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At first glance, MAYHEM seemed to be just a normal kpop group. Four attractive boys that sang and danced for their millions of adoring fans, all under the management of their company High Class Entertainment. Nothing overly suspicious.
If you took the time to look back again, twice, three or four times, you would still say the same thing. Sure, they weren’t perfect, with their one problematic member seemingly dragging them down, but they were a pretty ordinary bunch.
But that’s the thing. No matter how much you pry, how many times you look and glance back again, you’d never be able to uncover the true secrets hidden behind each of their empty, smiling faces. Their real life is something completely different than the fluff that the media fills you with. But real life is too raw for the media. No person wants to know their idol’s mental health issues, or about the problems they have with their family.
But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.
We begin with Lee Minsoo, the silver-haired male that plays the role of leader of the group and the main dancer. This one in particular was rather spunky and lively on the outside, but like many others, he is rather different within.
You would call him an ambitious individual, one with big goals, and who will stop at nothing to achieve them. His parents would say that he was a stupid child that wasted time playing video games and holing up in his room, and as a result was destined to fail in anything he tried to do. His brother would say that he was entitled, never had to put hard work into anything, has coasted throughout his entire life and doesn’t deserve his spot in MAYHEM.
As you can see here, the people of most importance (his family) have never given him their support. Their constant nagging on “Be more like your brother!” and “You’re not working hard enough.” was never made up for. What I mean by that is, in short, “All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.”
Take this example. What happens when you push a student past their breaking point? They give up.
Lee Minsoo is not a student, but the effect is just the same. The only difference is, Minsoo didn’t exactly give up. His ambitions were shot, and he no longer held that hunger for a position among the best idols, but his drive never left. The second time he auditioned for a company (after giving up the first for reasons you should know very well) wasn’t because he really wanted to be an idol. Those dreams had died a while before. It was because he wanted to prove that he could be better than his brother, that he could beat him in something and prove that he wasn’t just some failure, some stigma.
Don’t get him wrong. He hated his brother, but also loved him, deep down. Even after Minsung stole his song, after Minsoo first yelled at him after the audition, he wanted to maintain a good relationship. It didn’t have to be this way that it is now, with the two refusing to even talk to each other.
Minsung didn’t feel the same.
He approached him once afterwards, closer to the time Minsoo was going to audition for a new company called High Class Entertainment.
“Minsoo,” He glared down at his brother, “You’re a failure. You’ll always be a failure, because you don’t even try. So why are you pretending now? You know you’re not good enough to be accepted, so why bother?”
“Get the hell out of here, Minsung. Don’t come here to give me this shit. You don’t know anything.”
“I know you Minsoo, I know how pathetic you are.”
“Shut up and get out.”
Minsoo cut his ties with his family shortly after. He didn’t need someone telling him that he wasn’t good enough anymore. He had heard enough.
Kim Daehyun, the blond maknae and main visual of MAYHEM, was the sweet one, the innocent teddy bear that everyone loves and adores. He was the one that had the largest number of fans, the one that was most often asked to take photos and receive gifts.
Being this kind of person meant that you had to be nice to everyone. Daehyun was kind to his fans, his group mates, his employers, his family, his friends, and pretty much everyone. It was exhausting to him sometimes, having to be nice to everyone, even on the worst of days. One snarky remark towards anyone, and he’s risking his relationships, his job, and the careers of his group mates. It sounds dramatic, but it’s true.
Daehyun also lived his life with guilt weighing down on him, a constant reminder that he was weak. He knew that he was a coward, and he hated it. He hated that he was always too scared to step in, to stand up for himself and others. Perhaps this was another reason he was always kind to everyone. He wondered this himself, if maybe it wasn’t for his group or his family, but instead for himself, to satisfy this regret he had inside.
His friend in middle school, Minyoung, was a victim of constant bullying. And he knew. Daehyun knew, but he was afraid to say anything, afraid to step in and possibly hurt himself in the process.
Daehyun tried to forget. He tried to pretend that he had misunderstood and thought that perhaps those comments his classmates made were just jokes. And it never worked. He would end up hating himself even more afterwards for trying to erase his friend’s pain from his mind. You could compare his thinking to a mild case of survivor’s guilt.
It never stopped.
Sometimes when he and his mom would go out shopping for clothes and such, he’d hear whispers behind their back, about his mom. It was usually a variety of minor insults, and he’d ignore them, he’d ignore the way his mother’s smile faltered, all the signs that she was uncomfortable, and pretended that everything was fine.
