If I had to pick the members of this group least likely to end up in dating rumors, he would easily make the top two.
And yet “dating” had appeared in the autocomplete results for his name.
“Open it.”
Big Sejin, who had recovered first, immediately urged me on.
I tapped the search term “Seon Ahyeon dating.”
The first post that came up was this.
-Seon Ahyeon was a stuttering loser who could barely function like a human being, and after we made him presentable he’s already gone crazy over a girl idol. It hasn’t even been that long since the first anniversary lol Amazing. Get a grip
The post had been shared around.
This wasn’t some joke trend among fans saying things like Seon Ahyeon is dating me.
A real dating rumor had surfaced somewhere.
“Is there no summary post?”
“Hold on.”
I immediately opened a portal-site message board where celebrity gossip was posted.
Sure enough, I saw a familiar name sitting at number two.
[Is Seon Ahyeon dating Dami from TWENTY?]
“TWENTY?”
A famous girl group whose promotions hadn’t even overlapped with ours had suddenly appeared.
We’ve never seen them outside year-end programs and award shows.
Just imagining Seon Ahyeon privately asking for her number felt awkward.
As if he’d have the nerve.
Feeling dubious, I clicked the title.
========================
The places in the photos Seon Ahyeon uploaded on the TeSTAR account and the photos Dami uploaded on InHeart are all the same, aren’t they?
(Comparison images)
The upload dates are similar and even the captions are similar
Recently they’ve worn the same sunglasses, bracelets, and watches
(Comparison images)
Seon Ahyeon suddenly says in an interview this year that his ideal type is someone older, Dami says her ideal type is someone younger.
And here’s Seon Ahyeon holding his phone in recent self-produced content
(Short GIF)
He keeps smiling to himself while typing something for ages. Isn’t that the kind of thing anyone could reasonably suspect is him dating someone?
========================
The post had neatly categorized and arranged the images, and it sounded plausible if you simply read it straight through.
But naturally, there were plenty of holes.
Because the whole thing was stitched together.
The sunglasses and watch were probably all fan gifts.
On Seon Ahyeon’s birthday, he’d spent four hours opening gifts late into the night until Bae Sejin finally snapped at him to stop and go to sleep.
And he spends so long on his phone because his messages are ridiculously long.
The interview was the same.
It was all nothing more than circumstances being forced together.
Still…
There were a few especially unpleasant-looking coincidences, and the comments brought them up.
-All those scenery photos Seon Ahyeon posted were taken at places that weren’t part of any TeSTAR schedule lololol Why did he go there alone?
-Holy shit, an executive at the cosmetics company where Seon Ahyeon filmed his solo ad is Dami’s maternal uncle… this feels sketchy
-Forget the rest, the way they’re sending signals to each other through SNS is painfully obvious lololol
Whether it was the comments or the original post, the number of downvotes was extremely high—roughly half the upvotes.
The problem was that the upvotes themselves were enormous.
Meaning the rumor looked plausible.
“……”
“……”
Big Sejin and I silently read the comments for a while.
Big Sejin spoke first.
“Should we tell him?”
“Not him. But we should probably tell the company.”
“Mm. Yeah, I thought so too. Let’s not show Ahyeon.”
There was no need to put useless thoughts in his head right before the comeback.
It would be better to casually sound him out about whether he knew this girl, just in case.
But our unspoken agreement was shattered the very next moment.
“W-What…?”
“……!”
We turned around.
Seon Ahyeon was standing there with an armful of chocolate bars.
I hadn’t expected that bastard to be wandering around again trying to give us more things.
“…Nothing.”
“D-Did I do something wrong…?”
“N-No way~ Of course not! We were just joking around with each other~”
“B-But you said you were going to tell the company.”
“……”
“……”
In the end, Seon Ahyeon was told a heavily softened version of the current dating-rumor situation.
“Ahyeon, apparently people are asking if you’re dating someone?”
“W-W-Whaaat?!”
Since we were openly briefing him about it right there in the choreography practice room, it didn’t take long before the rest of the guys naturally joined the conversation.
