Name: Jaco Strejcek Pronouns: He/They Age: 23 Occupation: Musician Canon: SBP_01

Freeform:

His father names him after Jaco Pastorius.

The gesture; it’s rooted in the dreams that [now, today] endures as ghosts of pitied “what ifs”. The fruitful nothings, a life in his late thirties defeated by modern-day burdens weighing economy-driven productivity over personal ambitions, deeply intimate, cultivated close to the heart, nurtured and loved. Humiliating a spirit that once lived for more. The usual cautionary tales that warn against the uncertainty of pursuit. Often told by rubbernecks too comfortable in their shiftless lives, living to work and die without a penchant of honest, passion-riddled momentums. If only time hadn’t been a merit of expiration. If only, if only, if only.

Afterthoughts.

Forlorn regrets recurs at the dining table split into two, his fiancé’s family and his own as they sit and consume each other’s should-be happiness to approval’s credit. They marry, a woman from Aomori, and her lover, a native to Prague. A routinely profession of processing invoices and other small-print obligations in tall buildings of steel. It’s never inoffensive, rather appropriate for tidying finances and rudimentary income. It’s enough for the boy to never know hunger when neither of the two are home in time for dinner.

Father names him after someone who he wished he had met, or had become. If he cannot fulfill neither, he’ll succumb to disinherit any leftover faith dissolving somewhere in his consciousness. Better yet, instill his son as the vessel of his missed opportunities, lost hope, and channelled futures. It’s what selfishness owes to the hard-bitten love of fathers who relentlessly, and quietly, mourn all to themselves.

/

The faultless family portrait comes apart. Slowly, then all at once. The nuance of forever was never in the cards.

Though they loved intensely. The language of their marriage was introduced with impractical desires. Intimacy that was never short of nothing: a blend of carnations in a pearly vase, days on end made to keep excitement afloat in their relationship, his careful hand resting on the small of her back. Her mother tells her before the monument falls, your husband is a man that you should be in love with, he takes care of you, he loves your child, he can always come afoot into my home and provides as what men ought to do. His affections are accessorized to a pretend, and idealized vision of his wife that he clung to on his demise. She is no longer the young woman swaying on the indecisiveness and rapid romance of her twenties. She is no longer the young woman whose naivety was the only consequence of her youth. Together, they had met though a sum of mutual friends in Strasbourg as university students. Unimpressive, perhaps dulled without a punchline meant to stun their couple origin story, but it is one where timing was loyal to their side.

Their ruins lied in their inability to provide expectations for one another. Whatever she needed or wanted, he couldn’t compromise to bring forth in support of it completely. Had he wanted something too, seldom, it was issued. It was a love meant to collapse when they were given a chance to part ways, maybe amicably. To have each other, whole, somebody as an extension to one’s made-up joy to keep going in the world. Truth is, an unmarried woman who became pregnant would suffer the most. A man will always have options, whether built-in escape routes or abandonment on the horizon. A marriage molded by truths, that in hindsight, shadowed a divorce with separate homes.

Jaco is thirteen. He’s only been to Japan for vacation, until a tiny apartment in Osaka with tatami flooring becomes his home. His mother with a promising telecommunications position with a pay rate that’ll eventually get them to move out, and for awhile it’s solely been them. He runs, tumbles, breaks some bones, climbs rock walls, kicks a soccer ball across the field, laughs and cries like many young boys with infinite energy and iron fists to rule. With his father’s upright bass in his room, he scraps enough for a previously used electric from all the hours spent ringing up meat, poultry, and vegetables.

It is the most beautiful thing he owns.

/

A man breaks his heart and he wonders if a heartbreak is supposed to hurt so much that he can’t even force himself to eat. Time wasted and gorged until memories of them burn in him an anger so deep, so pronounced, slow brewing and grim. He doesn’t know where to place his grief as it’ll all accumulate into the fire. Then, ashes.

His mother, now remarried, refuses to return his calls. Jaco wonders if his father knows, too. He wonders if his father knows that his only son loves as intensely as he does, yearns and pines for men with terribly forgettable faces and strong hands gnarled from woodworking stresses. He wonders when and how has a love lost its innocence and integrity, when not with a woman. He wonders what his father thinks of him, it’s something that he’d contemplate rather than to know the truth of. Jaco thinks about a plethora of things, ones that make him lose sleep with a crutch of betrayal.

He can’t sit and feel sorry for himself for too long. The Earth’s still on orbit and the seasons will change.

A full ride to Yonsei announces itself of no use. A statistical number in an overly concentrated major, it’s all that Jaco is anyways. The degree will manage itself shelved up like a trophy without any real substantial commitment. Other things is waiting for him, visa under his name and all. The spring of his to-be graduation is when he leaves a musical collective on matters of becoming crowd pleasing to predictable r&b hooks.

