hey y’all, I’m here with tyrannical and narcissistic playboy, kang joon! he’s basically a prisoner of his past; when he was twelve, he watched his mother kill his cheating father and he’s never been quite the same since. I’ll leave some links down below, along with more information about him under the cut. I already have some plots up on my plots page, though it’s still a work in progress. if none of those work for you, I’d be more than happy to brainstorm something up! if you’d like to plot, you can like this post and I’ll drop you an im, otherwise, we can also take it to discord!
it starts off pretty simple: his father was a lawyer with his own law firm and his mother was a popular actress of the 80s and early 90s; put them together and you get a perfect family of three.
except it was far from perfect behind closed doors; daddy constantly cheated on mommy and mommy cried and drank herself to sleep every night. in short: she was getting a little psycho, understandably so.
one night, after a rather intense fight, his father had an asthma attack and his mother, fuelled by vengeance, decided to kick his inhaler away from him which ultimately, resulted in dire consequences that took his life.
unfortunately, kang joon was standing by the doorway when it happened, and witnessed all of it. his mother had no idea but his father knew, his face being the last thing he laid his eyes on before his body went still.
he was only twelve when this happened, so yes, it pretty much fucked him up.
not only did he not step in to save his father, he remained mum throughout the investigations, not uttering a word about the truth he witnessed.
eventually, his father’s passing was ruled as complications from an asthma attack and all his inheritance went to his mother.
being the actress she was, his mother had bawled her eyes out at his father’s funeral, gaining sympathy from many others for being widowed so young.
unlike his mother, guilt started eating him away and he had to find a way to make up to his late father.
when he came to know that he would inherit his law firm one day, he made a promise to his father that he would get into law school, pass the bar exam, take over his law firm and do a really good job with it.
and he’s almost there, now that he is in his final year of law school.
he’s currently interning at his late father’s law firm, now managed by his maternal uncle, who is notorious for helping white-collared criminals.
PERSONALITY.
insanely charismatic and this helps with his tendency to 1) manipulate and 2) flirt.
conscience is his long forgotten friend, so yes, he will do anything to get what he wants, though it can range from taking down your business, stealing your girl to simply getting you to join him for meal.
claims that manipulation is the greatest art of all, or at least, second to the female anatomy (of which he shows great appreciation to).
a product of his childhood traumas; sleeps around and chooses to believe he’s incapable of love, like his father, is shrewd and a little fucked up, like his mother.
a child that was forced to grow up too early; explains why he still acts like one now (wilful, selfish and oddly endearing during the rare times he drops his weapon).
can be quite the narcissist but most of it is him acting like he’s the best, to cover up the fact that he’s really the worst.
an asshole that thinks he can pay his way out of anything (probably true though).
works hard but plays harder; pretty intelligent but uses it for the wrong reasons.
fun to be around, probably makes you feel more special than you really are.
to put it simply, you either really love him or really hate him.
if she wasn’t such a good kisser, he’d still be mad about how she spilled red wine all over his valentino shirt—brand new and worn for the first time today. (why did he think it was a good idea to wear a new shirt to a hannam alumni reunion? those were always messy, figuratively and literally, with tonight being the latter.) lucky for her, he’s decided let it go, since the only thing he wants more than to get the stain off, was to get the shirt (and every other article of clothing) off. if this was what she had planned when she offered to help him remove the stain (which eventually led to them stumbling into a cubicle in a lip lock), then well, mission accomplished.
as for him, he certainly did not expect to end up in his apartment with his high school deskmate, one he had spent all three years being at loggerheads with. you’d think they’d want nothing to do with each other after graduation (and that was the case, until her clumsy ass spilled wine all over him), not end up in his apartment like they hadn’t spent all of high school hating each other. to be fair, all that bickering did amount to quite a bit of unresolved tension between them, and they’re just resolving it now as grown, mature adults, using, well, grown, mature, adult methods.
joon rolls the used rubber up and tosses it into the trashcan, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. “congratulations.” he whispers smugly. “seven years after graduation, you finally fulfilled your biggest wish in high school.” he disappears into the bathroom to wash his hands, reemerging with a smirk cockier than before (probably caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he thinks he looks best with sex hair, hickeys and lipstick stains all over him). “so tell me, was I as good as I was in your dreams?”
she’s the first to move, coming to with a slight stir and a few bleary blinks. sabrina squints at the ceiling and the world starts to take shape. the curtains, the windows, the dark outside. the closed door, the bedside table, the giant lump of mass beside her.
