â  . đ°Â     OO5 : A LETTER TO IAN'S FUTURE SELF .á
to the 2027 version of ian, a year from now,
man, i really hope youâre reading this with a stupidly expensive iced coffee in your hand, a completely clear schedule for the next twenty-four hours, and a spine that isn't currently shaped like a shrimp from lurking over a mixing board for a decade straight. if you opened this envelope at lynk con and immediately rolled your eyes because you forgot you even wrote it, thatâs completely fair. 2026 me is sitting at the kitchen table in the pitch dark, watching the city lights flicker outside the glass, and wondering if the view looks any less heavy from where youâre standing in 2027.
let's talk about the giant elephant in the room first -- the contracts. by now, the whole september deadline drama is ancient history. since we officially signed those lines and committed our lives to this extension, i need to know if the executives actually held up their end of the bargain or if you're currently planning a minor boardroom mutiny. did we get the extra production credits we practically lost our voices arguing for? is the new pay distribution looking a lot less depressing on the statements? more importantly, tell me you actually forced them to fund our medical budget so you aren't trying to survive high-intensity dance practices on vibes and a prayer. if you let them slide on any of those clauses just to get the meetings over with, iâm going to find a way to time-travel just to hit you with a rolled-up magazine, okay?
but honestly, beyond the logistics and the headaches, i just wanna know how everyone is doing. when i look around the studio right now, all i see is a group of people who have given absolutely everything they have to keep this ship afloat. i look at the guys -- at the way we still laugh until our ribs ache over some stupid inside joke in the middle of a grueling fourteen-hour rehearsal, or the way someone will silently leave a meal on the desk when they know i haven't eaten all day -- and it makes everything worth it. i hope that bond hasn't changed. i hope youâre still finding those quiet and ordinary moments to just be regular people together.
please tell me youâve stopped playing the lonely hero, though. i know your first instinct whenever the company drops a chaotic scheduling mess is to just shut up, pull your black hoodie over your face, and absorb the blow before it touches anyone else in the group. youâve spent years acting like a human shield, thinking that if you carry the brunt of the exhaustion, the others won't have to bleed for it. but they aren't kids anymore. they have voices, they have muscles, and they care about you a lot more than you like to admit. let them carry a corner of the couch for once. you are far too tired to keep holding up the sky by yourself, and you aren't a machine that doesn't need its battery checked.
creatively, i hope you're keeping things beautifully messy. don't let the corporate polish dilute the actual music we want to make. keep messing with those indie tracks after hours, and stay deeply annoying during tracking sessions. your ear is one of the best tool the team has, so keep using it to steer the ship toward something genuine.
i'll stop writing before this turns into a literal novel and you end up recycling the paper out of pure boredom. just stay dependable, keep that dry sense of humor intact so the industry doesn't drain your spirit, and remember why we keep showing up to work every single morning. if the group is happy, the music feels real, and your own mind is finally quiet, then we did just fine ian. see you on the flip side of 2027?
ă đđŽđłđ˛ đľđŽđżđŻđźđż
ă setting: july 2026 ⤠a night at taeoh's apartment
ă with: @hedreaming
the silence in taeoh's apartment always takes a second to get used to. he tosses his keys onto the entryway drawer, the metallic clatter echoing briefly against the wood before dying out entirely. itâs a miserable sort of peace you get when youâve spent the last fourteen hours under fluorescent studio lights with three different legal teams trying to explain how much your life is worth on paper.
he doesn't bother turning on the lights, letting the dim evening glare from the windows wash over the room. he likes the dark anyway -- it doesn't ask for a statement, and it doesn't require him to keep his shoulders squared. he drops onto the edge of the couch, staring down at his hands, his thumbs digging into his palms until the skin goes white.
with september creeping up, everything feels less like a refuge and more like a countdown. the spreadsheets are already burning a hole in his brain, each clause a different way for kh to squeeze them dry. he knows exactly what heâs doing -- bottling the mess up, playing the unbothered wall, and making sure the executives look at him and him alone when the knives come out. it's terrible -- this toxic need to pull the entire weight of origin onto his own shoulders, but he doesn't know how to exist without being useful. if he isn't the shield, what is he even here for?
a sharp buzz from the intercom later breaks his train of thought.
taeoh doesn't move at first. he just stares at the door as an exhausted sigh drags out of his chest. itâs probably a manager who found another amendment they forgot to make him sign, or someone from the creative team wanting to dump another set of concept outlines into his inbox. whoever it is, they're about thirty seconds away from getting their head bitten off.
he stands up, a low curse under his breath about how he really doesn't have the stomach for any shit tonight. when he pulls the door open, the annoyance dying on his tongue -- because it isn't a staff member holding a tablet.
iseul is standing there in the dim light of the hallway.
taeoh doesn't say a word. he just steps back, swinging the door wide to let iseul in because shutting him out would take more energy than he actually possesses, and frankly, trying to process why the co-leader is standing on his welcome mat right now is a problem for a version of taeoh that has had more than three hours of sleep. he leaves iseul on his own, turning his back to walk back into the living room.
