The Calm Before the Storm (3)
I drew a deep breath and stepped out. Maybe it was the crisis hanging over the building, but the air up here felt different from the floors below. A heavy stillness pressed in, the kind that made even a loud breath seem like something I shouldn't risk.
Familiar faces waited outside the CEO's office. PR Team Leader Park had a hand on the knob, caught halfway through the motion of going in, and beside him stood a balding man—the Management Division Head.
The one hanging his head like a criminal was Sung Do-won's manager, the man I'd seen before.
So Sung Do-won is already here?
"You..."
The Division Head let out a sigh heavy enough to cave the floor in.
"How the hell were you managing that actor, to let it come to this?"
"I-I'm sorry. That day, Do-won hyung told me not to follow him. He said to go in ahead..."
"So you dumped the kid there and just walked off?!"
"He said it was a private party, only a few close friends... I really thought that's all it was..."
Sung Do-won's manager couldn't seem to bear the weight of it. His lips trembled, and his face had been the color of ash for a while now.
"Division Head. Team Leader Park."
"Hm?"
The Division Head startled as we came up.
"What are you doing up here? And why'd you bring the kid behind you? You trying to announce this to the whole neighborhood?"
"It's not that..."
Kim Hyunjo relayed what I'd told him, and the Division Head's eyes changed.
"You're saying the man's from Pure Star Entertainment?"
"Yes. I thought you ought to hear it, so I brought him up."
"Pure Star..."
He thought for a moment, then looked at Team Leader Park.
"This stinks, doesn't it?"
"It stinks to high heaven. You know what that company's like..."
"Wait here a second."
The Division Head knocked and stepped into the CEO's office. In the brief gap as the door opened and shut, I caught a few faces.
Two men in suits. The bearded man I'd seen in the elevator. CEO Baek Han-sung, seated with an expression no one could read.
And Sung Do-won.
There was always a faint smile resting at the corner of his mouth. Now he was frozen hard as stone.
"Haa..."
The moment the Division Head vanished behind the closed door, Sung Do-won's manager clutched his head and sank to the floor.
Both sides of this looked one breath short of collapse.
"Looked like Legal was in there... Are they pressing charges?"
At Kim Hyunjo's question, Team Leader Park shook his head.
"Hard to say."
Come to think of it, even in the future, I'd never heard that W&U started by filing charges against the anonymous man.
Why not?
Sung Do-won might be treated like a public figure in Korea, but hidden-camera shots, invasion of privacy, and extortion on top of it—that was a crime with no way out. In Hollywood, suing paparazzi was common enough. File early, before the thing grew, and hand it off...
"If we sue, every nose in the business will smell blood and come running. And if this leaks, we have far too much to lose."
"Then..."
"If money can buy silence, that may be the cleanest way through."
Ah. So that's how they walked into the pit.
A few minutes crawled by like hours. At last the door to the CEO's office moved.
The Division Head beckoned me.
"Jung Sunwoo."
"Yes?"
"The CEO wants to hear it himself... Come in for now."
The door swung wide in front of me.
"Don't be nervous. Just tell him exactly what you heard."
Kim Hyunjo patted my back and dropped his voice.
Crossing the threshold, every thought hit at once. The profit waiting if it all ended well—the company's recognition, a raise, a bonus—and, if it didn't go the way I'd planned, the curses and the fallout I'd have to swallow.
Either way, the door was open, and I walked through it.
Click.
Team Leader Park followed me in and shut the door.
I lifted my head, and everyone in that office—every last one of them—was looking at me. Sung Do-won and the bearded man especially, their eyes sharp enough to run me through.
"Jung Sunwoo, Management Team 3."
I cleared my throat and said it, pretending to be calm. Inside, I was anything but.
Stand in a room like this and even a man with nerves of steel would feel his heart freeze—especially with a guilty conscience piled on top, the way mine was.
The one real mercy was that I'd seen the photograph on the table.
The evidence photo. The spark of this whole mess, and the key to ending it.
The bearded man noticed me looking and flipped it facedown, but I'd already gone over every detail.
Ever since the precognition showed up, my eye for a split-second read had gotten absurdly sharp.
Sung Do-won, shot together with a woman whose face was lost under a mosaic. The angle and the setting were more than enough to look bad.
"What did the Pure Star manager say?"
Even now, CEO Baek Han-sung's composure was something to admire.
I answered as steadily as I could manage.
"He asked if this was how W&U taught people to work. Called us men without a scrap of professional ethics, and said getting burned once would knock some sense into us."
I'd added a little to what I'd told Kim Hyunjo.
They say a lie grows once you start telling it. This one came out smooth.
"Nothing more specific than that?"
"No. It's just... looking back, he definitely seemed like a man with something up his sleeve."
While CEO Baek Han-sung sank into thought, the bearded man cut in, voice high-handed.
"Hey. If something felt off, you should have reported it right then. Do-won turned down Pure Star's renewal to come here. You didn't know relations between them and us were bad?"
"I'd heard that manager was bad news, that he went around threatening managers from other companies, so at the time I took it as him trying to scare me and let it go. But if something really happened to Sung Do-won, I thought I had to speak up... I'm sorry I didn't sooner."
"No."
The Division Head shook his head.
"It only looks that way because the thing's already blown up. Back then, it was a reasonable read."
"Anyway... Pure Star is exactly the kind of outfit that would pull this. Nothing but lowlife bastards over there."
