the ceiling is too close. a blank page pressed against my face. the road whirs a thin, raging song, a sound that usually lulls, but now just cuts.
my blood feels too hot, too thick. it’s not her. it’s never her. it’s the other one - the friend, the one whose laugh is a little too sharp, whose opinions are a little too loud. i just don’t like her. it’s a pure, simple and ugly fact.
and tonight she had her. hours of it. i can see them, a picture i paint with spite. leaning in close at some cafe table, sharing secrets that are probably trivial, but feel, in this darkness, like a betrayal. her listening to that voice, absorbing that energy, giving her time — her precious, limited time.
the thought is a physical thing. a cold, greasy stone in my gut. it turns over, and i turn with it, punching the pillow that offers no solace. it’s so stupid, so petty but the anger is a live wire under my skin, buzzing, looking for a ground.
it’s not even about the words they exchanged. it’s about the space she occupied. the air she breathed that was meant for better things. for me. the echo of her presence that now lingers in my mind. egoism? totally. stupidity? absolutely. jealousy? kinda.
and so i lie here. the quiet of the house is a mockery. everyone is asleep, dreaming simple dreams, while i am awake, poisoned by a petty, furious love, staring at a ceiling that has nothing to say.
the power of music lies in first listening. when you getting to know the song, it fills your entire body, your heart aches, and your chest feels so tight that you can't help but let out a choked breath. your temples throb, the intensity of the sound and lyrics leaves you unable to speak for a while. that’s what makes a song yours.
lee know exists with a kind of quiet certainty. he doesn’t always need to be the loudest in the room, and that in itself is a comfort. his stability isn’t loud or demanding; it’s in the consistency of his presence, the sharp focus in his eyes, the way he seems so sure of who he is. and fuck, i’m so jealous.
i see myself in the parts of him that others might call weird. his deadpan humor, his sudden, sharp comments, his unique way of showing affection that isn’t overly sweet. for a long time, i saw my own similar character as a flaw, something to be fixed or hidden. but watching him, i am slowly learning that acting weird and harsh is normal. it is just a way of being. he made a space for that kind of person to exist without apology, and in that space, i am finally trying to accept my own.
on stage, he is a different kind of truth. he shines not with a blinding, overwhelming light, but with a precise, captivating glow. his dancing is not just movement; it’s a language. i admire the sharpness, the control, the way his body translates music into something visual and powerful. in those moments, he is completely in his element, and it’s a breathtaking thing to witness.
he comforts me with a directness that feels more reassuring than any generic kindness. he says the truth. he tells you to eat well, to be healthy, to rest, not as a scolding but as a genuine, straightforward care. it feels like he is looking directly at the situation and stating a simple, solid fact. there is no filter, and in a world full of hypocrisy, that directness is its own form of reassurance.
he means that it’s okay to be too quiet or too loud. he means that it’s okay to be sharp and soft at the same time. he means that being yourself, in all your peculiar, specific glory, is not just acceptable, it is powerful. he is a quiet anchor and a brilliant, shining star, all at once.
sometimes i forget that i cannot swim and push myself to the edge, sacrificing everything i have left to keep myself on the water. why then it feels like drowning?
the war is not with her, but within the fortress of my own ribs. a civil war, silent and devastating, is tearing me apart at the seams. i am the battlefield, and i am the two armies locked in a static, grinding conflict. there is no ground gained, only the slow, inexorable erosion of my resolve.
my mind, the seat of this parliament, is in deadlock. i cannot decide. the vote is perpetually split, and the gavel falls on nothing but my own paralysis. the two motions on the floor are absolute, mutually exclusive, and each one an abomination.
i can betray myself. to take the core of what i am and surrender it for the peace of a lie. it is a quiet suicide, a slow poison i would drink from my own cup. or can betray her. to become the architect of a wound i can already see forming in my mind's eye. it is to wield the knife, to watch the light in her eyes fracture and know myself as the cause.
tonight, the pressure of the unsaid became a physical weight upon my tongue. i drew a breath, a key for the lock on my heart. the truth, raw and unvarnished, was a creature struggling to be born into the air between us.
and then, her voice, soft with sleep: "let's sleep now."
three words. a blanket thrown over a raging fire. they did not just silence me; they became masons. the already high walls of this unspoken conflict grew instantly, impossibly higher, their stones mortared with that gentle dismissal. the drawbridge slammed shut. the portcullis fell.
and i was left inside the newly fortified silence, abandoned with my three familiars: guilt, for the treason i contemplate. anger, hot and sharp, at the walls and the one who built them higher. and resentment, a cold, bitter sediment settling in the hollow of my throat, where my truth now chokes, forever unspoken.
회견자: if you choose one thing that you want to improve on, what will it be?
이민호: i want to learn to appreciate myself as a person. of course, it's not like something tangible - rather, i want to find something new in myself with each next step forward. recently, my friends and i had a little argument about the diet. it may be called a "diet," but by controlling your body and caring for it, you change not so much externally as internally. therefore, the goal was not to achieve a certain weight, but to get rid of body fat. i don't just want to have a body that looks cool, i want to be a person who can create himself.
