Moving Forward

3. Seokjin

In between takes I sat quietly at a corner in the set of my TV program, Eat Jin. I waited patiently as they rearranged props for the next segment.

It had taken me some time to get used to the spotlight again. After what happened, everyone decided for us that it was time we started our military service. We had delayed it long enough and we also needed to get out of the limelight. All the members were badly shaken and didn't have the strength to face the media anymore. Five of us went together and Taehyung joined a year later. It was different, but if I were to compare, the physical and mental strain of our pre-debut days were harder.

Military training helped us empty our minds of everything and just focus on what we needed to  learn and do to defend our country. Everyone was looking at us, waiting for us to fumble and turn into fairies. They didn't realise that we were professionals. We knew how to follow orders, to push our limits and deliver perfectly even if it meant no rest, no sleep, no stopping.

We lived those years in a daze. We never talked about what happened. We never shared what we felt or thought. It felt like we had shut down. Some said it was shock or trauma. To me, it felt like we had died.

I'm a practical person. Although I originally wanted to be an actor, I don't believe in living my reality as a drama. I didn't believe our lives should stop. So, as the eldest of the group, I took it upon myself to start over. I wanted them to follow me.

After military training we parted ways and tried to figure out how to meet the world again, this time on our own. HYBE had suffered the worst. Its share prices plummeted as the company and Bang Si Hyuk faced a monstrous number of legal cases. He was forced to resign from HYBE as its Chairman during the public backlash and was pressured to sell his shares. No one wanted anything to do with HYBE as long as he was there. What happened could not be blamed on any one person, but human nature required a scapegoat, and it was Bang. Everyone was angry - our parents, family, friends, and the most powerful of all: ARMY. I heard there were even lawsuits coming from all over the world. They did not prosper, but the effort it took to address each one took its toll on the company and on Bang PD-Nim. Eventually he had to give in. He sold all his shares back to the company and left HYBE - the conglomerate he began from a small room in his house and poured nearly half of his life and all of his net worth into - for good. He did it for the sake of all the other artists that remained, and for his own sanity.

He was the first person I visited after I came home and had, more or less, pulled myself together. It was a shock to see him then. He had lost half his weight and had aged beyond his years. I kept visiting him. I cooked for him because we both didn't want to go out and be seen and photographed, for fear it would bring up the tragedy. It was from all that cooking where I got the courage to take a new path.

We have both aged a lot. I am turning 40 and Bang PD-Nim is almost in his 60's now. I felt it was my responsibility to look out for him, and I believe those times we spent at his home for the past seven years, talking and having meals together, had healed us both faster than if we had chosen to keep everything bottled up, as the others were doing.

Now I was in the Eat Jin set with all the lights facing me, and I wondered how I withstood this heat from the spotlights all those years ago. I was finishing a live segment on cooking with whatever's available in the ref. My show is, like me, practical. I tried to appeal to people my age who liked to travel and explore new places, and eat! My generation worked and ate out most of the time. Our refs are usually empty, if we're not living with family, and it's a challenge to get real sustenance if we're stuck in our apartment alone. One thing I learned from all my struggles: food heals, and food with good company heals even better. That's what I try to share in my shows.

We packed up in a while and I took some leftover  uncut vegetables with me to cook later tonight. I don't believe in being wasteful and spending needlessly when you can get it free. It's a Friday, and I told Bang PD-Nim that we'd be having grilled steak tonight. I hadn't seen him during the holidays since we had a lot of recordings and live segments to do. I had already bought grass-fed beef. I would grill the cuts in butter and a bit of olive oil. I had always known that the secret to good cooking was using fresh ingredients in their most natural form. Then the food would need little embellishment and only their true flavours would emerge.