#id.guild

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON INDIGO’S MAIN DANCE, LEAD VOCAL NAM JAEHWAN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 25 DEBUT AGE: 20 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 17 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: Acting

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): prince, honey eyes INSPIRATION: After singing in church, Jaehwan found out his passion for making people smile with his voice. He became an idol so his voice could reach more people and move their hearts. SPECIAL TALENTS:

Can cry on spot if requested (no sad song needed).

Impersonates the legendary main vocal of gemini.

Knows how to play the piano.

NOTABLE FACTS:

Got a lot of attention in his appearance in the re:group show.

Used to sing in his church’s choir.

Has a dog named Truffles.

Is a really good cook. 

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

as of now, jaehwan is in a bit of an odd situation. his acting career is flourishing, and he’s being taken seriously more and more. he’s not unknown anymore and the push re:group gave him really worked in his favor. he can choose between roles, has offers here and there when before he had nothing. the thing is, he wanted to focus in the group. he wanted to help build them an image while he’s being pushed somewhere else completely by msg while being told this is the best for indigo. jaehwan tries to believe that, and his main goal for now is to keep getting traction for indigo, to help getting the group to even higher levels. even if on his own.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

as his acting career goes, jaehwan wants to push it to the next level. he wants to start acting on cinema, to get even more serious roles. msg seems to be willing to help him on his rise, so he wants to push even further. but he wants to keep a tight link to indigo, his career if so be it. he wants to rise not alone but with them, for indigo to go even higher too; he wants to be known not only for acting nam jaehwan, for that re:group guy nam jaehwan but for indigo’s nam jaehwan.

IDOL IMAGE

at first, he felt like he didn’t have an image.

he felt lost among all of them. jaehwan had learned to sing, he had learned to dance but he never learned how to create an image for himself. so the first year was full of awkward moments, of not knowing exactly where to go. he knew he had things he had to hide. he knew that when the cameras were around he needed to be pristine perfect but that sort of pressure only made him quiet. so he faded to the background, almost unseen. he had fans, sure, but he lacked impact. he lacked something that was his. he sang all right, he did things all right but for a while he wasn’t anyone worth mentioning. he was knwon among fans for being more quiet, more serious. for being careful with members. for being protective with fans. that was it.

until re:group happened.  

whatever happened in that show it was a miracle for jaehwan. first, because he was seen. the producers liked something about him (or maybe msg had payed them, who would know?). he was shown even during times he didn’t even think people would notice what he was doing. helping fellow flop idols, stepping back and allowing someone in a lower ranking to have more lines than him. that wasn’t from the goodness of his heart, truth be told jaehwan just didn’t want to bother. but when it gave him traction he kept it up because it was a good image to play with.

and it stuck. re:group is over (thank god) and he has gone from the nobody lead vocal from indigo to somebody with a name and a fame that catapulted them to something greater. acting came shortly after, an offering that msg didn’t want to let pass. he wasn’t consulted, which pissed him off but they said it was for his and indigo’s good so he did it. it’s been years and he’s still doing it. and even after years the image he has to sustain is still the same: reliable. a leader-like boy who is selfless, much more worried with others than with himself. is an image jaehwan knows how to play quite well because it’s easy, comfortable. he smiles warmly at fans in fanmeetings. he writes encouraging words. he speaks well in events. he shows off this bright, warm image, of someone approachable, someone who looks at things and see the best out of them.

well.

good thing he’s a good actor.

IDOL HISTORY

i. forgive me father, for i have sinned.

jaehwan pauses, listens to the priest speaking with diligent attention. or at least something that looks like it. truth be told deep in his mind jaehwan is thinking of things far more interesting than whatever he’s talking about. something about piety or whatever. he’s thinking about the book he was reading, about the test he has next week. he’s thinking about the girl he took to the back of the school yesterday, about how things get boring quickly. he’s thinking about his phone on his pocket, how it rings and he wants to pick it up and see who’s talking to him. he’s thinking of her, always her.

he bows, prays. he remembers his grandmother used to tell him that if he didn’t pray he’d grow a tail. as a young kid, jaehwan used to kneel and pray for hours and hours, terrified, completely terrified. he has to muffle laughter. his older brother elbows him, a smile on his face, the two of them being shut down by his mother’s gaze.

jaehwan looks back to the priest.

“amen.”

ii. beauty & terror

the younger of two, jaehwan grows up in a wholesome family. his father is the owner of a constructing company, his mother stays home throughout his whole childhood. jaehwan spends christmas with his grandmother, and by the age of eighteen has traveled through more countries than his whole classroom combined. he does well in school (not well enough to be better than some), well in sports (well enough to be better than most) and he does well with people. they like him, for whatever reason. maybe it’s because of the way he smiles. maybe it’s because of the way he looks. the one thing he’s sure is that it’s because they don’t know what he’s thinking.

it’s not about being two-faced, it’s about knowing what he has to conceal. jaehwan wasn’t that young, but also not that old when his temper started to show. an easiness in getting out of hand, a feeling of hot rage that boiled up inside of him at the slight inconvenience.it felt - and it still does - like a paradox. who’d think that such a bright, beautiful boy could go berserk like that, who’d think of such a terrible thing? it made sense, though. it still does. one who keeps so much inside has to let it out somehow. for jaehwan, it always comes out in red, terrible rage.

there’s only two people that jaehwan believes that know him properly. his best friend, sure. but most of all his older brother, junsu. if jaehwan seems like he was made for great things, for glory and gold, junsu is made of it. he’s bright, the smartest in class. the brightness of his days. his brother teaches him how to control himself. he takes him to therapy. he’s the one who takes him to singling classes, the one who tells him he should go to auditions. he’s the one who takes him to msg. he’s the one who helps him to tell his parents that’s what he should do.

junsu is the first person he tells about getting into the company. and the way he smiles. jaehwan will remember that forever. he’s his impulse control, mostly. whenever jaehwan feels too much, whenever he loses control, it’s him he calls. always, always him.

until junsu is gone.

iii. terror

and he goes in the stupidest way possible. a cold that goes south. a stupid doctor that gives him a medicine that he’s allergic to. he can’t believe it. he can’t believe it in the wake, can’t believe it. he spends weeks in a daze, eyes lost, not eating anything. he misses classes, his high school principal calling his mother time after time and jaehwan only listens as she apologizes. at some point he goes back to school. at some point he goes back to training

but there’s something inside that burns and boils and jaehwan meddles with things he shouldn’t. his grades drop, his mood swings get worse. he drops therapy even though his father asks him to continue. whatever monster he had inside that junsu kept leashed was out now, and there’s nothing that worked better for jaehwan than self-destruction.

and guilt.

guilt because there’s this burden that lifts. guilt because part of him, this hideous, awful part of him feels like now he can’t be seen. he has lived up until now under this shadow, this greater than life shadow, and now that the sun has set such a dim star like himself could shine. does jaehwan know that? of course not. that’s not a thought that comes to his head, proper and full. it’s a feeling. it’s a shadow on the wall, when he turns to look at it it’s gone. but it fuels him. it ruins him. it destroys him.

junsu used to keep him sane. he picks up his phone, calls him. once. twice. he calls him and listens to the voicemail. he never picks up.

he had no one to keep him sane.

iv. grief

jaehwan dives into training after a while. he pretends like life goes on, and life actually does. he graduates from high school, the help from friends and so making him get his grades back to passable. so he focuses on training. he sings until his voice gets hoarse, dances and dances until his limbs collapse. he only goes back home late at night, which is good, truly. it’s better to go back that late because then his mother is already asleep, the sleeping pills by her side. his father would be asleep too, though never on his bed. months ago jaehwan would go after him, tell him to go to bed he didn’t need to work so much. now he knows that working sometimes is just a way to ignore life. or death.

