Siyun Baek

**Siyun Baek** Is the Male Protagonist of Dreaming Freedom. He is the love interest and boyfriend of Choi Jeongmin.

## Appearance

Siyun is a well-built man with white hair and light blue eyes. He is usually seen wearing simple yet zesty clothing.

When Jeongmin first met him, he looked relatively the same with the only difference being the clothing he wore. The clothing he wore was a light blue and white striped hospital outfit that had little designs on the stripes.

When he first became an idol, his hair was black. He then later dyed it to white.

## Personality

When Jeongmin first met him, he is seen with a cruel and mischievous personality. He shows interest in her rage towards Juhyeon and her other bullies and is shown to be amused by what she subconsciously wants to do to them. He took enjoyment in provoking Jeongmin and trying to get her rage to come out. He is shown to also be manipulative since he tries to manipulate Jeongmin into letting him get revenge on her bullies for her. He does this on multiple occasions.

Once he is arisen from his coma, he becomes a much more cheery and playful character. He isn’t seen provoking her anger towards her bullies as much as he used to be and starts to see her as less a plaything for his entertainment, and more of someone to love. He makes moves to get closer with Jeongmin, such as flirting with her.

When he enters an official relationship with Jeongmin, his personality slowly starts to change. Although he keeps his cheerful and playful demeanor, he becomes more aggressive, possessive and protective. He is seen isolating Jeongmin from her friends to the point that she becomes afraid to go out with them. Although he does eventually come around to letting her hang with her friends, he still remains extremely possessive over her. After attacking an idol who attempts to come onto and later attack her, he utters the words, “she’s mine” with a mentally deranged face. This is not the only times he’s attacked someone because of her or the only time he acts in a protective manner.

As time goes on, his mood swings worsened and his violent acts towards those he felt threatened by got worse. His possessiveness became more apparent as his insecurities about Jeongmin leaving him deepened and created distance and tension in his relationship with Jeongmin. He admitted that he had a hard time regulating his moods.

But after Jeongmin reassured him that she loved him, he realized how unreasonable his fears were, and he resolves to change himself to become the person she needs. He started going to counseling and was put on medication, which stabilized his mood. He also promised Jeongmin to follow her terms for their relationship and not keep any secrets from her, which changed the tension in their relationship into peace and mutual understanding.

## Background

In Baek Siyun's childhood, it was shown that he worked hard in school in order to get better grades to make both his parents proud. When coming home to show them, however, his parents were busy with their jobs, and were never home.

No matter how much Siyun studied hard in order for his parents to approve of him, they would still pay him no attention. However, this didn't weigh much on Siyun since many people at school liked him and he was popular for his good looks.

Siyun continued to enjoy his youth not thinking about his family until he decided to become an idol and asks his parents for permission. His father went berserk, slapped him, and was totally against it. In the end, Siyun ran away from his family and began a new life independently.

While he didn't have a place to stay, his friends who were also a members of a trainee group took him in, and the president who leads the member of their group was willing to help Siyun go to school since he was a huge jackpot. Every person admired him except for a fellow trainee, Nahyeok, who was extremely jealous of Siyun's newfound love and admiration by others while he doesn’t get any.

Nahyeok tried to bribe a bully at their school, Seunghyun Yoo into harassing Siyun. The bully obliged since he found it fun to mess with an idol trainee and his taunting shook Siyun's confidence. Additionally, Nahyeok also messed with Siyun by claiming the latter copies him during interviews. He also brought up Siyun's parents disowning him which led to a physical altercation between them and, thanks to malicious editing from their entertainment company, Siyun was painted in a bad light and was criticized by the public. This agitated Siyun and caused him to stand up for himself and punch his bully. This led to the bully and his friends ganging up on Siyun and beating him in an alley. This incident left him unable to dance and his entertainment company removed him from the lineup to debut in their new group. Because the bully came from a rich family, the incident was covered up quickly and Siyun was left to recover in the hospital on his own.

Initially, his friends from the group he was meant to debut in stayed in touch with him. But over time, their schedules became busier as they were getting closer to debuting and they had less time to keep in touch with Siyun. They were frustrated with his attempts to stay in touch and found him obsessive, so they changed their numbers and cut him off. This left Siyun feeling abandoned with no one left and resulted in him exploring lucid dreaming and astral projecting, which he found to be an exciting getaway from his real life circumstances. Due to an excessive amount of lucid dreaming and an unwillingness to wake up, he fell into a coma and passed his time by visiting others' dreams. Eventually, he entered Jeongmin's dream which is where the story began.

