understanding enhypen dynamics

[permutative]

(gif source)

here is my attempt at explaining enhypen ships/dynamics; it’s the second version of this post i wrote up in january. a lot has changed since then, and while i tried to be as objective as possible (mostly) i'm pretty sure this is still going to read as somewhat biased (?) also i modified a lot of this from my cc archive but tried to streamline things somewhat T__T anyways this is just for fun and pretty casual. everything is 100% my opinion and probably should be taken with a grain of salt ^_^

to gauge international popularity here are the top seven ships among i-fans, gathered by ao3 data:

1. jake/sunghoon (277)
2. heeseung/sunghoon (254)
3. jay/jungwon (233)
4. sunoo/ni-ki (221)
5. sunghoon/sunoo (144)
6. heeseung/jay (119)
7. jay/sunghoon (109)

and similarly, here are the top seven ships among k-fans, gathered by postype data:*

1. heeseung/jungwon** (348)
2. jay/jungwon (223)
3. sunghoon/sunoo (222)
4. sunghoon/jungwon (155)
5. jake/sunghoon (139)
6. jungwon/sunoo (78)
7. sunghoon/jay (77)

*yes the "ordering" of the names matters here... but let's not get into that.
**there's a stray kids ship that shares the same krps ship name (승양) as heewon, which i think is what accounts for the majority of their postype fic. judging by krps twitter, sungsun and jaywon are the most popular ships by far.

there's a big difference between which ships are popular with k-fans and which ships are popular with i-fans. for k-fans there's a huge focus on sunghoon, sunoo, and jungwon (they're the most popular members in korea) irrespective of actual interactions. for i-fans the most popular ships are more evenly spread out among all of the enha members in comparison... especially when considering members like heeseung and ni-ki who are barely included in enha krps.

and before we begin, here’s some other relevant information:

enhypen hyung-line: heeseung (2001) + jay, jake, sunghoon (2002)
enhypen maknae-line: sunoo (2003) + jungwon (2004) + niki (2005)
enhypen bighit-line (and when they started training): heeseung (march 2017) + jay (april 2017) + sunghoon (february 2018) + jungwon (october 2018)

→ for more predebut information on enhypen, feel free to check out girlrock's enhypen timeline.

 

THE SHIPS

 

→ heeseung/jay (heejay) 🦌🦅
these two trained at bighit the longest (ever since 2017) and are very close friends. jay tends to be a lot more effusive about his friendships in general and has called meeting heeseung his "life's turning point" and said that he's seen more of heeseung over the years than his mother. there's also the whole trip to brunei that heejay went on (along with trainee a's sangwon), and it was revealed recently that jay dropped a shitload of money on bringing heeseung with him LMFAO. so yes they're friends <3 heeseung loves teasing jay and although he's more reticent with his emotions he expresses them occasionally despite his usual inability to be sincere about jay. in particular, whenever heeseung is required to praise jay for variety content he'll literally spew out a whole essay about how much he likes jay compared to the shorter messages other members deliver. there's a lot of mutual admiration here, honestly. they've known each other for so long that they can kind of just say whatever to each other... they have this really fun dynamic because even though they're the oldest in enhypen they're super goofy together. another fun thing is that jay can sometimes be a little petty/possessive over heeseung's friendships with the other members.

→ heeseung/jake (heejake, jakeseung) 🦌🐕
generally i think heeseung and jake both get along with the rest of enhypen pretty well and i think their dynamic is defined by a lot of mutual appreciation (heeseung: "jake is so cute that i want to bite him" vs jake: "when i saw heeseung before i-land he was so handsome i kept talking to sunoo about it"). they're just really easy-going and affectionate together. they're called ramyeonz because they eat a lot of ramen late at night. heeseung's pretty good at english (got into a english foreign language high school) and i find it interesting that heeseung and jake speak a lot of english together in their conversations because that isn't something you really see with jake and jay or anything like that. in particular i think heeseung loosens up around jake in a way that’s fairly unique.

→ heeseung/sunghoon (heehoon, milk carrot) 🦌🐧
i'm going to be honest... i'm not sure why these two are one of the most popular ships among i-fans aside from both of them being popular as individuals. i think heeseung really values how reliable and hardworking sunghoon is and sunghoon respects heeseung in return, but they don't seem to be particularly close at the moment, nor did they have many pre-i-land interactions (sunghoon was a lot less established as a bighit trainee compared to jay or heeseung). sunghoon also acknowledges heeseung’s random cute moments, but it isn’t much deeper than that. like they get along, pretty obviously, but their closeness is pretty middle-of-the-pack in enhypen.

