#mulmaluintro

haeseung works as a primary school art teacher in mulmalu city, but his salary is terrible, so he teaches a recreational art class for all ages as a side hustle.

a VERY encouraging soul. as lame as people may think his life is, he is a ball of happiness over following his passion in life. he wants everyone to experience that same happiness.

he wasn’t always living the dream, however. when he was just a small child, his parents were both killed in a home invasion gone wrong, and haeseung was raised by his extremely strict and religious aunt.

it was a difficult transition, going from the happy and carefree childhood he’d once known to being forced to grieve something he didn’t fully understand under the roof of someone who didn’t understand him. even his inclination to the arts came under fire.

in her eyes, little boys weren't meant to paint and be artistic. they weren't supposed to be soft and gentle. they were meant to learn life lessons, grow up, put on a drab gray suit and head into an office every day until it was time to clock out permanently.

they were meant to marry a nice woman and settle down behind a picket fence with 2.5 children and an annoying doorbell.

haeseung was quite literally NEVER about that life. he didn't want to be surrounded by the boring gray of an office building. he wanted every shade of color all around him, all the time. and it wasn’t that he didn’t like girls, but his crushes had never been limited to just them, something he’d wind up never admitting to his family.

few of his classmates would have ever known he was going through such turmoil at home, as he was always bright and sunny; something of a class clown. his refusal to target anyone but himself as the subject of his jokes typically earned him laughter, praise and a surprising amount of respect from his peers.

school was something of an escape for him, as weird it it may sound for someone who was always a bit lacking in the academic success department. it was the ability to be who he was, to paint in his art class with his friends that really carried him through those years.

when he turned 18, he was finally able to spread his wings and explore the island he’d always called home, but never really got to experience. he’d been saving up every scrap of funds he could get from birthdays, part-time jobs, contest winnings and anything else he could think of to build up a small nest egg, all to escape the clutches of his aunt’s house and be free.

he took whatever odd job he could find on the island, supporting himself through college and perfecting his art style with whatever extraneous materials and paint he came across. it was a huge struggle, but it was truly the happiest he’d managed to make himself since the loss of his parents.

after earning his bachelor’s degree in fine arts, he finally landed the more steady gig he has today. he’s recently closed on a small starter home in jutaeg village, though it is bigger than any of the places he’s lived before. he even adopted his first dog, though he is mostly at a loss for what being a dog owner even means. and while he does still struggle with the memories of his childhood, attending a group therapy session to help cope with the trauma in healthy ways has added some much needed stability to his life.

in conclusion, haeseung is a big ball of art, love, affection, jokes, confusion & chaotic bisexual energy who falls for everyone at least a lil bit, and if you peruse his plots page, one person BIG BIT but that’s another storyyyy

from the very beginning, dalrae (known originally as min yuyeon) treasured the escape above all else; running free from whatever ails you was always her motto.

growing up in a group home with her two sisters after the abandonment of their mother did little but harden the girl’s exterior and make it increasingly hard to trust at all. though she wasn’t the oldest sibling, she was considered the toughest and least emotional. she was far more willing to do what had to be done.

whenever the home didn’t feed her sisters to her standards, rae would swipe food from the pantry when the attendants weren’t looking, risking a hefty beating. and even when she got caught, she’d stand against them defiantly, tearless and silent.

she learned to take what she needed when she needed it, the consequences be damned. eventually, the punishments became too harsh for even her to handle, and she escaped the facility when she was fifteen.

her sisters had always been so well behaved, so she knew they’d be okay in the group home’s care, but dalrae herself didn’t really know what to do next. she’d never really had anyone to depend on, and now she truly was alone.

she wound up falling in with a group of small-time criminals who, strangely enough, treated her far better than the group home ever had. they ran underground fight rings, laundered money through local businesses; nothing they had was gained through legitimate means, and yet they were her family. they gave her a new name and a new identity. they were the only ones who’d ever been there to take care of her, and at the same time, they filled her head with dreams of something bigger.

banks, corporations, luxury car dealers...they all had so much wealth for the taking, and no intention of sharing. rae and her crew spent their time developing their skills, learning the police response times and computer security systems like the backs of their own hands.

by the time she’d entered her early twenties, she was damn near a pro at stealing from the rich and prosperous of seoul - it had been keeping her and the crew going for years, and they’d all improved upon the petty crimes they’d started out committing.

