hey self! can we talk about how hongjoong feels understood by mingi?
you know what, self? i've been waiting for you to ask. let's kiss i was thinking (while scrolling through some minjoong tags) again about hongjoong last night in the wake of the premiere of the no1 MV. while i clowned the fuck out of him (because i adore him so much), there is something so special about no1 that always gets to me. no1 is, as a song, the essence of hongjoong himself. the musicality of it-- it goes through several different genres and influences even in its original studio track, and then transforms every single time he performs it, literally taking inspiration from the people and cities and cultures around him. in the music video, we have another brand new remix, coupled with visual influences that bring yet another layer to the song-- and what is hongjoong if not someone who is constantly collecting inspiration from every corner of life he walks, constantly viewing the world through new lenses and colours, constantly bringing bits and pieces of those he loves and those who love him into his own work? and yet, at the same time-- as much as hongjoong is a patchwork quilt of all the things he loves, nothing without them-- the end result is hongjoong, and there is no one like him. and we love that. we celebrate that. we are so thankful for that-- including hongjoong himself, who finds that same gratefulness and celebration. it has allowed him to make a name for himself and for his band; it has taken him from some of the most unlikely circumstances and into heights most people would have not thought possible.
but.
there is also no one like hongjoong, is there? i've talked before about how hongjoong struggles (and this is where we are dipping into conjecture, folks, so just know we are walking into unverified meta territory and personality analysis that is mostly just me reading vibes from someone who i do not and will never know) with the way he feels, specifically the amount he feels. he is a very emotional person. i think there is sometimes this disconnect within the larger public image of hongjoong because he isn't physically affectionate, and therefore i don't think we credit his sensitivity enough. but dear god does hongjoong feel. too much, he maybe thinks sometimes. it translates into obsession-- those clips of him in the studio where it looks like he's about to tear his own hair out. frustration, anger-- we've heard the stories of tyrant joong. love he doesn't know what to do with and guilt for not figuring it out in a way that satisfies him. the boy who cries over making his mom feel bad, who cries about how much he loves his members in private, who writes songs about people who don't feel at home and cries when thinking of them even though he's found his home. and when you fundamentally believe about yourself that there is no one like you, it stands to reason that you may be disconnected from other people in the way that you can convince yourself no one understands what it is like to be you.
and that would be a nice little narrative to write yourself into if you didn't have, say, song mingi.
there's a clip i saw last night wherein hongjoong says to mingi that every member is different, but hongjoong and mingi are particularly different. at first, i read it as they were different from each other (and i would be interested to know, linguistically, if the words hongjoong uses in korean have an implication of that or the other way i'm about to discuss). but then hongjoong goes on to say that mingi will get angry with him for something he does, but ultimately understand why hongjoong does it. or that, if hongjoong doesn't understand mingi, mingi will get angry with him-- but then make the time and take the effort to adjust and get along with him. mingi's kinda silly about it in response-- "is this a compliment?"-- but hongjoong says, "you don't avoid it", and god does that get me. because i'm sure hongjoong has steamrolled those he loves a time or two. i'm SURE hongjoong has gotten too intense and not allowed room for interpretation. we have literal account of the members having to have an intervention for him and say you are taking this too far and him being like oh shit i did not realise that. his blinders get put on very easily. and when you're an intense person, and when that intensity can bloom into anger, it is sometimes easy for other people to nod their head and go along with you. mingi doesn't. mingi gets angry, and then they work it out anyway. mingi will get frustrated and think something hongjoong does is stupid, but he will take the time to understand why hongjoong is doing it. hongjoong will have his blinders on and stomp his feet about mingi, and mingi will take a deep breath and figure out how to guide him back to centre. it isn't lost on me that hongjoong maybe fears being misunderstood. and if fearing being misunderstood is a pain point for him, it stands to reason that he would greatly value someone who took the time to understand him-- and mingi, by his own account, does. there is no one like hongjoong, and hongjoong may never be able to figure out how to translate himself to other people, but mingi doesn't avoid it. mingi leans the fuck into it, despite discomfort and occasional anger, and stays through it. "stays through it", they say, knowing damn well this post is already too long. listen i'm almost done!!! because there was a time where mingi didn't stay through it. mingi had to take time for himself to take care of himself. he had to leave. he left hongjoong and the others behind, and while he needed to and there wasn't a question as to whether or not he should in the end, he left.
and in that time, we had hongjoong on stage talking about how thankful he was for mingi, even though he was gone and he missed him. when mingi returns, hongjoong says thank you for coming back. there is so much in the in-between we don't have the privilege of knowing, so much unspoken, but the result of mingi leaving still, to this day, haunts hongjoong, i think. i think this is evident in the way hongjoong talks about mingi's "gimmick"-- it's funny, to talk about how mingi will preen for a camera and put on a persona for variety shows, but mingi has also spoken about how he went into the debut period of their time as ATEEZ extremely confident only to immediately find himself flat on his ass and not as confident as he thought he was. isn't it interesting, then, hongjoong constantly and lovingly calling him out on a "gimmick" wherein he is overconfident and cool? and it's done so jokingly, so teasingly, but there's a truth in it-- hongjoong knows mingi all too well, because mingi left him. i think it's evident in the way that hongjoong is so comfortable with mingi, pushing past his own discomfort with certain things such as physical touch to give mingi the love he needs. i think it's evident in the way that hongjoong finds ways to show his love for mingi-- telling the members they can't send each other coffee trucks at every single solo schedule because it's excessive, and then sending mingi one for autobahn. i think it's evident in the way hongjoong gives mingi creative freedom, a studio of his own, lyrical control, production control, his own projects-- take this freedom but do not ever be free from me. and then, of course, it is most evident in an incident we got to bear witness to this august-- when no1 was not just about hongjoong, but about mingi. hongjoong not only brought mingi out (alone, before the rest of the members) during his solo set, which was what mingi had asked for and wanted, but he secretly licensed "happy birthday" and dedicated the song wherein he talks about how there is no one like kim hongjoong to song mingi. his favourite song, by the way-- and no, i'm not talking about no1. there is no one like kim hongjoong. but there is also no one like song mingi-- and i think hongjoong, every single day, feels like the luckiest man in the world that mingi came back to him. (come yap because i always got more shit to say and i'm insane)