"i'm too tired for a speech, iseul." he plops back on the couch and drops his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes so he doesn't have to look at whatever expression is on the other male's face. "if you're here to talk about the distribution cuts or the renewals, just save it. iâve already got everything sorted and i'm not in the mood to argue about anything right now, so go home."
he glanced down at the thumb drive in his hand, then back up at her, noticing the way the light caught the edge of her expression. his usual defense mechanism was just to act unbothered, to drop a dry comment and move on, but the silence between them felt too heavy for a joke. "sorry. i was just dropping something off here. you don't have to go."
the silence that settles after yeona speaks is the kind that feels thick, almost heavy enough to choke on. taeoh just stands there by the doorframe, watching the way she shuffles away from the desk, fingers hovering near the mouse like she could somehow click away the fact that sheâs drowning in the middle of an empty room. he sees the way her posture lock into that presentable shape -- the one they both spent years mastering until it became a second skin -- and it makes a bitter sort of frustration flare up in his chest.
sheâs trying to look like a labelmate handling a casual encounter at midnight, but he knows the slight drop in her chin too well to buy the act. she looks entirely spent, her shoulders holding a kind of exhaustion that clean lines and studio lighting can't hide, and it forces him to realize just how much sheâs been carrying alone while everything with her group, i:ris hangs in the air.
"stop doing that." the words slipped out before his mind can filter them into something safer, something more appropriate for two people who are supposed to be strangers now.
taeoh doesn't want her apologies, especially not when sheâs taking the blame for simply occupying a space she has every right to be in. he is fully aware how she always tend to shrink herself down to make things easier for everyone else, and watching her do it in front of him makes him feel like a total hypocrite. "you don't have to apologize. we're in the same building, it's inevitable plus it's all my fault for barging in." he doesn't step closer, keeping a good distance between them because he knows he lost the right to comfort her for a while now, but he also refuses to let her pretend she's fine when her hands are visibly shaking against the edge of the console.
taeoh looks at the way she moves off to the side, giving him a wide berth as if heâs a hazard she needs to navigate around, and the weight of what they became after all these years hits him all at once. he had been selfish. making the choice for both of them because he was too stubborn to sit through the anxiety with her and left her to handle the quiet wreckage while he buried himself in work.
"i'm not using the room anyway, so you don't need to clear out," he added as he shifts his bag slightly, eyes tracking the faint glare of the monitor reflecting off her face, noticing the redness around her eyes that sheâs trying so hard to mask with that heartbreaking smile.
itâs truly infuriating how good she is at putting on a performance, how easily she offers to disappear so he can do whatever he needs to do. he wants her to drop the shield. he wants her to look at him and actually call him the fucking idiot he is, to lash out, to use him like how someone would use those rage rooms and dump three years of silent resentment right onto his chest because he knows he earned every single bit of it. "like i said i only came up to leave this drive here."
the silence stretches out again, but taeoh doesn't back out into the corridor like his instinct was telling him to do. he knows heâs the last person she wants to see at this very moment, the ghost of her worst heartbreak showing up exactly when she has no strength left to fight him off. but he also knows her well enough to recognize that if he leaves right now, sheâll just sit back down in that chair and let the panic eat her alive until the sun comes up.
he can be the bad guy, he can be the reminder of everything that went wrong, as long as it gives her a target for whatever sheâs been bottling up since her world started fracturing.
he takes a slow step back toward the open hallway, his hand lingering on the metal latch of the door as if heâs actually about to give her the exit sheâs waiting for, though his eyes stay anchored on her. "stop running away just because i walked in, yeona." he doesn't pull the door shut, keeping himself right there on the threshold -- a stubborn presence that refuses to let her pretend she's invisible. "if you need the space, take it. i'll leave you alone."
