Chapter 17
Chapter 17
This Isn’t the Image I Wanted
【Hwang Hyejin has granted permission to visualize her past memories.】
【Visualization is possible.】
【Because this is a real historical record, it cannot be arbitrarily altered.】
【Hwang Hyejin may perceive discrepancies between the visualization and her actual memories. Corrections, beautification, and distortions applied unconsciously by the brain are excluded during the visualization process.】
Ah.
So it strips away all the self-beautification and mistaken memories from her recollection and restores only the actual facts before visualizing them.
As expected of future technology capable of perfectly restoring video data even when over eighty percent was destroyed.
‘Alright. Do it.’
【Visualizing the events from Hwang Hyejin’s past.】
【Match rate with actual events: over 99.99%.】
【Match rate with Hwang Hyejin’s distorted memories: 65%.】
Suddenly I’m getting nervous.
That means thirty-five percent of what Hwang Hyejin spent over three hours telling me doesn’t match reality.
Please.
Let there not be anything catastrophic hidden inside that thirty-five percent.
I’m begging you.
【Visualization complete.】
Never before had the “click” process felt this long.
How could a single instant stretch this endlessly?
Physicists say time itself doesn’t exist and is merely a concept humans invented for convenience.
Could that actually be true?
‘Fuck, I’m nervous.’
Hwang Hyejin had fallen asleep leaning against the sofa.
Well, she’d spent over three nonstop hours chattering without rest.
No wonder she was exhausted.
‘Play it.’
【Understood.】
Finally, Hwang Hyejin’s past—
the truth itself—
unfolded before my eyes.
I could feel my palms soaked with sweat.
—Did your face get smashed so badly that your personality got smashed too, you crazy bitch? Is this your way of balancing things out? Or did your brain get dropped on the floor when your mom gave birth to you?
“…”
Cold.
It felt like I’d been dropped into the middle of the Arctic.
For some reason, I suddenly remembered the polar bear hugging Cha Seoyoon behind the ice.
Yeah… it really had been cute….
Not that I made it myself. I just ordered the video app to make it, but still—
No, no.
Don’t run away from reality.
—Go on, say more shit with that busted mouth like before. Why? Want me to grind up the other side of your face too?
Fuck.
That’s Hwang Hyejin’s voice….
What the hell happened inside that thirty-five percent memory distortion?
【Continue playback?】
‘…Play it.’
Now isn’t the time to avoid reality.
I watched the entire thing.
To summarize the conclusion first:
Hwang Hyejin was innocent.
Completely innocent.
It was true that the delinquent kids bullied a weak classmate.
It was true that Hwang Hyejin stepped in to stop them.
The only issue was that middle-school-first-year Hwang Hyejin had been going through a violently emotional phase where her empathy and sensitivity weren’t just high—
they were practically exploding out of control.
Hwang Hyejin unleashed every creative curse word imaginable.
For the sake of my own mental health, I refuse to repeat any of them.
And Hwang Hyejin had been brave.
Violent too.
After all, she didn’t hesitate to fight four people alone in order to protect the bullied classmate.
How does one person defeat four people?
Unless you’re a professional fighter,
you have to become vicious and relentless.
Hwang Hyejin won in the end.
And during the fight, the ringleader received a massive scar on her face.
Anyone looking at it objectively would call it self-defense.
The only difference was that it didn’t quite match the three-hour version Hwang Hyejin told me….
There was quite a gap between:
“I got beaten one-sidedly while resisting until I finally closed my eyes and fought back, accidentally leaving the leader with a permanent scar”
and what actually happened.
Still—
she fought four people alone to protect someone weaker.
That was unquestionably the right thing to do.
One hundred percent self-defense.
She deserved a commendation medal if anything.
‘If we released this as evidence, we could sink every single accuser.’
The source could be fabricated easily enough.
We could claim one of the classmates secretly recorded it at the time and kept the footage hidden all these years before anonymously submitting it.
Just degrade the quality appropriately.
‘But what about our Hyejin’s image?’
What happens if people discover that our innocent, pure-image Hyejin used to scream horrifyingly creative curses in middle school?
What happens if footage spreads showing her ripping hair out, tearing uniforms, kicking wildly, and fighting like a savage animal?
What happens to her actress image then?
Now I understood why her memories contained thirty-five percent beautification and distortion.
Hwang Hyejin herself was ashamed of that fierce… aggressive version of her younger self.
She wanted to forget it forever.
‘Can’t this be edited somehow?’
【Real memories cannot be distorted. It violates internal ethics policies.】
That damned ethics policy really is absolute.
Though considering humanity supposedly survives another thousand years instead of going extinct within two centuries, maybe that’s exactly why civilization lasted.
‘Hey.’
【Please speak.】
‘When you say distortion isn’t allowed, you mean things like adding fake events that never existed, right?’
【Correct.】
‘Then muting audio is allowed?’
【Of course. However, altering lip movements is impossible.】
‘That’s enough.’
There was no reason to publicly reveal the entire twenty-minute brutal brawl.
