아이돌 ∙ is this what you wanted, COCO?
Fu Ayako
NICKNAMES
BIRTHPLACE osaka, japan
ETHNICITY korean/japanese
NATIONALITY japanese
LANGUAGES
japanese * fluent since she was born there and great up there.
faceclaim minatozaki sana
backup myoi mina or hirai momo
height & weight 157cm & 45kg
APPEARANCE petite in form and stature, aya isn't the girl who can reach the top shelf in the kitchen, but she's also the girl who can scarf down a whole bucket of chicken in one sitting and still pass the weight exam the next day. she's pretty in a whispy kind of way with big eyes, natural aegyo sal and high cheekbones. put her in a school uniform and twin braids and she could look like a child with her flat figure, or put her in heels and a tight fitting dress and she could be so much more. she loves colorful hair and even before she became a trainee she would often bleach and dye her hair various colors, she's very excited to have it done professionally this time (and hopefully not have mistakes again...)
STYLE she dresses casually with a bit of bite. she's a big fan of skinny jeans and leather jackets and tops that have just one added detail that makes them a little weird. a strange cutout, a daring print, an addition of polka dot elbow patches. not enough to look silly, just enough to look a little more interesting.
adventurus : inquisitive : witty : whimsical : detached : individualistic : introverted
i don't want to live a life where i'd see the same thing every day. go to the office and stare at a screen all day and go home. go to a studio and stare at a screen all day. i want every day to hold a different challenge.
aya is an oddball, wherever she goes she never quite fits in, she always stands out as an anomaly. sometimes it seems a little like aya is simply watching the world and commenting on it as opposed to participating on it. she's witty and often offers commentary on the goings on around her, in fact sometimes it's like aya can't keep shut even when it's not good for her. she's a little like the cheshire cat, lounging on the branch and offering commentary that suits more to feed her own amusement than that of those within earshot. teasing is her primary mode of communication.
she's whimsical in everything she does, sometimes it's like aya is pulled from left to right by whatever strikes her fancy at that moment. sometimes she's not entirely attached in the now, she very quickly gets distracted from one thing to another. one moment you have your attention, another moment something you said triggered a bead of inspiration and she's already inside of her own head thinking of how to format the lyrics and what song structure might support the narrative. then another moment she's just thinking very hard about how to sneak out of the dorm to go meet her friends without the manager noticing, creating a full 10 step plan from manager distraction to how exactly to fake a check-up call without the sound of the club betraying exactly where she is, and then she might forget to execute said plan entirely because she wasn't watching a movie the others girls had on but she kept glancing at it and got in anyway and now she totally forgot about sneaking out.
similarly, aya holds an opinion on just about anything. you can ask her what the best letter in the alphabet is and she'll say "which alphabet, latin? obviously R, the juxtaposition of soft rounded top and sharp straight bottom is marvelous, don't you think?". however, you will only get that opinion out of her if you directly ask, she doesn't offer up her thoughts on her own. she's not averse to sharing, but simply holds her thoughts close to her chest unless requested. she's introverted and enjoys her alone time, though she just as easily just shuts everyone in a room out of her mind and can have her alone time in the middle of hongdae surrounded by thousands of bodies.
she's not the best unnie to go to for comfort, the most she can offer is some awkward brushes of the back and a there there, but she's wonderful for advice. aya isn't someone who will tell someone what to do unbidden, life is too short to listen to other people telling you what to do, but if you ask for her advice she will be thoughtful and candid. she will weigh positives and negatives, possible repercussions, and lay out a roadmap of choices that could be taken. aya is not a moralizer, she will not tell you want she thinks you should do because this isn't her life, but she will help you figure out exactly what your options are. she's super individualistic that way, she's here to celebrate everyone's differences, not similarities. your path is yours to walk and that's exactly what makes it great. she doesn't judge, anything you want to be is ok with her as long as it doesn't harm others. if it makes you happy, what are you waiting for? conforming to what other people want you to be seems very silly to her. she knows people find her weird, sometimes even off-putting, but that's fine with her. their thoughts don't affect her reality. she does understand that to some people the thoughts of others does affect their reality and will not belittle them for it either. her teasing is only for fun and never meant hurtfully. the human experence is different to us all and that is just wonderful, is it not?