→ heeseung/sunoo (heesun) 🦌🦊
heesun were really strong during predebut/in the beginning months after enhypen was formed! in particular heeseung had a phase where he wanted to work on being "cuter"/better at aegyo, and that was definitely influenced by sunoo. regarding the brief heesun "moment" that occurred back in november/december, here's what i said at the time: "i literally have no idea how close they are but they definitely get along. i think my issue with them is that i can’t tell how much of their relationship heeseung wanting to be a good idol and then taking advice from sunoo vs heeseung being friends with sunoo and then being influenced by his mannerisms." i get the impression that heeseung deliberately looked out for sunoo early on but then eased off as sunoo got more comfortable with the other members, and i wouldn't be surprised if he no longer sees the need to be so concerned about these dynamics now that enhypen has gotten closer as a group.

→ heeseung/jungwon (heewon) 🦌🐈
twinz! this is another dynamic that was emphasized predebut because jungwon was adjusting to becoming the leader and heeseung, as the mathyung, was instrumental in supporting jungwon in that process. jungwon and heeseung have mentioned confiding in each other for support (a rarity for both of them). i honestly think their friendship is so iconic because heeseung's closest confidante is this mature-beyond-his-years seventeen year old... and jungwon said that he viewed heeseung as his "twin" (hence their unit name) because he wanted to overcome their three year age gap. another thing that's interesting to me is that jungwon and heeseung are the members of enhypen who have trained the longest -- jungwon spending three years at sm before moving to bighit, and then be:lift -- and i wonder how that might affect their dynamic. i think it explains why the older trainees in i-land had such respect for jungwon despite his young age.

→ heeseung/niki (seungki) 🦌🐆
fifaz!! these two get along really well, and although i think heeseung's "closeness" with niki is still constrained by the fact that they have a large age gap — heeseung honestly doesn't seem to be that close with maknaeline in general — they're really friendly as a result of being enhypen's late night owls... i think they bonded over playing fifa and staying up insanely late LOL. however you will see moments where heeseung's need for being a "put-together" idol (i.e. censoring brands, avoiding oversharing, shifting vlive conversation towards fan-friendly topics like TMIs) clashes with niki being fifteen and also lacking much of a brain-to-mouth filter. i think it's just a natural consequence of heeseung being so much older and not having experience with younger siblings though.

→ jay/jake (2j, jayke) 🦅🐕
as same-aged friends who are both "from" english-speaking countries (i say "from" loosely because jake is extremely well-assimilated and jay spent most of his formative years past 5th grade of elementary school in korea), they're obviously close, but not as close as these similarities might usually imply in other idol groups. i think part of it is that jay is definitely more comfortable with korean than english, and as mentioned earlier jake speaks the most english with heeseung out of all the members. they've mentioned finding commonalities through their shared western background, but such details strike me more as "surface-level" and i definitely think they're closer with other members than they are with each other — they just don't have many hidden depths to me. but they definitely get along?

→ jay/sunghoon (jayhoon) 🦅🐧
these two were friends even before i-land while they trained at bighit together and jay said that instructors used to be surprised to learn that they hung out with each other (the whole black vs white narrative). their friendship is pretty funny honestly because jay's a messy cook and generally a emotional and irrational person whereas sunghoon is super rational and values cleanliness and order... so whenever jay cooks and stuff you'll always see sunghoon with his little passive-aggressive "cleaning up is important too"! the mild unsoulmatery of this pair is honestly pretty compelling to me. regardless they do get along really well, and it's clear that they care about each other and that these differences are what makes their friendship so strong! for example sunghoon, as an introvert, constantly cites needing extroverted jay as a "moodmaker"/more talkative person to balance him out.

