winterfall

here’s your introduction to ash kwon, aka taeyong, polaris’s resident maknae / main vocal / lead dancer / rapper, songwriter / producer, soloist, director, walking disaster, and, as his antis would say, ‘privileged problem child !!!!‘

his profile is here and his plots page is here. there are also other connection ideas at the end of this post!

anyway i think that’s all,,, if you want to plot/re-plot with him or if we had a plot going you want to see if we can work out keeping, like this and i’ll message you!

last updated: 03/31/22

triggers: mention of substance abuse (alcohol, drugs) and hospitalization

what was it about ashton kwon that gripped at her? she couldn’t shake him, not then and definitely not now, though she’s not sure she can ever say she tried hard enough to do so. she’s not sure what she expects out of this, for them to walk away on good terms? for them to magically be able to be friends? for them to just get through this and continue on the way they’ve always had? 

she hums, taking in his advice, a faint smile on her face. these were the moments she recalled the most, words of wisdom shared between the pair throughout various experiences that allowed her to feel close to him. he had never been, still isn’t, a huge talker but she can’t remember a time where he had ever been deliberately cold with her. even now he finds a way to comfort her. “thank you,” she says sincerely, “guess it was a good thing they hired a senior for this, huh?” she threads that line of teasing him. 

it isn’t uncomfortable, standing near him and talking even if they’re both careful with their words. she doesn’t kid herself into thinking they’d be in this predicament if it weren’t for fate but she doesn’t see why it has to be a bad experience for either of them. she doesn’t want ash to leave here regretting this, she doesn’t want to look back on such a vital part of her solo career and think of what ifs. 

“why are you nervous?” she questions, voice soft enough to wrap the pair around in a bubble but not enough so that he wouldn’t be able to make out her words. she knows they’re on borrowed time and she wants to tug out a few more truths out of him before they get wrapped up in their work duties.

“a senior, hardly. more so someone who’s tried a lot of coping mechanisms.” it’s spoken with his natural self-deprecation, though to his own ears, it rings more comfortably honest than professionally humble. channeling nerves into productivity or creative energy is one of the few potentially healthy ones he has to offer her. hayi’s been privy to a few of the worse ones. if he’s being blunt, there was probably a period of time she herself counted as one of them.

he’s still unsure, though he welcomes the hints of familiarity that blossom at the tips of their words. he doesn’t want to show all of his cards, not when he’s not even sure what they are or what they’re playing. she doesn’t seem to be calculating any odds, but he’s never been able to tell what’s going on her in head the way he’d wanted to. he knows better now than to try to tell now.

“i said i was going to try not to give you more reasons to be nervous. i shouldn’t really break that promise so quickly, should i?” a humored quirk of his lips follows, but it’s a simple answer; he’s been enlisted for a job he’s in no way qualified for. he can’t act for shit. for all he’s sold as some artistic savant by dimensions, they’re really just good at keeping him out of situations that will expose everything he’s awful at. they keep him in the studio or on stage, and put him in front of cameras without a song to sing or a dance to perform only when they have no other choice or when he has the rest of polaris to hide among.

he’s been praised for the emotions of his own performances, and even within his own music video, but there’s a thick, bold line between performance of his own emotions and experiences and actually acting. any attempts to cross it are sure to lead to him tripping and falling flat on his face.

“i’m just not much of an actor.” he shrugs at that, as if it’s not something that’s wracked his thoughts with the pressure for the past few nights now. “but don’t worry. i’ll do my best.” the problem is that he has a feeling his best isn’t even passable.

there’s no need to embellish anyone here. maybe, dusted around the scene are a few social climbers — but for her sake, everything becomes nothing more than a masked getaway to hide out in the crowd and down cheap glasses. nonetheless, seo minjung feels a tinge better to spot a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

“my ideas are no longer novel, and i’m not the first to give you that complement.” she pouts, a faux sign of disappointment that’s paired with the sarcastic quip of her own tone. no harm, no bite — after all, this is an anti-warzone. “have you ever seen david in florence? last time i saw david, i realized, maybe it’s better to be stone because see, david has so many chips on his shoulders and have the fragility that’s universal. yet, nobody ever gives him shit. he still has millions of people waiting in line to accept him, and understand every crack on the marble.”

