It's unclear now whether or not Jaeyoon Kim was a difficult child. He likely was, but his parents were reclusive. His mother Yu-Na was an abstract painter and his father Seungjae was an author of transgressive fiction. They were an artistic power couple, but they were very about their own space, spending days, weeks, years without interacting with family or the public at large until one of them released their latest works, based in Busan, South Korea.

No one even knew Yu-Na was pregnant until Jaeyoon was born. She invited the family over to celebrate, fielding questions. The three of them were a quirky trio for ten years unti a devastating house fire destroyed Jay's childhood home, and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle on his father's side, in Massachusetts.

Where his parents were an open book, Johnny and Jennifer Kim were strict, uptight, and spent a lot of their time at work outside of the house. They cared about what people thought of them. They tried to school him into being the perfect 'son' which he would promptly parrot back to them that he, in fact, was not their son no matter what court documents said, after the adoption became legal of course.

From that point on, Jay was definitely a difficult child. Surly, mouthy and rebellious inherently, he got himself into a lot of trouble. Purposefully for the most part. It was fun watching his uncle's face go bright red with rage once he found the latest broken appliance or the horror and shock in his aunt's face when she came across the latest dead pet. They denied that he had anything to do with either incident, or any other likely related to them, but the truth was that there was something wrong with Jay as he grew up.

At his grandmother's insistence, Johnny and Jennifer put Jay into therapy. He was diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder with epxlosive tantrums, and he was put on medication at a young age. He never actually ended up taking the pills and figured out early on how to tongue them and make it seem like he was being the dutiful 'son' when he was anything but.

He tended to push boundaries throughout high school, racking up a long list of things that his guardians had to sweep under the rug: petty theft, possession, underage drinking and driving, breaking and entering. The true spinebreaker happened after high school when he nearly beat a man to death with a hammer while he was forced to help Johnny 'give back' to the community by rebuilding a wall that had been knocked down.

His guardians knew that there were only two choices: face prison time or get Jay the fuck out of the area. Jennifer was an alumni of Gardner University, and thought that maybe the... curriculum there would be a good way to reform Jay. She didn't think about the fact that paying for his tuition would put him in the position of being a adonus rather than a ebedi where he could learn a few lessons.

Jay truly began to flourish at Gardner.

After graduating alongside his new and best friend Chanbae, he went back to South Lorea with him and started work on opening a club that would bring the aura and atmosphere of Gardner University to the underground of one of the most conservative nations in the world.