Year-End Scandal
The incident happened at 3 a.m.
One man in his twenties and two women were staying in a house. There, the man administered the drugs he had on hand to the two women.
But he must have given them too much, because one of the women felt something terribly wrong with her body and, in a panic, called the police.
Officers who arrived in response to the report arrested the drugged man on the spot. At the time of his arrest, he was so out of it from the drugs that he resisted violently, completely out of his mind.
Shockingly, the man turned out to be C-Rap, the leader and rapper of KDK!
-That's some insane K-star scale.
-If you're gonna do drugs, at least keep it to yourself. Why drag other people into it? Is he insane?
-Sharing even drugs? He's got a weird kind of character. I'm looking at C-Rap differently now.
-Meth has to be expensive in Korea. Free-sharing something that pricey?
-Yeah, right, what a generous giveaway.
-Why was he even in the same house with two women at that hour?
-I'm jealous, T_T
-So when he used to rap about being "high," it turns out he meant literally high on drugs.
-At this point, he should just change his name from C-Rap to DopeRap and debut as a drug idol.
-Why not just become a drug ambassador in Mexico or Colombia while he's at it?
-Hee-ro-pong~ Hee-ro-pong~ Fun drug time~ I wanna try some too~
-Thump-thump! Thump-thump!! Thump-thump-thump!!!
If it had ended there, he could have gotten off with a fairly ordinary suspended sentence as a drug offender.
But while they were searching the house for the hidden drugs, cameras installed in the bedroom and bathroom were discovered.
On top of that, C-Rap's phone and laptop were packed with what appeared to be secretly taken photos of women's bodies and videos of sexual intercourse.
He'd even created a group chat and shared them with his acquaintances!
There wasn't just one or two female victims. Among them were famous idols, models, and actresses.
It was so shocking that the story made huge headlines overseas as well.
The entertainment industry was turned upside down, and the internet went into a frenzy.
-This guy is completely insane.
-Sexual assault, hidden cameras, and distribution too?
-What kind of triple crown of sex crimes is that?
-Fuck, and this bastard was a K-star!
-He went on TV and acted all cool, and he was total human garbage.
-Who were the other six in the group chat?
-They're saying there were a lot of female celebrities among the victims too. Famous singers and idols, apparently.
-Was the title "Your Photo" actually referring to those photos?
-This is the top topic overseas right now.
-Wow! Way to embarrass the entire country, -_ -;
-If this were China, he'd be executed~
The agency halted every schedule and released an apology statement.
They tried to salvage the situation somehow, but it spiraled into a full-blown drug-and-rape scandal across the entertainment industry. The national civil complaint site even received a petition demanding mandatory drug tests for every celebrity.
Reporters and A-tubers began digging into everyone connected to the case.
The names of the celebrities suspected of being accomplices or victims in the group chat started circulating everywhere.
Without even confirming whether any of it was true, reporters wrote whatever they wanted.
Among the celebrities whose names were mentioned, those with no connection to the case strongly denied it, but by then nobody really cared about the truth.
In the rush for clicks, "could be true, could be false" articles created even more victims.
The woman whose name came up most often among the victims was none other than Keyna, who had handled the feature on this album's new song.
I didn't know who started it, but even fabricated photos of her began circulating online.
As she watched the articles go up in real time, Jiyu felt her whole body tremble.
What if I had done the feature...?
Then the name being dragged through the mud right now wouldn't have been Keyna's. It would have been hers. For a rookie, being tied to a scandal like this would have been fatal.
Even if it was later proven false, there was no undoing an image once it had been damaged. She might have ended her career altogether...
And yet she had barely escaped that fate.
"He was right."
* * *
While the stock purchases were going smoothly, year-end was just around the corner.
Seonwu was lying on the newly bought sofa, watching the newly bought TV.
"Aren't you going home for the holidays?"
"I'm planning to go for Lunar New Year. What about you?"
"Me too."
He was watching a music program.
"That scene's been a mess lately. Drugs, sexual assault, hidden cameras... they're getting hauled in one after another."
"Yeah."
Even in my first life, I remembered it blowing up right around this time and turning the music industry upside down.
Seven male celebrities were confirmed to have been involved in crimes. C-Rap was arrested, and the others were booked without detention.
It still hadn't been revealed who they were, but reporters had already started churning out every kind of speculative article. On the internet, the names of the perpetrators and victims were already being passed around.
Most of them were wrong, but that's how these things went, wasn't it?
Seonwu pointed at the TV and said, "I like that song. What was it called again?"
"Longing for Spring."
"Ah, right. Isn't that girl from Korea University? You ever met her?"
"Once, a while back."
In the original timeline, at this point Jiyu had featured on C-Rap's "Your Photo," and that song would be released after the scandal broke.
I had liked it when I heard it, but because the aftermath of the incident was still raging at the time, she hadn't been able to promote properly, and it had basically disappeared without a trace.
But this time, she wasn't on the feature, the new song was released early, and she was steadily continuing her promotions.
