Noise Marketing
After wrapping up the day's schedule, I came back to the dorm and sat there, lost in thought.
What the hell is going on?
It didn't make sense. If Hael really was the one who'd been trying to kill me all this time, shouldn't he be hiding his identity the way he always had? But looking at him today, he seemed desperate to reveal himself. Reciting lines from the original novel word for word was closer to a deliberate provocation than anything else.
Coincidence?
No matter how I turned it over, novel dialogue overlapping down to the last syllable couldn't be a coincidence. Which meant it had to be intentional.
There's definitely a reason he's going out of his way to show his face.
I didn't know what that reason was, but this was the moment suspicion hardened into certainty. This went beyond simply harboring hostility out of jealousy. There was something else. I just didn't know what.
"Bodi."
At the sound of his name, Bodi appeared. As a hologram, to be precise.
"...Why do you look like that?"
Bodi answered with a bright, sunny smile.
"You know how sci-fi movies always have a scene like this? I wanted to try it too."
"Not funny."
Bodi's face fell, and he shifted back into his usual human form.
"The information you gave me was right."
At that, Bodi's dejected expression lit up noticeably.
"Hehe. I was right, wasn't I?"
"But I still don't fully trust you. Just that you were right this time."
Just like that, Bodi's face drooped again, as if the previous moment had never happened.
"That's cold of you."
It couldn't be helped. If you didn't want to get stabbed in the back in this life, you sometimes had to be cold. Just like the last System, this one could start by feeding me accurate information under the guise of helping, then gradually slip in false intel to sabotage me later. Whether this guy was useful right now or not, staying wary was essential.
But whether the information is right or wrong, the priority is to take in as much of it as I can.
Even if I received bad intel, once it was proven false, I could analyze why he'd given it to me in the first place.
"So you think I might give you false information?"
"Yeah."
Hearing that, Bodi seemed so betrayed he exploded on the spot.
"That's too much. I'm helping you to the point of self-sacrifice here! And this is how you treat me after I've been taking care of you?!"
I pressed a finger to my lips, signaling him to be quiet.
"Anyway, if you've got more information, give it to me."
Bodi's lips jutted out in a pout.
"What's this? You say you don't trust me and then turn around and say you need me. Isn't that a contradiction?"
"..."
"This kind of exploitative relationship isn't healthy. I feel like I'm being completely gaslit right now."
That was when the door opened. The person who walked in was Won Ji-an. Leaving Bodi to grumble to himself, I explained what had happened today.
"So he recited novel dialogue to you word for word?"
"Yeah."
And not just any dialogue — the original Do Won-woo's lines, the ones belonging to the villain. Do Won-woo had been the antagonist who envied Lee Hae-won and tried to tear him down. Repeating that character's lines felt like a kind of warning: that he intended to take that role himself now.
"Why would he do that? He's basically advertising that he's trying to hurt you."
"Right. It's weird."
How was a sane person supposed to figure out a lunatic's motives, anyway.
"Maybe it's a provocation."
"A provocation?"
"No matter how much I show my hand like this, there's nothing you can do about it."
Was the intent to make the other person feel pissed off and powerless at the same time? Or maybe he had some other move I hadn't even considered.
"We don't know anything yet, but he's definitely someone we need to watch out for."
I nodded. I decided to steel myself. There was no telling what might happen on the talk show we'd be appearing on as guests with Hael.
On the day of the talk show, I arrived at the studio with Kwon Hak-jin. The place looked exactly the way it did on television. There was something strange about actually appearing on a famous program I'd only ever watched as a viewer.
"Oh, hello."
"Nice to meet you. So you guys are Starlight?"
We were exchanging greetings with the MCs when I spotted Hael standing blankly behind us. The moment he saw me, he put on that unpleasant smiling-with-his-eyes look of his again.
Seriously, why does he keep doing that.
Did he think he was some kind of movie or drama villain? I'd felt it from the start — he overacted so much it came off as childish.
"Hello."
Hael came over and greeted us.
"Oh, hello."
Kwon Hak-jin, who knew nothing, shook his hand and returned the greeting.
"Please take care of me during today's shoot. I'm so nervous — if I freeze up, look out for me, okay?"
"We're rookies too, you know."
"Still. You've been on a lot of broadcasts. You're variety veterans, aren't you?"
Could you even call appearing on a survival show variety experience? It wasn't wrong, exactly, but...
"Let's help each other out and do well."
Good-natured Kwon Hak-jin didn't catch Hael's intent, and simply met the barbed words with kindness. Hael just smiled without saying anything. His mouth was smiling, but it didn't feel like a smile at all.