minjung muses on, tossing an even wider grin to the bartender motioning for two more rounds of whatever cheap henny he has left. elbow on the table, she props her face with the palm of her hand. “as for frank, well, i’m just sad i don’t get to see a wide-scale work of avant garde art. if it’s any consolation,” her eyes mirror ash’s over-exaggerated eyeroll. “i guess it’s an excuse to go visit your set instead. though, you might have to excuse me when blink starts playing first date.”

“it feels nice to be told i’m better drunk when i’m actually, you know, a few shots down instead of stone cold sober.” he counters her feigned disappointment with performative comfort. it’s what he tends to do with minjung, play along. “but didn’t i ruin a pair of your dior shoes once? i’d have thought that be a harder crack in the marble to accept.”

he can’t find it in himself to agree with what she says about the statue of david, but maybe he’d understand better if he’d ever seen it in-person. he doesn’t want millions of people waiting in line to study his exposed form unbidden, taking in every crack and flaw as if it’s meant for their eyes. they can have his music. they can rip it apart and as please and analyze it to depth through their tinted glasses, but to be the everlasting artwork studied for ages — it’s almost enough to sober him from his buzz. “if the choice is between a digital print and a sculpture perhaps, but i’d rather just be human flesh. it decays faster than stone.” his own take is a little too serious for the night he’s trying to have, so he turns it around, “besides, dude’s naked in a town square somewhere. you’ve got to get at least three more drinks in me for me to do that.”

from his words, suji can tell right away that dynamite does not fall under ash’s favorite polaris songs. it’s become such a hit, but suji didn’t love all of equinox’s hit songs either, so she understands where he’s coming from. nevertheless, she still thinks she’d prefer it over zimalabim but only because she’d prefer any song over that one. frankly, she likes to pretend like it doesn’t exist.

“partially recency bias, i think?” she lets out a chuckle before thinking harder about why midnight happens to be her favorite album. “i participate in pretty much all of my music, but i feel like i struggled the most with midnight that the end product just felt that much more meaningful. if you know what i mean.” while it may not seem like some out of this world album to listeners, it was one that she spent a lot of time on, both in terms of actual work behind it and the thought process. 

she gives him a slight smile of gratitude. while she’s not sure he’s saying it to be polite or if he genuinely means it, she appreciates it nevertheless. “hey, the group always has to come first, doesn’t it?” suji’s never been pushed back or anything because of equinox promotions, but she does feel like she has a set time frame she’s allowed. before this year, a summer solo comeback was nearly impossible because it was already decided that the group would make a comeback then.

“well, i’m always looking forward to what you’re releasing next so hopefully it can be released to the world soon,” she offers with another smile, one that has more of a sense of comradery than her previous one. because even if she doesn’t know the specific details behind his group and company, it’s always a bummer when things don’t always go the way one wants. 

“i know what you mean.” he had, after all, in the grand scheme of time, only just arisen from an era of music not coming to the tips of his fingers or his tongue at all. for a time, he’d quite earnestly thought he’d never release another song again, much less an album. blacklight hadn’t come to him by some miracle — he has no belief in luck or tricks of the universe like that — there’s a soul-heavy attachment to it unlike any of his other work nonetheless. even if her story with midnight hadn’t been the same as his with blacklight, he feels her words beyond a surface-level agreement with them.

