Oh Ji-min, a member of group BTL who debuted in 2014, shared his current status as a painter and starting a family.

Oh Ji-min, who appeared on MBN‘s close-up documentary ‘Scoop World’ Episode 669 on the 9th, debuted as a member of group BTL on May 15, 2014 and currently works as a painter.

He got married 5 years ago and revealed his 26-year-old wife Bae Gyu-ri on the show that day, saying, “I saw my wife for the first time on the street when I was on leave from the military and was out drinking with friends. I think it started when I thought, ‘She’s so pretty.’ He said of his first meeting with his wife, “I thought she was just one of the many pretty people in the world because she was a soldier, but when we went to a bar for the second round, my wife was there too, so I thought, ‘This is fate,’ and dashed her.”

His wife also said, “When we first met for drinks, they asked me, ‘What do you think you’re going to do?‘ I thought he was a bad person because of his looks. I thought he was the kind of person who would live off of women, but I found out he was a celebrity. At the time, I thought he was funny.”

The two, who started dating while he was serving in the military, got pregnant with their first child two months before Oh Ji-min’s discharge from the military, after meeting 15 times. At the time, Oh Ji-min was in a group that was about to make a comeback with their second album, and he enlisted in the military to pursue an acting career.

Oh Ji-min confessed, “I thought my dream was over. My mind changed dozens of times a day. ‘Anyway, a life has come into existence, so I have to take responsibility for it,’ but then an hour later I thought, ‘How can I raise a child when I have nothing?’”

He added, “At the time, I didn‘t say something extreme like, ’Erase it.‘ I said, ’Let‘s have the child when we can take responsibility for it.’ In the end, it‘s the same thing. But my wife said, ’It seems like I‘m holding you back, but it’s really okay. I‘ll raise it, so I won’t ask you to take responsibility, so you can go your own way. I‘ll raise it.’ I came to my senses after hearing that.”

The two first became parents when they were 25 and 21, respectively, and now have two children. Oh Ji-min confessed that his family was a burden until a few years ago. He said, “At first, I thought, ‘I have to love.’ ‘Even if it’s because of the child, because we have the child, we have to love. As we got to know each other more deeply, we started to love each other more and more.” He also expressed his affection by saying, “My wife loved me with the same heart from the beginning. It‘s something I’ll have to feel sorry for the rest of my life and repay.”

Jeon Hyo-jin, Donga.com Reporter jhj@donga.com