I feel like I've lost so many amazing traits because I've

Host: The rain fell in slow, heavy drops, like tears dragging down the windows of the small studio café. The city outside was a blur of neon reflections, footsteps, and loneliness. Inside, a faint melancholy hung in the air, mixing with the aroma of coffee and regret.
Jack sat near the window, his grey eyes fixed on the streetlights, while Jeeny leaned against the wooden counter, her hands cupped around a mug she’d forgotten to drink from.
The clock ticked, and something unsaid pulsed between them — the kind of silence that holds wounds no one wants to reopen.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… I read something tonight that felt like it was pulled out of my own soul. Kylie Jenner once said, ‘I feel like I’ve lost so many amazing traits because I’ve listened to stupid people, ignorant people who are bullies.’”

Host: Her voice trembled softly, not from weakness, but from the weight of recognition.

Jack: “That’s what happens when you let the world define you. The stupid, the ignorant — they’re not the problem. The problem is letting their noise matter.”

Jeeny: “Easy for you to say. You’ve always had that… armor. You don’t let anyone in.”

Host: Jack smirked, his eyes narrowing slightly, but there was no pleasure in it — just the defense of a man who had once been wounded and learned to pretend he wasn’t.

Jack: “Armor keeps you alive, Jeeny. People romanticize being ‘open,’ being ‘soft.’ But that’s how the wolves get in. You listen to idiots long enough, you become one.”

Jeeny: “Or you become someone who’s afraid to feel again. That’s not survival, Jack. That’s decay.”

Host: The word hung like smoke. Jack’s jaw tightened. The rain pressed harder against the window, as if the sky itself wanted to argue.

Jack: “You talk like it’s noble to stay vulnerable. But look around. The world doesn’t reward sensitivity. It punishes it. You think Kylie Jenner’s quote is about ‘loss’? No. It’s about adaptation. She learned not to listen. That’s strength.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s damage. There’s a difference.”

Host: Jeeny’s fingers curled around her mug, her eyes dark and wet with something not yet called tears.

Jeeny: “When you stop listening entirely, you lose the music along with the noise. Yes, bullies shape us — but if you harden too much, you end up losing what made you human in the first place. What made you amazing. That’s what she meant.”

Jack: “Amazing traits don’t survive contact with reality. You can’t stay poetic when people are tearing you apart. The world eats soft souls.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every act of art, every revolution, every change was born from those soft souls. Martin Luther King, Gandhi — they were mocked, beaten, ridiculed. But they didn’t become like their bullies, Jack. They listened, even when it hurt.”

Host: The rain softened for a moment, as if even the storm leaned closer to listen.

Jack: “Don’t put me in the same room as saints. Most people aren’t fighting for justice — they’re fighting for validation. They want to be told they’re good, that they’re special. When the world doesn’t give them that, they collapse. Maybe the bullies just… see the weakness first.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe the bullies are terrified of what they don’t understand — the light in someone else. And when we start believing their words, we dim that light ourselves.”

Host: Jack looked at her then, really looked — as if for the first time he saw not just her face, but her faith, raw and defiant.

Jack: “So what, you just forgive them? Pretend their voices didn’t burn through your skin?”

Jeeny: “No. You let the fire teach you where your boundaries are. You let it burn away what isn’t you. But you don’t let it take the core. Because when you do… you become like them.”

Host: Silence again. The lights flickered. The rain slowed to a drizzle, the café’s fluorescent glow casting long, trembling shadows across their faces.

Jack: “I used to draw, you know.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “You did?”

Jack: “Yeah. Sketches, mostly. Faces, places… I stopped after my father called it ‘a waste of time.’ Said men don’t sit around dreaming. Said I should learn something useful.”

Jeeny: “And you believed him.”

Jack: “I had to. He was the loudest voice in the room.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes softened, her expression turning into quiet ache.

Jeeny: “And that’s the tragedy, Jack. That’s what Kylie meant. We start out with colors, and by the time we’re done listening to the world, all that’s left is grey.”

Jack: “Grey’s a safe color.”

Jeeny: “Grey’s what’s left when the fire’s gone.”

Host: A thin line of sunlight began to pierce through the clouds, falling across the table, illuminating the steam that curled from their cups.

Jack: “You really think it’s possible to keep your ‘amazing traits’ when everyone’s trying to crush them? Look at social media — it’s built to make you doubt yourself. Every post is a comparison, every comment a cut.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But the cuts are reminders that you still feel. And that’s something they can’t take unless you hand it over.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his eyes tracing the steam, like someone watching ghosts rise and vanish.

Jack: “You talk like pain is some kind of blessing.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Pain means there’s still something worth protecting inside. Something that refuses to die.”

Jack: “So you’re saying we should just keep listening to everyone — even the bullies?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying we should learn to listen differently. To discern the poison without throwing away the medicine. Sometimes even cruelty hides a truth — not the one they meant to give, but the one we need to hear.”

Host: Jack’s brows furrowed. The logic in her words unsettled him. It was the kind of truth that didn’t feel like victory — it felt like surrender.

Jack: “You’re saying they teach us by hurting us.”

Jeeny: “In a way. But the lesson isn’t theirs to give — it’s ours to take.”

Host: A moment of stillness stretched, fragile as glass. The rain had stopped completely now. Outside, the streetlights shimmered in the wet asphalt, like scattered stars refusing to fade.

Jack: “Maybe… maybe I stopped listening to everyone. Even the ones who mattered.”

Jeeny: “That’s how it starts. You shut out the pain, but you end up shutting out the love, too.”

Host: He nodded, a slow, exhausted motion.

Jack: “So what do we do then, Jeeny? How do we get those traits back — the ones we lost?”

Jeeny: “We remember who we were before the noise. Before the voices. We start small. A drawing, a word, a gesture of kindness. That’s how you rebuild the parts they made you doubt.”

Jack: “And what if they come back — the bullies, the critics?”

Jeeny: “Then you listen with a different ear. You let their words fall where they belong — outside your soul.”

Host: The sunlight reached them fully now, breaking the grey into gold. Jack looked at Jeeny, a faint smile breaking the line of his tired face.

Jack: “You make it sound easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. But it’s possible. And that’s enough.”

Host: The café filled with quiet light. The rain had washed the city, leaving behind a reflection of renewal — of beginnings stitched from the remains of loss.

Jack reached for the sketchbook Jeeny had brought earlier, almost as an afterthought, and opened it. His hands trembled, but his pencil moved. Slowly, deliberately.

Jeeny watched in silence.

Jack: “Maybe it’s time to listen to the right kind of silence.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s where the real voice lives — beneath everything they tried to drown.”

Host: The camera would pull back here — two figures framed by light, surrounded by the quiet echo of rain, reclaiming what the world had once taken.
The scene closes on the faint sound of pencil on paper — a man sketching his way back to himself, and a woman watching, her eyes full of belief.

And outside, the city hums again — not cruel, not kind, just alive.