they had become the shadowy organization, known simply as OZ, or at least that’s what the news and the public had begun to call them. they were something of local superstars, even if no one knew their names or faces. while some in the crew found that notoriety intoxicating, rae knew it could only spell the end of their little adventure.

she knew that people were going to eventually connect them to the thefts being committed, and her intuition proved to be correct.

they were taking one of the biggest corporations in the city one night, and despite their years of experience doing just that, they were unable to correctly predict the police response time. squad cars descended upon the crew in less than a minute, and in spite of their attempt at a quick getaway, the police were determined to steer them off the road.

after making a tearful plea to a crew member she knew was romantically interested in her to take all the blame and let her escape, dalrae slipped silently out of the car while it was still in full movement. she went tumbling down the bank and landed with a painful splash in the shallow banks of the han river.

she gritted her teeth and made the freezing cold swim across the river to put distance between her and the cops. she dried off and warmed up at a small, independently owned internet cafe, after observing that the place didn’t have a security camera set up. she transferred all the money OZ still had in its various accounts to her own offshore, despite guilt gnawing at her the entire time; but she simply had to survive, and her freedom was imperative to that.

after sitting on the money for a while, dalrae left the mainland behind, making the move to mulmalu island to get away from the events of that night. she used the money she’d stored away to buy a small cottage on the beach, where she could be left alone.

after nearly getting caught, the desire to amass a fortune through improper means had left her; she just wanted to hide away until her time would eventually come. she didn’t find meaning in much of anything anymore...she was finally starting to realize just what her life was.

...that was until she met him; bae hyuk - the charming, handsome photographer who would sweep her off her feet. from the very first time they met, she felt an overwhelming happiness whenever she would talk to him. it seemed his sole goal was to earn her trust, and after a lifetime of not being able to trust, perhaps she was a bit too eager.

biography :

it’s not common to see children with calloused fingers, and yet little oh dallia had her hands covered in them — especially the tip of her fingers. no matter how much her mother tried to soothe her skin and soften the surface, they would always come back because of how much dallia loved playing with her father’s accoustic guitar. the oversized instrument was awkwardly held between her arms, but she was so happy and excited to learn how to play music like her dad did.

his biggest dream was to become a musician one day, but it was so difficult when he had a wife and a baby to care for at such a young age; they were both nineteen years old when dallia was born. all mr. oh could do was focus on his boring and exhausting job to make sure he could provide a good life to his family. but as soon as he stepped into their house, he left behind his functional profession to become dallia’s personal musician.

he taught her how to play the accoustic guitar, and her mother was forced to get used to the rough skin on her daughter’s hands. it became her favorite activity, so much that they had to come up with a schedule to make sure she would do her homework and study for her exams instead of playing the guitar all day. it’s only when she got to her teenage years that her interest shifted from the acoustic guitar, to the electric guitar.

when she turned fifteen years old, her father bought her a beautiful guitar in white and mint green, not only because she really wanted it but also because it could help her through the difficult times that were meant to come: a divorce. it was a pretty bad time for her, but her father was right and the guitar did help her cope with the situation. the neighbors didn’t like it at all though.

dallia chose to stay with her father after the divorce happened, but she made sure to visit her mother every now and then. the reason why she chose to stay with him was because he supported her, and her desire to become a musician just like her father did in the past. but what she didn’t expect, was that one day they would leave the big city to go to a small town, away from everything and everyone she once knew.

her father got tired of his 9 to 5 daily job at an office, and decided to take his life and dallia’s to mulmalu island. a much smaller place where she felt like a fish out of water, despite being surrounded by a beautiful blue sea. she hated it, but her father loved everything about the place: he opened his own records store, where he could work with music even if indirectly, and he had his daughter by his side.

she started working with him at the store as soon as it was open, and she couldn’t say she disliked it... in fact, in that whole island, the store was the place where she felt the most comfortable at. it was her favorite place, where she could get lost in all the old and new albums that they would sell. she could put on headphones and listen to music and that’d be fine. but it wasn’t all that she wanted.

she wanted to make music, she wanted to do something that could take her to a stage one day. and that was when she found inertia. it made her a bit happier to have a group to call her own, a band to embrace her and her passion for music. and it made her father happy, to see his little dallia take one step closer to her dream.

a quick little behind the scenes!

