There’s a ton of people in the music video for YEONJUN’s new song “Ice Cream.” They grab each other by the collar, reach for each other’s hands like couples, chase others down and pull them back. In this world filled with touching, though, YEONJUN is the one person no one can lay a finger on. The singer exchanges glances with a woman throughout the video, but the two only ever brush past one another, dancing at a careful distance even within the same frame. The closest they ever get is when he sits beside her on a bench for a brief moment. The video closes on a popsicle that’s been dropped on the ground but which nonetheless stays intact. It’s like the line “not too close, not too far away / Let’s keep it kinda vague”—sweet, but always just out of reach. A man who promises a relationship as sweet as ice cream, but only “as long as we keep this distance.” In “Ice Cream,” YEONJUN takes that classic bad boy character and makes it his own.

YEONJUN decks himself out in fairly everyday clothes for “Ice Cream,” both in the music video and when performing it live, sporting jeans, a t-shirt, and a cap. Rather than adopting a new persona, the clothes suggest we’re just seeing everyday YEONJUN on the stage. Similarly, the dance moves aren’t a max-energy affair but the kind of laid-back vibe we’ve come to expect from him. The way he bounces to the beat while making sweeping movements with his hands and feet has all the makings of a viral YouTube short or reel. But even as he flows with the choreography, he sprinkles in quick chest pops and connects individual moves with hand gestures. This is the kind of attention to detail that only an artist with a thorough understanding of dance and a tight sense of timing can pull off, and it’s this effortless command of the stage that lends an air of believability to the fantasy of “Ice Cream”—that someone can turn heads just by walking down the street in jeans and a t-shirt. It shouldn’t be possible in the real world, but it is, because it’s YEONJUN.

“Vanilla,” the first track off “NO LABELS: PART 02,” is practically the reverse image of “Ice Cream.” On “Ice Cream,” YEONJUN sings from the perspective of a boy holding the upper hand in a relationship (“Oh girl, too hot / Cool off your heart”), whereas he compares himself to vanilla in the mini album opener, the run-of-the-mill ice cream flavor that’s a classic stand-in for being plain and average. And yet “Vanilla” is anything but plain in its structure, opening with a rap before switching things up into singing, languid in the pre-chorus then punchy like a rock star to accent the end of every line of the chorus. YEONJUN sings so persuasively through the whole thing that it undercuts that plainness the title and lyrics suggest. It also explains how the album still feels cohesive with two different personas: the one on “Ice Cream” who insists there’s “no need to get serious,” and the inexperienced one on “Baby Wassup?” who fesses up to his feelings (“First time for these feelings, what even is this”). “NO LABELS: PART 02” lets that contradiction—a practically untouchable star who’s an ordinary young man when it comes to love—take up residence inside the same person, and YEONJUN turns it, in the end, into a single, fully fleshed-out personality.

From that standpoint, it’s no surprise that “Fxxking Star” made it onto the album, complete with the line “I know I’m the one, there won’t be another prodigy.” YEONJUN, incidentally, was known as BIGHIT’s legendary trainee for consistently outranking the others during monthly evaluations. And now he’s “a freaking star / Shine so bright, I might burn you up.” But the artist imparts a different message on the album’s closer, “Long Way Long Ride,” this time to himself: “You still shine, Jun, morning will come / Don’t be afraid.” YEONJUN had a hand in writing the song, and here he swaps out the weight of the earlier ones for something softer and lighter in tone. With its exquisite lo-fi beat and the singer’s tranquil vocals, the song’s a far cry from declaring himself a “Fxxking Star,” and is instead a self-portrait of a young man quietly reassuring himself. In the end, “NO LABELS: PART 02” is both a look at where YEONJUN stands today and an exploration of just how far he can go when the ornamentation is stripped away.

When he first debuted with TOMORROW X TOGETHER, YEONJUN was just a kid in an arcade, tilting his head in curiosity. He seemed to exist right on the very edge between the real world and fantasy. Like in his introduction film, “What do you do?,” where he goes from playing a PC game to being trapped inside a claw machine, that early era often positioned the idol as living in a world beyond our own. But he also had a face that was just as fit for playing characters who tear through the fabric of reality, like when he makes off with the keys to a car and speeds away before throwing himself into a pool in “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” featuring Seori. Offstage, he crafted himself a distinct image, his personal style and unique attitude making him the “4th Gen It Boy.” “NO LABELS: PART 02” feels like the final result of the time he spent building up his image. He’s spent the seven years together with the group, from fresh-faced 19-year-old to today, eventually keeping things free and loose, discovering the confidence to convey that attitude, and telling himself over and over that it’s okay to rely on other people and take a rest now and then. And that brings us to today, and YEONJUN’s new album—from an idol who needs “NO LABELS.”