「 &&. –– TASK 001 」 QUESTIONS
01. what is your muse’s full name and do they have any nicknames?
though all of the kwon children were given english names as soon as they moved to london, he has always insisted that he never had any other name besides kwon ilsung. growing up, he had no affinity for the name his mother had plucked straight out of the book of genesis for him to use knowing that isaac was easier for the strangers he met to pronounce. but with each person he met or school he attended, ilsung was always adamant that they could learn to pronounce his real name just like they could learn to pronounce the names of his classmates.
02. what do they look like? include hair, eyes, skin tone, tattoos, etc.!
ilsung has always been skinny, and his height only emphasizes it. everything about him is just a little too long; his fingers stretch easily past an octave on the piano, his hair always grows out for months before he thinks to get it cut again, and his legs seem to make up a majority of his figure.
he’s as used to being the youngest in any room to being the tallest as well by usually at least half a foot, and his slanted posture only makes ilsung seem even more so like he’s looming over whoever he’s speaking to. compared to the way he dresses himself, always in dark pants and sweaters under long coats, his face is the only thing that gives away his age no matter how stern his expression is – and even then, it’s almost always obscured by long strands of hair brushing across his cheekbones and falling in front of his face.
while he thinks the process and history of tattooing is interesting, ilsung can’t seem to wrap his head around why anyone would feel the need to put something on their skin forever. the only things he’s noticed throughout his life that carried significance to him he can remember off the top of his head, and they’re almost all stories or quotes he read somewhere, not any images he wants permanently inked on his body. he’s never gotten a tattoo or even dyed his hair, the most he’s ever done was let one of his classmates pierce his ears when he was a freshman in university – and even then, he couldn’t say why he still wears tiny thin hoops in them to this day so they won’t close.
03. do they have any distinguishing features such as scars, unique birthmarks, etc.?
while ilsung used to have small scars on his hands from fumbling to get a light ( or even more stupidly, dropping the ashes from a cigarette onto himself when he was distracted ), most of them have since faded. he has a lot of bad habits already, and making any more definitely isn’t one of them, but it’s just a matter of time before he gets too distracted while working on something or another before it happens again.
04. what is your muse’s friends and family like? who do they usually surround themselves with?
ilsung is used to people assuming that he’s an only child, but he comes from a large family – they’re just not very close with each other. his eldest brother jaehyuk was always the only one out of the five kwon siblings that seemed to get along with their father, a cold, unmoving man who’s name seemed to always be on the tip of people’s tongue even if he wasn’t in the room, while taewon and hyunjin’s got along best with each other than anyone else in the family. ilsung was the youngest in the family save for the only daughter, minji. all of the kwon children admired their mother, but it was only minji that seemed to always bring a smile to her face just by being there beside her.
ilsung’s memories of them are few and far between; taewon and hyunjin wrestling each other in the foyer of their family’s london home at ages fifteen and thirteen, minji at no older than six following their mother’s every footstep as she walked into another room. memories of his father were even more spare; his silhouette framed in the window of the office that ilsung never dared to enter as a child, the toughening of his expression in distain at the dinner table when one of his children made a low joke.
he knows the reason for the gaps between times the whole family was together is simple; they were rarely ever in the same place. while ilsung can remember multiple nights where their mother sat them all down at the dinner table and made them say grace, more often in english than in korean, he can almost never place the ages of his siblings or even himself in any of those instances. he and his siblings were rarely together, their parents always liked to send them to different prestigious prep schools no matter where they were located.
sometimes his brothers lived at home with them for stretches at a time, but ilsung never got the same experience. most of the time he was grateful for it, the further away he was, the less he had to deal with any of his brothers ( namely taewon or hyunjin ) taking the opportunity to make fun of him for preferring studying over roughhousing like they did, or equally likely, to hurl even more gay slurs at him after they first decided to start doing so when ilsung was a kid. his brothers swear that he’s gay, though they always use less polite words to do so, and ilsung could tell that the very idea of him being queer was more upsetting to his family than any of the words that his brothers ever hurled at him.
while he was in school growing up, ilsung probably never would have needed more than one hand to count the people he considered to be his friends. he rarely socialized without someone dragging him along for some reason or another, and no matter what ilsung would rather be studying or reading than even being around other people. it wasn’t until he moved korea for university that ilsung first felt like he was starting to have real friends for the first time, instead of only finding company in strangers arms – or more specifically, their beds – like he had before. while he’s friendly with his classmates, it’s people like taeil, seojoon, and yoora who have seemed to finally be successful of pulling ilsung out of hiding away focused on the world as it was thousands of years ago than the world now.
