[0:00]During Stray Kids' survival show, Felix was eliminated and Bang Chan believed it was his fault. As the leader who helped build the group, losing Felix was something he took personally. Most people don't attach themselves to one contestant like that, but Bang Chan did. And that connection would shape both of their lives as idols, because Stray Kids' situation wasn't normal. Trainees get cut all the time. Groups change constantly before debut. People you train with for years can disappear on any other day. And if you're going to try and survive in that kind of system, it's best not to take each of those losses personally. But Bang Chan did. Even after Felix left, the way Chan talked about it made it clear he saw his elimination as something he was responsible for. Which raises a bigger question: Why Felix? What made him the one member Bang Chan couldn't treat like everyone else? Someone that he couldn't let go. To understand that, we have to go back to before the survival show was even an idea. Bang Chan was the first member of Stray Kids to start training. He moved to South Korea in 2011, when he was just 13 years old. The only goal he had at this point was to train and make it to debut, wishing to perform for others and give them a good time. Since he used to live in Australia, he didn't know anybody at JYP Entertainment. Though, he still tried to make friends with the other trainees. However, he picked up on a pattern. People would show up, train alongside him for months, sometimes years, and then they'd leave. Some debuted, some didn't, some just disappeared from the system entirely. And every time it happened, everything reset. New trainees came in, new teams were formed, everyone was being moved around, while he stayed frozen in one place. By this point, Chan had been training for several years. He'd watched it happen around him over and over again, without him. He questioned why he was never chosen. He was constantly too good for elimination, but never good enough for debut. And eventually, that started to change how he approached relationships. Because if everyone around you seems temporary, getting close to them seems futile. He tried his best to adapt to this. He focused on the work, on producing, on improving, on doing whatever he could to stay in a trainee system that wasn't guaranteeing anything at all. And for a while, that worked. He kept his head down and kept going, but it cost him something he wouldn't fully understand until later. That was the environment he was training in. But in 2017, a new trainee from Australia joined the company, and his name was Felix. Unlike Chan, he hadn't been in the system for years. He'd only been training for a short time. And he was still trying to figure out all of it, not just the training, but everything. Felix was 16 years old, and he'd spent his entire life in Australia. The other trainees at JYP had grown up in Korea. They already spoke the language, they already understood how things worked. They knew the culture, the expectations, the way people communicated. For them, training was hard, but it was the only new part. Everything else around it was still home. For Felix, none of it was home. The language, the lifestyle, the pace of work, how people talked to each other, how the city moved around him. All of it was something he had to learn on top of the training that was already difficult enough on its own. And during evaluations, that showed up in a real way. His Korean wasn't strong yet, and it affected how he delivered lines and how he communicated in general. Even when he put in as much effort as he could, it didn't always come through the way it needed to. And in a system where everything is being judged, that kind of gap is concerning. Because unlike Chan, who had already spent years trying to reach a seemingly impossible goal, Felix was trying to catch up to the others who'd already dedicated their life to this. He wasn't starting from the same place as the others. But there was one detail through all of this that mattered more than anything. Felix had come from Australia, and so had Bang Chan. That might not sound super crazy. Two people from the same country, oh my gosh, who knew? It happens. But in Chan's case, the timing of it changes everything. By 2017, Chan had spent six years inside a system where people rotated in and out constantly. He'd learned whether he wanted to keep a certain distance or not. Not because he didn't care about the people around him, but because caring for them could be costly on him. Then Felix showed up, and from what we can see, Chan didn't treat him the same way he'd learned to treat most trainees. A couple of Stray Kids members have mentioned they actually thought he was kind of scary at first. It certainly wasn't anything super dramatic. But Chan was able to speak to Felix in English, when things got complicated for them. Bang Chan was born in South Korea, he was a little bit more accustomed. He checked in on Felix, he translated and helped him learn the language, helped him learn the culture. Because Felix wasn't just struggling with learning the choreographies or improving his vocal technique. He was struggling to exist in the environment itself. When your Korean isn't where it needs to be, everything becomes harder. It's hard enough being 16 and alone in a foreign country, but being in one you hardly know the language of is discouraging. When your instructors are upset with your progress, not being able to understand their words really just adds to it all. You have to try and piece together conversations. And that's just within the