part 8. entangled.
solo, detail your parent’s initial and current thoughts on your career choice ( development prompt, +5 exp )
san’s relationship with his parents, with that added element of fame is somewhat complicated. his father? well, truthfully his father has never played a large part in san’s life. stoic, traditional. he’d let his mother take the reigns of san’s life and pull him wherever she’d wanted to. she was like that. all bigger than life, and he was content to work his way into obscurity. they clashed, he thinks. but there had never been room for arguments. san got turned into her hobby, a pet project, and it occupied her time. he was left to his own devices, and his own devices didn’t include san. the man feels like a stranger to him, but he can’t bring himself to mind.
san’s mother though? her thoughts haven’t changed. they’ve remained constant throughout the course of his life. from when he was still a trainee, to debut, to becoming a veteran. she’d always wanted it more than he did. he’s not even sure she’d ever really wanted a son. she just wanted a body to toss residual dreams on top of. that idealization of fame, of having something she could point to, declare was hears. stir up jealousy, or wonder. capitalize off of it. there’s a cafe in seoul, now. inSANiTEA, and it’s something she markets toward the fans. overpriced teas and espressos. memorabilia of olympus strung across the walls, his own signature scratched across the majority of it. pins and travel mugs for sale lining the shelves.
she was the one who turned him into the person that he is. she was the one who forced him into taking dance, acting, piano, singing lessons. she was the one dragging him along to photoshoots as a child. barely five and getting tucked into toddler-sized outfits for clothing shops and campaigns. he had a pretty face, he always had, and she’d taken advantage of that. was hell bent on turning him into a package deal. was hell bent on getting his name strung up in lights, and it didn’t matter how. san, as a child, did what she wanted. of course he did. he wanted his mother to love him. he wanted her to pay attention to him. and that really only happened when he did a good job. when he sat still, when he didn’t whine and cry about itchy fabrics or clips poking into his back. when he wasn’t being dragged off into a hallway, fingers curled tight around his arm and half-stumbling on over-sized shoes shoved onto his feet so that she could lecture him away from the staff. you’re humiliating me. you’re being embarrassing. at four, five, six, seven, he felt bad about that sort of thing, would squirm underneath the pressure of her fingers against his bicep. would blink in a harried fashion when she would get even angrier at the threat of tears. you still have pictures to take. what are you doing. are you a baby? he’d shake his head no. but he sort of was. was at least young enough to be overwhelmed by everything she expected out of him.
by the time he hit eight he had gotten better at sitting pointedly patient between takes. curling fingers in against the underside of his chair and playing boring games by himself. counting cameras, or floor tiles. if he was good enough, she’d buy him a mocha and let him take big gulps in between pictures, lick whip cream off the end of the straw. it’s probably twisted that san considers those moments, of her hand hovering just in front of him, leaning in to suck at a neon colored straw to be some of his favorites. a mother’s love, and she always showed hers through chocolate and caffeine. even now, when he realizes what she’d been doing. keeping him awake, he still can’t manage to paint over those days in a bad light. even now, it’s something he indulges in if he wants to feel better, even if he’s moved on to americanos. but that’s the thing about it, their relationship is odd. it’s cloying, and at times overwhelming. she was a force, one that shoved him toward his future. but without her and san isn’t sure who he would be. he hates her and he loves her all at once.
by the time he was eleven, twelve it was apparent he was skilled in dance. that was where he shone. mediocre in singing, alright at piano, abysmal at playing the part of an actor. but dancing? he could do that. it was decided he’d walk the path to becoming an idol when his instructor imparted this fact onto his mother. and that was how it began. when midas decided that they’d take him, his mother had been overjoyed. san took to trainee life better than most. he was used to the constant criticism, the verbal abuse that got hurled around and masqueraded as advice. was used to working himself to the bone, and used to failing to meet expectations set too high. thirteen, fourteen year old’s probably shouldn’t be. but maybe that was why he succeeded. maybe that was why they stuck him in olympus before his voice even finished maturing. they figured he could take it. and he could. his mother made sure he could. she’d tied a red string of a fate around his neck and forcefully dragged him, choking and struggling toward the checkpoints of his life.