â â â â  summer jam, 2019â â ⸝â â  with @notaeoh.
there is a sort of intangible chill that runs down yubin's spin on a perfect sunny friday afternoon. it is like like a telltale sign from her body that gives off a precautionary sign that something could possibly go wrong today and the idol wants to shrug it off as her being paranoid but she has somewhat festered a sixth sense ability, or rather in the back of her mind, there are a few scenarios that could be played out today that may result to a few outcomes:
outcome one: yubin wraps up summer jam with other songwriters and composers without any obstacles and be able to be part of such amazing journey that had her learning and gaining plenty of experiences from or
outcome two: yubin meets you-know-who and they end up nitpicking one another throughout the process of the songwriting camp.
she isn't sure when it had exactly started out or if she had unknowingly left a bitter taste without it being her intentions but one's thing for sure, yubin swore she would never be able to get along with kang taeoh if they would never settle on their differences.
shrugging the thought off, she greets everyone in the warmly familiar studio; one she had camped in multiple occasions before and waits along with everyone before their debriefing start. in the corner of her eyes however, she spots an unfortunate familiar figure â the leader of origin.
"kang taeoh," she mutters his name under her breath to no one in particular and alike a grudgeful villain would towards their opposites as portrayed in cartoons. trust that she isn't normally perceiving one with such adverse response, she had her share of civil attempts to understand him but there's a wall behind his words (and mask?) that only pierces through with nitpicking of her work.
her attention diverts from staring at the man when her name is called out and in all 'favorable' cosmic decision, she is assigned to be in a pair with the one man she had tried manifesting so hard to not be paired with.
the room they were in was entirely too bright, the afternoon sun cutting through the glass in sharp strips that make the whole space feel suffocating. taeoh keeps his chin tucked into the collar of his hoodie, eyes fixed on a screen he isn't actually looking at. his whole body feels stiff from a long morning of choreography -- a physical routine heâs still not entirely used to, now that heâs finally back in the swing of things after being sidelined for so long. he shifts his weight, wincing internally when his left leg flares with a familiar protest, reminding him that he's still playing catch-up with his own body.
then the guy running the session calls their names for pairings.
sohn yubin.
taeoh doesn't quite roll his eyes, but his mouth thins into a flat line. oh, if his day couldn't get any worse than this. "are you kidding me..." he mutters under his breath, a dry sound meant only for himself as he leans back against the table.
he glances across the room, catching the exact second her shoulders drop. she looks just as thrilled as he is, which is fine by him. the prospect of spending the next few hours stuck in a vocal booth with her already gives him a headache. they never see eye to eye on this stuff. she goes by feelings and instinct; he wants things to actually make sense and fit a proper layout. it's just exhausting being back in these dynamics again.
he pushes himself out of the chair, walking toward the smaller tracking room without waiting to see if she's behind him.
the heavy door shuts behind them, cutting off the noise from the hallway. taeoh doesn't look at her as he tosses his notebook onto the table and grabs the main connector cord, plugging it into his phone.
he finally turns around, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk, crossing his arms.
"alright, let's just get this over with," he says, voice flat and stripped of any of that polite tone he'd usually use. "what kind of ideas did you bring today? just play whatever you have so we don't end up arguing here all day."
â  . đ°Â     OO1 : LYNK PROFILE REGISTRATION .á
IAN (ě´ě) is a South Korean rapper, songwriter, and dancer under KH Entertainment. He is the leader, main rapper, and lead dancer of the boy group ORIGIN, which debuted on September 5, 2016.
Official SNS
Instagram: @/ians
TikTok: @/supersaiyan
Stage Name: IAN (ě´ě)
Birth Name: Kang Taeoh (ę°íě¤)
Position: Leader, Main Rapper, Lead Dancer
Birthday: February 12, 1999
Chinese Zodiac Sign: Rabbit
Western Zodiac Sign: Aquarius
Nationality: South Korean
Height: 178 cm (5'10")
Weight: 70 kg (154 lbs)
Blood Type: O
MBTI Type: ISTP
Representative Emoji: đ§
IAN Facts
His stage name, "IAN," was chosen for its simple pronunciation and international appeal.
He was streetcast by KH Entertainment when he was fifteen after track practice.
He originally planned to pursue a career related to athletics before becoming a trainee.
He has writing credits on over 15+ ORIGIN songs and has been expanding.
He served as an MC for The Show from July 2018 to January 2019.
He took a 14-month hiatus in 2019 due to a knee injury before returning to promotions in 2020.
During Radio Star, he revealed that being away from ORIGIN was harder than the rehabilitation itself.
