In the brand film announcing their second mini album, I’LL LIKE YOU, the members of ILLIT introduce themselves in turn. WONHEE dreams of transforming into an eagle to soar freely above the clouds totally alone, while MOKA admits she envies the way cats get to live a carefree life at their own pace and still be showered with love. Set against a backdrop that blurs reality and fantasy, each member of the group shares stories in either Korean or Japanese—whichever they’re most comfortable with—that are as deeply personal as they are universal daydreams of other girls their age. What IROHA says in particular—about being “usually very quiet” but also “positive,” and how her “enemy is” her “weakness” that she “always want[s] to defeat”—epitomizes the typical modern teenage girl. The youngest in the group and right in the middle of her teens herself, IROHA is multidimensional: She may seem quiet and shy on the surface, but at her core, she’s a deep and thoughtful person. It’s a natural part of growing up during the teenage years as your identity takes shape that several different sides to your personality emerge and mix together, resulting in a major disparity between what people see on the outside and how you feel on the inside. These young girls mine that disparity and extract something meaningful from it: the potential to become anything and anyone you want and to decide what makes you unique—which directly ties back to ILLIT’s name and core identity, itself a combination of resolve (“I will,” “I’ll”) and a pronoun standing in for something unique (“it”).

In the chorus of the album’s first track, “I’ll Like You,” ILLIT repeatedly sings the words, “I’ll like you,” underscoring their determination to express their affection. The main melody is relatively simple, contrasting with the rich and multilayered music behind it. All might appear calm on the surface, but maybe it’s all there in a desperate effort to mask the pounding excitement inside, holding up a mirror to the way today’s teenage girls navigate their world by doing their best to maintain outward composure despite the tumultuous sea of emotions inside them. Even amid the chaotic conflict between societal expectations and personal identity, they keep themselves composed as a way to protect themselves. In that sense, the very idea of “daring” to put your emotions on display one way or another is extremely powerful in itself.

“Cherish (My Love),” the lead single, opens with the speaker drawing contrast between themselves and an omnipotent being: “Not even god can stop me.” The line signifies ILLIT’s commitment to focusing on the self. Because “my heart’s a precious thing,” they sing, it makes “this thrill” end up being “way more precious to me” than “your clueless feelings.” Similarly, the dance routine centers around MINJU and YUNAH, with the other members forming their backdrop, developing the narrative through a first-person perspective. As they continue to stand firm on putting yourself first by imploring the listener to “work with me here” in the chorus for the sake of the “thrill,” it ironically reflects how difficult that me-first position can be. Then there’s the inner voice that can’t be quieted when confronting others: “If I’m funny / Will you laugh? What will you do? / Are you gonna think I’m weird?” In the end, as the song fades out, so too does the fantasy of opening up about love as it instead retreats back into hiding deep in the heart. So by looking at how to approach others, “Cherish (My Love)” is another song ultimately focused on inner feelings.

“Cherish (My Love)” evokes the magical girl character archetype throughout its choreography. The moves they pull off in the chorus feel like a transformation sequence: twirling around in sync as one, shaking their hands and heads about nimbly, forming “magnetic hearts” with their thumbs and pinky fingers, then bringing their hands with outstretched thumbs and index fingers to their foreheads. These energetic gestures and dance moves from the waist up reflect the cute attempt at seriousness typical of the magical girl character. Though the ILLIT members say they’ll “give” their heart “to you” as the song fades out, the magical girl returns to reality with her secret held close at the same time. As magical girls act as a bridge between the real world and a world that makes surreal strength possible, they’re inherently complex characters emotionally. Their duality as appearing outwardly normal before transformation and the unique strength they carry inside them assigns them the burden of having to deal with the real-world problems of an average girl while concealing their true identity. The narrative underpinning the group’s album—one of striving to connect with the outside world through love while juggling complex emotions—is arguably both a new take on the magical girl tale as well as representation for a new kind of teenage girl through that tale.

From start to finish, I’LL LIKE YOU ultimately seems to show the ILLIT members openly expressing feelings of love, but their quirky approach to displaying those feelings actually highlights the way their inner conflict contrasts with those outward displays. Some days, liking someone is as irksome as if “a tiny Pimple / Out of nowhere one day / Popped up”—at times it even feels like “it invades my mind” and “keeps bothering me.” But, as “IYKYK (If You Know You Know)” demonstrates, love is complicated, including in the way that discovering “there’s more to you,” and that “only I can see” it, is as full of pure joy as a ray of “sunshine.” As the song’s title suggests, people who aren’t familiar with the feeling just won’t understand it, but it’s something that resonates with peers who have had the same experience of liking someone. In the closing track, “Tick-Tack,” ILLIT describes “see[ing] you from far away” as “an emergency,” scatting in a way that sounds like the tick-tack of a clock and symbolizing the mixed feelings deep inside of both wanting to show and to hide their feelings as a “noisy closet,” overwhelmed as they ask themselves, “Which version of me would you like?” In a world where opening up about your true feelings is a challenge, ILLIT proudly closes their song by declaring that “there’s a lot to look forward to” about their love, and that “this is just the beginning,” so “come get to know the new me.” In other words, they’ll “keep moving forward, paving ILLIT’s unique path”—not going out of their way to meet others but inviting them into their inner world instead. It’s time to steer away from what you think it means to love and head toward your own approach to love. It’s time to enter ILLIT’s world.