so jaehwan keeps training, he keeps practicing. even when he feels like he doesn’t even want that so much he marches on. this was their thing, his and junsu’s. he’s not about to let it die. not with him. no. he’ll keep it alive. keep him alive. he can do it.

when he debuts no one is surprised. it just seems like the sort of thing nam jaehwan does.

v. expectations & reality

he’s not used to this.

because this is not the sort of thing nam jaehwan does. failing. it’s not his thing. so when song after song is met with cold from the public, with disregard, jaehwan doesn’t know what to do. he gathers modest attention, basically nothing. he’s good at singing, okay at it, maybe. he’s good at looking good, at smiling at the camera, of getting some attention for that at least. but it’s never enough. they go on, elaborate choreographies, songs that as soon as he listens to he knows they won’t go anywhere.

there’s a feeling here: that maybe junsu was wrong. he wasn’t made for this. he wasn’t good at this. maybe he should just abandon this sinking ship, go to law school. he’s a bit old, sure, but well. but here’s the thing, that’s also not the sort of thing nam jaehwan does: giving up. that’s not his thing.

but he’s getting desperate.

and desperation was never his best friend. desperation makes him reckless. desperation makes him angry. desperation makes him lash out on his members. desperation makes him lose control when he can’t, not here, not in this place where image is everything. and jaehwan image is crafted, perfect. he’s not the mood maker of the group, he’s not the comic relief. he’s built to look reliable, to look responsible. serious, even. his bluntness and his sense of humor making him look dense in front of cameras - a grandpa, they call him. jaehwan smiles, laughs.

when they tell him about the re:group show he is firm against it. when they tell him that he is one of the guys going he almost flips out. and he does, sort of. but goes anyway. what’s one more humiliation in the huge ass book he already has filled with all the minor varieties, with all the ridiculous shit and concepts. he’ll go to the damn show. make a fool out of himself, what about it. at least it’s not giving up. at least.

vi. beauty

it’s a shock that it works, but jaehwan rides the wave as if he knew it all along.

the attention they get is insane, even more so out of the sudden. but the attention he gets is what surprises him the most. it’s like being seen for the first time. the show cast some light over him, gave him much more screentime than he ever hoped for. something about his looks. something about this one episode where he helped someone out, a favorable edit that showed him as this selfless boy, someone responsible, someone who could be trusted. that he didn’t make it to the final lineup only made him look even better, god knows why.

there’s something good about seeing his group start to rise. finally. fucking finally. but it’s even better knowing he had a role in it.

jaehwan is ready, then. to ride this wave, to work even harder. he practices his vocals more, he tries his hardest to not only be the guy from re:group who was nice and looked nice. he wants to be seen for his talent too.

and that’s when msg casts him in his first drama.

he doesn’t care much for it, but they tell him it’s for the groups’ sake. he does it then. we have to milk that popularity, put your face out there. jaehwan nods. at least it’s better than those stupid variety shows. it’s respectable, in a way, less humiliating. he didn’t expect it to become a side job but it does. shocking enough he’s actually good at it, it’s something he knows how to do. it’s not what he wants to do, sure, but jaehwan guesses this is his curse. he’s doomed to only have the things he doesn’t want, an eternal longing that has its claws in every aspect of his life.

still, he marches on. junsu had told him the meaning of duty. you gotta do what you gotta do. and if you can’t fix it, then you gotta stand it.

jaehwan stands it. he goes on and on and on and the more he keeps in, the more he feels like exploding, a vulcano that’s been asleep for far too long.

you gotta stand it, he remembers, closes his eyes, nails craved in the palm of his hand. he breathes in. he wishes junsu was here, he really does. because he just doesn’t know what to do anymore. because how can he stand it, when the one who he can’t fix is himself?

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON INDIGO’S LEAD VOCAL LEE HANBIN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 18 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 16 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: Acting

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): snow prince (mainly for his complexion, though it became more common after a fantaken picture during a snow day became popular among indigo fans), peach boy or simply peach (for his complexion and naturally rosy lips, as well as his exaggerating his love for peaches in attempts to land himself a pretty nickname during debut promotions), german shepherd (for his acute ability to recognize people and some objects by their scent). INSPIRATION: the only motivation he had to consider a career under the spotlights was his mother, and the ungodly thirst for adoration he had inherited from her. the only encouragement he needed to audition for an entertainment company and take whatever he was given was his mother, and the endless support she provided even when bedridden, faced with the limits of her own mortality. the only passion he found in the aftermath of a tragedy was his mother, and the memory of her love of old hollywood and gut-wrenching endings. SPECIAL TALENTS:

lethal ttakbam: hanbin’s ttakbam skills are known to be powerful enough to crack walnuts

dog nose: hanbin can identify people, especially bandmates, by their scent.

NOTABLE FACTS:

he participated in swimming and judo competitions between the ages of 10 and 15, has won 2 bronze medals for swimming, 2 silver medals and 1 gold medal for judo.

he is a theatre major at sungkyunkwan university, though his studies have been on hold since re:group.

although he doesn’t showcase this ability in variety shows, hanbin’s pretty good at doing korean and foreign accents.

there’s a 7 year age gap between him and his older brother. 

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

five years into their debut, indigo remains hanbin’s best bet. he knows his effort now should focus primarily on the group, they’re not in a position to snub the gust of luck blown their way since re:group. second chances don’t come easy. it sits just fine with him, as the new direction the group has taken relies on his strengths and potential. the momentum has pushed him on the path to an actual acting career, so he milks the opportunities for all they’re worth. for now, he double teams.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

hanbin needs independence. he doesn’t want to rely on any name that isn’t his own, he doesn’t want to make a living borrowing chances that can slip from his fingers at any given time. he wants his name to be the first one on posters, typed in bold on the big screen. the future hanbin has in mind is one of major pictures, layered characters and his face setting it all in motion. one day, he’ll play solo.

IDOL IMAGE

hanbin’s image changed not with time, but with the status he pursued.

when he debuted, he was rosy cheeks and honey gazes. soft spoken and clumsy, not too far from his daily life persona. he edits himself, highlights everything his company deemed charming and cut out the bad parts. no one can love a boy brimming with self doubt and obsession. they love the prince made of snow that smiles charmingly at the camera. they love the gap of his appearance and his clumsy hands and gawky stance that made his dance line awkward in a way that wasn’t entirely unattractive.

his market appeal is innocence, one less infantile than it is idealized, too beautiful to be true. they prefer it when he tones down his busan accent and speaks softer, which he can do well. they prefer it when he’s soft and easy, which he can’t do as well, but there aren’t other options. what the company wants is what the company projects onto him in post, and he just needs to learn to settle for it if he doesn’t want to be edited clean out from the final cut.

he is meant to be simple and sweet, and he believed there were worse roles to play.

but when indigo is reworked, he is given the opportunity to mix a little depth into the single dimension of niceties he used to be meant to embody.

to the innocent smoothness, he adds a distinguished coolness. his smiles are no longer desperate to be praised, he expects them to stand out. he remains sweet and charming, but now the interest no longer comes out of his clumsiness or lovable choreography mistakes, as there barely is any choreography to be spoken of anymore. the enticement comes from the subtle maturity of his stance. he could never pull off idol-sexy, but he can set his shoulders back and tip his head well enough to exude a sex appeal that promises there’s more to him than a handsome face.

