It’s time for our second task, although it’s been a while since the first. Please note that tasks are not required, but encouraged, and are only to inspire character development and activity.
The task this time is to explore where your muse will be in fifteen years. All items used to complete this task should show where your muse may be fifteen years in the future, although they don’t all need to show the same possible future. Did they remain signed under their company and become a legend of the K-pop industry? Did they leave and make their own company? Did they have a scandal that ended their career and sent them into hiding from the public eye? Did they settle down and start a family? Did they move abroad to work?
These futures aren’t considered canon to the roleplay and certainly don’t need to be where your muse actually ends up, but I encourage you to use this task to develop your character beyond it. Look at your muse’s possible future(s) and come up with plot lines and storylines that can happen now to either push them in that direction or drive them away from it. Feel free to include other muses in your muse’s future for this task, just make sure to ask their muns for permission first!
Make sure to tag any completions of this task with #fmdtask002.
Create an aesthetic showcasing where your muse could be in fifteen years. You may create up to one aesthetic that does not count toward your monthly total. This does not have to fall in line with the same potential future of other items. This will count for one point.
Write a self-para or long headcanon showcasing where your muse could be in fifteen years. You may create up to two items (two self-paras, two long headcanons, or one self-para and one long headcanon) for this task that do not count toward the monthly total. These don’t both have to fall in line with the same potential future, and they can all showcase different places your muse may be in fifteen years if you’d like! Each one of these will count for two points.
A total of five points are available for this task.
This task runs from 12AM EDT Thursday, June 28, until 11:59PM EDT Wednesday, July 11.
ash kwon, 2033: a thirty-seven year-old songwriter, producer, piano teacher and partial owner of a coffee shop. a tattoo enthusiast and married man of ten years living in san francisco.
As much as Taesung would like to believe that Decipher would stay together, it’d be unrealistic for the group to last twenty-five years, even with sporadic comebacks every couple of years or so. They’d for sure last until the end of their contract and perhaps a couple years more under a self-directed label, but as soon as the opportunity came Taesung knows he’d leave BC. There will always be gratefulness for all the chances he was given from the moment he auditioned for the company, but none of them compensate for the years of hard-work spent without getting anything back. The group would end and Taesung would leave the company. Immediately after Taesung would enlist for the mandatory service, after pondering whether he should just forego his Korean citizenship in order to escape it – obviously he’d put those thoughts aside and just get it over with.
Work wise, he’d start focusing more on what he’s already been working with for the past few years, which is production and composition. He enjoys making his own music, for himself, and rapping will always be one of his first loves, but he’d slowly take more of a position behind the scenes, until people barely saw much of his public persona anymore. The attention was something he enjoyed for the longest time, but as he’s gotten older, he’s starting to realize that it is definitely not worth the amount of pressure the public puts on his back. He’s also due to finish his master’s in music production and he’d probably keep doing a few studies in music, for its something that he quite enjoys.
Personal life wise, Theo is it for him. Tae can’t even bring himself to think about anyone else he’d want to spend the rest of his life with, and he’d endure as much as he had to in order to keep their relationship going. As soon as Theo’s own contract is over with BC, Taesung would propose. Whether or not same sex marriage would be possible in South Korea by then, Tae would know that Theo wouldn’t want to stay in the country and away from his family for much longer, so it’d be a very automatic solution for him to just move to France with his soon-to-be-husband.
In exactly fifteen years, they’d hopefully already be married, already have three kids. Taesung would be adapting to living in a completely different country, but he’d also feel a sense of freedom due to being away from South Korea and all the expectations people had for him there, from the way he was supposed to act in public to his sexuality.
THAT’S HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR JAEKYUNG TO BE REALLY, TRULY CONTENT. how long it takes for him to accept himself, to learn the meaning of true self esteem. it’s not a measure of fame, or a measure of fortune— it’s about the mark he makes on the world around him, and jaekyung’s pleased to say he made a good one.
his time with decipher is one he never intends to forget (and really, it’s not time that he can forget). but it’s time that ends on a painful note, at least for him— it ends with a bang and a scream and a crash and blood everywhere, on an icy winter day eight years after 2018. the stage lights are focused on his group members’ horrified faces, and the fans’ screams seem to be his reminder to feel pain— he can’t bring himself to look up at his friends, or lift his hand to where something warm trickles down his head, or catch air where he can’t seem to, or glance down at where his leg doesn’t seem to really be a leg but rather a twisted, oddly-angled mass of blood and bone.