회견자: it reminds me of the words you once said: "i'm not just my job, i want to keep somewhere inside a man named “lee minho”."
이민호: people may be upset by such words, but i have to be in my first place, and every day in the industry i am becoming more convinced of this. after all, if i break down like “lee know”, what will be left of me? “stay” occupy a special place in my life. but that doesn't mean that i separate “minho” and “lee know” as two different personalities, no, i just think it's necessary to clarify that before being lee know, i'm minho first. and in order to find that balance, lee minho should be the one who is satisfied with this job. and, fortunately, i don't need to change for that — i'm more than happy with it.
회견자: i can sense that you're not the type to open up easily. you seem to have a clear, reasonable line in everything you do.
이민호: yes, there is such a thing. i'm often told that it makes me seem cold, but am i really like that? i think people who are in my close social circle and those who are not see me in completely different ways. this does not mean that i am closed off in communication with others, i just try to say only what i am sure of what does not exceed anyone's boundaries.
회견자: how do you communicate with the people you want to get closer to?
이민호: i haven't been trying to make new friends lately. i always have the band members and my loved ones by my side. if i suddenly feel sad or want to go out for a drink, there are really quite a lot of names in my contacts to call someone. and that's enough for me.
회견자: none of the questions that i asked were left without a clear and unambiguous answer. is this your innate quality?
이민호: i'm just trying to make life easier. i hate it when you do something during the day that you regret and think about endlessly, kicking the blanket at night, which is why i have a principle: to do everything so that such situations do not arise.
회견자: in a sense, this can be called stubbornness. is there anything you can never compromise on?
이민호: in the escape. if i give up, i'll never get rid of the feeling of regret. i try to use at least three attempts, no matter what they are or what is their purpose. if there's anything innate in, it's my attitude — the desire to make an effort.
lee know × gucci × harper’s bazaar korea interview
it’s quiet here, in this space we’ve made. i trace the lines of our life together and it feels solid, good. but sometimes my own thoughts get so loud.
i find myself folding my ambitions into smaller and smaller shapes, tucking them away in drawers where they won’t be seen. i change the words before they leave my mouth, editing out the parts i know wouldn’t fit neatly into our picture. it’s not that you ask me to, not directly. it’s the fear of the subtle shift in the air, the quiet disappointment that would follow if i was fully, entirely me.
so i press down on the parts of myself that want to wander, that want to chase a different kind of light. and i tell myself it’s a fair trade. this happiness for that dream. this comfort for that unknown.
but sometimes, in the stillness, i can feel the weight of all those folded-up dreams. it’s a dull, constant pressure, like i’m slowly being pressed into a shape i wasn’t meant to hold. and i wonder if the person you love is just the quiet, manageable version i’ve learned to be.
i would never risk this. i would never shake this foundation. so i just keep folding, and the quiet in here gets a little bit heavier.
you want to know why i was sharp with you? why my words were like a slamming door? you stand there, in your quiet, tidy completeness, and you judge the splinter. you never think of the hammer.
you ask for calm, for reason, as if my tempers are a switch i refuse to flip. you have no idea. the feeling comes — a hot, formless thing — and i have no room for it. so i force it down. i build a cellar inside myself, and in that damp, airless dark, i store every slight, every panic, every unshed tear. i stack them like cordwood, these emotions you would find so inconvenient. i am a curator of silence, an archivist of hurt. and you, you are a visitor who complains about the dust on the shelves.
this rudeness you so despise? it is not the attack you think it is — a structural failure. it is the groan of a beam holding up a weight it was never meant to carry. a single, careless word from you—the final, feather-light straw—and the whole rotten structure gives way. what you call my 'outburst' is merely the rubble. you see the explosion and blame the dynamite, never the years of pressure compacting it.
and this self you present to me, this finished portrait of patience and understanding — do you think i don’t see the cracks you’ve painted over? do you think your own composure isn’t a performance? the difference is, you have the space for it. your soul has closets and attics and rooms you can lock. i feel i was born without walls, a constant, raw nerve exposed to the weather of the world. my incompleteness is a chasm i am always trying to fill with this same silence, and it is a bottomless thing. it swallows everything, and gives back nothing but this hollow, aching echo.
so when i am short with you, when my voice is a blade, keep in mind: it is not you i am trying to cut, but the ropes that bind this chaos inside me. it is a frantic, failed surgery on my own spirit, while you are standing there with your bandages and your disapproving eyes, wondering why i don't just will the wound closed.
the hardest part is not the storm inside. it is your insistence on sunshine. it is your deafness to the thunder, your blindness to the flood, and your utter, infuriating conviction that my drowning is a choice.
🐺: when I'm not even paying attention, he’ll suddenly show affection. just hitting me with it put of nowhere, and i don’t know… i don’t know why i’m like this but i end up falling for it. and then i’m like: “wait, what’s this?”, and i get flustered again. he’s exactly like a cat. he hates it when you give him attention but comes over when you don’t.