He learned to write lyrics by rewriting songs he admired as a trainee before developing his own style.
He is a fan of both EVERLAST and TRIXIE.
He has described his songwriting process as starting with a title before anything else.
The members voted him as the hardest member to prank because he notices small changes too quickly.
He rarely posts selfies unless NEXUS repeatedly ask for them.
They often joke that every selfie looks like it was taken on the first try, even though he insists it wasn't.
During a fansign, he said he'd rather receive a handwritten letter than an expensive gift.
He has said the quickest way to earn his respect is through consistency.
He enjoys visiting bookstores whenever ORIGIN travels overseas.
He prefers practical gifts over sentimental ones because he'll "actually use them."
He's surprisingly stubborn during board games and gets hella competitive.
He's not good at accepting compliments.
He's an avid anime watcher.
NEXUS often describe his humor as dry without him even trying to be funny.
He still gets embarrassed watching ORIGIN's early debut performances especially when he sees their 'Chewing Gum' stages.
He has said becoming an idol wasn't his first dream, but it became the dream he chose to keep chasing.
Ideal Type: Mature, dependable, emotionally honest, independent, someone he can be completely vulnerable with
đđđ đđđ'đđ đđđđ đđđđđđđđ đđđđ đ đđđđ đđ đđđđ ââ
setting : past midnight in an empty recording studio at kh entertainment , feat . @notaeoh / tw : implied anxiety attack , tfw you see your ex for the first time in forever .
working late in the building during the dead hours always felt less like making art and more like doing shift work at an assembly line. by the time after midnight hit, the flashy branding of the upper floors lost its luster, leaving just the quiet hum of the central air and the realization that youâve spent the last six hours arguing over a single bassline. taeoh had spent the evening tucked away in the lower basement rooms, the ones usually reserved for trainees or quick vocal tracking, mostly because nobody bothered him down there. he liked the lower floors when the sun was down -- there were fewer managers lurking with clipboards, fewer people checking to see if he was smiling enough, and he could just sit in a gray tracksuit without having to look like a high-fashion billboard.
he wasn't a natural at the technical side of production, not like some of the guys who had been mixing since they were fourteen, but heâd figured out early on that a lack of innate talent could usually be beaten into submission with enough hours. he approached a track the same way he used to approach a track meet -- just keep pushing until the lungs burned or the machine broke. but looking at the monitor tonight, the waveforms were starting to look like a blur of green static. his left knee was giving off that throb that always acted as a pretty accurate barometer for when heâd pushed his body past the point of actual productivity.
packing up was an unceremonious routine. he didn't bother sorting the legal pads scattered across the desk, just shoved them into his bag alongside a half-empty bottle of water with the plastic label torn off. heâd always had that habit when he was stressed, picking at the edges of things until they were bare. he liked things bare. it was probably why his own apartment looked like a holding cell -- no trophies, no framed posters, just a bed and a speaker which may sound like an exaggeration but that's simply how he likes it to be. if there weren't any decorations, there wasn't anything demanding he stay in character.
he only took the stairs to the fifth floor to drop off the master drive on the head producerâs desk so it would be there in the morning. he figured the entire floor would be empty. at this hour, most people had either gone home or passed out on the couches in the main lounges downstairs.
when he reached studio 4, he didn't even look through the glass panel before turning the latch fully expecting a vacant space. he was already halfway through a thought about whether he should stop by the 24-hour convenience store for an iced coffee or just go straight to sleep when the heavy door swung open.
the sentence heâd been about to mutter to himself just vanished.
the room was dark, save for the faint glow of the desktop monitors, but the silhouette sitting by the desk was instantly recognizable. yeona. she turned her head, and taeoh watched the exact moment her shoulders locked into place -- that instant reflex to look presentable, to look like the idol the public expected even when she was sitting alone in a dark room. it was the exact same mask he wore every single day, the one kh entertainment drilled into them until it became second nature, but seeing her pull it up like a shield against him felt incredibly strange.
they hadn't been in a room alone since the winter of 2023. for three years, their entire relationship had been reduced to formal nods in the hallway, polite greetings during joint company photoshoots, and the deliberate act of looking anywhere else whenever they shared a stage. back then, when the news was full of exposed relationships and the higher-ups were tightening security like a noose, heâd genuinely convinced himself that shutting down was the kindest thing he could do for her. sheâd been drowning in the anxiety of losing everything theyâd worked for, and taeoh, moving with all the emotional flexibility of a brick wall, had figured it was better to be the cold one and call it off before the company did it for them. he thought he was saving her the trouble.
now, standing on the threshold with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, the logic of that breakup felt incredibly flimsy.