BACKGROUND aya was born in osaka to a japanese man and a korean woman. she grew up there for the first 11 years of her life before her family moved to Seoul. she's lived in both countries for the same amount of time when she debuts and she has fond memories of both of them. her family is upper middle closer to lower upper class, dangling between the two, and growing up aya received a lot of piano classes and was expected to excell at them, which she did. she has a gift for music. her mom also tried to get her to learn violin as another prestigious instrument to know but the voilin and its stiff teacher bored aya to tears and she secretly ditched classes to learn guitar by herself in an empty instrument room in the school instead. her parents were furious when they found out but it was but their first reminder that, ultiately, aya would do whatever aya wanted to do. her parents have learned to cope with disappointment, she was never going to be the perfect social climber daughter they wanted her to be. the death blow to their relationship was probably when aya refused to go to university, instead choosing to pursue music without any formal education.
the first song she sold was was whatever in 2015. she was showing some songs she'd made to a friend with connections and he showed it to some companies and brave bit. she was so excited to step into this world of actual music production and worked double time on more music. she nearly locked herself in her home and spend a good 4 months just making and refining music. of all the songs she made, she never knew 'fire' would be her biggest. it was made just messing around on her guitar and seeing what would happen if she put two slightly different melodies in each ear. she almost wrote it off for being too busy but it worked and somehow through connections here and there it got to sm's table and they actually bought it. it was a year and a half later for it to actually be recorded and released but aya was star-struck when her idol taeyeon was the one to release it. despite being a b-side, the royalties for that song paid rent for the apartmet she moved into that year for a while to come (2017).
after that it was songs shopped here and there, mostly to smaller companies and always b-sides. her friends started teasing her by calling her the b-side queen, a group that had recently come to include kim namjoon. her music taste never seemed mainstream enough for title tracks and aya wasn't interested in making just popular dance music. something always had to be different. the idea to try being an idol was an impulsive one. namjoon often about her hipster taste in music and she about being an idol, to which he often said the experience made him a better musician. how can you make performance music without knowing what it's like to stand on stage and deliver it? they were just teasing each other but he had a point. what was more, aya had now tasted what life was like as a fulltime producer, with long hours spent in the studio and doing nothing else, and she had to admit that it started to bore her. aya wants variance in her life more than anything and being an idol seemed like a fun way to combine both her love for music and continued production as well as give a totally varied day to day lifestyle.
TRIVIA
her stagename comes from combining her korean surname and the last syllable of her japanese given name.
she asks cygnus to only publish her korean name as her real nae because she's experienced a lot of bullying and xenophobia about being half-japanese and she doesn't want more of that as an idol. it comes to bite her though.
she can play piano, guitar, and bass. her parents tried to get her to learn violin as a 'proper classy instrument' but aya ditched her lessons and taught herself how to play guitar with youtube videos and instruction books instead. guitar is her instrument of choice now, but she's competent with the piano and decent with a bass.
she learned to rap in 2015 so that she could write raps for idol songs and, like many things, she turned out to be quite good at it.
she's really that girl who was always naturaly good at everything she tried who might finally be stretching that talent to a breaking point.
her parents don't approve of her idol or producer life and they really still want her to get a formal education. aya does what aya wants to do, though. they have a rocky relationship now.
not a fan of coffee but she can't deny the boost for late night work so she drinks it sometimes anyway. it's just another tool in the toolbox.
