A Crack in Your Mentality

Just as Jung Chan-yang had said, among the past few resets there had been an incident in which the key staff of Choose My Prince were caught gambling as a group, plastered across the headlines, and thoroughly purged.

Before Ye-chan intervened, the scandal only broke after the broadcast had already ended, so the groups that had already debuted suffered little damage. From the fourth reset onward, however, a reporter Ye-chan had fed the tip detonated the story early and dragged down the legs of a Choose My Prince that had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been poised to soar. With so many of the implicated staff pulled out, in some cycles the airing was even delayed by more than a week.

Stopping this spectacular scandal, though, was not particularly difficult.

The production team's gambling affair had been reported as enormous at the time, but in truth, aside from the ringleader, the other staff members were greenhorns who had only just set foot in the world of gambling. Midway through the Choose My Prince shoot, the ringleader — who had already lost heavily — had been on the verge of pulling several staff into taking bribes from sponsors and agencies when the whole lot of them were amicably hammered flat.

Ye-chan had neatly summarized the gambling scheme the ringleader was about to unfold and sent it anonymously to the PD.

Your staff are up to this. Keep a better eye on them.

After that, everything moved like water downhill. The PD, who had already been sensing something off about the strangely altered atmosphere on set, grilled the staff. The ringleader, reading the heavy mood, stopped trying to drag anyone else in. With the ringleader quiet, there was of course no longer any chance of the production team making the news for group gambling.

Instead of explaining the whole smoothly flowing sequence of events, Ye-chan raised his index finger, traced a lightning bolt in the air, and imitated a sound.

"Zzzt-crack."

"……What is that supposed to be?"

Ye-chan continued with the most insolent expression he could manage.

"What do you think? The sound of a crack forming in your mentality."

A proper crack split right across Jung Chan-yang's smiling face. In an instant the amusement vanished, and Chan-yang's expression settled into the same merciless blank he had worn in front of the parking garage before.

Ye-chan shrugged his shoulders with satisfaction.

"Ha Ye-chan."

"You think calling my name is going to make me flinch and go, Oh, Master Jung Chan-yang, this humble one shall report every detail?"

Ye-chan sneered.

"That expression suits you perfectly. Not a scrap of humanity in it — it fits you. From now on, stop half-assing the human act and just walk around with that face."

As Ye-chan added one last jab and made to leave, Chan-yang caught him again.

"Ha Ye-chan."

"If you've got something to say, spit it out. I'm busy."

Having already finished everything he needed to do with Chan-yang today, Ye-chan checked his wristwatch with open irritation. Chan-yang, who had already recovered his expression, smiled with his eyes half-lidded.

"You and Woo Hwi-gyum seem to get along so well. I enjoyed watching the recreation segment too. Biggest laugh I've had all year."

"……."

"Still stuck in the same team every time? Haha. Team assignments don't always go the way you want, but it's amazing how you two keep ending up together. With the school-violence thug you hate so much, no less."

Chan-yang whispered as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself.

"I don't particularly believe in gods, but if one exists, he doesn't seem to be on your side. Right?"

If I get angry here, I lose.

Instead of answering, Ye-chan tightened his grip on the bathroom door handle. But the door he was pushing outward only opened a short way before it stopped. He whipped his head around and, through the frosted glass, saw a silhouette so distinct it was almost strange he hadn't noticed it until now.

"……Oh dear. We had a guest."

Chan-yang's voice, laced with laughter, came from right behind him. Chan-yang yanked the handle Ye-chan had been pushing inward, opened the door, and slipped leisurely outside.

"Well then, sort things out nicely with your best friend, Trainee Ha Ye-chan. I've got a schedule."

Chan-yang vanished, and silence settled between the two people left on either side of the open door.

"Haa."

Ye-chan let out a deep sigh and looked up at the person in front of him. Woo Hwi-gyum, standing beyond the doorway, wore the most flustered expression Ye-chan had ever seen on him.

"How much did you hear?"

"F-from when Senior Jung Chan-yang said you and I get along well……."

They had avoided the worst of it. If Hwi-gyum had heard everything from the beginning, Ye-chan would have had no option left but to knock him on the head and induce amnesia. This much, at least, he could still muddle through.

Thinking of it as a silver lining, Ye-chan calmly studied Hwi-gyum — and noticed his lips had gone blue. Clenching and unclenching his trembling hands, Hwi-gyum barely managed to continue.

"……Where did you hear about the school violence?"

"Where do you think I heard it?"

No longer feeling any need to manage his expression, Ye-chan shot back with open annoyance. Hwi-gyum chewed on his lower lip, then carefully asked again.

"……Did you hear it from Chan-su?"

"Who's Chan-su?"

"The one who reported me to the school violence committee……."

Ye-chan doubted his own ears. School violence committee? He asked again, carefully.

"That school violence committee isn't the one I know, right?"

Hwi-gyum pressed his lips shut. That was answer enough.

Ye-chan's mood plummeted straight to the floor. He had known Hwi-gyum was involved in school violence, but this was the first he had heard that a formal committee had actually been convened.

What kind of shameless bastard is this?

Ye-chan roughly raked his hair back and spoke coldly.

