kim hongjoong. cis man. he/him. bisexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that ash yoon? i think that the twenty-six year old from anchorage, alaska works as a cashier at criminal records, but outside of that people describe them as the distorted reflections of neon lights in murky puddles, the crunch of combat boots in the snow, the quiet and still loneliness of a grey-skied morning, the metallic chant of earrings and wrists weighed down by steel bracelets, and streetlights weakly pooling into a dark bedroom through the curtains, illuminating nothing. i hear they are reckless & impatient, but they are also known to be quick-witted & open-minded. consider giving them a visit at their home in seal harbor apartments and get to know why they’re called the magpie.
IMPORTANT LINKS: pinterest.
TW: parental death, child abandonment, absent and negligent parenting (could be classed as some degree of abuse?)
BASICS
Ash tends to switch up his hair colours a lot. Whether he's just adventurous and unpredictable or just kind of easily bored is anybody's guess. Not even Ash really knows the right answer.
He's also just very fashion conscious in general and not afraid of standing out in a crowd. His style might best be described as something between punk and 90s J-Rock frontman; heavy on the blacks but not afraid to sprinkle in a good dose of color, a lot of layers and torn fabrics and zips & belts that serve no real purpose. Style often trumps function in his outfit choices but he's fond enough of a big bulky coat that he doesn't spend his winters freezing. He doesn't actually find a lot of his outfits that comfortable overall but he's good at ignoring it.
Makeup is also an essential part of the look, most often in the form of slightly smoky eyeshadow. It's a very complete look.
He owns too many sweaters with bold black stripes, usually black & white or black & red. He insists it's a classic look.
Wears a lot of jewellery in general. He's also got multiple piercings on both ears and, as soon as he saves up the money, he's getting a tattoo.
He's can be a little oblivious in social situations. It's not that he can't read room so much as he often doesn't even bother. It just doesn't occur to him to try! He tends to either talk without thinking or he overthinks every last word. There's no real in between.
At 172cm (that's 5'7...and a half!), Ash isn't particularly tall. He's not very short either but he knows he falls below average. He doesn't care.
Very picky eater. If there are ingredients he doesn't like, he will dissect it and separate the offending parts. He likes Korean fried chicken and has fond memories of his aunt taking him to a local Korean restaurant on his birthdays (his father was usually too preoccupied with spending money he didn't have to take Ash anywhere).
Ash is good at music and drawing. He owns a guitar (he stole it shortly before his father's death and was able to keep it from being pawned) but he doesn't use it that much these days.
His name is just Ash. It's not short for anything and he doesn't like being asked if it is. His Korean name is Yoon Sian but it doesn't really come up a lot.
He's a reformed thief, in the sense that he no longer does organised buglaries, but will still steal and shoplift from time to time, as needs demand. Mostly from bigger establishments (e.g; Giant Food Store). It comes naturally to him at this point, although he's gotten better at ignoring his impulses, so he's still...kind of a thief, let's be real.
He's big on anti-establishment and anti-capitalism and feels no guilt stealing from big companies. Also hates his landlord.
Ash is autistic. This has never been formally diagnosed as the process is expensive and he doesn't have insurance but it was strongly suggested to him by a therapist he briefly visited following his father's death. (This isn't a plot point nor will it ever be used as one, it's just part of who Ash is; I'm autistic myself and am writing from that perspective!)
He has a younger half-sibling and an older step-sibling, both on his mother's side. He doesn't know anything about them and he's not particularly interested in finding out.
BACKSTORY
i'll might write up a proper backstory at some point on its own page that hopefully reads a little better but i'll just be keeping to a series of bullet points for this post! this should be enough for people to just get the general gist of who ash is!
Early Years.
Ash was born to two very unprepared parents, a pair of high school sweethearts fresh off the back of their graduation and not exactly ready to raise a child together. But it was too late by the time they found out so they went for it anyway. The father was disowned by his family, the mother cut hers off after a lot of arguing and the pair settled down in the Kingpin Trailer Park to raise their kid. They kept it up for all of about a year and a half before the mother decided this was far from the life she wanted and ran off one night.
At some point, when Ash was around six years old, his father realised he could raise his son to steal for him. It was nothing too serious, just a bit of shoplifting and maybe a pocket or two picked here and there. The only trouble was that Ash was good at it.
As he got older and craftier, his father pushed him to steal bigger and riskier items, and before long, they had a system going — Ash would steal or shoplift the goods and his father would pawn them off. This resulted in a strange and almost professional relationship, and Ash was treated more like some version of the Artful Dodger than he was a son. Ash never really questioned the arrangement. He knew his home life was a little unconventional but his father had promised him they were doing nothing wrong and that the only reason they had to sneak about, keep secrets and lie was because the rest of the world just didn't understand. By the time Ash was old enough to grow sceptical of this, it had been going on far too long for him to do anything about it.
Although he doesn't have a lot of friends and is considered a little strange by his peers, Ash does pretty well in school. He's a smart kid with a knack for the arts. He doesn't go out his way to study very hard because his father is more interested in putting him to work but he gets decent grades regardless.
Teen Years.
His dad disappeared when Ash was sixteen. Rumours had flown around the trailer park, suggestions that his might be another name added to the list of mysterious disappearances, but nothing ever came up. The news came as a shock to Ash but he was less devastated by it than he thought he ought to be. The grief would come later, as would the guilt of that grief not being immediate, but the first thing that hit him upon learning the news was relief, knowing he was no longer bound to carrying out his father's dirty work.
With his mother out of the picture, Ash was sent to live with his father's sister until he turned eighteen. He worked his way through the end of high school to no fanfare. College was out of the question as, even with his father's meagre inheritance or a scholarship, there was no affording it.
A few months into life with his aunt, he is contacted by his birth mother. She had been informed by the courts of her ex's death and, although she felt she had no right to claim custody of the son she'd long since abandoned, she strongly felt she had to meet him. A meeting was arranged; they were to meet in a casual restaurant downtown and take lunch together. Ash had taken one step through the door, caught sight of his mother and her family (the husband and children who had come into her life years after her brush with teenage parenthood) and ran off. He'd refused to answer his aunt when she pressed him about what had happened and his mother's life was thrown to the back of his mind where it might bother him much less.
Still, he remains shaken up by the encounter and tries to run away from home shortly after. He lasts about two nights before he's found by a patrolling police officer and taken back to his aunt's place. He attempts to run away again a year or so later and the same thing happens. Ash continues to act out while under his aunt's custody and he is rather unceremoniously kicked out the day he turns eighteen. He is only narrowly saved from homelessness by his father's inheritance and a wad of cash his mother had mailed him as an eighteenth birthday gift.
The impact of childhood on his everyday life proved to be worse than he might have expected. Old habits die hard and he's fired from his first job as a cashier for stealing from the register. His next job, he's let go for raking through the dumpsters out back. It would take him a while to stop feeling the urge to simply take what he needed but he learned to ignore it for the most part. He might still steal every now and again, for convenience's sake, but he avoids taking from independent businesses. He still has his morals.
Adult Years.
These days, he works as a cashier at Criminal Records. Truth be told, Ash doesn't care all that much about vinyls and considers himself more of a CD guy but he'd needed the work and applied with the thought that, if nothing else, he at least looked the part. It's been working for him so far.
He lives alone in an apartment in the Seal Harbor apartment complex. It's small and cramped but it's the only home that's ever really felt like his own. If nothing else, at least he's finally free to live for himself.
