Chapter 153

Chapter 153

One of the most unlikely members of this group to ever have a romance break online had just been linked with dating rumors in my search engine autocomplete.

“Have a look,” Big Sejin immediately said, pulling himself together.

I clicked the keywords “Seon Ahyeon dating.”

The first post I saw was as follows.

- Seon Ahyeon, that stuttering idiot. After getting so much help to talk more like a normal person, now he’s fallen for some female idol. And it hasn’t even been that long since their first anniversary LOL. Get your sh*t together!

This was a criticism that had only been seen back when Idol Inc. was a contentious talking point for many people. It wasn’t a joke the fans had made, claiming Seon Ahyeon was dating them, but a real rumor about his love life that had appeared from a concrete source.

“Is there a summary of what’s going on somewhere?” Big Sejin asked.

“One second.” I immediately logged onto a popular web portal forum where celebrity gossip was shared. As expected, a familiar name was in second place on the trending posts chart.

[Is Seon Ahyeon dating Twinty’s Dami?]

“Twinty?”

This was the name of a well-known female idol group whose promotions had never once overlapped with ours.

I’ve never even seen them except at the end-of-year shows and the awards ceremonies. It seemed impossible that Ahyeon might have put himself out there to ask for a member’s number.

I doubt he’s brave enough to do that, I thought cynically as I clicked on the title.

========================

The photos uploaded by Seon Ahyeon to the TeSTAR account and the photos on Dami’s account were all taken in the same locations.

(Images for comparison)

The dates are similar, and the posts themselves sound similar. The sunglasses, bracelets, and watches they wore recently match.

(Images for comparison)

In this year’s interview, Seon Ahyeon suddenly said his ideal type is a girl older than him, and Dami said she wants a guy younger than her. Then here’s Seon Ahyeon on his phone in one of TeSTAR’s recent videos.

(Short GIF)

He’s smiling and typing on his phone at length. Isn’t it pretty obvious that he’s dating?

========================

The post was convincing, what with there being so many relevant images attached, but there were lots of unexplained holes in their theory too, of course. The whole thing was a farce.

The sunglasses and watch were probably gifts from fans. Ahyeon had spent four hours opening gifts on the night of his birthday, and Bae Sejin had irritably demanded to be allowed to go to sleep.

Ahyeon always sends long texts. That’s why he takes so long on his phone. The same went for the interview. It matched the theory but was so vague it was hardly relevant. But still, there were a few points that bothered me, and they were all brought up in the comments.

- The scenic photos Ahyeon posted aren’t places that TeSTAR visited LOL. Why did he go there alone?

- Whoa, Dami’s uncle works as an executive at the cosmetics company where Ahyeon filmed a solo advertisement for... I have a bad feeling about this

- I don’t know about anything else, but the social media posts make it really obvious that they’re in contact with each other haha

Both the post and the comments had nearly half as many dislikes as they did likes, but the problem was that the likes were impressive in number. That meant the rumors were pretty compelling.

Big Sejin and I looked through the comments briefly without speaking. He was the first to break the silence.

“Should I tell him?”

“Not him. We should inform the agency, though.”

“Yeah, I thought as much. Let’s not show Ahyeon.”

Our comeback was coming up, so we needed to avoid distracting him. It was better to just subtly ask him if he knew the idol, and leave it at that.

Our implicit agreement was broken the very next moment, however.

“Wh-what?”

We turned to find Ahyeon standing right behind us holding a handful of chocolate bars. We’d had no idea that he was going around passing something out again.

“Nothing,” I said.

“D-did I do something wrong?”

“Nah. Of course not! It’s just an inside joke!” Big Sejin said.

“B-but you said y-you’d tell the agency?”

We were stumped. In the end, we gave him a distinctly watered-down description of the current situation.

“Ahyeon, people are saying you’re dating someone.”

“H-huh? What?”

We briefed him right there in the practice room, and soon enough the others joined the conversation as well.

“What a load of bullsh*t. Are you really dating, Ahyeon?” Bae Sejin asked grumpily.

Ahyeon balked. “N-no!”

“Then do you know this girl?”

“N-not at all...”

“Then where did you take all these photos, may I ask?” Raebin said.

“Uh...” Ahyeon blushed a little. “O-on the way to my therapy sessions... I-I took pictures here and there wh-whenever I was in the mood.”

“Uh... yeah. That’s cool.”

“That’s nice.”

We suddenly found ourselves handing him awkward compliments. While he wasn’t to be blamed for enjoying the small chunks of free time he had on the way to and from therapy, the situation had gotten out of hand. And I could begin to guess why this might have happened.

Looks like the other idol is also talking to the same therapist. It seemed the most likely thing to assume was that the female idol Ahyeon was supposedly dating was also going to therapy.

She also took pictures on her way there or afterward, so her posts probably looked similar. It was a sensitive and personal matter that was difficult to talk about publicly, however.

The ad he filmed just had to have her uncle involved, too. It was hardly a connection—the executive of a company behind the ad being the female idol’s father, but when mixed in with the rest of the rumors, it only added credibility to the theory. It probably looked all the more true because there were quite a few cases where real relationships were born because of such connections.

“W-will this mean a lot of trouble? Sh-should I a-apologize for creating a m-misunderstanding or something...?”

“No. And don’t upload anything.”

“It’s not even real, Ahyeon! There’s no need for you to apologize!” Big Sejin said.

Dating rumors of this sort which had nothing but circumstantial evidence would only make the rounds on social media and various internet communities before running out of steam. Odds were, an apology or an explanation from Ahyeon would only make things worse.

