i can understand her feeling neglected and lashing out I can't, however, excuse her being cruel to her baby brother (their age difference seems to be pretty big), a defenseless kid whose whole world has been shaken, absolutely fucking not
I wonder which one is love. Hoping that you're worrying about me like I am for you and wishing that you're pining for me like I do for you. Is this love? Or on the other hand, is it wishing that you won't be worried about me, that you'll forget about me and all the moments we've shared? Is that love? If it's neither, is it love that I'm willing to go through everything from the very beginning just so I can meet you once again?
“Eres un niño llorón”. Regaña, sus pulgares alcanzando las mejillas de su hermano mayor para limpiar los rastros de lágrimas que, hasta hace unos minutos atrás, no dejaban de fluir. “¿Ahora qué pasó? ¿Tengo que vengarme de alguien?” ╱ ( @sxndglass )
"This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in." (x)
A SCENE (1K / 1,089 words.)
--- set on December 2022, a week before Christmas.
"Can I come in?" Haegon asks the shut door, lips hovering the wood, forehead resting against it. “Yongie– Yongie, it’s me.”
He hears steps, a crack, the sound of keys being unlocked.
When the door swings open, Haegon is faced with a Sunyoung that’s in shambles – messy hair barely contained in a ponytail, eyebags the color of asphalt, her tee sliding off her left shoulder. She had gotten drunk, she had said when she texted: was drunk and missing him, thinking of him, wanting to hear his voice, touch his face.
She looks so unlike how he found her on that first night – standing by the fog machine, fluorescent light painting her whole body pink, the two of them surrounded by music loud enough for Haegon to feel the bass on the center of his chest, on his teeth.
He had looked at her from across the room then forced his head down to his beer, to his shoes. As if, he thought; If only.
Haegon knows now that it was Sunyoung who found him, that she perfectly framed herself to be kept, like a pearl ready to be turned into the centerpiece of a necklace, set to sit close to the chest.
Not even his chest, at that. Haegon was just the box she would temporarily reside on, would use to–
Mask gone, show over, and she’s still as beautiful as a dream, enough so to knock Haegon’s breath away, to turn him into an ice sculpture.
For a long moment, none of them dare to move forward. But they don’t move backwards, either – it’s the motivation Haegon needs to force his gaze up, trembling, trying a smile that he knows looks crooked, vulnerable, horrible.
Sunyoung wears a similar uncertain expression on her face, until it melts into the one he loves; close mouthed smile with the eyebrows descending. (A picture of regret– No. Affection.)
She opens her arms wide, showcasing the whole land that is her chest and the crook of her neck, and Haegon is bolting to be near her before he can even think about it, almost falling apart when he feels her hugging him back just as tight on his waist, then up his back, near his shoulders.
“There, there,” Sunyoung says with a breathy chuckle, running a soothing hand up his hair, contouring his nape. “It’s okay now, baby. You’re okay– Okay with me.”
"I'm sorry– I’m so sorry I left, I– I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m never– Never again," Haegon whispers, rambles faint enough to be just puffs of air near her ear. He feels her shake her head against his temper, hears her mutter a melodic sounding ‘Shhhh’.
“I’m sorry I let you leave,” Sunyoung secrets back, now sounding just as teary. “I missed you so, so much, Haegon, I– I thought I fucked everything last time, that it would be the last last time, and I couldn’t leave it be how– God, I haven’t even been breathing normal, you– Did you miss me? Even now that you know, did you still–"
Haegon can only nod and nod, exhilarated and overwhelmed, as he lets her coarse his head out of its hideout and angle his mouth to hers.
Naturally, they kiss unnaturally: Haegon had always been a too eager kisser, Sunyoung a stiff one, and they haven’t done this in way too many months, enough to feel like a whole lifetime ago.
(Weeks before their last fall out, Sunyoung had already stopped kissing him. Haegon, who had always been too afraid of rejection to ever dare to reach first, waited. When nothing came he learned to want nothing.)
Now, they bump on every single corner of the entrance’s walls, and on the living room’s furniture and then the ones in her bedroom – Haegon steps on a bra, on a lighter, on three cans of beer that make a rattling sound that makes them both laugh, breaking their mouths apart.
He sits on the edge of her bed and has to close his eyes as the familiar smell of Sunyoung’s herbal candles catches up to him, her skin bathed in perfume as she sits on his lap.
