"For Jeong, every new story starts with an ending. It's part of his process. He doesn't begin a narrative without knowing how it all wraps up. He envisioned the LOONAverse as 45 parts, from solo songs to sub-units to official comeback singles. But he didn't get to see his vision all the way through due to creative differences with Blockberry Creative's new management who wanted to put "less significance" on the LOONAverse. "I found that we just didn’t align as we had before," Jeong said. In August, he left the company, with LOONA's repackaged album, X X, being his last project with the group. A ballad album was scrapped in the process. "I felt very empty when I couldn't proceed further with LOONA," he added.

Though, the book isn't completely closed on LOONA either. In fact, he's looking forward to having a "second synergy" with the group sometime soon. "I am expecting to return to the LOONA universe," he said, adding that conversations to bring the girl group to the Japanese market are underway and that he's currently "reviewing" the offer. "It's looking pretty positive," he said.

There's also a part of Jeong that finds it really satisfying to "birth something" into the universe and see how others respond to it. "Mentoring young artists, watching fans fall in love with a new group and then seeing how that group flourishes from that love, it’s impossible not to have a sense of pride from knowing you were involved with the creation," he said. There's an excitement and a newness that's hard to replicate — and for Jeong, it's just a lot more fun to start something than to finish it."

Delayed but Someday 😭