“you do grow from that in a sense, right? there’s something to be said about the naturalness of an album that comes easy, but stagnation isn’t so good for the art.” he wrinkles his nose at that, as if hoping to will away any interpretation that he’d like to struggle so severely again any time soon. 

the bit about the group coming first is harder to find resonance in. at its best, solo music and group music had felt more like a balancing act. each was fulfilling in its own way. by the time he’d begun releasing his own music, it had always been more satisfying than the act of sharing his work with five others. “i don’t have anything finished yet, so it’s fine. my vision for polaris and dimensions’ seem to... differ nowadays, so i let them handle when the group comes. first or otherwise.” he sort of tries not to sound bitter. it sort of works.

minhee is extremely quickly reminded why he doesn’t interact with taeyong when there are no cameras rolling. because they couldn’t act civil even if they wanted to.

the question that falls past the younger’s lips is filled with venom minhee doesn’t want to deal with. he doesn’t think he deserves to be questioned. he’s found a way to cope through other means, to be happy with what he does for both polaris and other groups. a balance that taeyong has obviously failed to find. despite being ever so slightly taken back, shown by only a raise of an eyebrow, he doesn’t really get angry. he doesn’t get riled up as easily. unlike some other people.

he parts his lips to speak, ready to attack, but instead, he takes a breath, a deep one, holds it in. lets go.

“okay.” he replies, no malice or anger lingering anymore. some people change, he really hoped ash would have changed over the years. petty words weren’t enough to get minhee angry anymore. “if you are going to attack me and belittle me, do better. our solo stans do a better job at that than you ever could.” he relaxes his posture, obviously okay with his words and his position. he isn’t sure if that would get their main producer and lyricist to let go, or if he was like an attack dog, teeth deep and refusing to let go despite being told to do so. it wasn’t minhee’s job to keep ash in check, so he didn’t care, at least not right about now.

however, ash does strike a nerve “just because you are fucking miserable doesn’t mean i have to be.” he snaps back, voice louder than he intends and he can’t help but look at the staff whose heads snap at them.

“oh no, clearly you’re perfectly happy.” the ghost of a laugh on his face is more vicious than humored. “good for you.” he feels eyes on them and instinctually turns his head, only to make eye contact with a staff member who looks less than approving. there’s no point in making their days hard or sparking gossip just because minhee’s sold out to dimensions for the sake of momentary comfort.

he quickly averts his eyes away from the staff member and to the ceiling, shoving his hands in the pockets of his athletic pants as if he’d been entirely inconsequential in the whole situation. yeah, he knows it’s probably not the most mature thing to do to have a spat with minhee right now over something he clearly wasn’t going to convince him differently about, but the embarrassment doesn’t weigh heavy enough for him to fully regret it.

instead, he grips his unappealing lunchbox and perches himself on the arm of the couch in the corner of the practice room as though nothing had happened to draw attention to him or minhee. if he turns tail for the other side of the room, he’d have to endure the eyes following him until the room settled into the low hum of chatter again. sitting directly next to minhee only seems like it’d tempt fate.

by the time everyone is drawn back into their own duties or conversations, ash is stabbing at his chicken breast, uninspired by the comeback routine of eating the same food every day. his eyes slide over to minhee and he can’t help but try to get the last word in with a low-volume mumble.

In his five-track Inception-inspired comeback, Polaris member Taeyong seems to ponder a more cynical view of romance as an unreality.

LIMBO : THE FIRST MINI-ALBUM

limbo is the first mini-album by south korean singer taeyong. it was released on december 14, 2018, by dimensions entertainment. the mini-album spans a range of genres including jazz, alternative r&b, and neo soul. the mini-album was released in two versions with two different photobooks, featuring photos taeyong had taken around seoul reflecting the album concept.

according to taeyong, the title of the mini-abum was inspired by the film inception. conceptually, the mini-album explores the emotions of getting lost in and then waking up from a pleasant experience only to realize it was all a dream. like hans zimmer’s score in inception, the end of “come over” loops back around with the first track “unknown guest” to create a never-ending circle.

in addition to the single’s music video, music videos were released for “dive” and “daydream”. the two music videos are visually and conceptually linked, starring the same actors and filmed in london, just as several of taeyong’s debut album music videos were. notably, taeyong does not star in any of limbo’s music videos, instead only making cameos in “dive”. in an interview, taeyong explained this was an intentional choice, representing that the songs and their videos were a fantasy, not a reality.

the album’s single “come over” is an r&b-jazz push and pull between taeyong and his featuring female vocalist where he asks his love interest to come across the night to him though he seems confused by his own feelings. the music video for “come over” is an animated black and white video. "come over" quickly rose to the top of several south korean music charts and peaked within the top ten of the gaon weekly digital chart.

