Figure Skater.
Uncertain.
Single.
01/01/2003.
19.
Horse (WA)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Elizabet Sarangerel Ganbold on Mar 12, 2019 1:53:20 GMT -8
This bit of story is set from March 3rd to March 10th of 2019, during the World Junior Figure Skating Championships. This is based off the real competition that occurred around these dates, but I have tweaked/fictionalized some things as a continuation of Liz's story.
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Coming in to her third Junior Worlds, Liz wasn't sure if she was confident or nervous or somehow both at the same time. Not too long before, she'd come in 8th at Four Continents in her first ever major Senior level competition, and she had a history of Junior Worlds being a good competition for her, with a 6th place finish two year before and a 7th place finish the year prior. That meant that people had expectations of how she would do though. Sungyong had been helping her stay calm, reminding her that all she could do was skate her best, and everyone else would have their own skates. In a way, this was just warm up for her first Senior Worlds. There were people in the competition doing quads, and there was a sense in which that rattled Liz, but she tried not to think about it too much.
Liz was relieved that she didn't draw the very first skating slot this year for the short program like she had her first year at Junior Worlds. Instead, she would skate comfortably in the middle, with a group of other girls who were familiar faces but not people she knew well. It was a lot more comfortable than previous years somehow, like she was actually getting used to competing at this level just in time to be ready to leave it.
Her practices went smoothly, with of course the occasional fall or small mistake, but she felt at ease on the ice. It was a little bit of a surprise to her that she hadn't been more rattled by the time difference between Washington and Croatia, but she'd managed to time her sleep on the plane pretty well.
Finally, the day of the short program arrived. She intentionally didn't pay much attention to the first few groups that went before her. She didn't want to know what she was up against. The short program was a more controlled setting either way, and just about everyone in the top ranks would be doing a triple flip, a triple lutz-triple toe or in a few cases a triple lutz-triple loop, and a double axel. Liz had to impress the judges, but she had the layout and the technically difficulty to be near the top.
Finally, her warm up group went on the ice. She was relieved that she was first in her warm up group because it meant that she didn't have to see what other skaters did until after she had skated herself. Her intensive warm up had been earlier because she didn't want to wear herself out right before skating her program, but she skated around and ran a few elements early in the short warm up before the group started. Finally, it was time to take the center of the ice. She felt fast and sure as she flowed through her program, pushing herself to get the height that she knew she could in the jumps. Everything went by in a blur, and as she looked around the stadium from her final pose, there were people standing. She smiled a little bit, and after she finished her bows, she scooped up a few of the plushies that had been thrown to the ice on her way to take her skate guards from Sungyong.
He told her proudly, "You nailed the edges on the flip and the lutz this time. I'm not sure what the judges would have to complain about in that."
They waited for what certainly felt like longer than it actually was in the kiss and cry. Liz felt some measure of confidence when Sungyong let her know that she was apparently the only person with a planned triple lutz-triple loop for the night, but she knew that there were a lot of very good skaters left to skate. Finally, the announcer called out, "Elizabet Sarangerel Gambold representing Mongolia has earned 67.13 in the SP for a new seasons best, placing her currently in first place."
Once Liz cooled down, she and Sungyong returned to the rink to watch the rest of the skates. Now that she had actually skated, she was curious. She was surprised as her score held and held, through some skaters who had beaten her earlier in the season, but finally, in the last two groups, two of the Russian skaters and an American placed above her. As they headed back to the hotel for her to eat and get some rest, Sungyong grinned at her and said, "Fourth after the SP isn't too shabby of a place to be. Let's see if you can hold onto it."
The time between the short program and the free skate seemed a little bit surreal. She practiced with Sungyong at the practice rink, ate, slept, and stretched. She didn't manage to make it to any of the other disciplines' events between the short program and the free skate, but she hadn't really expected to. She was relieved at the draw when she pulled first in the final group. She wouldn't have to see the skaters doing quads skate before she did.
She was actually nervous by the time she made it out onto the ice for the warm up. But Sungyong's reminders to focus only on what she needed helped, and the fact that she wasn't doing any big elements during the warm up helped. The time of the warm up slipped away, and soon enough, she was at the center of the ice again. Her feet didn't feel quite as perfect under her as she started the program, but she focused on getting deep into her edges and finding her comfort zone during the footwork early in the program. The first few jumping passes went well, but she felt her edge slip out from under her a little bit as she started the take off for the stand alone triple flip. She managed to stay up, but she knew that it was underrotated, and that she'd touched down her other foot far sooner than she would have liked. Fortunately, she had some space in the program to breathe after the jump that was the hardest for her, and she felt like she'd broken through the last of the discomfort with that one messy jump.
By the time she made it to the kiss and cry though, she was nervous that she would be dropping a few places. Sungyong kept a comforting arm around her shoulders as she took slow steady breaths and drank some of her water, not wanting to cry if she could help it. The program had mostly gone well, it was just that one jump. After what felt like an eternity, her scores were announced, "Elizabet Sarangerel Gambold, representing Mongolia, has earned, 126.22 points in the free skate for a total of 193.35, putting her currently in first place."
She felt tears beginning to leak from the corners of her eyes, but she managed to keep her voice relatively steady as she said to Sungyong, "That means top six at least. Thank you."
He hugged her and said, "It might not have been a personal best in the free skate, but it was in the combined score. You did amazing."
They sat together in the medalists room and they were able to watch as the remaining skaters skated, even as Liz cooled down from her skate. In the end, the same three skaters placed above her, only slightly rearranging their order, but fourth place at Junior Worlds was the highest that Liz had finished yet, and her scores had been steadily climbing all season.
Sungyong asked her after the gala was over, when they were getting ready to head back to Cedar Beach, "Do you believe that you can do Senior Worlds now?"
Liz nodded tentatively and said, "I think so. There's something very reassuring about being just over a point off the podium."
She had to put those thoughts aside as she got back to her usual routine of school, work, and practice, but Senior Worlds, fast approaching, loomed above her thoughts.
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Figure Skater.
Uncertain.
Single.
01/01/2003.
19.
Horse (WA)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Elizabet Sarangerel Ganbold on Mar 23, 2019 0:45:57 GMT -8
This story is set at a somewhat fictionalized version of the Senior Worlds competition for figure skating. Liz's scores match up to what her placement there would have been, but a few details of the actual competition were modified.
Liz was nervous for Senior Worlds. She was in Japan for a competition for the first time. She and Sungyong had gotten in towards the end of the competitors getting there, but she was still missing some days of school. She'd managed to get an extension for the essay that was supposed to be due on Monday though. She settled into her training routines fairly quickly in Saitama, though she was still a little offset because of the time difference.
She was a little bit intimidated by all the amazing skaters who she'd be following and trying to catch up with practicing on the same ice as her, and she didn't talk to much of anyone, but she was able to focus very carefully on her practices. It was a little bit strange knowing that there were people practicing on the same ice as her who'd been in juniors with Sungyong and competed against him. This was another competition that her coach had never gotten the chance to go to before he messed up his knee. She was determined to do well for his sake.
Her last few practices before the short program were definitely her best. Her elements felt on, and she felt fluid and comfortable. She'd drawn the very first group for the short program, just like her first junior worlds, but she was skating third, not first. She was able to practice her jumps a little bit during the warm up, and then off the ice, she stretched to keep warm and listened to music so that she could ignore what was going on out on the rink. Soon enough, it was her turn.
It was the biggest crowd she'd ever skated in front of. For just a moment, as she was taking her opening pose on the ice, she trembled, but she took a few deep breaths, and stilled herself, making herself relax into the pose. She'd changed the order of her jumps just a little bit, and it was the most comfortable she'd felt in the program all season in practice. She could do this.
Her music started, and she launched into the early footwork. She felt her edges slide deep and sure across the ice as she executed the carefully planned steps. Soon enough, the first jump arrived, and she picked into the ice for the triple flip. She could tell that the landing was good as she sailed into the next transition steps before her spin. Each chunk of choreography felt natural and fluid, and her marker for the midway point of the program was fast approaching in the music. On a crescendo, right before the halfway mark, she did a turn into the double axel, and that landing felt good as well. There was only one more jumping pass to go, worth the most points and right at the end of the program, before the final spin. She had choreography, to get through, and then finally, she skated tight and fast into the triple lutz-triple loop combo, feeling herself soar through her best jumps, the sound of applause echoing in her ears as she finished the spin that followed right on its heals. As she held her final pose, she grinned. She'd felt amazing out there. Like Sungyong had been telling her, this program kept getting better all season.
The wait in the kiss and cry was long, and she talked with Sungyong in whispers about how the program had gone. He didn't have any criticisms for her, and as they waited for the scores to be announced, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and whispered, "This should be a personal best, it's the best you've ever skated the program."
Finally, the announcer said, "Elizabet Sarangerel Gambold of Mongolia has earned 70.05 points in the Short Program earning a new season's best, and is currently in first place."
Sungyong grinned at her and said, "Told you!"
She smiled back and found herself blinking back tears. Seeing her scores go up, especially her PCS going up, at the end of the season was rewarding. She'd been working so hard for this. After she'd cooled down, the two of them went back out to the stands to watch the rest of the skaters. It took nearly thirty skaters for someone to break her score, and she could tell that there were press people watching her. She stuck close to Sungyong's side, and he said, "Don't worry, definitely no interviews until after the free skate."
At the end of the evening, she was in tenth. Places and places higher than she would have expected. Everyone above her, and several people below her in the standings were people she thought of as big names, names that she recognized and looked up to. It was a strange feeling to be standing there in the middle of them all in the rankings, especially after skating in the first group.
The next two days, leading up to the free skate in the evening of the second day, seemed almost interminable. She managed to work in going to watch some of the other events, but mostly, she practiced, rested, ate, and worked on homework. Finally, the evening of the free skate arrived. She was nervous. Really nervous. She was skating first in the third group, right after the ice was resurfaced. She was relieved to have her first in the group slot back, it meant less waiting and less worrying.
Suddenly, it seemed like no time at all until she was waiting in line to go out and be announced for the warm up group. Despite there only being six people on the ice, it felt strangely crowded, like the presence of several amazing skaters she looked up to was overwhelming her a little bit. She was glad that she didn't want to do too many jumps out there since she was really just getting the last bit of warm for her program right after the warm up group.
Everything seemed to just click into place as she went into her opening pose for the free skate. She loved this program, and unlike the short program, she hadn't had a frustrating relationship with its jumps all season. She loved the energy that she carried through the footwork and the speed that she was able to carry into the jumps. She loved that it showcased all of her jumps at their best, letting her do the weakest jumps first and stack the jumps that she was best at towards the end, and because she was better at some of the jumps that other people liked less, it made it look all the more impressive.
People around the rink were standing to applaud as she finished. There were more gifts on the ice than she had imagined there would be after she took her bows. Overall, she was overwhelmed. In the kiss and cry, she hid her face in Sungyong's shoulder and murmured, "I don't know what to do. There's so many people shouting for me."
Sungyong laughed a little bit and pulled her into an easy one armed hug. He said, "They're cheering because you're the amazing surprise of the weekend for some of them. You did great."
She gripped his hand tightly as they waited for the scores, all the nerves that had evaporated during her actual skater having rushed back. Finally, the announcer called out, "Elizabet Sarangerel Gambold of Mongolia has earned 129.95 points in the free skate for a total of 200.00 points, putting her currently in first place."
Liz looked at the little red season's best marker in the corner of the screen and said, voice quiet from shock, "I broke, well hit, 200.00. I didn't expect to do that this season."
Sungyong's told her, "Come on, stand up and wave, they're cheering for you."
She did so tentatively. She knew that the first place wouldn't hold, but it was a good start. She couldn't do worse than twelfth at this point. She watched the rest of the groups, many skaters placed above her, but she didn't care. She'd already achieved a goal that she'd been expecting would take a few more seasons yet. In the end, she was in eleventh place. She thought that it was a pretty good debut at Senior Worlds. So did the press though, and she shyly made her way through more interviews than she would have expected. She was also rather surprised by an invitation to the gala, though at least she already had an exhibition program this year, even if it was just a modification of one of her old short programs. She liked that it was a chance for her to show off what she was actually good at though including doing three triple loops in combination, which she couldn't do for competitive programs.
By the end of the weekend, she was exhausted, and she managed to sleep her way through much of the plane ride back, catching up on homework and writing her essay for most of the time that she wasn't sleeping.
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High Schooler (11th - composition) / Dreams Ent Trainee / Producer / Choreographer.
Unsure (not straight).
Single.
08/01/2008.
13.
Rat (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Taijia Lin on Aug 13, 2019 0:57:17 GMT -8
[[This story takes place from mid-June through mid-July 2019.]]
Everything after getting accepted to Dreams Ent, and cheering as Anya was accepted as well, was a bit of a whirlwind for Tai. While they were still in Seoul at the end of the audition camp, Yunjin and Elena went over the options of schools together, and ultimately, Yunjin and Tai decided that as long as they could get him enrolled, they'd send him to the nearby Korean middle school: Yeouido Middle School. There wasn't a huge amount of point in sending him to an international school for middle school when he was fully fluent and literate in Korean, and the only two that were remotely nearby were in one case rather Christian, and in the other British. Yunjin had explained to Tai his reasons for not thinking that either were a great fit, and Tai had agreed, even knowing that it would probably mean not being in school with Anya for the first time since first grade. He was strangely pretty sure that he was ready though.
Before they went back to Cedar Beach to get all of Tai's paperwork dealt with, they met with the admissions team at Yeouido Middle School along with a representative from Dreams Ent and Thomas, who would continue to be Tai's designated adult in Korea, especially since he'd been actually hired to continue on as a tutor and translator for the trainees at Dreams Ent.
Something nagged at the back of Tai's mind as they were going over his grade placement and the fact that he was very young for his grade, and they'd told the administrator that he was about to start the second year of middle school in the US. He was given a whole slew of what seemed like comically easy assessment tests, and it was interesting to watch the administrator's very discreet look of consternation. However, at the end of it all, and an interview which was the hardest part because Tai was still quite shy, and Korean formalities were the only thing that had really been tripping him up, he was enrolled to join the second year middle school class in two weeks, when he was slated to return to Seoul. There would be a uniform and school supplies ready for him, and all of his school information would be delivered to Dreams Ent (and Thomas would get copies).
There was a lot of paperwork to do, and a lot of paperwork to get from his past schools, and since Tai had grown a little bit in the past six months, Yunjin and Hwangjung took him shopping to make sure that he was going to Korea with enough clothes. Tai could tell that Yunjin was worried, but there was an element of it that was very nice because it was the most he'd had Yunjin to himself in over a year. Yunjin always made time for him, but it was different for sure. He liked Theo, and he accepted Teagan's existence, but it had been a big change. Yunjin and Sungyong and Hwangjung took him to a lot of his favorite places around the Seattle area in those two weeks, but they last evening before his flight, they spent down at the beach in Cedar Beach. It was a nice feeling of family with the family that had been the only one he'd had for a long time. He saw Inkar and Liz during those days too, and both of them fussed over him and how they'd miss him, but he promised that he would keep in touch with both of them.
Two weeks seemed like a very short time all of a sudden, and before he really knew it, he was on a plane back to Seoul. He was flying with Anya and Remi this time, and he was glad about the former and uncertain about the latter, though the fact that Remi was going to be living with Thomas in Seoul and going to the same university as him made Remi a little bit more of interest to Tai than usual. Tai was glad that Remi had wanted the aisle seat because it meant that he got the window, and Anya sat between them, so things were good overall. He suspected that he might have made Remi slightly grumpy when he interacted with the flight attendants on their Korean Air flight entirely in Korean, but he didn't care that much because Anya's older brother was behaving.
Tai managed to sleep some on the plane, though not as much as he would have liked, and he was glad that things went smoothly when they arrived. Thomas was waiting for them at baggage claim, and he helped make sure that they all had all their things and got them onto transit headed towards Dreams Ent. He explained to them where his and Remi's new apartment was in relation to the company and their school and pointed out useful things in Korea. Tai was tired enough to not want to talk much at this point, but he listened to Thomas's explanations carefully.
