Chapter 263: Believe It or Not (3)
Fwoosh—.
A poorly packed snowball cut through the air.
“Ack!”
After getting hit by the snowball, Seo Haim let out a short scream and staggered backward. Fluffy snow slid down over his head.
The one who struck first was Cha Seongbin.
Biting his lower lip tightly, Seo Haim glanced toward Jin Sehyun.
In snowball fights, teamwork was everything.
“Let’s beat them up together.”
“Should we?”
“H-Hey, guys?”
“Waaah!”
Thwack-. Thwack-.
In front of this warm scene of karma coming right back around, Ha Junseo leisurely enjoyed his morning coffee.
“Mmm~.”
“Wow, everyone’s really energetic this early in the morning.”
Standing beside him, I clicked my tongue and quietly commented.
Sure, snow was pretty, but at the end of the day it was just beautiful trash.
I had no desire to roll around in a snowy field in weather cold enough to freeze someone to death if buried in snow.
So naturally, I intended to stay one step behind….
Thwack!
“Wah!”
A snowball suddenly flew at me.
Cha Seongbin burst into laughter and shouted,
“Hey, let’s get Do Seohan first.”
“That sounds like a very good idea-yong.”
“You guys are excluding the maknae first?”
W-Why me?!
This was an emergency.
Seo Haim’s eyes began sparkling ominously.
Because the snow wasn’t packing properly, the snowballs shattered the instant they touched anything, and they started flying at me one after another.
Thanks to that, I ended up washing my face with freezing ice first thing in the morning.
That woke me up instantly.
Thwack-.
Thwack-.
Snowballs kept flying nonstop, so I hurriedly hid behind a pillar.
Honestly, three against one was too much.
Bouncing around the snowy field like a puppy, Cha Seongbin called out to Ha Junseo.
“Junseo, join us too!”
“Mmm, I’m cold.”
“I’m cold too-york!”
I’m cold too!
Ignoring me completely, the snowball Jin Sehyun threw flew in a perfect arc and smacked directly into my face.
Puff.
As I shook my head, snowflakes scattered everywhere.
“Ah, this won’t do.”
I didn’t know why I’d become collateral damage, but I couldn’t just sit there and take it.
My eyes quickly scanned the surroundings.
A blue bucket someone had left there to stop water leakage entered my sight.
Grinning, I dashed toward it and snatched it up.
Sensing danger, Cha Seongbin’s eyes widened dramatically.
“U-Uwaaa!”
“D-Do Seohan’s gone crazy!”
The weather was already freezing enough.
There was no reason to painstakingly pack snow one handful at a time with frozen hands.
Humans were creatures that used tools.
Faithfully recalling that ancient wisdom, I scooped snow into the bucket until it was full.
The focus vanished from Jin Sehyun’s eyes.
“What is that madness…?”
“Gyaaaah!”
Sensing the incoming disaster, Seo Haim let out a small scream, and I magnificently flung the entire bucket of snow in every direction.
“Uwaaaah!”
At the same time, Cha Seongbin jumped back in horror.
“Kgh.”
After that, it became war.
Jin Sehyun, whose improvisation skills were absurdly good, had already ripped the hood off his padded jacket and was shoveling snow into it.
Watching silently, Ha Junseo slowly took another step backward.
“I don’t think now’s the time for everyone to criticize my iced Americano….”
Honestly, maybe his behavior was more normal than all of us rolling around in snow together in this weather.
“Waaah!”
“Hey, I said get Jin Sehyun first!”
“Seo Haim is dying! Please save me!”
“Haim-ah, humans don’t die that easily.”
“I don’t care! Save me!”
It didn’t take long before all of us were completely covered in white snow.
Seo Haim gathered snow in both hands and started flinging it everywhere.
The snow fluttering through the air looked romantic enough to belong in a melodrama scene, but if you actually turned the sound on, it was pure horror drama material.
And amid all the screams flying around, there was one person who remained peaceful alone….
“My snowman….”
Even in the middle of the chaos, Seo Ian was crouched on the ground sadly staring at the snow that refused to pack together.
Judging by how he’d been kneading snow with his hands for a while now, he seemed to have attempted making a snowman several times already, only to fail repeatedly.
With a gloomy expression, Seo Ian looked up at us.
“It’s not working. I should probably give up.”
Unfortunately, though, where he was sitting wasn’t exactly a good location.
The moment I filled the bucket with snow again in preparation for round two—
Seo Haim suddenly rushed over to snatch the bucket away.
“U-Uh!”
It happened in an instant.
Thunk.
The sudden impact made me lose my grip on the bucket,
and all the snow inside spilled directly downward.
Precisely where Seo Ian was crouching.
“Uwa— Ian hyung!”
“Huh?”
…In the end, he became the snowman.
---
It was a familiar background.
Inside the dark dorm, a man leaned against the bedframe while laughing loudly.
The exact same composition, the exact same clothes as the leaked livestream video.
It was clearly footage broadcast on the same day.
Sweeping back his yellow hair, Hwang Jiwoon spoke.
“Hey, stop talking bullshit.”
The rough swearing rolled naturally off his tongue out of habit.
Hwang Jiwoon added irritably,
“This is connected to the conversation from the previously leaked clip.”
“I’ve lived clean, so I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“They said you did drugs.”
“I told you I’d never get caught.”
“Because Choi Yeonwoo didn’t get caught either?”
“Yeah.”
From this point onward, it was content that had never been revealed before.
With a fishy smile, Hwang Jiwoon continued speaking.