불청객 (unknown guest)

dive

daydream

처음 (first) ft. ?

some changes to his discography over the years; most major being lovesick & fatalism being sort of merged into one album released mid-2020, and blacklight becoming an english-language album which was released december 2022 as his english-language market debut

ash has some more involvement in the creative side of polaris in the past now (including participating in concept direction for the most beautiful moment in life, pt 1 and pt, 2 + black swan). this makes him even more sensitive when they do shit he doesn’t like lmao (like dynamite, which he now didn’t have any credits on at all)

he’s also now a ~director~ and has helped direct some polaris mvs (and few mvs of other boy groups) and participated in directing partially or fully a lot of the music videos off of his solo albums as well. his youtube channel is primarily for him to experiment with directing and videomaking now.

in general, ash’s career has shifted focus to more creative / behind the scenes stuff, less on-camera stuff, though that was already happening in the present anyway

most of the major development changes were made regarding the hiatuses he went on in 2020-2022 to basically spread the whole thing out more and give him the larger timeframe and more actual time away i honestly think he needed for that that i couldn’t give him at the time. a lot of details but i’ll give a summary since it might be relevant to certain connections he has?

things were ROUGH for ash in 2020. he was very clearly not in the best place but that didn’t really matter to dimensions because he and polaris were printing money. they just stuck their pr extra hard on making sure all his reckless shit didn’t go too public and hoped for the best.

shortly after re-signing with dimensions and releasing fatalism in august 2020, he had his mini breakdown on instagram. that resulted in him just apologizing for worrying people and being like ‘i was just really tired sorry for all that silly shit i said i didn’t mean it <3′ and dimensions made him deactivate his instagram account because he had a tour schedule and our songs later on that he couldn’t just cancel.

he competed on our songs (but not kiss & cry, i removed that) and just kept dropping songs that made his fans go,, uhhhh this man ok? he went on hiatus like, a day after he released “instagram” in december 2020 (and never held any promotional stages for it). dimensions said he was suffering unspecified health issues, generally assumed by most to be physical due to dimensions’ wording, and had been advised to focus on recovering. he fucked off to jeju for a few weeks because dimensions was really hoping that would magically ‘fix’ everything and he’d be as good as new by polaris’s next comeback (his final tour dates had to be “delayed” and then cancelled)

returned for polaris’s “boy with luv” promotions ~4 months later in april 2021. was obviously not feeling like a boy with luv. 

shortly after, he hit a new low and he went back on hiatus. this time, dimensions was a little more honest, citing stress and anxiety. at the beginning of the hiatus, he mostly just ran away, but eventually, he began to actually get help to get into a better place. he wrote very little music during this time. he stayed away from seoul and dimensions as much as he could and he returned to activities ~eight months after the start of his hiatus to participate in polaris’s “black swan” (one of the only songs he finished during his hiatus) and map of the soul: 6 promos.

was officially back and active as of end of january 2022, but showed up in public only for group schedules really for most of the year. he didn’t do any solo schedules except for some contractually required calvin klein ads here and there and some behind-the-camera directing and songwriting/producing work (though most of the stuff he was credited on during this time had been written a few years before).

returned to solo music at the very end of last year with blacklight (his english-language debut album), close to two and a half years after his last album and two years after his last solo music of any kind. is sorta focusing on more overseas (u.s.) promos rn solo-wise, having performed at dick clark’s nye, sxsw, and coachella since.

i might make a q2 update post with more details about where he is right this moment but this was mostly just for me to feel like he had more actual development in regards to certain major plotlines that i feel i ended up rushing or not fleshing out enough over the past few years to really know where ash stood.

