A new dorm a new life. The first and smallest dorm of Shinhwa hosted 7 people, the 6 of us and the manager hyung. With two rooms and a living room, we decided that Eric, Minwoo and Pil Gyo would share a room, while Dongwan, Choong Jae and I could take the living room. Dongwan didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the living room and wanted more privacy so he ended up sleeping with the manager in the smaller room.

With moving in, comes un packing. I had realized that Minwoo hyung had wore briefs when he moved in to my room at the student hostel but I hadn’t realized that the rest of the Korean local wore briefs. Dongwan and Choong Jae had quickly taken out their briefs and shoved them in the closets. I had helped Minwoo unpack as he opened his suitcase he quickly and proudly showed me his superman briefs. He looked over my shoulder and saw Pil Gyo’s open suitcase and pulled out one of his boxers. He waved them around, looked at me with a serious face and asked, “What are these shorts?”

I stared back in shock, did he not know about the comfy boxer shorts? I assumed that briefs were the thing in Korea and had even bought a couple to try but I found them distasteful and frankly too childlike. I had to quickly explain to Minwoo that they were underwear just like his briefs before the other boys could walk in on Minwoo’s ignorance. Minwoo looked at the boxers in his hand and placed them in his drawer, he told me that Pil Gyo wouldn’t mind if he tried on some of his underwear.

I returned to the managers room where the rest of us were to kept our clothes. I noticed that Dongwan and Choong Jae had been through my luggage. They were holding on to my boxers with the same confusion on their face. Now I understood, boxers weren’t sold in Korea I had thought that Minwoo’s ignorance came from being raised in the countryside but the Seoul natives confusion proved me wrong. I gave the same explanation that I had gave Minwoo, and the boys quickly asked if I could lend them my underwear. As unhygienic I thought it was I decided that I should let them try them on and give them a thorough wash when they return them. 

The introduction to boxers proved successful and the whole group was part of the boxer shorts party. Underwear sharing was done discreetly and often, with the growing popularity of boxers in the home I had to ask my family to send me more. Pil Gyo seemed to have noticed as well as his boxer collection also grew, he must have got some of his American friends to send them back for him. That was when the three of us, Minwoo, Dongwan and I discovered Eric’s golden pile of boxers. The quality of the fabric was pristine, I was fairly certain that a good portion of them were made of silk. Everyone of them had the neat tag of “Made in U.S.A,” the boxers were definitely better than what Pil Gyo and I had. They must have been expensive, but Eric’s family was rich enough to afford such expensive boxers. The three of us looked at each other and stole a couple of Eric’s boxers.

Out of guilt I had only wore the comfortable shorts once before returning them to Eric’s drawer. Dongwan had kept one for himself and had even written the word ‘Kim’ on the boxers. As for Minwoo I believed that he had tried on just about every boxer in Erics drawer and that probably continued for sometime. All the other members started to make a habit of borrowing Eric’s underwear. They were definitely the best underwear that was in the dorm, and definitely better than anything we could buy in Seoul. Pil Gyo must have traded some of his underwear with Eric, and Choong Jae seemed to have asked for permission to wear a couple. But Minwoo being as he is continued to borrow Eric’s underwear without permission.

It felt like trouble waiting to happen, as Eric seemed to become more and more aware of his underwear issues. Then out of no where Eric had told Minwoo, “You’re wearing my underwear aren’t you?” He raised his voice a little and said, “Don’t wear my .” Soon he was yelling, “give me back my !” We had no idea what set Eric off, was he simply holding it in all this time, or did he just realize that Minwoo had been borrowing his underwear. Did he not like people sharing underwear? But all eyes were on Minwoo.

Minwoo looked furious, “Fine, I won’t wear your underwear.” Minwoo kicked of his hip hop pants and put his thumb in the the elastic of the boxer shorts. He paused as though waiting for Eric to stop him, and silently hoping to not embarrass himself in front of his dongsaengs. 

But Eric didn’t stop him, instead he added oil to the fire as he said, “good.” 

Minwoo chocked back some tears as he pulled of the boxers and threw them at Eric. He pulled up his pants again as he spat “there.”

This was probably our first physical fight, with Minwoo throwing things at Eric. All of us felt sorry for Minwoo who was missing his underwear, but no one dared to agitate the situation anymore by helping Minwoo. The practice reverted to normal but nothing could be done to mend the already spoiled mood.

By the time practice had finished Minwoo told the group that he was fine and that he understood Eric’s feelings about the underwear. Minwoo seemed greatly upset not with Eric, but with the sole idea that he had a smaller collection of underwear to use and that the underwear would be no where near as good as Eric’s. 

That night Eric had confided me by explaining that he didn’t mind sharing his underwear but what pissed him off was that Minwoo had been through all his underwear and has said nothing about it. I light heartedly told him that all the members had decided that Eric was the underwear star, he had the best underwear. I even told him about Dongwan’s stolen piece with the word ‘Kim’ written upon it. Apparently Dongwan had fussed up about his theft soon after Minwoo’s incident at the practice room. 

For a couple days after that little had changed, Minwoo was still a little cold when dealing with Eric despite having made up with him. While Eric tried his best to remain on good relations, the rest of us were worried that problems like this could cancel our debut. But we had little to worry about as the sour relationship quickly reverted to normal in less than a week. Sharing underwear in our dorm was only slightly affected, most of us tried to not touch Eric’s underwear and when we did we made sure we had permission to do so. The rest of us remained a free exchange of underwear and shared it on daily basis.

Not long after the horrific incident in the practice room Minwoo was beside himself with joy as he discovered new ‘Made in U.S.A’ boxer shorts in his drawer. Minwoo had ran to Eric with the boxers in hand and hugged him. The height difference between the two made this one of the most hilarious scenes in Shinhwa history. Minwoo finally had his very own set of boxer shorts and the rest of us were envious. We may have been given some of Eric’s old boxers but none of us had received new ones from Eric. The boxer shorts were just the right size for Minwoo and fit better than Eric’s boxers which were just a size too large for some of us.

When boxers had finally been introduced in Korea we were the first to get our hands on them, and even nowadays at interviews we proudly say that we wear boxers and only boxers. Due to this we received boxes loads of boxer shorts from fans and we also stopped sharing underwear. But we never achieved our dream of endorsing an underwear company that sold boxers. We tried to make our everlasting love and commitment for boxers on television. We worked our bodies so that we would look appealing in a boxer shorts advertisement. When we were a tad bit younger we even discussed what type of poses we’ll take when modelling for underwear. 

A/N:I hope you enjoyed that. Probably one of my favorite Shinhwa moments that they have shared on television. Now many of you may think I'm jsut re-telling stories, I will come up with my own stories. Maybe that will be next chapter.