That Could Be a Disease

Ha Eun-yul's apartment.

"Unnie."

Lee Yujeong took one look at Ha Eun-yul's face, wound up for another round of nagging, and swallowed it.

"You look brighter. Those aren't the eyes of an actress who just got stabbed in the back by two managers in a row."

"That's because those people were bad, unnie. Not because managers are bad. Don't you even know that?"

"...Well. You're not wrong."

Lee Yujeong nodded, unable to deny even that much.

And then she saw it.

"Hey! You—beer! No!"

"Ah, whyyy."

Lee Yujeong lunged, but Ha Eun-yul shot her arm straight up and shielded the can.

"Just that one. No more. Got it?"

"You're always nagging."

It wasn't simple whining, and Lee Yujeong knew it. She sighed, pulled a beer from the fridge for herself, and said,

"At least toast first."

The drinking snack was salad. They took it out of the fridge and settled in the living room, and Ha Eun-yul—her face considerably brighter—scrunched her brow.

"Ugh. What kind of snack is this?"

"Actress snacks are supposed to be like this."

"You're so full of it."

The two of them sat side by side, cans in hand.

"I should've had a beer with Taewoo oppa."

Lee Yujeong looked at her, startled. Whenever Ha Eun-yul talked about Director Kim Taewoo, she'd gone quiet and gloomy. But now...

Why is she so bright? No—I mean, it's a good thing, but...?

Lee Yujeong kept that to herself and answered.

"You never even got to have a single beer with Director Kim?"

"Yeah. Taewoo oppa said I absolutely couldn't drink until I was an adult."

"Why do you keep calling him oppa? The guy's old enough to be your dad."

"He's not that old. Taewoo oppa."

"He is old. The shell looks fine these days—a little maintenance, some pulling, some pinching. But the inside's rotting, I'm telling you. The core is different from yours."

"Is that so?"

Ha Eun-yul gave a small laugh and brought the can to her lips.

And then, again:

"Assistant Manager Lee Jaewook's pretty decent, isn't he?"

"He's smart about getting work done, I'll give him that. Maybe because he's a Korea University grad? And he's Team Leader now. Whatever he is, you should at least call him by the right title."

"Why did Taewoo oppa come to mind?"

"...What?"

"During the day. On set. My heart was pounding like crazy, and Taewoo oppa kind of overlapped with him?"

Lee Yujeong laughed in sheer disbelief.

"Hey, how thick are those rose-colored glasses that you're overlaying Director Kim onto Team ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Leader Lee? Even if I called Team Leader Lee a fox, they don't even look like the same species."

This time Ha Eun-yul's lips jutted out.

"What's wrong with Taewoo oppa?"

"It's not about what's wrong. Director Kim Taewoo looked like a bowl of watery rice porridge. Team Leader Lee is at least... decent-looking."

"...That's suspicious."

"It's not suspicious. Just objectively. And look at how they operate. Director Kim was all haha, that's nice, this is good too, oh that's wonderful as well, hahaha. How do you overlay a guy like that with a fox you can't even count the tails on?"

Ha Eun-yul's eyes drifted to the window, to the rain coming down in sheets.

"Still, earlier they kind of overlapped. That's how it felt to me. And Taewoo oppa isn't ugly."

"Director Kim spoiled you rotten. He made you think every manager in the world takes care of their actors like they're precious."

"That's not true. I don't believe all of them anymore."

"You say that, but you want to believe."

"I do want to believe. Even if it's a lie... you're allowed to want to believe, aren't you?"

Lee Yujeong quietly studied Ha Eun-yul's profile as she looked out at the rain.

The twenty-three-year-old actress was trembling with loneliness. So she always wanted to trust people—and every time she did, they left. Her parents. The manager she had leaned on most. The road manager she hadn't depended on quite as much, but had grown fond of. Even the Team Leader she had come to rely on, in her own way. The reasons varied. Divorce, an accident... and a knife in the back.

