Great mood

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

- Marcus Aurelius

Lee Joon thinks life is good. Lee Joon thinks life is absolutely perfect and there is nothing that can prove him otherwise. It may seem a little off, considering their hectic schedules and their lack of sleep, but Lee Joon is convinced that life as he is living it right now is really really good. So good, that it’s scaring the other 4 members a little bit. He knows where he is and he knows his reality. His good mood is just so over-the-top that exhausting schedules and a hectic daily life is no mood-killer. There is literally nothing in these days that can dampen his mood. Nothing.

Lee Joon is also very much aware of the fact that his band members are side-eyeing him, wondering where his energy is coming from. But it’s just there.

Lee Joon can’t explain why he has so much energy when he’s sleeping so little or why he feels so creative. Everything and anything is inspiration for him. There is nothing that passes him without sparking a light within him. The only problem with being so inspired is the fact that the inspiration doesn’t really stick with him. There’s constantly a new thing he needs to create, a new drawing, a new song. A new dance. Not that he in particularly is very talented in all that he does, he most definitely isn’t. When he got inspired to create a sculpture in clay it definitely didn’t end as he expected, not including the fact that he got distracted in the middle of creating it.

Lee Joons elevated state of mind results, more often than not, in him being distracted during schedules as well. It isn’t that he doesn’t like what he does, he does enjoy performing very much. He likes MBLAQ, he most certainly does. He also likes the other 4 members. He likes his friends. But there are just so much life to explore, so many things to try and so many theories to understand and Lee Joon has such a good life, that he has to do it all. He hears them talking, mainly the members but other people too, but shrugs it off. So what if he is a little flighty, so what if he smiles a little more than usual. Why don’t they just thank the gods that he does indeed find inspiration and creativity and happiness? Happiness can’t possibly be a bad thing?

Lee Joon continuously wonders whenever he hears them talking, but he never interferes. Interfering will most likely bring him down and he is happy. He is so happy it is bordering euphoria and if anything, he wants to keep it that way. He wants to stay happy, to be like this forever. He wants to be able to go without sleep and food and still feel energetic. Although it isn’t very healthy, and he somehow knows that it will definitely drag him down in the end, he enjoys it. He enjoys every minute he is awake. Because life is most certainly the absolute greatest he has ever felt in a very long time. He hears staff comment on it.

“Isn’t it nice with an idol who is so genuinely happy?”

“Look at Lee Joon from MBLAQ, still with so much energy.”

“It’s really enjoyable being with him, his happiness and smiles are contagious.”

Lee Joon takes pride in his happiness. He really does. It’s not that other people aren’t happy, he meets a lot of people who have perfected the art of acting like they’re the happiest in the world. But behind the stages he sees their exhausted eyes and their tired smiles. But he doesn’t feel like that. He doesn’t feel the need to falter behind the stages. His happiness, his inspiration, his creativity, his euphoria is so vivid, so real, that nothing really changes it when all the spot lights is turned off. It’s not like an on/off-switch he decides when to turn on or off, but it’s all for the better, because feeling this is definitely better than being down, better than being exhausted and tired. He doesn’t really think much of it, except he keeps enjoying it.

So Lee Joon continues to think that life is good. Lee Joon continues to think that life is absolutely perfect and there is nothing in this world there will ever be able to change it.

Inability to complete tasks

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.

- Christopher Columbus

Lee Joon knows that there’s a task at hand. He knows that they should be producing music, that they should be performing for their fans. But Lee Joon can’t because there is definitely something greater to be done. He isn’t exactly sure what it is right now, but he knows that soon enough there will be something so great that he has to do it. He simply just has to.

The right task comes to him a windy early morning at 5 am when he looks out of the window and sees the mountain far away. At that exact moment he just knows. He has to climb the mountain. Right now. So he wakes up Thunder and drags him out of bed, proposing his amazing idea for the fellow member who just sends him a very disbelieving stare.

“No,” Thunder replies but Lee Joon is set and he doesn’t take no for an answer. Instead he begins packing what they need, while he sends Thunder into the shower. A tent, some clothes, a sleeping bag, a … He forgets. He forgets because Mir enters the living room, asks him what he’s doing and Lee Joon suddenly doesn’t want to climb the mountain anymore. He announces this, much to Thunders annoyance, who wanders back into bed and Lee Joon leaves the gear in the living room.

