Second Try Idol

Chapter 266: First Full Album (2)

I remained frozen for quite some time, holding a strand of unidentifiable hair. Eventually, I got up, placed the hair on the nightstand, and walked toward the bed where Goh Yoo-Joon was sleeping.

“Yoo-Joon, just a moment."

“...Uh..."

“Just move your head a bit."

When I pulled the end of Yoo-Joon's pillow and smelled it, it indeed had the same faint perfume scent as the one on my own pillow.

“Huh?"

From that moment, I began to thoroughly search every corner of the room. Having been an outsider rather than an idol for a long time before coming back in time, I was able to view the situation objectively.

'It’s not gonna happen to us.' turned into 'It could happen to us too.' I realized that we could also have stalkers attempt to break into our house.

Compared to idols living in high-security luxury apartments, our place was just a nearby company-provided housing. It was merely a bit larger than our first accommodation and bathed in sunlight very often. Security was extremely lax.

The company had promised to move us to a better place soon, but anyone could potentially break in for now. While rummaging through every drawer and the gifts from fans, I searched for any sign of the stalker.

“...What is this?"

The original stuff inside my drawer was gone—it appeared to have been stolen—and inside were two photographs and a sticky note.

“...”

This was scary. I felt like I was in a thriller film.

The first photo was an altered Polaroid of me and an unknown woman posing affectionately as if we were a couple. The blending of light and dark made it clear it was edited, but it was a photo that could easily be mistaken for being real.

And the second photo was…

“Insane."

The second was a photo of me and Goh Yoo-Joon, also edited, but this one was explicit enough to cause an outburst. Among fans, this would be called 'real people fiction'[1]

“I didn't even look for this, but here I am seeing it with my own two eyes."

I knew which members were often paired up in fans’ eyes, but I had been blatantly ignoring that.

The sticky note read:

[Oppa, who do you like more between me and Yoo-Joon hyung? I like you and love YooHyun[2] ♥♥♥♥♥]

“...Sigh."

I felt my blood pressure rise rapidly. I put these items along with the hair on the bed and searched the room again, just in case there was a camera installed in the room. But, considering how small cameras were these days, it was hard to detect if there were any with the naked eye.

The more I searched, the more I sighed. After thoroughly inspecting our dorm, I contacted Su-Hwan and woke up the members.

***

Our seniors Allure had been troubled by stalkers before. I heard that, even recently, there were persistent stalkers bothering them during their tour.

It was definitely serious when their hit song first exploded in popularity and their fame skyrocketed. Not only did stalkers visit their place, but they also sneaked into bathrooms to film, bought plane tickets to sit next to them, and sent texts and calls to their personal phones. Sae-Yeon had fainted from overwork during that time and had seriously considered quitting.

Thus, the YMM Chronos team staff panicked and rushed to our dorm when I said, "It seems someone broke into our place," having once been harshly affected by a similar situation.

“What's going on..."

Supervisor Kim called a company to search the entire dorm for hidden cameras and checked the members' phones and belongings. The company found a hidden camera in each room, and even signs that someone had tampered with Joo-Han's computer and stolen Yoon-Chan's belongings.

As the unexpected situation unfolded, the half-asleep members grew increasingly pale at the sight of cameras and traces that someone else had been here.

“I don't want to stay here anymore..." Jin-Sung anxiously said. He was clinging to Yoon-Chan's shoulder.

While Supervisor Kim and the staff stepped out to discuss with the company, Su-Hwan and the members gathered in the living room and discussed with worry in their voices.

“I'm really pissed. What is this?" Goh Yoo-Joon frowned bitterly while looking at the edited photos of him and covered them up. It was too unpleasant to look at them for more than a second.

“Ah, now that I think about it," Yoon-Chan said, prompting everyone to look in his direction, “I did a live Q&A with Jin-Sung."

“Yeah, we did," Jin-Sung added.

After we finished shooting Again After Rainfall, Yoon-Chan and Jin-Sung had conducted a live broadcast as representatives of Chronos shortly after returning to Korea. The rest of us had been too busy working to watch it.

“After the live ended, I checked my phone and saw that I had several missed calls."

“Did you tell Su-Hwan hyung about that?"

“No, I thought it was just a scam... But now that I think about it, it might be related to this."

Spending time as a third party, not as an idol, allowed me to have quicker objective judgment than normal. The multiple calls received during the live were probably to confirm whether the number the stalkers had obtained was indeed Yoon-Chan's.

Luckily, Yoon-Chan had left his phone elsewhere. If his phone had rung during the live or if he had looked at his phone even once, he would have kept receiving calls or messages. Yoon-Chan's phone number would have been traded among stalkers.

Unlike me, who knew the pain the Allure had gone through and how much their past apprentices struggled with stalkers, this was Yoon-Chan's first time facing something like this. Therefore, he might have dismissed the possibility that something was off about receiving phone calls from unknown numbers.

Su-Hwan said, “Yoon-Chan, if you still have that number, please let me know. I will look into it."

“Ah! Yes, it should still be in my call history." Yoon-Chan hurriedly went to his room to retrieve his phone.

“Hmm... Suh Hyun-Woo, don't these characters look awkward?"

“Hmm?"

