#twenty-three

THE FUCK

is this

The dress code for the CHAT-SHOW was ‘flower’ as flipping the number 2 to look like an ‘S’ and adding a ‘3′ to it looked like a flower. The title of the event was also ‘A Bunch of Twenty-three′

“Just writing the number 23, it looks like flower petals. Doesn’t it? Am I the only one that thinks so? It’s in the lyrics for ‘Twenty-three’ too. It goes like ‘a bunch of twenty-three~’. I think the age of 23 is just like a flower.”

“I’m in a really good mood right now. More people are listening to my songs than I thought and I tell them that too. My songs are doing really well. Am I being arrogant right now? It’s the first album I’ve done producing for, so the sense of responsibility I have for it is really different from before. I searched it up at 1am and was like, oh, I made it! I was really thankful. Really, I thought to myself that I have to live as a good person from now on (I guess she means for good karma). I’m being really excited right now, isn’t it?”

“I wrote all the lyrics. There were a lot of things I wanted to say. Also, the topics were not light ones. These are songs that contain some of my serious concerns. Originally I thought of having an ordinary album title like ‘People’. Or ‘Purple’ as an extension from ‘People’. I didn’t want to make it sound so serious for everyone. That’s why I put a layer of protective film on the album title. ‘These are not serious words, but just my idle talk (which is where the ‘CHAT’ in CHAT-SHIRE comes from).’ Like this.”

The title song ‘Twenty-three’ is inspired by the cheshire cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. When Alice gets lost, the cheshire cat appears in front of her and she asks, ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ to which the cheshire cat replies, ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

"I don’t know what’s real, really. An article about me appears on a web portal. On some days, it puts me in a good mood? Uwah, I’m just staying at home, but there’s an article on me? But on some days I think to myself that I just want to hide somewhere. I don’t know for sure what I really want and all I have are short moments. Is it like that for you guys too?”

IU sang ‘Zeze’ for a fan with relationship issues. It’s a song that uses the motif of the main character, Zeze, from ‘My Sweet Orange Tree’, which is about an angelic boy with a gentle heart who is at the same time a devil and incorrigible.

“It’s the most fun song I’ve written. I thought Zeze’s temper was sexy. Despite his two sides, I was supporting Zeze and fell in love with him as I read the novel. I become the Minguinho (tree) and the song contains my message for Zeze. I left a lot of things open to interpretation as I was writing this song, so if you read the lyrics, you’ll find it quite interesting.”

To a fan with family issues, IU said, “I hope you know that you’re being really cool” and sang ‘Red Queen’ to the fan as a gift. This is a song about the Red Queen in ‘Through the Looking Glass’. A woman everyone hates, a story about a time she was pretty. IU got her inspiration from a picture that f(x)’s Sulli drew.

"I went to Sulli’s house to play, saw the picture and thought of the Red Queen so I wrote this song. ‘That woman’ is mentioned a lot in the lyrics, but to everyone a different person would probably come to mind. Although I called her a ‘woman’, you can think of the person as a man too. Actually the lyrics to this song are rather bitter. So I tried to sing it as cunningly as possible. In order for my voice to sound cunning in talking about that woman, people listening to the song might find the woman quite poor thing and take her side. Did I manage to pull off the cunningness well?”

To a fan troubled about career and aspirations, IU sang ‘Knee’. This song was written on a sleepless night because of how much doubt she felt about herself and she missed the times when she lay in her grandmother’s lap and could sleep without any worries.

"I feel the same way. I’m 23 now, but why have I not adapted to life yet? Spending each day clumsily like an amateur. ‘Knee’ is song I love the most on the album. I think it’s the first time I almost felt like crying while recording. I was feeling so sad that I couldn’t take it.”

IU won’t be promoting this album. From November onwards she’ll start her nationwide concert tour. “This year, I was involved in all kinds of activities. Other than for my concert, I think I’ve spent all the rest of my energy. I wouldn’t want the emotions I felt while producing this album to mix with those while doing broadcasts. I just want to end on a happy note. That’s what I wish for.”

Sad to part with the fans, she said she would create such opportunities for them again. IU went down from the stage and took a group photo with the audience and promised to post it on her Instagram.

“I’ve got to go and work now. Today was really fun. It’s such a pity, I find it a pity too. Two of my ex-classmates are here. You guys are my true friends. I really really had fun and thank you for coming. Get home safely. It’s a burning Friday, so go have fun somewhere. Don’t just go straight home. Annyeong~”

Source: Newsis

Crane was all too cautious.

Almost at a snail pace. Every instinct in him, even the beast, ushered him to leave. But he swallowed his fear and tailed after the spirited woman inside.

The monsters, the brethren that would have welcomed the feral side of him with open arms, had scattered off. A few stragglers stayed, maybe once the previous visitors of the stadium.

One got in Jack’s way. But she gave it the boot. The brunette was on a mission, too engrossed to get to her goal.

“I knew it’d be terrible inside but I didn’t think it’d get this bad,” Jack exclaimed. She picked up a fallen signboard and placed it upright to read a poster. Torn, but she could make out the event’s title. “Unfortunate.”

“That’s what happens when you have a pandemic.”

“You should have seen this place back in the days. They held judo tournaments yearly.” 

Jack then glanced to one large lobby.

“You know.” She pointed two fingers in that direction. “There used to be this tacky piece of 'modern art' in this foyer.” And off she went, at the beat of her drum. “Guess they removed it.”

“Jack.” Again, that fell on deaf ears. Crane grimaced at this sudden persistence - like trying to keep track of a child in a mall. Which had a few infected still present but that was beside the point. 

He might as well entertain the idea. Whatever Jack’s goal was, it couldn’t be bad. Questionable, but nothing over the top.

“Ah. Here we are.” Crane’s feet froze up at the sudden familiarity he found himself looking at the hall Jack wandered into. He had gone down this way last night, didn’t he?

The section they came across was small - the architecture structured for any visitor to see it right after the main entrance and before the sports halls. Pedestals had been smashed down and its contents either stolen or broken on the floor. One wall depicted a record of history about the Sports Palace before another showed gold-plated nameplates. Some fallen off, some ruined by humidity and others gone missing. 

“The Hall of Fame.” Jack particularly danced her way over the broken glass before turning back to the stunned Hunter. 

Didn’t look like a hall of fame, Crane thought to himself.

“Ok,” she suddenly said it as if being caught in a white lie before Crane could call her out. “It’s not really. Just a fancy place to advertise the athletes. Everyone else calls it that.”

Despite her smile, he could tell it had weathered down like the pictures on the wall. 

“Everything’s sodding wet though... I believe Romola’s trophy was on this pedestal.”

The glass had been smashed down, the very item inside stolen. And above it was the poster of that said boxer. The face ripped off from a man in a frozen pose, his boxing gloves ready to punch upwards. No idea who he was since Crane never had an interest on the kickboxing world to begin with. And no doubt, that same man was either dead or out of the country when this happened.

“This hall still has its charm. The best people have their names put up here,” Jack continued to sell. “And if they’re real good, their posters stay up. Like this one.”