Blackmail and a Lucky Charm
“CEO, this bastard's been blowing up my phone since the crack of dawn, spewing nonsense.” Seol Seungjun scratched his head, his face twisted with irritation. The manager who had worked beside him for nearly a year answered with practiced neutrality. “Sounds like he's lost his mind all of a sudden. Maybe it's because you keep doing better and better, hyung-nim, and it got under his skin. You're the bigger man here—just let it slide.” He'd been the manager to survive longest at Seol Seungjun's side, and his talent for flattery was a genuine art form. “Tch. Fine. I'll be the bigger man. Guess I'll go hear whatever garbage he has to say and be done with it.” The car carrying Seol Seungjun pulled into his agency's parking lot. From there to the CEO's office took three minutes. His bored expression lasted less than thirty seconds after he walked through the door. “You son of a bitch. Didn't I tell you to watch yourself so you wouldn't end up in photos?” “…….” “Fucking hell. I raised you into a goddamn great actor, and this is how you repay me? You're lower than a magpie, you worthless piece of trash!” The CEO's eyes flashed in every direction as he stared Seol Seungjun down. He didn't even have the presence of mind to grumble his usual why the hell are you bothering me. Seol Seungjun could only stare, drained of all color, at the photographs spread across the desk. “……Who— who the hell sent this?” “No idea. Anonymous mail this morning.” “Th-then at least shake down some people, figure out who—” “Are you insane? You want to hand the paparazzi a free meal?!” The CEO screamed like a man unhinged, hurling objects across the room. A few minutes later, he collapsed onto the sofa, spent. As his legs swung up onto the coffee table, the mountain of photographs scattered and slid to the floor. Every single photo showed Seol Seungjun's face. More precisely, his face while under the influence of something. The pictures of him driving drunk could have been smoothed over somehow. It wasn't as if he was the only celebrity who worked on despite a DUI. But these photos were a fatal blow. “Hey. This is properly, royally fucked. You know that.” The CEO's voice came out in a dull murmur. Seol Seungjun stared blankly at the photo of himself receiving product from a dealer. “Nothing? No demands? Money, anything?” “Just a note that came with it.” The CEO tossed the paper over with a look of pure agony. Focus on your true duty. Do so, and there will be no second photograph. Seol Seungjun's hands trembled violently around the paper. “Would've been easier if he'd demanded money at least. Tsk.” “……Fuck. Hyung, this—” “First of all, keep your nose clean. Don't give anyone a reason to hate you.” “No, listen—” “You've got that drama you're filming, right? Once it wraps, keep a low profile for a while.” “Hyung. Fuck! Listen to me!” When Seol Seungjun shrieked, his face bursting with bottled-up rage, the CEO flinched. Only then did the office fall quiet, and into that silence, Seol Seungjun's voice rang out, trembling with fear. “Look at this… it's my handwriting. Exactly my handwriting.” “……Haah. You got caught by some lunatic. You piss anyone off lately?” “I don't know, goddamn it….” By that standard, the list of suspects was far too long. Watching him tear at his own hair, the CEO spoke with forced calm. “Seungjun. For now, do what the paper says.” “Do what….” “It says focus on your true duty. What is it you're supposed to do? Acting. That's it.” Seol Seungjun's eyes drifted blankly to the note. “I hear you've been showing up to set drunk these days. Blowing off shoots left and right, slapping rookie actors across the face. I'm not deaf, you know. I buried it because it was within what I could cover.” “…….” “Whoever sent this is definitely close to you. Wrap the drama up without a hitch first. Understood?” The CEO finally lost his patience and lit a cigarette. Into the smoke filling the office, Seol Seungjun's long, deep sigh mixed as well.
Who is it? Just let them slip up once.
Seol Seungjun swept bloodshot eyes across the filming set.
A week had already passed since the blackmail letter arrived.
He could feel the staff sneaking glances at him as he stood outside his waiting room, uncharacteristically. He wanted to scream, what are you looking at?—but he gritted his teeth and swallowed it.
That was when a soft, flowing voice sounded beside him.
“Hello, sunbae-nim.”
Lee Yeonjae. That cursed little bastard.
“Yeah.”
He had no spare energy for image management right now. Not that he'd ever been particularly good at it anyway.
What made it even more unbearable was that just three days ago, the main writer had come all the way to Seol Seungjun's home to beg on her knees—just this once, please endure it and film with Lee Yeonjae.
That kid gets what, exactly? Fucking hell.
The writer's insistence that the scene would become the highlight of episode one had soured his mood completely. There was nothing he wouldn't say with the lead actor standing right there.
Still, it had come right on the heels of the blackmail photos, so he'd mumbled a fine and sent her on her way.
Could the person behind the blackmail be connected to him somehow?
He'd spent the entire week racking his brain over who sent the photos. Which meant there were one or two people he should have been tormenting in the meantime.
But come to think of it, the timing—the photos had arrived the day after he'd demanded Yeonjae's replacement.
“……Hey.”
“Yes?”
He called out with an uneasy feeling, and a fair-skinned face turned toward him. Faced with that pure expression—not a single impurity marring it—he thought better of saying anything more.
“Ha— forget it.”
“…….”
Lee Yeonjae quietly kept his mouth shut.
At least he knows not to run his mouth. I like that.
Thanks to the blackmail photos, Seol Seungjun had no choice but to bury himself in his acting in silence until every scene was in the can.
The staff watched him with eyes that seemed to say, did that bastard suddenly start taking meds?
But sensing they couldn't waste this rare window, they all bustled about moving equipment with unusual haste.
And so it was only on Lee Yeonjae's third day on set that a full scene finally wrapped.