I was sitting next to Seonwu, watching TV, when a call came in from an unfamiliar number.
Lately, it felt like more and more people were reaching out to me. Who was it this time?
I answered the phone.
"Hello?"
[Is this Han Miru sunbae's number?]
It was a woman's voice, but for some reason it sounded familiar. Almost like I'd just been hearing it a moment ago.
"Yes. Who is this?"
[Ah, hello. My name is Jiyuna.]
"Jiyuna? Who's that?"
[Do you know Jiyu? We met at a drinking party last time.]
"Ah!"
So Jiyuna was her real name?
"How did you get my number?"
[I asked my unnie. I'm sorry if that bothered you.]
By "unnie," she meant Jin Se-yeon, my classmate and ex-girlfriend.
"So what is it?"
[If you have time, could we meet for a little while?]
"Why?"
[I have something I'd like to tell you.]
She sounded like she really wanted me to meet her.
"What time works for you?"
I set a time and place, then hung up.
Seonwu immediately asked, "Who was that?"
"Just someone I know."
"A woman, I take it."
"And if it was?"
"I'll tell Yun-ah."
"......"
Why would you do that?
* * *
Late at night, after midnight.
I met a woman at a 24-hour cafe.
"Hello. Sorry to keep you waiting."
"I just got here too."
She was wearing skinny jeans, ugly sneakers, and a large white hoodie that covered her down to her hips. She pulled off the hood she'd had up over her head.
It was a little surreal seeing the singer I'd just been watching on TV a moment ago standing right in front of me. She wasn't particularly tall, but her proportions were so good that I couldn't help wondering just how small her head was.
She really was cute.
I glanced around. It was late, so there weren't many people in the cafe. Even the ones who were there were busy talking among themselves or tapping away on laptops and phones.
Most people didn't pay much attention to other people anyway.
"Ah! I'll buy the coffee."
I told her that.
"I'm already ordering. What do you want to drink?"
"Huh? Uh, then sparkling water. I don't really drink coffee well."
"We have juice and ade too."
"I'll gain weight if I eat or drink that at night."
Being a celebrity was rough.
I ordered coffee and sparkling water, then took a seat.
Jiyu looked at me and asked, "Um... can I call you sunbae?"
"Go ahead."
She was in the Department of Journalism at Korea University, so I guess she could call me that.
Smart, pretty, and a great singer too. Between her and Kim Beom-seok, there really were all kinds of talented people in the world.
My own talent, though, was just making money. So I might as well keep making it.
"Then... sunbae, you can talk casually too."
I nodded.
"Sure."
Jiyu asked quickly, "How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That C-Rap sunbae... no, that he was going to cause trouble."
Because I had regressed, of course.
But since I couldn't say that, I gave her a vague answer.
"I told you before. I heard it from an analyst friend. Word had been spreading here and there that C-Rap was doing drugs and seeing women. No one knew he'd also been committing sexual assault and filming illegally, though."
In the securities industry, all kinds of entertainment rumors spread in real time.
That Miss J was a terrible person, or Miss K was being sponsored. That Mr. P liked gambling trips abroad, or Mr. K was gay.
There were even reporters who made a living by digging up nothing but those rumors and turning them into articles. Most of it was wrong, but every now and then, some of it was true.
"I had no idea things like that were going on. Thanks to you, I was saved."
I had checked the articles before coming.
She had fortunately avoided the incident, but instead Keyna, who had handled the feature, got dragged in. From her point of view, she was the one who ended up suffering for no reason.
No matter how much I knew about the future, I couldn't change everything. And what was best for me wasn't necessarily best for everyone else.
"I heard you left the company after that."
"I wasn't fired. I quit. I had some things to take care of."
"What kind of things?"
"I'm working at a small investment firm now. Ah, right! Do you know someone named Kim Beom-seok? He's a singer."
I asked just in case, and Jiyu lit up.
"Oh! Of course I know him. He's the one who sang Magic Castle, right?"
"I'm working with him now."
"Really? I'm a fan of his."
"Me too."
"Really? That song is so good. People don't seem to know it that well, though. I think it's definitely going to blow up."
Talking to her like this, she seemed less like a celebrity and more like an ordinary college student. Come to think of it, was she on leave from school?
If she kept rising from here, graduating would probably be difficult.
"Anyway, thank you so much. And I also wanted to apologize for what happened back then."
"Apologize?"
"Yeah. You were trying to warn me because you were thinking of me that day, and I still spoke carelessly without even understanding."
From her point of view, it had been an easy thing to misunderstand. If anything, I was the strange one for knowing and giving advice anyway.
"You wanted to meet just for that?"
"Yes. I really wanted to see you and say it in person."
Seeing her like this, she turned out to be more stubborn than I expected.
We finished our coffee and stood up from our seats.
Jiyu asked carefully, "Um... could I contact you again?"
The information I knew about her ended here. Since the events that should have happened no longer did, a lot of things would be different from now on.
So I wasn't sure there'd be any reason to stay in contact.
Still, there wasn't any reason not to.
I nodded.
"