K sees &TEAM as serendipity, but at the same time, that they were meant to be—together. 

​The coordinator said you like to have your morning coffee and had some ready for you. (laughs)

K: Wow! Is that why there was already coffee waiting? Thank you. (laughs) Korean coffee is my kind of coffee. I like an iced americano that’s light and sour. I used to wonder why people drink coffee so much but eventually I saw how cool my brother looked drinking it and I started drinking it too. I won a million won on Idol’s Physical Race and bought an espresso machine for our home in Japan so all the group members can use it together. I haven’t been able to try it out yet but I’m looking forward to it.

I guess you’ll be in the kitchen all the time now. I heard that you rarely go into the kitchen, and that you once bought some fluffy pancake supplies but ended up throwing all of it away. (laughs)

K: I’m the kind of person who looks into the big picture before getting started. (laughs) I prepared everything I needed and looked up the recipe, but when I was actually going to cook I got too busy and never ended up doing it.

So you’re into coffee these days?

K: Coffee, fragrances, vitamins, bedtime products … (laughs) I take vitamins and probiotics, wear a sleep mask, and I have this amazing pillow my parents gave to me as a present. I guess I’m pretty interested in health. (laughs)

But you said on Weverse Live that you eat bingsu every night. That’s not very good for your health. (laughs)

K: Ah, but I don’t eat it as much anymore! My friend who lives in Korea likes bingsu so we had some together, and after that I kept eating it all the time. I had a craving for some at home after everyone fell asleep so I had some delivered for myself. I need to get to bed earlier … Oh, can you put this in the interview? I’m not late to things lately! I’m on time! I get everything for the next day ready before I go to bed.

​How did you stop being late for things?

K: The other members know I tend to sleep in so they always try to wake me up. I’m really grateful when they do that.

Who usually wakes you up?

K: EJ! He’s an absolute god. (laughs) And he’s definitely a leader. I thought right from the beginning that he should be the leader. We’ve been living together two years already and he always puts others before him. That’s not an easy thing to do, you know. That’s why I really wanted him to be the leader.

You lived with groups of people even before you lived with &TEAM, right?

K: I lived in a dorm when I was in high school because I was a long-distance marathon runner. I specifically chose to live there because I wanted the rigid, tough environment to keep me focused on that one thing. It was my first time living with 20 people to a room so it was harder than I expected but I also liked it because I like people. You had to do everything for yourself, so that’s when I started cooking, and you have to do everything together as a group, so I got into a habit of considering everyone together, and I also learned how to take an objective look at myself. There was also someone there from the Kansai region. I really like the Kansai accent that people from Osaka have. Spending all this time with YUMA lately means I’m hearing a lot of it, so now sometimes I end up using it too. (laughs)

You and YUMA seem to have taking thorough care of yourself in common.

K: He’s really good at organizing things so I get a lot of help from him. (laughs) When I see YUMA, I feel like I’m looking at my past self. If he doesn’t care about something, he doesn’t pay attention to it at all. We like what we like, and the things we like are all similar. We both like goofing around, and I love incense sticks, so I gave him some before, and now he really likes them too.

You’ve given the other members a number of gifts that have a fragrance or are related to smell.

K: I like taking the time to think about what they’ll like. Since we’ve been together I’ve thought about what kind of scentswould suit each of them based on their styles. For TAKI, it’s tangerines. He likes the smell of fresh citrus. And for HARUA, it’s sweet smells and roses. I think it fits in with his overall appearance. I haven’t given anything to FUMA yet but I’m going to give him something that smells woody for his birthday. He likes things that smell natural—something light, not perfumy. I use a woody or cypress scents.

​Why are you always thinking about and looking out for the other members?

K: They always help me out a lot so I want to do everything I can for them. For example, I try to subconsciously realize while practicing who’s a little sensitive about what, who doesn’t like to be interrupted when they’re doing whatever, and who likes what. NICHOLAS, for example, has a lot of pride, so you should give him feedback like, “I think it’ll be even better if you do it like this,” and then he’ll say, “Okay, thanks!” Or for TAKI, sometimes if I say to him, “You should try this instead,” he might not really pay attention, in which case I try to bring up the mood of the room and say we should concentrate. Everyone has their own style.

And what about you?

K: Well, when I first became a trainee, I was very focused on a good final outcome. That was a result of my time spent as a runner. Consequently, whenever I failed at something, I felt bad about it for a long time, but I realized that was really just a waste of time. So now I try and spend less time feeling regret by telling myself that, even if things didn’t go how I wanted, I still worked really hard, so I should just try things differently next time. And that’s because I first came into the world as K on I-LAND at a time when I hadn’t really been dancing very long. But, of course, viewers didn’t know how much practice I put in, how long I worked to get ready for it, if the stage was slippery, or anything like that. So I thought, Let’s just do this. I found what the performance director Son Sung Deuk said to be really helpful: “When it’s showtime, you have to put on a proper show no matter what. When it comes to the stage, the performance itself is more important than the reasons behind it.”

Did you feel a little better after seeing things that way?

K: There probably won’t ever come a day when I feel completely satisfied with myself, right? I can’t be satisfied since I can review what I did and see all the places I could’ve done better.

Why is that?

K: I guess debuting under a company like HYBE that’s as big as it is and has so many talented artists set my standards higher. BTS was actually the whole reason I had this dream to begin with. When I was practicing as a trainee, I would watch HOSHI from SEVENTEEN and Jimin from BTS all the time. I fell in love with their unique vibes and I practiced a lot so I could have one of my own. So while I was only thinking about my dance at first, now I try to put on performances that people can feel something from. You’re not a professional if you’re the only one who thinks your moves are cool. I think a lot about how it’s only meaningful when the people watching have an emotional response to it.