He did take them to dinner before dropping them off at the dorms, and that was nice too. Tai was glad to be back, and interested to see the dorms for actual trainees. He and Anya were split up into neighboring apartments in the building where Dreams Ent had all its space, one apartment for the boys, one for the girls. He knew that the Yuseong apartment was somewhere in the building as well, and some of the managers and trainers also lived in the building. He was familiar with the training spaces on the lower floors already though. He was a little bit surprised that he was the first to move in, but Felix was also international, and the other trainees also had school stuff to sort out, and it was during the school year in Korea. That would be something to get used to.
In fact, since they'd flown in in the middle of the week, Tai would be starting to attend school the very next day. One of the company managers brought him all his school supplies and went over the basics of how the school day would work with him, but he also reassured him that since he was transferring in at a strange time, and things varied a little bit from school to school, he would be getting help from the school and his teachers most likely.
He managed to wake up a bit before five the next morning surprised to be able to find his normal rhythm so quickly, and practiced dance and showered and ate breakfast from the leftovers that he had from the night before, before getting dressed in his school uniform. He was a little bit surprised that they'd managed to find his size, but he was also relieved. It would be one less way for him to be different.
Tai signed himself in and was led by a school administrator to his classroom, Year 2 Class A, he noted to himself. He would be joining a group of students who had known each other for a long time, and that daunted him a little bit, but he figured he would do his best and the worst that would happen is that he'd get all his social time at the company. He looked at the class through his bangs as the administrator led them in, and realized that they all looked a lot older than him. He knew that the school age tended a little older for each year in Korea, but he felt tinier than normal, even though he was pretty sure that the average height wasn't that different from the height of his class back in Cedar Beach.
The administrator held a quick whispered discussion with the teacher who got handed Tai's records, and then the teacher turned to his new class and said, "We have a new transfer student today. He comes from the United States, near Seattle, Washington. Please introduce yourself."
Tai bowed and spoke carefully and formally, enunciation showing that Korean was one of his native languages, "Hello, my name is Lin Taega*, and I am twelve years old. Nice to meet you."
He glanced around furtively, noticing some rustles of confusion, but no one said anything after the formulaic response to his greeting. There was an empty spot near the front of the class by the windows, and his homeroom teacher directed him to it. They spent the homeroom class with announcements and some self study time, but it wasn't until the class change over that someone talked to him. He was surprised to glance up from his books, where he'd been skimming a passage from a book that he'd reread since it had been on the class reading list, to see a girl with pigtails standing in front of his desk. He smiled a little bit, keeping his eyes mostly lowered, but not quite sure if he should say something. Fortunately for his sanity, she didn't just keep looking at him, but said something instead. She smiled a little bit, and said tone relatively casual, "Do I recognize you from the Dreams Ent auditions? I watched them."
Tai softly said, "Yes."
She smiled more clearly and said, "I really can't help you with school stuff, I'm just keeping up with the middle of the class myself, but we have a dance club, and we'll be happy to have you."
Tai smiled back tentatively and replied, "I would like that, thank you."
She said, "I can show you around too, for going to the cafeteria and special classes and stuff. I'm surprised you're in our year, you're so young!"
Tai replied softly, "I skipped a few grades."
She laughed quietly. Before she had to go to her desk as the next teacher arrived, she said, "I'm Cho Hyeja. I'll catch up to you later."
She returned to a cluster of other girls near the back of the class, their hair done similarly, and there was a rustle of excited whispering between them. Tai was mildly concerned that he had fans, but he also was just relieved that someone was being friendly.
He had managed to arrive on a day with tests in nearly every class. It was a strange moment to realize that he was actually not worried about it. He figured that if he got lower scores than he usually did, it could be forgiven because it was his literal first day at the school, but he found himself actually feeling confident on each test as he took it.
Hyeja, true to her word, came and collected him for lunch time, dragging him to the cafeteria with her group of friends. They were all, it turned out, in the dance club, and all of them were fans of various idols and had tried at least one audition if their parents would let them, though some of them weren't allowed until high school, much to their dismay. They were also in the middle of the class ranking and didn't seem too bothered by it which made Tai a little less worried that they would suddenly not like him if he did too well in school. Tai was mildly amused at himself that after all his worry about the potential of rumors with Anya, here he was sitting at lunch with a bunch of girls. In a way though, it seemed different, they were three years his senior, and he'd not known them most of his life.
Dance club wasn't held that day, so he went straight back to Dreams Ent after work, but he had registered for it, after checking with the person picking him up for the company, who nodded and said it was a good idea.
He did his homework quickly before heading to the training room before dinner, and then heading back after dinner. They were let go to sleep at a reasonable hour, but Tai was per his usual, awake at five in the morning to go to the dance studio before school. He arrived on the later end of the students in his class, but still on time, and he was curious that people had all gathered around some sort of list. The words filtered back to him that these were test scores, and some people seemed a little bit agitated. Slowly, he slipped through the crowd, and then he figured out why. He'd managed to get top scores on all of their tests the day before, without even knowing that the tests were coming.
Before people noticed he was there, he made his way to his seat, trying to be small. Being shorter than the rest of his classmates had some advantages. There were several people glaring at him though, but he was pleasantly relieved that the little cluster of dance girls from the back seemed to be giving him a little silent cheer. He had, apparently, been accepted among the dance crowd. That was a relief.
Tai mostly settled into school quickly. He wasn't exactly the the top of the class's good graces because he'd unsettled the ranking, where there were a few students who balanced each other out, none of them getting the top score in everything, but he had a little group that he could sit with, and there hadn't been any bullying, possibly because at least one of the dance girls had a bit of an aura about her that read like she would hurt anyone who tried anything on her friends. Tai liked her the most, Jung Minji. She was quiet and didn't mind that he didn't have much to say most of the time, and he suspected that she had some of the best chances of actually getting through an audition process. He recognized the determination.
It was two weeks in that the realization dawned on him, and apparently the administration, at the same time. This was eighth grade. He was pulled into a before school meeting with the principal and his homeroom teacher, and much to his relief, it was decided that it made the most sense to just leave him where he was because he was excelling academically. He had to sit with the idea of being the year ahead of Anya in school now though. Even if they went to the same high school, they would never be in the same class. It was a relief in a way. There were less chances of rumors that way, but he knew that she would be disappointed.
[[*Taega is the Korean pronunciation of Tai's name.]]
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Tutor, Translator, Driver, and Assistant Manager at Dreams Ent.
Gay.
Dating Kangwan.
02/04/1999.
23.
Tiger (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Thomas Fan Qiwang on Sept 16, 2019 23:38:03 GMT -8
[[This story also includes involvement or mention of Taijia Lin, Yeo Taehoon, and Kim Kangwan.]]
During the break around Chuseok, Thomas had finally gotten the chance to earn his Korean driver's license. He'd been aiming to find a time to go in for a few months at that point, and the timing had finally come through. He'd let Dreams Ent know, and the response had been, Excellent, we'll make sure that your set up to drive the company car as needed. He was glad that they hadn't decided to try to get him driving the vans, but that made sense, he was a backup driver.
Tai had been begging him for a chance to go to temple for a few weeks now, and when he'd mentioned it to Taehoon, since he was the actively Buddhist member of Yuseong, the slightly older man had mentioned that he'd be happy for Thomas and Tai to join him. The company, while willing to let Taehoon find his own way over for the most part, was nervous of sending Tai with just him, especially since the two of them together were more likely to draw notice.
With his license, Thomas had offered to drive all three of them to temple if the company would let him use the company car. He was glad that everyone involved had thought that that was a reasonable compromise. It meant that Thomas had to catch the bus very very early, since Taehoon usually left just after six in the morning, but fortunately for his sanity, all three of them were generally up that early. He went and got the car from the garage, glad that they had given him all the orientation with the cars a few days prior, and went up to collect the other two. He wasn't surprised to find them both already up and conversing quietly right outside the dance practice rooms.
When Tai saw him, the boy ran up to give him a hug and asked, "Are you ready to go Qiwang-ge?"
Taehoon followed Tai and gave Thomas a smile, saying softly, "I'm sure it will eventually stop being confusing to me that Tai refers to you by your Chinese name at least half the time. Even though the tones are different, it's awfully close to my bandmate's name."
Thomas smiled in return and said, "We have the literal same Korean name, so it's even more confusing when we're in class together."
He smiled down at Tai and said, "Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go."
Thomas had been to a few temples in Korea, but they'd all been a little bit unsettling for not being in Chinese or English. He figured that it was about time to find one to settle into though, especially since it was clearly important to Tai.
All of them were relatively quiet during the drive over, Thomas mostly focusing on the directions and relieved to have the occasional quiet comment from Taehoon reminding him of where to turn. They got there a bit early, but the hall was open, so they went in and joined the crowd of people who were also early. Several older ladies gave Taehoon familiar greetings, and they had him introduce Thomas and Tai. There was a sense of welcoming comfort that Thomas hadn't really had at any of the other temples that he'd tried, and he could see why Taehoon liked the place.
The morning meditation and service was pleasant and familiar, and Thomas saw the posting for some qigong classes that he figured he could look into attending if he felt up to it. There was a martial arts club on campus that he intermittently frequented, but it mostly hosted Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido events. He figured that he could look into gong fu classes through the temple if he ended up settling in.
As they were heading out, Taehoon said, "I usually stop by the street vendors outside before heading back. They've got a lot of tasty foods."
Thomas nodded and followed Taehoon's lead, seeing no harm in it. They got a few things, and Thomas was a little bit surprised to see Taehoon secret away a bag of sweets, but he figured that it was probably for some of the other Yuseong members. While Taehoon still had his mask on, a few teenage girls who had also come to the street vendors snapped a few pictures of him. Thomas quietly let Taehoon know, and the other man told him that management hadn't minded to date if he occasionally got spotted around his temple, as long as he wasn't seen going to and from on public transit.
Soon afterwards though, Thomas led them back to the car, and they made their way back to the company. They started working on a schedule to more regularly attend temple as a group so that Tai could go.
Later that week, when Thomas was at the company for tutoring and just wrapping up, one of the managers swung by with a list of things that he would be needed for. He was a little bit surprised at how often he was being put in charge or running Taehoon's driving, but he shrugged it off.
Soon though, there were articles on some of the idol websites, "Rumored Solo Debut, Yuseong Member Taehoon Gets Own Manager." Thomas stared at the picture from the first visit to the temple alongside a few others from times he'd driven Taehoon to his events, and he shrugged it off. Kangwan had told him that rumors happened all the time, and most of them were no big deal. The reaction seemed not to have much buzz, but it was mostly positive. It was a little bit strange to see himself in rumor pictures though. There was a small part of his mind that was very perplexed but also relieved that the rumor he was involved with involved Taehoon and not Kangwan though.
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Kpop Idol.
Demi-romantic/Demi-sexual / queer.
Dating Josh.
01/04/1994.
28.
Rooster (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Yeo Taehoon on Sept 17, 2019 2:31:30 GMT -8
Taehoon had tried not to panic when the CEO had told him that he was getting the chance to choreograph for their next comeback. It was a good thing, honestly. He was actually excited, and it would show how good he really was as a dancer. It was the next step in his career. If he could choreograph well for his own group, it paved the way for a career for him once he inevitably was old enough that his idol career started to fade. He was realistic enough to know that it would happen someday.
It wasn't even that Taehoon was a bad choreographer. He'd worked on the choreography for several of their previous comebacks, but that had been with help and guidance from mentors. He'd felt confident giving feedback and helping to rework parts to better fit the song and their group.
But making choreography for Kangwan's amazing songs, all by himself, that was stressful. He had a meeting to show the CEO and the dance trainer where he was the next evening, and he wasn't anywhere near where he wanted to be. After his last schedule of the day, and the trainees were done with the practice room for the night, right around midnight, he took it over.
All through the night, he fought with the choreography. Altogether, he was pretty sure that he had about half of it done by the time the sun came up. Unfortunately, it was a messy, disjointed half, and he was having trouble figuring out how to tie it all together. He noticed Seojin peak her head in, then leave quickly a while before sunrise, presumably going to one of the smaller practice rooms to do her daily morning practice. He thought for a second about calling her in to help him workshop a thought, but he was in the middle of actually working something out and didn't want to disturb his flow.
About half an hour after her, Tai peaked his head in the room. He was about to turn and leave when he saw Taehoon was using the space, but Taehoon waved him over and said, "Once you're warmed up, I want to show you what I've been working on and have you do it so that I can see how it looks when someone not me is doing it."
Tai nodded and came in, warming up efficiently, and he grinned through Taehoon showing him the choreography that he'd come up with so far. Part of the reason that Taehoon had called him over was that Tai learned fast. He went through all of it with Tai twice, and Tai was ready to do it himself.
He watched Tai do the choreography, and he could see where the transitions needed to go, but he couldn't work out how to put them together. Tai said shyly, "Can I show you what I think might work well to link the parts?"
Taehoon was surprised, but at this point, he would take it. He nodded and said, "Go for it."
Tai danced through the whole song, but instead of pausing like Taehoon had been, he stitched the parts together. Taehoon actually liked the parts he'd made all of a sudden. He was surprised at how smooth Tai made it look, but it worked. He was nodding along as Tai finished, and he said, "Wow, you're going to be an amazing choreographer, way better than I am."
Tai looked down at his feet and said, "You did the hard part, making the cool bits, I just connected the dots."
Taehoon came over and put an arm around the kid's shoulders and said, "That was the part I couldn't figure out though. Moving between the different parts and making it look good in the process is hard. Come on, show me what you did, and this evening, stick around after your official practice. I want you to help me show this to the CEO and the trainer."
Tai looked slightly alarmed but nodded, and they went through the choreography with Tai's linking parts a few more times. There were still parts that needed to be polished, but it looked like choreography.
When Tai had to head to school, Taehoon dragged himself to bed, suddenly exhausted. He was glad that he didn't have any schedules that day. He set an alarm to make sure that he'd be up well before his meeting, and when he woke up, he was actually excited.
He got to the training rooms early, and lingered, watching the trainees practice. It was interesting to see Tai basically acting as a teacher's assistant along with Seojin, but it didn't surprise Taehoon that much. He'd played that role in his brief training stint, and then continuing after debut, the one who taught choreography to the others after learning it quickly from the choreographer, or the video. When the lesson was done, Tai peaked out the door and spotted him, coming over to stand with him, and looking just a little bit nervous. Taehoon squeezed his shoulder and said, "Don't worry, I'll do the explaining, you're just here to dance."
Tai grinned up at him, and he was remarkably glad to have a kid fourteen years his junior standing next to him as support. He meant what he'd said that Tai was going to be an incredible choreographer. When the CEO showed up, he looked slightly startled that Tai was standing there with Taehoon, but he didn't comment, just calling Taehoon in to the training room.
He led Tai in and after exchanging greetings with the CEO and the dance trainer, he said, "I have Tai with me because he helped me with parts, and it wouldn't be nearly as far along as it is if he hadn't figured out how to tie the main parts together, so I figured he deserved the credit."
The CEO looked at him considering, and asked, "Are you saying that you want to give him choreography credits alongside you?"
Taehoon nodded. It only seemed fair. Tai had worked hard to help him, and it had come together because of Tai's hard work. Tai was staring at him, eyes wide, and the CEO said, "Alright then, let's see what you've got."
Tai shook himself out of his shock, and Taehoon brought them to their starting points. When the dance trainer started the music, they went all the way through the song, using the choreography that they'd worked though together. The dance trainer nodded when they were done and said, "That's farther along than I thought it would be honestly. How much of that did each of you do?"
Tai looked at Taehoon again, and Taehoon said, "It's about half and half. I did the hook and the breakdown, and the introduction and conclusion parts, and Tai figured out how to work all of them together."
The CEO looked really thoughtful and said, "Alright, it's looking good. Keep working on it, and we'll check in again next week. You've got permission to borrow Tai from dance training as you see fit, and if this ends up polishing up well, you'll both get credit for the choreography."
After the CEO and the dance trainer left, Tai was still there, looking a little bit stunned. He finally said, "You didn't have to give me that much credit. You did the cool parts."