At 7 am G.O. asks him to please clean the living room and he promises – and forgets. It’s not that he completely forgets. It’s just that cleaning the living room is such a boring task and Lee Joon really doesn’t want to do it. He really doesn’t. He knows he should, for the sake of living 5 men together in the same dorm, but he is absolutely certain that there soon will be something bigger, something greater, something that he must do. In the end, Seungho cleans the living room because he can’t stand watching the mess anymore.

The next thing Lee Joon thinks of as his greater task is when he listen to music and realizes that MBLAQ has yet to make heavy metal music. It may not suit their image very well, but Lee Joon has to do it. He simply has to. So he goes out, buys a metal album and headbangs in the dead of the night to very loud metal music. It disturbs the entire floor, but he doesn’t care because this, this is truly important and it might as well be a huge turning point of their career. In the end, Lee Joon realizes that he is dizzy from the head banging and leaves the cd, blasting heavy metal until someone else turns it off. He doesn’t know who. 

He is told to remember to please, buy some eggs and some milk because they’re really in need. G.O. even writes a list for him and another post-it on the refrigerator before he leaves. Lee Joon is alone and he doesn’t really care what the rest of them are doing, because it doesn’t really matter in the end. It does matter that he get to the convenience store, but as he enters the doors and sees the long rows of food, he becomes bored. It’s not a lot he needs to get, it really isn’t. But shopping is so absurdly boring and Lee Joon doesn’t really care. So he forgets about the eggs and the milk and leaves without having bought anything. Because it is not important. There is most definitely something that has to be more important.

He hears them talking when he comes home and announces that he forgot to buy the milk and the eggs. They ask him why and he shrugs and tells them that something more important came up. What exactly, he doesn't know. He hears them talking at night. Worried. Or so it seems. They’re wondering why on earth he can’t do things, even the simplest things.

Lee Joon knows why, he knows. It’s because they’re simple. Simple things are extremely boring and there is more, there is definitely more he needs to do, needs to know. They just don’t get it. But he doesn’t say anything, just listens because if anything their concerns seem bad. There’s nothing to be concerned about though. Lee Joon knows he does it all right. He also knows that while the goal may be a little distant, he will get to it, because he will succeed in doing the greater things of life. He just has to find them yet. It’s really all there is to it. Finding the greater task.

But Lee Joon knows that there’s a task at hand. He knows that they should be producing music, that they should be performing for their fans. He just can’t do it until he finds the greater task.

Depression

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.

- Elizabeth Wurtzel

Lee Joon is positively sure he hates life. Not that he is filled with a lot of anger or hatred. It’s all just empty. Empty and void and Lee Joon hates it. There is nothing to enjoy in life. The small fan chants, the fightings, the smiles he gets are nothing to brighten up his day. There are absolutely nothing in his life that is worth his smile and even if it was, he wouldn’t be able to smile.

Lee Joon detests himself. He loathes himself with every fiber of his being and he knows everybody does as well. He’s never good enough, so he practices constantly. It’s all flawed in the end. He knows, that when they perform, he is never able to give the fans what they want. They may be cheering on him as well, but he knows, they knows, everybody knows that he is not good enough and he will never be.

Lee Joon doesn’t eat. Eating feels wrong, like he’s not deserving of food and although he knows that he should be eating something, whenever he tries he feels like throwing up. It feels guilty to even feel hungry and so he ignores every little complain his body sends his way. He doesn’t sleep either. Not that he doesn’t want to. He definitely wants to, because that would mean fleeing from his thoughts and the hatred he feels everywhere. But because of that, he just can’t sleep. He doesn’t deserve to flee.

The only thing he does deserve is the hatred, the self-loathing and the mistakes he keeps finding in himself.

He too knows that the members are worried. It’s not the first time he’s been hooked up to iv drips, making sure his body stays alive without collapsing completely under stress and pressure, but Lee Joon doesn’t care, because he knows he deserves the stress, the pressure and that he would definitely be better off collapsing. At least collapsing would somehow mean sleeping and sleeping would mean fleeing.

He hears the voices in the dead of the night. They’re not literal voices, in fact they’re not really voices but only thoughts. But it’s so loud, so horribly loud and Lee Joon ends up in the bathroom, shower , tears mixing with the water while his clothes get soaked. Mir finds him in the morning, the sight of a broken man, soaked in the shower.

Lee Joon doesn’t cry anymore after that night. He wants to, but he can’t. He can’t because it’s wrong. It’s all wrong and he shouldn’t be feeling like this, when he is flawed in the first place. He should be stronger, braver, but he isn’t. The least thing he can do is stop crying. Instead he finds other ways to punish himself from the mistakes he keeps doing.