company, Felix still had to navigate Seoul itself. However, Chan had already gone through those adjustments. He understood what Felix was feeling. He moved back to Korea at 13. He knew what it felt like to be inside a system that doesn't cater for you in the slightest. So when Felix arrived and started falling behind in ways that had nothing to do with talent, Chan recognized it, not because someone asked him to help out, but because he saw himself in Felix. He just understood what Felix was dealing with in a way most of the other trainees couldn't. But understanding someone's situation and being able to protect them from it are two very different things. Because the survival show was coming, and it wouldn't care how well Chan understood Felix's struggles. It would only care about results. Stray Kids' survival show was designed to test whether the group Bang Chan put together could function under real industry pressure. Every performance was filmed, and the people watching weren't just the instructors anymore. It was JYP himself, alongside the public. There was little to no room for error anymore. If you mess up, you're cut from the team. For someone like Chan, who had been training for over six years, he was used to this kind of thing. He knew how the evaluations worked, and he knew how to perform under immense pressure. He especially understood what JYP the man and JYP the company were looking for. Because he'd been receiving that kind of feedback for most of his teenage years. Felix didn't have that foundation. The things that were already hard for him in training, certainly didn't go away once the show started. If anything, they became bigger problems. His Korean still wasn't strong enough to deliver lyrics with the precision expected in JYP. His ability was there, but it didn't always show up the same way each time. Felix wasn't someone who was falling behind because he didn't care. He was putting in the hours, he was trying to improve his Korean, trying to match the level of trainees who had years on him. But in the survival show environment, effort doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much you've put in to get to where you are now and to continue. If the product you present is poor, then you're done for. And the gap between how hard Felix was working and what he was able to deliver on stage, was becoming an issue with each mission. And it's during the survival show that Bang Chan's role started changing. During training, helping Felix was something he could do subtly. Helping him out was just a nice little gesture he could show Felix to help him feel safe in his foreign place. But on the survival show, Chan was no longer just looking out for a fellow Aussie trainee. He was the leader, he was the person who had selected these members. And when one of them struggled on camera, that reflected on his judgment. The show was evaluating whether Chan had built a group that could work. So every time Felix received harsh feedback, every time a performance didn't land the way it needed to, it wasn't just Felix's problem anymore. It fell back on Chan. And in the difficult part of all that is that Chan couldn't fix it for him. He could encourage Felix, he could help him prepare, but once they were on stage, the performance was Felix's to deliver. But it kept not being enough. Felix would show improvements in one area, and then something else would fall apart. His confidence at this point was low, and it showed. During their performance in front of YG Entertainment trainees and YG himself, he stumbled through his introduction in Korean. He was still working on his pronunciation constantly, but the progress just wasn't fast enough for the pace the show demanded. Then came the busking mission, Felix started losing control of his movements during the dance. Mistakes kept stacking up, he got emotional before the performance even started. The anxiety catching up with him in a way he couldn't hide anymore. And JYP's direct feedback was hard to take. He told Felix that when he rapped, it didn't hit home at all because his Korean wasn't good enough. That for it to sound convincing, it would take more time, time that the show wasn't offering. The group had already lost Minho to elimination just episodes before. They'd watched one of their own get pulled out of the team, and it shook all of them. The room was already tense, everyone already knew what was at stake, and then it happened again. Felix was eliminated from Stray Kids. Jisung was the first one to reach, the whole group was trying to hold it together, but this one hit differently for Chan. Always find me, yeah?
[10:10]I'm not gonna leave you behind. JYP believed he was at a point still that if he were to debut, it'd be a disservice to him. Felix's minimal Korean skills were tearing apart his chances to be an idol, and now he'd lost his chance to debut with Stray Kids. He'd no longer be able to progress with the Aussie mate that held him so closely. In a way, Felix saw it coming. He'd consistently been told he needs to improve, but being told you're no longer part of the group you've been fighting to stay in, that's even harder. Especially when you're 16, far from home, and the people you've trained with are still moving forward without you. Felix's elimination broke Chan. He couldn't process what had happened. At first, he just stood on the side, trying to piece together what's going on. Where other people would have pushed that blame on the one that was eliminated, Bang Chan didn't. He felt responsible for it, even though it was a decision that was entirely outside of his control.