IDOL HISTORY

             — DRAFT 1. REFERENCES.

it starts with mother. the simplistic reality of that never goes understated, a perfectly adequate foreword to what becomes of hanbin. but it’s true that it begins with her moonlit eyes and warm hands, the laughter of his brother ringing distant in the room, and tv static.

her family thought of her as dreamer, but hanbin remembers his mother as ambitious. highly pragmatic, dangerously indulgent, focused. she enjoyed nice things and she wanted more of them, but there wasn’t anything remotely idealistic about the hunger she carried behind her easy smile that was so often derisively complimented as handsome. anyone of less kind disposition would say she smoked like a man, drank like a man, thought like a man. a great beyond was a nice talk to talk, but she could never resist the allure of comfort.

if that isn’t what makes big-headed girls like her settle, pretend they are head-deep into a love that takes no checks, cash only.

so she strapped alongside the bank manager ten years older than her that would father her two sons. if she was charisma and liberty, he was nothing more than a conservative bore, his two heels so grounded to firm earth he never moved out of the spot. it was home to work and work to home, and a visit to the parents on the weekends. fun was only ever mandatory, a bare minimum abiding by his final say.

he decided, she endured. the rules of the perfect marriage.

             — DRAFT 2: BONES.

caught between the parents in a house that always felt decades older than its walls aged, the lee boys had to find space for themselves. hanbin always thought junhong had it easier as the first-born. he knew how to deal with his parents, he knew how to talk to people. everything seemed perfectly uncomplicated to him. he could fill his time with friends and the outside world that hanbin was so curious about.

from the very beginning, hanbin was the undeniable black sheep. his health was poor in the formative years of his life, which put his mother on his heels for most of his childhood lest any of his allergies would have him killed before he could reach double digits in age. he barely had an immune system, any common cold would leave him bedridden for days. but that wasn’t all.

his delicate condition made it hard for him to connect to his peers right when children are supposed to develop these skills, which put him under his mother’s wing for most of the affection and sociability he would be getting for most of his years. but that wasn’t all.

his father resented him for his weakness and his medical bills. he didn’t exactly bother to mask his impatience, never censoring himself before ranting about how much keeping his son alive cost him, like hanbin was responsible for it. worse, like his mother was responsible for it. what they say about spoiled offspring – if there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’s something wrong with the pup.

the fights escalated from occasional to daily. hanbin would often catch a waft of a strong, foul scent from his mother’s coffee cup when she fed him his medication before school. he didn’t remember seeing his father without the tension on his jaw or the frown between his eyes.

and he sat wedged between them, bound by his feet. a martyr of his own body.

             — DRAFT 3: SON.

when he turned seven, his health took a turn for the better. one by one, his allergies started receding, he grew some muscle between the lot of skin and bones.

while he lived in hermitage, his parents tried to have him take part in monitored activities that could fill his time outside school. sometimes he felt like they just needed to have a few hours away from him. ironically, those only come to fruition after the illness fades. he improves in piano once the lessons don’t have to be taken in his house, at his father’s old keyboard, where his mother could hover around, peering over the teacher’s shoulder. piano used to only be another frustration that he had to get out of the way to make it through the day, but going to the conservatory for lessons gives him a confidence he hadn’t known before, a need to prove himself to the eyes from every corner.

that’s what eggs him on to ditch the therapeutic swimming sessions to do competitive training. that and all of the energy that suddenly is coursing in his blood, making him thrum with a vitality that felt new and foreign and odd under his skin. he’s doctor explains it’s the iron that he had his body used to lack, but it feels like fireworks and three glasses of chocolate milk at one in the morning.

it’s enough to get his father off his case, maybe occasionally going as far as to seem pleased. he himself had been successful enough in baseball to land a college scholarship back in his day. junhong was in a junior soccer league, so he could get used to having athletes for both sons, pass the baton. it was about putting up the trophy shelf and taking pictures at the podiums.

his mother dances to the blues he strings out of the keyboard on late afternoons, her lean, bowed arms drenched in the pinks and oranges of the sunset peeking through the kitchen window.

he knows whose pride and joy he wants to be.

             — DRAFT 4: BLUR.

if he wasn’t ready for the energy flooding through him at nine, he doesn’t know what to do with all the anger biting at his gut at thirteen. the world fades to a sanguine blur, and he just knows he wants out. out of music, out of swimming, out of school. out of his house, that became somehow more crowded after junhong enlisted for mandatory service. all his parents seem to do is yell. at each other, at neighbors, at him – it doesn’t much matter. they don’t need much of a reason to pull when their finger never leaves the trigger.

his father has a way of ruining things, everything has to become torture for him to be satisfied. that’s what life is. hanbin can’t do anything but watch as his father turns what is meant to be a hobby into the sad corner of the trophy shelf, all bronze next to the golden cups his brother had gathered. quitting is a fight that breaks furniture and drags out into the dead of the night, and no allowance until hanbin is convinced to go back to competing. his last stand of defiance is switching sports, but he knows that’s a war his father has won.

he doesn’t remember anything outside the training rooms and the competitions. the only thing he hates more than competing is being forced to compete, but at least judo becomes an outlet. junhong makes it less miserable on the weekends he returns home, though those are fleeting graces. he spends his teens like a worker in the mine, sacrificing too much of his life for a sliver of gold.

when he gets it, he quits.

when he gets it, the life goes out of his mother’s eyes, terror flashing in their pale glint as her knees give.

             — DRAFT 5: TRIAL.

at the moment of hanbin’s audition for msg entertainment, his mother is back in busan, on her fourth chemotherapy session. he smiles for the testing camera as he introduces himself, uncharacteristically calm, but it looks good on the frame. it’s becoming, suitable. one of the judges says he speaks as pretty as he looks.

he had been there for the first three sessions, tagging alongside the nurses as they checked her stats and replaced the needles. he asks stupid questions, but they’re patient enough to answer them, if a little begrudgingly. they do tell his mother she’s very lucky to have a son like him before they leave the room, and she puts on a proud smile on chapped lips, radiating.

he has her picture as the screensaver on phone, she had sent it right before leaving for the hospital, the morning of his audition.

this is his second audition to an idol company, so he feels a little bit more at ease than he did at midas. he prepares two songs: that i once was by your side, so he could rely on his piano skills rather than his immature singing, a trick that had almost gotten him through the cut at his first audition; and solo day by solstice, a nod to the company’s legacy which thankfully showcases his potential as an idol much better than his butchering of gemini that cost him his spot the last time.

the judges aren’t overly impressed, but the air in the room is light, he can feel a certain warmth as they thank him for his time and instruct him where to wait until the result is announced.

his performance is better than it was the last time around, but the real difference, he thinks, is his poise. a part of him is proud to convey more charm than the did the last time around, and hoped it would pay off.

his mother had told him to get the fuck out of the house as soon as he could, like she had done. his life is far too precious, she tells him, to be wasted away pleasing someone as daft as his father. she knows he wants more out of his time than be a shadow of a man past his prime.

they ask him what makes him want to become an idol, and he understands they want something flowery, palatable.

“get something done”, is her advice. “don’t make money. well”, she adds quickly, a moment of confusion between the loving mother and the worldly woman. “do make money. but don’t live to make money, live for something.”

he doesn’t want to just do a job, he wants to become something – isn’t that what being an idol is all about?

              — DRAFT 6: REDACTED.

seventeen months are put into building hope.

he learns, to his dismay, that being a trainee is a lot less glamorous than he imagined. there aren’t even many bragging rights involved once he transfers to a school full of other trainees. it’s mostly just more homework, but he takes to dancing and singing better than he does to studying.

he learns he’s more adaptable than he had given himself credit for, which comes as a surprise. in training rooms, he can come out of his shell and dare say out loud what he wants. he gives advice and receives criticism, meets many limits that he has a hard time pushing. but he adapts.

he learns he can have expectations.

he learns that, once broken, faith takes the soul out of you. the two days he takes off from training, to prepare and carry out with the funeral, are spent confabulating a grand escape. it’s a weekend, it’s the perfect time to disappear. run away from his aunt’s house, never give his father an explanation, leave town, leave the country. leave everything behind until it stops hurting, leave his body behind too, if that’s what it takes.

he learns he can’t forget a promise. the last ten months it takes him to debut aren’t made of the same hope he had carried in the peak of his adolescence, but it’s the only he has left to stay in place and be the person he swore he would become.

