If asked, Seungcheol would definitely say he had a happy childhood. Vancouver was a large playground for a boy to have, no matter how little his family had or how restrictive his parents could be - a wild soul would be a wild soul no matter the circumstances. Seungcheol grew up making mischief, filling the streets with noise and cheer with whichever friend was available to "look after" him. He also spent a great deal of time by his mother's side, watching her work or cook, or watching her watch over him, and always doing his best to help.
When Gyujin was born the world started to change ever so slightly for the still brave, still loud, still playful four year old. He was an older brother now, he was the eldest and one day to be the man of the house. At four years old, Seungcheol started to learn about what it meant to be responsible. As the years went by he found out that responsibility meant taking after both of his parents as much as possible.
From his father he started to learn hapkido, because every real man should know how to protect his loved ones. With hapkido came a great many deal of lessons - duty, respect, hard work, endurance, and the of two components every soul carries that must always be in balance. Meanwhile his mother taught him how to love, how to care - through cooking, through attention to detail, little lingering touches and kind words that stayed with you long after they had been said.
Seungcheol grew up trying to be the very best of them both, while never losing that never dulling spark of what made him who he was. He would attend early morning training before holding his brother's hand all the way to school, even when they both got a little too old to do it. He would pick Gyujin up after school before training, asking about his day and in return giving him wild stories of what the school years ahead him had in store. Seungcheol would put his little brother to bed, homework half done and body sore and tired, he'd tell him about wild inventions or the secrets stored in every day objects.
As they got older, Seungcheol went from defending himself to defending them both. Two foreign boys of humble origins were an easy target but by then Seungcheol had learnt that about setting the world right when needed. Even if Gyujin had started training at his father's dojang, it was Seungcheol who fought and came home with bruises, a goofy smile and his head held high. The brunt of the punishments meant very little, knowing his lovable little brother got his own happy childhood.
His father learnt that Seungcheol was good at fighting much more than playground bullies. Every tournament or championship he enrolled his son in meant a new gold or silver medal taken home. Seungcheol became the shining prodigy for their humble gym. By then he understood the sacrifices that had lead his father to Vancouver, understood that the dojang was much more than the best way his father knew to provide for his family. He learnt something new about responsibility - sacrifice.
Evenings out with friends were traded in for long training sessions, holidays for even longer training sessions deep in the mountains or far away in Korea. It wasn't unwilling misery, but Seungcheol knew it wasn't all the world was to him either. By the time he was in middle school, Seungcheol had found another interest - crafting. In shop class Seungcheol had been giving heaps of junk, tools and fire and the encouragement to simply go wild. His teacher was the welcoming kind, who tried to make it fun for even the kids who chose the elective class just to skate through a course and tried to enrich the lives of those who really cared for it.
It wasn't often a student really cared for something most considered a useless hobby. But Seungcheol found the wonder in it, the idea that his hands could make something that lasted through the ages, that served a family through generations and was the base for years of memories. Once the semester ended, Seungcheol didn't stop visiting the class - making it an after school adventure that his father thought of as a disappointing and unwelcomed attraction but knew could hardly stop him from going.
Things got slightly more normal after his first year of highschool. He found a way to balance school, training and a part time job at a hardware store that was crucial to the whole operation. The store was relaxed enough that his friends would often come by to bother him as he worked, but also a way to learn more about a hobby that was becoming a passion in his life. The heavy lifting was just enough to convince his father it could count as training and it meant he could help around the house by paying for himself rather than asking them for money.
Everyone who knew him simply expected he'd follow his father's footsteps and walk the path his father hadn't been able to. But Seungcheol knew by the start of his second year, he had no intentions of keeping the balance any longer. So he went to his best friend Holly, and then to Gyujin once he was firm on just which were the steps he was about to take. Both encouraged to do what he had already set his mind to - to pursue the dream he had built with his very own hands.
Sitting down to tell his parents he wanted to dedicate himself to the dying world of blacksmiths and woodworkers seemed equivalent to slamming the very door they had worked so hard to open for him. His father questioned everything from motive to madness and his mother worried about his brazen willingness to take such a risk. But Seungcheol worked on curbing and corner their doubts. He had a firm plan, one that involved staying home for another year before he went off to vocational school, not too far away. His plan held the promise that he'd pay for all he could himself and come home for any weekend or holiday they wanted. Seungcheol's grades improved, he brought home creations made in shop class and talked it over as best he could.
Eventually, he managed to tip the scales back into balance and a deal was struck. All it took was convincing his mother - once Minkyung was on board she could talk her husband into anything. It was in the spring of what would be his last year of highschool when his father sat him down. Seungcheol would have to continue training, for peace of mind, and he would have to return if he was needed in a tournament, for filial duty. But, that wasn't all, Dongsik said he understood that a man has to do what he must, that Seungcheol had a responsibility to himself as much as he did to his family.
By summer, he had been accepted to Selkirk college for a blacksmithing apprenticeship and all he needed was the money. Finding work in a family with nothing but connections to stores and athletics wasn't difficult. What was difficult was the way he had clumsily fallen in love with Holly. For all the balance he tried to keep in his life, he kept nothing straight in matters of the heart. But Holly went from one awful boyfriend to another, considering him for little else than the perfect boyfriend who was to stay a friend.