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choi hanmin - fc: cho seungyoun - 96 line
he's more sunshine on a sunny day, sometimes it's nice and sometimes it's a lot and sometimes it's august and 50 degrees and you're sure the sun is just personally ing with you.
hanmin is the mutual friend who connected aya and namjoon. he's also the one who got aya her first song sale. they used to go to high school together and have been friends ever since. he's high energy, gets excited super easily, and is generally a good egg. everything he does is with passion, from grocery shopping to music production. he introduced the two of them because he thought it would be interesting to see if they would get along well, two people who are so similar yet so different. like, he had a bet with another friend that they would either become besties on the spot or never want to see each other again. he did win that bet. now he's the biggest namya shipper and often teases both of them about each other.
seo yulyeon - fc: kim jisoo - 96 line - collab
something so beautiful and so damaged. she attacks everything that moves, but when she attack that which is holding her back: herself?
they might be the same age, but nobody can call them friends. aya is aware the yulyeon doesn't like her but she doesn't much care about it. yulyeon doesn't have to like her and if any snide comment does come her way it slides right off fo aya. there are times where aya's dreamy comments really get under her skin but aya can't help it, they fall off her lips like jewels in a rainbow blaxx mv. sometimes she tries to avoid yulyeon, when the girl is in one of her moods, just for the sake of the dorm peace. most of the time she just watches yulyeon with a sadness, knowing that she's witnessing a branched road where one branch leads to self-destruction, but also know that there is nothing aya can do about it. if yulyeon wants to grow then she will have to do so herself..
song yikyung - fc: cho miyeon - 97 line - collab
is this what i might have looked like if i'd become exactly what my parents had wanted? classy, cultivated, obedient... well not entirely obedient, she's right here with me isn't she?
aya senses immediately that yikyung is something of a fragile thing but she's also so intrigued. yikyung reminds her of herself is aya hadn't grown to be so stubbornly aya and she did always wonder what she might have learned if she had gone to university for music instead of simply trying to wing it on her own and lucking out with a friend who could help her out. it's also admittedly nice to not be the worst dancer in the group anymore. aya tries to give yikyung space to approach her when she's ready, never one to push herself onto others, but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't eager to hear all about the things she learned in her fancy foreign university or the things she thinks about. the quiet ones always have the most interesting thoughts, aya thinks. the two together are a slow grower friendship, a place where aya's straightforward and daring philosphies might temper some off yikyung's and yikyung can in turn temper some of aya's edges. the future is ripe with suggested adventures, baby steps of escapades, and the slow pulling out of a shell
when it comes to music is where the two of them really find footing. when yikyung expressing wanting to learn to make pop music aya is right there to help her. they make a striking team, the two of them, and a bit of an ironic. here is the classical musician who is called more towards the safer trendier music and aya the musical vagabond who jumps from musical risk to musical risk. when aya is left alone she'd probably think vapor wave is definitely the way to go for a comeback for an idol dance group, when yikyung is with her to temper her wild ideas they might just end up with something like windy day: danceable bright and fun while also featuring aya's signature dash of out of the box color.
lee inree - fc: wendy son - 93 line - collab
even if it took her a little while, she's following her dreams now! i think she's an inspiration to anyone who thinks it might be too late to try.
aya really respects inree for choosing to follow her dreams no matter how long it took her to gather the courage. she can relate to having parents who have such a strict image of what their child's life should be and she's sad that inree tried so hard to please them before taking control of her life. if asked she will express how wrong it feels to her that parents would do that, and explain that her parents had this ideal to turn her into the perfect little upper class daughter as well and how she understands that not everyone can be so bold in their defiance as she was (and how her boldness cost her the relationship with her parents too). while the two might not always be on the same wave-length, she's always ready to help inree loosen up a little and whenever inree feels like she's at the end of her rope aya will be there suggesting they sneak out for drinks and noraebang and just loosen up completely.
DANCE: minatozaki sana
RAp: son chaeyoung
TRAINING TIME 6 months at cygnus
TRAINEE LIFE aya has a natural talent for anything music, along with a beautiful singing voice. she was a competent rapper too for idol standards, something she picked up when she started writing for idols and had to insert raps into her songs. dancing, however, was something totally different. she has impeccable musicality and sense of rhythm but none of the body control or musculature she needed to apply it so much of her months of training was spent learning to dance. her talent means she is making strides very fast but she's still probably the worst dancer of the group.
