GD POV

Geborgenheit (German)

(n) The perfect mixture of cosy, safe, warm, and comfortable

It hit you like a wave. It enveloped you like a rolling fog. It washed over you like the tide. Heat. Seoul on summer. It was hot.

Summer 2015. It was the first time I got a glance at Jieun’s real life persona. Enduring the scorching heat, we jumped on a slight blast of Haha hyung and Haesol’s performance rehearsal and then screamed the tunes of ‘I Have An Affair’ on the stage.

I’ve come from series of distressed and sleepless nights trying to tied together MADE--it wasn’t even tied well until one year later--but that day, that night, between sweats and tight ladder stage, I’ve said to her, “That was brilliant.” She tilt her head back and answered, “It was perfect-so very- I’m afraid it was like a midsummer night’s dream.”

Eloquence, eloquence! I almost kissed her on the forehead, drunk on stage euphoria, half conscious-half dizzy, until I saw Park Myung Soo’s hand tapping my shoulder.

I must be as honest as I can. That was the first time, post-break up, I felt a weird kind of happiness. I felt lonely and content at the same time. That is rare. That is special.

“It’s okay,” I say--perhaps the biggest lie of all. But it’s one of those things you do. You say something like “It’s okay” not because it is, in fact, okay, but because you’re hoping these words will somehow make it okay. Even though they never, ever do.

“Everyone has that moment, I think, the moment when something so … momentous happens that it rips your very being into small pieces. And then you have to stop. For a long time, you gather your pieces. And it takes such a very long time, not to fit them back together, but to assemble them in a new way, not necessarily a better way. More, a way you can live with until you know for certain that this piece should go there, and that one there.”

“People need other people to feel things for them,” she says. “It gets lonely to feel things all by yourself. Thanks for feeling it with me.”

We’re on our way to the Yakushima Airport. I am heading to catch MADE concert rehearsal in Tokyo and she was going back to Seoul.

“I really appreciate what you have been done with me. It’s beyond comforting. Thank you, really, for being a great support system I can fall back during this strange, strange time, oppa, ” she says, almost like a goodbye, when we are arriving at the departure gate.

“You made my life a lot easier. It’s unreal. Now, it’s time to move on, right? To our life? We’ll meet again, hope in better state of mind.”

“Send my regards to the other oppas. I owe them your time, ” she said.

I wasn’t really sure by what she said at that moment. I hugged her.

“Ji Eun-ah, if I may say one last thing before you go... life is now, this very moment, and that it is inexhaustible and unknowable. I know we’ll meet again, we’ll also part once more, ” I said. “I hope you get where you’re going, and be happy when you do.”

“Enjoy stopping, enjoy gathering pieces, enjoy having a life, ” I conclude.

I couldn’t name the feeling. It was sadness but it was something else besides. And the something else besides was what had me stood there instead of running to the right gate. I’d felt like this before. It was fear.

I think that’s what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by. How did you know?

And I take a step back.

The last text that I got from Ji Eun is her saying she arrived safely in Seoul. The last text that I send her was Take Care, I wish you well. It was Spring 2016, far too long.

I am sitting in my studio. Teddy hyung sent me an email about changing the bass lines for Last Dance. I decide to change it and put a low bass lines layer to the song. It’s more mellifluous that way. I closed my email.

I decide to change the password of this place.

She’s got looks that books take pages to tell.

Long, brownish, windswept hair, with full fringe framing her glossy-glistening black eyes, delicately perched nose, and somewhat-intriguing smile. Hamada Hideaki’s pictures of hers described it better than I can ever do--I’m not going to write a book for it.

Nana Komatsu.

I realized that you could fall in love with humans the same way you fall in love with songs. How the tune of them could mean nothing to you at first, an unfamiliar melody, but quickly turn into a symphony carved across your skin; a hymn in the web of your veins; a harmony stitched into the lining of your soul.

Youngbae once said, “Let’s name one of our song Lover. An homage to our resident lover, Ji Yong-ssi.”

