Sky (Solo Artist)

STORYLINE: History

Haneul was born in Daegu and lived there until she was 7 years old when her dad had had to relocate to Japan indefinitely and she lived in Tokyo up until she was 11 years old. After news that her maternal grandfather was suffering from a terminal illness, her mother decided to take Haneul and her 2 younger siblings with her to spend the final year or two with him before he passed, leaving her dad with her oldest brother at Tokyo.

Occasionally, they would go back and forth to visit each other when possible during the year. Sadly her grandfather passed away just over a month after she turned 12, the day after her little sister's birthday. He father and brother had flew in to celebrate her 10th birthday and spent the week mourning the loss of someone so close to all of them.

They all returned back to Tokyo and stayed there for a month before they moved to California for under a year after Haneul's dad had to relocate again but with the assurance that they would return to South Korea with a better promotion.

Despite her constant moving, Haneul spent her free time learning street dance and taught herself basic contemporary and made sure to perfect all the techniques she could by herself. Due to the stress of being pushed into a new environment when she was 7, she started to take dancing more seriously as an escapism. She struggled with singing for a long time: struggling with pitching and finding the right dynamics and techniques to better herself, as well as projecting herself without mimicking the style and voices of other artists. However, after meeting a few friends in her school in Japan who were vocally skilled, she started to improve.

Her friends gave her confidence that she could do it and everyday they would spend their after school time to practice singing while doing their homework. Even after moving away from Japan, she kept in contact with her two friends whom she continues to care and communicate with when she has time: Ruka and Sara.

Ruka was the first person she befriended when she moved to Tokyo and was her buddy for the first month at her new school. He was always helping her with her Japanese and she taught him Korean and helped him during English lessons. Sara was the second person she befriended, who was also Ruka's classmate since the beginning of elementary school. She helped Haneul with her singing and Haneul tutored her with academic subjects that she struggled in.

When she visited her dad during her holidays after moving to the UK, she would also go and meet with Ruka and Sara, whose friendship had developed even more due to the missing presence of their dear friend. When she was in the US, Haneul didn't have a valid reason to return to Tokyo so she made sure to always stay in contact with them and they helped her during her time of isolation when she experienced bullying at her middle school.

Once she returned to South Korea, her parents chose to not go back to Daegu but to live in Seoul at Sillim-Dong in Gwanak-Gu. The area was less than safe but was most convenient for her parents since it was cheap and also close to their offices.

At her school, Haneul, as well as her siblings, experienced severe bullying due to their satoori that they always spoke in, even when they were living abroad, so they chose to practice the standard Seoul satoori and only spoke in their satoori when they were at home and not around their pupils. With her growing social phobia and and developing anxiety, she started to isolate herself and was only ever around her older brother and her best friend whom also shared her passion of being a performer, Taeyong.

When Haneul moved, she struggled to find her way around Seoul and especially around Sillim-Dong, where she always had to be cautious, but Taeyong helped her familiarise herself and soon they made it their routine to travel around Seoul, specifically Sillim-Dong together.

Just a couple months before she turned 15, she was accepted to be a trainee at Big Hit Entertainment after auditioning for multiple companies. Since Big Hit saw her potential despite her anxiety, they were the only company to accept her and she gladly became their trainee.

During her trainee years, her skills in different areas developed rapidly and she soon was seen as a star trainee by many of her peers and mentors.

During her early training years, she was very reserved but got along well with the old BTS lineup, specifically the current rap line and Donghyuk (Supreme Boi) and Hyosang (Kidoh). She was also close with Jinhee who became the main dancer for Glam as Zinni. Due to her close relationship with them, she was able to develop her rapping and producing skill as well as improve her dance.

Before Yoongi's accident, she would spend sessions after training b-boying and rapping with him, or song-writing and would find comfort in each other when they struggled with their own issues.

When it was time for Glam to debut, she saw that she was nowhere near ready to be in the position of performing in front of a crowd and though she continued her with training diligently, she started to focus on producing more than before due to her fear of performing. She loved to perform but her fear of being in front of an audience consumed her and drove her to want to excel in producing and composing.

During that time, Taeyong was accepted to be an SM trainee and she saw his potential from a mile away and helped him with his dancing and also helped him with his singing, stating that in the idol industry, it's better to be an all-rounder than just a one highly skilled performer as fans often look out for those who are multi-skilled.

Once BTS debuted, she saw that they had potential and was always there for them as a supporter and also as a helper when it came to their music. She would spend hours upon hours helping Namjoon and Yoongi writing lyrics and producing beats with them but asked them to never give her credit since she didn't want it.

Before she knew it, the company was letting go of girl trainees after Glam's disbandment but somehow she persuaded Bang Si Hyuk to let her stay as an in-house producer or composer at least. Much to her surprise, he didn't let her go and she stayed and continued spending most of her time at Big Hit, finding the place to be the best place for escapism and inspiration.

Bang Si Hyuk saw a lot of potential for Haneul and he knew better than to let it go to waste, but he also knew he could not afford to debut someone new as the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, so he chose to let her stay and use the company's available resources to not only his and Bangtan's benefit, but also hers.

After the success of I NEED U in 2015, Si Hyuk saw an opportunity to let her debut as a solo artist, seeing that she had enough clout, from her role as Bangtan's producer and song-writer, to at least have a small and secured fan base. So with that, he decided to plan Haneul's debut a year in advance and told her she should think about debuting as a solo artist in 2016.

After weeks of convincing, she decided she would prepare to debut and was ready to perform again. With that, Si Hyuk had the idea of using her as Taehyung's sister in the BU storyline and made sure to put her face out there a year in advance and would subtly hint at her upcoming debut.

She began busking weekly to kpop songs on Fridays and would perform acoustic on Saturdays at a different location to try to get herself more exposure and hype, and it worked well. With the help of BTS at the beginning of 2016, her social media following started to grow as fans started to see her potential and finally, on July 27th, she debuted.