             — FINAL DRAFT: DOUBLE.

the much awaited glamour does come after debut, but it isn’t as they paint it on magazines and music shows. an idol has to be good at putting on the glitz, fit the happy smile and the alluring wink and the unexpected joke into the right places. the glitz is all about the rosy filter that washes out the feeling out of everything: smile at success, smile at mediocrity, smile at failure, smile at sales figures and chart positions and concert tickets, smile at fear, smile at the unshakeable sensation you have wasted your life away in a lie that was marketed to you, smile at the abyss. isn’t this what you wanted?

life with indigo isn’t made of a whole bunch of success, but there is the glamour. the sad beauty in being a failure at nineteen, the fatalistic allure of having no way out. he suffers, but he does it beautifully, with a touch up on his nose and fuller lips. he fails so well that a drama role is passed by enough actors ends up landing on his lap.  

the experience teaches him that failing in a drama is a considerably better than failing as an idol. the drama pales in comparison to the competition and the career actors involved would hardly mention it among their accomplishments once they’re no longer contractually required to promote it, but it’s huge for hanbin. he feels, for the first time, like he’s on the radar.

that puts him at an odd place with his company. it’s not common for a rookie idol to get actor’s disease from a small role in a failed drama, his manager jokes, loud enough so anyone can hear in the hallway. they both know that it’s not what that is about, this is about hanbin struggling to survive and his company pulling him to the rock bottom in a sea of legalities, fine letters.

the news of his company rejecting a role for him reaches him before he can hear what the role is even for. they clip his wings and keep him in the basement, waiting further instructions, as he should. the few fans wonder why he hasn’t been discussing an acting comeback if indigo won’t make a return as a group - some don’t even know he’s in indigo.

all doubt seems to clear when the group is announced for re:group, a second chance at making an idol group functional again.

he plays it like a role, makes a character for himself - passionate, heated but collected, charming. he isn’t the center of attention, eyes set on a prize beyond momentary popularity, but he’s up there. he doesn’t do a whole lot of wacky fanservice or wink prettily for the cameras, but he does enough to be back on the radar.

success fits him tight, wears him like a glove. a part of him revels in complaining about having too much work to do, savors the sleepless shifts to make up for all the nights he had spent awake wondering what would become of him. a part of him delves into the thick of it and reaches for more, hellbent on climbing further up until it’s only him on the podium, gold on his neck again.

but his body is made of memory, and he can’t drink himself enough on the high of triumph to let himself forget. he wishes he could, sometimes. he wishes he could forget his mother’s hands, bony and tiny around his, lips held tight despite her exhaustion as the nurses pulled and shoved needles into her. he wishes he could forget he doesn’t want to become his work. he wishes he could embody ambition with grace and bloody teeth, but god, he doesn’t want to eat himself alive again.

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON CHERRY BOMB!’S MAIN VOCAL LIM SEOLHEE ...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Sophia CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 17 TRAINEE SINCE: 14 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: Acting

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): sunshine for her image as the energy pill, saseumi for her doe-eyed beauty, bookworm because she’s been captured in airport and fansign photos holding well-read books on multiple occasions, seolcasso–seolhee + picasso for her artistic talents, heethoven– seolhee + beethoven as derived from her initial vlives where she would ask fans to send in requests for piano covers to do. INSPIRATION: her love for music is hereditary–what with her mother being a piano teacher and her grandmother’s blessed voice. she thinks she was born to embrace and to fall in love with the sound of music and, thus, desires to inspire others with her voice. SPECIAL TALENTS:

drawing & painting–her mediums being charcoal and watercolor, respectively.

a walking jukebox, which came from a few variety show appearances during group promotions where she was able to sing acapella to every single song requested by the mcs.

plays the piano, guitar, and guzheng & has been known to fulfill fan requests for her to cover other idol groups’ songs.

NOTABLE FACTS:

speaks korean, english, italian fluently.

graduated from seoul’s school of performing arts & attending seoul institute of the arts.

a huge fan of harry potter and has been quoted in an interview saying luna lovegood is the character she relates most to.

loves cooking & baking as a way to de-stress.

a known lover of dogs and children–has been captured in fancams with her signature dimpled smile playing with a dog or taking pictures with older fans who bring small children to fansigns.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

she wants cherry bomb! to gain more notoriety as a whole–perhaps, a first music show win to show that they’ve reached a level of public reception that would propel her and her girls further on their individual paths. maybe then, she can utilize her group branding to help give her budding acting career a much needed boost.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

she wants to shatter expectations for idol actors. because despite her dramas not achieving much success/critical reception in terms of rating, she’s really fallen in love with acting and wants so desperately to be taken seriously as an actress, to be recognized for her craft. eventually when she’s broken the mold–hopefully via a breakout role in a successful drama–she wants to then ask msg if she can pursue a solo career in music–venture into singing osts or actually debut with a song she’s composed or written herself. somewhere further down the line, when the novelty of being in a girl group has well and truly faded, she hopes to be established as a well-rounded artist in music and in film/television.

IDOL IMAGE

BEFORE.

they call her chameleon–the judges.

it’s not an insult, they reassure with a flash of teeth and blood red lips. you’ve got a pretty face and a nice voice. (pause.) but no personality.

she learns later–much, much later–what it means to be a blank slate.

-

it takes three years to break the bones of a girl who constantly feels out of place in a room full of her peers.

three years to perfect the art of makeup, to dress to impress, to walk in sky-high heels like she was born for it.

all it takes is three years behind closed doors in an industry where survival of the fittest means fighting with everyone and anyone for a chance at becoming the next big thing for her to learn that the world of fame is paved with sacrifice.

three years to realize that to stand on that brightly lit stage, she must murder herself; set her innocent self on fire and reborn from the ashes someone stronger, brighter, warmer.

TABULA RASA.

trainee days spent isolating herself as the quiet, hardworking girl is buried under rigid lessons and rules of thumb on how to construct a new layer of skin to stitch around herself. years of crying behind closed doors and missing home is replaced by a fresh-faced girl who laughs at everything, smiles at everyone, and bounces back with enthusiasm after a fall—sunshine in ecstatic motion.

from practice room to the bright stage, msg sinks their claws into a lost girl with stars in her eyes and molds her into something whimsical and ethereal. they take all the broken parts of her that seep through the cracks and tell her to bury it behind a radiant smile. creates a mask for her to wear by exploiting all the mismatched parts of her that make her who she is: the dazed look of a dreamer, the seaside accent that still roils under seoul’s modern cadence, her restless hands, the purity of her lilting voice.

they take all that and slip onto her the delicate skin of a walking ray of sunshine with a heart of gold and a thousand watts smile.

on stage and on camera, she’s cherry bomb!’s little energy pill. she’s warm, a little absentminded, not quite there, but innocent all the same. it’s that charm–that little dimple in her cheek–that captivates. sets her apart. if only for a little bit.

she doesn’t mind it–not really.

it’s just another mask she wears. another role she plays.

she’s young. she has time. to change, to mature, to grow out of the novelty of it all.

(she doesn’t.)

