KWON TAEHYUK

Kwon Taehyuk — 27 years old, Rapper.

To. My beloved.

This is my first time writing a handwritten letter, so I'm quite clumsy. Please be understanding... and I hope you read it kindly. My heart is sincere.

In my childhood, I lived through a time when I had to be afraid of the person I loved.

My father was originally a kind man. He would buy the snacks I liked on his way home from work, take me to the park on weekends, and he was such a good person that I even remember the touch of him stroking my hair before I fell asleep. As a child, my father was my hero. But once he got drunk, my hero turned into a villain. His kind voice became harsh, he got angry over trivial things, and sometimes he wielded violence that was hard for a young child to handle.

What hurt more was the next day. My father would smile as if nothing had happened, say he was sorry, stroke my head with the same hand that had been violent the day before, and buy me my favorite food. I liked that touch, yet I was afraid of it. Paradoxically. I don't want to hate my father, but perhaps I learned from then that loving someone could be this painful.

At night, I would lock myself in my room, put on earphones, and turn the music up loud. If I did that, the outside noises became a bit quieter. In the songs where no one was angry at me and no one was looking for me, I could finally breathe freely. I filled old notebooks with sentences that looked like lyrics. I wrote down the words I couldn't say to anyone. That I was okay, that I wasn't scared, that I would leave this house someday and be happy. Even though that little kid wasn't okay at all.

I think that's why I started music. I didn't have a grand dream from the start; I just needed a place to run away to. For the cheesy reason that if my song ever reached someone, I wanted them to know that at least a lonely person like me wasn't alone.

Since it was my first dream, I really wanted to achieve it. So I watched free rap lessons on YouTube whenever I could and frantically appeared on various audition programs and hip-hop competitions. I made it to the finals every time and took runner-up several times. People praised my skills, but what they actually remembered were the songs I made. My lyrics were sung by other people's voices, and my music was loved, but my name was always behind them. Every time I came down from the stage, I offered congratulations with a smile, but in the car going home, I didn't say anything for a long time. It would be more accurate to say I couldn't. I felt like, after all that effort, why did I always have to be someone's second best?

Then one day, I wrote a song as if pouring out all the emotions I had been holding back. The title was 'Life Is'. It's a song that contains everything from childhood memories to inferiority, loneliness, and the feelings I couldn't tell anyone. I don't know how many times I stopped my hand while writing the lyrics. While I didn't want to show this song to anyone, it's also the song of my life that I desperately wanted someone to hear.

That song I wrote so desperately became a huge hit.

#1 on the music charts, explosive public response, and the first male rapper to enter the Billboard charts. My name was in the articles, people called me a genius, and after staring at the screen for a long time, I finally cried. It was the success I had longed for, so I could do good things for my parents, repay the people who believed in me, and my heart was full thinking that I had finally achieved something. I believed that maybe now I could be happy.

But people were only curious about how high I had climbed; no one asked how exhausted I was getting there. It seems the saying that results are more important than the process is true after all.

Once I succeeded, I had to show something even greater next time. My parents were proud of me, fans were waiting for a new masterpiece, and people around me said that of course Kwon Taehyuk would pull it off... It's not that I hated those expectations. Rather, I was grateful for the people who believed in me. Maybe that's why I was more afraid. What if I fail again... What if no one remembers my name like before... With all those cluttered thoughts, I pushed myself again so as not to disappoint anyone.

Even when I sat in the studio, no lyrics came to mind, and I would spend hours staring at a blank score and a turned-off monitor. The music that once made me live was now suffocating me. I was used to smiling in front of people, but the reason I wanted to smile had long since vanished. Sometimes I thought of my childhood self. Would the child who wanted to be so famous be happy seeing me now? I have the success I longed for in my hands, so why am I still not happy..

While letting weeks slip by like that, I attended the Starry Night festival I was invited to. I didn't have any particular expectations. Just a typical life, talking moderately with people in the VIP lounge.

In that moment, the girl group you were in, MELTIS, took the stage, and you caught my eye.

The first moment I saw you, strangely, it felt like my breath stopped. Your brightly smiling face, the way you looked at each and every audience member, the expression of someone completely enjoying the music. That person looked truly happy. Like someone who smiles because they love the moment itself, not to show off to someone else.

I watched you for a long time.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to me.

Have I ever smiled like that?

In my childhood, I couldn't cry because I was scared; when I failed in competitions, I couldn't cry because I was in front of others; and after succeeding, I couldn't cry because I thought I had to be a strong person. At some point, even crying felt like a luxury. But looking at you, strangely, a corner of my heart began to ache. It felt like I had rediscovered something I had lost a long time ago.

Since that day, I think I've only thought about you. What kind of food you like, what you do on your days off, if you still smile that brightly after the stage ends... I smiled thinking of you even at trivial things, and I waited for your name to pop up on my phone.

It was only you, to the point where I wondered if love originally made people such fools.

All my life, I've lived proving something to be loved. I had to do better, I had to become more famous, I had to be a greater person than anyone else, and I felt like only then would no one leave me. But in front of you, none of those things felt important anymore.

I hoped that to you, it would be okay if I wasn't the famous rapper Kwon Taehyuk. I prayed to the heavens that you would look at me without the flashy stage or the title of Billboard #1. At that time, I believed in all sorts of religions I never believed in before.

To you, I want to be someone who isn't awkward even when sitting silently by your side, someone you think of first on a hard day. I want to be that kind of person.

I'm still someone who doesn't really know how to be loved. I'm a coward who gets suspicious of someone's kindness for no reason and gets scared of giving my heart. Still, I want to learn from you bit by bit. That liking someone doesn't necessarily have to be painful.

I've made songs to be heard by countless people all my life, but in reality, there's no one to listen to my story. I even have the selfish thought that I want the person listening to my story to be you..

After meeting you, I thought this for the first time.

Maybe it's okay for me to be a little happy in this life.

If it's a place where you are, I want to live again.

So, I'll work hard even if I'm a bit clumsy, so please welcome me with a bright smile just once.

From. Kwon Taehyuk