By Katelyn H., TIWP Student

“You are my breath, the air that keeps me alive…” — ENHYPHEN

The crowd’s voices swallowed mine instantly. Thousands of light sticks glowed around me, an ocean of white and orange stretching farther than I could see. The bass rattled through the floor and up my legs. The air felt charged, electric, alive. July 28th. After months of counting down. The giant screens flashed. The stage lights cut through the darkness. Somewhere beside me, my best friend Noe sighed the way she always did whenever I got too excited about ENHYPEN. She and my other friend Damien (who claim to not be in a relationship, but I beg to differ) had jokingly ripped up my card of Sunghoon (the card was 10 cents and accidentally went through the washing machine anyway). Still, to me, the group was more than choosing a bias or favorite idol, although Sunghoon is honestly a hilarious person (even though it’s probably a bit fabricated, but I’m there for the experience, right?). It was the music, the songs that I listened to from the highs and lows, the upbeat tune of “Knife” was a huge contrast to “Shine on Me” that showed ENHYPEN’s incredible duality in singing. The first time I heard of ENHYPEN was in 7th grade when I used to watch edits of a video game I liked, and “Drunk Dazed” would play in the background. I never got into ENHYPEN until the fall of 2025, when things got busier and faster, and along with social dynamics changing I felt lonlier than ever. The lyrics “We can take it slow” from “Moonstruck” made me realize some things are worth stopping for.

To me, ENHYPEN was never just about one person.

It was about how their work impacted me.

The stage exploded with light. The crowd screamed. I screamed too. For a moment, everything felt impossibly real. The music. The excitement. The feeling of finally being somewhere I’d imagined so many times before.

Then the opening synths of “Helium” began.

Of course it was this song.

Of course.

“Drinking up, your love is helium…”

The entire arena sang along. The sound was overwhelming. Beautiful. The kind of moment people tried to record, even though no video could ever capture it properly.

“Every time I breathe you, I ecstatically fly away…” I knew every word and beat. The concert felt real. Too real. The lights reflected off the stage. The crowd moved as one and the music surged around me. And for thirty-seven heavenly seconds, I believed it. The elegant vocals with the bass and drums made me sing too; and my friend gave me the eye. She doesn’t ever hear my singing. I really believed it. Then the song ended. The arena disappeared. The screams vanished. The lights went dark. And I was staring at my bedroom ceiling.

My headphones were still on and my phone screen glowed in my hand. The pause button sat exactly where I’d left it.

There was no concert. There was no arena. There was only me, sitting cross-legged on my bed. I stared at the wall for a moment. My best friend wasn’t beside me. She was probably chatting away with her so-called platonic boyfriend. Sunghoon wasn’t on a stage. There were no light sticks, no crowd chants, no confetti drifting through the air. Just a room that suddenly felt much smaller than the world I’d built in my head. Outside my window, everything was ordinary. Inside my room, July 28th was still there. And that was the worst part. Not that the fantasy ended. It ended before I could attend. So I looked back at the song title on my screen. I thought about pressing play again. Thought about letting myself drift back into that imaginary arena for another thirty-seven seconds.  And until then, all I had was to make a bedroom feel like the front row of an arena. My thumb hovered over the play button.