Yeonjun (연준)

When TOMORROW X TOGETHER debuted under Big Hit Music in 2019, Yeonjun — born Choi Yeon Jun, the group's eldest member — was already being watched closely. His combination of technical precision and what colleagues describe as an instinctive command of a stage set him apart early, and as TXT grew into one of fourth-generation K-pop's most prominent acts, his profile grew with them. By 2025, he had extended that trajectory into solo work with his debut EP *No Labels: Part 01*, a project that arrived alongside an unusually candid reckoning with what the process had cost him.

Life Inside TXT

As TXT's eldest, Yeonjun occupies a particular position within the group — visible, physically striking, and by his own account frequently misread. On Big Bang member Daesung's YouTube channel *Jipdaeseong*, where all five members appeared ahead of their seventh debut anniversary, Daesung praised Yeonjun's character while Yeonjun himself acknowledged the gap between his appearance and his personality: he reads as severe; his bandmates consistently describe him as warm. Member Soobin has noted on multiple occasions that Yeonjun can seem guarded, though the two reportedly worked through a period of emotional distance with a frank conversation — an episode both addressed publicly on the talk program *Salon Drip*.

That seventh anniversary carried concrete weight beyond reflection. All five TXT members renewed their contracts, a commitment the group addressed openly rather than letting a label announcement speak for it. The renewal came as TXT continued to operate at a pace that included their eighth mini-album, 7TH YEAR: When the Wind Briefly Stopped in the Thicket, showcased at Korea University's Hwajeong Gymnasium in April 2026. The title track "Stick With You" returns to a register the group has visited across several releases: the anguish of trying to hold on to something already slipping away.

Solo Work and the Cost of It

*No Labels: Part 01*, released in 2025, is the primary document of Yeonjun's solo discography to date, and the title carries an explicit intent — to resist being pinned down by a single identity or category at a moment when he was still working out what individual expression, separate from TXT, looked like for him. The project was the beginning of an answer, not the answer itself.

What followed its release gave the EP a retrospective texture that was not apparent at the time. On *Salon Drip*, Yeonjun disclosed that he had experienced significant burnout during and after the promotional cycle, and had found it genuinely difficult to name or share that struggle with those around him. The admission reframed the record — a project made under pressure its creator could not fully articulate. That Soobin independently described feeling a wall go up between them during the same period suggests the toll was visible even when Yeonjun was not speaking it.

Fashion and Variety

Yeonjun's aesthetic instincts have been noted by observers for some time, and in 2026 they translated into a professional role: tvN's fashion survival variety series *Kill It: Style Creator Grand War*, set to premiere in May 2026, announced him as a mentor. He described the engagement as a chance to present his fashion sensibility honestly and framed it explicitly as his first foray into a fixed variety format — a distinction that suggests he has been deliberate about how and when he extends into that space.

His social presence beyond formal schedules has also drawn attention. Actor Seo Bum-jun, known for friendships that cross generational and disciplinary lines within Korean entertainment — including a widely noted bond with SHINee's Key — appeared on the lifestyle program *I Live Alone* to document his friendship with Yeonjun, the two filmed in the kind of domestic routines that the show treats as its primary currency. The segment placed Yeonjun within a network of industry relationships that extends well outside fourth-generation K-pop.

Standing

Yeonjun is managing several things simultaneously at an age when many artists are still consolidating a group identity: eldest member of an active, contract-renewed group still releasing and touring; solo artist with a debut EP and the candid acknowledgment of what that debut demanded; and an emerging presence in fashion and variety on his own terms. The *No Labels* title, viewed in that context, reads less as branding than as an honest description of where he is — a negotiation between registers that he has only recently begun to conduct in public.