Are we even going to get through today's shoot...
The worry was already crowding everything else out.
Filming began. It was a talk show, and we were rookies, so the shoot followed a set script. Most of it went smoothly, just unpacking the episodes we'd already talked through at the pre-meeting.
"Hahaha, I know, right."
"These guys are really rookies? They talk so well I was shocked."
The MCs seemed to be making an effort to loosen the atmosphere, taking into account that we were newcomers. I was grateful for that, at least. Not all of them, though. Among them was an MC famous for going on the attack, the kind who specialized in aggressive talk to wring spicy footage out of his guests.
"But Hael, looking at the guys next to you — don't you feel envious?"
A question that wasn't in the script. He'd just publicly compared two groups that had debuted on the same day and were already drawing aggro because of it.
"Ah, why would you ask something like that."
Even with the people around him trying to stop him, the MC didn't care and pressed on.
"No, look. You debuted on the same day, but they're doing so well. Haven't you ever felt sick with jealousy?"
It was an impossible question. No matter how you answered it, something was going to come out of it. If even I was getting uncomfortable, and I wasn't the one being asked, that said everything.
"First of all, even though we debuted on the same day, our directions and paths are different, so..."
"Ah, hold on a second."
Kwon Hak-jin, unable to just sit there, tried to step in and mediate — but the MC only ramped up harder, completely off the leash.
"Honestly, are you jealous or not. Just answer yes or no."
I glanced sideways. I didn't like the guy, but I felt a little sorry for him being put in this position. We'd come as a pair, after all, while Hael had come on alone from his group. And being asked a question like this was honestly insulting.
But Hael was keeping a strangely calm expression.
"...?"
A rookie ought to have been flustered, but he was so composed that even the other MCs looked slightly thrown.
"I'm jealous."
"See? You are jealous, right?"
The moment Hael answered, the MC lit up, ready to pounce on the tail of it — and that was when it happened.
"Yes, I'm jealous of an MC who can ask me questions like this."
The MC who'd asked the question blinked, looking more confused than anything.
"Huh?"
"I'm jealous that you can ask whatever you want without worrying about anyone's feelings. I want that kind of MC power someday too."
I almost laughed.
Wow...
I had to admit it — he was impressive, in a completely different sense. The fact that a rookie could fire back with an answer like that, without batting an eye.
"Well, I mean..."
The MC, looking like he'd just taken a clean hit, couldn't get a word out and just sat there blinking. And then Hael really started to go off the rails.
"Actually, we're close."
Hael suddenly grabbed my arm from the seat beside me as he said it. Then he started pulling out an episode that wasn't in the script at all.
"We met in the music show bathroom and even exchanged phone numbers, you know?"
With an off-script episode involving me, every ounce of attention in the room snapped to Hael in an instant.
"Oh, really?"
"You two exchanged numbers?"
I was impressed in spite of myself. The way he instantly changed the subject and pulled all the focus onto himself the moment the atmosphere started going sour — that wasn't an ordinary skill.
I thought he was just a nutjob, but this is more than I expected...
Hael went on, smiling.
"I actually watched the survival show every single day. I even voted myself."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. So when we debuted on the same day, it felt weird. Even more moving, somehow."
Hael added one more thing.
"I liked you so much that the day we exchanged numbers, I called you for the first time at midnight."
...Ah?
"Midnight?"
The studio started to buzz.
"Midnight, right?"
"You called at night?"
The MCs, thrown by the bombshell, started double-checking the time. But Hael, looking delighted all by himself, even held up his fingers to emphasize the hour one more time.
"Yes! At midnight!"
Was he insane? Why would you say that on air...
"I just liked you that much, haha."
Even the MC who'd been asking the aggressive questions just sat there opening and closing his mouth, thrown by a Hael who was running even more unhinged than he was.
It didn't make sense. Calling someone late at night when you weren't even close was rude by anyone's standards. Once this story made it onto the broadcast, people were definitely going to talk.
So why pull a stunt like this?
A thought flashed through my mind. Wait. Was this...
Noise marketing?
I looked to the side. Hael was smiling at me.
Did he plan this from the start? Exchange numbers, call at night, then pull this crazy stunt?
It was such an unexpected approach that I was simply at a loss for words. What was certain was this: Hael had gone beyond simply disliking me. He was fully prepared to use me, thoroughly and without hesitation, to promote his own group. The will to stop at nothing — any means, any method — as long as it got him even a scrap of attention was written all over him. Even if that method turned out to be self-harm that invited a flood of criticism...
Hael smiled at me.