Night falls at the sea. She placed her hand in mine and we walked hand in hand along the beach, getting away from our crowd. We never ask each other anything. We just walk and watch at each other, guessing what’s going on underneath. She tightened her grip on my hand, then proceed to kiss me.

“You’re such a tease. Can I have you?”, she asked.

We don’t learn to love each other well in the easy and rushed moment. Anyone is good company at a cocktail party or any sort of gathering. But love is born when we misunderstand one another, take a deep breath, let aside our egos, and make it right, when we cry in the kitchen, when we show up uninvited with magazines and ice creams, in an effort to say, I love you.

“You know, I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody,” I said.

“You’re not a million dollar singer-songwriter for nothing. Of course your life is a music,” she said.

I smiled. Ji Eun would say, “What? Hopelandic-kind-of-thing? Yeah, that kind of suit you, oppa.” And we would just talk all night or just fall in a comforting silence, being a good company of one another. I think, the most important thing for two wounded souls to soothe their hearts is to take a minute to make sense of normalcy that comes like a privilege for us.

“I love you, ” said Nana. She gently swept my cheeks.

I said nothing. In the history of language, the first obscenity was silence.

She kissed me. Again. And again.

It’s disturbing, uncomfortable. I’m suffocated. I need oxygen.

That moment, I know, know that she doesn’t understand me, that she never will, that she lacks the power to understand such unspoken language, unspoken boundaries. For me, love is two people keeping pace with each other. And that she can never take a moment to wait for me. Too bad, she’s not another wounded soul.

Summer 2016 is sure very different. The heat is the same, what do you expect? But now I somehow trapped on another MuDo ride with Infinite Company Blockbuster Summer Movie TV. You read that right. I am going to act. For. real.

When I said yes to the request, I was naively sure that it’s gonna be another comedy-flick-kind-of thing with guest comedians here and there. Turns out, well, let’s just say I’m being pinned to the wall by the Kim Hye Soo. Man, that escalated quickly.

I am having my sweet sweet break with my new hyung, Lee Je Hoon. He’s a cool lad, we just met yet we converse real easy. We talk a lot more than I thought it could be. Acting, singing, being celebrity, the entertainment business in general.

I lit a cigar, dissolving the nicotine into my blood. Je Hoon hyung is not a smoker, so he just stand there staring at the Han river.

“Your company is producing several dramas soon. You’re not interested in any of that?” he asked.

“Me? Well, contributing to a soundtrack would be okay, I guess. But acting? Let’s just say, it’s not right up my alley.”

He giggled, “Yeah, isn’t it TOP who’s more into acting in Bigbang? I’ve heard his name here and there in many actors’ clique.”

“Yeah, he’s quite passionate on that. That sorta become his escape from the idol world, you know.”

“I don’t think I can survive doing idol thing like you do. It’s so much pressure, eh, almost no personal space? I found actors able to act more freely and get a pass in many cases than idols, even at your level.”

I smiled, “But I guess, I live and breathe for that.”

“What’s your escape route then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have an escape route after all this years. Making music is all I can do.”

“Arts and fashion?”

“Yeah, but I don’t consider those as escapes. Arts and fashion enhance my musical creativity, so it’s a supplementary injection to my life? I guess it kinda works like that.”

“You must be freaking out to be here doing this right now.”

“Oh you bet.”

“Soak it up. It’s going to be an interesting way to escape your persona, at least for a moment.”

“Thanks man. I guess that’s why idols are acting.”

“Yeah, few of them who actually acts or been in the acting game for some time and met several directors, actors, and a real reason to act particular character would think acting is a nice persona change for a moment. But, yeah, those realization needs time. It’s a natural process. I’m glad TOP thinks that way.”

“You two are gonna go along very well. I should introduce the two of you. He’s missing out some good talk right here.”

We shared a good laugh.

“Idol actors are tough bunch. I would just give up watching those awful, awful comments that they get every now and then. For us actors, we already had a head up, especially if we’re coming from acting department in university.”

“Idols in ge