Debut or Die

In this group, if you had to pick the guy with the least potential for dating rumors to break out, he would be within one of the two, and yet this guy had ‘dating’ added to his automatic search term.

“Take a look.”

Having come to his sense, Keun Sejin immediately urged me. I clicked on the search term ‘Seon Ahyeon dating’.

This was the first post that came up.

– Seon Ahyeon, that stuttering loser, made him act like a proper human and now he’s looking at female idols. How long has it been since the first anniversary??? Awesome. Get a grip

This raw accusation was seen collectively just like when <Idol Inc.> was overheated.

It wasn’t a fan’s joke ‘Seon Ahyeon is dating with me’ that went trending, but were rumors of a real relationship that had come out of nowhere.

“Are there any organized articles?”

“Wait a minute.”

I immediately accessed the bulletin board of a portal site where celebrity gossip was posted.

Sure enough, I saw a familiar name in second place.

[Seon Ahyeon, are you dating Twinty’s Dami?]

“Twinty?”

A famous girl idol group whose activities didn’t even overlap popped up.

‘I’ve never seen them outside of year-end programs and awards ceremonies.’

It was awkward to imagine that Seon Ahyeon had asked for her number separately.

‘You must have the guts to do that.’

With a shudder, I clicked on the title.

The photos that Seon Ahyeon posted on Testar’s account and the photos that Dami posted on her Inheart are all overlapping.

(comparison image)

They were posted on the same date and the comments were similar. The sunglasses, bracelets, and watches they wore recently all overlap.

(comparison image)

In an interview this year, Seon Ahyeon suddenly said that older people are his ideal type, and Dami says that younger ones are her ideal type.

And Seon Ahyeon has been holding his phone in his own content

(short GIF)

If you keep smiling and playing something for a long time, anyone can see that you’re dating someone, right?

The images were classified in detail and the text was well-pasted, so it sounded plausible, but of course, it had a lot of gaps.

It was all planned out.

‘The sunglasses and watches are probably gifts from fans.’

On the night of Seon Ahyeon’s birthday, the opening was four hours long so Bae Sejin lost his temper and asked him to get some sleep.

‘Regarding the phone. Seon Ahyeon sends long text messages, that’s why he holds it for a long time.’

The same was true of interviews. He was just trying to fit the situation.

However… A few things that made the situation uncomfortable came out in the comments.

– Seon Ahyeon, all the landscape photos you uploaded are from places that were not in Testar’s schedule????? Why did you go there alone?

– Heol, the executive of the cosmetics company that shot Seon Ahyeon’s exclusive commercial is Dami’s uncle… It’s weird

– I don’t know about anything else, but it’s too obvious in SNS that they’re sending and receiving signals to each other?????

Whether it was the comments or the articles, the number of refutations was very high, about half of the number of likes, but the fact that the number of likes was enormous itself was a problem.

It meant that this rumor was plausible.

“…”

“…”

Keun Sejin and I looked at the comments for a while without words.

Keun Sejin spoke first.

“Should we tell him?”

“Not to the person himself. It’d be better to tell the company.”

“Hmm, as expected, right? Let’s not show Ahyeon.”

It was better not to make him think useless things ahead of the comeback, and let’s just ask if he was close to this girl just in case.

But this implicit agreement was broken the very next moment.

“W-What…?”

“…!”

When I turned around, Seon Ahyeon was holding a handful of chocolate bars.

I didn’t know he was walking around to offer some other stuff.

“…It’s nothing.”

“D-Did I do something wrong…?”

“Ah no~ How could that be? We were just joking around~”

“B-But you’re telling the company.”

“…”

“…”

In the end, Seon Ahyeon heard about the current dating rumors, which had been mildly purged.

“Ahyeon, are you dating someone?”

“H-H-Huh?!”

As we were briefing openly in the choreography practice room, the rest of the guys naturally joined in the conversation shortly after.

“…There are really a lot of people who have nothing to do. Are you really in a relationship?”

Bae Sejin asked bluntly. Seon Ahyeon freaked out.

“N-No…!”

“Then do you know this woman?”

“I-I don’t know…?”

“Then, may I ask where you took all these pictures?”

“That….”

Seon Ahyeon blushed a little.

“O-On the way to counseling, sometimes when I feel like it… I-I take pictures of the roadside, too.”

“Oh… that’s nice.”

“You did a good job.”

A few awkward compliments poured in.

Right. He enjoyed his spare time, so of course it was a good thing, but the problem was that the situation got twisted without mercy.

And there were photos of why this happened.

‘…I guess they’re consulting at the same place.’

Given the circumstance, It was most likely that the female idol who was rumored to be dating Seon Ahyeon also received consultation there.

‘The photos were taken on the way back from the consultation, so the comments must have been similar.’

It was a bit of a sensitive personal matter to talk about, though.

‘On top of that, it has come to this because of the exclusive .’

In fact, ‘the niece of the director of the advertised company’ was a distant connection, but it looked plausible when you connected and wrote it down as one.

In fact, there were quite a few cases where dating started with that kind of connection, so it looked even more plausible.

“I-Is it going to be a big deal…? I-I’m sorry for the misunderstanding… Should I make an apology or an explanation…”

“It won’t spread. Don’t post it.”

“No, it’s not even real, so why do you have to apologize, Ahyeon~”

In any case, dating rumors that only had circumstances without any evidence would be dispelled after being picked up by SNS and communities.

There was a high probability that instead of making excuses, we would be just scratching on old wounds.

‘Because it looks concerning.’

In addition, on the day it was revealed that they went to the same place for counseling, the controversy would explode as much as the excuse worked.

Pretending not to know was the answer.

‘But the problem is that there will be people who really believe it.’

