As an exercise in rediscovery, every other Friday we will place a single ATEEZ track under the microscope to explore its deeper meanings, both to ATEEZ's discography and universe and to ourselves.
This is the story of a turtle.
The King
Release Date: May 25, 2022
Album: BEYOND : ZERO
Lyrics: EDEN, Ollounder, LEEZ, Neko, Dewaine, MOON, 첼비 (HLB), Kim Hongjoong, Song Mingi
Composition & Arrangement: EDEN, Ollounder, LEEZ, Neko, Dewaine
Japanese Lyrics: Chihiro Tamaki
But first, I need you to walk back in time with me to college. I was a performance major–acting, storytelling, public speaking, etc.-- in addition to majoring in English. One year, my school decided that every performance major was required to attend an evening lecture given by an ENT on throat health. I remember just one, single thing from that lecture. The ENT warned us away from using decongestants and encouraged us instead to exercise when our noses were stuffy. Something to do with getting your blood flowing and whatever.
Outside of acting like I totally don’t despise a student or their parents when the situation calls for it, I haven’t used my performance skills all that much post-graduation. However, that ENT’s advice has stuck with me through the years. After my first couple years of teaching–during which I was sick like every other week it felt like–my immune system finally got it together and I stopped catching every single cold. Until the pandemic hit and I eventually caught a mild case of probably covid. This was the summer of 2022.
I was really struggling to sleep at the time because my nose would inevitably get completely stuffed. So, heeding the doctor’s advice from long ago, I would haul myself out of bed at all hours whenever I fully lost the ability to breathe and jog in place until my heart rate elevated and my nasal passages functioned as intended again. I would then collapse back into bed until the process needed to be repeated a few hours later. I found that midnight exercising was slightly more bearable if I was listening to some pep-in-your-step music. Since Beyond:Zero had come out pretty recently, The King became my jogging jam.
My illness faded away before too long. And then ATEEZ released The World Ep.1: Movement and then the Break the Wall tour was announced (feels like forever ago, but it was just last year) and then we entered the Season of OSTs and then I got to see ATEEZ twice in Atlanta–and in the midst of all that hubbub, I just didn’t listen to The King ever.
It wasn’t something I really noticed at the time. I was doing my new song every day in 2022 playlist and was discovering lots of songs and artists. Plus ATEEZ has so much music to listen to, so sometimes I just don’t realize that it’s been a minute since I’ve heard a specific track.
It happened on Christmas Eve. I was riding with my parents back from supper at my cousin’s house. They are die-hard Christmas music enthusiasts and I am. . . not. That far into the season, I was really over it, so I had pulled out my earbuds and was indulging in some ATEEZ, as one does sitting in the back of their parents’ car on Christmas Eve. We were merrily rolling along when The King came on.
And I felt. . . incorrect.
I felt uneasy. And upset. I felt a little sick. It was so weird and sudden that I wasn’t sure what the deal was. Until my playlist moved on to the Japanese version of Turbulence and I felt okay again. Maybe a little bit of a lingering queasiness. And it really puzzled me. Why on earth would The King in particular be making me feel sick? It bothered me for a bit until I remembered night after night of stuffy noses and midnight jogging. Somewhere along the way, my brain had started to associate The King with the misery of being sick and unable to breathe or sleep. There was a certain comfort in realizing that I had done this to myself but also a weird unsettled feeling that something in my world had gone terribly wrong.
You see, ATEEZ has always had a no-skip discography for me. And I mean truly no skip. Any ATEEZ song that comes on is the perfect ATEEZ song. I’m talking Japanese versions, remixes, alternate versions–I love them all. This doesn’t make me a better or truer Atiny–this just means that Eden-ary and I are speaking the same musical language and that I love ATEEZ so much as people that anything they release is automatically endeared to me in a way that other groups’ music isn’t. And that has always been a really happy place for me to be. A lovely little bubble where my faves never release anything disappointing.
But if one of their songs makes me physically ill–what then? What about my bubble? Will I cut a song out of my comprehensive ATEEZ playlist? Certainly not. I needed a better, weirder solution.
Enter Basco.
In addition to all the other nonsense I was up to in 2022, it was also the Year of Crochet for me. It started in January when I decided I HAD to have a big, dumb, colorful, striped sweater for the Beginning of the End concert. And so I crocheted one. And got addicted. I started making blankets and then moved on to other sweaters. I decided that I wanted to dive into amigurumi, so I asked for a book of patterns for Christmas.
One of the patterns in the book was for this adorable little sea turtle. And when I was pondering a way to recover my love of The King, somehow this amazing little moment of synthesis occurred and I had a life-changing realization. If I was going to reclaim The King, I needed to give it an unquestionably joyful association that would overtake the midnight jogging. So I decided: I would make a turtle, but I would make him a fierce Warrior King Turtle and The King would be his anthem.
And that is what I did.
He does not have a crown yet. But he doesn’t have time for crowns. He does, however, always have time to judge me. And I love him for it.
So now, whenever I hear The King, I think about a little turtle named Basco (if you’ve watched Lookism, you get it) who drinks too much iced Americanos but who also restored a little piece of my happiest place. And looked adorable while doing it.
Somewhere in this ridiculous story, there is a larger conversation to be had about the way we interact with art and the lengths we will go to preserve our relationships with the things we love. We could even, if we wanted, tackle a kpop stan’s favorite accusation: “you’re just forcing yourself to like your fave’s music!”
My answer: So what if I am?
I am not here to argue that The King is a good song (it is) and I am not here to argue that you have to love ATEEZ’s entire discography to be an Atiny (you don’t). Nor am I here to argue that negative associations can be overcome with a crocheted turtle (I mean–they might). I am not here to argue at all. I am just here to say that I did a thing that made me feel bad and to fix it I did a thing that gave me joy.
And at the center of it all, as usual, was ATEEZ.
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