Among other things, a newly built apartment in Jongno-gu with enough square feet to haul in amps and synthesizers signs him off on a friendly lease. Yonsei’s grounds will be without his idle presence, and all he’s got is his useless music and useless charts and useless Stanley Clarke inspired techniques. It’s all useless but it’s all the things he loves. The only thing he’s been sure and serious about all his life. At the cost of an early childhood hijacked by one man’s secondhand quest to live through his son’s beginnings.

Then, Strawberry Paris. Situated on a couple of nonchalant shrugs and semi-assuring “why nots” of a bunch that figured academia wasn’t the sole cheat code to life. They got together and made themselves a little group. Acquired a taste for some sounds, dwelling into the 90s for some ”aha” moments. An aerial map for their trial and errors that’ll later catapult them to a few known successes if steadily dedicated. Who knows, who knows. They’re bandwagoning on some good intent, steadfast more than anything.

Name: Lee Daeun Pronouns: She/her Age: 25 Occupation: Part time worker at a nail salon Canon: SBP_02

Freeform:

it’s common knowledge that child prodigies never actually grow up to be anybody memorable, and lee daeun is no exception to that rule.

her mother claims that her little girl is some kind of genius when she’s four and sitting in front of the piano, her fingers flying across all of the keys. she’s seen her older brother play a few times, and her mother practically lives in front of the instrument that stands so strong in the middle of their living room. it must have come magically to her or whatever. daeun doesn’t think anything of it and neither does her dad, but her mother insists that she’s special.

it’s not long before her mother is sitting her down in front of the piano for hours, attaching the best private teachers to her hip and making sure that her daughter lives out a scheduled life so that she can become so much more—or so her mother claims. daeun’s too young to wrap her head around the concept of becoming a pianist, but she likes the sound that the keys make, and she thinks the undivided attention her mother gives her is great since her father’s too busy with her brother anyway.

time passes and she evolves into the little prodigy that her mother wanted. she’s sweeping awards and has become a household name among those who are interested in young pianists. daeun can see the happy tears in her mother’s eyes whenever she comes home with another grand trophy.

she’s still too young to see the way her mother’s brows furrow whenever she comes in any place but first.

/

the thing with kids who are raised to think they’re special because of a skill is that once the skill disappears, they’re no longer treated like they’re special.

by the time daeun reaches high school, she’s no longer sweeping awards. the amount of money her mother pours into her becomes meaningless when she’s coming home with bronze medals or simple popularity awards instead of the golds and grand prizes she used to bring back.

it leads to her coming home only to be met with her mother’s heavy sighs and her father’s yelling about how she was never meant to be some worldwide pianist.

(”every young child shows that amount of talent. you tried to force it onto her.”

“no, i was right. daeun just stopped trying. if she worked hard enough, she could have become a star!”)

whenever that happens, her brother comes beside her and gives her a tight hug. it’s his way of telling her that she’s doing just fine. it’s not convincing enough, but she still tries her best to take comfort in his embrace.

/

she can tell that her mother has given up on her and frankly, so has daeun.

she comes to realize that she never actually enjoyed playing the piano. the sound is still beautiful to her ears, but sitting down and pressing down on the keys no longer sends a thrill through the back of her spine. the teachers stop coming and the grand piano sitting in their living room only continues to gather dust.

college application season is coming up, but daeun’s spent too long focused on the piano to have the grades to back her up in getting into a good university. she simply listens to her teachers who advise her to apply here and there under this major or that. they give her a safety net to fall back on, and it’s not good enough for her parents, but it’s good enough for her.

/

nothing ever works out the way daeun wants.

college is just an extended version of the way that she’s grown up. sure, she has a little more freedom in the way she can choose to not show up to class or she can choose not to do the assignments that are assigned. either way, it’s not much of an escape like she wanted.

her brother tells her that she’s going through some belated puberty with the way she appears like she’s rebelling against the world. she gets a tattoo or two, goes out to drink with some random people she meets on campus. her parents no longer want to deal with her drunk ass coming home so they get her a one-room near her university in hopes that the bare minimum support will help her get her shit together.

all it does, however, is give her an excuse to stay out later since nobody’s going to be home anyway.

she’s all alone, and it’s not too bad. she swears.

/

oddly enough, she actually does make some friends during the year and a half she’s in university. it’s when she’s dragged by one of them into an instrumental store that she’s forced to face the piano once more.

except this time, it’s in the form of a keyboard.

daeun’s never had experience with anything but her grand piano. anything that was electrical was never viewed as an actual instrument in her household. her friend nudges her into its direction and while she resists, she can’t help but admit that she misses being good at something.

(”you’re good with nail art, daeun. isn’t that enough?”

“don’t forget how daeun’s a master at differentiating between coke and pepsi with her eyes closed!”)

she presses down on one of the keys, and it’s so much lighter and almost feels fake, but she likes it. she really likes it.

her mother would be appalled, but she begins to play mozart, schumann, brahms and so on. the melodies flow through the instrumental store and soon she’s got a crowd around her. the applause that comes afterwards is so much more genuine than the forced ones she heard back during her childhood recitals and competitions.

