Jisoo addresses the room directly now.
"I love making people laugh. I love aegyo and being cute and making people smile. That's genuine—that's really me."
He holds up the journal.
"But it's not all of me. This is me too. The insecure kid who worked himself to exhaustion. The preteen who was terrified of failure. The person who wanted so badly to be taken seriously but also wanted to make people happy."
He sets the journal down carefully on a nearby table.
Like it might break if handled roughly.
"I guess what I'm saying is—I'm more than the cute maknae. I'm twenty years old. I've been doing this for ten years."
He counts on his fingers as he speaks.
"I've survived trainee life, being called a kid—cough cough, I actually was, but it sometimes hurt to be reminded I was small compared to my hyungs. Thankfully they treated me like their little brother and equal, not just... a child."
He takes a breath.
"There's also our debut, a massive scandal, a hiatus. I've grown up."
