Face Claim: Lee Sang (of Imfact)

Sungyong is tall (about 183 cm/6') and lanky, and people are often surprised by how muscular he actually is. He's been told all his life how pretty he is, and it became something that he didn't really like about himself for a good chunk of time because people paid too much attention to it. He's gotten over that and generally started to dress neatly and to try to style his hair nicely. He keeps his hair its natural black most of the time. He generally likes hairstyles that cover his face a bit because he likes to hide behind his hair. He sometimes walks with a slight limp because of an old knee injury, but it isn't very noticeable unless you know what to look for or he's having a particularly bad day. He also always wears a set of wooden shuzhu (prayer beads) that match his best friend's and were a gift from Yunjin's grandmother as well.

Sungyong almost always wants to help other people, even when he finds them incredibly frustrating. He's generally very good at noticing when someone is hurting or seeming isolated and trying to bring them into a group that will help them feel better. 

He doesn't like mess either physical or metaphorical. While he's been working on the downside of this: it did make living with a small child a challenge at times, but it also meant that as Tai got older, Tai actually developed a similar meticulous streak. He's been working on honing the positive skills that come with it. He is very good at taking care of their house and helping everyone coordinate themselves. 

He can be quite shy and reserved, and he often holds back his emotions, even from people he is really close to. He doesn't like to appear weak, and he doesn't like to worry others with his own worry.

He loves figure skating (he once thought he would end up an internationally competitive skater) and working with kids (which led well into teaching skating). He is also passionate about music, and really appreciates that he gets to help Hwangjung with his demo tapes. He loves tea and drinks it often, but hates coffee and all the machines to ever make it (this was not true until he started working as a barista, but coffee machines kept trying to kill him, he's very glad that working as a barista is no longer something he has to do to support himself). He also cares incredibly deeply about his friends and chosen family.



He strongly dislikes prolonged high pitched noises (and therefore the coffee machines when he was still working was a barista, which he was sure had a grudge of some sort against him). He also isn't that fond of messes, though he's gotten more used to them since he became one of the main adults taking care of Taijia. He's often very frustrated with his old knee injury (skating injury that ended in a dislocated knee that didn't heal perfectly). And he absolutely hates when people try to talk him into the idea of romantic relationships.



At times, Sungyong can be really prone to overreacting to things that he finds frustrating, which generally leads to him locking himself in his room so that no one will see him being frustrated and upset. He's also really bad about telling people about things that hurt his feelings or make him sad, or just feelings in general. He is absolutely terrified of losing his two best friends to relationships, and equally terrified of his friends and the kid getting hurt. He's been slowly getting over this some as Yunjin and Hwangjung have gotten into serious long term relationships and they haven't disappeared on him, but he definitely still worries about it. It helps a little bit that he's made a few other friends, but he still freaks out about it from time to time. It helps that he genuinely likes Jiuk and Theo. Hilariously to him, of the people that those relationships have brought into his life, he's probably formed the biggest bond with Thomas (Theo's younger brother), who he has a bit of a mentor type role towards.



He has a few habits. When he is nervous, he often tugs on or twirls his hair. He also often fidgets with his shuzhu. He will often stand on his good leg and swing his bad leg in small circles to try to get it to stop feeling stiff.

MOTHER
Name: Eunsung Han (Kim)
Birth Year: 1969 (deceased)
Occupation: was a manager in software engineering
Feelings Toward: They were already distant before she passed away, and he has some complicated feelings about not really missing her, but in the grand scheme of things, he just doesn't think about her that much.

FATHER
Name: Jianyong Han
Birth Year: 1960
Occupation: software engineer
Feelings Toward: Somewhat distant. Though he has tried to maintain some of that connection, mostly for the sake of his memory of his grandmother. They were always kind of awkward with each other.

PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER
Name: Wen Jianbai
Birth Year: 1938 (deceased)
Occupation: singer back in China, mostly cared for her grandson and the house in the US, did offer some vocal lessons in the community
Feelings Toward: He misses her deeply. She was the most present adult in Sungyong's childhood, and he was devastated when she passed away. She and Yunjin's grandmother were best friends, and that is how the two of them got to know each other, so he also credits her for being how he met pretty much the most important person in his life. She was always supportive of him, and she was the one who encouraged him in figure skating and helped him make costumes. He wishes that she'd lived long enough to see him having successful students because he's pretty sure that she would have adored Liz.

BEST FRIEND
Name: Yunjin Lin
Birth Year: 1992
Occupation: HS Music/Languages (Chinese/Korean) Teacher
Feelings Toward: Pretty much the single most important person in his life. Sungyong is deeply glad that their connection appears to be just as important to Yunjin because it would break him a little bit to have Yunjin's long term relationship create a distance between them. However, they've stayed deeply close and important in each other's lives, much to Sungyong's relief.