“Hey,” she says, breathy, smiley, an inch away. She hooks an arm around his neck and the other skates down his arm. “Hey. Look at me. Can I talk for once, before anything else? Honesty hour. How do you like that? Let’s make it a rule, okay? Can it be a rule? A you and me rule?”
“It’s a rule,” Haegon says, absently.
He feels– tired, as he does when they just talk. His left foot is dormant, he feels it and taps it against the red rug, feels like there’s bees on it.
"Being apart," Sunyoung prompts, tracing an ever lasting circle with her thumb against one of his wrists, "Really fucking hurted me. It’s important that you know you did it. You've hurt me."
"You've hurt me first," Haegon tells her, tone just as even.
To that, Sunyoung flashes him a flat and crude grin, one that’s not trying to be charming for once. He thinks he sees her shoulders spasm, like she wants to shrug it off but also wants to hold it in.
Her fingertip has gone still on his arm. When it moves again, Haegon feels it turn into a nail that pokes then digs, leaving a small dent on his skin.
"Don't leave again, Haegon-ah," Sunyoung says, somewhat coldly – a plea, on her own way. "I'm asking nicely, this time, for you to stay."
"Then don't kiss Minwoo again," Haegon counters, getting a hold of and pinching her ear lobe with little caution, rotating the stud of her earring in between his fingers a little roughly. "Don’t lie to me again. Don’t cheat. That's all I'm asking."
Sunyoung drags her face nearer, stops with their noses an inch from touching, looks him in the eyes. She says without uttering a thing, ‘Promise.’
Haegon closes the gap and kisses her once to show he understands, then again to chase the words she isn’t saying, swallow them and keep it in the safe within him.
A third kiss, because that’s what couples do, and that’s what they are again; a fourth in which Sunyoung takes a handful of his shirt, pushes and pins Haegon's back against the mattress, holds him in place.
Love is a grip tight enough to keep the blood from running out the wounds, and she has that engraved in her bones just as much as he does.
Perhaps foremost among Kim's thematic concerns is the consideration of marginality, alterity, and radical difference. [...] Overcoming human form, in Kim's world, is not quite a way of transcending our limits, as is often the case in superhero narratives, but rather a desperate attempt to survive by the marginalized and the vulnerable.
Sunyoung Park in the afterword to On The Origin of Species and Other Stories by Kim Bo-young
𓏲 * ( park sooyoung , cis woman , she / her ) ⸺ pictures of julia seoyeon yang have been showing up all over my feed, and considering the last time they were #trending, it was due to allegedly sabotaging a fellow content creator as a means of securing her place at the top— i'm not likely to unfollow any time soon. with their sleek black hair brushing against lithe waist and fabric of cropped self - portrait bouclé - knit cardigan and jacquemus denim skirt showing off the right amount of skin with fendi delfina boots adding height to elegant stature, i'm not surprised to hear that they are a part of the nouveau riches ...
the intro graphic used is from the showbiz baby template set, and the divider used is from the #kittygirl template set, both created by @strifesource. the gifs of park sooyoung ( joy ) are from keetika, and also provided by a friend via a private discord server. please do not save / use any gifs used without reblogging from keetika, and i will not share the link to the private gif pack.
wealth has been synonymous with the yang family since the early 1940s, one of the rare families that managed to pull through 1997 asian financial crisis on top. soonsang, the family company, was founded by yang hyunsook in his late 20s, with the company primarily focused in construction during that time. as the years went on and with successful investments under his belt, hyunsook expanded soonsang into the automobile, real estate, hotels, electronics, and more. with it's fast growing revenue, hyunsook was able to expand soonsang into japan in 1964. hyunsook and his wife, soonja, had three children together, and one of those children went on to have first grandson ( and grandchild ) yang dongbin.
born in 1962, yang dongbin was cherished from the moment his mother's pregnancy was announced. as both the first grandchild and grandson, there were high expectations for him to achieve, and he was expected to live up to every single one. he married his long term girlfriend, kim sunyoung, shortly after they graduated college together and started their family a few years after. by this time, dongbin had started his career as the director of soonsang auto. sunyoung had begun her career as an art gallery director, and with her father as one of south korea's most powerful money lenders, this wasn't an impossible task.
dongbin and sunyoung have four children together , all daughters. the first is yejun ( b. 1990 ), followed by seoyeon ( b. 1995 ), and twins named jiwon and jihoon ( b. 2000 ). the yang girls were set up for success from the moment they were born, never having to struggle or keep their hands out for long. much like their parents, they were expected to do great things, but dongbin didn't want his daughters to experience the same pressures that he once did. he wanted his daughters to be successful, but he also wanted them to be able to forge their own paths.
