Kpop Imagines | Open

letter

This is not an update. But I hope you take your time to read this and share your thoughts as well. 

[lowercase intended]

first of all, i'd like to start by saying- "stay strong shinee and shawols".

i saw the article stating "shinee's jonghyun dead" by allkpop the day before yesterday in the evening. and i don't know why but for some reasons that day i thought it was some strange sick joke. i thought that that was not it. i thought that tomorrow i'll read the news that he's alive.

to be very honest, i am not a shawol. the only shinee song i have heard is stand by me because it was an ost from boys over flower and it was my very first drama. i did know all the members in shinee, i also could recognise each of them, i knew their positions. but i never bothered getting to know them further. for me, shinee was a respected second generation boy group from sm entertainment and i wasn't into them. 

ukiss - a second generation boy group - was what pulled me in kpop. their first song i heard was cinderella and i heard many songs of theirs and i really liked them and soon i got to know all the members. though since i was new at that time, i didn't recognise their faces. i just memorised kevin and dongho. 

after that, for about a year, i didn't bother about kpop. it was only when my friend asked me to listen to after school's shampoo and into the night sky, i got back into kpop and stuck to it till now. 

i loved after school. i loved all their concepts. my favorite after school comeback was first love for which they learnt pole dance. they practiced for about eight months. two members - lizzie and raina - injured themselves while preparing it. lizzie's injury was bad enough that she had to stay out of the comeback. she was clutches all throughout that period. raina suffered a minor injury and she just stayed on the ground throughout the song. 

after school fascinated me. their concepts fascinated me. and i got to know them. i got to know about their graduating and recruiting concept. i got to know the members who had already left after school and the members who had joined recently at that time. 

it saddened me to know that pledis was suffering some financial crisis because of which they couldn't give after school a comeback. at that seventeen was just a trainee who's debut kept on getting postponed all the time. and nuest had disappeared from kpop for about four years. 

after after school, i got to know about apink. and i'm proud to say that apink is the group i've grown up with. at that time, apink had come up with mr chu and was getting recognised. apink was the group i stuck with. my bias is chorong. 

i looked up for all past albums of apink. from their debut song wishlist and i don't know to five i've been with them every single time they've come up with a different album. 

for me apink always had six members because by the time i came to know of apink, yookyung had already left. 

through apink i got to know other kpop groups like snsd, f(x), exo, got7, shinee, bts, exid, aoa, 2ne1, sistar, miss a, girls' day and more. 

while apink remained my bias group, i grew very fond of girls' generation, exo and got7 because all these three groups were very close to my girls. especially girls' generation. i loved how apink respected snsd as their seniors and how snsd showered lots of love on apink despite in being in a different company.

i loved seeing snsd's sunny favoring chorong very much. i also loved those interviews when yuri said hayoung was her favorite and that she always looked forward to apink's comebacks. i also loved those times when bomi and namjoo would jump with joy because snsd mentioned them or talked to them. hayoung said in an interview that she didn't want to wash her hand because yuri touched it. 

i first got to know of got7 when they were performing mr chu in a concert and apink was called as special guest. after that got7 and apink had lot of moments together. i got to know got7 and loved those seven dorky boys.

same goes for exo. luhan and chorong had so many moments together. i shipped them. (i'm sure there are yoona & luhan shippers or others here but no fanwars please.) 

when naeun was paired with shinee's taemin in we got married i watched almost all the episodes. i also loved naeun's interactions with the rest of the groups. also, key mentioned that he liked eunji. i shipped eunji with key. 

so i've been in kpop for years now. i've known lots of other groups as well like 2ne1, btsm bigbang, super junior and exid. 

as for bts, i got to know them because they were very close to got7. 

i was going through a very hard time when i got to know about after school and apink. and these two groups helped me overcome depression to quite some extent. they gave me something to look forward to. 

it made me happy to see apink win in concerts, when they got all kills and i always looked forward to their weekly idols because they always turned out to be super hilarious. 

and after that, i have followed red velvet, gfriend, kard, seventeen, twice and blackpink right since their debut. 

as a kpop veteran, when i saw the news that shinee's jonghyun committed suicide, i was seriously beyond shocked. i cried. i feel disturbed despite the fact that i was never a shawol. and it makes me wonder, what would shawols be going through. after all, their bond with jonghyun is stronger. then what about those artists who have worked with him once or twice? they have seen him through their eyes, have heard him talk, seen him smiling, frowning and perhaps even crying. what about them? then what about his labelmates? like snsd and exo and red velvet? they've looked up to him as their senior or their colleague or friend. and what about shinee? they've trained with him, debuted with him, laughed with him, won with him, cry with him, grown with him, dreamed with him. they've been with him for so long and that too throughout this procedure of becoming and living the life of an idol. what about his parents and family who raised him?

i can only imagine what all these people might be going through. after i read his suicide  note, i just wish that i could have told him that he did a good job. i wish i could've hugged him and comforted him. don't you feel it too?

all those shawols who attended his concerts probably feel that they should've made him feel less lonely and more loved, no? 

it's really sad that we've lost another gem. 

bts and apink despite not being in the same agency went to his funeral to pay their respects. whether you're a buddy, panda, army, exo-l, revulv, fx stans, carats, once, igot7, sone, elves, blink, vip, blackjack, 4nia, say a, kiss me or shawol please show your support and respect towards shinee and let jonghyun know he did well. 

[i can't help but listen to taeyeon's rain because that song is probably what every shawol is thinking right now.]

i've attached links to a few articles in case you wanna see what other idols think of this tragic incident:

<a> Apink's Eunji Exposes Truth </a>

<a> BTS SNSD NCT pay their respects </a>

<a> Taeyeon cancels fansign event </a>