I was inspired by @princewooseokie to share the Lee Jinhyuk counterpart saga that I had written some time back after she shared her story of Kim Wooseok :)

This is a short story about a wonderful boy named Lee Jinhyuk. In all his kind, funny, bright, cringey glory.

From the day he was born Lee *Seungjun had a life rather filled with adversities. At birth itself, he was diagnosed with a lifelong heart disease. A disease wherein the valve does not function properly (though even he is not aware of some of the finer details). He revealed this

during a recent interview at radio star where he said "When I was younger, I thought that all people had a scar on their chests. But I realized in 5th grade that I was the only one with a scar like that." So all his life, he had been a bit different...

As a result, young him was rather weak physically, but he didn't think much of it. He went through schooling as per normal, but that wasn't easy on him either. In Junior High he got bullied a lot for openly expressing his feelings. He found it difficult to get along with others.

He talked to his parents, and instead of becoming spiteful because of bullies, he used it to determine his dream. He knew his sister had acted in ads before, and the idea of being in the public and influencing people with more positivity became the center of his dream.

Now, with regards to his heart disease, he didn't really think of it as a big deal, but the key moment where it became a hindrance to his life was when he became a trainee at a company. He was, understandably, physically weaker than the other trainees.

He thought about giving up and his mom told him to stop if it was too difficult. Notably, he doesn't drink alcohol, caffeine, or smoke due to his heart condition and he explained that sometimes hard to see other members or his fellow singers drink energy drinks to gain energy.

but he has to “just endure it even if (he is) tired." But he wanted to overcome it, so he ended up practicing even harder all day & night. By training to become an idol, his heart & the muscles surrounding it became stronger and he was able to improve his condition.

After 3 years of training he was going to debut with UP10TION... and he was so happy to have reached that goal of debut.

Of course, Wei, now with his new stage name (in UP10TION), soon found out that the debut was only the first step in a long journey of hardships.

Despite the debut & first comebacks being relatively successful, a scandal of his friend/fellow member, Wooshin caused a lot of issues for their company & the group. This scandal was not legitimate & involved a lot of falsified info, but nevertheless, their popularity took a hit

It was so bad that Wooshin went on hiatus because his mental health was affected...

Around this time (or a little after) is when perhaps the most heartbreaking thing happened...

Wei held a solo v-live one day & no one watched. Not a single person came on. One can imagine that at this point being an idol likely felt like it held absolutely no meaning. It brought up a key question: How can you spread positivity if no one is there to listen to you share it?

This vlive is an important point of the story because it was almost a reality check for him, but he and UP10TION pressed on: they got Wooshin back last year, they went on a world tour… but their comebacks were still not doing too well.

At this point Wei/Seungjun got his legal name changed to Lee Jinhyuk because his mom went to a spiritual advisor, and they told him to change his name to metaphorically "restart" his journey. As such, from now on I'll call him Lee Jinhyuk or LJH.

In the start of this year Wooshin joined Produce X 101 because of how tough his career had thus far been, and he really needed a way out of this sort of "hole" he was in. LJH wasn't initially meant to join, but he was aware how reserved Wooshin (who goes byWooseok in now) was...

and how it would be hard for Wooseok to make new friends/mingle. Because of this, LJH joined the show with his friend fully not expecting to get through the first few rounds.

He kept up fairly well in the initial evaluations, earning praise from trainers, but despite this, Wooseok was extremely popular during the first voting rounds (largely owed to his stunning visuals at that point) and Jinhyuk really wasn't.

He was on one of the most popular teams for the "group X Battle" or first round of eliminations and got picked alongside the people that would go on to become the show's most popular trainees. Their song was NCT's BOSS which is well known as a rap heavy song.

He got the "center" part (which for some reason is a huge deal) because all the team members liked him and trusted his skills as a dancer/rapper. the team consisted of Dongpyo, Seungwoo, Yohan, Junho, and Eunsang...who all would go on to debut).

Even tho Seungwoo could rap well, he was also the only skilled enough singer to hit the high notes. Thus, Jinhyuk was the only real rapper on the team, and they needed more. LJH asked Yohan to try it out, and Yohan turned out to be rather good at it.

Yohan called himself a singer, but LJH thought Yohan would fit sme of the rap parts better so he said You can do it, I'll teach you. I'll make you a rapper". With LJH's guidance Yohan even got praised by Jooheon during rehearsals & ended up doing really well on the performance.

