JiYong was strong, JiYong was resilient. In the eleven or so years that I had known JiYong, I had seen him cry once. Once, even though the stress of our job would make anybody cry. He cried when his scandal came out, we all cried when that happened.

But I knew that JiYong cried like anybody else. When we lived together, I sometimes heard him through the wall and when we slept in the same bed, he would sometimes leave for a while to the bathroom, but I could hear the muffled sobs through the thin door.

The second time I had seen him cry came as a shock. It was whilst we were recording loser. All five of us were pulling an all nighter in the studio. It was passed three in the morning and we were all tired. Daesung had just finished his verse and it was JiYong’s turn to record. He let his socked feet fall to the floor and sat up in my lap. I shuffled as his bony bum dug into my lap. Seunghyun hyung had taken charge of recording as JiYong looked so exhausted and he had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit my chest.

Pulling his short shorts down, he padded along in his extra fluffy socks and swigged some water before preparing himself for the solo. I sat back and watched as they did the takes.

Now we all knew that Loser was emotional song that Seunghyun hyung and JiYong had written about their own feelings. But as JiYong wrapped I could see him getting more and more emotional. We played it back and he squeezed his eyes shut as it all came together. Youngbae’s voice in contrast with the chorus of me and Seunghyun, Daesung’s beautiful harmonies. But Ji was adamant that his rap wasn’t good enough.

It was when he was rapping “Honestly, I’ve never fit in with the world, I was always alone-” his voice broke then and my head snapped up. JiYong was crying. Youngbae immediately stood up from the chair, wandering what was wrong and when he saw that Ji was crying, he cursed softly before rushing into the recording studio.

I followed closely behind. JiYong had to a squatting position, his head hung between his knees and his frail form was shaking. Youngbae pulled the tiny man to his chest and cradled his head softly whilst I feverently sat next to them and clung onto JiYongs small hand.

No words were spoken, we all knew there was no need to speak. The lyrics spoke enough. I remembered lying in bed with JiYong when he wrote them, his mind had wandered back to the darkest points in his life, points that we wanted to forget. I remember how his eyes darkened and he looked so intensely concentrated, yet miserable at the same time. He wrote those lyrics as though in a trance and it took days before his eyes showed their normal light heartedness.

Seunghyun came in after a while with Daesung and we formed one big hug on the recording booth floor. JiYong’s cries were reduced to sniffles and I still clutched his hand as a life line.

After a few minutes, we pulled apart and JiYong weakly rubbed his eyes before smiling softly. “I’m such a sap” he choked and I smiled, glad he was pulling away from the darkness of the lyrics. Youngbae stood up and left the booth with Seunghyun and Daesung and I was left crouched on the floor with JiYong.

“You okay now baby?” I asked and he nodded slowly.

“I think so” he sniffed. I leant down and placed a sweet kiss on the end of his nose. He smiled slightly, but his eyes were still b with tears. The studio was quiet after JiYong’s melt down and we all recorded reverently except JiYong, he had faced that it was enough for one night. I sat quietly on the sofa, cradling him to my chest.

JiYong appeared so strong to the fans, so charismatic but he was shy and sensitive in reality and even though he didn’t let that side show to the fans, it was the side of him that I loved the most. I smiled softly at the man sleeping in my arms and kissed his forehead lightly before thumbing across the tear stains on his cheek and wiping them away. My perfect JiYong, my perfectly imperfect JiYong.

So I’m writing short snaps of the recording process of all their songs and that will be the focus for the next few weeks so thanks for reading. I know this song was emotional to all the members in Bigbang and I just wanted to express that through this so yeah, thanks for reading again.

Please comment your thoughts and if you have any ideas of how you think it was like in the recording studio lol, feel free to drop them below and I’ll try to incorporate them in the stories.