All people really needed to see was this:
Hwang Hyejin courageously fought against four delinquents to protect a weaker classmate.
Isn’t this exactly the kind of highlight short-form content the public loves?
If I’d realized this earlier, the second Cha Seoyoon CF parody probably would’ve gotten way more views.
The fact that thoughts like that were crossing my mind probably meant I’d finally calmed down a little.
【Visualization complete.】
Running time: fifty-eight seconds.
Video quality appropriately degraded by the passage of time.
Camera angles and shaky movement that genuinely looked like footage secretly recorded by some brave witness.
Perfect.
If we released this to the public exactly as it was, Hwang Hyejin’s innocence would be proven instantly.
Every malicious accusation backed by nothing but testimony would collapse completely.
‘Then why does it still feel like I’m forgetting something?’
The video evidence itself was flawless.
Every profanity damaging Hwang Hyejin’s image had been muted.
The camera angles even avoided showing clear lip movements so no random lip-reading experts could suddenly appear.
Everything seemed perfect.
So what was missing?
Ah.
‘The source.’
I couldn’t explain where this footage came from.
We could claim it came from an anonymous informant—
but it would feel strange if they contacted me directly instead of the agency.
Annoying, but I’d need to create a simple alibi.
“Team Leader, this is Cha Doyoung.”
—Yes, Doyoung. How’s Hyejin?
“She seems alright. But… would it be okay if I took a business trip?”
—A business trip?
“I want to look for classmates from that time who could provide favorable testimony or evidence for Hyejin.”
—That won’t be easy. Apparently the ringleaders were children of influential local families, so people kept their mouths tightly shut.
“I know someone good at finding people. I’m thinking of moving together with them. I’ll definitely bring back something useful.”
—You really do have an absurd number of useful connections around you. Alright. I’ll reimburse the travel expenses later, so make sure you keep all receipts.
“Understood.”
As long as I briefly visited the neighborhood where that middle school was located and returned,
the video source problem would disappear naturally.
The footage would be cleanly disguised as evidence secretly handed over by an anonymous eyewitness during my investigation.
Winter Castle Production Studio.
PD Son Jingu, writer Lee Sihyang, and the production staff all sat discussing matters with grim expressions.
“Writer Lee, I also don’t believe Hyejin would do something like that. But what if—just what if—it turns out she really was involved in school violence?”
“So let’s wait a little longer. At least until the truth becomes clearer.”
“We don’t have time. Even if we start filming aggressively right now, the broadcast schedule will already be tight. Hyejin appears in Episodes 1 and 2 as the younger version, so we can’t just postpone her scenes until later.”
Everyone wanted to believe in the actress’s innocence.
But the broadcasting schedule wouldn’t wait for them.
They had to stay on timeline no matter what.
Everything needed to be filmed beforehand.
“If we remove her immediately and search for a replacement now, even that would barely make the schedule. At this rate, the entire broadcast could collapse.”
The words “broadcast collapse” finally shook writer Lee Sihyang’s resolve.
She let out a long sigh.
“Is there another actress willing to step in?”
“Jung Suji.”
“Ah, the actress who originally competed with Hyejin for the role?”
“Yes. She’s willing to join. But she wants an answer quickly. She also has other schedules pending. If we delay too long, we won’t be able to cast her even if we want to.”
Writer Lee Sihyang squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
PD Son Jingu already knew what kind of answer she’d give once she reopened them.
It was the expression she always made when forced to make painful decisions.
‘Still, what a relief.’
The competing actress for the role hadn’t committed to another project yet and still had open scheduling.
That alone was incredibly fortunate.
Finally, writer Lee Sihyang opened her eyes.
“Wait just two more days.”
“Writer Lee. Two days is too—”
“It’s not sympathy. Hyejin’s image is simply too perfect to give up. She’s exactly the teenage Han Yuna I imagined.”
“….”
“If Hyejin were just in her mid-twenties already, I would’ve cast her as the adult Han Yuna instead of the younger version. That’s how perfect she feels to me.”
PD Son Jingu mentally calculated the schedule again.
‘This is dangerously tight. No, insanely tight. We’ll have to run ourselves into the ground. And how am I supposed to stall Jung Suji’s side for two more days?’
At that moment, PD Son Jingu’s phone vibrated.
Caller: PineTree Entertainment Team 3 Leader Jo Woonseok.
[PD Son, this is Team Leader Jo Woonseok….]
PD Son Jingu checked the attached fifty-eight-second video—
and instantly shot to his feet.
“Yes! Yes! Writer Lee, we’re saved! We don’t need to remove Hyejin anymore!”
“Was her innocence proven?”
“Look at this!”
Writer Lee Sihyang’s face brightened immediately as she watched the footage.
The rest of the production staff crowded behind her shoulder to watch together.
“As expected of Hwang Hyejin! She really was innocent!”
“This is undeniable self-defense.”
“Look at her shielding that friend from getting hit. Damn, I’m getting emotional.”
While everyone else celebrated happily,
writer Lee Sihyang alone looked conflicted.
“This… isn’t the Han Yuna image I imagined….”