After leaving seventeen, he joined FNC GTC, FNC's Chinese branch, where he and ACEMAX BLACK were in a competition against ACEMAX RED to debut.
Then BLK debuted and he wasn't in the first lineup because he was scheduled to participate in MIXNINE by his new company, which also picked up the rest of the ACEMAX BLACK members. Then he was rank 10, 1 spot off to "debut" through MIXNINE.
Then, he was going to debut officially with BLK, but the group disbanded due to internal conflicts in the company before he could make his debut.
