On January 26, Kim Jin-ho posted a long message on his personal channel, revealing that almost as soon as the new year began, Wheesung’s KakaoTalk profile photo had disappeared. He wrote that it likely meant someone else had taken over Wheesung’s phone number. The realization, he said, sent a sudden chill through his chest—comparing the feeling to that of an adolescent boy who has just lost contact with someone he once admired. It felt as though the very last trace of someone dear had vanished.
Along with his words, Kim shared a screenshot showing a contact saved as “Wheesung hyung,” now reduced to KakaoTalk’s default profile image. He quietly assumed the number now belonged to someone else. That thought alone weighed heavily on him. He wondered aloud whether the new owner even knew whose number they were using—or that someone, somewhere, was staring at that now-empty profile photo with so much emotion attached to it.
Kim went on to confess how conflicted he felt about what to do with the number. Deleting it would be easy—just a few taps to erase what had become a meaningless string of 11 digits. Yet he found himself opening the contact dozens of times a day, only to cancel and close it again. To him, deleting the number felt like personally erasing the final remaining trace of someone he loved and respected.
He explained that he regularly organizes and cleans out his KakaoTalk contacts, but Wheesung’s name—starting with “Whee”—was always just a short scroll away. Knowing that Wheesung was still there, at least in his contact list, had been a quiet source of comfort. That presence, however small, had mattered.
Kim also recalled Wheesung’s old brown-toned profile photo, labeled with the word “Music.” It gave him the illusion that, if he truly wanted to, he could reach out again someday. Maybe I needed even that illusion, he admitted. Deleting the contact, he wrote, would take more time. He even wished that when he eventually changed phones, the number might disappear on its own—so it wouldn’t feel like a loss caused by his own hands.
Wheesung passed away on March 10 last year at his home in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. He was 43 years old.
Kim Jin-ho previously won JTBC’s Hidden Singer 2 during the Wheesung episode and later debuted as a singer himself. In November last year, he also visited Wheesung’s resting place, continuing to openly express the grief and longing that remain long after goodbye.
Sources: Daum
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