At first it’s an ice cube pressed onto his wrist, the cold seeping through his veins, while the water melts around his body heat. The icy cold makes his skin burn, the pain crawling up his arms, following his veins. He feels the numbness of his fingers as the blood gets cold. In the end the ice cube is all melted, a puddle of water at his feet and the warmth is brought back to his arm, his finger, no longer any icy cold to keep it cool.

Next he tries the rubber band, snapping it whenever he can get to it. Although it marks a little red ring around his wrist, the pain quickly subsides and he becomes immune to the pain.

One evening he finds a razor, struggles to free it from its confines and when he sits on the toilet with the blade in hands, he smiles. It’s an odd smile, definitely disturbing if it was to be seen and it shows all his intentions. He drags the blade along his thigh, slow, slow, slow. Pressing into skin, seeing blood peeking out. It’s slowly. Definitely not what he expected it to be. There is no blood bath, no searing pain. Nothing but the fascination as his own blood makes its way out of his thigh. He learns how to make a clean cut. The slow, fascinating prickle of blood when he draws a straight line. The faster, overwhelming running of blood when he tilts the blade and slices into skin. He’s scarred and he knows it. Thankfully he’s a male idol and no male idol is wearing shorts high enough to ever see his painting of scars. He hears them talking as well. It’s in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings. It’s any time they think he can’t hear them.

They worry and Lee Joon thinks to himself that it’s fault for worrying in the first place. He never tells them that he hears and they only indirectly tell him they’re worried. Because they all know that there is nothing they can do. Lee Joon knows. And he’s definitely absolutely positively sure he hates life. He is also definitely absolutely positively sure that this empty void is slowly filling with self-hatred.

Irritability

Sicknesses, especially those affecting nerves and head, are signs that the defensive strength of the strong natures is lacking; precisely this is suggested by irritability, so pleasure and displeasure become foreground problems.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Lee Joon is sick and tired of everything and everybody.

It’s not his fault that everything just seem to annoy him. It takes nothing. He shifts from one minute to another. It’s sickening to be fair. Not only for him, but for others as well. He knows, because the others stay away from him. It takes a millisecond for him to change and he’s sick and tired of it. It’s not because he particularly wants to be annoyed all the time, everything just seem to annoy him. He’s talking to his friends one minute and the next he’s mumbling swear words and profanities while he’s leaving. It’s not his fault that his friends talk too much, talk too little, say this or say that. It’s not his fault they’re so goddamn annoying. It’s not his fault either that everybody seems to think it is.

He sits down beside Thunder on the couch, watching whatever show Thunders watching. Five minutes later he reaches for the remote control to change to whatever knew channel, resulting in Thunder exclaiming “hey, I was watching that”.

Lee Joon doesn’t care, because the show was terribly annoying and when he tells Thunder that, he’s met with a huff and the boy stealing the remote control back, changing back to whatever he was watching. Lee Joon leaves the living room at that.

The days continue like that. He destroys a bowl when he figures they only have the wrong kind of cereal and although he can eat it, it’s just so annoying that morning, so he loses himself and forgets there are other people. Seungho tries talking to him, but it just makes everything worse. It’s not that Seungho says anything wrong, in fact calling out Lee Joon on his crazy mood swings is the right thing to do but Lee Joon is sick and tired of it and it annoys him.

He leaves. He leaves for days, not present during schedules, not there for an interview. He simply disappears while the entire world annoys him.

When he comes back home, he’s met with an angry manager and he’s the disappointment of the entire group – which annoys him as well. He never wanted to be this annoyed, but he just simply can’t help it. This time he doesn’t hear them talking.

They stay away from him, not even trying to engage in a conversation with him and if he has to be very honest, it annoys him as well. There’s nothing he can do. He feels helpless and it annoys him. He sees all the things wrong with the entire world and even the things right annoys him.

It annoys him when the micro oven beeps twice because one must be enough, it annoys him when it only beeps once because it’s difficult to hear only one beep over the other noise.

It annoys him when he finds his book on the dining table where he left it, because why didn’t someone remove it, so it wouldn’t get dirty when they were eating and it annoys him when someone removes his book because now he can’t find it. It annoys him when the doorbell is ringing and it annoys him when people just enter their dorm without ringing the doorbell. And knocking on the door cannot be heard during day time and is definitely too loud in the evening. Everything annoys Lee Joon and he knows, he knows it’s affecting his friendships and basically every relation he has ever had to a person before. It’s affecting his lifestyle, his image and the band. It’s no good, he knows.