Taehoon shook his head, "I meant it. I don't want to push your hard work into hiding. If they end up saying we're going with the choreography, you're getting a choreography credit for it."
Tai said softly, "OK, I-- wow."
Taehoon remembered in that moment that Tai was only eleven. A rather mature eleven, and very focused, but still eleven. He patted him gently on the shoulder and said, "I'm having trouble thinking of anyone who got choreography credits younger."
Tai smiled up at him, and bowed, saying, "Thank you for letting me work with you on this."
Taehoon shook his head and said, "No, thank you Tai. You did a very good job."
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Dreams Ent Trainee.
So far in the closet he's found Narnia (Gay).
Single.
03/29/2003.
19.
Sheep (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Tae Seoji on Nov 2, 2019 2:30:32 GMT -8
Seoji had gotten back from school and headed straight for the training rooms. Normally, he would go do his homework first, even on a Friday, but monthly evaluations were coming up, and he felt like he was behind. He wasn’t that much better a singer than Tai, and the kid was only twelve to his own seventeen. He knew fundamentally that Tai still had his voice breaking to go through, but he was well trained enough that as long as he didn’t stop practicing, it wouldn’t affect his technical ability much, just his range. And Seoji was supposed to be the main vocalist. He took a little bit of comfort on that from the fact that there was a chance that they would actually debut while Tai’s voice was still in flux, but he didn’t want to rely on that for the fans to believe that he deserved the main vocal spot.
Even with all that, he felt like he mostly had voice under control. That wasn’t where he felt behind. No, that was dance. He was notably the worst dancer of the four of them who had been accepted at the trainee camp. He probably would have felt less frustrated about it if it wasn’t for Tai, but again, the kid was only twelve, nearly as good a singer as Seoji himself, and also the best dancer there, well except maybe Seojin-noona, but she wasn’t directly in comparison to Tai. Seoji was.
He’d signed up for a dance class as one of his electives for the next school year, even though he was a vocal major, and had started going to dance club, but he was still leagues behind. Felix was weirdly easier to not compare himself to. Maybe it was because he was a far better vocalist than Felix, and Felix was still learning to be a rapper, or maybe it was because he’d actually started to get to know Felix. He could see the ways that the other boy struggled, with Korean and with adapting to Korea if nothing else. He liked Felix’s company, and between the two of their skills, he could see a balance. A group would need people like Felix and people like him, and there wasn’t too much overlap. Felix had been helping him with dance practice some too, though Seoji was sure that Tai would too if Seoji hadn’t been too rattled by him to even ask.
Today was the day that Tai stayed late at school for dance club and then got collected by one of their sunbae to work on choreography or composition or one of the other projects that the kid was already becoming enmeshed in. Yuseong didn’t have dance practice, and Felix, and apparently all the girls, were doing their homework. This meant that Seoji had the practice room to himself for at least a few hours on that Friday afternoon.
He started up his warm up, and carefully got himself fully stretched out and loose. He didn’t want to hurt himself because that would slow down the process even more. He’d been studying dance for three years already, and he felt like he should have more to show for it in comparison to where he was.
He ran the routines that they’d been doing in their training, and the ones that the dance club at school was doing, and the ones that he’d done for his auditions and the training camp, and when no one else was in the training room yet, he ran them again. After getting some water and doing a few stretches, he went through all the routines one more time, and then flopped to the floor, planning to just stay there for a second.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when someone shook his shoulder gently and said, “How long have you been here?”
He blinked up to see Seojin-noona looking down at him, concern clear on her face. He glanced at his watch and mumbled, “Um, on the floor for about half an hour, in the studio since I got back from school.”
She raised an eyebrow at him and then sat down on the floor next to him and asked, “Were you practicing for three hours?”
He thought about sitting up, it seemed like the polite thing to do, but he wasn’t entirely convinced that he had bones again yet. He said tentatively, “Yes?”
She looked down at him and asked, “Did you take any breaks? You look wiped out.”
He replied, “Um, I got some water and stretched about halfway through.”
She rummaged through her bag and held out a bag of crackers to him, telling him, “Eat those. Want to tell me why you were practicing by yourself for that long?”
He pried himself up off the floor so that he was sitting next to her and dutifully took the crackers. He ate a few before replying. He eventually said, “Thank you noona. Um, well, monthly evaluations are coming up.”
She nodded and said, “We’ve all been practicing for them, but why three hours of dance practice alone? You’re a vocalist mainly.”
He looked down and said, “I don’t feel like I’m keeping up.”
She crossed her arms and looked him over, contemplating. Finally she said, “You’re comparing yourself to Tai, aren’t you?”
He squirmed a little bit in place, feeling like she’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t. She smiled gently at him and said, “Look, I honestly did it too a little bit during the training camp. The kid’s impressive, but he also grew up with the circumstances to be really good at basically everything idols do. He’s been taking dance classes since he was four, and he’s got a music teacher, a producer, and another musician for uncles. He started learning all of that young, and he’s known that he wanted to do kpop for at least a few years, since back when Kangwan-sunbae was his babysitter. How long have you been learning dance even?”
Seoji couldn’t help but chuckle a little when she broke it down like that. He replied, “About three years.”
She gave him an appraising look and said, “And I’m going to hazard a guess that you’ve been growing stupidly fast that entire time.”
He nodded, somewhat sheepish. She shook her head at him and told him, “Look, I can tell watching you dance that you’ve got the fundamentals. You’ve actually got a decent awareness of your body, but you look like you don’t move the distance you expect yourself to move, which makes sense because you’ve been growing a ridiculous amount. Felix has been dancing longer than you, and it’s his focus, and he’s at least ten centimeters shorter than you. Tai’s been dancing way longer than you, and he’s about fifty centimeters shorter than you. There’s a lot more of you to teach how to dance, and most of it is arms and legs, which means that the movement change effect of you growing is amplified.”
Seoji listened to her explanation. A part of him knew that she was right, but he didn’t know what that meant in terms of him fixing the problem. Seojin-noona stood up, and started stretching. She told him, “Once you’re done with those, you should stretch out, since it sounds like you flopped over as soon as you were done.”
He nodded and slowly clambered to his feet as he finished the last of the crackers. He asked her carefully, “Seojin-noona, how do I fix it though? Other than just practicing lots and lots.”
She sounded reassuring as she replied, “The first thing is, you don’t have to be as good a dancer as the other two, you just have to be good enough to be in the same dance routine as them. Think about like Got7 or something. Some of them are notably better dancers than others, but the way the dance is structured makes all of them look good, and the ones that aren’t the best at dance are good at something else. You’re a good main vocal, so don’t let feeling like you’re behind in dance keep you from keeping that up.”
She changed which stretch she was on, and then continued, “But more than just practicing a lot, it’s practicing right. Right now, you look like you don’t have great control over your extremities and how much power you are using, and you don’t look fluid. Honestly, if I was picking something for you to practice right now, I’d say girl group dances. For one, there’s a better range of them in the middle difficulty ranges, and for another, there are a lot of them that will help you work on fluidity and isolations. You aren’t bad on power, which a lot of boy group dances emphasize, but you don’t have the control to convey it all the time, and then you end up looking like you’re flailing.”
Seoji looked thoughtful and said, “Do you really think that learning girl group dances will help? How do you notice all this stuff?”
She laughed and told him, “Yeah, I really think that it will help. And as for noticing stuff, well I’ve actually worked teaching dance, like as a part time job. It was mostly to younger kids, but I helped with some of the classes for people our age. I get where you’re coming from on some of this because that’s where I am with vocals in some ways. I’ve had to work hard at them to have them up to the right level, but I didn’t start out that way when I first started auditioning for companies.”
Seoji nodded and asked, “Would you be willing to help me learn a little bit better? I don’t feel like I could ask the dance trainer since I know the girls are debuting first, so there’s more focus on you.”
She laughed and told him. “Sure. I can help you practice at least a little bit, but not tonight. You should go shower and do something less physical, and eat real food.”
Seojin nodded and bowed slightly, saying, “Thank you Seojin-noona.”
She smiled at him and shook her head a little bit. He went when she waved him away and started working on her own practice. He hoped that she was right and her suggestion would be something that would help him, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of getting actually good at dance, even if Seojin-noona had good points about why he wasn’t as comfortable in his own movements as Felix or Tai.
He was glad that the shower in the dorms was free when he got back because he had noticed that he was covered in dried sweat and it was kind of gross during the walk back. No one else was even in the dorm as far as he could tell, and he sighed and decided to do his homework. Maybe he could convince Felix to do a girl group dance with him. That had the potential to be fun, and since it was Seojin-noona’s idea and she knew things about dance, no one would make fun of him for wanting to do a girl group dance. He could see why Seojin-noona had been chosen partially to be a leader for the girls. He hoped that he could figure out how to be at least nearly as good a leader.
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
|
Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 5, 2019 1:03:56 GMT -8
[[This is backdated to the very beginning of 2008.]]
Arriving in Korea
No one had really seen him off from LAX when he had to catch his flight to Seoul. His parents hadn’t let him tell any of his friends, and they’d not waited with him before he had to go through security. He felt very small, even for his fourteen (nearly fifteen) years. He reminded himself that in Korea, he’d be sixteen, and somehow, that just made it worse.
Josh had never really thought about Korea that much. He’d certainly never been. His father’s parents had passed away when he was very young, and his mother’s parents were in the US. He’d known that his father had a sister who lived in Seoul, though they weren’t close. He’d met her once when he was about seven, but he didn’t remember much about her other than that she’d worn bright colors. He hoped desperately that she was nice. He wasn’t going to tell her anything to make her dislike him if he could help it. He’d already been sent away from his lifelong home just because his parents suspected that he might be gay, and thought that sending him to Korea, to live with his aunt he barely knew and go to school there for the rest of high school, would fix that somehow. He knew it wouldn’t, but it would be his secret. He was good at secrets.
He had found his gate well enough once he was through security, and the person watching the desk was keeping an eye on him because he was an unaccompanied minor, but he was old enough that he didn’t have a minder really. He was still trying not to let himself cry because of everything. He didn’t know if he’d be able to make friends in Korea. At least he’d be starting as a high school first year there, since that was the equivalent of sophomore year, and he’d have a gap before he started school to get used to being in Korea.
It was almost a relief to board and be on the plane to whatever his new life would be. It was a Korean Air flight, and most of the people around him were businessmen. No one talked to him, for which he was glad, and he’d gotten an aisle seat, which meant that he didn’t have to ask someone to let him by if he needed the restroom. He hoped that he’d be able to sleep because it was a long flight, but this was only the third time in his life he’d been on a plane, and the other two had been short flights to and from Vegas for a choir competition. Family vacations had always been to places close enough to drive, generally to see his mom’s parents in NorCal.
He hadn’t brought much with him. Clothes from his closet that his parents deemed acceptable and acceptable for Korea, some of his school stuff so that he could study during the gap between when he arrived in Korea and when he started school there, various necessities. Nothing that was for fun for him though. His brand new laptop had been confiscated, and he didn’t know what his parents were planning to do with it, but it was out of his control now. Most of the luggage that he had checked had included gifts for his aunt, which Josh suspected was meant to butter her up because he was pretty sure that this was a pretty big imposition on his dad’s part.
He was glad that the flight had seatback entertainment and complimentary headphones. He figured that it wouldn’t hurt to see if there was anything interesting. There were some movies, none of which were really interesting to him, but eventually he landed on something that seemed similar to MTV, with an array of music videos playing one after the other. He knew a little bit of Kpop. Some of his other Korean American friends bad brought back albums from visiting family in Korea, but he’d not seen the music videos. It was soothing somehow. Josh had always liked music, he’d done choir for ages, he’d been in dance clubs at school, this was something that he could get his head around. A few of the music videos especially stuck with him, “U” by Super Junior because one of the members had long hair and a very pretty outfit and was just very pretty, and if this was something that was cool in Korea, maybe he wouldn’t feel quite as out of place as he had been worried, and “Into the New World” by Girl’s Generation because it just seemed so hopeful.
He watched his way through quite a few music videos, surprised by how much of it there was, maybe an entire movie’s length worth. He wondered if his aunt liked this sort of thing. She was only twelve years older than him, exactly halfway between him and his dad in age. Maybe there was a chance she wouldn’t be so bad. He turned off the in flight entertainment as he started drifting to sleep, worn out.
He didn’t feel like he’d slept enough when the flight attendant woke him up for breakfast, but at least if he stayed awake he’d be on about Korean time. At least it was a decent enough breakfast, rice and vegetables and tea, nothing fancy, but not hard for him to process.
He figured that he’d actually pull out the guidebook to Seoul in Korean that his mother had gotten him, saying maybe he should look at it on the plane. He felt complicated about that, but it was something to be prepared with. He managed to keep himself engaged with that for most of the rest of the flight, including lunch, and all too soon, they were landing.
He’d seen pictures of his aunt, he even vaguely remembered her, but he wasn’t entirely sure he’d recognize her, or honestly that she’d recognize him. Hopefully she’d have a sign or something. He didn’t hurry out to the baggage claim, trying to settle himself for all of this. It was weirdly reassuring to see pictures of some of the groups that he’d seen the MVs of on the plane being used to advertise things. But soon enough, he was there.
He looked around, and a woman who honestly looked a lot like him and was holding a sign that said “Joshua Kim” and under it in hangul read “Kim Jaeseo” was standing by the railing near the baggage claim. She was dressed in bright colors, which was at least something that he had remembered about her. She smiled when she noticed him and waved, and he walked up to her, bowing and saying, “Thank you for coming to meet me Aunt Eunja.”
She smiled and said, “It’s alright Jaeseo-ie. I’m glad you made it safely. Let’s go find your bags and get you home.”
Home. He looked down when she said that, trying not to think about it too hard. It was her home after all, and it would be his at least for a while. He shuffled his feet as his Aunt led the way over to the baggage claim, and he focused then on finding his bags, that was something concrete. His aunt did seem nice though.
She’d not driven to pick him up, which was a strange concept coming from the outer reaches of LA, but she explained to him that the public transit in Seoul actually worked pretty well, and she bought him a transit pass so that he’d be able to use it himself once he got settled in. He was a little bit surprised that she didn’t seem worried about the idea of letting him go places on his own, but he also figured that his dad hadn’t told her the exact why of why he was sending Josh to Seoul.
She chattered during the trip, fortunately not expecting him to say much. She told him about the different parts of the city that they went through, and about where he’d be living, and a little bit about the school nearby where she’d gone to high school herself.
She lived in a two bedroom condo that had originally been her father’s city residence, but when Josh’s dad had been in college, the entire family had moved there, and after Josh’s grandparents had passed away, Aunt Eunja had kept it. It had been cleared and heavily redecorated in the intervening years. His father had never lived there, though he’d stayed from time to time. That was somehow strangely reassuring.
She pointed out some of the places to get cheap food as they were walking up to her building, and then she helped him wrangle one of his bags up four flights of stairs while he dragged the other one, glad that at least his carry on was something that had a strap so he didn’t need to carry it by hand. There were apparently elevators somewhere in the building, but they only sometimes worked.
The condo was nice. The bedroom that was going to be his had clearly been a guest bedroom for a long time, though Josh suspected that Aunt Eunja had occasionally had roommates. She had a nice enough place in a nice enough location that it made sense that she’d have let her friends stay at least sometimes. He suspected that he was probably mucking that up for her. He wished that his dad hadn’t made him her problem.
She told him, “You get settled, I’m going to order take away. Are there any foods you don’t like?”
He shrugged and mumbled, “I’m not super fond of pork, but I’m not picky.”
She nodded and went to the other room to make a phone call. He looked around the main room. He smiled a little bit when he saw posters from various Kpop bands on the wall. He could find common ground. It might not be OK, but it wasn’t going to be unbearable, not completely.
He dragged his bags fully into his bedroom, figuring he might as well unpack properly. It wasn’t that long until Aunt Eunja was standing at the open door, and asked, “Is there anything that I can help you with.”
He looked up at her from where he was sitting on the floor and said, “I’ve actually unpacked all the stuff that’s mine. What’s left in the bag is what appa sent with me to give to you.”