The situation was plausible, so it wasn’t good for the fandom to have an atmosphere of ‘Ahyeon seems to be in a relationship, but let’s just move on’.

Because some people had Reward psychology = When a person takes a certain action, they want to be rewarded accordingly. They may want a beneficial reward that helps them get out of a difficult environment, but if they don’t receive it, it can turn into a negative behavior of revenge. I don’t know what it’s actually called in English so this term might be wrong.).

‘I let go of relationships for you, but you can’t do this for me?’, or something like that.

And Seon Ahyeon was the type who was vulnerable to guilt and cared too much. If such an opinion came out to the surface, he would get dragged around.

He still did.

“S-Still… I-I think some of them might be worried.”

“Ahyeon, if you respond to these rumors, they will be more worried.”

“I-Is that so?”

Ryu Chungwoo was right.

It would be best if Seon Ahyeon could just brush it off and move on, saying ‘It’s nonsense~’ without giving a comment.

‘…The problem is, the method is uncertain.’

If the other members immediately uploaded a photo taken with Seon Ahyeon at the location, they were basically shouting, ‘I am conscious of the dating rumors’.

Some people would definitely refute this, saying that the company ordered it.

‘I’d rather attack the source.’

But no matter how dirty the source was, it didn’t work well for dating gossip like this. This was not an ethical issue.

‘Hmm. Taking a picture now… I think it’s best to manipulate the timing of the photo and then mix things up.’

Sometimes, when I took good pictures of my daily life, I tied them all up and upload them on SNS, and there would be people who found them even if they passed by casually while getting them mixed up.

Of course, the question was whether I would get caught or not.

I thought about the method carefully. Because I wanted to clean it up neatly before making the comeback.

“I-I’m sorry. Because of me….”

“Why is this because of you? Don’t worry about it, you just get caught up.”

“Moondae is right Ahyeon. Don’t worry too much about it.”

I shrugged at Ryu Chungwoo’s words.

“I’ll manipulate the photos if I have to.”

“…T-That….”

“Oh~ That’s right. You won’t get caught!”

Don’t encourage me. I was just saying this to reassure Seon Ahyeon.

But before I could resort to extreme methods, the solution came from somewhere else.

Keun Sejin, who was flipping through his smartphone, made a fuss.

“Hey, something came up in the comments.”

“What is it?”

I checked the latest comments on Keun Sejin’s phone screen.

– ???You idiots, look at Dami’s Inheart. Ugh, you people are pretending to be tricked (screenshot) Dami got a PDF of all the sexual harassment articles. Yes, let the haters receive financial treatment

The attached capture was a photo of Dami playing around with a man at the location of the photo used for dating rumors.

– Eating out with family ??My handsome little brother

With this comment.

‘We got it easy.’

It was practically over.

It didn’t matter whether she was conscious of the dating rumor or not. It was a private life with her family, so it would be difficult to say that it was a response from the company

Besides, when I checked the original photo… The metadata also matched the date.

I nodded.

“It will subside soon.”

Then, the tension on the members’ faces melted away.

“Ha, there you go.”

“Thank you, Dami sunbae-nim.”

“T-Thank you…!”

Seon Ahyeon, don’t even think about delivering your gratitude directly.

“Thank you. F-For worrying with me…”

“Don’t mention it!”

“I am glad, Ahyeon.”

I waved my hand at Seon Ahyeon’s gratitude and once again checked the photo of the two people on Keun Sejin’s smartphone screen.

‘…Hmm, I’ve seen this face somewhere.’

Just in time, Keun Sejin pretended to notice.

“Oh, hey, that person. Chicken with Ribbon?”

“Oh.”

Oh, he was right.

Dami’s younger brother in the photo was the one I played against in the finals of <The Singer I Made>.

His name was… I didn’t remember. Honestly, I didn’t think his singing skills were that impressive.

‘He was lucky to make it to the finals.’

However, I remembered Cheongryeo’s advice.

– That group seems to be doing well. Pay attention to that.

“…Hmm.”

From the song to this trivial hot topic… It seemed they were lucky.

I came to a reasonable conclusion.

‘Let’s keep in touch with the composer.’

Hiring them all of sudden would be too much.

As I was organizing my thoughts, I suddenly heard Cha Eugene’s voice.

“But why can’t you date?”

“Huh??”

Everyone stiffened.

“You… You want to date?!”

“Yes! Hyung, you don’t want to?”

“N-No… uh.”

Bae Sejin stammered.

Indeed, it would be strange if you didn’t want to.

Perhaps what Cha Eugene said was in a similar context.

‘It’s not that you like someone in particular, it’s that you want to date when you have the chance.’

Of course, as much as he had training experience at the agency, he knew the reality.

“No, I know! But I don’t know why…”

“Um…”

It was a very difficult subject to explain.

In fact, rather than the problem of dating itself, if you showed off a love relationship in a profession where ”I am not dating’ was the norm, it could be interpreted as ‘I want to date more than doing idol activities’.

“T-The fans don’t like it!”

“…!”

What is this guy doing.

Seon Ahyeon shouted again with a red face.

“T-There are fans who think of you as their boyfriend…!”

“Why?”

“U-Uh…”

Keun Sejin interjected with a smile.

“Because you’re handsome~!”

“Aha!”

Cha Eugene nodded with a face that said everything had become clear.

“Okay, I won’t date!”

“…”

That… I wondered if he really could jump to that conclusion.

‘Whatever.’

It worked, so it was enough.

That day, Cha Eugene posted on SNS, ‘Am I your boyfriend?’.

He was blocking his love path on his own.

And a week later.

The music video teaser for this Testar album had been released.

However, it was 8 minutes long.