⊗ | there was no tragedy, no epiphany, no existential crisis that lead to this. dancing was in her blood. she was born with it. she couldn't breathe without it. her parents knew it, she knew it, they all knew it and they harnessed this gift from the very beginning.

her mother was born rich, married rich, and koko simply considered herself rich by association. it was nice growing up having all the options open to you. she was enrolled in her first ballet class at four and was sent to the best private schools in los angeles. but koko's desire to get out from the shadow of her japanese socialite mother and american tycoon father became stronger as she got older. she wanted to make a name for herself. she wanted her own fortune. she wanted to live the way she wanted to and make her parents proud of what she became, not of what they made her to be.

she came out to her parents in 8th grade. it happened preceding her parents' impending divorce and was ultimately the last nail on the coffin. her father wouldn't have a lesbian daughter who would also rather prance around hardwood floors than make a sustainable life for herself. he couldn't imagine having her in functions, introducing her to business partners, as if her mere existence was going to tarnish whatever he thought he'd built for himself.

not a year later her mother met a nice, korean man who swept her off her feet and promised all the nicer things in life that koko's mother were accustomed to. fast forward to another year after that and they'd moved to korea, where koko's sexuality and headstrong nature seemed to be too much for the people she found herself surrounded by.


⊕ | high school in korea was hard enough. high school in korea when you're a raging lesbian was even worse. there wasn't much that could faze koko, not even at a young age. but the complications surrounding what other people thought of her, assumed of her, and expected from her took its toll. she never hid who she was, but she'd spent enough time in dark broom closets with girls who just wanted to try it out. koko also had her fair share of boys convinced she could be turned with a kiss like some twisted fairytale where a fuck will suddenly make the princess stop wanting to get under her handmaiden's bloomers.

but she was fine. she did just fine as long as she had music to come home to. people said a lot of shit behind her back but not one of them could touch her dancing. she would dance alone in her room, find a hidden clearing in a park, or even an empty warehouse. soon koko was made to choreograph every possible school performance of her batch. she took it all in and lived for it until the dull repetitiveness became too much. koko started branching out, taking classes in places her mother would find worthy of clutching her pearls for. it was in those dingy places that she found her soul, it was with those strange people that she found a home. it was there that she found her calling over and over again.

by senior year she had procured for herself a two-story dance studio (* ) in hongdae, her apartment (* )(* ) conveniently located on the roofdeck above it. the place was on loan from her parents until such time when she would be able to pay them back. her mother didn't approve of it - the loan, not the studio. but koko insisted. she wanted this to be hers, she wanted to work for it, she wanted to make her dreams of creating a dance empire happen on her own.

which is why much to everyone's surprise, she applied for a business degree in yonsei university. it was going to be hardwork but she needed to do what she had to do to make this dream happen. even if it meant killing herself over numbers and theories and policies and all the things she used to dread. for love of the dream became her mantra. and by hook or by crook she was going to make everything count.