what time is it? what year is it?
she purses her lips, tilts her head up. it’s the first breath she takes, the sudden rush of perfume and familiarity, that jolts her awake. she looks, really looks, and realizes that the warm thing beside her is joon.
like a leg jerking at a hammer-tap to the knee, she looks down at herself. the same powder blue shirt and denim skirt she came in. no ruffled sheets or discarded clothing. she looks back at him, confused. curls her fingers, surprised to clutch actual shirt-material on him.
disoriented and fully-clothed. that’s new. usually, she wakes up next to him disoriented and completely naked.
and if she was any less tired, she would have pushed her eyebrows together and wondered. but as it stands, it takes way too many muscles to make a face. way too much energy to make her brain work. ( if she came to him—which she doesn’t even remember doing—she clearly wasn’t putting much effort into being intelligent, anyway. ) so, she lets her brain rest and closes her eyes again. snuggling closer, bringing a leg up to wrap around him like a pillow.
this is how joon is used to waking up: hungover, naked, with someone just as hungover and naked by his side. this is how he woke up instead: not the slightest bit hungover, fully clothed, and worst of all, were they actually... cuddling? he stirs awake, eyes squinting as it battles the midday sun pouring into the all too familiar bedroom, his body too heavy to lift up—especially not with her pressed against him like a child hugging their favourite stuffed toy to sleep. usually, this is when he peels them off him, gets up and leaves without a word (women that like cuddling after sex are terrifying creatures to mess with), but this isn’t just any of his one night stands, heck, judging by how fully clothed they are or how neat the sheets are, they haven’t even had sex, and that is a problem.
this cosy, intimate, somewhat romantic situation was too uncharacteristic of them. they were more of a bicker, fuck, and repeat duo, not a cuddle in bed as we bask in the warm sunlight duo, and everything about this situation is as concerning as it is alarming. there is a bigger problem, though. not only are they acting out of the norm, he actually isn’t entirely against it this time, or to put it simply, he actually kind of liked it...? and it seems like he isn’t the only one, made certain when he feels her body stir next to him, snuggling even closer to him than before. his lips curve into a lazy half-smirk, hidden by her mop of hair (that smelt so insanely good? is this why people like cuddling?) as he pulls her in, resting his chin on the top of her head. “you know, this would be a lot more fun if we were naked.”
No offense to God, but every thing my mother prayed I wouldn’t be, I became.
Every place she prayed I wouldn’t go, I went.
I walked so long I found Mercy.
I draped her thighs over my shoulders & drank.
Hiwot Adilow, “Mihret,” published in Nepantla (via bostonpoetryslam)
if joon is tantamount to a raging thunderstorm, one that threatens to bring down the sky, then noeul would be like a light morning drizzle, the kind that makes you want to snuggle under your covers and sleep in. in other words: noeul is comfort, solace, and safety, but he’s also nothing like joon. the first time joon showed up at noeul’s birthday party in high school, he heard someone whisper, “how are the both of them friends?” he thought the same to himself on his twentieth birthday, when noeul stuck out amongst his friends at the club, both with his dad-like dance moves and his propensity to strike up a friendly conversation with the bartender, instead of flirting with people by the dance floor. (it was the first time joon had left his own birthday party early—he figured he’d have more fun getting takeout with noeul. and he did.)
usually, you’d have most of your firsts with a lover. oddly enough, joon has most of his with noeul. (granted, he’s never really had a real lover.) he was the person he took his first sip of beer with, the person he went to the bathhouse with for the first time (did it without their parents knowing because god forbid their precious sons went to a grubby bathhouse for commoners, right?) and the first person he drove around after he got his driver’s license (he lied to his then girlfriend that it was her though). now, he’s also the reason joon visited a plant nursery for the first time, and actually left with one in his arms. no, he did not change his mind about plants, he still stands by his belief that plants (along with other responsibilities like pets and children) are only going to lower his quality of life. he can barely keep up with one committed relationship, what more devote his time to other living things whose survivability is solely dependent on him?
now, birthdays are no longer celebrated with acquaintances at parties and clubs. they do it just the way they like it—with takeout and beer. joon pushes the doorbell to noeul’s apartment, backing away from the peephole camera when he hears his footsteps approaching. a childlike grin fans across his face as he hugs the bonsai plant to his chest, hoping his friend wouldn’t catch sight of him. he’s sure noeul would never guess it’s him at the door (after all, he knows the pin number to his apartment and has no qualms about making himself comfortable whether or not he was home). “surprise!” joon cheers, sticking his arms out to present noeul the new addition to his little bonsai family. “happy birthday.”