→ jay/sunoo (sunjay) 🦅🦊
this friendship is honestly one of the most interesting in enhypen to me and it's been fascinating to watch their development over time. in earlier enha content it's really clear that jay feels awkward around sunoo and doesn't know how to interact with him. even though sunoo is younger than him, jay doesn’t baby sunoo the way he does with jungwon or niki because they’re in the same grade at school (jay repeated a year after transferring to hanlim). yet, at the same time, jay doesn't have the same “02z” or “5yearz” bond with sunoo that he does with rest of hyungline. i think sunoo transferring to hanlim, and the two of them attending school together in the same grade, really improved their relationship though! and although they have their extreme differences — jay being a rich kid who's traveled a lot and trained for several years vs sunoo who lived a pretty mundane, normal life prior to i-land, hasn't traveled a lot, and also didn't train for that long — they have a sweet friendship now. in particular, i think it's worth noting that sunoo said that he asks jay for advice/help a lot, and generally values jay's opinion ^__^ also sunoo promising to cook food for jay's birthday... like i honestly think this is sunoo's closest friendship in enha hyungline LOL. it's about the opposites and the hidden depths!

→ jay/jungwon (jaywon) 🦅🐈
jay mentions that it was hard for him to get really close to jungwon before i-land and that their relationship was more about "taking care of one another," which i think makes sense given jungwon being more on the reserved side. that being said: these two are really close. jungwon is definitely the person who teases jay the most in enhypen (even more than heeseung, although they often gang up on jay) and then jay... jay is kind of obsessed with jungwon in return—he's called jungwon "the cutest person ever" multiple times and cooked steak for jungwon for his birthday. although they have a lot of fun lighthearted moments it's clear that they rely on each other for emotional support as well. jay has admitted himself that he doesn't embrace everyone/only picks and chooses to treat certain people well, and his favoritism is especially obvious when it comes to jungwon. while jungwon is definitely aware of this bias and uses it to his advantage, he honestly handles it pretty well and is self-aware about occasionally going too far. like i think jungwon is a source of comfort for jay and then jay is a source of fun/excitement for jungwon?

→ jay/niki (jayki) 🦅🐆
after jungwon, jay clearly shows the most affection to niki. jay knows some japanese, so that has helped them get closer while niki was still learning korean early on. jay also brought niki to his home during new year's because he didn't want niki to be at the dorms alone. it's clear that they got really close during i-land because they spent time in ground together, and jay cited that he relied on niki during some of his darkest times as a trainee. also niki... niki is like obsessed with jay and blatantly adores him. whenever niki gets asked about which member he'd want to travel with, which member he'd want his sisters to meet, etc. he just chooses jay for all of his answers.

→ jake/sunghoon (jakehoon) 🐕🐧
belift's variety editing will never let us forget that jakehoon are Best Friends and MBTI Soulmates (they're both istj). while i do think their friendship was played up a lot during the early months of enhypen forming, they truly are very close even if they've only really been friends since i-land. sunghoon, in particular, seems to really treasure his friendship with jake — it's honestly pretty telling that sunghoon would miss jake more than his sister LOL. i think sunghoon's more "isolated" past as a figure skater really reflects in how he treats his friendships in enhypen and how enthusiastic he is about their found family narrative, whereas jake (while obviously getting along with sunghoon and being friendly with him) is a bit more distanced. they've also mentioned that their similar personalities can lead to clashes, which is pretty interesting... idk i just think their relationship has more hidden depths than the fandom "best friends" image — if you look closer then you'll see how much of it is fueled by sunghoon as opposed to jake...

→ jake/sunoo (sunjake) 🐕🦊
okay, i'm just going to say it outright. i feel like jake is a really nice and polite person but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's actually close with people — he's easy to get along with but he also doesn't reveal much about himself and uses compliments and laughter to pad conversations. sunjake have a nice dynamic during their duo lives but ultimately aren't super close even if they can get along. sunjake have some similarities, actually, and as two of the more "newer" trainees within enhypen (i.e. they were actually normal school kids for the majority of their lives instead of training for 5 years) their high school perspective sort of leaks into their interactions with other people... like yes they were both students just 2-3 years ago but they strike me as complete opposites in terms of how they'd socialize and hang out with people.

→ jake/jungwon (jakewon) 🐕🐈
it's pretty obvious at this point that jake is jungwon's favorite member. jungwon has mentioned multiple times that jake puts him at ease and he feels the most comfortable and relaxed around jake. there's something significant about jungwon (person who is often comfort for other members) being comforted by jake's presence. their friendship is really affectionate and sweet. honestly it's a little difficult for me to distinguish between different friendships on jake's side because i feel like he brings (mostly similar) energies to a lot of interactions... jungwon is definitely one of jake's favorites too though! when jay explained that he relied on jungwon a lot during i-land and that jungwon was a "lifeline" for him, he said that jake also depended on jungwon in that same way.