It makes him look guilty. The moment that it came out they were going to the same therapist, the controversy would only grow even worse, proportionate to how many people had accepted the explanation. Pretending not to notice was the best way to go.

Some people are really going to believe this, though. Given how persuasive the post was, the fandom could convince themselves that Ahyeon really seemed to be dating, but that they would avoid mentioning it. And that wouldn’t be good for us—some people would start to expect more from him as a result.

They would think something like this: We overlooked this rumor for your sake. Surely you can do more for us in return? Ahyeon was susceptible to guilt and very aware of what other people thought of him. If people started saying that about him, he wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

He was already responding in this way. “S-still... S-some people w-will be worried...”

“Ahyeon, they’ll be even more worried if you react to rumors like this,” Chungwoo said.

“Y-you think so?”

Ryu Chungwoo was right. The best outcome was for Ahyeon to avoid commenting on the matter altogether so people could just move on, convinced the whole thing had not been true.

I’m not sure about the best way to do that, though... If we uploaded photos of us taken in the same places that Seon Ahyeon had taken his, it would scream that we were aware of the rumor. People were bound to claim that the agency had manufactured evidence.

Maybe we should attack the source instead. No matter how untrustworthy the source was, though, such a tactic seldom worked when it came to dating gossip like this. It wasn’t a matter of ethics.

Hmm... Maybe we should take some photos in that location now, change up the time they were taken, and mix them in with other uploads?

We sometimes uploaded collections of photos we’d taken throughout our days that had turned out pretty good. If we mixed some of the photos into such posts, somebody would be bound to take notice. I wasn’t sure that people wouldn’t see through this plan, though. I carefully considered the best way to go about it, since I wanted us to be rid of this rumor entirely before the comeback.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m causing a-all this trouble...”

“This isn’t your fault. Somebody nasty simply saw an opportunity and went for it. Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“Moondae’s right. Don’t worry about it too much,” Chungwoo said.

I shrugged. “We can fabricate some photos if necessary.”

“B-but that’s...”

“Well, that’s an idea! I don’t think you’d get caught, Moondae!”

Don’t encourage me. I was just trying to console Ahyeon.

A solution came from someone else before I was forced to do something so radical. Big Sejin, who’d been swiping his finger across his phone, suddenly made a fuss.

“Hey, guys! We have something in the comments.”

“What?”

I checked the most recent comment on Big Sejin’s phone.

- LOL you asshats. Check out Dami’s account. Y’all are pretending to be fooled, and it’s getting pretty silly

(Screen capture)

I’ve taken screenshots of all of your sexual comments about Dami. You’d better be ready to be sued!

The attached screen capture was a photo of Dami playing around with a guy. The location was from one of the photos that had been used to set up the romance rumor.

- Out for a meal with family… Here’s my handsome little brother

Such was the description of the post.

She couldn’t have handled it any more cleanly. The rumors were already as good as dead. It didn’t even matter if people accused her of trying to counteract the rumors since she’d posted photos from her private life, and it would be hard to claim the agency had gotten involved.

I checked the original file, which had the right date as far as the metadata was concerned. I nodded.

“Things should quiet down now.”

The members instantly relaxed.

“Ha! So it’s done, then!”

“Thank you, Dami!”

“Th-thank you!”

Seon Ahyeon, you’d better not be considering thanking her in person.

“Thank you f-for t-trying to help me...”

“Don’t mention it!”

“What a relief, Ahyeon.”

I waved away his thanks and checked the photo on Big Sejin’s phone again. Hmm... I think I’ve seen the guy somewhere.

Big Sejin chimed in. “Oh, it’s him. The ribbon chicken guy.”

“Oh.”

He was right. Dami’s younger brother, who was in the photo, was the same guy I’d gone up against in the finals of Bespoke Singer—a member of Goldie #1’s group. I couldn’t seem to recall his name. Honestly, his singing hadn’t been that impressive, either.

He was lucky to make it to the finals. I was reminded of Cheongryeo’s advice, though.

“That group seems to be doing pretty well. You should keep your eyes on them.”

“Hmm...”

What with their songs and small things like this that caught the public’s eye, they did seem pretty lucky. I came to a reasonable conclusion.

I’ll contact their composer. Trying to buy the person out was going too far.

Eugene suddenly interrupted my train of thought. “But why can’t we date?”

“Huh?”

Everyone froze.

“You... you want to date?”

“Yeah! Don’t you?”

“W-well... uh...” Bae Sejin stammered.

It would be pretty strange to not want to date someone at our age. Eugene probably meant something like that.

It’s not that he likes someone in particular—he just wants to take the opportunity should it come his way. He had experience training with an agency, so he knew the reality of the situation.

“I know it’s not allowed! What I don’t know is why...”

“Hmm...”

This was a very difficult subject to try and explain. In our line of work, it was normal to not be in a relationship. Dating wasn’t the problem, to be exact. Being open about a relationship would lead people to think that the idol was choosing dating over their careers as idols.

“Th-the fans don’t like it!”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that from him.

Ahyeon, red in the face, shouted again, “S-some fans th-think of you as their boyfriend!”

“Why?”

“Uh... well...”

Big Sejin chimed in with a grin. “Because you’re handsome!”

“Aha!”

Eugene nodded as though that explained everything.

“All right. No dating for me!”

I wasn’t sure if that was the proper way for him to have come to this conclusion.

Whatever. At least it had worked.

Eugene uploaded to social media later that day, “Am I your boyfriend, Loviewers?”

He was basically blocking any chances he might have had to date.

A week after that, the music video teaser for our upcoming album was released. There was one detail of note about it, though—it was eight minutes long.