[Sportschosun reporter Jeong Yu-na] Wheein, a member of Mamamoo, shed tears as she looked back on the group’s peak years and realized how precious those times were, something she had not fully understood back then.
On the 31st of last month, Wheein held a live broadcast on a fan communication platform and shared a variety of stories with fans.
During the broadcast, Wheein recalled a difficult period from Mamamoo’s past activities. She cautiously began, "I think I might cry again if I talk about this," and then confessed, "Moomoos listening now might feel upset, but when I was going through such a hard time, I kept thinking to Shin-young unnie, 'I want to quit' and 'This is too hard.'"
She explained, however, that she did not mean she truly wanted to stop working. Wheein said, "It wasn’t that I really wanted to do that. Do you know what it feels like to love something so much that you end up saying you don’t want to do it?" She added, "I loved this job so much and wanted to keep doing it for a very long time, but because it was so hard, I said those things."
Kim Shin-young, who heard Wheein’s story at the time, told her that even the difficult moments she was experiencing now would one day become something she missed. Wheein recalled, "Shin-young unnie said, 'I understand that you’re having a hard time. But even if you feel like quitting and hate it right now, a day will definitely come when you miss this. You’ll really miss it.'"
At the time, however, Wheein said it was not easy to accept Kim Shin-young’s words. She said, "Honestly, I didn’t even want to understand those words, and I couldn’t understand them," adding, "I wasn’t in a situation where I could understand." She continued, "Whenever unnie said things like that, I would half-jokingly and half-seriously say, 'I don’t think that’ll happen.'"
As time passed, Wheein said she came to feel firsthand what that advice had meant. She noted, "I really feel the meaning of those words now," and added, "I had forgotten them, but when I look at myself from a few years ago, I think I was living with those feelings, just as Shin-young unnie said."
She said her longing for the past grew even stronger recently as she released a new album with the Mamamoo members and worked together on promotions and concerts. Wheein said, "I felt that so much while releasing the album, promoting, and doing concerts together this time," and eventually broke into tears.
She then confessed, looking back on the days when Mamamoo was at its peak, "I often think I want to go back to the time when Mamamoo was really at its height."
"This is something I can say only now, but back then there were times when I really hated it. Because it was so hard," she said. "People need rest to feel the value that comes in between, but when everything keeps coming at you, I guess you end up giving up on what you could have gained yourself. There were many times when I passed things by without even knowing what I was getting."
Wheein said, "I think I miss that time. If I were told to go back now, I wonder if I could really do it again." She also laughed as she made a bittersweet confession: "When I drink alone, I put on our old videos, watch them, and end up crying by myself. I guess that’s my drunken habit."
jyn2011@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