She came in and sat on the other side of the bags from him and looked at it, “You didn’t get to bring a lot of your own stuff, did you?”
He shrugged and looked down, and she said, “Well, I guess that means I’ll have to take you shopping at least some. The trends here are different than in the states, and we’ve got a little while to get you settled, maybe find you some classes to take. Do you play sports? Instruments?”
He kept staring at the ground but said in a small voice, “I was in the choir at school, and did dance club.”
She grinned and said, “I think that we can work with that. There are some cool dance studios near here that do classes, and I’ve always been too intimidated to sign up for adult beginners classes, but it sounds like you wouldn’t be a beginner. And I’m sure I can find somewhere with vocal lessons, or a club choir, or something. You’ll be able to do that through school, but until then, I don’t want you not to get to be around people your age just because there’s a difference in school years.”
He muttered, “You don’t have to do that for me. I know that dad foisted me off on you.”
She laughed, a light airy sound, and said, “Just because oppa had bad reasons for sending you doesn’t mean that I can’t spoil you a little as your aunt. He was always pretty stern with you, and I’m not surprised that something went wrong. He didn’t tell me why he was sending you, and he did tell me he was giving me a stipend for your care, so I’m going to use it on the sorts of things that would annoy him the most.”
Josh’s head shot up and his eyes went wide at that, and Aunt Eunja laughed again and said, “He was a very annoying big brother, you see. He bossed me around but didn’t give me much attention, and he doesn’t talk to me for months and months at a time and then orders me to take care of you. I’m not holding it against you, but while you’re in my care, I’m going to try my best to treat you well and make sure that you have an alright time here.”
Josh gave her a slightly watery smile, glad that him actually crying was interrupted by the arrival of take away. His aunt had ordered a bunch of noodles, and the little differences in take away were strange, but the food was tasty. They sat at the little dining room, and the strangeness of the earlier conversation was broken.
As they finished eating and she did the dishes, she said, “I’m going to watch Music Bank out here, there’s some groups I like performing. You’re welcome to join me, but I’ll understand if you aren’t interested or just want to get some rest. It’s a show where kpop groups and such perform live stages.”
He looked up from his spot at the table and said, tentatively, “I’ll watch it with you.”
She smiled back at him, and he decided yes, this was actually going to be alright.
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
|
Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 5, 2019 1:05:53 GMT -8
[[This story is backdated to 2014.]]
Debut
2014 was a strange year for Josh. It was the year he turned twenty-one (twenty-three Korean age because his birthday was before the Lunar New Year, he still had to remind himself of that). If he’d stayed in the US, it would have been the year he would have been old enough to drink. It would likely have been the year that he graduated college. There were a lot of things that it turned out not to be. During 2014 he finished his sixth year in Korea, and when he’d first been forced to move to live with his aunt, he wouldn’t have believed that he would still be here at twenty-one, not when it had been meant as a punishment.
He’d been a trainee for five of those six years, long enough that it had been his life for what felt like forever some days, but not as long as Kangwan. He worried for Kangwan with their debut announced for the end of the year. Kangwan would be barely fifteen. As for the others, there was Kiwoong (Qiwang) from Taiwan who was still adapting to Korea, but could rap better than Josh already (he was relieved about that, he didn’t like to rap that much), and Shihyun, who had an amazing voice, but was from a conservative enough background that he sometimes made Josh worry. And there had been Hwanseong, who was supposed to be their lead dancer, but he’d dropped his trainee contract and gone home the week after their debut had been announced.
Josh wasn’t sure what the company would do about that at first. Hwanseong had been an important part of the group. Josh was a good dancer and so was Kiwoong, but neither of them were that good, not main dancer level, and Shihyun and Kangwan were vocalists through and through even if they had learned the dances diligently. Dreams Ent was small enough that it would be hard for them to move the debut date, not when they already had the slots paid for, and the song written, and the teams lined up for filming and styling. It was a while yet until the filming, not until the end of November, but Josh was worried. And Dreams Ent was holding what Josh suspected were emergency auditions. If they could find someone who was the right age, and was a talented dancer, and had a passable singing voice, they could throw him into the group, and he could learn the rest along the way.
Josh also knew that this meant that he was for sure going to be the leader. He wasn’t sure that he was ready for that. Hwanseong had been the other option, even though he was a little younger than Josh, around the same age as Shihyun, he was born in Korea, and he’d been training for a long time too. Shihyun was the newest of the trainees though, and if they brought someone in from the emergency auditions, he’d be the newest, barely getting a few months to train before debut. Josh desperately hoped that they could find someone and he would mesh well with the others.
When he was called into the CEO’s office in the middle of October, he hoped that this was for a trainee, and he was rewarded by seeing a young man around his age, just a bit shorter than him, tanned and muscular, standing in the CEO’s office when he came in. The CEO smiled at him and said, “Joshua-shi, this is Yeo Taehoon. As of today, he’s being added to Yuseong as your new dancer. As leader, I expect you to get him settled in and caught up on what you’re working on. He needs to be debut ready in time for recording.”
Josh nodded and bowed politely to Taehoon, “Nice to meet you. I’m Josh, Kim Jaeseo. I’m twenty-three, and the second longest trainee at Dreams Ent. But I’m originally from the US.”
Taehoon bowed in return, and Josh was a little bit surprised at the formality of it when Taehoon responded, “Nice to meet you hyung. I’m Yeo Taehoon, I’m twenty-two. Please watch over me well.”
Taehoon was quiet at first as Josh led him to the dorms and showed him where to put his things, pulling down the spare futon that had been Hwanseong’s from the closet so that a space could be set up for Taehoon to sleep. Taehoon thankfully didn’t have many things to add to their already crowded space. Finally, Taehoon said to him, “I seem like I’m coming in late to all this. You’ve all been training together for a long time.”
Josh shrugged and said, “I’m grateful that you’re here, though the others might have mixed reactions, I can’t make promises. We need a dancer, and I’m assuming that you’re good.”
Taehoon smiled and said, voice slightly tentative, “It’s pretty much what I’m good at in life.”
Josh recognized that slightly wistful tone, but he didn’t bring it up. He hoped that the CEO had known what he was doing. Once Taehoon had put his things away, Josh led him to the practice rooms where the others were working, no struggling, with the choreography. Josh probably had it down the best, but none of them were great at learning from videos with little instruction, and the dance trainer was out of town, and it used to be Hwanseong who’d been the one to figure it out and show the rest of them.
He glanced over at Taehoon and said, “Here, let me show you the choreography guide video. It’s for our debut song, and I’d say that I’d show it to you, but honestly, you’ll probably learn it better from the video. But first, let me introduce you to everyone.”
He called the others over, and they all seemed relieved enough to get a chance to stop the half-hearted dance practice. He said, “Everyone, this is Yeo Taehoon. Taehoon is going to be our new dancer. Taehoon, this is Shihyun, he’s also twenty-two and one of the main vocals. This is Kiwoong, he’s from Taiwan, he’s ninteen, and he does rap and dance, but he’s going to be main rapper. And this is Kangwan, he’s our maknae, and he’s only sixteen, and he’s one of our main vocals. I’m leader, and the one who does a little bit of everything else.”
He wondered if they’d gotten Taehoon a little bit sooner if maybe he could have been leader instead, and let Josh just exist, maybe be considered one of the visuals and the all arounder. But it didn’t matter, they had a month and a half to recording day, and just under two to debut. The focus was for Taehoon to be ready.
He was surprised and relieved that Taehoon was really that good as a dancer. He learned the debut choreography in under three hours and started being able to show it to the rest of them. He was, in fact, a hugely better dancer than Hwanseong had been. Josh was relieved, but he was also relieved to see Taehoon find ways to mesh with the group. It turned out that he was part Chinese, and he occasionally spoke Chinese with Kiwoong, though from the way Kiwoong laughed and switched back to Korean mostly, Taehoon’s Chinese was childish at best. He was the same age as Shihyun, though like Josh, he was in the weird between the beginning of the year and the Lunar New Year, so that was sort of debatable. He asked Kangwan for help with singing, which seemed to please their maknae since he was able to help a much older member. Josh liked Taehoon for his steady head and calmness in helping the others with dance. Also, he cleaned up, and ran errands, and just generally seemed to have the schedule memorized almost immediately.
Josh appreciated Taehoon’s steadiness as debut approached and everyone else was full of nerves. Taehoon helped with the younger members especially, though there was a strange tension between him and Shihyun that Josh didn’t quite understand, though he knew had something to do with Taehoon being Buddhist and Shihyun’s family being Christian, but that was something that he would examine later, and as they got closer and closer to debut, the tension seemed to fade, and they became good friends.
Josh was nervous. A debut was a big deal. The impression that they gave would say a lot about whether they had staying power or didn’t really go much of anywhere. The company was working hard with their teasers to draw attention to them, posting for weeks before debut, showing training clips and covers, and just anything that they could manage to get out there. But despite his worry, everything seemed to go smoothly. Taehoon managed to record his rather limited lines well, despite his worries, nothing was late or behind and before he knew it, they were standing on their first stage. Having it be Music Bank, that first set of stages he’d ever watched with his aunt, and having her actually have managed to be in the live crowd that day, made it seem like a good closure of one stage of his life and movement to the next.
Josh managed not to cry until he was in the little living room of their dorm after the others had gone to bed in the too cramped little bedroom that all five of them shared. The screams for them had been loud, there had been fansites, people had known the chant that they’d released earlier that day. They had fans! He had fans! He didn’t quite know what to make of it.
He was a little bit surprised when a weight settled next to him on the couch, and he glanced up from where he was very quietly crying, curled up in a ball with his knees to his chest and his head buried in his arms. Taehoon was the one who had joined him out there, but he didn’t say anything at first. Josh was glad, though a little bit surprised at the quiet companionship, and Taehoon said finally, “You led us really well hyung, thank you. It’s OK to show us when you need help though.”
Josh smiled at him hesitantly, eyes not done with crying, and said softly, “Thanks. I don’t want to worry the younger ones though.”
Taehoon scooted a little closer to him on the couch and leaned their shoulders together, silently supportive, and said, “I get that. You can let me know though. You don’t have to be burdened by stuff alone.”
Josh didn’t say anything, but he didn’t pull away from the touch like he might have most other times. He was glad to have Taehoon there. Taehoon had the strong, manly, almost sexy image of the group, and he was in some ways shown as the serious one to fans, especially since he’d already completed his military service, but Josh was most grateful for his gentleness like this. Finally, as he was able to stop crying, he said, “I think that I should get some sleep.”
They headed to the bedroom together in silence, and Josh claimed his top bunk, glad for the privacy that it awarded him. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel fully sure of himself, that he wouldn’t let his secrets slip, but he could support the others, and he knew that they had his back too, even if he didn’t really want to show his weaknesses.
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 5, 2019 2:03:15 GMT -8
[[This story is backdated to early 2015.]]
A Friend He Could Trust
Three months after debut, after an honestly surprisingly good debut that came with invitations to appear on shows and a few endorsement deals, there was finally some quiet in their schedule. Dreams Ent had made a deal with Mnet to do a small web show of them going on a vacation, but they had a few weeks before that, and they would start preparing for a first comeback after that. Josh was excited. He also didn’t know what to do with himself.
He’d visited his aunt the first day that he had free time, and they’d gotten dinner, and he he’d met a few of her friends (and possibly a boyfriend, but that hadn’t been clear). He was back in the dorms soon enough though. Most of them had never even left. The break wasn’t long enough for Kiwoon to go back to Taiwan, and Shiyung seemed to avoid going home. Taehoon had visited with his sister who went to school nearby, and Kangwan had visited with his family, but no one seemed to have decided to stay at home for a longer stretch than a few days though.
Even so, Kiwoon was busy with school stuff, and Shihyung was trying to see how many hours one human could spend sleeping. Kangwan was the one spending the most time with his family, and also he had been working with their producer to start learning to compose. Josh was happy for him because he seemed really excited about it. That left Josh and Taehoon puttering about the dance training room together with no one else for company. It was the first time that they’d really just been around each other the two of them since Josh had cried in front of Taehoon, and Taehoon had already solidified himself in the group as the peace keeper and the wrangler of difficult personalities. He made Josh’s job as leader infinitely easier.
He was a little bit surprised that Taehoon hadn’t started working on a different dance immediately after they’d finished their joint workout. Taehoon tried to stay on top of the new and interesting choreo because he’d gotten a bit of attention for being able to do random play dances of currently popular music reliably, and he didn’t want to lose that edge. Instead, he was staring at the outline for the vacation show that they’d been given, consternation clear on his face.
Josh sat down beside Taehoon, though he continued to stretch so that Taehoon wouldn’t scold him, and asked, “What’s the matter?”
Taehoon looked up, somewhat startled and said, “It’s just a lot to read in preparation for what is basically supposed to be us going and having fun.”
He sounded dismissive about it, but Josh looked at the little sheaf of papers in confusion. It wasn’t that long, though the print was a little small, as he’d discovered trying to read it in bed the night before with his glasses off. Before could figure out what to ask, Taehoon shrugged and added, “I’ve never been good at reading and school sorts of stuff.”
Josh was actually confused now. This was Taehoon who could memorize three weeks worth of schedule in five minutes when it was told to him. This was Taehoon who had clear, easy to follow speech and was praised for speaking well on shows. This was Taehoon who learned new choreography like a sponge and had gone from very weak English to comfortable conversational level in three months of working with Josh. He was baffled enough to ask, “You weren’t good at school?”
Taehoon shrugged and looked a touch defensive when he said, “Why do you think that I went to the military right out of high school? I’d barely passed almost all my classes. I got a good grade in Chinese, but that was it, and I had a head start on my classmates.”
Josh did know that Taehoon’s sister was studying to be a teacher, and that most of his family worked in education somehow or other. That had come up. Thinking back on it, Taehoon almost never answered written questions on shows first, waiting for someone else to talk about it first and generally read the question out loud. He didn’t wear glasses or contacts, and he didn’t seem to need to, unlike Josh, so it wasn’t that he’d just been trying to not squint awkwardly at question boards.
Taehoon grumbled, “I’m pretty sure that at this point Qiwang reads faster in Korean than I do.”
Josh remembered some of his friends from school in the US, and he asked, slightly awkward, “Do you think you might be dyslexic or something?”
Taehoon looked so utterly baffled at his question, that Josh went on to explain, “Uh, dyslexia, it’s a learning disability that sometimes gives people trouble with seeing letters and words in the right order or shapes and words in the right direction. I don’t know the details, but it makes it harder for people to read a lot of the time. I know there are some other similar learning disabilities, but you learn things super fast, that’s why I was so confused.”
Taehoon looked thoughtful and said, “That honestly seems more plausible than my uncle’s explanation.”
From the way he said it, Josh suspected that Taehoon’s uncle, he was guessing Taehoon’s paternal uncle who’d suggested he go into the military, not the maternal uncle who was a monk, had started and ended that explanation with something along the lines of Taehoon being stupid and not trying hard enough.
Josh asked as an idea dawned on him, “Do you want me to see if I can find any video resources on it in Korean?”
Taehoon smiled at him, clearly intrigued by the idea and said, “If it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, yeah, that would be kind of cool. I’m curious but I wouldn’t know where to start looking honestly.”
Josh leaned back on the wall next to Taehoon, done stretching for now, and said, “I’ll look into it. I bet I can find something, and maybe it would be useful. If you want, though, I’m fine just going over things like this with the whole group so that you don’t have to be put on the spot. Honestly it would probably be easier on Kiwoong too. Or if that doesn’t work out, I can read things aloud for you. It’s not like I’d really have to go over it twice. I’ve seen how fast you memorize the schedules.”
Taehoon said, “The group thing sounds nice. I don’t have to bring it up with the others if we make a habit of it, so if you’re not here for something, someone else will pick it up, or I can just delgate the reading aloud to someone with a pretty voice. Make Kangwan-ie do it or something.”
Josh chuckled at that, and then, Taehoon was back up and asking, “Want to learn a girl group dance with me, Nunpyobeom-hyung.”