AFTER.

four years in the eyes of the public and she’s muffled peals of laughter hidden behind small hands and eyes creasing into half moon crescents. sometimes, she’s softly uttered words of praise, advice, encouragements to her faithful fans on instagram live or a whole chorus of a newly uploaded acoustic cover sung in the voice almost too soft to hear above the strum of guitars, gratitude embedded in three minutes of heartfelt lyrics and shining eyes. to the world, seolhee is someone fragile and in need of protection. almost too good for the world. almost too untainted and pristine. (almost too good to be true.)

from her endearing attempts to interact with and befriend fans and fellow idols alike to her occasional variety show appearances where she’s the perpetually 4d absentminded girl with the dimpled smile hosts have to subtly prompt and prod for answers to their questions about her trending airport fashion, her faithful fansites and fancams in 4k depicting her pristine and perfect on stage (not a hair out of place, her smile perpetually stitched on her face. never faltering. never wavering), growing up pains, childhood in busan, her lingering accent.

there’s always a bit of lasting unconventionality hidden in those moments when they ask about home, about family, about transitioning from the carefree, quiet life on busan’s sandy shores to the pulsating thrum of the big city with its too fast pace and perpetual anonymity.

how did you survive, they ask. i didn’t. she wants to confess. i adapted. i changed, is what she says instead.

and it’s the truth. msg takes her hand-me-downs and thrift-shopped dresses and replaces them with sponsored one pieces with the tags still on them, shiny mary janes in place of worn converses, her sea salt-scented braid of hair is combed and styled in soft waves tumbling down her back and smells of peaches, her unruly tongue fixed under an iron fist to master the straight-laced way of seoul-speak.

she’s made to rid herself of all the things that make her her.

every night, she goes to sleep; her face scrubbed clean, the skin of her good girl persona somewhere on the floor. every morning, she wakes when the sun rises and pulls her skin back on, pats her face dry of tears, and presses two fingers to the corners of her mouth, pushing up until a small dimple forms on her cheek. there, transformation complete.operation sophia is a go.

every day is a vicious cycle. it’s walking on eggshells and pretending someone else isn’t living beneath this suffocating skin, wallowing in years of self-deprecation and the perpetual ache of longing (for something, for someone, for the taste of home—wherever that may be).

-

six years later and she’s still warm. still smiling. just a little dimmer. a little softer.

she’s got this look about her now–almost fragile; whimsical in a way that garners second glances when people first meet her or see her sitting in a corner of the room lingering on the outskirts of conversations, staring into space. a waifish doll; an effortless kind of beauty. ethereal; almost surreal.

she talks softly with a touch of poetic elusiveness and practiced eccentricity, designed to fluster or to purposely dazzle. she stares like she’s trying to see through you. into you. she’s a soft kind of pretty when she’s caught in between camera flashes or in the midst of whispered conversations with one of her members. and yet, on stage and on television wearing the skin of someone else–someone polished and manufactured, she’s danger in high heels.

catch her off-guard and all alone in the dead of the night with her face scrubbed clean and swathed in a too big hoodie and you’ll notice there’s a strange kind of dichotomy when you realize the girl you watched on tv belting high notes or crying her heart out in her latest drama is vastly different from the lonely girl who looks the spitting image of her, sitting for hours in front of a painting in an art gallery or by the han gazing into the waters.

softer, sadder, dreamier.

still as lost as ever.

IDOL HISTORY

PRELUDE.

appa falls in love with eomma in italy, five years after their fateful first encounter in the circus that is high school. a whirlwind romance between a budding photographer and a piano teacher. must be fate, the wedding guests whisper when they vow eternity to one another in a church filled with friends and family who wish them well with warm smiles and teary eyes.

so they love and love and love and somewhere in between, a baby girl is born.

eomma cries; she’s so happy. relieved, she admits years later with a kiss to her forehead. they’ve been trying and trying, after all.

appa cries too. because here she is; another girl for him to love, to protect. a gift from heaven.

they name her sophia, after the saint.

ONE.

they return home after the honeymoon phase fizzles and fades, settling in busan with halmeoni amidst student loans and living on budgets. there, she grows up a free-spirited daydreamer, often associating the world and the people around her in streaks of color and a symphony of sounds. her childhood consists of sand between her toes, sea salt in her hair, ocean-soaked dresses, and the sound of tinkling laughter.

her four seasons of growing up on the sandy shores of busan goes a little like this:

spring: an almost brand new knee-length dress made of white lace her mother buys from a thrift shop at a discounted rate, sunflowers and daisies dancing in the wind, chasing butterflies, and flower bookmarks pressed into the pages of a journal.

summer: ripe with music, her spread eagle on a blanket and sunset golds streaked across her face, the drone of cicadas, cherry popsicles, the whir of electric fans, knee-deep in the sea, her mother calling her name off in the distance.

autumn: a waterfall of warm colors, halmeoni’s cozy handmade sweaters with the sleeves hanging past her fingertips, gingham skirts and leggings, pumpkin pies, spiced lattes, a night sky filled with paper lanterns and the glimmer of stars, father’s phone ringing off the hook in the middle of the night; every night.

winter: soft pink mittens and oversized pea coats over chunky sweaters and chunkier scarves made with love, homemade hot chocolate, footprints in fresh snow, one hand clasped in mother’s hand; the other grasping air, perpetual cold; lingering emptiness.

she’s seven, wide-eyed and curious, watching a master chef work her magic. it’s halmeoni in a soft yellow dress and a spongebob apron around her waist singing deulgukhwa hits and humming to joo hyunmi and patti kim. it’s little seolhee perched on the counter by the fridge singing right along in a game of monkey see, monkey do.

early evening always starts with the swell of a sobangcha song, halmeoni wielding a carrot under her chin and seolhee’s little face crinkling up in peals of laughter. in the living room, her parents smile indulgently, hands busy tucking unpaid bills under week-old newspapers and balls of colorful yarn. and ends with seolhee curled in halmeoni’s lap, both hands clutching her parents’ sleeve in her sleep.

days and nights like these are normal—until they’re not.

one cold night in december, dinner prep is a somber affair. the radio is turned off and secondhand vinyls gather dust—buried under boxes full of knick-knacks and memories. there’s no halmeoni twirling in the kitchen, no tongue-in-cheek adlib to the latest hit trot song, no laughter.

home is quiet. empty. and little seolhee aches with the feeling of missing someone no amount of singing or wishing could ever bring back.

TWO.

she’s ten when she learns to make friends with an old guitar she buys off a neighbor moving to the big city, learns to strum awkwardly, clumsily; a cacophony of sound. it takes a full four seasons for her to learn to love the vibrations of nylon strings beneath the pads of her fingers. learns to put herself back together singing acoustic covers and soft little ballads with her face turned up to the stars. puberty comes and goes with her seated on the rickety steps of her porch, strumming nostalgic chords to the ghost of her youth.

her parents say nothing as they watch her from inside the house, smiles wilted, wistful, watery.

(there’s so many things their daughter could be, should be, and hurting, cradling sadness and turning grief into old-timey blues shouldn’t be one of them.)

they leave her be when she starts going to the market in the sticky heat of summer, guitar strapped to her back, playing for small crowds and neighborly regulars. from dusk to dawn, seolhee fixes a soft smile on her face as she strums and strums and strums, voice light and whimsical as she sings requests as a thank you for listening.

she comes home with a straw hat full of notes and red fingers, knowing full well it’s not enough to make up for this month’s expenses. so seolhee ventures back out again, haunts local farmer’s markets and side streets, the sandy beaches during tourist season, trying to make the most of a life that seems to pass her by too quickly, too quietly.

