ITZY’s Ryujin Is Close Friends With These 3 Members of aespa, Here Is How It Happened

Earlier this year ITZY‘s Ryujin, along with other ITZY members, got fans excited when she shared about a sweet interaction ITZY had with the members of aespa at this year’s Dream Concert.

Ryujin first said that she and the ITZY members had ordered so much watermelon juice that they ended up giving the aespa members the leftover juice. But fans were quick to point out that Ryujin was lying, and that the truth was actually much cuter!

As it turns out, the ITZY members had in fact purposefully bought the watermelon juice for aespa, but when the time came to give it to them, Chaeryeong felt so shy that she couldn’t even make eye contact with them as she handed them the juice. Both groups talked about the interaction on social media afterwards, and it was clear that the wholesome truth is that they are all absolute fangirls for each other.

aespa with the watermelon juice gifted to them by ITZY | *@aespa_official/Twitter*

Now, things have gotten even better as it turns out that this lovably awkward interaction was the start of a genuine friendship between the girls. In a recent live stream, Ryujin shared that she is now close friends with three of the girls in aespa: Winter, Karina, and Giselle, even referring to them by their real names.

#ITZY Ryujin talking about her friendship with aespa in her recent V LIVE

“I’m close with Winter…Minjeongie, Karina… Jimin unnie, and Giselle… Aeri unnie. I’m not that close with Ningning yet. We became friends after I brought them the watermelon juice!”#aespa #에스파 pic.twitter.com/FkC3R4KQDL

— aespresso (semi-ia) (@aespresso_SM) December 4, 2021

She also explained that she has yet to get to know NingNing better, but that she had befriended the group specifically after the watermelon juice incident at the Dream Concert.

Fans will be happy to know that the adorable watermelon juice interaction turned into something more. Now we can look forward to the genuine friendship between the members of each group, particularly between Ryujin and Winter, Karina and Giselle. As a matter of fact, when aespa won first place on Music Core with “Savage,” ITZY celebrated right alongside them as aespa began their encore performance…