Josh laughed and scrambled up to join him. He kind of adored the nickname of “Snow Leopard” that the fans had given him, and it amused him even more that Taehoon would sometimes use it teasingly with him. It made him feel like maybe, even if he couldn’t bring himself to tell Taehoon his secrets and fears just yet, he had a real friend, about his age and everything, again for the first time in a long time.
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Tutor, Translator, Driver, and Assistant Manager at Dreams Ent.
Gay.
Dating Kangwan.
02/04/1999.
23.
Tiger (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Thomas Fan Qiwang on Nov 7, 2019 2:32:17 GMT -8
[[This is dated to the beginning (right after classes started) of the fall 2019 term at Seoul National University.]]
Mentoring Week Thomas had originally been planning on holding off on doing the mentoring for his scholarship program until his third or fourth year, when the program coordinator had told him going in that most people did the week of mentoring for incoming students on the scholarship at the beginning of a term. Instead, here he was getting ready to do it at the very start of his second year in Korea. A few situations had occurred that had made it make sense to go ahead and get it dealt with and out of the way.
He was living off campus now, moved into an apartment about halfway between Seoul National University and the Dreams Ent building with Remi as a roommate. He knew that the longer he lived off campus, the less well he would be able to do the mentorship program, not that he’d necessarily ever been super involved with parties and the like on campus, but he also knew that he would be around less.
There was also the element of getting more and more involved in his job at Dreams Ent. He had already dropped the tutoring position that he had been working at a study cafe not far off campus because it just didn’t make sense with the rest of his schedule. He spent a good chunk of his time over at the Dreams Ent building, between being Tai’s adult in Korea, doing translating and study help for trainees, and slowly just getting handed more and more managerial duties in the company (especially now that he was regularly taking Taehoon and Tai to temple). Getting set up to drive the members in the company car had really been the tipping point of that, and he’d started showing up in the background of photos more regularly than he absolutely loved.
Inkar had given him shit about it. It was kind of funny. He was kind of relieved though that he’d showed up in far more of Taehoon’s pictures than Kangwan’s, all things considered. While some people on the internet had already made the connection between him as part of Kangwan’s study group in high school and the translator at the Dreams Ent Trainee Camp and the apparent new manager and driver for Yuseong, he didn’t want something to happen that would get Kangwan in trouble. He was very conscious that there was a slightly terrifying fine line there.
Added to that, there had been a frantic email to all second years in the program and above that they’d had a larger number of people than expected starting that term, and they needed at least one more mentor to do their mentoring that term. It said that priority would be given to first time mentors wanting to complete the requirement, but they’d take people interested in mentoring again. Thomas had decided that getting it out of the way for the two weeks needed to finish it was a good idea, he’d have to do it at some point, and he was just going to keep getting busier.
He was glad that he had some Korean friends on campus these days. Hilariously, most of them were actually at least on the margins of the groups of Yuseong fans because he’d started interacting with the more reasonable seeming fans to wrangle them around making sure that Qiwang didn’t have people distracting him in class. Kim Misuk, who he shared a bunch of classes with and ran a Taehoon fansite, had actually turned into a decent friend, which had surprised him. It had cemented his comfort level with her when Taehoon had recognized her name and told him that she was one of the fans he recognized because she came to a lot of events, but was always very respectful about personal space and boundaries. She had also been in every single one of Thomas’s classes second term, and she was in pretty much every mentoring group on campus that she qualified for. When he’d mentioned doing the mentoring for his scholarship, she’d offered to help him with showing his mentees around some of the nearby district from a Korean perspective, and when he’d run it by the program coordinator, she’d been thrilled with the idea, so he’d been relieved to be able to tell Misuk that he’d take her up on the offer.
Today though, he was meeting his mentee group and giving them a tour of the campus. Since he’d told Dreams Ent that he would need to be on campus for full days for the two weeks that he was doing the mentoring program, he didn’t have to rush off after his classes, and that was a nice change of pace. Mornings on campus and afternoons and evenings at Dreams Ent certainly worked, and he was often able to get his own school work done in between other tasks at the company, but it was still very busy. He wouldn’t have traded the opportunity in for anything, but it was nice to get a few weeks of mostly being a more normal college student.
He’d arranged to meet his mentees in the lounge of the international dorm that they were all living in. There were four of them, all Chinese or English speakers primarily (or both), though they had a decent level of Korean proficiency. He’d read over their little mentor matching profiles, and they seemed like a good fit. They were all four either interested in education programs or Asian languages and cultures programs, which meant that he could actually show them around their target departments at least a little. The two girls were from Singapore and Taiwan, and the two boys were from Australia and Malaysia.
He hovered in the doorway for a minute, observing them before they noticed him, and suddenly was struck with the feeling of dread that this was going to be way harder than he was expecting. One of the girls was dressed in a rather cutesy style that seemed popular here, and it seemed like everything that she was carrying was covered in Yuseong merch. But not just any Yuseong merch, Kangwan merch. In general, Thomas liked Kangwan’s fans existing, but everything he’d seen and heard in managerial mode is that Kangwan’s fans were among the youngest and most enthusiastic, but also sometimes the most difficult. He wondered if there was a sliver of hope that she wouldn’t recognize him.
He sighed and braced himself. Introductions time. He put on his most practiced dealing with people smile and strode into the room, managing not to ruin the image by flinching when all four of them turned to stare at him. He smiled harder and said, “Hello, I’m your mentor, Thomas Fan Qiwang. It’s Kiwoong in Korean though, so I’ll answer to any of Thomas, Qiwang, or Kiwoong. I’m a math education and comparative Asian cultures double major, and I’ve just started my second year. I’m from the US, near Seattle, Washington, but I’m Taiwanese-American and Korean is my third language after Mandarin and English. Can I put some names to faces?”
He was relieved that he’d managed to keep his tone friendly and upbeat, though it had sounded incredibly fake to his own ears. He could see the slight look of shock on Yuseong fan girl’s face, and he was glad that the others weren’t looking at her right then. One of the boys volunteered first, “I’m Nickolas Cho, but you can call me Nick, or my Korean name, Yeongi. I’m Korean-Australian, but my Korean’s honestly kind of shit, so I’ve been having to practice. I’m planning to major in Korean cultural studies.”
The other girl followed him with, “I’m Li Honghua, and I’m from Taiwan. Fortunately, my name is pronounced about the same in Korean as it is in Chinese. I speak English too though. I’m here for the comparative Asian cultures program.”
The second boy added, “I’m Lin Boyang, which apparently ends up as Lim Payang via hanja, which I will probably get used to eventually, though my friends at home call me Yangyang sometimes, so I might just use that. I’m here for the general education program.”
Finally, the Yuseong fangirl introduced herself, and Thomas felt a little bit bad for how relieved he was that she kept her introduction in line with the others, but he could see the suppressed curiosity seeming to come off her in waves. She said, “I’m Xu Meijing. Which apparently makes me Seo Mijeong in Korean. I’m from Singapore, and I speak English and Chinese too. I’m here for the general education major as well!”
She seemed excitable, but she also seemed happy to meet the others, and not ready to explode fandom all over him, which Thomas was relieved for. He hadn’t been prepared. He figured that he would make sure that she actually spent some time with Misuk, who was good at being a restraining influence on overexuberent fans who had their hearts in the right place.
Things went pretty smoothly for the first part of the day. He showed them around the campus, pointing out useful things like the closest coffee shops to where a lot of their classes would be and introducing them to a few professors who he knew that they would have classes with. He had been planning to wrap up the day with going to one of the coffee shops just off campus with decent tea and getting them to all sit down and chat. He was proud of them for all keeping up with at least trying to use Korean, even if there were frequent smatterings of English as they tried to figure out what they were trying to say. He was dreading this a little bit because it was the moment where they had been encouraged to ask why their mentees had decided to apply to school in Korea. He’d nearly panicked over that question as a mentee, but he was dreading it even more as a mentor.
He had to do it anyhow though. He brought them to the cafe, and settled them all with their drinks at a table in the corner near the windows. He let the chatter flow for a while, before he turned the conversation back to the program, and finally, asked, “What made all of you interested in coming to a program in Korea specifically?”
Honghua, who’d generally been on the quieter end, surprised him by responding first, “I was interested in studying abroad because I eventually want to go into international relations, specifically in Asia, and I figured that of my options, Korea was the best fit in terms of programs that I liked. I did apply to a few places in Japan too though, but this was my first choice, and I actually started studying Korean at the start of high school because this was my goal.”
He smiled, a little bit more relaxed after getting an answer like that. Honghua seemed focused and determined, and he hoped that it would be a good grounding point if the four of his mentees decided to keep hanging out with each other.
Boyang replied next, “Similar idea but for a different career. I want to teach in rural schools, and I wanted to go abroad for a program, and the program here is good, and I kind of wanted to stay in Asia. Plus, the scholarship is amazing.”
Thomas nodded, he understood that. It had been what had tipped him towards Seoul National University in particular that they had such a good scholarship program for foreign students wanting to study in Korea.
Nick laughed and told them, “It was my eomma’s idea honestly. She didn’t love that my siblings and I had kind of lost a lot of our Korean as we’d gotten older, and I was interested in doing cultural studies stuff, so she told me I should apply to school in Korea for it. I’m pretty excited, this is a big adventure, and I actually got to meet some family that I’d only heard about before when I got here.”
Thomas nodded and finally, it was Meijing’s turn. She bounced a little bit in place and then said, “Well, I got interested in Korea first because of Kpop, but um, as I started learning more, I realized it seemed like a really cool place, and I wanted to actually learn more. So since I wanted to get my degree abroad, and I’d already started learning some Korean, it seemed like a really fun option.”
It was a restrained answer, probably mostly because the others were more academic focused. Thomas managed to smile through it and said, “Sounds like all of you have some stuff that you’re interested in doing and seeing, and we’ll definitely make sure to try to connect you to clubs and activities that will suit your interests.”
He didn’t want to touch a discussion about Yuseong in this context, so he was glad that Meijing had kept it general, though he figured anyone who knew much Kpop knew what group she liked just by being in a room with her. It was a little bit disconcerting to keep seeing Kangwan’s face on her bag.
Once they finished their teas and coffees, it was finally time for Thomas to take them back to campus, where he was planning to release them to go about their days at their dorm. He wasn’t surprised when as he headed in the direction of the station at the other side of campus, Meijing tagged along, claiming an errand in the same direction and wanting to see how to get to transit from the dorms a second time. Once they were out of earshot from the others, she asked, almost breathless, “You are the same Thomas as the one in Kangwan-ie’s photos and Taehoon-oppa’s right? You know Yuseong?”
Thomas sighed, he’d known that he wasn’t going to get away with not having this conversation before he could drop her in front of Misuk-noona and say Help! He managed to say calm as he replied, “Yeah, that’s me.”
He heard the excited intake of breath as she proceeded to gush out, “Oh my goodness, do you think that maybe you could help me get photos with them? Like Kangwan-ie especially, but all of them. Qiwang goes to this school, right?!”
Thomas sighed again and said, “There’s a fansign coming up in not too long. There’s still even slots open. You should try to sign up for them through the company website if you’re interested.”
He drew a steadying breath and added, “Qiwang-ge goes to this school, but when he’s here, he’s trying to learn, so he doesn’t like being disturbed in class.”
He couldn’t wait to make her Misuk-noona’s problem. She was better at this than Thomas. He was just good on finding the right people to talk to for addressing the issue. Meijing was pouting at him and said, “What are they all like? You’re so lucky to get to hang out with them.”
Thomas was glad that he was able to maintain outward calm well now. He replied, “They’re a lot like they seem on screen. Look, I can help you with information on how to sign up for things like fansigns and music show slots, but it’s part of my job to help with their privacy.”
He spotted his bus arriving and said, “I’ve got to catch that bus. I’ll see you for the mentorship meeting tomorrow.”
He was relieved that she didn’t follow him, and it was only second hand fan interaction. He could only imagine what it must be like to go to school with that as constant background noise. He was glad that he’d managed to get a lot of Qiwang-ge’s fans to back off and let him have his educational space. He knew that she had to have more depth than that little conversation let on. She was here for the education program. That had to mean something.
He texted Misuk-noona, and said, “I acquired a Kangwan fan-duckling in my mentees.”
He got a laughing react from her, and then a reply, “I’ll make sure to be on time tomorrow and rescue you. Most of them are sweet, over enthusiastic kids.”
He replied, “I appreciate you.”
Which he got another laughing react for. He wasn’t going to tell Kangwan yet. He had to swing by his apartment to pick a few things up, and then he had a tutoring session that evening at Dreams Ent. He had to do his job and make sure that Seoji didn’t fail English.
The next day came what felt like all too soon. He was glad that it was a day that Qiwang-ge wasn’t on campus because he didn’t know yet if Meijing was going to be a problem. He didn’t think she was going to be a problem, but he’d been doing enough manager tasks that it concerned him. Getting her under Misuk-noona’s wing would alleviate that concern a lot. He also shared his last class of the day with Misuk-noona, so they just walked to the courtyard where he’d told his mentees to meet them together.
All four of his mentees had beaten them there, and he was unsurprised that Meijing was just as bedecked in Yuseong merch as she had been the day before. Misuk-noona said, “Oh, I think I’ve spotted your duckling. I see why you sounded so flustered yesterday. That’s a lot.”
Thomas told her, “I’m holding you to saying that you’d rescue me.”
She laughed at him and said, “Well, let's go give all of your ducklings the local tour.”
He led her over to where the four of them were standing around chatting. They all stopped to great him, and he told them, “This is my friend Kim Misuk. She’s going to be helping me give you a local’s perspective of around campus. Misuk-noona, these are Cho Yeongi from Australia, Lee Honghwa from Taiwan, Lim Yangyang from Malaysia, and Seo Mijeong from Singapore.”
Misuk-noona led them on a tour, pointing things out, from how to tell tourist-traps apart from good places to eat, and what some of the cool things to see around were. She pointed out where to get good cheap food, with Thomas occasionally chiming in. Once they’d made their way most of the way around campus, Misuk-noona led them to a little cafe that Thomas usually only went to if he was meeting up with one of the Yuseong members near campus. Misuk-noona told them, “This is a great place to people watch, especially if you’re into Kpop because it’s a place that a lot of fans like to meet up and some idols show up from time to time. They play a lot of good music, and the boba’s really good, and if you ever want to, the loft room has a big screen and usually shows music videos and stuff.”
Thomas wasn’t surprised to see Meijing light up at this information, and also clearly seem to recognize the place. Pretty much all of the members of Yuseong had taken pictures in here at least once, and Josh’s aunt had used it as a photoshoot location once for one of the clothing lines that the Yuseong members had modeled for. It was a cute cafe, and part of the reason that Yuseong wasn’t the only idol group that frequented it is that it had somewhat private booths and ownership that was good about siding with people who wanted privacy.
As they collected their boba, he heard Meijing asked Misuk-noona excitedly, “Misuk-unnie, do you like Kpop?”
Misuk-noona smiled at her and said, “Yeah. I run a fansite, for Taehoon-oppa. It’s important to make sure that you balance it with your studies, and if you see them out places, you’re respectful of their space, but you can definitely manage seeing them live and going to a lot of their events while doing school. I’ll introduce you to some of the other fans who go here if you want.”
Thomas let out a palpable sigh of relief as Meijing fell into conversation with Misuk-noona about fandom things, clearly hanging on to every word Misuk-noona said and knowing her fansite by the photos. Misuk-noona was a good friend partially because she had immediately become his best active fan wrangler among the fans because she’d understood why it was important. It was funny how much alike she was in personality to Taehoon-hyung, but he supposed it made sense.
After they’d dropped his mentees off at their dorm, he walked Misuk-noona back to her own, and on the way said, “Thank you for handling that. I’m a lot less concerned that it could develop into an issue now.”
Misuk-noona laughed and said, “She’s enthusiastic, but not malicious. It’ll be fine. I’ll make sure that she gets fansign tickets and makes it to a music show at least once, and she’ll settle down or she’ll get organized, and either way she’ll make fan friends.”
He sighed and said, “Why’d I have to get a Kangwan fan? One of the highest chances of recognizing my face, and one of the lowest chances of being chill about it.”
