TXT’s Hueningkai Shares His Trainee Experience At BIGHIT, And It’s Hilariously Similar To A BTS Member’s Stories

Another shared experience for the two groups to bond over.

Within three years of their debut, TXT has managed to earn a reputation as a group that is equally well at live singing and dancing. Their choreographies are known to be intricate and powerful, and all the members execute them seamlessly as a unit. But according to the maknae of the group, dancing was never on his agenda when he joined BIGHIT MUSIC!

During a recent live broadcast, a fan asked Hueningkai about his experience as a trainee. The idol shared that it was nothing like what he had in mind. Hueningkai initially joined BIGHIT thinking he would be debuting as a singer-songwriter. He didn’t really intend to become an idol per se.

I came in with the intention of being a singer-songwriter, just singing and playing my guitar and debuting as a singer.

—Hueningkai, Weverse Live

But when he started training at the label, his mentors told him to start learning a little bit of dancing. He agreed to the proposal, and before he knew it, he was spending three hours every day at dance practices.

So at first when they told me, ‘Let’s just slowly learn a bit of dancing,’ I thought, ‘Oh really? Okay, I’ll just try my best!’ But then as soon as I entered, we were working hard like this for three hours.

—Hueningkai, Weverse Live

The story immediately rang a bell among people familiar with TXT and BTS. The way Hueningkai seems to have been lured into idol training feels awfully similar to Suga‘s trainee experience.

Suga during his rookie days | @bangtan.official/Facebook

The rapper has often shared the story of how he joined BIGHIT under the assumption that he would be part of a pure hip-hop group. As an underground rapper, he had no interest in learning how to dance, and Bang Si Hyuk, the then-CEO of BIGHIT, assured him that he wouldn’t need to dance a lot as a trainee. However, after joining the company, he spent long hours at dance practices, and ultimately, he debuted as a member of BTS, who were noted for their strong dancing and rapping skills as rookies.


Though both Hueningkai and Suga were “tricked” into dancing by BIGHIT, both the idols now remember the stories with humor and fondness. And fans recognized the hilarity of the situation too.

Jokes aside, fans are also relieved that BIGHIT recognized the potential in its artists and pushed them actually to achieve it as trainees.