​I personally think your eyes play a big part of that. Your eyes convey everything you want to say with your performances.

K: Oh. Yes. (laughs) I learned how to dance from a crew called WE DEM BOYZ. They said the most important part of dancing is eye contact and that you can completely change the mood with how you use it, so I practiced that a lot. You can see yourself reflected in the bus window, for example. I would practice now and then to see which moves looked cool. I also took pictures of all the different dance moves and continuously thought about how to make them look cooler. At the time I didn’t know what all that practice would amount to but now it’s one of my strengths.

What keeps you going and practicing so hard?

K: LUNÉ is everything to me. Absolutely everything. They’re the whole reason I’m pursuing this career, why I want to do a good job and why I work hard at it. A while ago I was sort of having a rough time and I saw an ad the fans had put up at the bus stop on my way to work. It said, “Happy New Year, K!” And they kept changing the ad for every new season. I want to keep showing LUNÉ how grateful I am for helping me through that hard time. LUNÉ are fans but they’re more than that—they’re my heroes and champions.

They must be the ones who kept you from feeling down when you were having a hard time.

K: There was a preparation period before &AUDITION - The Howling and I practiced a lot because I wanted to develop into an all-rounder as a performer. I was working on music, and I started thinking, If it were up to me, I’d do it this way, or, You could make it sound like this instead, so I also focused on developing my creative abilities as an artist to make and produce music. I loved going to the studio late at night after taking lessons. I could express myself exactly as I wanted there. For example, when I saw Jimin performing a really cool song and wanted to do that kind of song, I made a beat, and I wrote lyrics about how sad I felt that I couldn’t write messages to fans. Maybe I could release those songs someday. (laughs)

​You’ve been involved in many creative aspects, including writing lyrics and music. I heard you also helped on the “FIREWORK” choreography.

K: I listened to the song in the short gap between the video shoot for the fan meeting event and the commercial we shot, and wrote some choreography. There were originally around 30 potential demos for that one part but Producer Bang asked me to give it a shot. He said, “I don’t want it to feel like the song just zips by,” so I concentrated on not only making something that would fit the song and the ideas behind it but that would also tell the story. I never concentrated so hard in my entire life. (laughs) I actually haven’t been in too many situations where I had to finish something so important in so short a time window but I think it was a good chance for me to grow as an artist.

The choreography’s so cool. (laughs)

K: Aww. It’s really hard on us. Extremely so. (laughs) We tried a lot of different things while practicing for “FIREWORK,” but in the end the best thing was just to put a lot of energy into it, so it was tiring, but it was still a lot of fun. People really liked it, too. Our group does a lot of choreography where we make use of our whole body from head to toe so I hope people can feel how fast-paced it is.

It must be critical for everybody to be on the same page and that every member of the group feels the same energy.

K: Producer Bang always used to say to me, “One person is nothing without the whole group.” Of course you have to improve your own skills but the group has more power together. So I changed my way of thinking from, “I want to do it this way,” to, “Let’s put the team first.” I see our group as serendipity, but at the same time, meant to be, so I want to keep helping and taking care of them.

​You’ve really grown up. And to think you dreamed of becoming folk hero Momotarō [the peach boy]. (laughs)

K: Momotarō! (laughs) There was this big Momotarō a little while back and I asked everyone what it was doing there and they said it was because I had said I wanted to become him. I don’t remember why I said that. I guess I thought Momotarō looks really cool.

What did you dream of becoming after Momotarō?

K: A marathon runner. I had already decided to go to the same university I dreamed of going to ever since I was in elementary school. So when I said I wasn’t going to be a runner anymore, my parents cried and the coach was really upset. That makes sense, of course. (laughs) It seems like a dumb thing to do looking back, but I wanted to be a dancer, so I just did it. I have a lot of faith in myself so I didn’t worry even though I got a late start. I just thought, “If I’m going to dance, better go to the States!” and off I went. It didn’t take me long to decide. It was fate. (laughs)

How could you feel so certain when your whole future was changing?

K: For better or for worse, my way is to pour all my focus into one thing and one thing only. I get determined to see it to through to the end. I’ve always been that way. Before I debuted, I went to the US and I had to quarantine for two weeks. During that time, I got so deep into a Pokémon game I had bought before that I barely slept. I went three days without a minute of sleep, just playing Pokémon and studying the game watching videos about it on YouTube. I even did online battles and beat the number-three player in the world! That’s when I realized I had to stop and I put it down. (laughs) I just play it as a hobby with FUMA these days, but back then, I was serious.

​I feel like your time as a marathon runner had an impact on the way you focus on one thing right through to the end.

K: I agree. When it comes to exercise, you have to fight, and win, against yourself. And when it comes to being an idol, everything’s like a marathon—living together, the music you make, everything. Before I went on I-LAND, I only practiced alone, so I was my only competition. I just checked how I was doing and that was that. I was only in competition with myself since I had no idea how good anyone else was. I got a lot of inspiration from watching the friends I used to run with go on to win competitions and do amazing things.

From marathons, to studying overseas, to I-LAND, &AUDITION and &TEAM—you’re quite literally on a “Road Not Taken” by anyone else before.

K: I never considered my life to be anything special, but when you put it that way it sounds like I’m living in a movie. (laughs)