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she was world class. internationally ranked. an acrobat and a gymnast, though she tore up track and field too-- she was one of those athletes that was just all around. she could do anything, and do it well, and do it while being taller, prettier and more confident than you.

though she dabbled in a lot growing up-- baseball, basketball, tumbling, marathons, track and field-- her real love was gymnastics, but once she hit her first growth spurt, that kind of went out the window. gymnasts weren’t tall and lanky like chizuru, so she bowed out and focused on running. she was young, top of her craft and a favorite to qualify for the olympics, when she tore her acl.

she eventually bounced back. physiotherapy brought her back, close to her former glory, though she’d missed her chance to represent japan. instead of torturing herself, she convinced her mother she needed a fresh start, and she started looking for other things she could do, finding dance and deciding that she could learn to do that. and in true athletic fashion, she was good at it and caught on quickly. her first brush with the korean entertainment industry wasn’t until she was eighteen, though, when she was approached for appearance alone.

Jo Hyeyoung was born, along with her twin brother, in Daegu, South Korea. Their family was particularly low income, and after the kids were born the struggled often to make ends meet, particularly given when they had decided to see the pregnancy through they’d been counting on one baby, not two. Despite this, Hyeyoung and her brother grew up loved and as well cared for as their parents could manage.

In middle school, Hyeyoung, who had always loved to sing and was quite gifted at it, took part in a nation-wide talent competition for teenagers, and placed second, leading her to be approached by a Spotlight Productions talent scout. Having typically promoted soloists before, the company was looking to produce a girl group, and based both on an enjoyment for singing and the idea that this, if successful, might be a way to earn some serious money for her family, Hyeyoung took up the offer to become a trainee and relocated to Seoul.

Though she was originally part of the line-up for Spotlight’s first girl group, a collection of girls who would go on to become the famous Juliette, it was not meant to be. 16 at the time, Hyeyoung was pulled from the group a few months before the final debut in a choice between her and another girl who eventually won out. They said that Hyeyoung both needed to improve more on her dance skills and that she didn’t fit the groups concept (something which she would later find to have been code for wanting to put her in a sexy-concept group due to her physical appearance, which didn’t exactly make her comfortable). It was another three years of improving her already good dance skills until she was very accomplished, working on her vocals, growing into her looks, and sadly watching her friends succeed in Juliette without her before she was scheduled to debut again in Haze, this time as the leader.

While she was pleased to finally debut, she originally struggled somewhat with the group. She got on well with the other three members, however they were all the same age, and all five years younger than her. It put her firmly in the ‘big sister/mom’ category for the first couple of years (as while she was only 20 herself, she was a grown-ass-adult compared to the others still in their teens) and she found it both stressful and a little isolating – particularly after spending the first couple of years of her training prepared to be one of the maknaes.

Despite it all, Haze grew to be a tight knit group over the years; that is, until contract renewal. Here came 2017, time to renew Haze’s contracts, and in her heart of hearts, Hyeyoung wanted out – not necessarily of the group, but of the company. They’d done her wrongly many times over the years, from pushing back her debut based on nonsense excuses, to oversexualising her before she was old enough to confidently own her sexuality (which she now does in excess with great fierceness and enjoyment), and she was tired. Though she might have begrudgingly re-signed if all three other girls had desperately wanted to stay, once Yoora and Yein expressed a desire to branch off alone, Hyeyoung decided she was taking her out. She already had a thriving solo career after debuting as a soloist back in 2013 (one of the few favours Spotlight had done her over the years) and decided not to re-sign, taking her solo act somewhere else.

That somewhere else turned out to be Radioactive Entertainment – while Hyeyoung doesn’t exactly fit Radioactive’s typical image, they’d agreed to take her on as an already successful idol with an established sound and image, and let her control the future direction of her concept. While she appreciates Haze and what the group did for her, she’s now ready to establish herself solely as a lone force at Radioactive, and that’s exactly what she plans on doing.

Hyeyoung was always been a bright, confident character. Born just over twenty minutes before her brother, she was always the loud, boisterous one of the two, though never one to actually act out. Though she can be a quite private person when concerning her private live, she’s notoriously extroverted, friendly, and thrill-seeking. She is kind and cares for her friends and family a lot, however she’s never particularly been the ‘mom friend’ type, except perhaps when it comes to her brother, and even he has always been more of a partner in crime. This is possibly why, though she put her all into it and did her best, with great results, the role of leader never really suited her. She looks out for herself first and foremost (except sometimes, again, in the case of her twin), though she does her best not to hurt others by doing so. Generally, she is positive and optimistic in all things, and tries to brighten up those who are not.