Lee Joon knows everything and there is nothing he can do about it because it is just so god damn annoying. He reads the fan cafés, he reads the words about his mood swings. He sees the fans who protect him and defend him, saying he’s probably stressed and he sees the fans who think of him as a jerk. He feels sorry for the fans who defend him, when in reality he’s a jerk.

It’s just not his fault because if anything, it’s simply because the world is so annoying and Lee Joon can’t do anything to change that fact. He tries hard during fan signs because he knows he will be scolded badly if he does anything, says anything that so much as hints that the fans in front of him annoys him. But they do. With their giggles and smiles and shyness, they annoy him so much. He wants them to shut up, he wants them to stop asking silly questions. He doesn’t want to sign their cd’s and he definitely doesn’t want to send them a smile but he does so anyway and thinks profanities enough to calm himself just enough.

He knows he’s a bad idol but Lee Joon is sick and tired of everything and everybody.

Rapid speech

Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.

- William Faulkner

Lee Joon talks when he’s pressured. Or so he likes to think, because he cannot stop talking these days.

It seems like he has so much to say but in reality he has absolutely nothing to say. Word after word tumbles from his lips but he has no idea what they mean. He doesn’t even listen to himself talking, not anymore, not any longer. It’s not that he feels pressured but he knows he is, because they have a comeback soon and everything has to be perfect. Simply everything. The dance, the performance, the song, their voices, their bodies. It all has to be perfect and Lee Joon is pressured with his imperfections. So he talks. Most of the people hush him but he continues talking. 

“Shut up, Joon.”

He has heard it before. They say it so very often nowadays. He consults his friends who have been in the industry longer than he, but not even they can stop the words falling from his lips. He just keeps talking. He even tries having conversations with the stylists, he really does, but whenever they say something, he feels the urge to talk again and ignores their request, their question or whatever words they say and continue on his very own word-spree. He used to think of himself as a great listener, but when Seungho sighs and declares that he doesn’t want to talk to him any longer, Lee Joon deflates and accepts that maybe, just maybe, he’s not that great of a listener anyway.

“It’s unlike you,” they say. They all say it. Everybody who met him earlier states in some way or another how wrong it is for him to talk like that. To never make a break, to never stop and listen. But he just goes on and on and on and he swears, that the more he talks, the harder he finds it to stop. G.O. wakes him in the middle of the night once and almost begs him to sleep on the couch because apparently he’s been sleep talking as well and it has been bothering his sleep. Lee Joon accepts and sleeps on the touch, talking into the night in an unconscious state of mind.

He accepts the pressure because of comeback and he works very hard.

When they do comeback, he doesn’t stop talking. It’s actually a good thing during interviews but backstage they are all shushing him, trying to stop his nervous train of words but it’s unstoppable. It’s simply unstoppable and Lee Joon doesn’t know what to do anymore. He grows to hate it a little bit. This endless string of words that never seem to end, but there’s nothing he can do but hate it. It doesn’t stop just because he wants it to stop. It’s integrated in him like breathing or thinking and Lee Joon swears it isn’t normal. He swears, just like the rest of them.

He hears them talking, but now, whenever he catches them, he can’t hold back and he talks again. He tells them how they don’t need to worry because there is definitely nothing wrong. It may be a little out of character, but he tells them, it’s because of them pressure during comeback. They seem to buy the bait and accepts that he has grown a nervous habit of talking when pressured. So the stop pressuring him. The agency even cancels some of his schedules in order to stop him from talking. And it works. With no one around to hear him talk, he stops.

Whenever someone comes back home, just wanting to rant, Lee Joon starts talking again. This time it’s under his control though, so in the end he concludes that he talks when he’s under a lot of pressure. That’s the only reasonable explanation for his rapid word vomit, no one was able to stop.

Trouble at work

There is no substitute for hard work.

- Thomas Edison

Lee Joon used to think that he really liked working. Nowadays he’s not so sure.

It’s not that he suddenly forgot how to dance or how to sing. No, he knows. He can still do what he used to do. He just doesn’t like it anymore. It’s as if it all became a nightmare instead of a dream. He doesn’t tell anybody about these thoughts, these new challenges he seems to be facing, but everybody knows anyway. They know because he cannot focus. Which he can’t. He can’t seem to find a specific thing to keep doing, his mind wandering and wandering. It’s like he’s affected a lot more by his mood than he used to be. He used to be able to forget it, for just a minute. Any pressing thought, any flighty inspiration.

He used to push them back, waiting for the time and place before feeling, before creating something new. Nowadays everything happens constantly, at the same time, all the time, and he loses focus, loses his interest. He even hears his manager talking. Should they really let him act in that upcoming movie?