He even pretended that his own group mate, Jaewon, wasn’t hiding something. He knew that Jaewon was not Wyld. He saw the way he was with other people. Pure, unfiltered kindness, straight out of the goodness of his heart. Daehyun knew that he himself was only an imposter. This isn’t to say that he didn't have a good heart, because he did, but rather that Daehyun wasn’t someone who acted out of the thoughts of others. He wasn’t someone who immediately rushed to comfort someone crying, or kiss a child’s injury away.
You would think that someone as sociable as him couldn’t be lonely. You’d be dead wrong.
These friends he had, they weren’t really friends. They were there because of status, because he was a magnet for attention. And he hated it. He saw how people talked about him on fan accounts. He saw the creepiest things people thought about him, objectifying him, acting as if they even knew each other. How would you feel if you knew random strangers were watching your every move, feeding off of it, screaming and practically worshiping you? It was beyond terrifying.
These fans were the same ones that used the most hateful of words to put down Ahn Jaewon, the ‘redheaded’ sub rapper and lead visual of MAYHEM, also known as ‘ Wyld ’. In one word, he could be described as ‘misunderstood’.
‘Mayniacs’ saw him as the womanizer that was nothing more than a pretty face, no depth, no talent, nothing. Day after day, he’d open his social media, just to see if there was a change in their tune. Nothing.
‘ Wyld shouldn’t even be part of the group lmao he sucks and he’s only there because he’s pretty. ’
‘ Red-haired dude can’t even dance wtf’
‘ Petition to kick Wyld out of MAYHEM! Link in my bio… ’
Nobody ever bothered to ask whether all these scandals were true. Nobody acknowledged the effort he put in. Only millions of posts about how he didn’t deserve to be with the other three.
Would their words change if they knew the truth? If they knew that ‘ Wyld ’ wasn’t real? If they had seen Jaewon stay hours after practice is over, exhausting himself with dance, practicing his rapping and vocals to the point where he’s only surviving on pure coffee, would they still say that he was worthless?
At first, Jaewon tried his best to become the idol they wanted, the one that was amazing at everything. He soon figured out that nothing would change. So instead of focusing on that, he tried to not pay attention to their words. This was all for MAYHEM, after all.
It was rather lonely for Jaewon, someone who used to always have someone to tell his deepest secrets. Now, he’s hiding something from them. His mother doesn’t know Wyld. Neither does his only friend, Jun.
As selfish as it is, he doesn’t mind the freedom he has with them, to just be Jaewon.
It’s the secrets that hurt. It seemed to him that he’s hiding at least something from everyone he knows. There’s no one that he can be truly himself with. And he knows that it’s his fault. He was too scared to tell Jun and his mom. If only he were braver, he’d say. If only he wasn’t Jaewon.
Kang Dongho is the fourth member of their group, main rapper, lead dancer, and the only one to keep his natural hair color. He’s the mature one, the one that everyone can depend on, the one that would drive them home after a night out. Why? Because he was raised to be this person.
Dongho had lived his childhood in fear of being abandoned if he wasn’t good enough. Everything he did was because his parents told him to. He had done his best to follow the rules, grow up as the perfect child, and do everything that was planned out for him, to follow the footsteps of those who built their wealth with their bare hands.
And yet, through all their brainwashing, Dongho couldn’t help but envy those kids that could do what they wanted with life. He wished that he had a family that would let him become what he wanted.
It was always about how he needed to be successful, he needed to get good grades, he needed to not be an embarrassment to his family, he needed to get married to a beautiful girl that had just as much, if not more wealth.
Why? Why him?
Dongho was always afraid of his family, even though he tried hard to not let on. Fear is weakness. He must not be weak. But how can it be helped? His father, a pillar of strength that never seems to back down, and his mother, beautiful yet so terribly frightening. Both stood against him, forcing him to bend over backwards to become this person they’ve been wanting as a child.
And all this time he spent on perfecting himself to fit into the mold that they made for him, wasted.
He became an idol, against their wishes. His family practically disowned him. It was so hard, and still is hard, finding a life all for himself, something that he did for himself, by himself. But he was free.
All four of them were unhappy in their own ways, but through their loneliness and hardships, they found each other. Maybe they were all miserable, but one thing was for sure. They weren’t alone in the world.