[Vibe Check] A Diary of Boyhood: TWS Turn the Page on Their Youth
- , by SOOJIB growth
- 15 min reading time
TWS bind their boyhood-pop era into paper with DICON VOLUME N°34, split into a reflective A-Type and a playful B-Type. We walk through the group's world, the two volumes' differences, and why this edition reads like a keepsake worth collecting.
Vibe Check · DICON VOLUME N°34
A Diary of Boyhood: TWS Turn the Page on Their Youth
Two photobooks, one feeling. DICON VOLUME N°34 hands the six of TWS a pen and lets them write down what growing up actually feels like.
There is a particular kind of magic in catching a boy band at the exact moment they stop being rookies and start becoming themselves. TWS have been telling that story in song since January 2024, and now DICON has bound it into paper. VOLUME N°34 arrives in two distinct chapters, DEAR MY BOYHOOD and TINY WONDER STORIES, and together they read less like a sales catalogue and more like a keepsake from the most golden stretch of someone's twenties.
For 42, the photobook is not merch in the disposable sense. It is an archive entry. Below we walk through who TWS are, the world their music has built, what these two volumes actually hold, and why a DICON edition feels like the right home for a group whose whole identity is the poetry of the everyday.
Six boys, one promise called 42
TWS, pronounced "to us", is short for Twenty Four Seven With Us. They debuted under PLEDIS Entertainment in January 2024 as the label's first new boy group since SEVENTEEN almost a decade earlier, arriving as a six piece: Shinyu, Dohoon, Youngjae, Hanjin, Jihoon and Kyungmin. Their fandom name, 42, reads as "sa-ee" in Korean and carries the same round the clock vow that the group's own name makes. The relationship was framed as a two way promise from day one.
What set them apart instantly was a self coined genre: boyhood pop. Rather than chasing a darker or edgier concept, TWS leaned into the bright, slightly clumsy, deeply relatable feelings of being young, the nerves before talking to someone new, the thrill of a summer that feels endless, the small heartbreaks that feel enormous at the time. Their 2024 debut single captured exactly that energy, and it landed: the track turned up on year end best of lists and the group swept rookie honours across the board.
A musical world built from ordinary days
The discography tells a coming of age arc on purpose. From the sparkling debut through the bright EPs of 2024, into the more reflective Try With Us in 2025, and on to the bolder, higher energy Play Hard later that year, the throughline is growth: the move from teenage uncertainty into the messier, fuller feelings of early adulthood. The members themselves describe boyhood pop as something more than cheerful music. They call it growth in its purest form, a sound designed to evolve as their own story does.
That is why a photobook suits TWS so well. Their appeal has never been about a single untouchable image; it is about familiarity, about feeling like you are flipping through a friend's school album. DICON's editorial format, all texture and intimacy and long unhurried spreads, is the natural paper counterpart to a discography that has always treasured the small stuff.
Boyhood pop is the art of making the ordinary feel like a memory worth keeping. DICON simply gives that memory a cover.
Two volumes, two moods
DICON VOLUME N°34 splits into two type editions, each with its own title, its own cover line up across all six members, and its own bundle of inclusions. They are companion pieces rather than duplicates, so the completist instinct to collect both is entirely understandable.
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A-Type DEAR MY BOYHOODThe reflective, letter to my younger self side. A softer, diary toned chapter built around remembering. Inside: DICON Magazine 176p · Photocards 4ea · Polaroid Photo + Deco Stickers · Circle Photo Holder · WISH Photocard Set 6ea 
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B-Type TINY WONDER STORIESThe playful, wide eyed side. A scrapbook of small marvels and the everyday wonders that boyhood pop is built on. Inside: DICON Magazine 176p · Photocards 5ea · Folding Poster · Miniature Keyring · Sketchbook Message Card Set 6ea 
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Each edition carries six individual member covers plus a full SET option, so you can chase your bias, your favourite line, or simply the whole group. The magazine itself runs a generous 176 pages at 225 x 290mm, which is room enough for the kind of slow, lived in styling that DICON does best. Note that as a DICON photobook this is a magazine edition rather than a CD album, so the focus stays entirely on the visual and the keepsake.
Why this DICON belongs on your shelf
Photobooks age beautifully in a way singles rarely do. A few years from now, when TWS have grown into whatever comes after boyhood, VOLUME N°34 will read as a time capsule of exactly this era, the one where they were still figuring it out and writing the soundtrack as they went. That is the quiet value of a DICON edition: it freezes a chapter that the group themselves keep telling us is fleeting.
There is also the practical collector logic. The two type concept, six member covers, full SET option, plus the layered inclusions, polaroids, holders, keyrings, message cards, mean there is a real archive here, not just a book. For UK and EU based 42 in particular, securing both an official copy and the matching pre order benefit before the window closes is half the fun of the chase.
SOOJIB's Pick
If you can only take one, let your heart decide by mood: DEAR MY BOYHOOD for the quiet, nostalgic readers who love a letter to the past, and TINY WONDER STORIES for the ones who want the playful, scrapbook energy of TWS at their brightest. True completists, of course, already know the answer is both.
Pre-order at SOOJIB
Official, authentic, with Weverse pre-order benefit. Pre-order deadline 27 June 2026.
View the full TWS DICON N°34 collection >
TWS · DICON VOLUME N°34 · DEAR MY BOYHOOD & TINY WONDER STORIES · Pre-order until 27 June 2026 · SOOJIB, your UK & EU K-pop home.