Park Hyun-bin, former leader of ARrC. [Captured from YouTube channel 'Gwangjin City Boy']
Park Hyun-bin, former leader of ARrC. [Captured from YouTube channel 'Gwangjin City Boy']

A video of a former K-pop idol walking aimlessly after his group disbanded before completing two years of activity has gone viral, surpassing 700,000 views.

The man behind the video is Park Hyun-bin (stage name Hyunmin), a former member of the group ARrC.

Park launched a YouTube channel called "Gwangjin City Boy" in July and posted a video on the 7th of that month titled "Age 22, quitting idol life and walking 155 kilometers from Seoul to Jecheon."

In the video, Park walks the 155-kilometer route from Seoul to Jecheon in North Chungcheong Province over five nights and six days, logging more than 10 hours on foot each day. He said he set out simply to clear his head.

The video drew an unexpected wave of attention, surpassing 700,000 views within two months of its upload and accumulating nearly 3,000 comments.

Viewers flooded the comments with support and encouragement. "There is nothing you can't do besides kids' modeling," one wrote, while others offered: "At 22, doing nothing is perfectly normal" and "Not a single moment of your best effort goes to waste." Singer Lee Jung also left a comment, writing that the walk reminded him of a time he had covered the same route with his group Seven Days at the same age, saying the memory left him momentarily overwhelmed with surprise and warmth.

In a recent interview with Yonhap, Park said he felt that letting the group simply disappear with a single disbandment notice would have been disrespectful to the fans. "It was a video I posted as a way to say a final goodbye to the fans and put a period at the end of my dream of being an idol," he said.

After learning of the disbandment, he said he wanted to go somewhere no one knew him. The destination he chose was Jecheon in North Chungcheong Province — the filming location for "Peppermint Candy," a film he had long loved.

"At first I had no particular destination in mind," Park said. "Then I found myself thinking, 'If I could start all of this over from the beginning, would I choose to go back?' The moment the word 'go back' came to me, I thought of 'Peppermint Candy.'"

He said that when he finally arrived, the moment felt surprisingly unremarkable.

"Some might find this strange, but when I reached the iron bridge, I wasn't thinking much at all," Park said. "It didn't start from some grand desire to conquer myself — it came from wanting to shed something inside me. I just kept shedding and shedding, so by the time I arrived I felt completely empty." He added that the journey left him feeling as though he had been reborn. "I emptied out everything inside me, and I think that made room to fill myself back up with something new," he said.

Now that he has completed the 155-kilometer journey, Park said he has found the courage to live harder. "It's a feeling that I can do anything," he said. "It ended up meaning something far beyond just walking."

Park spent six years as a trainee from middle school before debuting as an idol, only to see his active career end in under two years. Yet he said he has closed that chapter with a sense of peace. "In nearly 10 years, I don't think I've ever felt this at ease and this happy," he said. "I'm living each day with a grateful heart."

He is currently working multiple part-time jobs, including at a Coupang Inc. logistics center and at construction sites, but he has not given up on music. "I want to keep making music for as long as I can," Park said. "Even when I'm hauling packages at the logistics center and just sitting down to eat, I find myself thinking that the stage is ultimately where I belong. I want to release music under my own name, even if I have to make it myself."


betterj@heraldcorp.com