Lee Joon figures that he could eventually lose his job. So he tries. He tries really hard to make sure that he does everything they want him to. He practices late at night when he can’t sleep anyway, he pushes back evil thoughts or euphoria and he finds himself in something like status quo. It’s like he pauses everything that comes with life. And the worst part, he figures, is that he is unable to work under these conditions as well.

There is just no way he is ever going to make a good job. Whether it’s during photoshoots or movie recordings, Lee Joon is stuck to forgetting, to losing focus and to constantly getting scolded.

“Come on, last take, okay? Please, do your job.”

“Just a simple pose, Joon. We’ll photoshop it later if it needs retouching.”

“Joon, wake up!”

He starts to wonder what is wrong with him. He used to be able to perform so well. Better than the rest of s, not that he wanted to brag. He used to be the fabulous model, the one with the killer poses. He used to be the good actor, the one who didn’t have to take 20 retakes before a scene was good. Now he is stuck with photoshop retouches, boring poses, 30 retakes and a mediocre job. It’s frustrating, to say the very least and he wishes for nothing but to be able to do his job good enough.

They talk. Of course they talk, they always talk. Little whispers behind the camera, behind the stage. Little remarks, waiting to poison his already damaged reputation. He almost takes a friends advice and prays to god, but only almost. He knows they are dying to know why he can no longer perform and he wishes, oh he wishes that he had an answer for them. But there is nothing. Nothing wrong, nothing wrong.

Lee Joon almost wants to find a cause. He almost wishes for there to be a brain tumor somewhere, lodged deep beneath brain cells. Something that could be the cause of his obvious lack of work ethics. But when he mentions it for his manager, his manager laughs and tells him to calm down, there is definitely no brain tumor. He even offers a brain scan if Lee Joon really wants, but he declines, sulking. He tries so hard but everything goes wrong, it just all goes wrong.

He confides in Seungho who pats his back and smiles and tells him that everything will be alright, maybe it’s just a phase, it will pass. But Seungho doesn’t understand and neither do the rest of them. The more he tries, the less he’s able to do and he sick of it. He really is. He swears to himself that he will do better when he hears his manager say “maybe he should take a break, let’s put him on hiatus” into his phone. He will not be going on a hiatus. Not without the rest of the band anyway. He wants to be MBLAQ, he wants to be a model, he definitely wants to be an actor.

Lee Joon used to really really really like working. Nowadays work is only a source of frustration.

Alcohol or drug abuse

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

- George Bernard Shaw

Lee Joon is not going to lie, he really likes alcohol.

He likes the sweet taste of strawberry when he drinks a strawberry daiquiri. He likes the burn down his throat when he drinks a shot of soju. He likes the bitterness when he sips from his glass of dry red wine and he likes the warmth that lodges in his body, when he ventures on to drinking whiskey.

Drinking is never a problem either. It’s a friendly get-together, a stress-reliever of the day. It is enjoyable and everybody find it easy to indulge in the liquid that is alcohol. Lee Joon enjoys it.

He takes his friends to fine wine tastings, buying the red and white liquid and storing them in the kitchen in the dorm. He even at one point wondered if wine would taste any differently if drunk in Italy or in France. He doesn’t go to Europe to buy wine though, although he does want to.

At one point, he finds himself drinking a glass or two (or maybe five, who really counts?) every night. It makes him sleep peacefully, no dreams, no sleep talking, no lingering thoughts to keep him awake. His bottles disappear a lot faster than he had first expected them to but it’s not a problem because he can always buy a new one. By now he has found his favorite wine anyway. Whenever he feels fancy, he leaves the dorm and finds a night club. Here he buys fancy drinks, vodka shots or perhaps, if he’s bold, a tequila shot. He lets himself get drunk and loses himself completely to the strong liquid, never knowing how he got home when he wakes up in his bed the next morning with a hangover.

He figures that a glass of wine for breakfast makes an excellent hangover cure, although the rest of them side-eyes him and wonders why on earth he’s drinking wine at 6 am. But he is and he definitely likes it. Some days, when the members are talking too loud or arguing over some mundane stuff, Lee Joon leaves the dorm, finds an outdoor tented bar along the Han river and sits down, ordering bottle after bottle of soju.

His purpose is to get drunk, to forget dorm life and what else he is thinking of that one day. He doesn’t know how much he spends, but he doesn’t really care anyway. He finds himself stumbling on the pavement on his way home, swaying from side to side and sometimes puking in a trash can that is conveniently placed. When he’s offered a pill in a night club one evening he swallows and enters a completely different world. This world is light, no concerns dragging him down and he feels like he’s floating. He’s definitely floating, or at the very least dreaming.

