When the tracklist for The Name Chapter: FREEFALL was revealed, none caught my eye quite as quickly as “Skipping Stones.” I thought two things: One, I was glad that the rock sound I crave so much in TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s music hadn’t faded away, and two, I couldn’t wait to hear what their collaboration with HANRORO, the hottest name in indie music, would sound like. It would clearly take a different direction from their funky “Do It Like That” collaboration with the Jonas Brothers and their danceable synthwave “Chasing That Feeling.” And just like they sing in the opening lyrics (“Over the calm river / We love throwing jagged stones”) the song diverts a new stream through the music of TOMORROW X TOGETHER. Once a short preview came out and the members of the group called it one of their favorite songs, “Skipping Stones” swept social media. With no major publicity push, the song was nonetheless number 45 on the Melon HOT100 as of October 30 and had been streamed by Spotify users the world over more than 3.4 million times.

Fans and less diehard listeners alike are no strangers to the fact that TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s spectrum has expanded to encompass rock. Even before The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, the chapter in which they declared their “free fall,” the distorted guitars, heart-rattling bass, and blood-pumping drums had already helped the boys’ growth during The Chaos Chapter. The transition from bold closure of The Dream Chapter where they sang about the beautifully magical youth to facing the harsh reality in The Chaos Chapter could not be better portrayed than through this sound.

But this personal growth narrative isn’t the only reason the boys adopted their rock sound. Even before the group marked an end to their dreamy teenage years with The Dream Chapter: ETERNITY, Gen Z listeners all around the world were already tuning in to loud and smashing instrumental sounds. The dreary stillness of the pandemic had teens looking back on trends from the 2000s, which by contrast, while still a messy time, somehow came with a more positive outlook. At the forefront of this Y2K revival was rock—more precisely, its gloomy, pop punk child, emo. Skateboarder fashion, colorful hair, smoky makeup, and punk rock T-shirts all helped to revive the turbulent teen years of days gone by.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER was the first one to really run with this style of rock. 0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You) feat. Seori was joined by the pop punk rock star Mod Sun and songs like LO$ER=LO♡ER, Dear Sputnik, imbued with forlorn, desperate and rebellious emotions contributed to The Chaos Chapter. minisode 2: Thursday’s Child’s lead single, “Good Boy Gone Bad,” while unquestionably a K-pop song, reinforced the concept further by leaning into all the emotions that sweep through the undercurrent of 2000s rock. If TOMORROW X TOGETHER were going to stick to one genre, they could easily go all in on Y2K rock, adopting the image and releasing more albums in the same vein. But rather than sticking rigidly to form, the group’s take on rock music is more about moving their listeners through emotional connection.

For TOMORROW X TOGETHER, rock is a means for an awakening as they fight to achieve self-actualization, entering the earth’s atmosphere from the tempting “Sugar Rush Ride” that was Neverland as they enter the cold light of day and have to face up to the pangs of reality. The Name Chapter: FREEFALL opens with the hard-rocking, metal-infused “Growing Pain.” An “endless fall,” though “proof of growing,” leaves the whole body scratched up, and “though my blood spills and bones break,” there’s no guarantee it will amount to anything. Once they choose to free fall into this world without fear, the boys have to muster up the courage to bring themselves to their feet. The aggressive song acts as a substitute for their pained cries as they emerge from their cocoons to spread their wings and fly.

And so they go without regret through the night sky, feeling around for traces of the past they left behind in search of a new world (“Dreamer”). At this point, they’ve matured enough to realize there’s nothing wrong with having “a horn coming out of my head” (“CROWN”) that makes you stand out—it’s merely “different” (“Deep Down”). Even if everything isn’t “Happy Ever After,” they can still smile knowing that “reality has no right answer / There are so many options, it’s all on me.” And that’s something beautiful: a worldly, finite pleasure.

The “Skipping Stones” that follow this realization are a different story. As the five young men watch their rocks bounce away, creating placid waves as they skim across the surface of the water, “Over the calm river / We love throwing jagged stones / We know it’ll hurt / But still, we pick up another one,” they smile. Happiness is easy to find in the vacuum of solitude, where there’s no one around to butt heads with, but after all that wandering, they enter the wider world, ultimately leading to better versions of themselves. In this song, rock plays an important part in that process of maturing and healing.

“Skipping Stones” was written by 22-year-old singer-songwriter HANRORO. Currently a university student, HANRORO leapt right into the hearts of indie rock fans with her song “Let Me Love My Youth” and the way it likens how it feels for the younger generation to anxiously step out from the pandemic’s shadow to springtime. The lyrics she writes come from a dark place and tell the story of someone who doesn’t know how to love themselves. “MIRROR” tells of someone trying to comfort themselves as they struggle to keep on living; “Questions from our night” looks at conflicted feelings when trying to accept how love feels; and, in “Even if you leave,” vulnerable people living with terrible regret find relief. Although HANRORO and the members of TOMORROW X TOGETHER express themselves in different ways, they’re all living through their 20s. Ideal was a bit too high and the reality was solitary.

At the end of fierce self-doubt and inner conflict, they seem to have finally reached somewhere ideal. Just before “Skipping Stones” came out, HANRORO put out her first EP, Take-off. In it, the singer fully basks in the youthful paradise they’ve discovered at last. Likewise, in FREEFALL, TOMORROW X TOGETHER come into the real world without hesitation. HANRORO’s vocals in the “Skipping Stones” chorus don’t sound out of place surrounded by the TOMORROW X TOGETHER members’ confident singing, and the group would have looked right at home had they appeared alongside HANRORO in the video of her cover. It’s no surprise, then, that in his interview for the group’s latest album, SOOBIN said, “I’m a big fan of her music. The song she gave us is so characteristic of her sound that it feels like a song she would’ve written for herself. I fell in love with it the very first time I heard it. It was fun getting to record a song of a style I listen to and sing all the time, which made the process laid-back.”

TOMORROW X TOGETHER were making themselves small in the song “Tinnitus” off The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION: “Being a rock, I guess I’m fine with that / Just rolling, that’s my kind of rock ’n’ roll.” In a world filled with conflict, hostility, and hatred, and where everyone’s always comparing themselves to others, quick pleasure and blind addiction seemed like decent escapes, if only temporarily. Luckily, when this group rocks, they aren’t just rolling around. It cleanses the soul, awash in deafening noise, injecting youth—finite by nature—with a vitality that’s infinite. They shout themselves hoarse pouring their aching hearts out. Together, TOMORROW X TOGETHER and HANRORO skip their nostalgic feelings of youth across the water and out of sight—into a calmer youth that, though spreading thin, spreads out far in wave after beautiful wave.