June, usually calm and collected, couldn't help but feel shocked when he heard Minjun's accusation. Out of everything he could have been accused of, it was dating?
"You're kidding me," June deadpanned. "I have an important shoot today, Minjun. I'll call you later, alright?"
"I'm not kidding!" Minjun exclaimed. "A photo of you with a woman is circulating around Navel. The woman's face isn't clearly seen, but it's obviously you!"
"Wait a second," June said, ending their call and promptly going to Navel. However, as soon as he ended the call, plenty more people tried to contact him, which made him believe that Minjun was telling the truth even if he hadn't seen the photo evidence just yet.
He cursed as multiple calls appeared, making him unable to scroll through Naver. He placed his phone on 'do not disturb' before heading to the trends list.
Indeed, his name was at the very top of the South Korean trends, with over 500,000 posts already.
"What the heck," June muttered as he clicked on the trend.
The very first thing he saw was a photo from a pop culture news channel. It was a photo taken outside of a familiar establishment. June's eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he scrutinized the photos.
"These are…," he muttered, finally realizing where it had been taken.
This was during his birthday when he asked Jenny to kiss him on the cheek!
As Minjun said, Jenny's face was blurred. June's face in the photo where Jenny kissed him on the cheek was unclear, too. However, his photograph as he walked out of the studio was crystal clear.
It was really him.
'Dating at your peak will only lead to one thing.'
'Your downfall.'
Jaeyong's words echoed in the back of his mind, making him sigh in frustration. Their group had just started rising to fame, yet he was already being hit by dating news?
What was more ridiculous about this was that it involved Jenny—his cousin.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})June sighed and scrolled through the other posts, hoping to see some supportive ones.
However, it was drowned out by hate and doubt, making him believe that dating was truly a sin for idols.
- What the heck? Is this where my money is going?
- I'm going to burn my albums now. *with attached pictures of burned albums*
- I fcking hate this. Do you know how much money and time I've spent on you?
- This is so disappointing. I'm boycotting.
- A rookie idol getting into a dating scandal after his song popped off? Wow. Very ungrateful.
- #BoycottEVE #CancelJune
- I agree. Let's make Luster fall off the charts!
- It's working, guys. Luster is already out of the top five songs. It's in the 7th!
- I'm unfollowing June.
"Why are people so dramatic?" June asked himself. The dating news wasn't even confirmed yet, but they were already destroying his career.
He scrolled through more posts and coincidentally found Jenny's account. He frowned and quickly clicked on her profile, only to see that she merely had ten followers. However, her latest post garnered more than 100,000 interactions.
'Guys, I'm the woman in the photo. Please don't misunderstand. We're cousins, and this was his birthday!'
- Sure, and my dad's the president of Mars.
- Then, I'm also the girl that June kissed on the cheek.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})- Me too. His breath smells really fresh and minty.
- Whatever you say, girl. We're all delusional here anyway.
- Stop being delusional! You look nothing like June.
- Yeah, and June would never kiss someone as ugly as you.
June shook his head. Even his cousin was catching strays left and right! She must be fuming right now—not because she was stuck in this rumor (she actually loves attention), but because she was being called ugly on social media.
"Goodness," June said. "How am I going to clarify this?"
As far as he knew, he didn't have any photos of Jenny because they all got lost in the fire in his original home. Moreover, he doubted that Jenny had photos of them together when they were younger. The only one she had was when June was bathing, and that didn't seem wise to post.
Jay: Answer me! You have a girlfriend now? The boys are freaking out. They're getting death threats too!
June sighed as the situation accelerated more than he imagined.
He turned off the 'do-not-disturb' button and answered Jay's call.
"June!" Jay immediately exclaimed, causing June to cover his ears. "What is this? How can you do this behind our backs?"
"What?" June asked, already feeling tired of the situation. "Are you going to cancel me too?"
"No," Jay quickly answered. "I would have appreciated it if you told us, though. Maybe then, we could have hidden it better. Is this Jia, perhaps? Or Arin? Or Mimi? Or Ji-hyun? Or Amira?"
June frowned in confusion. Since when has he been associated with so many women?
"Arin and I are not talking anymore. Mimi's dating Nico. Ji-
hyun's married…and who's Amira again?" he asked.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})"Look," June quickly clarified. "I'm not dating anyone. I want you to clarify that with the company."
"So, it's Jia?" Jay asked since June hadn't said anything about her.
"It's Jenny," June sighed. "My cousin. The boys had already met her. Whoever took that picture made it seem like she was kissing me sweetly on the cheek. In reality, I pushed her away after."
"Jenny," Jay muttered. "Your cousin."
"Yes," June confirmed.
"Goodness," Jay sighed. "You had me worried for a second there. I wouldn't resent you for dating someone, but it would entail a lot of consequences. So, I'm quite relieved that it's just your cousin."
"It's still going to be a pain in the ass to clarify, though," Jay muttered. "People just want to believe what they want to believe these days."
"Yeah," June muttered. "I'll help clarify it, too."
"How?" Jay asked.
"I'll figure it out," June said.
Then, he ended the call, leaning against the wall after the exhausting conversations.
He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply.
However, he quickly opened them again when he felt another presence passing through the hallway.
As he opened his eyes, his gaze met with Lin Zhi's, who had a smirk and a victorious look in his eyes.
Lin Zhi didn't even need to say anything, but June already understood.
Then, June shook his head as Lin Zhi walked away.
"Of course," June muttered.
"You had something to do with this."