“yeah, thank you.” it’s so awkward, her words short and manufactured. she’s not sure what she should say, she’s not sure she should be saying anything at all. she sort of wants to though. she just doesn’t know if she should dip her toe into those waters. there’s a part of her that can still remember him as a lover, another part that wonders if she’s an idiot for even thinking of their past. she doesn’t know ash anymore, not really, and in a way it’s easier to trick herself into believing she never really knew him. 

it’d be easier if they hadn’t seen each other in years, if their past didn’t consist of what ifs and could’ve beens, if they could smile at each other and update each other on where they were now in life. she’d rather chew her arm off than pretend with him, the pair both having been aware of each other throughout the years even if they didn’t speak, and she wouldn’t be able to hide her displeasure if he attempted it too.

his hair is longer now, curling at the edges. his body buffer, filled out and defined from what she can peek. his tattoo collection has grown too probably, eyes drinking in the thorns that wrap around him. that scar on his left cheek remains the same, not yet covered by the make up crew if it even will be, that causes her to smile faintly. 

realistically she knows about all those changes already, has watched him from the corner of her eye year after year but there’s no need to glance when he’s in front of her now. 

“i’m a little nervous,” she admits, “about the solo debut, about the video today. i want to do well, i want it to do well, but i’m trying not to get caught up in just that.” her words are still a little distant but a lot more honest. the staff is busy around them, setting up the last of the what is needed for the scene, so she doesn’t worry about pretenses right now. she doesn’t know how much longer they have before they begin acting and she doesn’t want to leave today having been an actress the entire time.

what is hayi if not just another ex? and after that, just another lover he’d once brought into his bed to stop the gaps in his armor where loneliness ached to leak out? and then, one of many casualties of the nuclear meltdown of his mind years ago? (no, that’s not true. the real casualty had been years before that, hadn’t it?)

but telling himself that doesn’t stop the relief that washes over him in a gentle wave when she offers him more than a terse greeting and an unreadable expression. the words don’t close the space between them much, but he doesn’t expect an outpouring of her every intricate thought, not when they’re face to face like this after all of their highs and lows and self-enforced distance.

it’s almost funny, how it feels like he’s looking into some warped mirror of past moments. there’d been a time he’d been the one nervous about a solo debut of his own. back then, he’d divulged the nerves of a promised solo debut in the works to her with the sparkling eyes of a smitten nineteen year-old and sought kisses as reassurance. he’d never imagined the path they’d tread before he saw her face her own solo debut.

anonymity comes in waves, and here she’s just a fresh-faced first timer. a novel feeling, far incomparable to being fresh faced, barely twenty when she first debuted.

but this is a new stage, and she soaks in the details. letting the intricacies of new hellos in fresh faces void of any judgements guide her movements through the busting bodies inside some cooped up party, smushed in the middle of indio. she hears from mouth, gets dragged by a new friend she meets in passing conversation — she’s merely a new face, and she knows from years of being new: it’s always the novelty of being in new, and up-and-coming that renders her somewhat worthy of any remote conversation. conversations rattle her heavier, and each conversations become nothing more than cheapened versions for proposals of a hookup or even cheaper laughter for future collaborations she knows will become remnants of gold star’s ignorance. 

in the end, she succumbs to the thing she knows best — cheap henny, contrasting the money flowing in designer threads. maybe she’s on her third, but by the time she loses count she hears a familiar voice, and she turns her head towards the source. “or we can call it fate, and say we’re never supposed to meet inside the confines of sobriety.” she mirrors his half-grin, tossing whatever’s left of her drink straight down her throat.

by now, it doesn’t burn, and now, her eyes narrow in. “in the end, it’s okay because i like you best when you have a drink in your hand. builds character, makes you seem a bit more rough around the edges, like you’re a sculpture instead of a digital print.” her grin lifts more, and she motions some bartender she’s made friends with in the course of an hour over before turning over to ash, voice light and fleety. “now, i don’t know if you’re lucky or unlucky because i’m kind of sad right now. frank ocean dropped out this weekend. as much as i love blink 182, i wanted to bawl my eyes out to nikes and kiss a stranger during novacane.”