"yeona," his voice came out a little rougher than he'd intended, lacking the smooth tone he used for the cameras. he stayed right by the frame, not wanting to crowd her space, his hand resting flat against the wood of the door. "i didn't think anyone would be booked here this late, i didn't mean to barge in ." or maybe he simply didn't expect it to be her when there was a big possibility that it could've been someone else.
he glanced down at the thumb drive in his hand, then back up at her, noticing the way the light caught the edge of her expression. his usual defense mechanism was just to act unbothered, to drop a dry comment and move on, but the silence between them felt too heavy for a joke. "sorry. i was just dropping something off here. you don't have to go."
let's all collectively ignore and forget the previous intro, shall we?
i noir (they/them, gmt +9) have come back with a much cleaner one, so here's me (again) introducing kang taeoh / ian, originâs leader, main rapper, and lead dancer officially. a one tired veteran idol with a bad knee, a miserable relationship with kh entertainment, and enough control issues to keep several therapists comfortably employed. some information (yes... some still from his biography)
profileă ¤careeră ¤
taeoh was born on february 12, 1999 in ilsan, and before kh got to him he was a regional competitive sprinter in middle school. he liked the structure of it--i think the part where effort actually translated into results and the only thing demanding more from him was a stopwatch (arguably.. the beginning of his âif i just push harder it'll work outâ disease. unfortunately this did not age well)
he got scouted at 15 after a regional meet and adapted to trainee life way too well, which probably should've worried somebody. he was never the loudest kid in the room or the easiest to approach, but he was disciplined, hard to rattle, and very good at making himself useful. kh saw one competent teenager and said perfect, let's make that everyone else's problem too (deeply evil of them if you ask me)
he has never met a problem he didn't immediately try to make his responsibility. if something is wrong, his first instinct is to fix it himself before anyone else can get involved. if someone else is struggling, he's already halfway through figuring out what he can take off their plate. he doesn't really know how to stop being useful long enough to just be a person, which is great for origin and significantly less great for literally every other part of his life (including his own, to be clear)
personality wise, he's quiet, observant, stubborn, and a little too good at pretending he doesn't care as much as he actually does. not unfriendly, just not expressive at first. most of his affection gets filtered into practical things instead, which means he's one of those people who will remember your coffee order, send you home with medicine, and solve a problem before you even mention it, then act like he wasn't doing anything at all (acts of service final boss, basically ahsh)
he's also not very touchy by default. the people who get casual affection out of him had to earn it through repeated exposure and probably a lot of patience. (force him into enough backhugs and eventually stockholm syndrome takes over) i don't think he'd enjoy me saying this, but he actually gets embarrassingly easy to read once you've known him long enough
taeoh is a lot quieter than the public expects in private. he's good at cameras and interviews because he's been doing this for a decade and kh has polished him into something expensive-looking and media trained, but if he has the choice he'd take a dim recording studio over any event where he has to stand around holding a champagne flute and pretending to enjoy small talk
his hiatus permanently changed how he sees his body, his career, and kh as a whole. he's âfineâ now in the way veteran athletes are fine, which is to say there are air quotes around it. (and everybody in the room knows he is, IN FACT, not fine)
cw: overwork, self-neglect for all of his cynicism, the easiest way to understand him is that origin comes first--every single time. taeoh is loyal to his members to a fault and most of his worst decisions can probably be traced back to trying to keep the group safe and functioning under a company he doesn't trust (which is noble of him, sureee but also maybe somebody should hit him with a rolled up newspaper every time he tries to martyr himself again)
outside of origin, he's really into songwriting and producing (a lil bit but he's getting there) and is probably at his most tolerable when he's in a studio early in the morning with an iced americano and nobody trying to ask him personal questions. so like if your muse writes, records, produces, or just wants someone annoyingly meticulous hovering over a demo, i am looking directly at you. (respectfully. but also not that respectfully because i do want the plot)
other random things: he's bisexual (not disclosed to the public), his sense of humor is dry enough to be mistaken for genuine disdain. he also gets embarrassed more easily than he'd ever admit, but in a âhe'll think about one awkward interaction for the next six business daysâ kind of way rather than a cute one
still yapped but hey! if you'd like to plot, or you've got an existing plot/connection idea that fits taeoh possibly, leave a like and i'll come as soon as i can :)
