[VOCAL RULE: five AEON male voices, K-pop group density, dark velvet. KAIRO baritone verses + ad-libs. SHIYUN tenor lead choruses. RYUHA falsetto solo + [+f] hook stack. LIAM unison + backing oohs. JISU spoken-sung + ad-libs. Group unison on "dorée." [+f] = falsetto stack on tagged word. NO female vocals.] [Instrumental Intro — 4 bars D min: piano ostinato, slinky bass, brushed kit + tick, brass bar 4. Kairo enters bar 4.] (Kairo, soft) Jeunesse dorée... (group hum) Mmm... [V1 D min — KAIRO Gainsbourg sensual dark + ad-libs. Brass flourishes. Group oohs.] You came back with the years in your face, fine at the eyes, beautiful there. I know the places time has touched you because it found me everywhere. We used to speak as though tomorrow were an inexhaustible estate, leaving doors half-open behind us, certain we could choose them late. There were whole lives in the interval, rooms where neither of us stood. You loved people I never knew. I loved people as well as I could. And some of them became a history we still have every right to grieve. Funny, the things we called forever. Funny, the things we chose to leave. [PC — bass climbs, brass builds, altered dominants → F.] Put our youth on trial, we could testify for days. Every beautiful mistake has learned the contours of our face. We have evidence enough to make a ruin of the case— but neither verdict gives us back a single hour we gave away. [Chorus F maj — brass stabs, (all) unison, SHIYUN lead, Kairo/Ryuha ad-libs, Liam oohs, trumpet flourish.] (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, (Shiyun) we were in the light until it changed us, bright enough to miss the ending, young enough to call it fate. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, all those years beyond each other— other loves and other losses, other countries, other names. We crossed the world. We learned what leaving takes. And after everything, you came back to me this way. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, look how long it took to know what we had made. [Post-C — RYUHA falsetto solo, group "ah," Jisu ad-libs, sax answers.] [+f] Dorée, dorée— all that beautiful delay. [+f] Dorée, dorée— all the years we gave away. [V2 D min — JISU + ad-libs. Duet: SHIYUN "You had," RYUHA "I had." Brass, sax, group backing.] I remember departure lounges, morning light through unfamiliar glass, messages arriving out of sequence, months becoming photographs. We became fluent in elsewhere, learned the manners of goodbye, watched whole seasons through hotel windows, watched another decade slide. (Shiyun) You had a hand to hold without me. (Ryuha) I had someone saying mine. We meant the tenderness we offered. It is with us still tonight. I would never make them lesser just to make our ending right. Every person that we cherished changed the two standing here tonight. [PC2 — denser, group stack, Ryuha ad-libs, brass swell, altered dominants.] There are choices I regret without pretending they were lies. There are roads I would have taken had I known the cost of time. You could name your own beside them. I can see them when you smile. Two people old enough to understand why love can still arrive late. [Chorus 2 F maj — as C1 denser.] (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, (Shiyun) we were in the light until it changed us, bright enough to miss the ending, young enough to call it fate. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, all those years beyond each other— other loves and other losses, other countries, other names. We crossed the world. We learned what leaving takes. And after everything, you came back to me this way. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, look how long it took to know what we had made. [Breakdown F# min — kit/bass pull, dark strings + sax solo. Diptych: SHIYUN then KAIRO. Group "ohh."] (Shiyun) I could say: we should have known. (Kairo) You could say: we almost did. (Shiyun+Kairo) There is nothing I can change without changing who returned. I want the life that brought you here. I only wish it had not taken quite so much of us to make. [Rebuild D min — bass returns, kit builds, brass swell, strings climb. Group "ahhh."] [Final Chorus D min, F maj hook — max density. (all) unison. SHIYUN runs, RYUHA [+f +7], LIAM stack, brass flourishes.] (all) Jeunesse [+f +7] dorée, (Shiyun) we were in the light until it changed us, watched it become something we could finally recognize. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée, you have lived beyond my keeping. I have loved beyond your knowing. Still, I know you when you arrive. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée— every road behind your eyes. (all) Jeunesse [+f] dorée— every choice behind mine. And here we are, older than the promises we made, with all that love, all that loss, all that beautiful regret— and time, at last, unable to explain why you came back. [Outro D min — piano decays, bass out, kit fades, sax fades last. RYUHA solo, group "mmm."] [+f] Dorée, dorée— all that beautiful delay. [+f] Dorée, dorée— you came back anyway.
