"I Actually Said It"
“......?”
Kim Hanbin's bombshell remark left the notorious YouTuber speechless — and even Cha Kangmin, who'd been standing beside him trying to defuse the situation, found himself at a loss for words.
At best, he'd expected something along the lines of I'm disappointed by Seoul's conduct in this matter.
Instead, aimed directly at the opposing club: You'd better be ready to die next match. Those were words no one could have imagined coming out of a rookie's mouth.
The first to recover his senses, predictably, was Cha Kangmin. Grabbing Hanbin by the arm, he hauled him away from the YouTuber.
“We're so sorry! We'll be going now!”
After tossing off a perfunctory excuse to the YouTuber, Kangmin more or less forcibly bundled Hanbin into his own car.
The drama-farming YouTuber stood there staring blankly after the receding vehicle.
They had been driving toward the clubhouse for a while when Cha Kangmin finally broke the silence.
“Hanbin, you sure that comment was a good idea? That's going to be clipped and spread everywhere, you know.”
Hanbin answered evenly, his eyes never leaving the scenery outside the window.
“Hmm... honestly, if the federation had formally filed a doping complaint, I'd have just accepted it. Gone through the investigation like the rules say, cleared things up when the results came out. That'd be that.”
Hanbin paused for a moment, then turned his head toward Kangmin.
“But this time was different, wasn't it? Someone claiming to be club personnel tried to post that anonymously — and only slipped up because their username got exposed. The club itself was trying to take me down behind the scenes, that way.”
Letting out a long, deep sigh, Hanbin continued.
“I just said it because I was angry.”
Cha Kangmin, hands on the wheel, had been listening quietly. Then he spoke, slowly.
“Honestly, Seoul Citizen went way too far this time. Whatever else, trying to bury a player like that just isn't right.”
Kangmin had been feeling considerably displeased about the whole affair himself.
“From where you're standing, Hanbin, I'd say you said plenty. You let people walk all over you, they start taking you for a pushover and pile on even worse.”
Seated at his desk, the notorious YouTuber could barely contain his excitement as he transferred the footage he'd just shot onto his computer.
Jackpot. Absolute jackpot!
A brand-new K League rookie — not even twenty years old yet — telling another club straight to their faces to be ready to die next match. What material on earth could be more provocative than that?
Kim Hanbin, you magnificent bastard... who knew you'd do this much for me? Thank you!
The hottest topic in Korean football right now was, without question, the doping scandal between Seoul Citizen and Kim Hanbin.
The YouTube algorithm was bound to be picking up on the topic too, boosting related videos to the top of everyone's feeds.
If today's footage went up as well, trending-page placement was practically guaranteed — and shooting his channel into the stratosphere was no longer a pipe dream.
Normally he'd agonize for hours over how to inflate things more outrageously, how to bait the rage harder — editing ate up half his day. This time, he didn't even need to try.
The raw ingredient called Kim Hanbin was simply that good. He kept the editing to a bare minimum and produced the video.
The thumbnail featured Hanbin's face alongside his quote emblazoned in enormous red letters.
No lies needed today — just the facts, served up nice and plain! Alright... upload... complete!
A little while passed, and just as expected —
Perhaps it was the sheer provocativeness of the title itself.
Barely minutes after the upload, the view count began climbing at a terrifying pace.
Watching the steep, unbroken curve of views rise and rise, the drama-farming YouTuber let out a satisfied chuckle. He rose from his chair, pulled out a cigarette, clamped it between his lips, and headed outside.
“Ahh... strange feeling, writing real news instead of fake for once. Heh heh.”
He smoked the cigarette down to the filter and shuffled back to his computer.
Now came the best part — savoring the explosive comment reaction.
“Alright, let's see. Total chaos in here, right? Heh heh heh.”
Swelling with anticipation, he opened the video's comment section.
And then... comments of an entirely unexpected kind filled the screen.
Profanity and condemnation, wall to wall. But the target wasn't Kim Hanbin. It wasn't Seoul Citizen.
It was the YouTuber himself.
The comment section was stuffed to bursting with curses aimed at the YouTuber himself.
Everyone was convinced the video was fake news he'd fabricated.
“No! What the hell is this nonsense?! It's REAL! Look at his mouth, you can tell! Kim Hanbin said it himself!”
Choking on the injustice, the YouTuber replayed his own upload to double-check.
Scrutinizing the footage closely, the problem became obvious. The shoot had taken place late in the evening — the surroundings were dark, and while Hanbin's face was faintly visible, distinguishing the movement of his lips was nearly impossible.
The voice was unmistakably Kim Hanbin's, but the video alone left it maddeningly ambiguous whether Hanbin had actually said those words.
“Damn it...!”
A curse spilled out of his mouth on its own. Was this what the end of the boy who cried wolf looked like?
He'd pumped out so much fake news and rage-bait over the years that now, even with an exclusive scoop in hand, not a single soul believed him.
The story spread to other internet communities in the blink of an eye.
“Damn it...”
Because of all his years of lies, the truth itself no longer convinced anyone.
And then.
— Live Thread —
The next day, Suwon Blue Sky's training ground rang with the familiar sound of ball against boot, just like any other day.
Hanbin was out there with the rest of the squad, going through the drills alongside them.
During a short water break, Cha Kangmin wandered over to where Hanbin was drinking, grinning ear to ear.
“Hey Hanbin, did you see that YouTube drama farmer got absolutely obliterated? The communities spent all night tracking down his channel and dislike-bombing it. It was pure carnage.”
“Really? I crashed the second I got home yesterday, I had no idea.”
“Well, he brought it on himself. He's racked up way too much dirt over the years — he had a long line of people just waiting for him to slip.”
The corner of Kangmin's mouth curled up on one side.