"What kind of guts do you have? You spent a school career hot enough to get a violence committee called, and you still thought you could show up on a program like this?"

Until now, Ye-chan had deliberately ignored Hwi-gyum the way one ignores a nail sticking up at an awkward angle. But faced with behavior so far outside common sense, the question burst out of his mouth on its own.

At Ye-chan's words, Hwi-gyum drooped his brows bitterly and lowered his eyes.

"……I didn't know Chan-su was still suffering over it all this time."

Ye-chan snapped back sharply.

"Why are you telling me? Go apologize to Chan-su."

Hwi-gyum's long eyelashes trembled faintly. It was nauseatingly self-righteous.

"Would it be better if I…… left the show?"

Is that even a question?

Ye-chan wanted to fire back immediately, but he had no choice but to shut his mouth. The space in front of his eyes had filled with holograms gleaming far more ominously than usual.

What is this. You're making me do a dialogue tree right now?

The options that steered him toward treating Hwi-gyum as if he had some special circumstances left Ye-chan speechless. He had always picked the answers of a furious unbroken colt precisely because he refused to play along — and this time the system had completely blocked every exit.

What he really wanted was to say Yeah, I'm not picking and leave it — but all that would accomplish was having one of the options selected at random.

Ye-chan pressed hard on his temple with one hand and tapped a choice with the other.

"For now, I think leaving the show might be too hasty."

"Ah……."

Over Hwi-gyum's hesitant face, another hologram window rose.

Ye-chan read through the new options in a state of confusion.

Hey, hologram. What exactly are you trying to do?

With a vaguely uneasy feeling, Ye-chan pressed a choice once more. Forcing him this hard to hear Hwi-gyum out meant there was definitely something there.

"Can you explain why the School Violence Countermeasure Committee was convened?"

"That's……."

Hwi-gyum wavered, unable to decide whether to speak or stay silent. Ye-chan pushed him.

"We're in the same boat, aren't we? Don't I at least have the right to hear that much?"

When his eyes met Ye-chan's — chin tilted at a deliberately contrary angle — Hwi-gyum shrank his shoulders. Ye-chan waited with patience while the thoroughly cowed Hwi-gyum only fretted his lips.

"Um, so. That is, it was when I was a first-year in high school……."

Hwi-gyum began, falteringly, to recall his school days.

"I went to school overseas through middle school, and came back to Korea for high school. Chan-su was someone I met at the school I transferred to."

Hwi-gyum laid out his high school years in chronological order. Ye-chan's face, which had been listening calmly, changed color as the story progressed. At the point where the school violence committee was convened, Ye-chan stretched out a hand and cut him off for a moment.

"Wait, wait, wait. So this Ji Chan-su guy was ostracizing some kid in the class, and when you transferred in and started hanging out with that kid, he picked a fight with you too? And then he went and reported you to the committee? After he was the one who swung a fist?"

"To be precise, I dodged the punch so I didn't get hit, and Chan-su fell and broke his arm……."

"Whether he broke his arm or his leg is none of my business."

Ye-chan's mind spun rapidly. The possibility that the truth he had firmly believed all this time might actually be a false listing left his head a mess. When Ye-chan glared at Hwi-gyum with irritation, Hwi-gyum flinched and looked away.

Every time he acted fragile like that, I used to think, wow, this school-violence thug sure can act…….

Ye-chan decided to pin down the facts first.

"So. What was the result of the committee?"

"It just got cancelled……."

"Why would it just get cancelled. Finish the story."

The more of Hwi-gyum's hesitant account Ye-chan heard, the more spectacular it became. The bastard — Ji Chan-su or Ji Cheon-su or whatever his name was — who had fallen and broken his arm while trying to hit Hwi-gyum went around telling everyone he had been beaten. Believing only the howling of a colt with a horn up its ass, the school convened a violence committee without any proper investigation; once they actually looked into it, it turned out the guy had been beating his own drum the whole time, and the whole thing fizzled out.

What kind of idiotic mess…….

Ye-chan studied Hwi-gyum's face anew. Put generously, it was a cold impression; put ungenerously, it was the face of a thug. Being a recent transfer with a rough look had almost certainly contributed to the casual judgments of the people around him.

Ye-chan frowned.

Across all those past resets, the school-violence thug Woo Hwi-gyum that Ye-chan and the netizens had hated was a phantom figure manufactured by some nobody named Ji Chan-su.

The more he thought about it, the more——

"Is he insane?"

The words slipped out of Ye-chan's mouth before he knew it, and Hwi-gyum flinched.

What a beautifully run school. What kind of bastard is this Ji Chan-su? How did the school handle things to end up like this?

No — wait. Why did this bastard Hwi-gyum just leave the show without even arguing back when he was labeled a school-violence thug? Is he insane?

Ye-chan's head was ringing from meeting a pushover of a level he had never encountered in his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠life. As every kind of emotion crashed through him and left him unable to think straight, Hwi-gyum flailed his hands in panic.

"No, but I've lived forgetting about it until now. If anything, Chan-su is the one who……."

"Hey. Get a grip."

Ye-chan's face went dead serious at the nonsense.

He had to fix this absurd pushover's head right now.