-

sometimes, she tells herself that when she sings something inside of her heals. as if the soft blue notes become a makeshift stopgap measure filling up the gaping hole in her chest, easing the perpetual emptiness, soothing the ache—the want—for a different life.

sometimes, when she closes her eyes, seolhee pretends she doesn’t hear the sound of her parents fighting, the front door slamming, and her mother’s muffled crying.

sometimes, when she lets herself sink in between lyrics about a dreamer wandering away in search for herself—for an adventure—seolhee swears that some day it could all be possible.

THREE.

family is four. then, three. then, two.

home is no longer sand in between her toes and the ocean clinging to her skin, but the veins of seoul—harsher and all concrete jungle. it’s sleek office buildings and cold cityscapes and soon, the roads she used to bike down back home is replaced by honking taxis and the congestion of too many strangers.

home is now a shoebox; a cramped one bedroom apartment on the outskirts of seoul.

FOUR.

school is but a circus and, sometimes, she finds herself center stage. an unwilling spectacle. her accent is the only thing she has left of home and her peers mock her for it. turn her into the punchline of inside jokes and over-the-shoulder remarks about a bumbling seaside girl who doesn’t belong. she’s not ashamed, but it hurts just the same.

so, she keeps to herself, minds her own business, and makes herself at home on the rooftop and the empty bleachers in an emptier field. she has her guitar and her ocean of sounds. starts spending more time with her head down, hair in a loose braid, writing the world and the people she watches and meets down in the pages of secondhand leather-bound notebooks.

-

“you have a pretty voice.”

it’s rooftop prince. only this time, they meet in the middle of the soccer field. it’s seolhee with her guitar in her lap and a curious tilt of her head, one hand shielding her eyes and feeling like she’s looking at the sun. blinded, she looks away. a little embarrassed, a little flattered. it’s been a long time since someone has complimented her, after all.

“why do you sing?”

so i can heal. one day, some day.

seolhee smiles and turns her face up to the sky. “because it feels like i’m home.”

FIVE.

she’s two days shy of her fourteenth birthday when she wraps herself in a chunky sweater and a soft scarf stitched with halmeoni’s love and makes her way to a quiet corner in hongdae with her guitar strapped to her back. braves the bite of an impending winter with numbed fingers and a voice that carries.

she starts with sobangcha and joo hyunmi, hesitant and almost stuttering as she tunes her guitar with nimble fingers and her heart in her throat. somewhere, somehow, she hears halmeoni telling her to be brave as she plucks strings and closes her eyes, petite body swaying to the ebb and flow of a bygone song. with halmeoni in her ear, she lets the world fade away, pays no mind to the small gathering of an audience finding their way to the nostalgic croon of an old soul.

she comes awake to the sound of applause and a case full of clinking coins and a tiny pile of notes. she thanks everyone for their time and sets off to trudge home with her earnings.

she’s pulled from her afterglow by a tap on her shoulder and whirls around to a man in a suit, all coiffed and perfect, voice velvety smooth. her early birthday gift is an invitation that sounds too good to be true.

-

her mother is apprehensive. she’s heard stories about the life of an idol. doesn’t want her daughter to live life under perpetual scrutiny, robbed of her youth, and always struggling to catch up to changing times and new trends.

“you’ll have to give up everything.”

“not everything.“ not you, she means to say. never you.

impending goodbyes has her losing her grip on the impression of a budding city girl society has pressed upon her, slipping back into the soft drawl of dialect and settling right at home in the wake of her desire to chase after a flimsy dream. like this, she’s doe-eyed and wears the heart of a dreamer, curls around her mother like she’s five years old and afraid of the dark.

“i guess this means my baby’s all grown up now.”

am i? doesn’t feel like it. seolhee swallows back a sob and presses her face to her mother’s neck.

goodbye shouldn’t have sounded so definitive. so painful.

SIX.

three years into training and she realizes her voice has stopped being her own, shaped by the company and molded into the image of an innocent girl with the unpolished voice of a would-be angel.

three years and she realizes she’s signed her youth away as dreams of singing on stage with just a microphone and her guitar are replaced by backhanded compliments, veiled sabotage behind closed doors, and a sense of something sacred being stolen from her.

she’s forbidden from ever bringing up a possible solo debut in the future where she can sing about a girl who’s just trying to find her place in the world. the answer is no almost every time. sometimes, if she’s good—when she ranks on top during evaluations, when she ends up being amongst the shortlist of girls for an upcoming girl group—she gets a backhanded maybe. always baited, always rebuffed. lulled into a sense of security with empty promises of what-if’s and what-could’ve-been’s.

three years in and she learns to bite her tongue and does as she’s told. sings what she’s given. dances as she’s practiced. smiles as she’s commanded.

all the while, hours spent in the dead of the night writing lyrics that read like poems, like stories of a thousand lives not yet lived in her notebooks are laid to waste, buried under rejection after rejection in the bottom of a box full of remnants of her childhood and reminders of a home away from home.

like this, she muffles the cries of a girl homesick for a place she’s never been, sings and dances like it’s the only thing that matters and tells herself she’s happy.

tells herself it’s all she wants.

tells herself it’s enough.

(it never is. never will be.)

SEVEN.

lim seolhee is buried—erased—the day she debuts as cherry bomb’s main vocal.

(because lim seolhee is the sunshine girl who looked at people like they hung the moon and the stars. because lim seolhee is tousled hair and tinkling laughter in the middle of the sea. because lim seolhee is made of old songs and picture books, flower crowns, and grass stains.

because lim seolhee is the kind of girl easily broken and taken advantage of.

because lim seolhee, naive and kind, has no place in a world full of backstabbing and desperate survivors trying to make it to the top.

so, she creates herself a persona—someone soft-spoken and unassuming, who seemed unlikely to stab you in the back than she is to hold you while you cried. someone who always seemed a little dazed and absentminded; her gaze faraway, her voice a whisper.

someone like halmeoni—all soft around the edges, always so poised and graceful in her mannerisms (from her mysterious little smile, to the tilt of her head, to the way she walked and talked), her voice a balm to her soul.

she takes all the things she loves most about her and creates a persona in her grandmother’s shadow.

like this, sophia is born to weather all the storms seolhee doesn’t have the strength to handle on her own—just like halmeoni had been there, once upon a time, to hold her hand while she dusted the dirt off her knees and got right back up to face the world.

-

her father calls three days later. when she picks up, all she hears is his rumbling laughter, sounding much fuller than it had in their rickety old house filled with the scent of spices and long-time struggles.

“are you happy? how’s it feel to be on stage?”

like i’m flying. like i’m dying. “how are you, daddy? are you happier now?”

“…yeah, i guess i am, seol-ah. i think i am.”

“that’s good. that’s all i ever wanted—for you to be happy.”

(what she means is—i miss you so much, it hurts. will you come home? will you come back? do you miss me too?)

“i’m proud of you. be good. keep shining, dad will always be by your side.”

don’t lie. don’t lie. don’t lie, she thinks as she cries silent tears and thanks him for everything. for the moments of happiness when she was but a child too curious, too naive, too loving for her own good. for the lifetime of loneliness and always getting left behind when things get too hard—too tough—for people to stay.

“i’m always good.“ always. then and now.