The next morning he downs another glass of red wine before daily activities. He gets another pill and then another pill and suddenly they’re asking him to sniff the white powder put in a line on the sink in the bathroom and he does. He does and everything blurs and Lee Joon has no idea who he is, where he is or how he even got there, but everything is light and he gets to enjoy it. He really does enjoy it.

It isn’t until the morning after, when his body is aching really bad and he wonders what on earth happened last night but is unable to find any memories at all, that he decides to stick to the wine. The wine is not bad at all either. He drinks a bottle a day and he hears them talking. Again. Behind closed doors, but Lee Joon is still able to hear them talk. They’re talking about Alcoholics Anonymous and if he is really an alcoholic.

But he’s not and he tells them in a drinking slur one evening when his white wine had been combined with a couple of whiskey shots. He’s not an alcoholic, he just really enjoys drinking. It removes stress and frustrations and it calms him. It makes sure he’s not going to explode. In reality, he has just found consolation in the bottle but he swears he’s alright, not an alcoholic.

The other members don’t seem to take him very seriously though and before he knows, he’s sitting in front of his manager and accounts for his alcohol intake. He promises to slow down, not to drink his morning glass of red wine and not to go drinking outside. He promises not to drink a bottle a day.

It still happens, but this time in secret. Because Lee Joon just really likes alcohol and the way it removes his reality and creates another, calmer one.

Erratic behavior

is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.

- Jim Morrison

Lee Joon never thought of himself as a very ual person. He does, however, like .

In his line of work, is a rare occasion and he accepts that when he signs the contract. It’s not that the contract itself limits his life but the no-relationship rules is an all-kill and he isn’t sure he can go around and whoever is there. So he doesn’t and he finds pleasure in his hand. That is, until he just can’t stand ing and feels an urgent need to have , real . To feel the heat from a around his and he goes to find someone, who will him. To make sure there isn’t going to be a scandal (he’s still considerate of his image) he finds a female idol. He isn’t sure who it is, but she’s pretty and she’s willing.

So while they kiss, lips against lips, tongues dancing in a small battle, they shed their clothes. Lee Joon feels up and down her body, touches lingering and soft as he explores another human being under him. He feels her s and hears her moan when he massages them. He kisses down her neck, her collarbone, latches his lips onto her and while her body begs for more.

He feels his and she does too as she grabs his and starts letting her slim, pale fingers feel him up, pumping the blood down to make it stand. He feels the pleasure, the feeling of almost losing control but he wills himself, lets go of her and asks her without words to him. And so she does. practiced while she bobs her head in front of his crotch, letting her tongue swirl around to increase the pleasure he feels. It doesn’t take long before he pounds into her , moans mixing in the night as they both ride towards es and pleasure. When he cums in his , he pulls out and starts getting dressed.

With a promising kiss, he leaves her alone for the rest of the night, no cuddling, no sleeping next to each other. He doesn’t remember her afterwards. He does, however, remember the pleasure he felt and he needs more.

Lee Joon needs more, so the next time he confides in a e, buying just to be able to feel the same pleasure, the same tight heat around his length. But it’s not the same. It’s boring and although he s, it’s not nearly as intense as with the female idol. Next he finds himself a foreigner, somewhere on the street. The agreement is as long as she doesn’t tell anyone. She promises.

They have , rough . She has toys and she wants him to use them. So he does. He does what she asks of him and finds that he likes it. He likes being in control. He likes the gag that stretches her lips, making it easy to , he likes the that makes her more than once, even while he’s seated deep within her. He likes to tie her up, to whip her. He even enjoys slapping her as he s her .

Lee Joon figures that maybe he really does like . Maybe just a little bit. When they’re done and he sees her off, he smiles a little to himself. Over the next couple of weeks Lee Joon s any girl who is willing to have with him. It’s Saturday when he decides that there’s a lot more to experience, so when he ventures down to a gay bar in Itaewon, dressed up so he won’t be recognized, it’s to find himself a dude that is willing to be ed. He does find one, they’re not difficult to find if he has to be honest and he promises not to say a word.

As of now, Lee Joon no longer cares for his image but he still makes sure they promise. He s the man on his bed, his enjoying the warmth and the intensity. When the other man cums as well, Lee Joon smiles and kicks him out the dorm. The other members talk, they wonder. They hear him at night in the company of another voice and they ask themselves when he became so ual. Lee Joon doesn’t know.