⋆   born and raised in seoul, yeseung's spent his whole 24 years so far in the city-- raised by his mother who owns her own ceramics business while his father persued the life of a businessman, they have always encouraged him to chase his own happiness

⋆   he sort of floats through life, trying to figure out the meaning of this happiness as he goes through school. they encourage him to go to college and so he goes after the one thing he always finds himself doing-- dancing

⋆   he works at a cafe on campus and learns that he's also able to make drinks, and finds himself always trying new combinations of sweet drinks, and remembering all of the orders of his regulars

⋆   he graduates and finds himself looking at the rest of his life-- watching as everyone around him submits to their long drawn out plans, while he's left behind, still wandering around the city like there's someplace he still hasn't uncovered, an answer that everyone else found out that he didn't

⋆   a drunken road trip with friends leads to him stranded on mulmalu island-- a place that he had never known he'd find himself in but.. it's beautiful. maybe because it contains so many things he never even imagined, maybe because it's so far from home--

⋆   they need money, and so he finds himself a job as a bartender in mulmalu city easily, citing all of his barista experience that he surprisingly translates into alcoholic beverages quite well

⋆   for some extra pocket money, he searches for odd jobs around the city, posted up on bulletin boards or on flyers. he doesn't mind helping someone move boxes or assemble some pesky furniture for some extra cash, and finds it a good way to meet more people and go more places around the island while he's at it

⋆   on off days, he likes to explore the island and its nature, find places to dance, even if it's on his own, no music to guide him but what's inside of his mind, and take naps in the most unexpected of places (he has found he quite likes the way it is when he nestles himself in the branches of a tree)

⋆   the more time passes the more he wonders.. is this what everyone plans for? is this the feeling that people work towards? he intends to find out, figures that if the universe has landed him here, maybe it's where he's supposed to be (even if it's just for a moment)

some connections!

(though you can find some other plots similar to these linked at the top!)

⋆   a muse needing him for odd jobs! even if it's something he's never done before, he is definitely up to learn

⋆   a muse who happens to frequent the bar/works as another bartender and they get through work shifts together

⋆   a muse who's been wanting to learn how to dance or hasn't in a long time and wants someone to practice with!

⋆   a muse who is constantly running into him lost and not knowing how to make his way back

⋆   muses who would show him around the island/any of their favorite or secret spots

biography :

leaving is a complicated concept, one that most people aren’t very comfortable with, and yet bae hyuk has always been used to it. from a very young age, his parents have always struggled to set in one place and stay there for longer than two or three years, and the result of this constant cycle was a very desensitized boy when it came to leaving one life to start another.

of course, when he was a child it was a lot more difficult to detach from the people he had made friendships with, but as he got into his teenage years, hyuk started noticing the pattern and realized that he shouldn’t cling to people as he used to since he’s more than likely going to leave them anyways. what was the point of making friends and connections if, after a year or two, he was going to move to another city or state again eventually?

it was hard to say in contact with people when his location was always so inconsistent, and at some point, he just gave up trying. from school to school, hyuk was just a ghost, wandering through the halls and classrooms like he was never there. he didn’t bother joining clubs or cliques and only focused on keeping his grades up as best as he could. because of that, he became a really good student.

so good that he was given the opportunity to study at hannam university, full time, and the course he chose to study was criminology. there wasn’t any specific reason for him to choose that major, other than his own curiosity and interest in the field, and he actually really loved studying all of the aspects of crime and justice. and not only that, he also loved the stability of being there: the commitment, the routine. he made sure to maintain his good grades, to be able to achieve his goals and become a detective once he graduated.

once he got the job, he was first assigned to do paperwork; not exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew it was an important step to gather everyone’s trust and give a good impression before he could be sent to do fieldwork. he was good at his job, his colleagues enjoyed working with him, and with time he managed to grow in the police department where he worked at. he grew enough to be given a very special case: a criminal hiding on a small island.

his job is to investigate this person, infiltrate into their life and gain their trust in order to gather evidence of the crimes they’ve been committing. and bae hyuk was invested in solving that case.

he moved to mulmalu island as a photographer, looking for beautiful landscapes and beautiful people to photograph; the perfect cover since the island’s one of the prettiest places he’s ever seen before.