while eldest daughter yejun went on to pursue a career with the ministry of economy and finance, it was seoyeon who decided to pursue something more creative. after attending one of the most prestigious boarding schools in geneva, switzerland, seoyeon returned to south korea and pursued higher education. while at korea university, she majored in public administration, mostly to appease her grandparents, as they are the type to look down their noses if she pursued a degree in anything she couldn't use realistically. seoyeon, on the other hand, was not interested in taking a job at soonsang as she was expected to. call her easily influenced, but seoyeon decided to start a youtube channel when she was twenty three, and that was the birth of juliaseoyang.
it takes a little while for her channel to take off, but she gets both poasitive and negative attention when it does. there are some who love her luxurious content— they love her expensive skincare routine and shopping trips, and seeing what it's like for the 1% of korea. on the other hand, she's bashed for showing off, criticized for showing how much money she can spend in a day without thinking twice. for seoyeon, she takes heed of both criticisms and praise, but views are views, and seoyeon's subscribers increase day to day. by the time she's twenty five, seoyeon has obtained over a million and a half followers, which leads to her deciding to move from seoul to new york as more opportunities presented themselves.
in the three short years that seoyeon has been living in new york, she has gotten plastered all over. she faithfully attends fashion month, sitting front row with other celebrities long before she ever became a brand ambassador. she has settled into life living within new york, attempting to not end up on reputation.com, but failing miserably.
trivia.
she adopted the name julia when she was attending an international school. for social media ( youtube, tiktok, instagram ) julia's username is juliaseoyang. she doesn't mind if someone calls her julia, lia, or seoyeon, but most people know her as julia.
she was accepted into an entertainment company to become an idol, but ultimately left the company when her group was skipped over for debut. she was a trainee from the ages of fifteen to eighteen.
julia has her name attached to several brands, both in korea and in the western market. she was most recently announced as a brand ambassador for tod's, calvin klein, and for luxury skincare brand fresh.
her videos are "aesthetic" in nature, but julia is far removed from the sad beige aesthetic! she gives a lot of background content when attending fashion month and her day to day life living in new york. as opposed to target runs, julia has saks runs. she posts outfit ideas, hair tutorials, and makeup content as well.
she doesn't like to cook, but when she does, she loves to make traditional korean foods. despite growing up with wealth, if there was one thing her mother made sure of, it was that she cooked meals for her family. her favorite meals are jajangmyeon, ramyeon, and bulgogi. if asked, julia would cook for people when coming by her home or if invited to a potluck / friendsgiving.
headcanons.
whatever reputation.com said she did ... she probably did it. spreading gossip about someone? she did it. talking shit about someone without caring who may have overheard? she definitely did it. she's mean as hell sometimes ( re: all the time ) and she doesn't really care what anyone says about her ( that's a lie considering her brand is her ).
she lives in a beautiful condo in manhattan ( valued at $2.75m ), which she bought shortly after moving to new york, but she also kept the apartment that she bought in seoul. she converted her spare bedroom into a massive closet ( documenting the renovation on youtube of course ), mostly because she hardly ever has guests over and it made more sense for her lifestyle.
she's more than likely the one who burns bridges with former friends, but somehow always has a reason for doing so. she dislikes being told what to do and hasn't shaken the desire for confrontation. julia unfortunately has twitter fingers, but she at least provides receipts to back up whatever she says. she's very shady, like real housewives kind of shady, but she will do it straight to someone's face. julia is known for her resting bitch face, which is not a façade to who she really is.
personality wise— she's known as someone who's able to get what she wants with the point of a finger or bat of a lash. she has a strong interest in people as a whole regardless of their identifying gender. she's a jealous person, and doesn't like when someone she's interested in has another person in their ear.
Sunyoung no tiene la mejor reputación, quienes la conocen un poco hasta la consideran algo fría y ruda; pero en realidad, incluso si realmente es un poco antipática con otros, dentro de casa su actitud es bastante diferente. “Appa, preparé una malteada”. Anuncia su llegada con dicha frase, tomándose la libertad de ingresar en la oficina del mayor, aquel lugar cálido y luminoso que bien recuerda, uno que ni siquiera aparenta ser un espacio de trabajo al acoplarse tan bien con el resto del hogar. “Soy pésima en esto, pero pensé que podría refrescarte. Tiene helado de vainilla y galletas oreo”. ╱ ( @firealvrm )