📁 revisiting the story of how wonbin’s journey began.
sm first discovered wonbin through a few selfies on social media. since he was living in ulsan, the company was so worried another agency might spot him first that they even sent staff to pick him up at seoul station, put a mask on him as soon as he arrived, covered his school name tag, and took him straight to the company.
wonbin later laughed about how confused he was because he was just an ordinary student and had no idea why they were hiding him like that. he also shared that before joining sm, he had never really danced. he only started dancing after becoming a trainee, and at first he decided to give the audition a try because he didn’t want to go to school and thought, “why not, even if it turns out to be nothing?” he had always been interested in music, so he saw it as his chance and went for it.
then years later, he and shotaro suggested creating a choreography to show the company. they filmed a dance video with the members they were practicing with at the time and sent it in, and the company responded, “let them debut as riize.”
from getting cast while literally lying in bed, to learning how to dance only after joining sm, and eventually helping create the video that laid the foundation for riize’s debut… wonbin’s trainee story is still one of my favorite stories.