"It's still only a hunch. Nothing solid."
"That's true, but..."
"And if they built this to screw us over, why make it so complicated? They've got the photo. They could just drop it. Who are the people who sent it?"
Team Leader Park shook his head.
"A small online paper called True Media. Search them and there's nothing but clickbait. They say they absolutely can't reveal who originally owned the photo. Source protection."
The bearded man broke in, voice thick with irritation.
"Source, my ass. It's a paparazzi bastard. Counselor—what if we threaten to sue and rattle them?"
"I told them we'd send a formal demand letter, and they laughed in my face. Suing only hurts us. If this breaks, Do-won's image is finished, and it's a morals issue. The companies he models for start waving their penalty clauses, and we could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars."
"And they aren't even openly demanding hush money. They're framing it as selling the photo. If we don't buy, they'll sell it to the Chinese press. These guys know the business cold."
Wait.
Director Park had said it started with an anonymous man demanding a huge sum.
Don't tell me something's changed.
Hold on. Could it be this?
Maybe the version that survived was the one rewritten to suit W&U, the side that won in the end, until that account hardened into fact. History is written by the victors. Say they'd come in from the start looking to squeeze out a fortune, and Sung Do-won and W&U looked that much more like victims.
My guess had better be right. If something shifted at a moment like this, I was in serious trouble.
"This is my fault. I must have lost my mind."
Sung Do-won spoke, his face dark.
"No matter how curious I was, I never should have gone in there..."
"No, no. At your age, of course you'd be curious about that sort of thing."
The bearded man tried to comfort him, but Sung Do-won's expression didn't lift at all.
"No money changed hands. No drugs, no gambling. A few people who got along had some drinks, had some fun, and ended up in bed. Plenty of kids play like that."
"..."
"But of all people, why did there have to be a married woman... and of course that's the picture they got..."
At those words, Sung Do-won clenched his fist.
"The photo just came out that way. I never even laid a hand on that woman."
"Right. We believe you. We do, but..."
"I barely even remember her face. I had no idea she was married. I really—"
"What matters is that the photo came out that way."
CEO Baek Han-sung cut him off. Sung Do-won, halfway through spilling how wronged he was, bit down on his lip.
"You had your fun at a sex party, but you didn't sleep with the married woman. Is that the interview you're planning to give?"
"...Haa."
"I'll look into whether Pure Star is involved. Until then, keep this clamped down so it doesn't leak. If it's a paparazzo with nothing to do with Pure Star, we put money in his hand and bury it. If Pure Star is in on it..."
CEO Baek Han-sung's eyes went cold.
I drew a breath.
I'd meant to speak the moment the photo came up, but I couldn't swear a hundred percent that it was fake, and for an instant my tongue had locked.
If I was going to step in, though, it had to be before it was too late.
...Even so, don't go all in. Leave myself a way to walk it back.
I looked around the room and went to the person easiest to talk to—Team Leader Park.
"Team Leader."
"Hm?"
He looked at me as if he'd only just remembered I was in the room.
"I got a brief look at the photo earlier."
"You saw that too? Watch your mouth—no. Let's talk outside."
"The thing is, I think that photo was doctored."
"What? Doctored?"
There it was again. Just like the moment I'd first stepped into this office, every face turned my way.
Hesitate here and I was finished.
"...You do realize how serious this is."
"That's why I kept turning it over before I said anything."
"It really looked fake to you?"
"Yes. Sung Do-won said the photo just happened to come out that way, but to me it looked like it had been composited to look like that from the start. Before we go any further, we should have an expert authenticate—"
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
The bearded man snatched up the photo he'd turned over and stared holes through it.
"You just throwing things out now? We said you were doing well, and suddenly you can't tell where you belong and where you don't... Where exactly is this a composite?"
Honestly, I had no idea either.
But Director Park, in the future, had said Sung Do-won's side realized the photo was fake a step too late. And if the work had been sloppy enough to spot at a glance, Pure Star never would have staged this in the first place.
"I don't see a single sign it was faked. You're not talking about the mosaic, are you?"
"We know for a fact Do-won went to that party. So what's this about a composite?"
"I don't see it no matter how I look."
Team Leader Park, the Division Head, the lawyers, even Sung Do-won crowded around the photo, murmuring.
And CEO Baek Han-sung watched me without a word.
"Jung Sunwoo!"
The Division Head called me again.
"Have you studied photography or something?"
"Not studied, exactly. I took an interest in computer graphics for a while."
An interest, yes. Actual knowledge, no.
Hollywood making-of documentaries talked a lot about computer-graphics work, and I'd watched those with some attention. It was fascinating, that was all.
The bearded man glared at me again.
"Do you actually know what you're saying? This is a disaster with tens of millions of dollars swinging on it. 'Sorry, I was mistaken' is not how this ends."
The Division Head gestured as well, his face grave.
"Come here and explain it properly. You really think it's fake? Which part?"
"It's more of a feeling, so it's hard to put into exact words..."
"What?"
"If you look at the whole thing, something's off, isn't it?"
"Off?"
They pressed in on the photo again, eyes narrowed like they were staring at a Magic Eye.
"Hmm..."
"I still don't see it..."
In the meantime, I drew in the one person I'd already decided on.
The person who would most want to believe me that the photo looked fake.
"Um... Sung Do-won. Is there anything about it that seems off to you?"