biography: jeon aera
Ok, ok, ok, so here’s the deal with Jeon Aera:
She’s, like, a mess.
As in, A MESS a mess. As in, the “Let’s try snagging some tickets to Aera jangling her wrist to make sure her keychain’s on it but it’s actually a bunch of bracelets” kind of mess.
That being said, she’s a hot one.
This hot mess was born in beautiful Busan (Aera thinks everything’s beautiful, but whatever) in March 1999 and was wailing like nobody’s business because, hey, she’s gotta be the center of attention always! Never mind that the human equivalent of finally-finding-an-earring-you-thought-you-lost, Jeon Areum, was born seven whole minutes later. Probably came out of the womb very polite or something. If Aera was born screaming like she was witnessing someone try to wear a traffic cone as a stylish hat, Areum was probably the well-mannered young lady like, “Well, I think that the cone is a very flattering style on you! Here, have a cookie,” or some nonsense equivalent.
That is to say, the Jeon twins are night and day.
Regardless, Areum is the absolute light of Aera’s life and there’s nothing that can ever change that, but man, by the time they’re six it’s glaringly obvious the girls are on two different paths. Aera, specifically, has this weird obsession with her own damn face. Her smile is tongue-in-teeth and eyes permanently alight with kittenish mischief, and she’s mastered the flip-hair-and-wink trick. Not that it’s totally a bad thing; that kind of mindset makes it pretty easy to foster confidence and happiness in a sweet little girl, but also maybe a bit dangerous, and probably pretty bad parenting that her mom and dad encouraged vanity more than confidence. “Our little starlet,” they always said, ‘cause it was obvious that, as Aera got poutier and leggier, she was gonna end up somewhere Fabulous. With the capital “F” and all.
And that was exactly why they slapped Aera in a ballet studio and said the equivalent of “Go nuts!” before pretty much deciding that it’d all work out.
What they didn’t expect was Hamin to take on the mantle of family fame.
Hoooo, Hamin. If there’s One (1) person in her life she looks up to, it’s her older brother. Jeon Hamin, golden child, soccer king, oppa extraordinaire! He’s pretty much everything that a girl needs in a brother, and Aera snaps her teeth at mostly any girl who’s not good enough for him. Which is, like, everyone. So imagine her surprise when they move to Seoul for Hamin to debut in Hero, and suddenly everyone’s in love with him or whatever.
Um, how is Aera supposed to fight every girl in Korea? Who even has time for that? She has dance lessons at six, school at eight, tutoring at three, dance lessons again at five, and then beauty sleep at eight. And now she’s supposed to clear her schedule to get in a fistfight with any creepy weirdo who looks at her brother? For, like, a month after, she walks around looking like the “:/” emoji because that’s just too high of expectations from her.
You know what, though? It’s a learning experience.
‘Cause if there’s one thing she’s learned? It’s that people always look at her with a sense of awe when they realize that THE Jeon Hamin is her actual brother. Not that stupid “oppaaa~! uwu” but rather “Oppa, I will absolutely deck you if you don’t convince mom and dad to make hot and sour soup for dinner tonight.”
Also, she’s not above admitting how smug she gets when people say she’s pretty enough to be an idol herself.
In fact, like many of the other compliments Aera has received in her life, it goes straight to her head. More, even, since it’s the highest compliment one can pay to her:
You deserve attention, Jeon Aera.
“Yeah, I do,” she croons quietly to herself, vain smile in place as she waits in an audition room at the age of fourteen. And waits. And waits. And waits. She doesn’t understand; wasn’t she supposed to go sooner than this?
Finally, a man steps out: tall, scrutinizing, taking in a shaking Aera. Any confidence she’d had before is shot now, and she’s a mess, hair sticking up palms sweaty. She wipes them on her skirt and enters the audition room. She introduces herself, but the scouts don’t really… react. That’s a first.
She has a dance routine that she’s been practicing for a while now. Aside from her face and her siblings, dancing is her number one passion. So she takes a deep breath, ‘cause you’ve been training for this for years, Jeon Aera.