BEST FRIEND
Name: Hwangjung Lee
Birth Year: 1993
Occupation: Songwriter & Producer, Bartender
Feelings Toward: Incredibly close friend, someone who he knows that he can rely on. Sungyong's had a little bit of an emotional struggle with Hwangjung moving out to live with just Jiuk, though he knew that it was coming eventually long before he even knew Jiuk. That being said, it's been a major relief to him that Hwangjung and Jiuk bought the house next door, and slowly, things are restabilizing, and Sungyong is relieved to find that he still spends a lot of time with his other best friend.

NEPHEW
Name: Taijia Lin
Birth Year: 2008
Occupation: Dreams Ent Trainee, High School Student (10th [Mar. 2021-Feb. 2022])
Feelings Toward: Very parental. Incredibly proud. Misses him deeply. In many ways, for much of Tai's early childhood after Yunjia passed away, Sungyong was the one with the most flexible schedule who spent the most time caring for Tai. They have very similar personalities, and Sungyong was deeply deeply attached to Tai. Sungyong was deeply proud of Tai for chasing his dreams and doing so well so young, but he also misses Tai horribly, and actually seriously contemplated seeing about going to Korea to be Tai's adult there at least for the first few years. His own career and the fact that he knew and trusted Thomas to be there for Tai were what kept him from doing so.

FIGURE SKATING STUDENT
Name: Liz Gambold
Birth Year: 2003
Occupation: Senior Level Figure Skater (representing Mongolia)
Feelings Toward: Pride, mentorship. Liz was Sungyong's first private student, and he has worked with her to the point that she's now gone far further than he ever got the chance to in international competition. He has a very older brother/uncle/father type role in her life, and that's incredibly important to him. He can't wait to see her continue to get better and better, and he loves coaching her and choreographing for her.

Sungyong (or Sheng if you are Yunjin, Taijia, or more recently Thomas) is half Chinese, half Korean, like his best friend. He also speaks both languages fluently, though he has a Chinese accent in Korean that he's never quite been able to shake. He and Yunjin met at temple when Sungyong was 4 and YunJin was 5, and they've been best friends every since. Sungyong doesn't have a great relationship with his remaining family: his dad, but he does go home to visit somewhat often because otherwise he feels like he is betraying the memory of his grandmother if he doesn't. He and Yunjin have really similar family backgrounds, so it wasn't at all surprising that their families really encouraged them to spend time together, and no one was surprised when Sungyong followed Yunjin to university.



When Sungyong was a kid, he got really into figure skating at a local rink, and since he was pretty good at it, winning some competitions without all that much training when he was about six, his parents paid for him to have proper lessons and coaching. For most of elementary, middle, and early high school, skating was one of the things that consumed his life. Then when he was sixteen, a dislocated knee which didn't heal quite as strong as it should have, made it impossible for him to continue competing at the level he had been at, taking him out of going to junior worlds as a favorite. He spent a good chunk of time really really frustrated because he'd been competing internationally as a junior level skater and winning things, and he'd really dreamed of going farther with the sport. When he was as fully healed as he would ever get, he did start teaching kids' classes at the rink he had trained at, and found that he really liked it.



When he first moved in with Yunjin and their other best friend, Hwangjung, it seemed like everything was finally moving in the right direction again in his life, though he still missed competitive skating and being able to do hard jumps, and then Yunjia, his best friend's older sister, died in a car accident and the custody battle for Tai happened. From the moment that everything started, he promised Yunjin that he would have his back and that he would help raise the kid as much as Yunjin wanted him to. He's really close to Tai, and a lot of the time he was the principal adult who brought Tai places because he had a more flexible schedule than Yunjin.



Sungyong is settling in to some changes in his life, but he's slowly coming to terms with the fact that most of them are actually pretty good or at least not bad. He made a friend outside of his immediate group for the first time since meeting Hwangjung, and he's been slowly getting the hang of that. Liz, his first figure skating student that he's acted as the main coach for, has been doing incredibly well, actually medaling or coming in top 10 at major international competitions, and he's actually getting a surprising boost in students. Hwangjung moved out of their shared house with Jiuk, but bought the house right next door, so they still see each other all the time, much to Sungyong's relief. Shortly after that, Theo and his two younger brothers, Thomas and Teagan, moved into their shared house, which was a little bit of a logistical nightmare, but things are settling. Despite something that he feared for a long time actually starting to happen, in Yunjin and Hwangjung getting long term, committed boyfriends, Sungyong has been relieved to find that it's not changed his relationship with the two of them too much. He also struggled with Thomas and then Tai moving out to go to Korea (Thomas for school and then career reasons, Tai to be a trainee at Dreams Ent), but he's stayed in close contact with them (especially Tai), and he's also coming to terms with that.

Hello! My name is Etienne!
I was born in 1989.
My pronouns are he/him.