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Trigger warning: Francis's human backstory is centered around sex work. His mother was a sex worker, and then he became one himself; neither of them had much of a choice in the matter; trigger warnings for everything that entails. Nothing is graphic, but skip to BECOMING A VAMPIRE if you need to, just in case.
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FRANCIS CHOI was born on March 6, 1767, in Korea during the Joseon dynasty, under the birth name of Yeongho ( 영호 ). His mother, Hanu, was a kisaeng and his father was an unknown man from the upper class. He is the older brother of Haewon. They were born a year apart, though to different fathers, and were raised in the same house that trained other kisaeng like their mother. Yeongho, at the time of his birth, was named after the current emperor, Yeongjo, though his mother changed the last character from jo ( 조 ) to ho ( 호 ) so as not to show offense. Kisaeng were women of outcast or slave families who were trained to be courtesans, providing artistic entertainment and conversation to men of upper class. This was how both Yeongho and Haewon were conceived.
— CHILDHOOD —
Hanu worked for a large kisaeng house in Hanseong ( which is now modern-day Seoul ) and gave birth to Yeongho at the peak of her career, when she was twenty. Haewon was born when she was twenty-one, when her career as a kisaeng was declining. Her career officially ended when she turned twenty-two, as her old patrons either died or lost interest. Afraid that her children would suffer the same fate as her, since they were all cheonmin( lowest class of commoners ) and children of kisaeng usually became kisaeng themselves, Hanu took them both and fled Hanseong in the middle of the night. But while they all escaped successfully, their life following it was significantly harder than before. They often went to sleep without any food, and Hanu had to resort to begging and performing dances and songs on the street whenever they ran out of what little money or food they had.
Eventually, she had to resort to prostitution, and ended up working for a tea house in a local red district. It didn't bring in a lot of money, but the woman running the house let Yeongho and Haewon stay as long as they helped cook and clean, and it was a roof over their heads and warm food in their bellies.
Yeongho and Haewon grew up inside the house, but they often spent time away from it. During the day, the place ran like any normal tea house, and Yeongho and Haewon often waited tables and poured tea for the customers. But at night, when the house started offering other things, Yeongho would take Haewon out through the back of the house and take her to a nearby stream, where they would catch frogs and fireflies and sleep until dawn broke and they had to go back home. Sometimes, if Yeongho could manage to get his hands on some money ( which he usually stole from patrons of the tea house when they weren't looking ), he would take her to the marketplace and buy them both snacks. This only happened once in a blue moon, however, and when the house started becoming more popular and wealthier men started coming in, he was forced to stop stealing. He knew that, if he were caught, he and his family would have been thrown out at best, or killed at worst. He decided to start listening in on the their conversations instead. He figured if he couldn't steal from them, they he might as well learn their secrets.