Team Leader Lee... I really don't know.

Lee Yujeong plugged her own mouth with beer. Ordinarily this would have been the moment to say don't trust that guy either—that if you do, the wound will cut that much deeper. And yet, somehow, she had this feeling. This expectation. That he was the kind of person who kept his word.

Ah.

Lee Yujeong snapped back to herself and tacked on one last thing.

"Let's get you a hospital checkup."

"Huh? Out of nowhere?"

In the car, heading back after dropping Ha Eun-yul off.

Rain hammered the roof in a hard, rolling drumbeat. The Ghost, his face rather serious, asked a question.

"She doesn't need to know everything."

"That said, there's no particular reason not to tell her, either."

Choi Yoona was, no matter what anyone said, the head of Nine Entertainment. The actual CEO was her father, Choi Chil-goo—but there was no point dwelling on someone who wasn't there. The present was what mattered.

And the commission the Ghost had given him was to restore Nine Entertainment to its glory days. Judging by their relationship, Choi Yoona was someone quite precious to the Ghost.

So he was simply being a little more careful. Knowing a great deal of things—knowing everything—was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not unconditionally good. That was especially true for people like Choi Yoona, who were not yet solid.

One step at a time. Just help Choi Yoona become strong enough to stand.

He answered the Ghost with a light smile.

"Because she's still someone I can't predict."

That was the decisive reason. If he told her that KSH Entertainment was behind all of this, he could not predict what Choi Yoona would do. So he was holding off.

"I've already got a decent grasp of them."

"A label ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠system doesn't perfectly guarantee independence. And you couldn't exactly call that a return to the glory days, either."

Everything had its pros and cons. Just because they had made a play at Nine Entertainment didn't mean you had to glare at them with axe-eyes—but just because the other side had capital and capability didn't mean there were only advantages, either.

What mattered was what he wanted. What the company wanted. If you wanted the easy way, there were plenty of shortcuts.

"Yes."

He glanced at the Ghost, then looked forward again.

"I'm just doing what's obvious. You can skip the thanks."

The wipers slashed back and forth, shoving the rain off the windshield. Beyond the cleared glass, the KSH Entertainment headquarters came into view.

KSH Entertainment. The Division Head's office.

Cha Hyunjin took Team Leader Baek Sungwook's call and answered with perfect composure.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Team Leader Baek."

"Did our company name come up over there? From Nine Entertainment's side—not yours?"

"Go ahead and talk. Then I'll hang up."

Click.

When you were cutting a relationship, a single press of a finger was enough. This was one of those times.

"How did it come to this?"

Phone dead in his hand, Cha Hyunjin crossed his arms. Then he walked slowly around the office, tracing a circle.

It wasn't that he hadn't grasped the current situation. He'd known for several days that Baek Sungwook had been caught and was under investigation without detention. He'd already sent the in-house legal team to Jongno Police Station and gotten the details. That was why he could cut Baek Sungwook off so coldly. Other than Baek Sungwook's confession, there was no connecting link between KSH Entertainment and Baek Sungwook.

They had met and talked in person, so there were no phone recordings left. He hadn't even exchanged money with Baek Sungwook, so there was even less to catch. It had been nothing more than a verbal proposal. A job offer. With Ha Eun-yul as the condition.

Even if it came out, so what? Baek Sungwook had been arrested for fraud. If it had been a talent-tampering violation, there might have been room for a legal dispute—something like a breach of contractual good faith. But it wasn't, was it?

Judging by Baek Sungwook's charge being fraud, Nine Entertainment still doesn't know about us.

Completely unexpected. He had never thought Nine Entertainment had the capacity to respond this far. It had been a perfect chain of destabilization, one link after another. Cha Hyunjin began reconstructing the sequence of events.

I contacted Baek Sungwook to pull Ha Eun-yul over. Baek Sungwook used Moon Cheol-sik to manufacture a scandal... and we just played along.