small talk—not really joon’s kind of thing. unless you’re a pretty lady he wants the number of, or a schoolmate-turned-colleague making their coffee at the other end of the pantry, then well, he’d offer his best attempt at making conversation. it’s about time he broke the ice anyway—if it was even penetrable at this point, considering the other’s uninterested, noticeably hostile demeanour towards him. did he ever offend him back in high school? possible. flirt with his girlfriend? highly likely. no, the real question here is, have they ever exchanged a word? aside from “hi, I’m kang joon and I’ll be interning here until the end of the year,” of course.
of all things joon is bad at, remembering names top the list—unsurprising for someone with a reputation of a philanderer. but that also means he’s especially good at recognising faces, even if he fails to put a name to it. he had recognised him right away, from the very moment their eyes met on the first day of his internship. he wonders if seongwoo had recognised him too, or if he was preoccupied with wondering why he did not require an interview to score an internship with them—they were usually pretty stringent with their hires, after all.
the rich aroma of coffee fills the room but there was something heavier in the air, something that simply would not go unnoticed by him—the heavy silence between them. was it awkward? not really. uncomfortable? yes. joon knew that there was no better time than now to break the silence, so they could go from acquaintances that aren’t on talking terms to civil colleagues, at the very least. he should say something. anything. and he should say it soon, before the coffee machine finishes drizzling coffee into said colleague’s mug and he no longer has a reason to stay in this stuffy pantry with him.
“you should’ve hired her.” he remarks, cocking his head towards the door, where he had last seen the girl who had just came by for an interview. “she’s hot.”
mother had taught him a thing or two about wearing a facade, and she must’ve taught him well, considering how skilful he’s gotten at wiping out traces of indecency on him as he stepped into holy ground, donning a virtuous smile fitting for the occasion, an attempt at blending in with the sunday morning church crowd. who would have thought that just hours ago, he was a complete mess—sex hair, marks all over him, urgently scouring through his wardrobe in search of a shirt that would hide the marks she had left behind. (speaking of which, he failed. didn’t try hard enough. do him a favour and pretend you don’t see them, please?)
it was starting to become a weekly tradition—he spends saturday nights worshipping her every curve and contour, and they peel themselves off each other with the rise of the sun, only to reconvene in the holy sanctuary their families gather at every sunday morning. by her, he means the daughter of the most religious family in their neighbourhood, the family he goes to church with, and the same family just sitting a couple of rows away from his. and there she was—sitting there looking all pious and demure, like she wasn’t just playing with the devil the night before.
it wasn’t hard to spot her in the crowd, she could dress like a devout child of god all she wants but he’d recognise her all the same. easy, his eyes always wanders towards her anyway, and when it does, his mind wanders where it shouldn’t—especially not in church. you’d think that he would’ve satiated his appetite last night, but he finds himself entertaining another bawdy idea he knows she wouldn’t be too pleased with. should he blame it on how boring the sermon is, or how insanely good she looks in that dress? (is that supposed to make her look chaste? innocent? virginal? not even close.)
it’s quite a feat how she never fails to turn his boredom into stark curiosity and amusement. coming to think of it, she’s probably the reason he could sit through all those years of weekly sermons, none of which eased him of the guilt that lives within him. ironically, partaking in indecent acts with her filled the void in him, a much needed distraction from the chaos of his mind. the contours of his lips curves into a roguish grin as he hits ‘send’, latching his gaze onto her in anticipation of her reaction when she opens the picture attached. sure, they were a little tipsy the night before (as they were on most nights spent together) but surely she’d recognise the last piece of material he removed from her before the night escalated, right?
[ NEW MESSAGE ]
› you left something behind.
› image3728.jpg
› how cute.
› want it back?
my mother looks at me & sees my father’s mistakes (plural noun; fragmented families don’t know how to coexist). my father looks at me & sees everything i used to be (noun: innocent & soft hearted). my brother looks at me & sees the worst of my parents (verb; shaking, hurting, burning); he looks at me & sees the only thing in our family that might get out alive. i look at myself & see a monster (noun; blood hands & a venomous mouth & a failing heart).
and i’ve failed them all ; p.v.s. (via sarchengseys)