“Yeonjae, you worked so hard…!”
“You were incredible. Will you come out again if we call you next time?”
“Could I possibly get your autograph?”
Seong Ijun, the main PD, and a crowd of staff swarmed around Lee Yeonjae all at once.
Seol Seungjun watched him meet each person's eyes in turn, speaking to every one of them with the same gentle warmth. The sight made something curdle in his stomach.
And that was exactly why Seol Seungjun approached him.
“Such a polite junior. Can I get your number?”
“……Of course, sunbae-nim.”
Lee Yeonjae smiled pleasantly and took the phone with neat, careful hands.
The staff and Seong Ijun went pale watching him type in his number without a moment's hesitation.
“Next time I call, make time for me.”
“Yes, sunbae-nim.”
Lee Yeonjae beamed.
Looking into those clear, bright eyes made his stomach turn for no reason he could name.
I need to see that face break someday.
Only then, he felt, would this filthy feeling in his chest finally go away.
Nothing wrong with getting to know a friendly junior in private, right?
He'd immersed himself in acting plenty already. Surely this counted as focusing on his true duty.
This time I'll be careful not to end up in any photos.
Recalling a certain establishment kept carefully hidden from the general public, Seol Seungjun smiled a vile smile.
I stared at the messages for a while, then checked the clock.
It's four in the afternoon right now.
A unilateral notice three hours in advance—not exactly the style of a man with manners, is it?
For starters, I searched the address Seol Seungjun had sent.
It came up as a private residence with no notable information, so I opened street view.
The moment the screen loaded, the words escaped me before I could stop them.
“This guy really has no shame whatsoever.”
The red-lit building floating on my phone screen was one I knew well—I'd seen it many times in Seol Seungjun's memories. I remembered, of course, exactly what he'd done in that place.
Pressing hard on the furrow between my brows with my fingers, I swallowed a sigh.
There's no way he doesn't know I'm a minor.
How could he possibly invite me here? What kind of mental gymnastics does a person have to perform to be this careless?
It had been barely a week since I sent the photos I got through the Fog to his agency. One week!
I figured this would be enough to make anyone watch themselves.
They say stupidity has no cure, but honestly, it was almost admirable in a way.
This man surely has fans of his own, too.
Did he give zero thought to how his fans might feel? The shock they'd suffer if they ever saw these photos?
This was the first time in my life I'd ever blackmailed anyone, so my feelings about it weren't exactly cheerful—but at this point, I was starting to wonder if I'd simply been too amateurish about it.
This is beyond anything my common sense can process.
I let out a long, deep breath.
When you can't understand something, the answer is simple. Give up on understanding it.
“So how do I handle this?”
For one thing, my filming for Dogs' Leash was finished.
Even so, I couldn't just block him without a word of reply to those texts. As long as I intended to keep acting, a run-in with Seol Seungjun could happen at any time.
First priority: make sure I never set foot in that building.
If a photo of me there ever surfaced, I'd be the one in trouble.
If Seol Seungjun's behavior ever hit the press, it would do me no good whatsoever for people to learn that I was even slightly friendly with him.
The problem was that refusing a summons from a senior with twenty-six years in the industry wasn't a small thing.
What excuse would work here?
A schedule excuse had a high chance of getting exposed. If I claimed a prior engagement, he'd demand to know just who I could possibly be meeting that was so important I'd dare brush off him.
It was too early to turn openly hostile toward Seol Seungjun.
So—was there anyone around me who had the credentials to overpower him, someone he'd accept on the spot without question?
The instant one name surfaced in my mind, I dialed.
—Hello?
“It's Lee Yeonjae. Is now a good time?”
I'd barely stepped into Director Yoon's studio when the text arrived, and I swallowed a sigh.
Well, that buys me some breathing room.
Of course, it was only a stopgap. A second refusal would be far harder.
Before that happened, I needed a real solution. I was still racking my brain over how to deal with this walking disaster when Director Yoon set a glass of orange juice down in front of me.
“You call saying you're suddenly coming by the studio, so I figured something was up—and it turns out you came to text someone?”
“Ah, sorry. I got a message from Seol Seungjun sunbae-nim.”
“Seol Seungjun?”
Director Yoon frowned.
“Stay away from that guy. I've heard about him from the kids—apparently he parties like an absolute pig.”
I wish I could, from the bottom of my heart. If only someone would tell me how.
It wasn't the kind of thing I could easily unburden to anyone, and the road ahead looked impossibly murky. Then the next buzz of my phone made my chest feel even tighter.
“Haah.”
The moment I read the messages, a deep sigh spilled out of me before I could stop it.
What on earth am I going to do with him?
“Why is a kid sighing like that? Something wrong?”
“There is, actually, a lot wrong.”
“Oh? Like what?”
I lifted my head. Director Yoon was looking at me with a face of pure, childlike innocence. Eyes sparkling like a kid who'd just stumbled on something fascinating.
Come to think of it….
My mind snapped into motion. And while I hesitated, even that got to be too much for him, and he came crowding in.
“Come on, what is it? Something fun? Let me in on it.”
“Are you that curious?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
“You're better off not knowing.”
As I finished speaking, I deliberately let a meaningful smile curl onto my lips.
That only made Director Yoon cling harder, as if he couldn't bear it a second longer.
“If you're that curious, I could tell you. Just be warned—it might turn into a real headache for you, Director.”
“…….”
Director Yoon hesitated for a moment.
But it lasted barely a breath before he shot to his feet, like a child powerless against his own curiosity.
“Okay. Ready. Tell me.”
I smiled slowly at the answer I'd been waiting for.
Found it. My chess piece.