IQ148 // namjoon ✔️

__JANUARY__

January ; 2017

[VLIVE] RM's Hello 2017!

NamJoon holds the camera up just enough to reveal his face. He adjusts the fur hat wrapped around his head as he lays back on the giant black leather bean bag in his studio.

"Now, there's a song that I released recently called "Always". When I was going through a hard time, I didn't want to just let those feelings pass, so I made a record of them, but thankfully I'm feeling a lot better now!"

He talks directly to the camera: directly to millions of his fans watching him talk about the recently released song through their phone screens. Although he can't see it, they're all hanging onto every syllable he says with weight.

"Even though I knew that many of our fans would feel sad, I still decided to release it. And the reason for that is..."

NamJoon trails off mid-sentence and hums in thought. His thoughts are all jumbled around in his head. It would have been easier to think over what he wants to say before live streaming instead of doing a stream of consciousness ramble. While he collects his thoughts, he tries some of the face filters suggested by VLIVE. He changes his cat ears and whiskers to a filter of cheek hearts that rest just above his dimples.

"To be honest, the reason for that is... because I'm not in that state anymore, so I can release it. I'm no longer in that state like in the lyrics. Originally when I wrote that song, I didn't plan to release it. I thought the mental state expressed in the lyrics would persist."

The fur of his hat is making his head itch. He scratches his forehead under the front of his hat and turns off the heart filter.

"Well... Something like that..."

NamJoon flashes a crooked smile to the camera and laughs to himself at his own awkwardness.

"I would sort of blame others... For example— Well, maybe not blame others, but sort of blame the world..."

He stumbles over his words; his thoughts are racing  faster than his words.

"I thought "Would this state continue to last? Would blaming the world make me get better?", so I intended not to release it. Although I thought I'd probably never release this since I felt that state wouldn't change, I insisted on releasing the song. But I released it now as I'm no longer in that state written in the lyrics."

He can't help but express his words with his free hand that's not holding up the camera.

"It would be a bit of a shame to just let the song go because the emotions have passed, so I'm sharing it."

His hat has shifted over his head to cover his eyes. He adjusts the hat and pulls it back away from his face.

"The lyrics aren't relevant to how I feel anymore. And so I know that many of our fans were sad, but for me, by releasing this song..."

He points to himself. He points at his chest.

"Perhaps I could call it a goodbye to myself. That song is a good-bye to the sorrowful me of that time. A goodbye to my sad, past self in 2016 or 2015."

He glances away from the glare of the camera.

"Yeah, something like that..."

NamJoon sits up and moves his position on the bean bag to be more comfortable.

"I planned to work on it a bit more and edit it, but I decided to just leave it as it was in order to preserve the feeling from that time. Also because when you're sad, a sad song can be the biggest comfort."