Ha Eun-yul was clean, so when Baek Sungwook suggested they might as well create an incident, Cha Hyunjin had simply said, go ahead and try. Of course, there had been a small transaction in the process. Thirty million won, deposited as a marketing consulting fee to Yoon Jun's agency head—more precisely, to his wife. A large sum, but not that large. Especially not from the standpoint of a publicly listed company like KSH Entertainment. They spent even bigger amounts as actual marketing and external consulting fees—the real ones. And even more as the fake ones.

Their interests had aligned with Yoon Jun's agency head, who wanted to squeeze every last drop from an actor with no intention of re-signing. Yoon Jun, to hide his real girlfriend, had decided a scandal with a fellow actor was preferable.

A chain reaction of selfishness.

When Moon Cheol-sik had suddenly turned himself in overnight, Cha Hyunjin had briefly suspected Baek Sungwook of betrayal. But there was no reason for it, so he had simply watched.

It was strange, though. I thought Moon Cheol-sik would at least name Baek Sungwook, but he said he'd done it alone.

Strange things had kept happening. The fact that Nine Entertainment hadn't pressed charges against Moon Cheol-sik. And so Moon Cheol-sik had been released with barely any investigation. In short, Moon Cheol-sik had thrown a pointless tantrum.

Should I have gone to Moon Cheol-sik then and asked why? Why he'd turned himself in? Why he hadn't named Team Leader Baek Sungwook?

The answer was already there. No. KSH Entertainment was the starting point of this chain of selfishness, but they had nothing to be caught on. If they had gone to Moon Cheol-sik out of nowhere, even a fool like him would have started wondering about KSH. There was a considerable chance he would have started spouting the kind of bullshit third-raters always did.

The Yoon Jun scandal?

When Yoon Jun's real scandal broke and Yoon Jun went to the press saying the Ha Eun-yul scandal had been manufactured by the company, throwing a fit—that had been quite absurd. So Cha Hyunjin had strongly suspected Baek Sungwook. No motive, though.

Cha Hyunjin himself. Yoon Jun's agency head. Yoon Jun. And Team Leader Baek Sungwook. Those four were the only ones who knew Yoon Jun had a real girlfriend. Of course, if you counted more carefully, there would be more. Yoon Jun's actual girlfriend would be one of them. But if you started counting like that, there was no end.

So, wanting to pull Ha Eun-yul over before things got more tangled, he had given Baek Sungwook one firm press. The result: Baek Sungwook booked on fraud charges.

These were the kinds of things that happened as a routine part of mergers and acquisitions. And when you were poaching actors, all sorts of things happened—so how had it come to this?

"Should I just leave it for now...?"

The actors were tempting, too. Even spoiled goods had their worth—over there, there were actors who looked like they had real potential, if you just opened the right path for them. But trying to pull Ha Eun-yul hadn't been about the act itself. The essence had been to break Choi Yoona's will.

What he truly wanted was Nine Entertainment itself. Because Shin Chaeyoon was at Nine Entertainment.

Shin Chaeyoon may have retired, but whenever she comes back, that woman is unconditionally Nine Entertainment.

Even if it was nothing but a shell. Shin Chaeyoon was that kind of person.

Having grown through massive capital transfusions from its parent company and expansion via M&A, KSH Entertainment needed a trophy. That had been the decisive reason they had coveted Nine Entertainment.

"But no matter how I think about it, Nine Entertainment doesn't have the capacity to handle something like this... And thinking someone from outside did it makes even less sense."

One name that had recently come up was bothering him. Baek Sungwook had mentioned it too. And at Nine Entertainment, the name had been coming up a lot lately.

Cha Hyunjin picked up his phone again.

"Lee Jaewook. A manager at Nine Entertainment. Get me everything on this person. What he used to do. What kind of person he is. All of it."

Cha Hyunjin looked down through the office window. Between the pouring rain, cars hurried past.