👤: So, after finishing your music show promotions, how did it feel?
🦚: Oh, the generation gap is huge now. The age difference between us and the newer idols is basically like the gap between parents and their children, so it’s honestly very embarrassing. Even when they come over to greet us, we just awkwardly say, “Oh, hello! You’re the best, you’re the best!” and then run away.
👤: You’ve reached the age where you finally understand why your senior artists acted that way back then.
🦚: Exactly. There’s a girl group in our company called Hearts2Hearts, and one of the members, Ina, has a mother who’s the same age as us.
🐤: That’s right. Even if people called us fathers, it wouldn’t be strange anymore.
👤: There are a lot of moments like that these days, aren’t there?
🐤: Yeah, and the gap just keeps getting bigger. The parents of trainees nowadays were born in the ’90s.
👤: Oh my… that’s a big deal.
🐤: Coming here and talking about things like this… the aging of the entertainment industry really is a serious issue.
👤: And there’s no retirement or welfare system for it.
🐤: Exactly. I feel like Super Junior has raised the average age of idols quite a bit, so I’d like to sincerely apologize for that.
👤: It’s okay. You’re still doing great.
🦚: These days we get a lot of encouragement like, “Keep going! Stay strong!”
👤: It feels like everyone is cheering you on, saying, “Wow, they’re really working hard.”
🦚: Yeah, that’s exactly how they are.
👤: Do you still have fans who actively support you?
🐤: Oh, of course!
👤: Really?
🐤: They always say, “Don’t let our oppas get discouraged,” and they come to support us too.
👤: That’s truly precious.
🐤: It really is. Each one of those fans feels like a hundred people. We’re growing older together now.
🦚: Longtime fans are different. These days, fans use LED signs instead of handmade placards. So when we see people still holding handmade signs…
👤: They made them themselves!
🦚: That’s how you know they’re longtime fans, and they’re incredibly precious to Super Junior.
🐤: Actually, at our recent fansign, our fans are getting older too, so many of them aren’t familiar with buying tickets online. A lot of them told me, “Oppa, I couldn’t come because I didn’t know how to book the tickets.”
👤: So after being a veteran group for so long, you launched a brand new subunit and spent your first week promoting as rookies. How did that happen?
🐤: We had just finished our 20th anniversary concert tour, and for the encore concerts we wanted to do something different. We wanted to perform as subunits, but Heechul didn’t have one. He said, “Then I just won’t participate.” But I couldn’t let him sit out, so I told him, “Let’s do something together.” Then Shindong heard us and said, “Then you two should just form a unit together!” And that’s how our subunit was created.
👤: What was your relationship like? Were you always close?
🐤: No, we weren’t.
👤: Because you didn’t really understand each other back then?
🐤: As everyone knows from the “Great Incheon Incident” about ten years ago, we had a huge fight at Incheon Munhak Stadium.
👤: It was complete chaos!
🐤: It really was! But as we got older, we gradually started understanding each other better.
👤: Right, you probably don’t even have the energy to fight anymore. Did you enjoy working together as a duo?
🦚: I absolutely loved it! And Leeteuk gave me a lot of authority and freedom to lead.
👤: So who’s the leader of the unit?
🐤: Heechul.
🦒: Really?!
🦚: Yep, I’m the leader now.
🐤: Even for our appearance on The Seasons, Heechul personally arranged everything, contacted the program, and handled all the scheduling himself.
👤: Well, why wouldn’t he? He’s the best at those kinds of things.
🦚: That’s why I really wanted to appear on The Seasons. Since my older brother Si Kyung is the host here, I wanted to show him a brighter, more confident side of myself.
Another day, another people outside suju asking about their fight stories😭 shindong shared an incident where he almost got into a huge fight with yesung during Inkigayo bcz of sandwich😂 no one can leave yesung out of their fight stories hahaha