing never to be like the rest of her family, Sayeon studied hard in high school and became the top student in her graduating class with the goal of becoming a criminal prosecutor. This dream was derailed when she was discovered to have Aberrancy in her senior year. Instead of joining Samin's gang of criminals, Sayeon lawfully enlisted in the Aberrant Corps.
Powers and Abilities[]
Aberrant Physiology:
Essence Control
Enhanced Healing
Enhanced Strength
Enhanced Durability
Gift[]
Sayeon possesses teal essence and her gift allows her to rewind time. Initially, she was only able to rewind time for a maximum of 20 seconds however, after the Capture the Flag exercise she was able to rewind a little over 20 seconds. Her gift is most useful in a situation that is filled with different variables that she can manipulate, such as people, objects and emotions. Sayeon also uses her gift to gather information on her opponent and then come up with a strategy to defeat them. Her gift is best used in team battles.
Despite how powerful her gift is it possesses some limitations, such as she is unable to rewind time if she's knocked out or killed and that she can only return to the moment in the past from which she snapped from. In one chapter she built up a lot of essence and rewinded the entire day.
In more recent chapters, it is noted she can rewind 60 seconds.
Abilities[]
Basic Hand to Hand Combat: Before joining the Corps, Sayeon possessed no practical fighting experience, as the Capture the Flag match was the first time she was involved in a fight. As of now, her skills are beginner level, as Ryujin noted in their fight that her swings were wide and clumsy.[3] Sayeon started learning the rudimentary basics of fighting with essence from Min in Chapter 21.
Intelligence: Sayeon's greatest asset is her intelligence, as she was renowned for it before joining the Corps. While in the Corps, Sayeon weaponizes her intelligence to strategically gather information and obtain victory.
Relationships[]
Family[]
Sara Lee[]
Sayeon's mother.
Samin Lee[]
Sayeon's older sister. Because of the heavy difference in their morals and worldviews, they are not as close as they once were. It is later revealed that Samin does indeed care for Sayeon. She sends Min Woo (nicknamed White) to protect her little sister; only to an extent though. The name Min Woo originates from the second syllable of Samin and Jungwoo. "White" is under strict orders to let Sayeon do as she pleases, unless she directly requests help.
Friends[]
Jaeil Kim[]
Sayeon's closest and only friend that she allowed from school. In flashbacks, she is often shown helping Jaeil with his school assignments and in return he taught her the basics of fighting (Ep.21 - Punch Me) in exchange. While in Corps, she often thought about Jaeil and wondered about his well being. Sayeon cares deeply about his opinions of her as she was worried about his reaction to her being an Aberrant and coming from a family of criminals. In the season one finale, Sayeon visits Jaeil's residence on her day off in order to catch up, but instead discovers that Officer Ahn lied about him being in the Corps to Jaeil's father and covered up Jaeil's death. This discovery pushes Sayeon to her breaking point, as she then cast aside her previous ambition of advancing through the Corps to killing Officer Ahn.
Aberrant Corps[]
Ryujin Kang[]
A member of Cell 4.
At first, they weren't close because of the difference in their morals, but they became closer after Sayeon revised her worldview and they experienced the events in the warehouse together. Still, their relationship continued to be strained, due to Ryujin's refusal to participate in the Corps' activities and Sayeon's frustration with that, as well as Ryujin stating that she would kill the Corps' officers, which had conflicted with Sayeon's morals of no killing. Despite their differences, they didn't oppose each other when it mattered, maintaining a sufficiently cooperative relationship.
However, their neutral relationship worsened significantly when Sayeon, thinking that she would just rewind time afterwards, stomped on Ryujin's beloved cap to get her to actually try, which caused Ryujin to get angry enough to activate her essence and knock Sayeon out. Sayeon stayed unconscious for approximately 20 minutes, which negated her original plan of rewinding time after stomping on Ryujin's cap, leaving Sayeon to deal with the consequences of her actions.
Sayeon pondered about how to apologise to Ryujin, and eventually managed to apologise while partially drunk, though Ryujin didn't accept it. However, Sayeon insinuated that Ryujin's family, whom Ryujin loved, were "necessary sacrifices" in her apology, which further angered Ryujin. Ryujin told Sayeon that she would never understand the way she feels about the Corps until the Corps took away someone she loved, which Sayeon later discovered was true, after finding out that Jaeil had most likely been killed by the Corps.
In the process of figuring out that Jaeil was probably dead at the hands of the Corps, Sayeon learned that Officer Ahn was the one who had delivered the false news of Jaeil's enlistment in the Corps and may or may not had been involved in killing him, which blinds Sayeon with a need to kill her, similar to Ryujin's grudge against her.
Sayeon knows that Ryujin has plenty of combat experience but doesn't use it, which confuses and frustrates her. She also tested and confirmed that Ryujin is intelligent in a way unlike her other 2 cellmates, which allows Ryujin to see through her lies.
Min Woo[]
A member of Cell 4.
Sayeon's first impressions of Min were that he was scary and intimidating, even questioning if he was really the same age as her, as he looked like he'd "done ten years at the federal penitentiary". When Cell 4 gathered together for the first time, each member of Cell 4 attempted to get Sayeon's essence to activate due to her inexperience, which ended with only Min succeeding, as he caught Sayeon off guard by using his gift to generate a blade and put it to her neck. This cut her hair in the process, which Dahee later evened out.
Sayeon and Min became closer after Min shared banana bread with her and taught her the basics of how to use essence while fighting, after which Min agreed to teach Sayeon more about fighting while using essence, since she had succeeded in the challenge he had posed.
Sayeon finds Min unreadable, as his face is always expressionless, leaving Sayeon with no clue of what he's thinking or feeling. Sayeon thinks of Min's expertise in cooking and baking to be unfitting of his image, but enjoys his food regardless.
Hayoon Ahn[]
During their interactions, Officer Ahn was friendly towards Sayeon and explained things well, which Sayeon appreciated (though she did think that Ahn was a bit strange). However, once she learned that Officer Ahn lied to Mr. Kim about Jaeil being in the Corps and was presumably involved in his death, Sayeon vowed to rip out her throat.
Instructor Sang[]
Sayeon considers Sang a taciturn and scary individual. At one point, Sayeon almost cried because of upsetting Instructor Sang, as she wasn't used to upsetting authority figures. Sayeon is wary of her because she is aware of her family relations.
Quotes[]
- "I love math. Math is just a system with a tidy set of rules." - Sayeon, Episode 29
- "In this world, I only exist in a very small way." - Sayeon to Ryujin, Episode 13
Trivia[]
- Sayeon's favorite animal is a dog. (QnA Highlights on Sleepacross Instagram)
- Sayeon's power is Sleepacross' favorite due to it being the most versatile. (QnA Highlights on Sleepacross Instagram)
- In response to "is it going to be about Sayeon solving problems as she want to or something else" Sleepacross states, "We'll see how her motivation evolve." (QnA Highlights on Sleepacross Instagram)
- In response to the question, "Will Sayeon ever find out the truth about her best friend's death." Sleepacross replied, ":)". (QnA Highlights on Sleepacross Instagram)
- While Sayeon thought about all the things she missed out on when focusing on school instead, she thought of picnics "by the Han River", confirming that she lives in Korea. (Ep. 4 - Flying the Nest)