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I wasn’t unfamiliar with the K-pop and music industry. That’s probably why Jinu was so insistent on me joining his boy band. I had both experiences being a part of a boy group and putting out solo music.
I was the main rapper and producer for the K-pop group formally known as Fresh Stop. The group formed when all four of us were two years from finishing high school. We weren’t popular but we weren’t unknown. Our group worked for a good few years until me and the others became of age. We all still loved doing what we did we just wanted to explore more mature topics now that we were all eighteen. The company would not have it because the main point of our group was to infantilize ourselves and use our youthfulness to draw crowds.
The company tried coercing us into agreeing with it by giving us grander things like better equipment, more collabs, and so many things that they knew the others would fall for. But I didn’t fall for it, I refused to fall for their tricks.
I really wanted to do more adult things, so I might have...gone against my contract and went behind my managers back. I would produce music under an alias, Bin Bada (empty sea). I loved it despite it not getting a lot of listeners. It was mine. I would rap about feeling empty and dealing with depression from the enormous pressure of being in the industry and feeling like I was giving so much of myself to the company and my fans that I had nothing left for myself. I would talk about the anger and the resent I would feel towards the industry at how they baby idols until they do something normal and crucify them.
It was good.
It felt nice to connect with fans that felt like they could understand.
However, I’ve never had a lot of good things stay in my life.
Inevitably the company found out, and it all exploded like gasoline and a flame.
They took everything from me.
My money.
My music.
My fame.
My life.
Even my motivation to continue to create music.
I got kicked from my group and replaced within a week by someone who wasn’t even able to rap. They even blacklisted me from all major labels in Korea not even smaller ones would take me.
I had money but it would only last for a bit. I had to sell a lot of my things, leave my apartment, and move into my parents' place. My parents aren’t the worst, but they aren’t the best. They never me or yelled at me but they were very controlling telling him what he can and can’t do, telling him what to eat, what to wear, where he can go, etc. It sucked.
My abeoji wanted me to pay rent which I understood why I’m staying at their place, eating their food, and using their things. The thing is I thought he would be a bit lenient considering I don’t have a job, and I couldn’t work a normal job in case of stalkers, but he basically was running up a whole tab for me.
This led me to go down job avenues that I was not proud of and would get me kicked out and ostracized if anyone found out.
I started out small just posting mirror selfies with his face cropped out. I was attractive I mean I was an idol of course I was attractive. I have a slender figure I could pass as one of those “fem-boys” people are all about right now.
Eventually I got a few followers and with a few followers meant more demand for more explicit things.
So... I did more.
I would post videos of me masturbating either jerking myself off or fingering myself. I never did anything when my parents were home, and I always did it in a room with a lock on it like my own room for the bathroom.
It’s harder to hide my face in videos than it was in pictures. So, I wore a mask and used an old teal Halloween wig from when I was a kid. Then for the rest of my face I covered it with makeup cause a mask only covers so much.
It was weird doing things like this so often it left me tired and made me eat quite a bit more than I used even when I was performing.
One time out of my own volition I wanted to try anal but not with my fingers, so I used a hairbrush. It wasn’t as pleasurable as I thought. One of my fans sent me $200 which is like over 200,000 won where I live just because they wanted me to be safe and use actual sex toys.
I bought a dildo, a butt plug, and a vibrator. Simple easy things that I could hide.
It was a trashy set up but it made my very few fans happy and it made money for rent. I started to enjoy his new “job”, but like everything in his life that didn’t last.
I did it for a year. A whole year of being so careful with what I said or told anyone about my job. It sucked. I was doing so good from the rock bottom I hit before but I managed to dig myself a deeper grave.
It was one video that I did. I was trying a better angle, and I must have forgotten to clean the background of any personal items because I had a jacket like a Letterman jacket hanging on my desk chair. Well, if it’s just a jacket why did it turn your life around? Because all four members of Fresh Stop got customized jackets with their name on them that was only for the members. People clocked it immediately.
Everything went down like a car crash that you couldn’t look away from. All my content got leaked.
Everyone saw everything and my parents found out too. They kicked me out even though they KNEW it wasn’t safe for me, but reputation was bigger than the life of their only son.
I felt disgusting and betrayed.
Everywhere I went I felt like I was being watched, and it made me paranoid.
I felt empty like a husk everything got taken away from me no matter how much I sunk my claws into it. I had nothing else for people to take so they just ostracized me like I never tried to make people happy.
Which led me to one of Korea's nicest beaches, Naksan beach, it has one of the most significant temples in all of Korea.
I looked at the temple longingly feeling resentment like I’ve been forsaken so I turn my back and walk into the ocean.
I’m dressed in the same clothes that I got kicked out in. I wore a white collared shirt, a dull grey sweater, and some baggy jeans. It was winter and the beach was empty and the ocean was still.
I slowly swam out into the ocean thinking about the life I lead.
I thought about the good times when I would have fun with my members, seeing fans when I performed and the way they’d scream, even his childhood memories.
Despite all the bad it was nice to remember some of the good.
I swam and swam until my limb grew tired and heavy and my feet couldn’t touch the ground below.
I didn’t want anyone to have the pleasure to find a body so they can take more from me even in death. At least I knew that when I died here the fish would be using me for a beneficial reason.
Even though I wanted to die my body instinctively fought against the cold arms dragging me down. I could feel the water flooding my longs silencing my screams.
Slowly the exhaustion set in. I don’t know how long I’ve been drowning but the water started to feel like an embrace rather than being dragged.
It felt like Mother Nature was welcoming me back to her loving arms.
It got dark and then...I woke up coughing up water, but I wasn’t on the beach no came to save me.
I look around I’m in a dark desolate desert place. Something out of those dystopian films his eomma loved to watch.
I was so confused. I was supposed to be dead.
I tried to breath, but my lungs were full of water. I could barely talk or scream.
I was alone again wandering around in a waste land that held no qualms with tossing my weak body around with its winds.
Meeting many demons made me realize how different I was to other demons. I never made a deal with Gwi-ma. I never heard the voices that other demons like Jinu talk about.
I had nothing else to give it only made sense for even in death I was empty.