→ jake/niki (yunki, jakeki, ja-ki) 🐕🐆
i saw variety editing refer to jake & niki as "ja-ki" and haven't been the same ever since. honestly niki has pretty good relationships with all of enha hyungline but especially with jake! since both of them were "foreign" trainees they learned korean together and niki knew jake as his "aussie hyung"... i think both of them are very jock-leaning, not in the park sunghoon protein junkie way but in the enjoys-playing-soccer way, and jake indulges in playing games with niki/entertains him in ways that some of the other members don't. their video game and football rivalries are pretty cute tbh

→ sunghoon/sunoo (sunsun, sungsun) 🐧🦊
despite copious amounts of variety editing and fan pressure, these two aren't super close. they're just so different as people! they get along but it doesn't seem like they know each other well outside of surface interactions, and they both have people in the group that they gravitate towards more naturally. however, they do have some awkwardly earnest interactions, and their initial i-land interaction where sunoo wanted to befriend sunghoon because of his looks was really iconic. sunghoon is one of the more good-natured members in enhypen and that shows itself pretty well when it comes to sungsun... they're pretty friendly with each other and it's clear that sunoo feels comfortable talking to him. their fan popularity seems to stem a lot from the i-land narrative, visual 2pick shipping (sunoo and sunghoon are the most popular members in korea along with jungwon), and fans blowing up minor moments.

→ sunghoon/jungwon (sungwon) 🐧🐈
i get the impression that sunghoon was closest to jungwon out of bighit line before i-land. they mention being in the same trainee friend group at bighit/belift along with 8-9 other boys, and honestly they strike me as people linked by their shared friends as opposed to being really close themselves. it's difficult to regard sungwon's predebut history as significant considering how quickly sunghoon gravitated towards jake and jungwon's preference for other members as well. they're remarkably similar in personality (xstj and same enneagram type) and diligent/thorough about their work. similar to heehoon, they have a pretty straightforward and dependable friendship that's mostly built out of mutual respect for each other.

→ sunghoon/niki (sungki) 🐧🐆
sungki don't strike me as particularly close but it's not like they don't get along, either. niki also has said some really fun things about sunghoon ("this is our wedding" during their birthday vlive, etc.) but it's sort of difficult to gauge sunghoon's energy towards niki? that being said, sunghoon has a lot of admiration for niki as a dancer and you can see how much they respect each other in that area when they discuss their partner dances, and niki feels really comfortable teasing sunghoon too. i honestly think niki has good relationships with all of enha and i see sungki as being somewhat similar to heeki... there's only so much depth that you can get with a fifteen year old.

→ sunoo/jungwon (sunwon) 🦊🐈
sunoo and jungwon have a really refreshing friendship. it's not like the rest of hyungline's relationships with jungwon at all — sunoo is probably one of the few members of enhypen who doesn't blatantly adore/baby jungwon, but at the same time they're still at ease with each other. jungwon goes out of his way to look out for sunoo and make situations more comfortable, and he's also mentioned initially wanting to befriend sunoo/following him around when they were trainees. also they're pilates buddies? which... well idk if we should unpack that right now

→ sunoo/niki (sunki) 🦊🐆
sunoo and niki were initially close predebut, especially since they were the only two enhypen members to spend an extensive amount of time in ground during i-land. however, early on, niki used to get teased a lot by the other members for sleeping in the same bed as sunoo. and once niki and sunoo got to know the other members it seemed like they weren't that close anymore. especially on niki's side he seemed pretty disinterested in their friendship/mostly just expresses his feelings towards sunoo by making fun of him. it's honestly not a big deal, considering that niki is just like... like he's fifteen and experiencing his adolescence or something. in the past month or two, they've started getting along a lot better and it seems like they're back to watching horror movies together <3

→ jungwon/niki (wonki) 🐈🐆
niki is always super obvious about when he likes a person and with jungwon there's no exception... niki has mentioned feeling the most comfortable with jungwon due to their ages being closer together, but compared to the non-niki friendships in enha they're actually pretty far apart (the same age difference as jaywon). they have a lot of the same easy affection, banter, and teasing that's present in niki's friendships with hyungline but there's something especially sweet about jungwon caring and looking out for someone younger than him. it's also interesting that jungwon seems to gravitate more towards hyungline compared to niki.
 