“…There really are a lot of people with nothing better to do. Are you actually dating someone?”
Bae Sejin asked irritably.
Seon Ahyeon recoiled in horror.
“N-No…!”
“Then do you know this woman?”
“I-I don’t…?”
“Then may I ask where all these photographs were taken?”
“Th-That…”
Seon Ahyeon’s face reddened slightly.
“On m-my way to counseling, sometimes when I felt like it… I-I took pictures of the streets and things.”
“Uh… that’s nice.”
“Good for you.”
A slightly awkward shower of praise followed.
Right.
It was obviously a good thing that he was learning to enjoy little scraps of free time.
The problem was that circumstances had twisted themselves up mercilessly around it.
And I could roughly see how this had happened.
…Looks like she goes to the same place for counseling.
Given the circumstances, the most likely explanation was that the girl idol rumored to be dating Seon Ahyeon also received counseling there.
If the pictures were taken while she was going to or coming back from counseling, their captions would naturally have been similar.
It was a rather sensitive personal matter, so there was no point broadcasting it.
And on top of that, his solo ad happened to get tangled into it and now we’re in this mess.
In reality, the supposed “connection through an executive at the advertiser’s company” was a fairly indirect personal link.
But once it was written out as though everything connected neatly, it looked convincing.
There had also been plenty of real cases where dating started through connections like that, which probably made it worse.
“W-Will this turn into something big…? Should I… post an apology for causing a misunderstanding, or an explanation…?”
“It won’t. Don’t post anything.”
“Seriously, Ahyeon, it’s not even true. What would you apologize for~!”
A dating rumor built on circumstances with no real evidence would probably churn around SNS and online communities for a while, then fizzle out.
Trying to explain it would be more likely to make things worse.
Because it would look like he had something to hide.
And if people ever discovered that he and the person he was rumored to be dating happened to receive counseling at the same place, the controversy would explode in proportion to how convincing his explanation had previously sounded.
Pretending not to notice was the correct answer.
The only problem is that some people will genuinely believe it.
The circumstances looked plausible enough that I didn’t like the thought of a sentiment quietly spreading through the fandom along the lines of, Ahyeon probably is dating someone, but let’s let it slide.
Because that could create a sense of entitlement in some people.
The kind that went, I even let this much about you slide, and now you can’t even do this for me?
And Seon Ahyeon was sensitive to guilt and cared far too much about other people’s reactions.
If that attitude ever surfaced openly, he was exactly the kind of person who could get dragged around by it.
He was doing it already.
“S-Still… I think there might be people who are worried.”
“Ahyeon, if you respond to a rumor like this, they’ll probably worry even more.”
“D-Do you think so?”
Ryu Chungwoo was right.
The best outcome would be for Seon Ahyeon to make no separate comment and simply let everyone brush it off with, See? It was nonsense after all~
…The problem is, there’s no clean method.
If the other members suddenly uploaded photos taken with Seon Ahyeon at that exact place, it would practically scream, I’m conscious of my dating rumor!
People would definitely claim the company had ordered us to do it.
Maybe we should attack the source instead.
But even when the source was filthy, that approach rarely worked well with dating gossip.
It wasn’t an ethical issue.
Hmm. The best option might be to take pictures now… manipulate the timestamps a little, mix them with some other photos, and upload everything together.
Sometimes when we got decent everyday photos, we bundled them together and posted them on SNS.
If we slipped these among them as if it were nothing, there would probably be people who dug them up.
The question was whether we could avoid getting caught.
I thought carefully about the method.
If possible, I wanted to clear this up neatly before the comeback.
“S-Sorry. Because of me…”
“Why is this because of you? Someone just found something they could use. Don’t worry about it.”
“Moondae’s right, Ahyeon. Don’t think about it too much.”
At Ryu Chungwoo’s words, I shrugged.
“If it comes down to it, we can fake some photos.”
“……! Th-That’s…”
“Oh~ Right. Moondae probably wouldn’t get caught!”
