Taeyeon Kai

[Taeyeon Kai]

The easy S T U F F . . .

Name: (in traditional Japanese) Kai Taeyeon
Nickname: Tae
Age: seventeen
Member Group: Human
Power(s): none
Play By: Hyori Lee

Let it F L O W . . .

I was born on the morning of December 20, 1993 at 10:57 a.m. to Jeremy and Michelle Kai. Yeah, I know, not very original first names, but my dad’s a fourth generation Japanese man and my mom was born in South Korea. I was born in Tokyo Hospital along with some other babies like a normal person, but my mom got really sick after she gave birth to me, so the doctor told her not to have any more children. Of course my dad took the warning too seriously, packed us up, and we went back to our house just down the street from Tokyo Disney in Chiba, Japan. All throughout my toddler years, I was treated like the princess I wanted to be, visiting Disneyland all the time because Ojii-san Kai was Chairman of Tokyo Disney. I got pretty pink dresses, real diamond tiaras, glittery shoes and silk ribbons and everything a princess wanted.

Then Ojii-san died and left his position to his eldest son, my daddy.

Dad took care of Ojii-san’s funeral arrangements while my mom took care of Obaa-san and I was left to trail after my mother at the funeral. It was a big and sad affair, so much so that I was quiet, which was a rare thing for me. After the mourning period was over, daddy took his place as Chairman of Tokyo Disney and moved us into a bigger house. I liked my old house just fine because it made me feel safe. This bigger house was much more colder and less friendly because it was bigger, at least to a smaller me at the time. My mother, starting her own business as a fashion designer, was thrilled with the space. While daddy worked and momma made clothes, I was given a babysitter by the name of Mamoru. He was nice and cute for a seventeen-year-old and acted like the brother my mom would have wanted for me. He took me out for walks through the park and ice cream and sometimes took me out to his ninjitsu classes after school.

Watching Mamoru kick and punch and fight broke a piece inside me, the piece that wanted to be the princess. I wanted to be graceful like he was, to know my own power and strength. One day, I actually mustered the strength to approach him one day while he was doing homework. My parents were at a work dinner for daddy at that time and had asked him to come over late, with the promise of extra money of course. I can still remember it now; I stood there in my little lace-ruffled pink dress, white socks and black little shoes, my black hair in pigtails as I watched him. He looked up at me with those dark blue eyes of his and smiled. “What’s the matter, Tae?” he asked me, his nickname for me making me smile as he stopped writing.

“Um, Mamo-chan…” I was shy then and couldn’t say his entire name, so I had made a nickname for him too. “Can I…can I do your jitsu too?”

He had chuckled then, pulling on the curly end of my pigtails gently. “Of course you can, Tae,” he told me. “But it takes many years to get as good as myself, or even like my master. You’ve got to be stubborn and not give up, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it gets. Do you want to be determined enough to do that, Tae?”

I had nodded. “I wanna be better than you, Mamo-chan!” I had told him and he laughed, going back to his homework as I skipped back to my toys. The very next day had me in a beginner’s class for ninjitsu with an older woman for my master and ten other little kids like me. I grew older and stronger, fighting through tears and almost giving up when we were introduced to the older kids and their advanced class. Momma’s business hit off with a large bang and soon she was making more clothes, jewelry and accessories and shoes; you name it, she made it. Daddy became business partners with the Disney Chairman in the United States, who was a cousin of my father’s, and soon he was gone, flying around the world to expand the Disney franchise.

When I was ten, work for my parents was busier than ever and it became apparent that work was more important to them than their only child. I spent less and less time with them and more and more time with Mamoru and ninjitsu. I grew taller by this time, not being the pipsqueak Mamoru always called me, and I was becoming one of the top artists in my martial arts class. It came to the point where Mamoru and I were sparring in my huge living room at home to practice for tournaments and to practice moves from my class. I became a black belt when I was twelve years old, surpassing the expectations of my masters and my babysitter. I lost Mamoru, though, when he went to University and my parents deemed me old enough to watch myself as they zoomed around the world or worked late hours. I got excellent grades in school and continued to go to the dojo where I learned my ninjitsu, honing my skills and helping my master with the younger generation of students. Six months away from my thirteenth birthday, my parents sat me in the living room for the first time in ten years.

“Taeyeon, your father and I have something we want to discuss with you,” my mother had started off, and a feeling of dread had consumed me. What had I done to warrant my parents’ attention?

“We want you to live with your aunt Rei and her husband Michael,” my father had finished. I felt my heart sink at that moment. “You’re not old enough to live by yourself yet, and we feel bad about you being here by yourself while we both are working. We feel like we’re not being good parents to you by doing this, but they’ve agreed to take you so that we can still work the way we have. You’ll get to travel, since Michael is a freelance photographer. Please don’t think of this as us not loving you, Taeyeon. We only want what’s best for you.”