He might never have thought of himself as a very ual man, but now that he’s been having so much , he kind of needs to change that thought.

Sleep problems

The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets.

- Poppy Z. Brite

Lee Joon knows that there isn’t going to be a regular sleep schedule from the day he signs his contract.

There is no South Korean idol that sleeps regularly. But at the time being, he doesn’t mind. It only begins to bug him, when his sleep schedule suddenly becomes too irregular. When he can’t sleep at night but is never without energy or when he sleeps so much but still stays tired. He asks G.O. about it once. G.O. says it’s possible to sleep too much, so Lee Joon tries hard to create a normal sleep pattern. It doesn’t work. While his mind is working hard to fight back thoughts of helplessness and worthlessness, he tries to wake up and not fall asleep one hour later. He drinks one cup of coffee after another. He tries other caffeine drinks but nothing works to freshen him up, he’s just as tired. In the end he goes back to sleep.

He knows they’re worried because he never tends to sleep this much, but there is no way he can stay awake. They’re talking about diseases, what if he’s ill? But he isn’t, he’s just a little bit tired. They even drag him to the hospital, wants them to check on his physical health and the doctor concludes the same – there’s nothing wrong. Lee Joon almost wants to laugh at their pathetic tries, but it would seem rude, so he doesn’t. He just continues sleeping. At other points in his life, he can’t sleep. Sleep never comes.

He hears the clock ticking away, tick tock, tick tock, but no sleep. He sees the 1 am become 2 am and the 2 am become 3 am. He stays awake for hours, sleeps a maximum of two, but never tires. He lies in bed, moving limps in a pathetic way in a try of burning energy. He even, at one point, runs 3 miles at 4 am to burn off excess energy, but it just doesn’t work. There is always more energy. His band members worry, but they’re not even aware of how little sleep he has been getting. They only know of his excess energy and the fact that he goes to sleep late. He reads boring books, mind you, he even learnt roman history while staying awake one night, but it doesn’t help.

He asks Mir what to do and Mir jokes and says he should do some farming. Lee Joon knows it’s a joke but he does so anyway, desperate to get at least a little sleep. It’s not that he’s about to die without sleep. Of course it’s not a very healthy sleep schedule but without tiring he can also work without many hours of sleep and that is definitely a plus to his irregular sleep schedule.

He does go farming with Mir, though. They do a lot of physical work and Mir sleeps soundly on their way to the dorm. Lee Joon, however, does not. His leg is bouncing up and down in a nervous pace, and although his body is sore, his mind is racing. There is no way he is getting any sleep tonight either. Lee Joon visits the hospital this time on his own to get some sleeping pills. The only thing about sleeping pills are that they is strong, very strong. Which means he is completely knocked out for 8 hours and there is simply no way to wake him up.

He doesn’t talk to the members about his sleeping pills. Doesn’t want them to know of the trouble he’s having with sleep and most certainly doesn’t want them to feel sorry for him. Despite everything, he can take care of himself. His manager knows though. Because he needs to tell someone that whenever he does sleep there’s no waking him up. He doesn’t sleep a lot even with the pills because he forgets them most of the time.

Lee Joon is very much aware of the fact that he is an idol and that idols doesn’t have regular sleep schedules. But he wonders whether or not his is too irregular.

Flight of ideas

My mind is always racing, and always going and always working and it’s a gift and a curse.

Sean Combs

Lee Joon is positive he’s even more 4D than Lee Hongki and Kim Heechul. Maybe even more 4D than the two of them combined.

It’s not like it’s a title he’s particularly proud of, it’s just who he is. He finds himself with new ideas a lot and he doesn’t even wonder anymore when he gets a new one, a better one. He’s not worried when his thoughts seem to wander to places he never even thought of. He just lets them because after all they’re not going to hurt anyone. He never speaks to anyone about them because who cares whether or not his thoughts wander, whether or not he speaks them aloud or not. He doesn’t want to worry anybody either, if that is even a reason to worry in the first place.

They have stopped talking as well and Lee Joon enjoys the silence around him, when there’s so so loud in his head, in his mind. He doesn’t think it’s wrong either because people must have been thinking a lot, just like him.

He thinks of philosophers who, with their mind, created ideas of the world, unknown to them and wonders if he would be able to do the same.