Don’t encourage me.
I only said that to reassure Seon Ahyeon.
Read only on MUGEX
But before anything that extreme became necessary, help arrived from somewhere else.
Big Sejin, who had been rapidly swiping through his smartphone, suddenly made a fuss.
“Hey, hey. Something showed up in the comments.”
“What?”
I checked the newest comment on the phone Big Sejin held out.
-lolol idiots, go look at Dami’s InHeart. God, you’re all pretending you got baited and throwing tantrums
(Screenshot)
I saved PDFs of every post sexually harassing Dami. Yup, trolls, enjoy your financial therapy~
The attached screenshot showed a picture of Dami fooling around with a man at the same location that had been used as evidence in the dating rumor.
-Family dinner☺ My haandsome little brother
That caption accompanied it.
We got this one for free.
It was essentially over.
It didn’t even matter if people claimed she had posted it because she was conscious of the rumor.
Since it involved private family life, it would be difficult to insist that her company had staged the response.
And when I checked the original…
The metadata dates matched too.
I nodded.
“It’ll die down quickly.”
The tension instantly drained from the members’ faces.
“Ha. Good.”
“Thank you, Dami sunbaenim.”
“Th-Thank you…!”
Seon Ahyeon, you had better not think about thanking her personally.
“Thank you. F-For thinking it through with me too…”
“Don’t mention it!”
“Glad it worked out, Ahyeon.”
I waved away Seon Ahyeon’s thanks, then looked once more at the photo of the two people displayed on Big Sejin’s smartphone.
…Hmm. I’ve seen that face somewhere before.
Big Sejin happened to recognize him too.
“Ah, that’s that guy. Ribbon fried chicken?”
“Yeah.”
Right.
It was him.
The man in the photo, Dami’s younger brother, was the guy I’d faced in the finals of The Singer I Made.
A member of Goldie #1’s group.
His name was…
I couldn’t remember.
Honestly, I didn’t think his singing ability had been particularly memorable either.
Making it to the finals was mostly luck.
Still, Cheongryeo’s advice came to mind.
–That group is doing pretty well. You should keep an eye on them.
“…Hmm.”
From their songs to minor little bursts of attention like this…
Those guys really did seem strangely lucky.
I reached a reasonable conclusion.
Let’s at least contact their composer.
Jumping straight to bribery was going too far.
Just as I finished organizing my thoughts, Cha Eugene suddenly spoke up out of nowhere.
“But why can’t we date?”
“What??”
Everyone froze.
“You… want to date someone!?”
“Yes! Hyung doesn’t want to date??”
“N-No, I… Uh.”
Bae Sejin began stammering helplessly.
Well.
It would actually be stranger to specifically not want to date.
Cha Eugene’s question was probably coming from roughly the same place.
It’s not that there’s someone specific he likes. He just means he’d date if he got the chance.
Of course, since he’d received agency training before, he knew the reality of the situation too.
“I know we can’t! But I don’t know why…”
“Hmm…”
It was an extremely difficult topic to explain.
The problem wasn’t really dating itself.
The real issue was that in an occupation where not dating had settled into being treated as the default state, openly showing that you were dating could be interpreted as a signal meaning, I care more about dating than idol activities…
“F-Fans don’t like it!”
“…!”
What had gotten into him?
Seon Ahyeon shouted again, his entire face scarlet.
“Th-There are fans who think of you as their boyfriend…!”
“Why?”
“U-Uh…”
Big Sejin cut in with a huge grin.
“Because you’re handsome~!”
“Aha!”
Cha Eugene nodded with an expression that said everything now made perfect sense.
“Okay. I won’t do it!”
“……”
I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was fine to leap that far from point A to point B.
I don’t know anymore.
It worked, so whatever.
That day, Cha Eugene posted on SNS:
“Am I your boyfriend?”
He was personally blocking off his own path to romance.
And then, another week later.
The music video teaser for TeSTAR’s new album was released.
Except…
It was a full eight minutes long.