For reasons no one is thrilled by, this was a year that will go down in history. But in spite of everything, people carried on with their lives, and did their best to make it through. The stories on each of the performances by the six teams across three days from December 28 to 30 is also a documentation of how people live their lives.

May 21, 2020. Mnet M COUNTDOWN: “Can’t You See Me?”

TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s “Can’t You See Me?” comeback performance on M COUNTDOWN embodies teen angst in various and consistent ways. The members maximize their youthful appearance by wearing sailor outfits, knee-high socks, glitter under their eyes, and their hair down in a clean-cut 'do. The repetitions of sharp sounds of the whistle, something breaking, the high-tempo background beat, and an old tape stretching out before the melody changes all maintain a certain level of tension throughout the song. This is hardly resolved in the climax, however. The whispers of “save me” and the persistent whistling throughout the chorus all the more maintain this tension. The choreography, too, focuses on a boy’s chaotic inner thoughts. The performance opens with the members sitting on stage. The performance begins as four of the members lie down one by one and BEOMGYU slowly walks forward. As they sing, “crumbled sand castle, who’s a liar,” a stillness emerges that draws attention to the members’ hands and faces. But when they sing the lyrics, “once again I’m left alone,” or the extended refrain, “friends don’t understand me,” they display a dramatic, emotional chaos as the choreography speeds up and intensifies. The lights flicker every time the music and dance expose the underlying unease, guiding the audience to focus on the boy’s inner chaos. Every time the members whisper “save me,” the stage is bathed in red light and sparks fall from above, and the flat structure in the background, reminiscent of a burned down building evokes the lyrics, “Now see them burn in fire / Turned into ruins.”

In their performance, however, TOMORROW X TOGETHER don’t try to resolve the boy’s angst; rather, they choose to embrace it. Various elements of the stage design convey their choice to the audience, allowing the viewer to recognize and gradually accept the boy’s feelings. As the choreography intensifies, the camera starts to shake, imparting a sense of confusion. As the members sing, “Bad, bad / Hope it’s just a painful dream / Sad, sad / Return me to your side again,” the camera steadily zooms in on them and the scene transitions slow down. This allows the audience to trace the boy’s innermost feelings and willingly accept the resentment and pain that come from “that eternal promise … like magic” being broken by substituting themselves for the boy on stage. And yet, the members kneeling and gazing upwards with the lyrics, “friends don’t understand me anymore-more-more,” suggests that they do not struggle to solve their problems or enjoy themselves again. They simply focus on that teenage angst, which everyone felt but no one ever acknowledged. And instead of giving advice or words of wisdom, they share their fear and loneliness. This is TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s way of empathizing with other teens and spending the remainder of their adolescence together.