it’s time jaekyung pays his dues for overworking his knee so much. it was a special stage for before the dawn, and his doctor had warned him not to do the scorpion move— i’m serious, jaekyung. don’t do it— the old man had said— but jaekyung, of course, never wanted to give half a show and did it anyway. the ice and jaekyung’s already-fucked-up knee and the sheer rigor of that move cooperate to end in the decipher leader’s blood on the snow and headlines about how jang jaekyung is Over, capital “O.” like it’s his fault that he made half the nation gag on live television in broad daylight.
jaekyung fell headfirst off the stage and hit his head on the corner of a speaker, his back bent over the wrong way around a stagelight, and his leg twisted the wrong way and the bone— well, the gruesome details are spared from him, but what jaekyung does know is that he’ll never dance again. from there, jaekyung should have faded into nothing more than a has-been and a viral clickbait youtube video entitled KPOP STAR FREAK ACCIDENT (GRUESOME FANCAM!) but jaekyung, of course, does only the most for himself.
there are four years in between the end of his idol career and the start of his new one. much of those four years are spent in a wheelchair, a blanket draped around his legs and an arm draped around his sisters. his doctor doesn’t trust jaekyung not to go worsen himself— in addition to a bad knee, jaekyung now has a bad back, and has been told many times he’s lucky he can still walk. not even jaekyung is going to try to do something so stupid as dance. but jaekyung hates to admit that there is some level of shallowness to him— he didn’t work eighteen years just to fade into obscurity.
he signs on with an acting company once he’s back on his feet. it’s not too hard— jaekyung’s still enough of a household name that he can get in with ease. he trains for a while, then debuts with a drama that is mercifully a success. but it’s not a success thanks to him, but rather to his costar, and he keeps going and going until he becomes respected as an actor.
the next chapter in his life begins when he finally manages to be in the same room as decipher again for a reunion fansign (much to the delight of many, as they were only four or three or two since the injury). he’s kept the same autograph since then, and he finishes signing a cd and looks up and— ohmygodinheaven that is the most beautiful girl jaekyung has ever seen in his entire life!
turns out it’s seo eunha from lipstick.
it’s been so long since he’s seen her face that he didn’t even recognize her for a moment. any thoughts of hiding how floored he is are totally gone when he gets home and immediately looks up her name. turns out not one, not two, but at least thirty cameras managed to capture the stuttering, stupid look on his face when he sees her again. screw it, he thinks, and calls her up and asks her out on a date. luck’s on his side because she says yes. their relationship doesn’t last long as a private one, of course, before people find out somehow— but for the first time, jaekyung finds that he doesn’t mind. people simultaneously love and hate that two of the most senior idols managed to find love in each other— again, jaekyung really, really doesn’t mind.
time goes on and before he knows it, he’s proposing to her and she’s saying yes and he’s quietly paying for her dream wedding and people are screeching because it’s so rare that such a high-profile idol (or at least in jaekyung’s case, ex-idol) relationship works out so well.
and soon enough, jaekyung’s pacing the floor of a hospital waiting room and he honestly feels like fainting with relief (no fainting! he knows his doctor would demand, for it wouldn’t do for jaekyung to break his head as well) when he hears the cries of a little baby.
time, of course, goes on, and it’s not really the life he would have expected for himself— he thought he would have made a name as an idol, not an actor. he never thought he’d be allowed to marry, much less marry an ex-labelmate, much less have a daughter with her whom he adores more than just about anything in the world. he knew decipher would always be a part of him— but he never thought it’d end the way it did. he’s glad, though, that he kept his friends, and that when his baby girl comes into the world, decipher and his sisters were the ones pacing the waiting room with him.
it’s now fifteen years since 2018. his idol days are long behind him. eunha is pregnant with another child. jaekyung is shamelessly hoping for another girl. he keeps in touch with decipher and is unabashedly vocal about his support for their newer endeavors, like hanbit’s upcoming girl group or taesung’s life in france. jaekyung earns most of his income now through a chocolate business on the side and his widely acclaimed acting gigs. the late queen elizabark’s puppy daughter is crowned queen elizabark the second. he makes it a habit to spoil not only his wife and daughter, but taesung’s children as well, and works hard to continue being the friend to turn to for his groupmates because they’ll always be his groupmates anyway. in his heart it’s always the five of them as decipher, a family— and jaekyung’s always happy to let his family keep on growing.