“do you only know how to play classic?”

the question catches her off-guard, but she nods.

“you should try something else. you sound like a natural.”

/

that’s all it takes for her to print out the drop out papers on her college website. she doesn’t tell her parents, but they find out sooner or later. surprisingly, they don’t say much in return, and daeun’s certain it’s because it’s been forever since they’ve really cared about her.

she starts dropping by the instrumental shop more frequently and strikes up a conversation with the guy behind the counter who recommends her some bands. music has never been more enjoyable.

it’s by complete coincidence when she’s scrolling through those school pages that she never signed out of and finds talk of a band being formed. there’s nothing for her to lose anymore, and there’s nobody left in the world to hold her back so she clicks.

/

daeun finds the band name ridiculous. it’s like they spun a wheel of fruits and a city and just went with whatever came out, but it still gives her a sense of belonging. her groupmates are simply groupmates, but she believes in being civil since they are making music together. it’s taken almost twenty years, but she thinks she can now confidently say that she enjoys playing the keyboard.

the sound of the keys are obviously more artificial in comparison to the grand piano she used to play, but the way those keys send vibrations through her heart is something completely different. she finally feels free to be able to live the way she wants to.

her parents still like to pretend she doesn’t exist, and daeun only gets much financial help from her brother who hasn’t been silently ignored like herself. she’s always taken good care of her nails so she gets a part-time job at a nail salon since she needs something to help pay the bills while strawberry paris continues to build a name for themselves.

Name: Kang Siwoo Pronouns: He/Him Age: 24 Occupation: Drummer Canon: SBP_04

Freeform:

life has always passed kang siwoo by. as he reaches double digits, the idyllic happiness of childhood gives way to emotional inertia. maybe it’s the absent parents - they’re bigshot lawyers who hardly have time to think about their son - or maybe it’s the bullies at school he inadvertently gets caught up in, who introduce him to the world of fistfights and bruises, localized within the alleyways behind their school. (siwoo is on the receiving end, most of the time. apparently he’s too quiet and nerdy, and his face is just asking for it, and he gets in the way all the time — he’s heard every reason under the rainbow to get punched.)

it’s not long before kang siwoo becomes a breeding ground of bad habits. he gets out of high school mostly intact, and stumbles his way into a college he is underqualified for, bolstered by his parents’ starry reputations as criminal defense lawyers. siwoo sleeps during his classes and spends his nights awake in the dark, sprawled out in his cramped dorm bed, or trampling over the streets of seoul dizzy-drunk with a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. he becomes an unanchored ship - the wind blows him back and forth, waves bashing against his sides, and he lets it carry him wherever it pleases.

the one constant connecting his selves over the years are the drums, all of his banging away on plastic toys turning into naps hunched over school-owned acoustic sets. he enters the music room far too early and stays there far too late, laying on piano benches, eating sandwiches behind the instrument cases, and playing the drums alongside miscellaneous songs that come up on shuffle. but there’s only so much time he can spend there, because kang siwoo isn’t studying music. like his parents, he takes law classes, and dips dangerously close to failing just about every single one, but during the day an immeasurable fatigue grips him, and for all his efforts spent trying to get things done, he sinks deeper and deeper into a pile of unfinished work. at night, he’s too distracted to concentrate. he’d learned early on to express his feelings through bruises and fistfights, and he turns that on himself as he stumbles further down, a chasm forming in his head and heart.

he drops out by year three. classically because he was too much of a coward to do it earlier - to have to face his parents and tell them that he has no intention of becoming a lawyer - and because he isn’t strong enough to stick it out and fake it just enough to finish. but when he does, an odd sense of freedom comes along with it. no longer are several hundred deadlines hanging over his head like knives - no longer is he trapped into studying something he hates out of guilt. siwoo regains a little bit of himself.

he picks up the drums again - the only thing he is consistently good at, so it seems - and bangs away at them during the nights he can’t sleep. he chases after places that need a soundtrack thrumming in the background, landing himself small gigs here and there as a backup drummer, managing - for a while - to stay one shaky step ahead of a gaping edge.

eventually, it leads him to a band.

it’s called strawberry paris, the name oozing the kind of elegance and glamor that he doesn’t have, but any band he can get into means more chances to play the drums and get paid for it, so whether it’s called strawberry paris or dirty shoes or whatever doesn’t particularly matter to him. it’s the music that does. he likes anything from any genre, as he proclaims to his band-mates, so he’ll play anything, and he dives into the new work with vigor and enthusiasm.

but kang siwoo’s bad habits have a tendency to cling and stick even when he tries to shake them off. he skulks into practice hours late, dark rings around his eyes, picking up his sticks and asking for the time signature without shame — and he knows he deserves the ire of his band mates for his unreliability, he really does. perhaps it’s solely because he practices so late into the night, alone, that he grasps and holds firmly onto his position, that he just barely manages to fill the gap the rest of the band leave for him.