05. who would you consider the closest person to your muse?
ilsung isn’t used to being close to other people, but if he had to name someone, taeil would probably be the first person that came to mind. to him, taeil always seems so happy, like as long as he’s smiling there can’t be anything bad in the world. it took a little while for ilsung to get used to his positivity at first, he was just so unused to anyone who seemed so content with his life, even if it’s just what it looks like from the outside.
06. where was your character born and what was their living situation growing up there?
while ilsung was born in seoul, he had no recollection of his home country until he returned to go to university there around three years ago after spending his entire childhood in various boarding schools in the uk and upstate new york. his parents still live in london, in the same spacious home they first moved to when he was just a baby, and ilsung is the only one in their family who has moved back since they first left the country, however temporary he knows his time is there.
07. what is your muse’s biggest fear and does anyone know? if so, who, and if not, why not?
out of all the things to be afraid of, ilsung fears anyone in his family finding out about his bisexuality the most. he knows that they’ve always suspected that he was gay, just as he knows how all of them feel on the matter. no matter how far away from each other they may be, his parents are the ones who pay for his education and other costs of living. ilsung fears the possibility of any of his family members actually finding out that he likes men almost more than he likes women, as he knows that not only would he lose the life he lives away from his family but he would lose them as well.
08. has your muse ever fallen in love before? if so, with who? did it end well?
ilsung has never fallen in love before and he’s almost painfully aware of it. he’d had a few relationships over the years that seemed to extend past physical, but looking back he never thinks that he was in love, but that he only thought he might have been. he likes the idea of being in love, of having someone that means the world to him and who he would give the world to as well, but the more he thinks ( and then overthinks ) about it, the more ilsung feels like there’s just no hope for him, and that he really did manage to kill off any emotions he may have had in the past.
09. what would you find in your muse’s refrigerator right now?
short answer: not much. there’s some leftovers from when taeil last came over, leftovers from when yoora last tried to cook for them and ilsung successfully talked her into letting them get takeout instead, a half a head of lettuce that ilsung can’t remember ever buying, but must have sometime recently since it’s still fresh, some wine that joon thought he would like. ilsung isn’t sure what would be more obvious if anyone ever looked at what’s in the fridge at the home he’s been watching for the past five months; the fact that he’s just some kid in university, or that the house doesn’t even belong to him.
10. what does your muse usually wear? you can describe, link pictures, etc.!
ilsung seems to always dress like it’s winter, with his a coat always thrown on over a long sleeve shirt or sweater thats as dark a color as his pants and shoes. for a junior in university, he few hoodies, torn jeans, or even just random t-shirts that he would ever think to wear outside of the house. it’s almost strange to see him dressed so casually, like any other student at his school. he rarely acts his age, and to see him fully look like it for once always seems equally out of place.
11. what is your muse’s strongest memory that they carry around?
whether it be from drug use or not, ilsung doesn’t have many vivid memories that he could look back on even if he wanted to. he doesn’t have many nights that he’s committed to memory so he can remember them fondly, most nights that he remembers run into one other and fade into one blur of all-nighters and one night stands.
but one memory that always comes back to him, for reasons he still can’t understand, is just of standing in the doorway of his parent’s home after coming back from a semester at school. ilsung figures he must have been seventeen or eighteen at the time, and he doesn’t know why he hesitated to open the door as soon as he arrived at it, or why he remembers it at all. standing at the closed door of his family’s home, he thought that if he stayed quiet enough for another half a moment, he could faintly hear life going on inside. maybe minji was playing music somewhere in the house, maybe hyunjin was laughing at something taewon had said. but ilsung remembers that for however briefly, he heard something, and he almost thought that once he opened the door in front of him and stepped inside, it would already be gone.