the first step towards his future is taken long before unity disbands. it is in 2020, unity passing their 4 year mark as a group and moving out of their dorm. samsoo and jaewon waste no time moving in together, an apartment with just the two of them. it’s everything he’s ever wanted and more, the privacy, the tranquility. waking up to next to soo is nothing new but being able to do so completely unbothered is, no manager prying in their business, no members bursting in unannounced, just the two of them. adapting doesn’t come as easily as expected though, while jaewon spends the 4 years prior to moving out complaining about the amounts of noise and chaos around the dorms, it’s the absence of those that keep him up the first night. him and soo do plenty of attempts to get the boy’s over at their place frequently, making sure they know their door is always open for them and hosting as many group dinners as they can within a week. it’s then that for the first time, jaewon really realizes just how attached he got to unity, to the point where he isn’t quite sure what life without them is like anymore.
the clock keeps ticking however and after a long and fulfilling career, unity can feel their disbandment creeping up on them. most of the boys got their futures set in stone already, plans long since finalized before their contract with dimensions ends. jaewon’s next step remain a mystery though, for their fans, for unity, for his own boyfriend and truly, even for himself. the possibilities are endless, offers thrown his way left and right yet none of it sticks, none of it feels right. it’s during unity’s goodbye concert, their last public appearance as a group, standing on stage next to his boys one final time that it finally clicks, it’s been enough. nothing is going to top what he’s already achieved, the rush of being on stage will never be bigger than it was on that night and jaewon decides he’s done, to leave the industry voluntarily with a positive outlook rather than to stick around for too long only to end up regretting it.
they still live together, him and samsoo but remaining on korean soil their options are limited, especially with his boyfriend having a successful solo career. still, jaewon wouldn’t trade it for the world. sure, they can’t adopt children, get married or even go public about their relationship but jaewon is happy, happier than he could ever be anywhere else with anyone else. their lack of kids (both unity or ones of their own) is made up with a steadily increasing amount of dogs that keep jaewon company whenever soo is busy with work or away from home on trips, jaewon can’t join him on. he spends his days like that supporting the love of his life, trying to keep in contact with his boys wherever in the world they are and spending time with their pets.
yet something is missing, it’s a feeling he can never quite shake. he starts to grow restless, there is too much time on his hands and too little to do to fill it. he’s proud of soo but the empty apartment gets lonely and most of his remaining friends aren’t very available either, most of them with busy careers of their own or having left the country. he needs something to do, something of his own. he struggles to find it for a while and it’s samsoo eventually that motivates to pick up something music related again. jaewon has sworn off performing and being in the spotlight but with his life partner’s encouragements, he decides to pick up songwriting yet again. it starts out as a hobby, just to let his creativity flow, works that aren’t made to ever see the daylight and that never will. things pick up after he writes a few songs in collaboration with samsoo for his boyfriend’s upcoming album and jaewon decides to remain a part-time songwriter. nothing too official, no strict hours or contracts, only writing when feeling inspired and only working together with artists that he shares a good connection with.
the flexible schedule is partially to remain not all too serious but for the bigger part, it’s because jaewon is done being in the spotlight, not only literally but also metaphorically, wanting nothing more than support his loved ones as well as he can. he doesn’t want a career of his own that keeps him from joining samsoo abroad for a few days at the time when he has an overseas schedule or to miss out an opportunity to see one of his boys when they happen to have some unforeseen free time or find themselves back in korea on short notice. some people would say he’s wasting his life away, watching the people he cares about thrive while having nothing going for himself but it’s not like that and jaewon knows it. what could possibly make him happier than seeing those he loves happy?
Fifteen years have come by and many more years were to come. Junsu was no longer a member of Origin as the group had disbanded. As sad it was he was happy the time he has spent with his group members and all they had achieved during their time as Origin. Even if everyone goes on their own paths they were still family to one another. Junsu wishes them well and to stay in contact with him if they can. He wishes them the best and that he’s still here for them all. He prays that they don’t end up getting themselves into any trouble, but he knows at the same time they’re all able to look after and care for themselves.
He’s forty now and does he feel old. He feels that his youth is disappearing everyday, but it’s just life in the end. He thinks he spent his youthful days wisely and doesn’t regret it. His parents are no longer alive and he’s relieved that they are for all the trouble they’ve caused him in the past. He didn’t move away and remained in Seoul, South Korea. He lives in the same apartment and adopted himself a Pomeranian dog named Luna to keep company. His apartment felt empty with the decrease of visits he gets from his group members. But, he knows they’re all doing well in the end.
And what has he been doing ever since the disbandment of Origin? If one knew Junsu well, music was something he would never stop doing.
He became a producer and songwriter under Gold Star. He produced and wrote various songs for artists. He helped various artists in learning about producing and song writing. He gives tips and advice. He’s a well known producer for the company and he still has his popularity even though he’s no longer part of Origin. But, it’s more calmer back when the group was famous and had that rise in popularity. He likes the peace. There sometimes were Origin fans asking if he was ever going to release any songs, but he tells fans that he’ll think about it. He ends up releasing about three songs total as years passed.