Despite being center, Jinhyuk ended up giving members like Yohan more limelight for the sake of team balance & in the live voting JH didn't do terribly well. (Yohan is now an official rapper in X1 & that's primarily due to the fact that LJH pushed him to become one at the start!)

During the "position evaluation", Jinhyuk wanted to pick rap but his mom wanted him to pick dance. (This season had 2 special "X" categories, one that combined vocal/dance + another that combined rap/dance).

LJH took the gamble & he ended up in a team with ppl really low in ranks who didn't know how to rap/had never made choreo. They all did it because "they had nothing to lose". LJH, from the get-go, had a lot of burden, and to make it worse the teammates got extremely distracted.

He got frustrated, but he managed to explain the situation in a firm but non-intimidating way and the team got their act together. He made all the choreo & wrote almost all the lyrics, & during a rehearsal the judges were really proud of him for "making something out of nothing".

Now would be a good time to mention that he became really close with the show host Lee Dongwook at this time who came and supported/talked to him when he was struggling. Simply put, the two became really invested in one another throughout the show.

Anyways, Jinhyuk managed to pull off the performance, and in the end he got the well deserved 200K benefit votes because he understandably stood out from the rest of his team. This helped him jump from rank 25 to rank 2 (with the only person beating him being Wooseok...)

The whole ordeal and how he dealt with it garnered him a lot of attention (internationally too). People started fan followings, and Jinhyuk had made a name for himself… perhaps his life really was changing.

For the next evaluation he himself wasn't in too much of a trouble spot but 3 of his group mates for the concept evaluation (Byungchan, Hangyul, and Kookheon) were all suffering from leg injuries, so the whole team (chock full of talent, mind you) was going through a lot.

They still had one of the best performances of on the evaluation night and the audience even asked for an encore (a slight reference to LJH's line in that song, Umjigyo/Move- 'get that can I get an encore'). Still, somehow, their team didn't "win" amongst the 5 (2nd best though).

Even though he didn't place at the top of his team nor did his team win, LJH still ranked #3 in that elim round ( without any of the benefit votes). At this point he was mentally preparing himself for debuting w/ the new group because his popularity was so high (trended on naver)

Aside from the evaluations, I should also state that no one on the show disliked him. Everyone saw him as funny and friendly and he went out of his way to become friends with foreign trainees and shy people. He was just really amazing to everyone.

On the final episode, Jinhyuk had some of the best lines and performed perhaps the best out of anyone in his team's song & the final ballad song. Mnet kept showing him, so ppl were so sure he was going to make it. They were calling out the ranks and they got top 4...

When they called top 3 it was evident that LJH would be one of the ones not to make the top cut. They then called his name as one of 4 nominees for the final X position but because his early ranks were low everyone that he would not be making the cut and he got eliminated.

Under old rules JH would have ranked 11th & gotten into X1 (if the last place was not cumulative but just based final ep votes). Truly, statistically there was no way he wouldn't make it into top 10 if the public had voted (but Mnet doesnt care for probability when rigging votes)

Sorrowfully, Lee Dongwook teared up when he had to announce that Lee Jinhyuk got eliminated. At this point of the finals, everyone was in tears. LJH was crying too, but he still smiled through it.

He apologized to WS for not 'staying with him all the way as he promised'. Wooseok responded with 'Jinhyuk-ah, thank you for coming into my life, i love you' & JH mouthed back 'me too'. Many cried for him but alas, an 8-month-long trial of endurance had finally come to an end.

Despite not being in X1, it has worked out for him alright so far (in the past month since the show ended). Even if he's been separated from the one person that knows what he went through on the show, he still stays close to them all.

Thousands of ppl showed up to his solo fansign (when not even 1 showed up to the vlive a 1.5 yrs ago), & he's gotten many modeling gigs & what not. The best part of this story is that he finally gets to share his experiences & spread positivity like he has wanted to for so long.

He's still so humble, & he remains in contact with all the eliminated trainees. This promo period is called “Thank You For Love” which is so beautiful considering that he used to receive painfully little attention in the past & now all his fans are showering him with praise/love.

Jinhyuk’s story continues on as he shares more of his hardships and how he overcame them (a truly inspiring journey). He continues to get many modeling gigs (and he hopes to remain employed unlike before! haha) and his future is turning out to be bright.

There is nothing about Jinhyuk to not admire, and I, for one, am so glad I get to see his future unfold. I admire him so much & hope he gains success in a bright path of positivity while still retaining the best of Lee Jinhyuk, aka tall Olaf onesie boy, we have all grown to love.