he didn’t like his concept within the group, but she would chastise him if he brought it up. don’t be ungrateful. midas is a big company. do what you’re told, san. do you know how much money they’ve spent on you? and he has, hasn’t he? always done what he was told. at times it feels like his body is covered in hives. that he wants to itch his way out of it. he’s never constructed anything by himself, not entirely, but part of him feels grateful for that. he’s never been given the tools, and at this point he doesn’t even know how. where to begin. he’s been conditioned into depending too much on everyone around him, and it’s left him in a vulnerable position he doesn’t quite understand he’s in. doesn’t quite realize that it’s overwhelmingly difficult, at this point, not to turn and look at someone else. wait for them to make the end-point decision for him. asking for permission on a grand scale.
she’s here for his name value. she’s here to try and push him toward more. suggests acting, suggest chasing after higher acclaim. moves into his apartment for months at a time when he finally has one. pretends it’s like bonding, but it usually consists of more lectures. she has a way about her, a way of making him feel like he’s a child all over again, doing everything wrong. not living up to expectations. san might be hard now, indifferent, angry and stony to the world around him. but all she has to do is level him with a look and it all crumbles away. he’s ashamed, lacking once again. he’s not working hard enough. not listening well enough. wasting space, wasting his life, wasting everything all at once. he’s not sure how anymore, it feels like he’s given every single piece of himself away. what’s left of there to waste? but when she sits him down on the couch and starts in on one of her tirades he believes it. lets his mood sink down deep until all that self-hatred bubbles back up to the surface. everything ends in apologies from his own mouth, mumbled out, nearly apologetic sounding i love you’s before he leaves for a schedule. words that he means. genuinely.
he feels pathetic, sometimes.
he has memories of her watching his rehearsals as a trainee. throwing out barbs of criticism. of her catching him sneaking out of practice early to swallow down ice cream with his friends before he debuted. of getting berated about it for so long, so brutally until he cried. and san had already given up on the concept of crying at that point. he has memories of her ignoring him for three weeks after midas gave him bad feedback to a showcase she’d sat in on. he’d been fifteen, would come home after practice to their shared apartment and sit himself down on his mat. pick at his fingers and occasionally glance up at her profile as she read. hopeful questions, quiet and uncertain that would tumble from the tip of his tongue. do you want tea? or else, i did better today, i worked hard. that would go unacknowledged. until he got thrown into a dance project rehearsal and had wrung compliments out of the evaluators. then she’d decided to stroke his hair back from his face, lay compliments over a tired body, take him out. buy him sugar-laden coffee. tell him she was proud to have him for a son. hot and cold, and san had always been in a shocked state of trying to figure out how to handle that. trying to figure out what constituted as love. he’s learned it’s conditional. if he does well, he’s allowed to have it.
she doesn’t want to hear about his hardships. she doesn’t want to be witness to moments of defeat. doesn’t want to hear about how he collapsed after a concert. just says it was a smart decision when san admits that the article midas put out about him having anemia is fake. not to worry. a silly notion, she doesn’t worry. not about that. she knows san. she knows how strong he is, how far he can go. or that’s what he believes. because what is there left to, if he can’t believe the best of her? if he can’t believe that one day he might hit a point where all that judgement disappears? eight years into a group and it feels like he’s constantly running toward the end of a rainbow, something that’s gone by the time he makes it there.
but one day. one day he’ll find that gold. paint himself with it, a reflection of what midas wants to make him into.
golden. perfect.
it’s warped, what they have. she’s happy to pat at his back, his hair, when she appears on a variety show, in front of a camera. he’s all of seventeen and sobs when he sees her, for the first time in a year after a string of debut schedules, a constant flurry of activity. he’s embarrassed and choking back sobs and crouches in the corner upon the surprise visit of olympus’ relatives. she swipes away the tears on his cheeks, heartwarming captions appear underneath the screen. genuine. and it had been. he’d hugged her, and he can’t remember ever doing it before. ever doing it again after. there’s a discomfort found in physical affection for him sometimes. it feels wrong. he’s not sure why. but it does. maybe because he’s never really had it offered to him.
so san loves her. he does. and there’s a part of him that hates her, too. hates being an idol. hates being apart of olympus. hates having his entire life robbed from him. hates what people have turned him into, have done to him. what would have become of him if she had been just as placid as his father? he can’t even picture it. he was never allowed to opportunity to come up with pipe dreams. he was always in a race to impress. to reach those prescribed milestones.
so his mother says she loves him back. but sometime’s he’s not so sure if she loves him, or the concept of him. the image of san that gets plastered on billboards, the name value of olympus propping him up. shiny, manufactured. known.
maybe she just loves the fame. but it’s hard for san to bring himself to blame her. he’s not sure what else there could be left in him to love. if there was ever anything much to begin with.