Preparing to leave Jeju, everyone was packing their things in a gloomy atmosphere. The stage ended at 10:30 p.m and as soon as there were no cameras directed their way, the whole team got to witness Ryujin frowning and not uttering a word back to their room.

Everyone understood what she felt. Being on top all the time and suddenly dropping down, there was bound to have self-disappointment. Although the team tried to comfort her, that just wasn't enough.

Ryujin was confused and frustrated. She was so sure that she wouldn't have dropped down from 1st place to 14th place. Thinking about this, the minute everyone got their phones back, Yuna found out something scandalous regarding Ryujin on the internet.

Everyone was on their phones except for Ryujin. She was too focused on thinking of her possible mistakes that would've led to the current situation, completely oblivious to the scandal.

Minjeong noticed this. She was seated on top of the bunk bed, looking down at the girl's miserable state. It was a good thing that all of the cameras in the room were off for today as Ryujin won't have to force herself and act to please the audience.

Then, looking back at her phone. She was scrolling through Naver, reading all articles regarding Ryujin's scandal of using cigarettes in high school. This— Minjeong was sure that this was the reason why her popularity rank suddenly dropped.

There was evidence too. The anonymous reporter who created the first article about Ryujin provided a photo of her and what seemed like her classmates in a school alley, holding cigarettes in between their fingers while posing for the picture.

The mean comments are bombarding. At least, every minute, a new comment will be posted. Either bad or good, Ryujin's fans and haters were on a roll for war.

However, Minjeong was quite skeptical about the photo. For as long as she could remember, she's been in this kind of work and it's odd how the photo in the article provided was of low quality as well as Ryujin's figure being at the very back.

Minjeong raised a brow as she downloaded the image and zoomed in around the picture to analyze it thoroughly. And when she zoomed in on Ryujin's figure at the back of her friends, she noticed something weird on the cigarette she was holding.

She smirked mockingly inside of her mind, suppressing the laughter that was starting to force out of .

Of course, it was edited. Even though the editing in the photo looked top-tier, seemingly made by a professional. Minjeong still recognized the flaws by looking at the weird pixels and lighting when zooming in on the cigarette Ryujin held.

They lowered the photo's quality on purpose to match the edit. But, they made a mistake with the cigarette. From afar, it looks so real that it's believable. But again, the lighting and overlaying looked a bit weird when you zoom it in.

For once, Minjeong was thankful that she was a pro in this field.

She was about to create a new account on Naver so she could deal with the matter herself and help Ryujin but her team got ahead and Ryujin spouted.

"W-What?!"

She finally noticed the root of her problems and stared at her phone which showed one of the articles, looking lost and perplexed.

"This... This is insane..."

That was all Ryujin could say as she dropped her back on the bottom bunk's mattress. This confused everyone as they looked at each other and landed their eyes on the latter.

"Ryujin, was it true?" Yeji looked hesitant to ask but still did so, "You using a cigarette, I mean."

Yuna tried to lift the tension, chuckling nervously. "Haha, there's no way, right?"

Instead of looking sad, Ryujin scoffed. "Yeah, I smoked."

Everyone instantly went silent and shifted from doubtful to complexion. Even Minjeong didn't maintain her unfazed expression and widened her eyes.

Minjeong furrowed her brows, "You used to smoke? Underaged?"

Yizhuo covered , "So, the photo was real?"

"...I don't know."

Ryujin responded with uncertainty as she sat up and ruffled her hair in frustration. That was the truth, she didn't know. She explained that she did smoke in high school but only once. This relieved everyone, especially Yeji and Yuna who's been stuck with the girl for two years because of being in the same company.

The latter then continued, telling her team about how she's indeed friends with the people in the picture and they were childhood friends. They were the ones who'd constantly smoke as she refused whenever they would offer to.

She knew smoking was bad and her grandfather died because of it, so she settled on not trailing after her friends after smoking once.

It was just unfortunate that she couldn't remember anything regarding the picture in the article. She was training so much that she slowly lost contact with friends and solely focused on her dream.

She didn't even know if those friends of hers still considered her as one, that got her worried.

Ryujin sighed, "Maybe... They're the ones who posted the article. Because I'm sure those people were the only ones who are close enough to me back then that we took a lot of photos like that."

She said in a deadpanned manner. Standing up, Ryujin shoved the last of her folded clothes into her luggage and laughed.

"Maybe the photo is real... Maybe I did smoke, I just couldn't remember."

At this point, everyone was worried about how the girl was talking. Ryujin was clearly in disbelief and confusion, this wasn't her usual cheerful self. It's concerning.

That's when