## Relationships

### Nahyeok Kang

*Nahyeok is Siyun's rival in the entertainment industry*

During their days as trainees, Nahyeok never liked Siyun's enthusiastic and extroverted personality. He was even more upset when he found out they would be in the same class in the same high school. He was curt towards Siyun, who in contrast, was very friendly and chatty with him and everyone else. When Nahyeok overheard the CEO and staff comparing him to Siyun, he developed an inferiority complex towards him and worried he would get replaced. He started copying Siyun's personality around their classmates and his reputation improved, which Siyun noticed.

Things came to a head when Nahyeok accused Siyun of copying him in front of the cameras while filming their documentary. Siyun confronts him for copying him but Nahyeok denies it and even brings up how Siyun's parents disowned him, sparking a physical fight between them. The editors of the documentary used evil editing on Siyun, whose reputation drastically plummeted. He became the victim of online harassment by Nahyeok's supporters. Nahyeok is not satisfied with this and enlists the help of a rich classmate, Seunghyun Yoo, who intimidates and bullies Siyun until he snaps and punches him. This led to Seunghyun and his gang beating up Siyun and rendering him unable to perform. Nahyeok's plan worked and Siyun was kicked out of the company.

A while after Siyun woke up from his coma, Nahyeok started hearing about him again. He start stalking Siyun out of obsession and to ensure he didn't return to the company His greed to covet everything that belongs to Siyun leads to him harassing and threatening Jeongmin into breaking up with Siyun and dating him instead. Siyun violently beats him up and despite that, Nahyeok still provoked Siyun when they met again by suggesting that Jeongmin might get tired of him and break up with him in the future. Siyun grabs him in anger and admits that he was the one who beat up Seunghyun and he threatens to do the same to Nahyeok if he doesn't stay in his lane.

After that, Siyun frequently beat up Nahyeok in his dreams and he woke up with bruises and wounds. He felt paranoid that Siyun could return to the company and that the public would end up favoring him over Nahyeok. He decides to record Siyun admitting to beating up Seunghyun and use the evidence to ruin his name before he could return to the industry. He called Siyun under the guise of apologizing and Siyun invited him over to his house, where he scared Nahyeok badly with a knife and destroyed his phone which he used to record Siyun with. Since then, Nahyeok became timid, especially around Siyun.

### Juhyeon Ha

*Juhyeon is Jeongmin's former bully, who Siyun despises.*

He despised Juhyeon as long as he knew her. He first met her by watching Jeongmin stab her dream self through lucid dreaming. He felt like getting vengeance on Jeongmin's behalf and he stabbed Juhyeon's real self and she woke up with injuries, although she does not remember that it was him who did it. He helped Jeongmin find ways to turn her classmates against Juhyeon and come to her side. One time, he visited Juhyeon's dreams and learned about how much she liked Jeongmin and the reasons for her actions until now. He hides this from Jeongmin as he doesn't want her to become close to Juhyeon after what she did to her. He also dislikes it when Jeongmin is nice to her as he feels that she doesn't deserve her kindness.

Later on, it is revealed that he is jealous of the people surrounding Jeongmin, including Juhyeon. He acknowledged that Juhyeon liked Jeongmin for the same reasons he did and was drawn in by the same attributes. This made him feel more insecure about his place in Jeongmin's life.

### Jaehyeok Jo

*Jaehyeok is Jeongmin's former crush and Siyun's rival.*

At first, Siyun didn't think much of Jeongmin's crush on Jaehyeok as long as he could keep her by his side. But after seeing how horribly Jaehyeok treated Jeongmin, he started to hate him and beat him up for making her cry and also deleted his number from Jeongmin's phone. He even started entering his dreams and making him have dreams where he unwillingly watched Jeongmin and Siyun share a kiss. This psychologically affected him and he started clinging to Jeongmin in order to keep her away from Siyun, which angered the latter even more. He warned Jaehyeok a final time to stay away from Jeongmin.

When he found out that Jaehyeok contacted Jeongmin again, he stabbed him in his dreams, which became a wound in real life and put him in the hospital. He later felt regretful for hurting Jaehyeok and promised Jeongmin that he would leave him alone.

