Aug 31,2011 at 12:33 am
On the August 30th episode of SBS‘s ‘Strong Heart‘, Super Junior‘s Kyuhyun shared stories from his early days as a member of Super Junior.
Kyuhyun began, “I wasn’t a trainee for very long. I had trained for about 2 months when I became a member of Super Junior.”
He explained that when he joined the group, Super Junior was a rookie group who had debuted only 6 months ago, and already had 12 members. It was hard enough to receive adequate screen time when there were 12 members, so Kyuhyun had feared that the members would dislike him for joining the group.
He continued, “On my second day at the agency, I ran into the Super Junior members, who were said to be so busy that people were seldom able to catch a glimpse of them. I was so nervous that I just slightly nodded my head and said ‘Hello’, but Leeteuk-hyung coldly replied, ‘Excuse me, but that’s not how you greet someone’. Of course, at the time I had made a mistake, but the members seemed to dislike me from the beginning.”
Kyuhyun shocked the cast members when he added, “When I joined Super Junior and moved into the dorm, all the members each had their own bed except for me. They told me just to sleep anywhere, so I ended up sleeping in a sleeping bag next to Yesung‘s bed for a month, between Donghae and Sungmin‘s beds for a month, and so on for about 9 months.”
Kyuhyun also shared a story of how Leeteuk had told him to cook some ramen for the members, but since he had to prepare enough ramen for 13 people, he accidentally used too much water. Seeing this, Leeteuk had angrily scolded Kyuhyun while throwing his chopsticks aside.
Ryeowook later recalled an episode involving Kyuhyun and said, “We have a rule saying that you cannot be drunk inside the dorm, but one day Kyuhyun consumed an entire bottle of soju before returning back home. He then came to lie down on my bed and said, ‘Ryeowook, I’m so tired,’ while shedding tears.”
He continued, “I was also going through a tough time, so I asked him, ‘Why? Because of who? I think I’ll be able to understand you,’ to which Kyuhyun replied, ‘Leeteuk-hyung…’, and then drifted off to sleep.”
However, despite the obstacles he had to face in his earlier Super Junior days, Kyuhyun expressed the high level of respect and love he now holds for his group’s leader. When Super Junior won their first award, all the members shed tears of joy, but Kyuhyun forced himself to hold back his tears, thinking that he had no right to cry for this achievement.
He stated, “The members continued to cry once we returned to the waiting room, and I truly wanted to cry along with them.” But once Leeteuk looked up to see Kyuhyun standing awkwardly amongst the other members, he came over to give him a warm embrace and said, “You worked hard too, Kyuhyun“.
With these words, all the tears Kyuhyun had been holding back came rushing out, and all the wounds from Leeteuk’s cold scoldings in the past were washed away. He added that after this experience, he felt like he had finally been accepted as a member of Super Junior.
Leeteuk responded to these stories by saying, “It’s because we have a strong foundation of faith and trust in each other that we are able to share stories like these. I think that’s how comfortable we feel around each other now“, impressing viewers with his wise words.