She laughed at him and said, “Something had to not work out for you sometime. You’ve been having a lot of things go well. This seems like a minor inconvenience overall.”
He sighed and said, “I guess. I owe you one though. Thanks.”
She grinned at him and said, “I’ll hold you to that. I’ll have to think of a really creative favor.”
He knew that she was mostly teasing, but he was glad that he knew that Misuk-noona had extremely good boundaries in general. Creative favors weren’t ever things that would cause Yuseong problems from her.”
The crisis appeared to be basically averted. Meijing asked him some more open ended questions about Yuseong over the course of the mentor time, but she didn’t pry, and Misuk-noona told him that she’d been meeting up with some of the other Yuseong fans on campus regularly.
He was relieved the first day that he was back to heading straight to Dreams Ent after lunch though. He messaged Kangwan saying, “So, I’ve finally met one of your fans at school, and she was in my mentoring group. I’ll tell you all about it, and how my friend at school who’s a Taehoon fansite basically saved my ass, later.”
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 12, 2019 21:30:12 GMT -8
Watching Ships
Josh kept track of a lot of things about Yuseong. He was the leader, so it was kind of his job. Yeah, the company kept track of their image and their PR, but after a certain point, it was up to each member of the group to make their own decisions about how to present themselves within those constraints. He was also just curious about how the fans saw them, and he wanted to watch out for things that could cause scandals.
He’d gotten a feel for each member’s core fandoms pretty early on, though they changed a little bit over time. Kangwan had the youngest fans, unsurprising since he was the youngest, and they were generally the loudest and most energetic. Kiwoong had one of the larger international fandoms, with a lot of Chinese speaking fans especially, and he had a lot of visual fans, especially a lot of fans who seemed amused by the contrast between him being considered part of the visual line of the group while also tending to have the sloppiest dress when allowed to dress himself. Shihyun’s fans were also loud, but they tended to like his slightly “bad boy” rebellious image and were generally a little bit older than Kangwan’s.
Taehoon’s fans had befuddled him a little bit at first. There were fewer of them, though he seemed to be a common second favorite member. He had a nearly even split of fangirls and fanboys which was a little bit surprising, but did explain to Josh why they had such good male viewership numbers (that had gotten them several ad deals, so he wasn’t complaining). Taehoon’s fans ran on the older end, and they ran on the calmer end. They were the ones who showed up to fansigns with a neatly organized bag of gifts from other fans along with their own, and were generally the best behaved. In a way, it made sense. Taehoon’s fans were the most like him among their fans. He also had a lot of international fans, especially in South East Asia and among Chinese speaking fans.
Josh’s own fandom didn’t surprise him all that much. It seemed to be a split between fans that had a fair amount in common with Taehoon’s fans, though a bit louder and a little bit older, most of whom seemed to like him because he was the leader and multi-talented. And then, he also had the visual line fans. They ran younger, louder, and generally more stressful. He did what he could to appeal to and cater to all of them though.
Ships were another thing that he paid attention to, partially out of personal curiosity, and partially out of fear of being found out in a general sense. He paid even more attention after Kangwan came out to the group because then it was not even about just him being found out. (Though he worried about it less after he got to know Thomas. Thomas was good at being private.)
The single most popular ship was probably Shihyun and Taehoon. They were the same age, shared a room once Yuseong moved into a bigger dorm, and were best friends. They would playfully bicker, and Taehoon did play the ship up a little bit because he liked to make Shihyun squirm and the fans thought it was funny. Or at least, that had been how he’d explained it to Josh, though Josh wasn’t entirely sure that there wasn’t some weird mutual crush going on there that neither of them quite understood.
Taehoon and Josh himself were probably the next most popular ship. That one made Josh smile a little bit, though he was also a little nervous about it because he was close to Taehoon, and if he ever did get found out, he didn’t want it to spill over on Taehoon in a way that would hurt him. Maybe in different circumstances, he would have gotten a crush on Taehoon eventually, but he considered the slightly younger man his friend and nothing else.
Kangwan and Kiwoong was probably the next most commonly shipped ship, though it was a pretty steep drop off. They mostly seemed to be paired together because they were the two youngest and were roommates. Josh had never been concerned about that ship getting weird.
Kiwoong and Taehoon as a ship wasn’t that far behind that one, and that one seemed to lean mostly on the fact that Taehoon was the other member who spoke some Chinese, and he tended to fuss over the younger ones. It weirdly impressed Josh how many of the even vaguely popular ships were with Taehoon.
Because especially once Kangwan had grown up a little bit, Kangwan and Taehoon had started to get shipped at least some. Josh was a little bit baffled by that one, but it probably came down to the fact that the two of them were the most naturally physically affectionate members of the group, so it wasn’t that uncommon to see Kangwan clinging to Taehoon’s arm, especially in crowded places, and Taehoon was very protective of their maknae.
He was relieved in a weird way that the only person he got shipped with at any frequency was Taehoon though. It made things simpler because he could do fanservice with Taehoon without completely panicking. He and Shihyun both panicked and it just didn’t come across well, and he saw Kangwan and Kiwoong as the team babies that he had to look out for. Taehoon was a comfortably cuddly affectionate person. Even so, he’d seen several pictures among their English speaking fandom labeling Taehoon “confident gay” and himself “panicked gay.” The first time he’d seen it, the label had been extremely accurate, and then he’d done a little bit of digging and realized it was a meme, and then he’d had to laugh at himself a little bit for how accurate it was where he was concerned. It got used a lot more on Taehoon and Shihyun than on Taehoon and himself, which was half a relief and half made him wonder if the fans were actually noticing something real.
There was a part of him that laughed at the fact that the most consistently and comfortably affectionate member was the one seen as the reserved and serious one just because he was the quietest member. Josh was the one who kept more secrets, though mostly the big one, than he quite knew what to do with. He was loud and boisterous in front of the fans and in group settings, though, especially when the members really got going.
Reading comments and commentary in fandom spaces wasn’t always fun. He saw the hate comments and the stressful comments. He tried his best to shelter the rest of the group from that, especially the younger ones.
He was still glancing through his notes and looking over comments on their most recent video when a knock came at his bedroom door. He went over to the door and opened it a touch, finding Taehoon on the other side. He smiled, and Taehoon said, “Mind if I come in and chat hyung?”
Josh let him in and closed the door behind him. Taehoon took a seat on his bed, the only place besides the desk chair in the room. Taehoon glanced at what he was doing and asked, “Checking comments again?”
Josh nodded. He’d explained what he did to Taehoon a while back, and Taehoon had listened to the concerns that he’d voiced when they’d come up. Sometimes he’d disagreed with Josh on how to address them, but he’d always listened. Taehoon shuffled his feet across the floor a bit as he asked, “Any notable developments?”
Josh considered what he’d told people in the past, and laughingly told his friend, “You’ve completed your popular ship collection. There are now popular fansites for you with Kangwan.”
Taehoon laughed and put his face in his hand, mumbling, “I did notice that there was a lot of cooing and shrieking going on in the crowd when Kangwan latched onto my arm the other day. That would explain it.”
Josh laughed a little bit too, relieved that Taehoon honestly just seemed amused by all of this. Taehoon’s level of chill was calming in itself. Josh closed out of the comments, leaving a few new notes in his running document, and came over and sat next to his friend on the bed. He added, “You do have another rumor going right now. Did you see the articles about you having your own manager and getting a solo debut maybe? I think that they didn’t get a ton of traction, especially not after Thomas started getting spotted driving other members from time to time, but you’re definitely the person he drives places solo the most.”
Taehoon laughed a little bit and shook his head ruefully, “Yeah, Thomas showed me those. He wanted to make sure that I knew and ask if there was anyone that he should let know in the company. I told him not to, since I know that the company monitors for content about us, and they’d either decide that it was worth addressing or not.” Josh nodded and said, “That makes sense. And there wasn’t a ton of buzz, though, what there was seemed positive if a bit confused.”
Taehoon flopped backwards on the bed and said, “I’m glad that they didn’t get worked up about it. Then the company would have had to give some sort of response, and either I’d be pulled away from the work I’m doing for the next promotion at least some, or they’d upset the fans.”
Josh knew that Taehoon had been spending a lot of time on their choreography, and dragging people to practice dance sections, and he’d been helping to mentor the new trainees. Josh hadn’t been as involved, though he didn’t mind helping them from time to time. His first responsibility was to Yuseong though. He asked, “How’s choreography going?”
Taehoon grinned up at him and replied, “Nearly done. I’m glad that they let me actually just borrow Tai to help with it. He’s really good. I suspect that the trainees are all going to end up with self choreographed content because he and Seojin, the girls’ leader, are both actually good at it, though Tai’s got more training designing it I think. Kid’s going to get his first choreography credit at twelve. It’s a little nuts.”
Josh laughed at Taehoon’s rambling. He’d been quite impressed with Tai at the audition camp, and the kid kept showing new talents. Josh figured he shouldn’t have been so surprised that Taehoon was attached to the kids. Taehoon’s younger sister, who was pretty much his best friend, was a middle school teacher, and Taehoon would sometimes pass along stories from her classes to the rest of the group fondly. Now he had his own batch of kids to watch out for in the trainees, and he was clearly enjoying the opportunity.
They ended up hanging out quietly for a while. Josh was loud in his day to day life, but his room was his quiet space, and he appreciated that Taehoon understood that and respected it. It was why Taehoon was the only person who got to hang out in his room with any frequency.
Sometimes he wondered if he should tell Taehoon that he was gay, just get it out in the open with someone who he trusted. But he felt bad because he hadn’t told Kangwan when Kangwan had come to him so worried. And he didn’t have a good answer why.
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
|
Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 12, 2019 21:31:59 GMT -8
Where Does the Future Lead
At an interview earlier in the day, they’d been asked a question that Josh should have been expecting to come up sometime soon, but that he’d not even been thinking about: “You’ve been a group for five years already. Where do you think that the next five years will take you?”
There were hidden questions in that. Would they all renew their contracts after the seventh year? (That was a tricky one, especially since their contracts didn’t actually all come up at the same time.) When would the Korean from Korea members have to enlist? What would Kiwoong do when he finally graduated university? (That was a long slow process since he was taking one or two classes at a time.) It was something that Josh tried not to think about too much though.
He’d laughed and said cheerfully, “Five years is a long time! Look how much we’ve grown and changed in the past five years, especially Kangwan-ie. I hope that we will still be growing and changing together as a group at that time.”
He’d kind of tuned out the others’ responses, though most of them were relatively similar to his own. He’d gotten really good at fan facing responses and faces, but now that he was at home and theoretically relaxing, he was worrying about it.
His own contract would be up first since he’d started modeling about a year before debut, and had technically signed an artist contract then, but he was pretty sure that Dreams Ent would either ask him to extend his contract to match up with the rest, or would ask them all to re-sign when his was up. He suspected ask him to extend. Kangwan’s contract on the other hand, had been delayed by about a year by his absence (even though the absence itself had been longer than that, that had been the deal that had been worked out, especially with him joining them intermittently for activities). Josh had no problems with the idea of signing again if the others were also doing so, but if Dreams Ent didn’t suggest it, he would suggest the extension when the time came.
Military service was another thing. Taehoon had already done his, and Kiwoong would at some point have to do his Taiwanese military service, but that was shorter. It was the sort of thing where he might miss a comeback, or they might do a subunit while he was gone. Josh being from the US, and not having started seeking Korean citizenship, didn’t have to do military service. When he’d signed with Dreams Ent as a trainee, he’d discussed it with the company and his aunt. He wasn’t sure if he’d want to stay, even if he had a very successful career, even if he stayed for a while yet, he wasn’t ready to commit to the idea of changing his citizenship, and he figured that that would be a bridge he’d half to start figuring out if he wanted to cross at the point that they decided if they’d continue.
Shihyun and Kangwan would both have to eventually serve their Korean military service time though. Shihyun’s was creeping up faster than Josh was entirely comfortable with when he thought about it, but at least their two main vocals were far enough apart in age that they probably wouldn’t be gone at the same time. There was an even better chance that they would not have a main vocal gap if Kangwan actually went back to school for undergrad the way he’d been discussing.
He was most scared though of the question of whether the others would want to re-sign and keep on as Yuseong. A lot of groups didn’t survive past the end of their first contract, especially if they’d never had a win. He didn’t know what the other’s plans for the future were exactly though. There was Kiwoong of course, bit by bit earning his degree, and eventually planning to go for a graduate degree, and then work on rockets. Being an idol was paying his way through university, and giving him a chance to do something else that he loved in the process, but he already had goals and hopes beyond being an idol.
He suspected that someday, Shihyun would go solo, all things considered. Solo artists had a much longer career cycle than idol groups. It was a slightly slower paced career, with more control over how often there were performances, and it was more focused on the art of it. Shihyun most of all wanted to sing though, so Josh was pretty sure that he’d be willing to keep going for another contract. It would give him longer to establish fans and start developing a solo career on the side.
Kangwan was a bit of a mystery to him. Kangwan had comeback, and he loved being an idol. Josh wasn’t too worried about him being interested in signing again because he was still so young. He hadn’t figured out the rest of his life yet. It was Kangwan’s military service that really worried him in some ways. People seemed to grow up, figure out a little bit more what they wanted, during their military service. He was afraid that Kangwan would come back from that and be ready to move on from being an idol in a group. Maybe he’d become a soloist and go back and forth between living in the US with his boyfriend and producing in Korea. Josh worried more now that Kangwan had the boyfriend that that would happen. He liked Thomas a lot. Thomas was good for Kangwan, and he was a nice person too. Josh didn’t know the other young man that well, but with how mature Thomas was, it was a little bit surprising that he and Kangwan weren’t far apart in age at all, less than a year of age difference, though in Korean age, Thomas was older.
Taehoon was the only one he’d actually talked about with this at all. When Kangwan was still in the US, and it wasn’t clear what was going to happen, they’d talked about it late one night. Taehoon had told him that as long as he was able to start choreographing, he wanted to stay an idol as long as he could, and eventually start doing choreography for other groups. He might teach dance someday too, but dance was all he’d ever really wanted to do. Taehoon had laughed and added, “Maybe when I’m actually old, like grandparent age at least, I’ll go be a monk, but I’m not like my uncle on that one.”
Josh had smiled at the thought, wondering how strange it might be to be an old person and run into a monk who had once been one of your favorite idols, but that was something that Taehoon wasn’t thinking of doing soon, even remotely, and maybe not ever. Josh knew that Taehoon was sticking around. Maybe that by itself would be enough to convince him to sign again. He could imagine a universe where he and Taehoon were a pretty successful duo if they were the only ones who stayed. He didn’t want that, he liked being a Yuseong member too much, but he could imagine it.
When Josh thought about himself though, he drew a blank. He’d come to Korea with his dreams seemingly broken. He’d not known what he wanted to do, but before that, he’d wanted to be something his parents would be proud of but that he’d still be OK doing. He’d been considering something in a math or science field. While in theory he could go back and do college, and he might yet, he’d set himself on a completely different course. He’d gone to an arts high school and majored in stage arts, basically a combination of skills for idols. He’d gotten good enough grades that he could probably manage getting into college, though he might have an easier time back in the states by doing community college first. He’d talked with Thomas about that briefly because Kangwan had mentioned that Thomas had gotten a two year degree though a high school program before he even came to Korea, and he had toyed with the idea of trying to move to the little town where Kangwan and Thomas and Tai had all been in the US. Not soon though. It was just one of those ideas that sounded like a safe place when he eventually wanted to settle down. Even so, there was a part of him that never wanted to go back, and being an idol deferred that thought.
Part of what had stalled him on making a decision, other than the lingering fears of being found out, was military service. He’d been following the changes that would make it so that naturalized citizens might be required to do their military service, and while Dreams Ent had been very supportive of helping him arrange his visa status, he wasn’t so sure that they’d be prepared to help him gain his naturalized citizenship and potentially have to do military service. For the time being, he figured that the simplest thing to do was to wait. If he waited long enough to make a decision, that part wouldn’t matter anyhow.
