어떻게 이별까지 사랑하겠어, 널 사랑하는 거지

AKMU's "How Can I Love the Heartbreak, You're the One I Love" is one of the great modern Korean ballads, and its power comes from an argument rather than a mood. Lee Suhyun sings the entire song as a paradox spoken aloud: if love and parting are two ends of one thing, then loving you means loving the ending too — and she cannot. The arrangement is deliberately unfashionable, piano and strings swelling in long uninterrupted arcs, no drop, no trap hi-hats, letting the melody climb in stepwise increments until the final key change feels less like a technique than a person running out of composure. Suhyun's voice is the rare instrument that sounds childlike and mature simultaneously; she attacks notes cleanly, without the breathy affectation that plagues the genre, so when her tone finally frays in the last chorus the crack registers as real. Chanhyuk's writing is philosophical without being cold — sibling songwriting that thinks its way through grief. Released on *Sailing* in 2019, it became a national karaoke standard and a perennial chart resident, the song people put on not to cry but to think clearly about why they are crying. Best heard alone, late, after the decision has already been made.