—
 

irl closeness tiers (my personal opinion)

• heejay jaywon jakewon
• jakehoon heejake heewon jayki jayhoon
• jayke sunjay sunwon wonki sungwon heehoon sungsun
• yunki sunjake seungki
• sungki sunki heesun

feel free to check out my enhypen ship ranking too! as you can see my favorite ships don't have that much to do with how close anyone is to each other... like yes everything in kpop is fake.

also i'd like to thank girlrock for inspiring the post in the first place + discussing dynamics with me extensively, lackingdaze for her sunjay scholarship, and all of my other engine (or engine-adjacent) friends for the fruitful conversations we've had wrt enha dynamics--see here for more assorted engine scholarship from people who do not necessarily share the same opinions as me.

hopefully this was enjoyable/interesting to read and feel free to let me know what you think in the comments or through cc + twt!!

Comments

[9ofcups]

this is the perfect post actually… kind of losing it over the sunwon pilates bit because &;&;&2&2 well i forgot that’s a thing they do together. but anyway

i think you do a good job of summarizing each dynamic while also providing your own opinion because you’re literally right on all of this. and like i seriously forgot SUNGWON are friends it just slips my mind constantly. but yeah this was a really entertaining read i’m impressed that you could sit down and run through each dynamic!! jakewon on the closest tier is actually killing me but it’s ok .

[soobun]

damn i really AM going to have to start getting over the jay haterism huh 😔 i haven’t actually seen any recent enha content but are he and sunoo rly a lot visibly closer???? gotta respect it…

anyway im impressed by how objective this is tbh like all the sections being the same length etc!! also im kind of intrigued by jake / jungwon now 🤨 and not pilates buddiessss yes we definitely are not unpacking that rn. thank u for writing this tho i feel deeply informed!!!!

[girlrock]

HAIIII something so personal about the lack of HEEHOON on top SDHFLHLKH <3 also not u being like "jay spent $120342834834 on heeseung. anyway they’re friends <3" LMFAOO BUT WHY IS JAYPARK ACTUALLY SO ENDEARING T___T the fact that heeseung still tries to cling onto his Idol Persona and seem very impartial most of the time but his bias just slips through whenever he talks about jay is like... SO MUCH U KNOW!!! also i already know everything from this heewon section of course but WHY DOES IT STILL GET TO ME!!! like yangjungwon is truly such a perfect leader who had to carry the weight of so much responsibility and the heewon forever-trainees dynamic is actually so interesting to me ;___;

and yeah the thing with jayke is that i think the commonalities are essentially fun anecdotes they share that inform their connection to each other but it’s not something that is actually hugely part of their INDIVIDUAL lives—hence "surface-level" as you said. but i love when 2 guys who are dudes are friends etc. etc. etc.!!! ALSO NOT U TRYING TO BE OBJECTIVE ABOUT JAYHOONNSFLHLFHLH love u for this <3

SUNJAY is so personal btw like a hanlim transferring narrative can be so transformative (u ever think of how this is LITERALLY BEOMKAI???? KAI TRANSFERING + BEOMGYU BEING A YEAR BEHIND + SAME CLASS LORE ALL COMBINED??? the younger one being fruitier the older one being...... less respectable? ok sorry i’ll see myself out. BUT ALSO DID I NOT LITERALLY PREDICT THIS 6 MONTHS AGO!)

anyway this is literally a perfect post so i'll let everything else speak for itself but ofc i love your enha opinions so thank you for sharing <3 you are truly keeping engineisms going and i'm obsessed with you!!!

[stoplight]

it’s here~! unfortunately i can’t comment on any of the actual dynamics because all my enha knowledge is from timeline osmosis and you already know all of my thoughts anyway but honestly i’m most impressed by how objective you are… like it’s clear that you really like all members of enha and their interactions with one another, which is really sweet to see :’) also as tori mentioned EVERYTHING BASICALLY SAME LENGTH???? could never be me…. i am so impressed (2)

thank u for updating my enha knowledge one dw post at a time <3

[carboxyl]

hi !! new fan here and i honestly didn't know where to start with enha but thank god, i stumbled upon this post and it's been such a fun read !! i just finished watching i-land (i know i'm late T__T) but i know that their dynamics as a group has wildly changed so this was a nice way to get to know them :D my bias is heeseung and my favorite ship (?) so far is heehoon (my 2pick ship LOL) but i had no idea on how to gauge their popularity since there's virtually such less content aside from their ao3 tag ... but this was nice! thank you for this post, super helpful for getting into enha dynamics and shipperisms <3