BTS: Beyond the Story

And What about You Guys?

The more you look back on BTS’s preparation for their debut, the more
surprising it is that none of them quit in the process, despite being seven
boys from different hometowns and with different values, musical tastes,
and time spent in training, coming together to train in less than a year for
their debut as a team.
j-hope has some candid thoughts regarding this:
______We didn’t fuse together well at first. Our backgrounds were just so
different, and we wanted different things. One would go, “I want to
become a musician,” and another would be like, “I just like being
onstage.” It was hard to calibrate our sense of objectives toward a
single goal.
But ironically, their debut as BTS being decided also became a decisive
factor in their becoming closer to each other. V remembers:
______While I argued a lot with Jimin, who is my age, and with the other
members as well, we worked together so much and talked with each
other so much that little by little, we really did feel we were
becoming a team.
RM making his hip-hop playlists and j-hope teaching dance were acts
stemming from their desperation for their debut. Of how this goal affected
them, j-hope explains:______The moment it was decided the seven of us would debut as a group,
that’s when our concept as a group fell into place. We knew what we
needed to do, what kind of dance and songs we would do. And we
talked among ourselves a lot. “We have, I have this goal. What
about you guys? Shall we do this together?” That kind of thing.
Their cohesiveness went beyond sincere conversations, spilling over to
every aspect of their lives. V says he became closer to the other members
through commonalities in their daily lives:
______We all needed to be on diets, but me and RM weren’t very good at
it. And since being of “kindred spirit” is serious business, RM and I
would often go off to eat something nice together. Or hide things to
eat and secretly share them with each other …
V’s team-building methods were also handy when it came to the
younger members.
________I would sneak outside the dorm with Jimin and we’d eat together
and talk together. Or go to the jjimjilbang spa with Jung Kook or
ride sleds when it snowed. And then pretend nothing had happened
when the manager would check up on us at the dorm (laughs).
Meanwhile, Jin got closer to V by looking for things they had in
common.
______By the time V and later Jimin entered the company, all the trainees I
had been close to had left. Except for about ten who were thought to
have potential … I thought it would be too sad if more trainees left,
which made me wonder a lot if I should make the effort to get
closer. But V liked old manhwa and anime, just like me. So I would
go up to him and go, “Hey, have you seen this one?” and that’s how
we became friends.
RM and SUGA taught the members hip-hop, j-hope taught dance, and
Jin used whatever ingredients available in the dorm to cook up meals for
everyone. In this process, the older members began to understand the young
members and the younger members learned from the older ones.
Jim speaks of the musical influences and encouragement he received
from the other members:____The hyungs felt very “raw” to me. The way they were like, “I just
like listening to music,” so unpretentiously. SUGA is a bit stoic and would
say things simply and firmly, but then he would also come up to me and say
things like, “I hope you work hard and do well…” I couldn’t not like the
hyungs, and that’s how I became interested in their music.
SUGA, on the other hand, was learning how to communicate with the
world through his conversations with the other members.
The moment it was decided the seven of us would debut as a group,
that’s when our concept as a group fell into place.
And we talked among ourselves a lot.
“We have, I have this goal. What about you guys? Shall we do this
together?” That kind of thing.
—j-hope
________It was really hard to respect the fact that we were all different
people. I used to be very extreme and trapped in a black-and-white
mindset. My immature mind would think, ‘Why is he thinking that
way? Shouldn’t a normal human being think this way?’ And
eventually I went beyond thinking, ‘That guy is different from me,’
to accepting, ‘That person is just being themselves.’ It did take a bit
of time.
The answer to the question of why none of the members of BTS quit
during that time may be found in the words of some of the members.
Jin sums up the situation back then:
______“Adjusting” seems to be the right word. Because once I entered the
dorm, I realized, ‘Ah, I guess this is how I should live from now
on.’
SUGA speaks of his pride as a musician:
______If it weren’t for the music, maybe I would’ve quit partway through?
Or if it had been at some other company with a different culture? I
released a lot of things in me making music. I don’t know how I had
so much confidence back then, making all those songs. A lot of them I get embarrassed about, listening to them now. But the people
who are obsessed with hip-hop, they have this attitude, ‘I’m the best
in the world!’ you know? (laughs).
And of course, we need to hear from the leader of the team:
______The members were just good people. Very good people …
RM continues:
______The only thing I know how to do is music. I came into this company
to make music, and because I believed my work was fundamentally
to make music. And because I’ve been here the longest, I did have
the most say in things. To be honest, this made it much easier for me
as the leader. And I received so much respect from the other
members. It makes me think they’ve been very good with
recognizing and accepting each other. They really treated me well.
The long time it took for them to debut was well spent in training and
building their trust in each other through much conversation and exchange.
And so, the seven members who had differed in every way began to
transform into a team, just like in the lyrics of the song “Paldo Gangsan,”
revealed four months after their debut, in the videof taken in that very
practice studio where they had sung and danced so ceaselessly.

In the end it’s all Korean
Look above, it’s the same sky we face
It could be a big cringey, but we’re the best
We understand each other, right?