[11:10]Even when you're really struggling. I should've been there. Truthfully, Chan saw Felix's elimination as a direct reflection of his own failure to do enough. Ever since Felix joined JYP Entertainment, Chan felt like maybe, just maybe, he could keep Felix from going through what he had. He could help him adjust, he could guide him through the parts of the system that no one had guided him through. And after six years of watching people come and go, he took a chance making a friend one more time. But it ended up exactly as before. The person he chose to invest in was gone, and he couldn't stop it from happening, even after all he'd done. That's what made this different from every other trainee who had come and gone over those six years. Bang Chan had kept his distance from those people for a reason. Felix was the one he didn't keep his distance from, and what came of it was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. It would have been easy at that point for Chan to go back to how he operated before. To pull inward again and isolate himself, to decide that caring about someone in the system was a mistake and nothing more. However, JYP saw the power Stray Kids carried as a full team. The team that Bang Chan had deliberately pieced together. And just like Chan, he couldn't bear to see the group incomplete. So even though Felix and Minho had their problems that needed to be sorted out, he was willing to give them one last chance. Just as Bang Chan saw Felix's potential and believed in him, JYP too decided to trust in him. Trust in Chan's judgment. And when Felix returned, Chan reacted the same way he did when he was eliminated. He stood on the side, just watching, because that was the behavior he'd learned to adapt. But this time was different. He was happy, he simply looked on as the other members rushed over. And even though they were from Korea originally, they related to him and could see how far Felix would go. But Felix coming back didn't undo what had happened. It didn't erase how Chan felt when he lost him, and it didn't automatically make things the way they were before. However, there was more to it. Up to this point, most of what we've talked about has been Chan doing things for Felix. All of his guidance, encouragement, assistance, it's all been beneficial for Felix. But in the same way Chan helped Felix, Felix too helped him. Though, most of it didn't begin until after they debuted. During one of Bang Chan's Chan's room streams in 2019, Felix joined in as a special guest. Nothing too crazy, he'd been a guest before, but Felix didn't just come alone, he brought an egg. No real reason, someone just gave it to him, so he decided to bring it with. What the heck? Where'd you get your egg from? I don't know. The conversation derailed into whether you could eat a boiled egg with chocolate milk, because apparently Changbin had recommended it. Then into sweet versus savory preferences, then into honey chicken. None of it had anything to do with what the stream was supposed to be. And if you watch Chan's other streams, that kind of thing usually doesn't last super long. He'll joke around, but he always brings things back. He'll play a song, check in with fans, keep things moving, that's just how he runs it. He's always kind of keeping the stream controlled, even when it looks casual. But with Felix and the egg, he didn't control anything. He didn't say, okay, anyway, next song. He didn't try to wrap it up. He just kept going with it, talking about honey chicken, talking about nothing. Laughing at stuff that didn't really matter, and he stayed there for a while. This looser side is something you don't usually see of him unless he's comfortable. And that's what makes it worth paying attention to. From what we can see, Felix does this to Chan a lot. Not always with eggs, but he has a way of pulling Chan into moments where Chan isn't the one running things. And instead of pulling back, Bang Chan just goes with it. He loosens up, he stops being the guy in charge, and he just hangs out. With Felix, he feels like he can let go. In a Rolling Stone interview, Chan was asked about his relationship with Felix during their trainee and rookie years. He said he kept trying to take care of Felix after he became a trainee. That he scolded him a lot because he wanted more out of him. He used the Korean term yogsim, and turned to Felix to help translate. Felix helped him out, saying, your greed. Chan accepted that, he said it was greed, because he wanted to get closer to him. Not because it was his job, because he wanted that connection for himself. After six years of learning not to get attached to anyone, and he went out of his way to help his 16-year-old kid from Sydney learn Korean.
[18:12]Felix watched Chan hold everything together for the group night after night, and became the one who'd stay up with him when it got to be too much. Chan told Felix he'd never leave him behind, and he followed up on that. Felix sat with Chan when things were bad, and told him he was a good person. And Chan still pulls up those messages when he needs it. Chan spent years learning that people leave, and then he let Felix in anyway, and Felix got eliminated, and he stopped talking. And they cried on stage in front of thousands of people, and after all that, they don't even share a dorm anymore. Because they don't have to be around each other the way they used to. But Felix is still right there next to him, not because he has to be, because that's just where he's been for years now. And neither of them has ever wanted that to change.