Junsu made no attempts in dating and finding himself a lover. He was fine being by himself. To others they may worried of him feeling alone, but he really doesn’t. He’s used to the loneliness and he’s far too old now to go on dates and looking to be in a relationship with someone. He’s happy and content with his life. Whenever he hears news of any of his previous group members in a relationship with someone or getting married he’s happy for them and wish them the best. He knows he had some hardships in the past, but it led him meeting people he considered friends and family. That was enough for him.
Nowadays he goes to work as a producer and songwriter and comes home to his apartment to be greeted by his dog. On his day offs he spends his time playing with Luna and taking her out to places such as parks for her to run and play around. Or he goes to visit various places like museums or bookstores. He only had Luna for about five years now and he knows a dog won’t live as long as a human. He tries to spend as much time possible with his dog before their time is up. If any of his previous group members want to hang around with him he tries to find time for that too. He’s just enjoying the rest of his life as much as possible before his time is up.
~~~~
Junsu’s coming home from an exhausting day from work and literally just wants to sleep before having to head back to work tomorrow. He enters the code to his apartment and when the door unlocks he can hear a few yips and barks from inside the apartment. Knowing it was Luna he opens the door and sees the dog running to him. She jumps around him, wagging her tail too, and he knows she’s happy to see him home. Smiling he shuts the door and bent down to pet Luna.
he counts the days until his contract ends. every time the countdown application on his phone shows him one day less, he gets a spark of hope.
when it does end, he finally feels free for the first time since he was thirteen. he stays in seoul for another year--he can’t leave his boyfriend behind. in that time, he doesn’t do much, and yet, he does everything he never got to do before. he gets more sleep than he can ever remember getting, and he does normal, stupid household things he took for granted before. even though he lives with hansol, there are stretches of time he’s home alone, so he picks up new hobbies and continues to write music. ash works on finding himself in all the ways he never got to and starts to find more peace with himself. when the time comes, he travels to see almost every show origin does for their last tour as a full group, and it’s not really traveling the world with the love of his life, but it’s close enough for now.
he’s laying in bed with hansol the day his boyfriend’s contract ends when ash looks at him and proposes something he’s thought of many times before, but never said out loud. “let’s get married. like, right now. let’s hop on a plane and go get married.”. and they do just that. they book the next flight to america and they elope. they’ve wasted enough of their lives already unable to do what they want to do exactly when they want to do it.
in the years that follow, ash finds his sense of home again in san francisco, a feeling he hasn’t been able to put a place to in a long time. san francisco is the city he grew up in and the city he loves, though once he settles back into writing and producing songs from his new home studio and his career advances, he has to travel more often in between his hometown and los angeles. he’s doing the thing that makes him happiest, though, so it doesn’t bother him.
his work finds its way into the albums of pop singers, indie bands, and r&b artists over time. he doesn’t rise to celebrity through it; he’s no zedd with a recognizable name of his own and a skittles machine in his multi-million dollar private mansion, but he has no desire to be. his days in the limelight are long gone, and he’s much happier working behind the scenes. there are still days he wants to sing his own music for people, but he promises himself he’ll do it more when he’s old enough that the k-pop news sites aren’t still holding on to him (he’s hardly a star anymore, but once the news of the marriage between a knight and origin member had eventually leaked out, they’d started using his name as click bait again).
he teaches piano on the side. it starts out as a favor for a friend, a couple lessons for their kid for free. it eventually expands to a handful of students, but he’s selective and only takes on the ones he can tell actually want to do it instead of being forced to by their parents. it isn’t very lucrative because he only charges enough to make sure he doesn’t feel beholden to it, but that’s fine. he makes more than enough money from his main job, which has landed him as a writer and producer of a few semi-hits on the pop charts and some popular indie gems by the time he’s thirty-seven, and he still gets a small royalty check from the works he’d done as an idol every now and then too.
in 2030, he becomes the partial owner of a coffee shop his parents had decided to open a few years earlier dedicated to giving back a large portion of their proceeds to charitable causes. under his partial ownership, he starts to focus more on giving back to arts programs and hosting open mic nights for young artists to come in and get performance experience. he focuses on giving the opportunity to get their name out to those underrepresented in the music industry, those with a unique voice to share with the world.
at thirty-seven, he’s the happiest he’s ever been. he still has bad days and he knows he always will, but he’s living a life he thought he’d never be able to deserve and that keeps him going. he’s helping people and making a mark; the name ash kwon is one people in his life say with fondness. he’s finally found success that means something to him, and when he wakes up in the morning, he has the rest of his life in front of him to look forward to.