Those words still rung in my ears as I packed and flew out to South Korea where my aunt and uncle lived, doing a photo shoot for some local wildlife magazine. Aunt Rei, my mother’s sister, was a beautiful woman, and her husband was a handsome enough man who loved to take pictures. It was in Seoul, South Korea that we lived for two years, learning the native language and going to school there. I turned thirteen and fourteen in Seoul. After school one day I stumbled upon a dojo for taekwondo and watched the students working on the Tanami mats. I asked the master some questions about the art and ended up doing a demonstration of one of my old ninjitsu drills for the master while everyone watched. He was impressed, telling me that taekwondo wasn’t so far from ninjitsu, and the next day I was wearing the dojo uniform and practicing with the master. For two years I learned everything he taught me and took his teachings when we moved to Hawaii, then to Brazil for National Geographic for a study of the Amazon River and its wildlife.

In Brazil we lived in a small village named Jutai, with the only access to the larger cities being by riverboat or small motorized taxi. I grew to be good friends with the children there, teaching them about my martial arts in exchange for them teaching me about soccer. I became exposed to Brazilian jiu-jitsu there, a type of martial art that is mostly grappling and ground-fighting, a major sport among the people for being a professional martial art sport among the big cities. The way the boys would take each other to the ground so fast made my adrenaline spike and I asked to learn. My fifteenth birthday was the day I was able to take the biggest of the village boys down without having to cry or nurse a cut or bruise. Surprisingly enough I had never broken a bone in all my years of trying to learn three martial arts. After that we moved from Jutai into Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, and I got to see jiu-jitsu competition firsthand. We stayed in Brasilia long enough to mail Michael’s pictures off to some magazine place before we moved to the United States.

We first moved to Savannah, Georgia, visiting Michael’s family and reacquainting ourselves with state civilization. As the year passed, we moved up the east coast, celebrating my sixteenth birthday in Cape May, New Jersey. When Michael retired from his photography job, we were settled in Pilot Ridge, Vermont. Aunt Rei and Uncle Michael started living off their retirement just as I was getting a job working at the Hollister in the mall. Between my job and enrollment at the high school, things have been hectic for the past few months. I turn seventeen in four days and I’m stoked, for Christmas is right around the corner too.

Behind the M A S K . . .

Name: Mandi
Age: nineteen
RP Experience: I’ve been roleplaying for about 5 years now. It started with horses, then it moved to shape-shifters and such, and now here I am!
How did you find us?: Ari told me about this place after my other roleplay site was closed.

Show your S K I L L S . . .

Christmas was right around the corner, she could smell it. The light flurry did nothing to deter her from her walk, nor did the blinking of the festive lights or the sounds of carolers as they patrolled her neighborhood. It was early afternoon and Taeyeon was on her way to the mall for her shift at Hollister. She wore a hooded button-up plaid shirt over dark wash skinny jeans under her fluffy white parka, her flip-flops dangling from her fingers as her sketchers crunched the small inch of snow under her feet. Small white flakes frosted her eyelashes and brows, the small breeze making pink flush her cheeks and lips as her dark hair fluttered behind her like twirling silk ribbons. She smiled as she ducked snowballs thrown at her by the younger kids in her neighborhood and threw some hastily in retaliation. After their parents scolded them and apologized to her, she went on her way towards the bus stop.

The snow made her think of all the winters she spent in Japan when she was younger. Disneyland in Chiba would be beautiful, frosted in ice as Pilot Ridge was, with lights twinkling everywhere and the Disney Princesses all in special seasonal gowns dancing around. The Disney characters would be in seasonal outfits too, looking festive for the kids who would visit on Christmas Eve for the fireworks show that they did every year. Tae smiled just thinking back on all the Christmas Eves she spent at Tokyo Disney, watching the fireworks and dancing with the princesses and the Disney characters. Her father would be smiling as he watched her and her mother would be dancing right alongside her until their faces were pink with windburn and they were panting for breath.

The smile faded as the snow fell, her black eyes going dark again. She hadn’t seen her parents since she was twelve, since that day at the airport. They had both said goodbye to her and her mother had cried. Had she really cried for the daughter she had lost? Or had she cried because a piece of her was disappearing from her life? She had never known until she was in Brasilia, in a store trying to find some new clothes when she had come upon them. The brand of clothing her mom made for clients, right there in a department store. With the scrawl of her mother’s last name on the sign above the racks, she had gone to check out the clothes and had almost cried. The brand of clothes she had seen had been named after her, the “Taeyeon” line of Kai Clothing. The plaid shirt she was wearing was made by her mother, as well as the parka she had bought in Cape May. She snuggled deeper in her coat as she neared the bus stop, smiling as she saw the bus turn the corner.

She was going to enjoy Christmas.

[Raena *]

Accepted!
You know what to do!

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