“Years” is over in the course of a couple beats. One of the auditioners holds up his hand like Gordon Ramsay eating an undercooked chicken and basically tells her to scram.
That night, she cries, and it’s really not pretty, so she ignores Areum and Hamin knocking on the bathroom door while she wails in the bathtub clutching pearls that she borrowed from her mom’s jewelry box for the occasion.
Drama? Yes. Healthy coping mechanisms? Lacking.
But she’s not Jeon Aera if she doesn’t bounce back for nothing. When she opens the door to her concerned siblings, her hair is immaculate, her mascara is wiped off, and her puckered smile says, “Look out, world!”
Unfortunately, the middle Jeon finds in coming months that this is a repeat experience. For all her visuals and charisma and surprisingly good energy when dancing, she, well— oh, what’s a polite way to put this?— she’s about as forgettable as a loaf of raisin bread. But at least a raisin bread’s got some pizzazz to it.
So imagine her absolute shock when her sister, Areum— sweet, quiet, unassuming angel Areum— announces that she’s been scouted at a company called Starscape.
Aera could write a book about her opinion on that news. She’d title it, “Oh, Um, Okay, That Makes NO Sense Whatsoever But That’s Fine, Areum. It’s Really Fine.” (It’s not fine.)
Don’t get her wrong. She’s proud of her sister like crazy, but frankly it’s a huge hit on her own pride to have auditioned for over sixteen companies (seventeen after she tries her hand at Worldwide tomorrow) and been solemnly rejected from every single one when her younger twin doesn’t even have to lift a finger. When Aera’s jealous, she’s mean. When she’s mean, people cry. If Areum cries, Aera becomes ten times more upset than she was before.
So she tamps down her jealousy, inhales through the nose, focuses her energy on all the good feelings, and says, “Maybe I should audition too.”
She said it originally as a joke, but hey, that’s actually a good idea. She really should do that. It would be nice to be in the same company as her sister, especially since she got rejected from the same company as her brother; the Jeon sisters are, after all, two sides to the same coin. Different in all ways, but never detachable from the other.
If you ask the now-twenty-one-year-old Aera how the hell she got into Starscape, she’d bite her lip playfully, peer at you through thick, lowered lashes, then twirl a strand of chocolate hair around a finger before flipping it over a shoulder.
“Don’t be ridiculous. They just loved my charm and talent.”
If you ask the Starscape scout who discovered her, he’d blink at you, flip through the notes on his clipboard, and say, “That Jeong Aera who debuted with Cherrysoda now? Yeah, Starscape knew they needed more girls on Pop!Stars. She’s somewhat pretty, I suppose.” Then he’d ask you to get him a coffee, because he wants to double-check his notes on who actually did end up letting Jeong Aera into the company.
Her name’s not even Jeong Aera, for God’s sake. That’s how utterly forgettable she was at the audition. But pretty? Yes, that’s one thing she’s been her whole life. Prettiness and well-meaning shallowness and a dorky grin. Oh, and the mean streak. It’s easy to forget the mean streak, considering she’s usually so nice, but then again, she’d argue that everyone’s got one.
How she actually got in?
Hard work.
It’s not really something a person would expect from Aera. When it comes to ditzy, she’s about as much as a person can get. Her parents never really pushed her for much aside from expecting her to model with that impressive height of hers. The only reason they wanted her to dance was because a dancer’s physique has always been desirable. But she has… what’s a polite way to put it…
Severe tunnel vision when it comes to achieving her goals.
You see, when Aera realized that the opportunity to live, work, and dance with Areum was too good to pass up, she spent every waking moment in the practice rooms. It was easy to give up on the other companies, but Summit specifically— no way could she let that go. She already wasn’t that good at school to begin with— studying time became dancing time. Tutoring time became singing time. Beauty sleep time stayed beauty sleep time, ‘cause the idol triple threat was very obviously vocals, dance, and visual. It’s how she came in second place on Pop!Star Survival; she’s not naturally talented, but damn if she can’t fake it.