At least, until Holly would rather say yes to Seungcheol's hesitant offer to date than be single at the start of the school year. If you were to have asked Seungcheol at that time how he felt, he would've said that the whole world was going his way. Yet, it took less than a month for the dream to crumble. Holly went from her usual hot and cold to simply arctic, then from catlike to skittish. Of course a young boy saw that as a fault of his own and simply tried harder - love would breed love, would breed trust in a girl who was simply heartbroken still. Instead, he learnt on the bench that she had taken his first kiss on, that Holly was seeing her ex boyfriend again. Seungcheol had simply made both of them being in love sound so wonderful, she thought she would try, for his sake since she knew he wanted it so much, but in the end she simply couldn't.
The guilt of feeling like he had forced his best friend into a relationship was something Seungcheol can hardly shake off to this day. The feeling of inadequacy fit in quite well with a darkness he had managed to just keep in balance for so long. Nothing could change about their friendship, Holly had said, hopeful in delivery - and so, since nothing had but his own crushed heart, nothing did. He continued to fulfill all the promises made until it was time for him to leave a little distance away towards certain relief.
Seventeen was a young age to delve head on into adulthood but he did as best he could. He spent his four months of classes trying to take in as much as he could, gathering everything down to the scraps as worthwhile material to build a future on. Seungcheol managed to turn the course into an apprenticeship and a scholarship for the next degree he had in mind - woodworking. Despite both his parents thinking he'd return to Vancouver for good, Seungcheol decided on staying in Nelson until he had completed education, making good on his promise to go back whenever he could.
Balance was no longer something he held within like a given but tireless work. He tried to stay an attentive brother despite the distance, stayed in close contact with Holly, but it never felt enough. Hwayoung took him out of the world that felt like a demand, but respite came with a price he hardly noticed he'd be paying from start to finish with a growing interest. Their relationship was casual sex at first and then became something deeper - a trading of minds, of words, of interests and secrets. Together they were meant to be a place of no expectation, no judgement, just a bond that worked.
That bond was challenged when his second degree began. Irene came into Seungcheol's world like wind running through a wind chime just before a storm. All sweet and danger. It didn't take long for him to be smitten, only a little while longer for him to feel sure enough to ask her out and then fate seemed like a signed and done deal. Hwayoung remained a distant figure just out of reach, something Seungcheol never understood as he had been a friend through every one of her on-and-off relationships. Holly was the most displeased about his saccharine smiles over a girl not only beautiful but interested in what he did and passionate about her own.
Having three women in his life who wanted lay their claim on him ensured him years of difficulty. One would fight with the other and it was he who paid. Every relationship was strained and all because of him and at his expense. By the end of his course and apprenticeships, Irene had grown tired and irritable of him and all he heard were haunting reminders of that from others. They eventually split after weeks of fights that wore his spirit down so small, leaving him sure that he only harbored darkness to turn things so sour all around.
Returning to Vancouver didn't offer him the same certain relief he had when leaving it. He got a job at a woodshop in the city and kept on simply doing his best. His attempts were rarely rewarded, but Hwayoung did eventually move to Vancouver herself and things weren't so lonely, perhaps. Holly and Hwayoung only spoke of each other in snide remarks and his mother disproved of them both but said nothing. Gyujin wanted to live his own life more than include Seungcheol and he tried to understand, to be cool and supportive. All in all, his life was whittled down to simply trying.
But trying would do very little to help him when Irene texted to tell him she was in the city. What was a friendly enough gesture lead to dates that devolved into the small detail of learning she had found herself a girlfriend. For the following weeks all he heard was the misery he had caused for breaking up with her, her ruined trust and her need of comfort. And then, how lacking her partner was, and how perfect they had been. Wouldn't he try for her? Wouldn't he try to be good, just this once?
Good, of course, meant perfectly awful. It meant being fully in love with a woman who chose to bring drag as many people as possible through the most awful of storms. Their eventual getting back together left a negative opinion of Seungcheol on everyone's minds. Still, he had the woman he loved - so he had won, right? Yet none of it felt like winning, not when Holly stopped speaking to him, not when the friends who had understood turned their backs on him for one reason or another. Worst of all, the longer they dated the more Irene seemed to change. As months turned into over a year, the only time Irene would try to remind him of what they once had was each time he tried to walk out.
Seungcheol knows he had to dismantle himself to be small enough to slip through her fingers, but he did. What came after was a mending process that's still in place. More time spent at work, more time training, most of all more time with his family and the few friends he had. Hwayoung entered into his life as though she had never left it - the cryptic and haunting shadow to his unending quest for hope and possibility in life. He made plans to move to Korea, to establish himself as a woodworker with roots and ties to his heritage. People's experiences, their love and words were all ingrained in the wood of their soil and their techniques, and dedicating his life to keeping tradition alive by carving himself into it was the choice that felt best for him.