“Seriously, because of guys like him, honest YouTubers like me get lumped in under the same label and take the abuse too. I'm the real victim here, you know... Ah well. Good riddance to him.”
While the two of them were trading idle banter, a coach crossed the training ground and came straight over to Hanbin.
“Hanbin, come with me for a minute, will you?”
“Yes, Coach.”
Hanbin followed the coach to one side of the ground. The coach glanced around, then lowered his voice.
“There are people from Seoul Citizen in the clubhouse conference room right now... They've come to apologize. My guess is it's about that internet post.”
“Seoul Citizen? Here?”
Hanbin's eyes widened slightly. This was entirely unexpected.
“Yeah. The call just came in to the General Manager. He said if you're willing to hear the apology in person, you can come to the conference room — and if you'd rather not even lay eyes on them, there's no need to show up at all. So, what'll it be?”
At the coach's words, Kim Hanbin fell into a brief moment of thought.
Truthfully, after everything Seoul had done, he didn't want to see their faces at all. And yet...
Still... they came all this way to apologize in person. Ignoring that outright would be poor manners, wouldn't it.
After only a short deliberation, Hanbin made up his mind.
“I'll go, Coach.”
“Good man. Alright then. You know where the conference room is, right? Just head straight there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hanbin answered the coach, exchanged a quick nod of understanding with Cha Kangmin, and walked toward the clubhouse building.
Arriving at the conference room door, he knocked once and opened it slowly.
Stepping inside, the first thing to catch his eye was four middle-aged men seated across from each other on the sofas.
On one side sat Suwon Blue Sky's General Manager Lee Sang-ho and the head of operations.
Across from them, two men who appeared to be from Seoul Citizen sat with stiff, frozen expressions.
One of them was Section Chief Park Cheolmin — the very man who had once offered him a scouting offer.
The other was a middle-aged man he'd never seen before.
The moment Hanbin stepped in, the heavy, suffocating air of the conference room seemed to loosen — just a fraction.
No — more precisely, it was the two Seoul Citizen men whose posture sank even lower, as if they were pressing themselves into the floor.
“I heard someone was looking for me?”
General Manager Lee Sang-ho greeted him with a gentle smile.
“Ah, Hanbin. Come sit over here. This is the General Manager of Seoul Citizen, and this here is Section Chief Park Cheolmin.”
“Hello. It's an honor to meet you.”
Hanbin bowed his head politely to the two men.
The Seoul Citizen GM — old enough to be Hanbin's father — rose from his seat and bowed his head in return.
Guilt and awkwardness were written plainly across the man's face.
He spoke with visible difficulty.
“Player Kim Hanbin... regarding this whole affair, our club at Seoul Citizen truly has... we have no excuse. We offer you our sincerest apology.”
The moment he finished, the Seoul GM and Park Cheolmin beside him bowed deeply toward Hanbin in unison.
A professional club's general manager and section chief bowing that low to a rookie player years their junior was not a sight one saw every day.
Watching a man his father's age lower his head to beg forgiveness, Hanbin hurried to stop them.
“Oh no, please... it all got cleared up with the live broadcast yesterday anyway. Everything worked out in the end, so isn't that what matters?”
But the Seoul GM could not yet lift his head, and pressed on.
“I want to make absolutely clear once more: the internet post was never the official position of Seoul Citizen FC. It was entirely the rogue act of a single scout who held community administrator privileges. And... as of today, that scout's contract with Seoul Citizen has been terminated. Again, we apologize.”
Watching them bow and apologize over and over, Hanbin felt more and more like he was the one who'd done something wrong.
“Ah... seriously, please, that's quite enough. I'm truly fine. And... well, to be honest, I owe Section Chief Park Cheolmin a personal debt too, so this is even more awkward for me. Haha.”
Hoping to thaw the stiff, brittle atmosphere at least a little, Kim Hanbin forced out a hearty laugh as he mentioned Park Cheolmin.
At the sight of Hanbin smiling as he brought up the section chief, the frozen air in the conference room softened noticeably.
By industry seniority and by age alike, the Seoul Citizen GM was leagues ahead of Hanbin — and he had apologized. And Hanbin, the junior by decades, had graciously accepted it with no harm done. Watching it unfold, Lee Sang-ho concluded that this whole affair had, all things considered, been settled amicably.
Everyone took their seats, and amid light pleasantries, an awkward but warm-hearted conversation began to flow.
Somewhere in the middle of it, the Seoul Citizen GM spoke up with a laugh, as if he'd just remembered something.
“Oh, and apparently there was another incident yesterday? Some drama-farming YouTuber or other cunningly synthesized your voice with AI, Player Hanbin, and put out some completely absurd video. Really, these days anything and everything happens. Hahaha.”
At the Seoul GM's remark, Suwon's own Lee Sang-ho chimed in.
“I heard about that too. They keep telling us technology is advancing, but I had no idea it could be fooled that seamlessly. Haha.”
The head of operations nodded along.
“Precisely. It seems technological progress isn't only ever a good thing. Seeing it abused like this... honestly. Haha.”
Everyone was laughing together at the topic of the drama farmer's doctored video —
when Kim Hanbin, who had been listening quietly, suddenly spoke up.
Hanbin's expression was... distinctly uncomfortable.
“Ah... about that video yesterday. That was... it wasn't AI-synthesized...”
“.....?”
In an instant, every trace of laughter in the conference room cut off dead.
The warm, cheerful atmosphere from moments before had vanished without a trace.
The Seoul Citizen GM. Suwon's Lee Sang-ho. The head of operations. And Park Cheolmin too.
All of them stared at Kim Hanbin in open disbelief.
“Uh... um... I really did say it. Seoul Citizen, you guys are... this... um... yeah... I'm sorry.”
Scratching at his head, Hanbin bowed his head low.