EIGHT.

msg thrives on how easy it is to break her and fit her into a mold of their design, how quickly she can give away her free will for a promise of an adventure (of life never being dull, of living a dream). it’s easy to take a lost little thing in need of guidance and shape her into something otherworldly, push her onto a gnarly road and tell her to simply go straight to find her way back home, to where she needs to be.

but if one were to ask where she’s needed, she thinks of her old childhood home in busan, the pale yellow paint peeling on patches on her ceiling, the glow-in-the-dark wallpaper brittle and gathering dust. thinks of being waist-deep in the sea, thinks of halmeoni in her spongebob apron and a carrot as her makeshift microphone, thinks of her father somewhere (surviving, thriving, happy—she hopes), thinks of her mother and her work-roughened hands and the small shoebox apartment tucked in the tiniest corner of a heartless city.

if one were to ask what it is lim seolhee wants in private, watch her freeze, her smile slipping just slightly off her face—like a deer caught in headlights. watch her eyes, those sad lonely eyes, well up in tears she won’t let spill. watch her closely and carefully as her body seems to curl in on herself—as if the weight of the world is suddenly looming on her shoulders. watch for the tremor when she speaks, fingers twisting at her sides, voice impossibly soft and fragile: i don’t know…no one’s ever asked me before.

and no one has. no one cares either. msg simply takes and so do her fans. everyone breaks off little pieces of her; pieces she willingly gives because she can’t say no—until there’s nothing left for her to give. nothing left for anyone to take.

all that remains is the hollowed out shell of a girl drifting aimlessly, her heart never here or in one place, her mind lingering on faraway places not yet traveled and the sound of ocean waves crashing on sandy shores like a neverending siren’s call.

NINE.

she enters a mid-life crisis at the ripe age of twenty.

the zeroes in her bank account don’t mean anything when all she sees staring back at her in the bathroom mirror is a tired, lonely girl (a skinny, pretty little thing. all hollowed out by time, youth chipping away at the edges), who doesn’t know what she wants. doesn’t know where she belongs or who she is.

so when the stage starts to feel like a burden, she finds a niche on the small screen. makes peace with esoteric scripts and starts creating a name for herself. slowly, she learns to find temporary homes in between lines and in fictional universes. slowly, she finds becoming someone else exhilarating, being on set like stepping into another world. acting becomes second nature—another job; one she actually likes.

but like the stage, the set too becomes another battlefield. people say you won’t get to where you are without ruffling a few feathers or stepping on someone’s toes.

after all, survivors don’t make it to the top without playing a little dirty.

(she learns this the hard way.)

-

mother once told her names were dangerous things—that a girl should remember the names of men who tried to steal her heart, who loved her like she was the only thing that mattered, and who left her all broken, bruised, and ugly. mother tells her it’s the name of men she should be afraid of. the sons of women who lured her in with their heated gazes, their lilting voices, their body full of power. mother warned her that men were dangerous; their names a warning sign—a temptation.

her fall from grace comes as a surprise and at the hands of an up-and-coming actor.

when she meets him, he is boy blue with a heart of gold. all gentle hands and a dirty mouth. their first kiss is a shy affair—all bumping noses and awkward lip grazing—and done in the quiet of his penthouse suite.

they’re on their third date when they’re caught on camera; their rendezvous splashed front page on gossip rags and dispersed on the internet. a tentative relationship captured for all of posterity.

the world explodes. her heart does too.

msg does damage control. spins the fairytale narrative of a love borne between friends. of close encounters, bad timing, and years of pining. the company pins everything on her longstanding image as the sweet girl who would shoulder the world if asked to. pleads for the public, the fans, the media to support this budding romance between two close friends who made it through thick and thin as trainees all those years ago. 

but the damage is done.

the fandom and the public remain divided.

when the hate comments begin to seep through the cracks and makes it way up top, msg realizes what could’ve been a good publicity stunt to garner her more individual branding backfires. realizes they overestimated her value. realizes she’s not quite enough, not quite there. not yet—that her reputation, though pristine prior, could not support the weight of negative public scrutiny and backlash.

so msg pulls her. benches her. gone are the growing piles of scripts and role offers. gone are the ever present promises that she could eventually get that solo she wanted and has begged for year after year.

all that remains are the cyclical group promotions.

prison has a new name and it’s the four pillars that are fame, fortune, reputation, and public perception that traps her within its midst.

2016 begins with a bang and ends with a whimper.

-

she’s twenty-one when he kisses her goodbye the night before their breakup goes public.

she’s twenty-one when the internet reports that they’ve called it quits, lamenting the tragedy of yet another “perfect” couple succumbing to the woes of distance and busy schedules.

she doesn’t cry, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile when msg unfreezes her. she says nothing when they warn her to behave and simply nods.

days turn into weeks into months. and, slowly, her heart mends itself. suture by painful suture, scar over invisible scar. healed over by the weight of time and a perpetual kind of numbness that seeps through skin, through muscle, through bone and into her very soul.

like this, she stands back up and trudges on forward—an energizer bunny running on the last dredges of its batteries.

holding out as long as she can. as hard as she can. as always.

TEN.

twenty-three and she’s found herself embarking on a new journey. a new chapter to write.

she’s got a budding acting career ahead. cherry bomb! is still afloat. the road to stardom is long yet, but she’s getting there.

slowly, but surely.

-

deep down—some day, somehow, she prays for anonymity. wants a life shrouded in mystery, no longer talked about in superlatives, made infamous by gossip, speculation, and rumors.

maybe in fifteen years, lim seolhee can be found again in a small town off the coast of some river city. a wanderer, an anomaly amidst a sea of faceless people.

there, a modern-day wraith finally content with her place in the world.

once lost, now found. just a woman. plain and simple.

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON POIZN’S MAIN VOCAL LEE HYUK

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: n/a CURRENT AGE: 25 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 18 COMPANY: 99 SECONDARY SKILL: Acting

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAMES: honey dripping eyes prince SPECIAL TALENT:

Can cry on spot if requested.

Impersonates the legendary main vocal of gemini.

INSPIRATION: After singing in church, Hyuk found out his passion for making people smile with his voice. He became an idol so his voice could reach more people and move their hearts the way POWer did. NOTABLE FACTS:

Started acting after staring in Heaven’s mv

Used to sing in his church’s choir

Has a dog named Trufles

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

be the male lead in a successful drama

LONG-TERM GOALS:

as he gets farther and farther from his first passion, singing, hyuk wants to move completely into acting once his contract is over.

IDOL IMAGE

at first, he’s the bad boy with the heart of gold.

it’s an easy enough image to portray, because it’s the one closest to the truth. hyuk has the right type of face, the right type of snarl, the right way of working the camera. a well placed smirk, a scoff. years of growing rich with an asshole in the place of a father taught him enough of how to properly look like a jackass in a convincing way. but he also knows how to smile warmly, how to make whoever is looking at him at that very moment feel special, unique. the image works because the dichotomy is him, the way he feels inside. the disparity between his anger and his kindness, between his cynicism and his honest heart.

until the illusion is broken and the articles about him being a “delinquent” at school come out. his heart of gold breaks, and he’s just the bad boy. an asshole. that’s it. no nuance, nothing worth of being saved, or being fantasized about.

and it’s a punch to his gut because that’s exactly how hyuk feels. like a lie, like everything good about him it’s nothing but a façade. so he’s thrown to the curb, forgotten, just like his own group is.and it’s easy to forget him because hyuk almost forgets about himself too. now he’s just one more of the rotten members of poizn, a burden, an issue.

his father would agree.

and it stays like this until years later. his management allows him to act after years of an empty solo schedule, landing him a role that is exactly the same one he was given when he debuted. and it works. hyuk doesn’t even know how, but it does. the bad boy with a sad heart, the fallen angel. his appearance save him and he’s suddenly on the news again, not so much for his acting skills but mostly because of how he looks. there are articles about his honey-dripping eyes, about the way he looked in certain scenes. and suddenly people are calling him again, requesting him. and 99 entertainment is quick to capitalize on that.

they instruct him to be pleasant in variety shows, to be fun. they instruct him to flirt with the female guests but never go too far, respectfully. they want to cast him in more romantic dramas, to bring to poizn the kind of money and power only a strong fandom of girls can bring. and hyuk does it. does it because he’s desperate. does it because he’s good at it. does it because the only way he can get out is to play their game.

does it because he doesn’t have another choice.