He had elements of a career in Seoul, and family that cared about him, and the rest of Yuseong. He even had a few friends among other idols and the models he worked with sometimes at his aunt’s fashion house. There was nothing that he wanted to go back to in LA, but there was a part of him that had always imagined he would go back to some other part of the US, SF or Seattle areas probably, once his idol career ended.
He had no idea what he could even do though. He wasn’t like Kangwan who was developing into a producer, or Taehoon who could choreograph. The only skills that weren’t directly related to the entertainment industry that he had were the leadership skills he’d developed. He could try acting, maybe. Honestly though, trying to go solo, or as part of a duo, as he got a little bit older seemed like it would probably be the easiest route.
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Kpop Idol, Yuseong's Leader.
Gay (Secretively).
Single.
01/17/1993.
29.
Monkey (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
|
Post by Joshua Kim Jaeseo on Nov 15, 2019 23:09:37 GMT -8
[[This is set currently, and references several other members of Yuseong, however, it is a self contained interaction between Josh and Taehoon. Anything that either of them assumes about other characters could be wrong.]] Coming Out Josh was a little bit surprised to have Taehoon knock on his door again. This was the third night in a row that his friend had ended up hanging out with him. Normally, it happened at least once a week, but Taehoon spent a lot of his time with Shihyun, or in the dance studios. It was like Taehoon was specifically seeking him out more than usual.
Josh wasn’t exactly objecting, but he wondered if Taehoon had noticed he was uneasy about something and was trying to get it out of him. Or maybe if Taehoon himself was having something that he wanted to talk to Josh about and just hadn’t gotten his nerve up. That didn’t seem like Taehoon though.
At least Josh didn’t feel the need to keep up his front of energy around Taehoon. He could be quiet with his friend. He asked, though, curious, “I’m surprised that you’ve not been spending as much time with Shihyun recently. Is everything alright?”
Taehoon shrugged from where he had flopped back on Josh’s bed, clearly rather tired after however much time he’d spent in the dance studio that day. He replied after a short pause though, “Everything is fine on my end. I’m just trying to give him some time to sort his own brain out. He’s being a bit weird about something, and I think that I know what it is, but I really can’t solve this one for him because it involves me.”
It was a cryptic enough answer that Josh was momentarily stumped until Taehoon continued, “How do you know if you have a crush on someone?”
Josh did a moment of mental connecting the dots and decided that these two statements were probably related. Taehoon didn’t seem uncomfortable with himself, though mildly frustrated, so Josh was pretty sure that Taehoon was being honest when he said that everything was fine on his side of things.
He tried his best, fumbling for the words, to answer, “Um, wanting to spend a lot of time around someone, butterflies in your stomach, maybe daydreams about what it would be like to kiss them? I might not be the best person to ask.”
Taehoon sat up and looked at him thoughtfully before responding, “I don’t really have anyone else I’d feel comfortable asking that question. You can trust me not to do anything stupid, just for the record.”
Josh laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I trust you not to do anything stupid.”
There was quiet between them for a while longer, and Josh kept poking at his phone, toying with the thought that had been plaguing him for a while and he’d been prodding at like a bruise or a loose tooth. He should have told Kangwan that he wasn’t straight, that he was gay, when Kangwan first came out to him. He just had wanted somehow to protect Kangwan, and now he was in this awkward spot of having waited too long.
He knew that Taehoon wasn’t bothered by this sort of thing. He knew that Taehoon was one of the most reasonable and level headed people he knew. And he knew that Taehoon liked him personally. This was probably as safe a trial run as he would ever get, and there was a part of him that had sat on this secret for so long that he desperately wanted to tell someone.
Taehoon lowered the arm that was covering his eyes a little bit and looked at Josh over it. He said, “You’re staring. Want to share what’s bothering you.”
Josh’s voice was small and rushed when he said, “I’m gay.”
Taehoon sat up, not looking terribly surprised, but his attention carefully on Josh. He replied softly, voice confident and reassuring, “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
Josh glanced away, feeling incredibly emotionally vulnerable. He said, voice a little shaky, “You’re the first person I’ve actually said that to. Ever. I’ve known since I was twelve. And like before I came to Korea, there were friends who knew because we all talked around it, but I never actually said it for real.”
He stopped himself before he could tell Taehoon all of it. He didn’t want to dump that on Taehoon. He did say, regretfully, “I should have told Kangwan-ie when he first came out to me. Maybe he would have felt less alone with it.”
Taehoon scooted a little bit closer to him, back into Josh’s field of vision, and asked, gently prompting, “Why didn’t you?”
Josh answered, “I was afraid that my history with all this stuff would make him scared to be him too. I wanted to protect him from that.”
Josh was a little bit surprised to feel tears on his face, and less surprised when Taehoon wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders. Taehoon was comfortable with affection and just being there for people around him. Josh appreciated that right then. He said softly, stumbling over words again, “My parents sent me to Korea as a punishment because they just suspected that I might be gay. And I was scared to tell anyone here for a long time. They thought that it would fix me.”
Taehoon told him firmly, “There’s nothing to fix. You’re you, and you love who you love, or at least have the potential to love who you love.”
Josh told him, “You didn’t seem surprised.”
He could feel Taehoon shrug and say, “Not really. It made sense once you said it. You’ve always given really generic answers to questions about ideal types and who you’d want to date and your idols, and none of them had to do with appearance. You’re skittish about romance talk in general. You cover it up well, but I also know you pretty well.”
Josh asked, “Do you think that the fans would suspect?”
Taehoon told him, “No more than for any other idol. It’s not like your going around kissing people in public. I’m the one who gets shipped with everyone, so I think you’re safe from that fate.”
Josh chuckled, glad that Taehoon could be so chill about it. Taehoon mumbled, “I am kind of impressed that less than half of the group is straight, the odds seem off somehow.”
Josh wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear that, but he responded anyhow, “I’m not sure if it’s that weird. I mean there were a lot of things that made becoming an idol appealing to me once I was presented the option, and dating bans were kind of one of them. No one would expect me to date girls.”
Taehoon let his arm drop now that Josh seemed calmer, so Josh was able to see his contemplative expression. Finally, he replied, “You know, I’d not thought of it in those specific terms, but that kind of tallies with my experience too.”
Josh was intensely curious. Taehoon was at the very least heavily implying that he wasn’t straight. The whole conversation had implied that maybe Shihyun wasn’t either, which would honestly explain so much about Shihyun’s nonsense that Josh could almost laugh.
Taehoon told him, “I’d tell you if I had the right words. I can tell you’re curious. I don’t really get crushes though, and the few I think that I’ve had, and the one that I’m sure of, all started as very strong friendships. But I’ve had like one and three half crushes in my life.”
Josh asked, “One and three half?”
Taehoon laughed and said, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe it. Half crushes are like, the ones that could have been crushes but didn’t go that way. There was crush potential there, but other things happened.”
Josh thought about it for a moment, and decided that he could sort of see that. He was blunt when he asked, “And the one is Shihyun?”
Taehoon flopped back over on the bed and replied, annoyed, “Yes, for what it’s worth.”
Josh was intensely curious now, asking, “Does he know?”
Taehoon grumbled, “Not in so many words, and I don’t think that he’s thinking about my side of it really at all. I suspect he has an inkling. I’m keeping his knowledge in the realm of plausible deniability, kind of, at least on the having words for it thing, until he sorts his own brains out about his side of it. And no, I’m not telling you any details about why I know there is a his side of it.”
Josh was mostly amused by how grumpy Taehoon sounded. He knew Taehoon well enough to not try to pry after that, so he changed his tack and asked, “So what about these half crushes? Anyone I know?”
Taehoon shoved him lightly and said, “Not the first two. You would be the third one.”
Josh was a little bit startled by how relaxed Taehoon was about saying that. Taehoon added, “Like I said, I’m a little blurry on the distinction between strong friendship and a crush. But early on, I could tell that I was the only one you were willing to lean on a little bit, and that I saw a side of you the others didn’t. The crush didn’t turn into anything, but like, there was the potential for one there.”
Josh said softly, “Oh.”
It was a warm feeling to know that. He appreciated that Taehoon wasn’t making a big deal about it, but he wondered if maybe, if he’d been more open earlier, he and Taehoon would have ended up a thing. Taehoon told him softly, “You’re one of my closest friends, hyung. I just want to make sure that we don’t mess that up because of that.”
Josh told him, “No, we’re good. It’s kind of nice to know in a way. I was way too wrapped up in my own head to think about that sort of thing at that point.”
Taehoon asked him, changing the subject, “Are you planning to tell Kangwan-ie?”
Josh chewed his lip and said, “Eventually. I just don’t know how. How to tell him that I’ve known this since before I knew him and yet didn’t tell him when he told me.”
Taehoon looked thoughtful and said, “I think that he’s probably mature enough to hear that you were afraid. He’s had bad reactions, and if you tell him at least some of it, he’ll probably be sympathetic.”
Josh sighed and said, “Can I make you come with me for back up?”
Taehoon laughed and said, “No. If you do it first though, when I figure out the words I want, I’ll be sure to tell him.”
Josh grumbled, “I guess. You’re probably right. I should tell him without other people hovering over our conversation. It just makes me feel guilty that I didn’t tell him back then.”
Taehoon patted him on the shoulder and said, “Honestly, if he’s bothered by you not having told him, tell him that you feel guilty about it and finally got the nerve up to try to fix it. That might slow him down. Or if he gets mad at you over it, I’ll talk to him.”
Josh gave him a relieved look and said, “You’d do that?”
Taehoon shrugged and said, “Yeah. I don’t think that you’ll need it, but while I won’t go with you for that conversation, I’ll smooth things over if he doesn’t get why you didn’t tell him sooner and gets mad. I get it with the context that you’ve given me.”
Josh told him softly, “You’re the best friend I could hope to have.”
Taehoon didn’t say anything to that but instead bumped their shoulders together. Josh was suddenly exhausted. This entire conversation, he’d been tense, and suddenly, so many of his muscles relaxed that he felt like he was melting. He said, “I’m going to kick you out now before I pass out and sleep.”
Taehoon hugged him gently and said, “Get good rest hyung. I’ll make sure the others don’t bother you. I’m glad we had this talk, even if it was tiring.”
Josh told him as he tentatively hugged him back, “Me too. Thank you.”
Taehoon wandered out of his room, carefully closing the door behind him, and Josh could vaguely hear him getting everyone to settle down as he started preparing for bed. He was full of relief that his best friend had listened and reacted so well. It felt good to have finally come out to someone.
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Dreams Ent Trainee.
So far in the closet he's found Narnia (Gay).
Single.
03/29/2003.
19.
Sheep (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Tae Seoji on Nov 19, 2019 21:09:38 GMT -8
To Stand on Stage
[[This story contains some backdated material, mostly to the Dreams Ent trainee camp, but some as far back as 2012]] Seoji was ten, in 2012, when he first properly watched k-pop music videos. The sort of music had just been omnipresent background noise of his childhood, but until that point, he’d not really had the chance to explore so much of his own music tastes. He’d not had his own laptop until that point for one, and he’d mostly been led in his music tastes by whatever his choirs were doing.
The new shiny laptop for his birthday was mainly for school things, and he was pretty sure that his step-dad had already been planning to get his step-sister one, and since Seoji was older, it had only seemed fair that they both get them for their birthdays that year.
One of the first things that he did when he got the chance was look up a song that he’d heard on the radio that he’d liked, and from there, he fell into the hole that was k-pop music videos on YouTube. When he wasn’t on his laptop for school work, and that did come first, he used it to watch music videos. He was fascinated.
One of the early music videos that he kept coming back to, because he couldn’t quite believe that people could make music that cool and then dance like that, was TVXQ’s “Keep Your Head Down.” He’d read a little bit about their background, but at ten, it was confusing, and he thought that the two of them were just incredibly cool.
He watched promotion cycles in fascination, getting into a lot of newer groups as they came out. He hadn’t quite formed the idea yet that being a k-pop idol was something that he might be able to do, and might want to do, but the seeds of it were starting to be formed.
He kept on doing choir, and getting better and better as a singer with more practice and more training. He took a certain degree of comfort in k-pop when his voice started breaking when he was fourteen, in 2016. By that point, he was in to Seventeen and Yuseong, and lots and lots of other groups as well, and he remembered a lot of them going through that when they were in promoted training, and coming out just as good or better singers.
When he was so frustrated in choir because his voice just wasn’t doing what he wanted it to, his mom asked him if he wanted to take a break from one of his club choirs and do something else, focusing on vocal lessons, which didn’t seem to frustrate him as much, and not stressing himself with the choirs for a little bit to let his voice settle.
He realized it was an opportunity, and he told his mom that he wanted to take a dance class because he thought that he probably wanted to be a k-pop idol. He was relieved that his mom took him seriously and was supportive, even if she didn’t seem quite sure how one went about all this. She helped him sign up for a dance class that he found, and she helped him start planning going to an arts high school in Seoul, even though it was three and a half hours away on the train. He loved his mom and step-dad for listening when he said that that was what he wanted to do, even if they didn’t necessarily get it. Their one requirement for him was that he keep his academic grades up no matter what course he decided to go on. That was something that he could do well enough, even with English giving him issues, so he was happy enough to agree to their condition.
Dance classes were somehow not what Seoji was expecting. He’d grown nearly ten centimeters in the previous three months, and he was awkward and gangly arms and legs. But at least if he was going to be bad at something, it was something that he was new to, so he had some excuse. Plus, Changmin hadn’t been good at dancing when he’d first started, and Seoji knew that he, and many other idols that Seoji looked up to, had gotten better with time and practice. Seoji just had to keep working.
He got into SOPA easily enough, though he just missed out on getting into Yego, which he was a bit disappointed for. It was the English grades coming back to haunt him because he knew that he passed all his vocal auditions well enough. His voice had stabilized back out by then. He would miss all his choirs at home, his voice teachers, even the dance club that he’d joined, however bad he still was at dance.
Moving to Seoul was strange. He was all alone, living in a tiny studio apartment near school. He started auditioning pretty much right after he moved to Seoul, focusing his outside of school time on voice lessons and dance classes. Each audition he did, he found himself turned away with the same criticism: his voice was amazing, but they weren’t looking for soloists then, and his dancing just wasn’t up to the level they were looking for.
When he saw the Dreams Ent audition notice, Yuseong’s company, one of his favorite groups, Seoji was pretty disheartened. He’d not done well at several auditions even though his dancing was getting better. He knew it was getting better. He’d moved up into an upper intermediate class at the studio he went to for lessons, and those weren’t easy to get into. He just didn’t feel like he was getting better enough.
He couldn’t not do the audition, though. Dreams Ent was basically one of his dream companies. He’d never really wanted to go to one of the big three, they scared him, so he’d applied to just about every small company that was having auditions. He never really thought that he’d see Dreams Ent have auditions though. They’d had Yuseong as a group for over four years before they announced their very first ones, for girls and boys, and Seoji wondered if they were planning to debut the girls first, and maybe that would mean that he’d have a chance, a small one, but a chance.
There were a bunch of audition dates in Seoul, and if he was motivated, he could walk to the Dreams Ent building, so there was literally nothing keeping him from auditioning. He signed up for the first audition day so that he wouldn’t be able to second guess himself too much. He had audition pieces and everything, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t ready. He just wasn’t sure if he was ready enough.
The audition day almost snuck up on him, and he was glad that things had been busy with school because he hadn’t been able to over think it. He took the bus to the audition, and got there early enough to be the first person to check in. He was a little bit surprised, even having seen most of the training facilities in videos, how small and simple Dreams Ent was. It made it just a little less intimidating somehow. He’d been practicing and practicing his audition pieces, and he was surprised when he finished his dance segment that they didn’t look disappointed. He was sent away with the usual response, that he would hear back from them soon, and he might get called back for a second audition.
Two weeks later, he got the message that he was invited to the training camp. He could hardly believe it, and he called his mom, excited but also incredibly nervous. She was so happy for him that it made him a little bit more calm about it. He knew that it was a chance, it wasn’t a certainty of being accepted as a trainee. But a chance was better than being sent away again and again after first round auditions. And it was a chance at a company that he had really dreamed of the chance to audition for, which made it even better.