### Siyun's Mother

His mother was always busy at work and never paid attention to him, although they did have a few good memories during his childhood. When Siyun told his parents that he wanted to be an idol and defended himself against his father, she was shocked and demanded he apologize to his father. She was surprised when he spoke up about how he always felt neglected by her and didn't do anything to stop him from leaving.

However, when news of his accident came out, she begged his father many times to find him, but the CEO lied to them that Siyun said he didn't want to see them. When Siyun returned home, she stayed quiet and turned away when he tried to speak to her.

### Siyun's Father

His father was always dismissive of his achievements and never paid much attention to him. When Siyun informed him that he wanted to become an idol, he got angry and slapped him, accusing of him of being ungrateful at how hard his parents worked to send him to college. After this day, Siyun cut ties with his parents and started training to become an idol.

When the news of his accident came out, he searched everywhere for him but was told by the CEO that Siyun didn't want to see him, which made him furious. When Siyun returned home, he slapped him and told him he decided to live as if he didn't have a child. He also didn't believe Siyun when he told him that he never refused to see his parents and that the CEO lied.

## Abilities:

**Dream infiltration**

Siyun has the ability to infiltrate the dreams of others. When he is in these dreams, he can do whatever he wants and carry any weapon he wants (as seen when he chases down and stabs one of Jeongmin’s bullies with a knife in her dream). Whatever he does to a person in the dream world does bring consequences to their body. For example, he could stab someone in a dream in the shoulder, and the wound shows up when they wake up. It is even possible for him to kill someone in their dreams without leaving a trace of evidence in the real world.

**Astral Projection**

When Siyun goes to sleep, he can choose to astral project his body. When he does this, he can walk wherever he want and people will not be able to see, hear, or feel his presence. In earlier chapters, he’s seen using this ability to help Jeongmin get back at her bullies by spying on one of them input their passcode to their phone. In later chapters, he uses this ability to spy on Jeongmin when she’s away from him or meeting Jaehyeok without him.

**Exceptional Durability**

He is seen taking a punch to the face without so much as flinching.

## Trivia

*As mentioned on the author's Twitter*
* When asked about his ideal type, the author stated she hadn't thought of one for him. He doesn't have a specific type regarding the opposite gender: the only person he is interested and focused on is Jeongmin. So in a way, she is his ideal type.
* In a q&a, the author said that Siyun is the type to be jealous of his kids in regards to receiving Jeongmin's attention. He also wouldn't want Jeongmin to be in pain from pregnancy.
* At first, the author considered making Siyun's hair purple but decided that white hair suited him the best.
* He is very updated on music and knows the oldest to the latest songs.
* He prefers to look up at Jeongmin rather than looking down at her.
* He is the most likely out of the main cast to drink alcohol as an adult.
* The author confirmed that when he drinks alcohol in the future, he acts like his normal self but is less tensed.
* The author stated he would probably enjoy amusement parks and have a nice time
* He's good at watching horror/scary movies but instead of focusing on the movie, he usually watches Jeongmin and secretly smirks at her reactions
* He is 5'11" (180 cm) but is still growing up
* His blood type is B
* His physique resembles his father but his eyes resemble his mother's.
* The author stated that while Jeongmin feels ice cold when she's angry, Siyun feels more fiery when he's angry
* He is the easiest character for the author to draw
* The author stated he is the closest to her fictional ideal type, even if he may not be ideal to date in real life
* The author stated that he would find it hard to get used to Jeongmin calling him Oppa and is more comfortable with her calling him by his name. However, if she did call him that, he would find her cute and silly.
* The author said that if he ever had kids, he would adore a daughter who looked like and resembled Jeongmin the most.
	+ He would love a son like Jeongmin too, but would require proper educating
	+ He would feel wary about a daughter that resembled him, but would still love her with proper educating
	+ If he had a son that resembled him, it would be war
* The author said he would definitely bicker with his child over the TV remote if they tried to change the channel
* He believes in ghosts
* If he visited a haunted house, he wouldn't get scared
* Sometimes, when Jeongmin is lying down and using her phone, he hugs her tight like a hamburger but makes sure not to completely crush her
* On a date, Siyun usually drinks strawberry yogurt smoothie but sometimes has an iced americano with Jeongmin
* In his school class ranking, he was usually middle to low middle (but he made top ranks back when he studied diligently)
* If the author had to compare him to any animal, she would choose a white wolf. She even commonly uses the wolf emoji when posting panels of him on Twitter.
* His biggest fear is making Jeongmin angry