“The shape of the characters and the fact that only this part is written in English."

“...That's true."

[Oppa, who do you like more between me and Yoo-Joon hyung? I like you and love YooHyun ♥♥♥♥♥]

The characters seemed more drawn than written. The name YooHyun was in English, for some reason. The sentence structure seemed awkward.

“Did a foreigner write this?"

“Yoo-Joon, could you show me that sticky note for a moment?"

As Su-Hwan heard our conversation, he took the sticky note, rolled his eyes, and left the dorm with a serious expression.

“What? Why is he surprised?”

“Gosh... Guys, look at this." Jin-Sung handed me his phone. There was an anonymous post on BlueBird.

Transaction @jdbdnixe94dscv635 · 1 day ago

Selling information

No exchange, sale /o/qjawhlek

Chronos new dorm+interior photos

Chronos Goh Yoo-Joon num(75)+qqt

Chronos Suh Hyun-Woo qqt

Chronos Kang Joo-Han num(28)+qqt

Chronos Lee Jin-Sung qqt

Chronos Park Yoon-Chan qqt

Chronos Suh Hyun-Woo's sister Stargram

High Tension Woo Ji-Hyuk num+qqt

Allure Kim Da-Win current girlfriend Stargram

#stalker #infoforsale #chronos #hightension #allure

*num=phone number, qqt=PapaoTalk

75 = last digits of Goh Yoo-Joon's number

28 = last digits of Kang Joo-Han's number

“..."

Everyone fell silent. The so-called information sales post was just one of many recent posts, but they were selling not only our information, but also private information of many groups we were connected with.

“What the heck is this? Num, qqt? What are these?"

“I don't know. They’re their own terms, so who knows. But 75 looks like the last digits of your number."

My throat became dry. My information was one thing, but why was my sister’s social media information there? Since my sister was actually on Stagram, I couldn’t ignore this.

“What are you guys talking about?"

At that moment, Joo-Han returned with our staff after discussing with Su-Hwan. We stopped talking and looked at them anxiously.

Joo-Han spoke with an unusually serious expression. “It seems the company already has some idea about the identity of the person who broke in."

“Already?" I asked.

Joo-Han shook his head. “Not just based on the evidence left behind at the dorm, but there have been issues related to stalkers among the Rings while we were in the US filming. There was someone who openly said they'd come to our place."

But why didn't YMM tell us? Typical YMM, always very slow to act. They probably dismissed it as a rumor or didn't tell us considering our activities with the US filming and comeback preparations.

We just nodded without answering.

Su-Hwan added, “We believe the perpetrator is an overseas stalker. Supervisor Kim said that 'from their actions, we can even tell which country they are from,' so we should be able to find them soon. We will need to discuss further how to handle this, but we will need to hold another meeting to decide how to handle this. I’m sorry. Could you please wait a bit?”

“...Alright. We trust you, hyung.”

We didn't trust YMM, but we did trust that Su-Hwan wouldn't handle it poorly like other companies or YMM. He would definitely take proper action.

Jin-Sung handed over his phone. “But, Su-Hwan hyung, is the stalker the same person who wrote this post?"

Jin-Sung’s phone screen seemed to display the information from the trading post he had shown us earlier.

“Huh?" After examining Jin-Sung’s screen, Su-Hwan frowned and soon became serious again. “…No. This doesn't seem to be the same person."

The Korean seemed too fluent for an overseas stalker who made an effort to keep their account from being found easily, and the open chat room was targeted at Korean stalkers.

Su-Hwan looked at the account and scrolled through it. “The dorm address was first traded yesterday, and Joo-Han's number has been up here for a while, before this became an issue… It almost coincides with the first time we issued him a phone."

Joo-Han tilted his head. “I've never answered calls from anyone but people I know. How did they find out what my phone number is?"

It was the same for us. Not just Joo-Han, but none of us answered calls or texts from anyone other than company employees, family, acquaintances, and fellow members. Yet, information was being confidently sold.

The 75 that seemed to denote Goh Yoo-Joon’s number really were the last digits of his number, and 28 were indeed the last digits of Joo-Han’s number. My sister was indeed using Stagram. Therefore, the seller couldn't just be dismissed as a fraud.

While listening to the members' conversation and looking at the trading post, doubts began to creep in.

“Maybe…" Su-Hwan and the members' intense gazes focused on me. “If Joo-Han hyung’s phone number has been circulating since right after its activation, shouldn't we also suspect the people from our staff?"

“…Ah, hyung. That's…" Jin-Sung tried to speak but stopped at Joo-Han hyung’s gesture.

I continued. “The dorm address was known right after we moved. We shouldn't avoid suspecting everyone. The Chronos team staff has increased recently."

Why try to suspect people on our side? I didn't want to investigate them either, but I've seen the personal information of many idols leaked by some of the staff quite often during my days as a trainer.

1. This is a genre of fan fiction where actual people, rather than fictional characters, are depicted in fictional scenarios. In the world of fandom, it particularly applies to fan-created stories or artwork that involve celebrities or public figures, often in highly imaginative or speculative situations. It is often referred as ‘RPF.’ ☜

2. Must be the ship name of Yoo-Joon and Hyun-Woo. ☜