That winter he took his brother to the mountains his train, leaving his parents at home to relax as he promised them he would take the best care of Gyujin. At 21 and 17, they both deserved a little freedom and Seungcheol demanded they were in need of some bonding time. Seungcheol didn't drive them too far out into the woods, settling just far enough to enjoy the scenery and have the fun he had sworn his brother this would be. It was all going well until the second day. Seungcheol told his brother that if he could succesfully avoid him for a full fifteen minutes, they could avoid morning practice.
Gyujin's laughter melded in with the crunch of the snow and the few traces of wildlife around them, a merry combination of sounds. Seungcheol chased him with his own chuckles and steps purposefully slowed down just for the fun of it. After a few false grasps at his jacket, Gyujin seemed to disappear. Suddenly the crunch of the snow beneath his boots and the eerie silence of the forest at winter didn't seem a cheerful song at all. Especially not when no matter how much he strained his ear for the other, all he could hear was the wild beating of his own pulse.
There was so much open space around the lake that swallowed each of Gyujin's muffled screams. If Seungcheol hadn't stepped out the forest in time, he would've never heard the last of that gargling scream before he saw his little brother struggle and sink under the frail ice that had shattered. He put the pieces together as his body went on autopilot, shedding clothes as he ran to leap into the lake with no other thoughts but saving his brother.
The water was impossibly cold, it was impossibly dark and oppressive around him. It encouraged him to stop, to sink, to slip into a sleep that stretched on into forever. But the unceasing beating of his frenzied heart kept screaming for his brother, screaming at him to go, to fight it, to find strength to push back against the cold until it could no longer stop him. And after a while, it didn't, after a while the dark was replaced by a hot, glowing red light that spread from all around him.
It's then he saw a faint gray light, flickering in the distance and he swam, swam until he grabbed a hold of his brother and got them both out. Seungcheol didn't let go of his brother as he dragged them both through the snow that reflected odd colors all around, all the way back to the cabin. All their wet layers came off and traded for as much warmth as he could find but Gyujin hardly seemed to need it. His brother was warm to the touch, his heart rate even as he remained unconscious from the shock and there was no sign of frost bite. It was Seungcheol who felt a heavy coldness, saw the red light within him slip to blues and darken as he huddled them near a fire and tried to keep awake.
Sense came to him a while later, phoning an emergency helpline that came between long, drowsy blinks. The paramedics promised him that they were both fine - that they would've hardly believed his story had it not been for the trail they had left and the wet clothes still lining the floor. His own low temperatures were to be expected but nothing could explain the glow he could see in everything around him.
The drive back home was a sombre one. Gyujin ran into his parents arms as soon as they arrived home and Seungcheol stood back watching tears fall from eyes, a guilty third party. The screams never came, nor did the punishments, nothing but matching stares from his parents that held too much of too many things. His mother would come to hold him eventually, days after, to tell him softly that he should've kept a better eye on his brother, that it was his responsibility. Then to tell him that he had done well, he had done all he could've done in that situation, that it had been a miracle.
The visions remained, however. As did a sudden strange knowledge of himself, of how each part could come together, what there was too much of, what he had too little of. Suddenly everything he had learnt in theory came into practice, was something he could see, something he could feel innately. Seungcheol knew something had happened the moment he thought he had lost his brother forever, that it had enabled something in him that existed beyond most regular humans.
It had been him that contacted the UN and eventually the Safe Haven without telling anyone. He stepped inside willingly and went through the testing, describing every part of what had happened until a couple of weeks later they confirmed his suspicions. Seungcheol had a requite. Telling his family was a strange affair, his parents demanding that he stay, that it was his responsibility to think of what had just happened to his brother - and to him. Seungcheol became sure then that the future he had envisioned for himself was still the right one. He was still going, despite the disbelief of his family, of even Hwayoung. This was not a bad thing, he was sure, this was not an avoidance of responsibility. It was the best possible decision, for him, for all of them. It had to be.
Things in Seoul went surprisingly easier than he had come to expect. The tentative offer at one wood shop became a sure deal and gave way to another just outside the city. Despite the broken nature of his language, he found people to surround himself with, started to find balance. Training showed him how his abilities where much more than he had imagined. It made him aware of so much good, and the nature of which the good within him existed. It was terrifying and awful but it was in his hands, in his control. If he kept the monsters chained up and the reigns in his hands, they could be good too.
His life faced a disruption when Hwayoung moved yet again to follow him. Her weak dreams of being an actress seemed to take her where he went but Seungcheol didn't think to question it. Never questioned much until they went from friends to nothing, to torn up relics of a past he wanted to keep behind him as she pulled him down with guilt for anything she could. All difficulties were his fault, all distances and miseries. It wasn't until she confessed her love to him in a rage, painting his heart a thing of void with no light to it that he had enough. The words too full of fear for him to accept, her abuse much of a reminder of what he had already been through to even give her a chance.
Seungcheol walked away from her harsh and unforgiving, leaving some part of him sure that the person who he had shared so much with maybe really had seen his true nature. But still, Seungcheol lived trying to make up for whatever he could. There had to be some worth to him, some good he could do, some joy left to make a definite in this world for someone.