“Other than messing up that one day, I’ve never caused trouble.”
“Wow…. Do you seriously have no conscience?”
“If there’s nothing to expose in the first place, then even what existed becomes nonexistent. Brats debuting from tiny agencies wouldn’t understand stuff like that.”
“…….”
For a moment, silence fell.
Without noticing the sudden icy atmosphere, Hwang Jiwoon casually slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a stick of gum.
From beyond the receiver came a voice trying hard to stay calm.
“Still, it’s surprising someone like Choi Yeonwoo would do drugs….”
“I dunno. I didn’t actually see it myself.”
“What?”
“It’s true he was there that day…. But I don’t know if he went to the second round?”
He’d simply heard rumors.
That Choi Yeonwoo had been at that drinking gathering.
Without much thought, Hwang Jiwoon casually spat out,
“He probably did it or whatever.”
---
[Additional Leaked Trainee Livestream Clip Released]
Looks like the original uploader exposed this one too.
Seems like Hwang Jiwoon only meant to casually ruin someone’s life but realized things got too big, so they released the full version.
Honestly, this still doesn’t really prove anything.
He never actually saw it himself, but in the first leaked clip he talked like he was 100% sure;;
Seems like it’s true drugs were done during the second round of drinks, but even Hwang Jiwoon himself doesn’t know whether Choi Yeonwoo was actually thereㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“He probably did it or whatever” ㅇㅈㄹ
Do you realize every broadcasting station got turned upside down because of that careless statement???
* But it’s still true he went to a problematic gathering. Why hang around shady peopleㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ He said he only met them to buy drinks for trainee juniors once? Choi Yeonwoo literally said that during the livestream. Said he barely even knew Hwang Jiwoon.
└ㅋㅋㅋㅋ And you believe that?
└ If you’re not gonna believe him even after he explains, then why the hell are you complaining?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ I mean, a senior from the same agency buying trainee juniors drinks isn’t weird. With that age gap, do you think they were friends?
└ People are trying so desperately to drag Choi Yeonwoo down;;
└ Don’t care. Birds of a feather flock togetherㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
* But seriously, Hwang Jiwoon’s obsession with being from a major agency is hilariousㅋㅋㅋㅋ I don’t even know who he is. Who does he think he is?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Did Doubles promise to debut him?
└ Seems like they were planning to raise him as part of a debut team, but Stardust debuted not long ago so there’s no room for another boy groupㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Wasn’t he not even around during Starf?
└ Nah, I think the rumor was that they were planning to debut him as an actor.
└ Ah… an actor…ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Guess that’s impossible now.
└ He’d probably be amazing at villain roles though.
└ That wouldn’t be acting, that’d just be realism.
[Choi Yeonwoo Tests Negative on Both Rapid and Detailed Drug Tests]
Guys, enduring all this was so hard….
Even if the whole world doubted him, I kept holding on while believing only in our Yeonwooㅠㅠㅠㅠ Yeonwoo, congrats on your results.
* So he really tested negative in the end?
└ Yep. Everything came back negative and they said there wasn’t even circumstantial evidence.
└ It’s true the three trainees at the drinking gathering (including Hwang Jiwoon) did drugs, but it happened during the second round and Choi Yeonwoo wasn’t there.
└ So all he did was buy drinks for his juniors and leave? And people dragged him through hell over this….
└ Choi Yeonwoo is seriously so pitifulㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ truly.
* Shouldn’t Doubles filter out bastards like that before accepting trainees? They’re trying to debut kids without even doing this level of verificationㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ They weren’t debuted idols yet, just trainees, so maybe they didn’t know.
└ But those trainees still screwed over their debuted seniors on a massive scaleㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ ㅇㅈ At this point Doubles should sue them.
.
.
.
.
People loved issues.
If the news was interesting, they excitedly swarmed in to tear it apart, only quieting down once concrete evidence finally appeared.
Otherwise, it simply became an “oh well” situation.
Tiple’s dorm was quiet.
There was relief that the situation had been safely resolved somehow, but also guilt over the moments they had doubted and clashed with him, even briefly.
“…….”
Without saying much, Choi Yeonwoo quietly watched the TV in the living room.
Since most of the members had already moved out independently, he could’ve returned to his own apartment, but strangely enough, after the incident he had stayed glued to the dorm.
As though he was afraid the team might cast him aside.
Ren, the member who had clashed with Choi Yeonwoo the most after the scandal broke out, honestly admitted he’d been wrong.
Neither of them had personalities that held onto things for long, so the apology ended there.
Sung Jihoo sat silently on the opposite side of the sofa, staring at the TV screen.
As he slowly closed and reopened his eyes, one sentence Do Seohan had once said suddenly resurfaced in his mind.
‘This is just my intuition, but there’s no way Senior Yeonwoo would ever do drugs.’
He knew it had probably just been a polite thing to say.
How many times could the kid have even met Choi Yeonwoo to hold such certainty?
But even so, a junior who wasn’t even on the same team had been that confident.
And the truth was, Choi Yeonwoo’s confession that he had blacked out had shaken him more than he wanted to admit.
Because there had been no choice but to believe him.
That was what Do Seohan had said.
But maybe he had meant something else.
At the very least, if they were on the same team—
if they had spent years together—
then maybe they simply should have believed him.
That thought lingered in Sung Jihoo’s mind.
After hesitating for a long while, Sung Jihoo carefully spoke.
“Yeonwoo-ah, should we go eat something?”
“…Sure, why not.”
No matter what, it felt like they had a lot to talk about today.