He signed up for even more intensive classes for dance in the time leading up to the camp. He wanted to be ready. He didn’t want dance to be what held him back, which meant that he needed to look at least like he was making progress and that he was trainable. Especially if he was right and the girls were meant to be debuted first, trainable and an excellent vocalist would probably be the most important part.
He was glad that Dreams Ent had scheduled the camp to fall over the break that most of the schools in Seoul took in the summer. It meant that he didn’t have to figure out what he was doing for missing that much school. He’d have done it, but it would have worried him. This was the best chance that he’d ever gotten.
The training camp was not really what he’d expected in some ways. He was relieved that he was one of three boys sorted into the advanced vocal group and that he managed to scrape into the intermediate dance group. That felt like a good sign, that he wasn’t the worst when it came to dance. There were plenty of people who were split between intermediate and beginner, which meant that he had something making him look good. Though there was also Tai, the youngest in the entire camp, making him look kind of bad by being advanced in dance and vocals. During the camp, Seoji just decided that he’d avoid Tai. He’d learn to deal with him, and he did seem like a sweet kid, if they both got through (if Seoji got through, there was no question in his mind that Tai would).
He latched onto some of the older vocalists almost immediately upon getting to the camp. He was feeling a little bit at loose ends, and there was a small part of him that was proud that he was a better vocalist than most of them, and that a lot of them were kind of on a par when it came to dance. He didn’t mind being the youngest of that set.
That came around and set him up to deal with people he barely knew in the position performances. The two hyung that he’d been following around the most went to vocal-dance. He knew that if he wanted to impress the CEO, he had to go vocals. He just wasn’t a good enough dancer to keep up with vocal-dance, and he knew that about himself. That put him with several intermediate vocalists who were younger than him.
Seoji wasn’t initially sure how to handle being the hyung. He was pretty used to being the one who wasn’t the best at anything, and this was a departure from that. The others were looking to him to figure out what to do next. He had a moment of terror that he wouldn’t be able to lead well, but then he figured someone had to get them moving. He suggested a few things, a Seventeen vocal unit song (“Pinwheel”), a TVXQ song (“Love Line”), and a Yuseong song from the most recent mini album that was vocals heavy.
He was kind of relieved when they picked “Pinwheel,” even if that meant that they were one of two groups doing Seventeen songs. He got to take DK’s parts, the better of the two intermediate vocalists, who had the highest natural range of the three of them took Seungkwan’s parts, the other intermediate vocalist took Joshua and Jeonghan’s parts, and they split up Woozi’s parts between the three of them. Seoji found himself coaching the other two, and he was glad that he’d laid claim to the hardest parts of Woozi’s lines in the song.
He was thrilled when it actually went well, and they were all praised for their performance, but especially Seoji. He was also surprised when one of the things that he was praised for was the leadership of his team.
As he saw who was being selected, he started to realize that they wanted to make him team leader. He was going to be one of the eldest, and that was a strange thought. He wasn’t like Seojin-noona who had immediately taken the lead on a bunch of things on purpose. He’d just led the vocal performance because no one else was going to do it. Apparently, he’d done a good job. A good enough job that Yuseong’s leader even told him good job. That was a strange moment for him, especially since Joshua-sunbae was his favorite member in Yuseong.
Getting into Dreams Ent meant not having to lease the tiny little studio near campus anymore. It meant getting training through the company for voice and dance. It meant having a school buddy in Felix, who he hadn’t gotten the chance to get to know during the training camp. And it meant figuring out how to be a leader. He was comforted that he was more worried about the dancing than the leading.
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Kpop Idol.
Demi-romantic/Demi-sexual / queer.
Dating Josh.
01/04/1994.
28.
Rooster (Korea)
Authored by Etienne.
Offline.
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Post by Yeo Taehoon on Feb 17, 2020 0:40:39 GMT -8
[[TW - This post involves mentions of depression, homophobia, self harm, and suicide; while nothing is described in detail, it could involve triggering or upsetting content from the details that are there.]]
[[This post is backdated to February 2009, when Taehoon was 15 international age.]]
Confession It had been a long Saturday. That morning had been a party, for him and for Sunggyu-hyung. He'd gotten the scholarship for that fall to go study dance in San Francisco, and Sunggyu-hyung had been accepted into the Korean National Ballet. It was exciting to see two dancers, the two boys who danced, from their little town getting recognition. It meant that Sunggyu-hyung was going to be going all the way to Seoul at the end of the month, transferring to finish high school there and leaving Taehoon with just the girls. He was friends with the girls, but it was different somehow. And at the end of the summer, Tahoon would be going further away, though for less time, and he'd get to learn a lot. He was a little bit nervous, but mostly excited.
He'd had to leave the party a little bit before it ended though because with the scholarship, he couldn't slack on his training, and he had dance class, nearly an hour away by bus. He was finally on his way home, at nearly midnight, and he was exhausted. He pulled out his phone as he waited for his second bus that would get him the rest of the way home and saw one missed call, and a voicemail. It was Sunggyu-hyung's number. He pulled up the voicemail, he could hear water running, and Sunggyu-hyung sounded like he might have been crying. Taehoon was concerned. This wasn't normal.
Sunggyu-hyung's voice came through the speakers, tinny and surreal, half sobbing, "Don't miss me too much, OK. Don't stop dancing, not matter what, OK. You're too good. Take care of yourself. Love you."
It cut off abruptly, and Taehoon stared at his phone. That was weird. Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong. He dialed Sunggyu-hyung's number hoping that he would reach his hyung, and he'd be able to explain what that message had been about. Sunggyu-hyung wasn't even leaving until the end of the month, they'd been planning to hang out tomorrow afternoon. The phone rang and rang, and eventually went to voicemail.
Taehoon stared at his phone, trying to make a decision. If he'd been off the bus at the other end, instead of fifteen minutes until it even got there, he'd have just walked to Sunggyu-hyung's house. Just a block away from his own, and knocked, even with the late hour. Instead, he scrolled through his contacts and found Sungmi's phone number. He was friends with Sunggyu-hyung's younger sister too, though she was closer to his own sister. He felt bad calling her this late, but something was wrong.
He was worried when her phone rang several times as well before he got a groggy, "Taehoon-hyung, I was just falling asleep, why are you calling this late?"
He said, voice tentative and stumbling over his words a little bit, "I got a r-really weird call, voice mail, from Sunggyu-hyung earlier. I'm worried something's wrong, and he didn't answer when I tried to call him back. If I'm worrying over nothing, I'm sorry."
He heard her shifting around, and she said softly, "Something appa said upset him at dinner, but he seemed OK. Went to take a shower. I know you wouldn't call if you didn't feel like you needed to be worried about something. I hope it's nothing."
She seemed a little disgruntled as she said a few moments later, "The shower's still running, that's weird. I didn't notice it hadn't stopped until just now. It's been about four hours."
Taehoon gulped a little bit, and waited. Sungmi said, "He's not in his room, and I can hear umma and appa downstairs. I really hope this isn't something weird, but I'm going to check."
He heard her knock on the door, to no response. Then, the noise of the shower got louder. Sungmi breathed in sharply, and in barely more than a whisper said, "That's a lot of blood."
Taehoon heard her scream as the phone clattered to the ground. He must have looked shocked as the bus driver pulled up and he still had his phone held against his ear, because the bus driver asked, "Is everything alright kid?"
Taehoon shook his head and said, "I need to get home."
The bus driver knew him well enough, and there was no one else left on the bus this late. Taehoon numbly sat on the bus, phone cradled in his hands in his lap, only half noticing that the bus driver had skipped his wait times when there hadn't been anyone else at the other stops. Their little town was the very last one on the line, and the bus driver came back to where Taehoon was sitting and crouched down, asking, "Do you need help getting home?"
Taehoon shook his head and grabbed his dance bag, bolting out the door. It had been about fifteen minutes since the phone call had disconnected to the sound of that scream and running water. He normally walked by Sunggyu-hyung's house on his way home from his last dance class. Sunggyu-hyung would sometimes wait for him out front, and they'd chat for a little bit. But tonight, Sunggyu-hyung's house was lit up bright, and Taehoon stared at it from the street wide-eyed. He was too scared to walk up the driveway, but Sungmi slipped out the door, tears apparent on her face. Taehoon caught her in a hug when she basically barreled into him. She sobbed, "They took him to the hospital, when the paramedics got here, he was still alive, but they didn't know. Umma went with him, but appa was angry, and they didn't want to let me go too because I'm a kid."
Taehoon didn't know what to say, tears halfway choking him. He finally managed to get out, "Do you want to see if you can stay over with Taeyoung-ie tonight? We can probably get my mom to call your mom and figure out what's going on."
Sungmi nodded, and they walked quietly for most of the way to Taehoon's house. She finally said softly, "Taehoon-hyung, thank you, for calling. If he makes it, you calling will be what saved him. If not... If not, at least I know someone cared enough to check. Umma and appa, they were still awake, and they didn't check why it was still running that long."
Taehoon was glad that normally Taeyoung and his mom were both still up when he got home. Taeyoung working on homework, and his mom doing something or other around the house. He left Sungmi sitting next to Taeyoung at the table, seeing his sister wrap her friend in a hug as he went to fetch his mother. For all that he and his mother didn't always see eye to eye about things, he knew that she'd look out for Sungmi in this case. If nothing else, she was one of Taeyoung's best friends. He found her in the kitchen and said, "Umma?"
She looked at him, face full of concern that deepened when she saw how shocked he looked, and she came over and asked, "What's wrong Taehoon-ie?"
He stumbled out, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes even as he willed them not to, "Umma, something happened to Sunggyu-hyung. And his mother's at the hospital with him, can you call her to check, and to see if Sungmi can spend the night with Taeyoung-ie?"
His mother followed him out to the main room where Taeyoung was hugging a crying Sungmi, and she nodded, grabbing her phone and stepping back into the kitchen. He couldn't quite make out what she was saying in hushed tones over the phone call, but their mom's were friends, and Taehoon figured that she would figure it out.
She waved him back into the kitchen, and pulled him into a hug, something that she'd not done in years. It was a strange realization for Taehoon that he was the same height as she was now. She said, "I'm so so sorry, my baby. He didn't make it. Sungmi's umma says that she should stay here tonight, and I'll let them know, but it's going to be hard for you too, isn't it."
The tears that Taehoon had been trying to hold back since the first voicemail had scared him so much came rushing out, and he could only sob, shuddering as he leaned on his mom. She didn't always understand him, he knew he disappointed her sometimes, but he was glad she was there just then. She knew that Sunggyu-hyung was the only close friend he'd had that wasn't his sister's friend first, and really the only male friend he'd had ever. She said softly, "There's nothing we can do tonight but go to bed, and we'll find out more tomorrow."
Taehoon wasn't really able to sleep, and he ended up curled up in a ball on the couch listening to music that Sunggyu-hyung had given him. He did fall asleep there eventually, but no one said anything about it in the morning, even though he'd overslept. It didn't seem real, not at all, but his mother had been right, they got more information that day. Taehoon's best friend was dead, and Taehoon didn't know what to do with himself.
He didn't go to school on Monday, still to shaken from everything. He didn't go to school on Tuesday, there was the first of the services for Sunggyu-hyung that day. His mother wasn't pushing him about the unfinished school work, the not going to school, and he could tell that that meant that it was bad. Taeyoung went with him, and Sungmi sat between them. Wednesday was the cremation service, so again, he didn't go to school. As they were leaving, Sunggyu-hyung's father seemed to notice that he was there for the first time, and scowled at him, nearly whispering, "It's your fault, yours and all the dancing. It made him less of a man. Less capable, and it came to this. You shouldn't be here."
Taehoon froze, not sure what this was about, and he was startled by Sungmi, next to him nearly snarling at her own father, "No, appa, it's not hyung's friend's fault, it's not the fault of someone who cared about him, cared enough to check that he was alright. It's yours, you're the one who said all those bad things to him, who told him he wasn't worthwhile even though he was doing something amazing. If there's anyone to blame, it's you!"
Taehoon followed her when she rushed away, but he was surprised to hear her mother stopping her father and scolding him. He followed Sungmi though, and she said tearfully, "Do you think that your mom would let me stay again?"
Taehoon nodded. Sungmi said, "I'm sorry that he said that to you. He's wrong and you didn't deserve it. You were hyung's only really close friend."
Taehoon replied softly, "I just wish I'd checked my messages sooner after dance class."
She reached over and squeezed his hand for just a second, and then they walked the rest of the way back to his house in silence.
He didn't go back to school until the next week. He was downcast and a little shaky, knowing that normally, he and Taeyoung, and Sunggyu-hyung and Sungmi would have walked most of the way together, and then their younger sisters would have turned off to go to the middle school while he and Sunggyu-hyung would have continued the few blocks further to the high school. He almost couldn't bring himself to walk those last few blocks that day.
He got to his locker to drop things off and change his shoes, and he found a neatly folded letter, with his name on the front in tidy letters. Familiar letters. It was Sunggyu-hyung's handwriting. He set down his things, and picked up the letter with shaky hands, knowing that stopping to read it would make him late to class, and not really caring. It started,
I'm sorry Taehoon-ie. I'll not be here anymore when you read this. Never again. Appa found out about my feelings, and it wouldn't be fair to you to make you face that from him, not when you can have a better life without me in it. But I guess that you deserve the truth of it, of why I'm doing this. I'm gay. I love you, I have for years. I'm sorry. I hope that you can still remember me fondly, despite that. Umma thinks that I'm depressed, but I'm really just too scared to keep going, too scared of how I'd be treated if people found out, too scared that there's nothing good for me out there. You'll probably hate me when you read this, or hate me for making you read this, but I couldn't leave it just a mystery, not for you. I'm sorry. -Sunggyu
Taehoon sank down the bank of lockers, clutching the letter to his chest. He'd not known, and he didn't know how he would have felt, what he would have decided, but he missed his hyung, his best friend. He would have so much rather that Sunggyu-hyung had been telling him in person, and he'd been able to say, I don't know what I think, but I care about you, I want you around. He was crying again, and he wasn't quite sure he could get himself up, go to class. The school nurse found him there nearly an hour later, and everything was blurry for a while.
Altogether, it took nearly three weeks for him to go back to class. He felt like everyone was staring, like everyone knew. He'd not been able to keep the nurse or his mother from reading the letter. And he'd not been able to keep it out of the hands of Sunggyu-hyung's parents. He was suddenly fiercely glad that he was going to be gone for a year starting in the fall. It couldn't come soon enough. Everywhere was haunted with memories of his best friend. Of the ideas of what he didn't ever even get a chance to figure out. Taehoon didn't know if he would have been interested in whatever Sunggyu-hyung wanted between the two of them, but he'd not gotten the chance to think about it when it would have mattered. He'd never gotten a confession that he could have figured out. And it just didn't make sense to him. He was glad that his friends were mostly Taeyoung's friends, and they stuck by him. He was glad most of all for Sungmi, who did stay his friend, who still blamed her dad and not him, somehow.
Weeks passed and things got a little bit better. Taehoon missed his friend, but at least people were staring less, and it was starting to sink in a little bit more, the world seemed more real. And Taehoon did what he'd always done when the world was big and scary and hurting him, and he went with his grandfather to temple more than usual. His grandfather didn't say a single word of judgement, making him the only adult outside of the temple who hadn't. He was warm and reassuring, and made sure that Taehoon remembered that he was allowed to miss his friend and hurt, but also that there were things that made it better. The monks, his uncle especially, were also reassuring. They didn't treat what had happened like it was somehow Taehoon's fault, or like the world was better for not having Sunggyu-hyung in it. That was the attitude that hurt the most.
Over the years, the missing dulled to an old ache that resurfaced from time to time, but it was an ache that powered a lot of Taehoon's guiding principles as he got older. People who were hurting needed help, and mental health wasn't well enough addressed. There was nothing wrong with whatever sexuality someone might be, just with how people treated those who weren't how they thought they should be. It would be over a decade before Taehoon realized that he wasn't straight himself, before he actually fell in love for the first time, but he'd known on some level, that it was possible for a long long time.
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