PREDEBUT EXPERIENCE
- (2016) whatever - brave girls
- (2016) fermata - bap
- (2017) fire - taeyeon
- (2017) push & pull - kard
- (2017) Woo - imfact
she mostly sells her songs to smaller companies and they're often on the weirder side for kpop, either leaning into genres infrequently tapped or using unique instrumentals. she worked for cygnus before for their indie artists.
SCANDALS
LOVE INTEREST kim namjoon
OTHER NAMES rm
BIRTHDATE 09/12/1994
PERSONALITY namjoon is laidback and thoughtful, he throws himself into the things that interest him and always seeks to find things that are thought-provoking and interesting to him.he can be at once serious or melancholic and then he can be teasing and laidback. aya and namjoon like to verbally spar together, teasing each other and flirting one witty comment at a time. sometimes it can be like a tennis match as they send smooth flirt and smooth flirt their way.
namjoon often does pretend to be more sure of his place in the world than he. he comes across as someone who has everything figured out, is a reliable leader, and says things with pure conviction. still even he has self-doubt about his choices and place in life, especially when it regards the way others perceive him. he was surprised to find out when he decided to open up once to aya, under a little influence, that she patiently heard him out and dropped the teasing instantly and actually helped him talk things through without pushing her own perspective onto him. he's thoughtful enough himself that he presses aya for her own thoughts even when she doesn't give them herself, feeling that she should be heard as well.
really the two of them have three moods: flirts, thoughtful talks you'd have at 2am, or excitedly talking about something that caught their interest. namjoon has a little of aya's whimsy in him as well, when he gets excited about something he can't shut up about it and aya loves listening to him talk to her about things that get him going. similarly he loves listening to her as well when she has learned some curious tidbits of life. they talk shop often too, both being very creative souls. there is some competitiveness in him and they used to really see each other as rivals. it's much more good natured now but they will still compete over things or critique comments of the others.
LOVE STORY aya and namjoon met in 2016 through their mutual producer friend. his opinion of her after the first meeting was what you could call a mixed review. aya had a bit of a mood and she mercilessly teased namjoon for breaking something and also for being the namjoon from bts. she didn't mean it badly but namjoon was very taken aback by how forward she was instantly, at the same time he was also intrigued.
they met more often whenever he wasn't busy being an idol and their competitive natures made them something of playful rivals. he'd often for making really non-mainstream music but he'd also help her fix up songs for sale and make them a little more idol-friendly. meanwhile she'd for making really mainstream music and she helped him with making his mixtape music more ethereal. they started off just friends of friends but before they knew it they're hanging out at the studio with just the two of them or spending most of the time together while at a group party.
he actually kinda thinks it's a terrible idea for her to debut as an idol since he doesn't think she's suited for it, but he'll support her if that's what she wants to do, with some warnings. she disregards the warnings. they're both flirting and crushing very very hard by the time she starts training and debuts. he would have made a move by then if she didn't start training to be an idol, but now it's complicated cause she's trying to be famous and he's a star so big he could burn anything around him if the fans took offense. meanwhile she's not sure what she wants, part of her wants to kiss him whenever she sees him and doesn't understand why she doesn't, the other part worries mostly about if she's just proecting the flirting and the attraction or if it's real. he's one of the few people where she cares strongly about what he thinks of her and she doesn't want to ruin that.
i see them giving in to their feelings pretty soon after debut, anytime they're together there's insane chemistry and probably everyone who's seen them has thought get a room at least once, it's only so long that a negative and positive magnet can resist the pull, right?
ENDING
trivia
- they bicker like a couple who's been married for 10 years. if you see them together you might think they hate each other since they're hardly ever affectionate and are constantly verbally sparring but they love it.
- he often boasts that he's better at rapping, to which aya boasts that she's a better singer. often then suga or jimin chimes in that they both at dancing so they should stfu.
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