“i'd be more offended if you weren’t far from the first person who’s told me that.” it’s not like ash isn’t aware he’s not always the most fun person to be around when he’s sober. hell, even when he’s drunk, it’s about a fifty-fifty chance it magnifies his more lively qualities as opposed to his worst ones. still, the number of times people have suggested they prefer him under the influence since he gave up on his brief sobriety journey was enough to stoke at least a little self-consciousness once the buzz that makes him ignore it is gone.

luckily, the buzz is very much still there, so he lets any worries slide off his back and settle at his feet to be faced when he’s got a hangover to accompany him. “the statue part is new, though. not sure how i feel about being stone even at my best.” okay, so maybe the insecurity peaks through his jesting tone. only a little, though.

i used to see the way the world could be, but now the way it is is all i see and...

very suddenly, minhee remembers why he didn’t speak with ash much.. at all really. the look he gives the younger when he ask him if he is being serious is one well beyond disappointment. at times minhee wonders where he went right and got out of his rut, and ash didn’t. was he also this insufferable back in the day? probably. there is a sigh that leaves him, shoulder dropping as he listens to the other speak, about things minhee really couldn’t care less.

“it’s out job.” he states, there is a hint his voice that this shouldn’t be a conversation they should be having, but he does extremely well to keep his tone leveled. it’s obvious he actually takes time to collect his words, not speaking his mind fully because the last thing he needs right about now is to cause a scene in front of everyone. he can already feel a few pairs of eyes on them, he doesn’t need more. “i don’t like half of the things i do, taeyong. i just learned to suck it up and move on. there was never a promise of freedom when we debuted.” it comes out from in between gritted teeth, the whole thing because minhee hasn’t admitted that specific thought out loud before. he worries that whatever he thinks is spoken, it turns true. he had honestly forgotten how quickly ash could light up his fuse.

“staying in seoul means so much more to me than you would care to even try and understand.” he shuts his mouth quicker than he needs to, forcing his shoulders to relax because he felt the tension that build up all of a sudden. misery loves company, but minhee wasn’t ready to indulge.

he hates the look minhee gives him. he’s come face to face with it before, many a time from many a person, but it’d become a near constant in the faces of those around him two or three years ago. he’s not that person anymore, so why is he still being looked at like that? 

he’s not that person anymore.

the muscles in his shoulders coil and his chest grows heavy with the need to fight back. bile rises in his throat like it can dissipate the burn of minhee’s expression. the acid fails to even fray the edges and comes up in a barely-restrained hiss out of his lips instead.

“so you’ve thrown out all of your artistic integrity because it’s your job? i guess that’s your right, but my backbone doesn’t have to shrivel up and die just because yours has.” he’s incredulous. minhee’s talking like music isn’t the very thing they’ve given almost the entirety of the last decade plus of their lives to. countless hours sweating and bleeding and dancing until they were practically dry-heaving, recording music until their bodies ached. the strings of sentimental attachment to polaris and the others members have frayed to near breaking for ash, but he’d given every single part of him to music time and time again until there’d been nothing left and then resurrected himself for the sheer sake of continuing to feed its hunger. 

the second weekend of coachella settles in with more familiarity than the first. the palm springs rental bungalow he’s been holed up in for the week, ordering take-out and holing himself up in the makeshift studio he’d crafted, is almost comfortable now despite the entirely unused pool. but it always comes down to one thing in the end: a battle between his cocoon of introversion and the restless pull toward less quiet and, ultimately, of course, less sobriety.

it’s nights like these he’s grateful​ he knows a few people who always seem to be around events like this. most of them are attention-addicted social climbers who think ash’s group having a number one song and a grammy nomination for the shittiest song they’ve ever put out to their name will get them in the tabloids if they’re caught partying with him, sure, but god knows he’s had worse company. besides, dimensions has anything truly compromising on lockdown pretty well these days. and if something did leak through? well, maybe it could erase his association with dynamite from the public conscience.

so he ends up at some private coachella artist party with someone he’s met a few times in passing at private booths in la clubs and lets her introduce him to people whose names he forgets as quickly as he’s told them until he’s shaken off the weight of sobriety just enough to make and excuse and step out on his own.