IDOL HISTORY

chapter one, beginnings

he tries.

hyuk tries, hard. he tries hard to be the best son he can to a father who doesn’t deserve it. few father do, he learns later on. because most of them are too busy being fucking assholes than actual parents. but hyuk tries, anyway. his mother has died and his father raises him alone. that must count for something, right? it must.

so he tries. even if he goes home every day after school to eat dinner by himself, even when his father barely speaks to him. holidays are spent alone until he is old enough to go to his friends house, their parents kind and nice. hyuk wonders what’s it’s like. he wonders what he did wrong.

chapter two, origins

hyuk gets used to it.

he gets used to never seeing his father. he gets used to their huge house being always empty, he gets used to always having dinner all by himself. he gets used to his ways of coping - to the destructive rage that builds inside him like wildfire, to bloody knuckles that he hides so he won’t see them. hyuk gets used to living teenage years that will never amount to anything: girlfriends that come and go, friends that come and go. he gets used to spending idle time after school, getting into shit just because he doesn’t want to go home. hyuk gets used to everything.

he even gets used to the fact of knowing for a fact that he will never amount to anything. and it hurts at first, and then it doesn’t anymore. he laughs it off. what a cliché he has become. the sad rich boy. the motherless boy who turns to music to survive, who turns to violence to be able to feel anything at all. it’d be funny if this wasn’t his life.

chapter three, yearnings

hyuk craves for validation the way only a rejected kid does.

at the beginning of his high school life he ends up around the wrong sort of crowd. and it’s not that hyuk agrees with the shit his friends do, he simply goes along with it because he needs somewhere to belong. if he’s honest, he doesn’t like it. it’s not like him, not like his overall outside image that he so carefully builds. hyuk is a good boy, bright, beautiful. the golden boy with a golden voice, shining in school festivals, boosting with popularity. but he needs to be accepted. craves it.  he already has an empty house, he doesn’t need another place to be ignored. so he goes along with it. he goes along when they bully the other kids, the weaker ones when they smoke behind the school building, when they smuggle drinks to their parties. he goes along when they find a target, press on, bully him for money, food. he goes along when they corner him in an alley street, easy laughter and jestering. he never does anything, he just watches.

until one day. until this one day when the boy spits back, swears at him. all of his friends look at him, waiting for hyuk to do something. he’s not supposed to take shit like this. he feels his throat going dry with fear, he feels his hands turning into fists with rage.

won’t you do anything, his friend says. so he does.

red is all he sees. red on the boy’s face, red on his knuckles. his friends run and then his face is red with shame as he faces his father, red when the parents of the kid come after them. red on his eyes as he cries, red, red as he apologize.

and his father pays them off as he ways does. his father had bought his love for years and now he buys the kid’s silence. they won’t take him to the police, he leaves the situation unscarred. or something like that.

his father also buys the tickets for seoul. but he doesn’t take him to the airport.

chapter four, a monster under his bed

he arrives at his grandmother’s home with a lowered head and a mouth filled with apologies. his father thought it’d be best, to send him somewhere else, far away. his grandmother’s house in was the best option, of course it was. his grandmother is a strict woman, pious, made him go to church every sunday morning.

one must pray, she’d say. for your sins. and hyuk has many.

hyuk wonders though what good can praying do. if it can make the dreams go away. he dreams of the boy, every night. in some nights he kills him, some nights he’s the one who kills hyuk. some nights it’s the very same thing as it were in real life, a morbid repetition. and it follows him for years to come, night after night, week after week. the years pass him by and even when the dreams start to fade they never truly leave. he’s always there like a ghost, a haunting of the monster he was. is. because the ire never leave him, never. he feels it and it aches, burns. like acid it gnaws his insides. but he keeps it, locks it. pretends he’s someone else in his new school, goes to church. he goes to fucking church.

he even starts singing again. he sings the hymns sunday after sunday, loses himself in the one thing he knows he does well. this one thing, his voice.

he wonders if he can be saved.

chapter five, absolution

he tries again.

at first, when the 99 entertainment scout approached him after a mass he doesn’t know what to say.

hyuk had never thought of what he’d do in the future. guilt is an all time consuming job and the future seemed like this blighted thing, hopeless. something he doesn’t deserve to aspire for. so at first he decides not to go to the audition, even throws the number of the woman who approached him in the trash. it’s his grandmother who tells him he should go.

if god gives you a gift you should use it.

so he does. and he passes the audition, hears that this is about his voice and his face. joins this company and starts from scratch on this thing everyone seems to do so well. hyuk’s dancing is barely passable, his singing and his face the only thing that keep the company interested. so hyuk dives in, tries his hardest. he doesn’t have any interest for school anymore, he goes only because he has to. he works so hard he doesn’t even have time to do anything else, arrives home only to throw himself on his bed, passes out from exhaustion. at least that works in keeping the dreams away.

chapter six, father

when he makes it, nine months after he started training, hyuk sends a message to his father. he just tells him good luck.

they barely speak after that.

chapter seven, ambers

debuting in poizn is crazy at first,, busy. their music style is not usually what he’d go for but he fits the image so well it almost feels like he chose it himself. and hyuk finds out he’s good at it. the way he looks gather attention, give him a spotlight he wasn’t expecting at first. so 99 pushes him. they shove him into variety shows, shove him in drama cameos, singing competitions. and of course hyuk starts to enjoy it, to like the stardom, the spotlight. he likes it because he’s good at it, likes it because he has forgotten what it’s like to not feel ashamed. to have people looking up to him and not down. he almost forgets he can be good at something.

he almost forgot he could be good.

chapter eight, ashes

when articles start spreading from old school mates about how he was a bully at school his company is quick at hiding everything, quick at pointing out the lack of proof. quick at bringing up old friends, old posts about how he was a nice kid. all lies and that’s the worst part. hyuk knows the truth. he knows and that is the worst part.

but even so the article takes its toll on his popularity. people are angry, many completely ignore his company’s words. he’s pulled from shows, pulled from the drama he was about to start shooting. and people notice it, the way even though 99 entertainment denied it they still pulled him out of things and it just made everything worse.

and that’s when the dreams come back.

chapter nine, burning.

there’s something wrong about him, everything he touches burns.

what is the opposite of the midas’ touch? whatever it is he feels like he’s been cursed with it. in the golden years of his debut he had almost felt like the complete reverse, like if he tried hard enough he could turn things to gold. illusions, hyuk now knows. he does.

and all the things he thought were over come back. the rage. destructive, all encompassing. he feels angry all the time. angry at his boredom, angry at the world. angry at being in a group that spends more time in the training room than actually performing. angry at his company, at his choices. angry at his father who only talks to him to remember him of who he used to be.

hyuk never believed in second chances anyway. why would he have one? him of all people? him and all his sins? he had his chance and he blew it, ruined it.

it’s done.

chapter ten, alive

when they allow him to act again hyuk almost doesn’t believe it. it’s been years since his scandal and they decide he should try again. his image is not as bad as it used to be, even though every time any article about him come out there are still people throwing the iljin word. he’s still called trash, rotten. still asked why he’s still in poizn. but that’s not surprising. it’s been years, but the public is not that forgiving.

but he accepts the offer, puts himself in public eye again. and it works. he almost doesn’t know but it does.

it feels almost weird. being cast again, receiving calls. a song that finally, finally reaches the number one spot. hyuk never believed in second chances, but it almost feels like he’s finally getting his.

the thing is: he doesn’t feel like he deserve it.