He thinks of doctors who learns about the human body and continuously learns as if the body is ever changing and there isn’t a solution to most diseases. Maybe the body is ever changing, now that he thinks about it. Maybe he just doesn’t know enough and maybe – maybe the entire humanity just don’t know everything. Maybe there were aliens somewhere out there, looking down on them, laughing as they confused created new tools to stay alive – or to eventually kill themselves. Maybe they really are killing the earth and maybe that’s why the aliens isn’t coming down to meet them, to say hello. Maybe they hide on asteroids far far away, in galaxies humanity has yet to find. Maybe their spaceships looks nothing like what humans have in mind. Maybe humans are just way to preposterous when they think of spaceships. Maybe rockets are a really stupid way to reach space and maybe that’s why they haven’t reached more of space. Maybe dinosaurs are living on Saturn because who knows?

What if they never died but got transported to somewhere else. To save humanity from monster-looking animals, big enough to squash a human with one step. But who would save humanity when in reality humanity is stupid enough to ruin the earth with weird gasses, Lee Joon can’t remember the name of. It all boils down to nothing, but then it starts again. What if, what if, what if?

He doesn’t know how Hello Kitty became a murderer or how dinosaurs became buildings but they do and he lets it happen because it’s not hurting anyone (except Hello Kitty on a murder spree but that is only in his mind anyway). He knows they question his sanity once in a while and he is just happy they are not able to read his mind. What if they are though? Maybe that’s the reason they think of him as insane. Is he really insane? Isn’t insane people supposed to be locked up in a mental asylum? One of those creepy old black castles nowhere in particular with graveyards and weird looking angel statues. Where experiments happen in the basement in the darkness of the night, where horrific screams are heard and where ghosts wander. Maybe there’s werewolves too, created by a mad scientist in the basement. He’s almost positive that if there’s werewolves there will be vampires too. Bats flying around looking for victims, biting into their necks of their unknowing victims.

He wonders what it would be like to be a vampire. Would he be scarred by the sun or would he be one of those glittering, ridiculous vampires he read about once? He shrugs at the thought and hopes he could be the next Dracula, because Dracula is pretty awesome. Dracula was royalty, right? A count is some kind of royalty as well. But Lee Joon doesn’t want to be count Joon, no, he wants to be king Joon. Being a king would definitely be the best for him. He smiles at the thought and shakes his head when Thunder asks what he’s thinking off.

Lee Joon may be more 4D than Lee Hongki and Kim Heechul combined, but now he’s pretty sure he likes the title. If anything, he can always be king Joon, vampire and werewolf with a Hello Kitty murderer under his command.

Bipolar disorder

Lee Joon hears them when they tell him that he’s sick. He disagrees. It does explain his behavior, his mood shifts and everything he’s been dealing with, but he disagrees. He can’t be sick. It doesn’t happen. It feels like crumbling his entire world when he gets the diagnosis and although he knows that there is medication, he also knows that there is no way he can continue his life. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. Why would he do that?

He gets his medication and the first week goes by fine. The agency states his disease to the public but it causes no scandal. It’s just who he is. Sick. Mentally ill. Psychologically disabled. Nothing but a patient in the eyes of the health care system.

He hates it. He hates himself for the diagnosis although there’s nothing really he can do to change it. It happens two weeks later. It’s a simple idea, very easy to perform. It doesn’t takes a lot of thinking either because he knows that Seungho has a jumping rope somewhere inside his room. Lee Joon searches through everything for the rope and when he finds it, it only pleases him to see that it’s an actual rope and not some rubber-thing that would probably break under his weight. Or maybe rubber would have been doing an efficient job. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care.

He smiles a little, when he drags a chair from the kitchen into the living room and ties a knot around a hook in the ceiling. He doesn’t know why there’s a hook in the ceiling but he guesses the former owners of the dorm have been using it for something. He’s grateful it’s there though when he knots the loop and makes sure it’s strong enough. It has to work this time, he doesn’t want to have to try again.

When he steps down from the chair he ventures into the bathroom and wrestles another razor blade from the razor, the blade cutting his fingers and drawing blood in the process. He goes back to the living room, steps upon the chair again and makes sure there is no way his legs will be able to reach the floor and places his head inside the loop. He’s not sorry. Not even the least. He knows people usually feel remorse, but he feels nothing.

Lee Joon feels nothing when he slides his wrist from his hand, following the vein 8 cm’s up and sees the blood come rushing, coloring his arm and his hand red the same way it colors the floor and the chair on which he stands. He feels dizzy, the blood loss taking its toll on him and he trips, pushes the chair away in process and feels the rope tighten around his neck, constricting his airways. It doesn’t take long before the lack of air and the blood loss causes him to faint and it only takes 30 seconds from there before his life leaves him.

Lee Joon isn’t feeling anything and maybe this is what’s truly ideal.