#if it weren't a simple stage setup sung would have wanted to recruit a band to perform with him lmao

[fmdjoosungarchive]

location: gold star studio, choi family home

dates: july 29th to august 5th more or less

word count: 844

tldr; sung writes smile for our songs. time with his family during vacation makes him think about the person he truly is versus what the world had expected of him thus far. def part of sung’s 2020 self growth arc

identity was a troubled concept, in its theory, for an idol. was the question to introduce element’s sun, or choi joosung? as a songwriter, it became more confusing. if it was up to him, his accreditation on komca would have choi joosung, but as it was, as marketing was, he was referred to as sun.

in sung, the thoughts didn’t stay long. despite whatever might have been expected, sung knew that what he wanted was to express himself as choi joosung, the songwriter.

that meant going back to his roots, and his comfort zone. as someone who spent most of his free time dancing, listening to music, or writing music, his taste was eclectic. sung always wanted to push himself out of the box he’d started in, to become as well-rounded as he could be. yet here, that comfortable spot was where he was asked to sit. and so, he started where he did most often, with composition.

turning on his computer, and settling down in front of his keyboard, a sense of comfort filled the space, a warmth in the space between his fingers and the keys. natural as it felt by that point, sung’s fingers slid onto the cool material of the keys, and pressed. rarely did sung have ideas in mind when he sat down at the piano. part of songwriting was accepting that nothing was new, anymore. after thousands of years of music-making, nothing he thought up could be entirely original. in a way, it was a thought that calmed him, as it left him worrying less over being different. he could focus on putting together sounds that simply sounded good to him.

recently, the sounds sung found himself drawn to most were jazzy. not jazz specifically. most anything he would be allowed to release needed some kind of pop, or hip-hop, element to them. his troves of unreleased songs were proof enough of that. eventually, he’d have to please gold star with what he wrote. but for then, he could do as he pleased. to sung, rap didn’t need to have only one kind of sound. he couldn’t ever say he was very knowledgable about the history of rap, considering he had only been made a rapper for his deeper voice and lack of strong vocals, however, sung didn’t see why he needed to pretend he was a hard lined rapper with a trap sound, if it wasn’t what suited him best.

and sung was a soft man. he ran a nightly radio show where he spoke in a gentle tone, gave advice, and talked about his favorite books. sun performing body wasn’t choi joosung, the songwriter. choi joosung plucked strings, until he’d muddled about a line with a pep to it, one cracked with an almost sorrowful nostalgia. on the tip of his brain, memories sat, fuzzy in what he might have wanted.

they didn’t become more clear, despite wanting them to. and so, sung moved on. upsettingly enough, the rest of his first pass lacked energy. sung was tired by the time he’d recorded the piano section he’d written on his computer. he’d added in electronically created violin and trumpet lines, with a constant backline of the piano. and when he had his first draft, it was... fine.

despite what was asked of him, sung couldn’t bring himself to come back to the composition properly. he’d tried, several times, but nothing he came up with ended up sounding good. the composition sounded lifeless, one spark quickly burning out.

it wasn’t until element’s appointed vacation that the flame ignited again. in the smallest of moments, it started again as he asked his mother if he could help the girls in the kitchen. considering he’d never done that before, even as a kid, he expected at least his father to be surprised. rather than right then, though, when sung felt the cogs turning, was about half an hour later. his sister-in-law occupied the stove, while his mother, her mother before her, and himself stood assembly line along the counter, cutting and rolling out dough. his grandmother reached over, to show him how to more evenly and thinly roll the dough out, and sung thought that this was the man he’d always wanted to be. right then, even her next quips sounded more like jokes than usual.

who choi joosung was most was that. he was the man whose eyes sparkled as he waited for his picky father’s approval over his dumpling dough, the man that dutifully picked up tossed away toys for every game of his spoiled nephew’s, and the man that opened the car door for his grandma so he could make sure she got easily. choi joosung was a man who didn’t want to pretend to be someone else any longer.

by the time the family had decided to retire to their own spaces, sung was thrumming with new energy, and by the time sung slipped under the covers of his bed, he had a real first draft of a song that truly exemplified who he was.