When the Puzzle Pieces Are Missing (5)
The door to the PR office flew open hard enough to come off its hinges.
Kim Hyunjo came through it with a savage look on his face, phone clamped tight to his ear, still mid-call.
"Yeah, Reporter Min. For now, just keep digging."
He hung up and looked from me to Team Leader Park and back again.
"Have you heard anything about Lee Joohwan seeing someone? Have you?"
When we only stared at him, blank, Hyunjo went on as if the delay were physically painful.
"Sounds like the bastard's got another woman. A civilian, they say. Reporter Min says the details are specific enough that it's basically fact. G-Today's sitting on the information—Sunwoo, you've got a reporter you're close with over there, don't you?"
"I do."
The second I answered, Hyunjo slapped my back and hurried me on.
"Call and fish for it. If you don't use a connection at a time like this, when will you?"
"Hyunjo, quit showing up after the fact and sit down. Calm yourself a little."
Team Leader Park pointed at an empty chair.
"Does this look like a moment to be calm? There's a rabid dog out there tearing the place up. Wait—after the fact? So you already heard—"
Hyunjo, frowning as he spoke, faltered, then said, "No, why are the two of you like this? Team Leader, how are you so unbothered? Not long ago you were raising hell, demanding to know where Joohwan was, saying even frying him in sewage wouldn't be enough for that piece of trash."
Team Leader Park glanced at me and smiled.
"Ask Sunwoo. He pulled off a proper job today."
"A job? What job?"
"He soaked that Joohwan bastard nice and deep in the sewage. All that's left is to haul him out and fry him."
Hyunjo stared at me, utterly lost.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Mm. Listen to this."
Rather than wear my mouth out explaining, I held my phone out in front of him and played the recording. The call with Joohwan from earlier, captured start to finish.
The moment the voice came on, Hyunjo's eyes went wide.
"This is Joohwan? That bastard actually picked up?"
"Just listen, Hyunjo. Peace of mind is on its way, I promise."
Hyunjo lowered himself awkwardly into the chair. In the silence, my voice and Joohwan's went on. Bit by bit Hyunjo's face turned strange, until at last he was staring a hole straight through me.
I cleared my throat and let my eyes slide away. Threatening someone, recording it, and then sitting down to listen with other people was not a familiar routine. Then again, if it ever became familiar, that would be the bigger problem.
Team Leader Park said, looking positively thrilled, "Here comes the climax."
Joohwan's excuse, blotched all over with panic and bewilderment.
It was my second time hearing it, and Team Leader Park's reaction was superb. Like someone who had just shotgunned an ice-cold draft in a single go.
"Jagi, send me a copy of that too. I'm keeping it on my phone and playing it whenever I need my nerves settled. Works instantly."
I nodded without hesitation.
Hyunjo, who had somehow come to wear an expression very much like hers, opened his mouth.
"His company's upside down by now, I bet."
"The social media post came down immediately. They're probably huddled up with their heads together, trying to contain it."
At that, Hyunjo looked at me again with that odd expression. Then he let out a little deflating laugh.
"This kid's got real hands, huh? Better than me, you punk."
I smiled without answering, and he thumped my back, slap after hearty slap.
The tension gone from his face, he asked Team Leader Park, "I thought a lightning bolt had hit us. At this rate we get through without any real damage."
"We can't just let it pass."
Team Leader Park twisted her bare, unpainted lips.
"Songha's already been dragged into it. Even if Joohwan takes the post down and explains himself, plenty of people won't believe it. They'll assume our side pressured him. The young fans, elementary and middle school kids, don't care about facts. They believe whatever they want to believe."
"That's..."
"So if we want this tilted in our favor, we have to turn that Joohwan bastard into a complete piece of shit."
That was when it happened.
My phone, which had been sitting pitch-black and dead, buzzed. Reporter Park Woo-jung.
"Yes, Reporter."
Team Leader Park's eyes and Hyunjo's locked onto me, full of a strange heat. And the voice coming from the other end was running just as hot.
"Sunwoo, I found her, I found her—the woman!"
"You found her? Already?"
Barely any time had passed since I'd given Reporter Park the information. Even the police couldn't track a suspect down this fast.
"My senior helped. It's not a celebrity couple, just an idol and a civilian, so any other time he wouldn't have bothered. But this one's tied up with Songha, and he figured if we played it right, it'd make one hell of a story."
"Ah."
"We went through everyone around the Punchline kids with a fine-tooth comb. Caught some hell for waking people at dawn, but still. Appearance, job, name—once we had those, she turned up fast. I already talked to her on the phone."
This time I was genuinely surprised.
"You even got her on the phone?"
"The bar where she works stays open until four in the morning. And..."
Reporter Park let the pause hang, then said, voice bright with excitement:
"We agreed on a source fee and confirmed the facts. All that's left is to write the article."
Morning was still a long way off.
Dragged out of a dead sleep, the members of Punchline sat ringed around the living room. They sighed as if they were suffocating, gulped down cold water, and stared at Lee Joohwan, who was slumped on the sofa grumbling.
"You little shit, if you're gonna pull something, do it right. What the hell is this?"
"What are we supposed to do if the team's image tanks because of you?"
"That psycho bastard, I swear. Pitching a fit at dawn so nobody can sleep."
"Shut the fuck up! I'm pissed off enough as it is."
Joohwan snapped it, nerves frayed, but the Punchline members were long used to his temper and ignored him the way you'd ignore a dog barking somewhere out of sight.
Joohwan raked his fingers through his hair and spat a curse.
"Goddamn it, this plan was supposed to be a sure thing. Raise my profile and stick it to that stuck-up, overpriced Lee Songha while I was at it. It was pure genius. Fuck. That manager bastard—I already didn't like him at the shoot, and he just had to take it all the way—"
He was kicking the floor, taking his anger out on it, when a voice burst in.
"Hey, Joohwan!"
The chief, who had been on the phone in his room the whole time, came charging out.
"What? What now!"
"That girl, Hyeseong or whatever her name is—you did talk to her properly, right?"
"You saw me on the phone earlier, hyung. I told her if any hack reporters call, she shuts her mouth no matter what."
The chief's face was uneasy as he said it again.
"Call her back. I'm hearing some strange things."
"I told you, she's fine. She's crazy about me. If I tell her not to do something, she doesn't."
Grumbling, Joohwan dialed.
But the hollow ringing gave way, a minute later, to voicemail.
"Fuck, why isn't she picking up?"
"She's not dodging you on purpose? Send a text, at least."
"I said she's not. She's probably busy. Give it a second."
The second call. The third. The tenth.
Every one of them ended in voicemail. For the first few, Joohwan had sworn up and down that there was no way. Past the fifth, he was grinding his teeth. His face twisted without mercy, and a fine spasm ran through his cheek.
"What the hell is she doing that she won't answer!"
"Hey, this is really bad. You cannot have a scandal with a civilian. A little noise marketing tied to a hot name like Lee Songha is one thing. Getting exposed for dating a regular person is a completely different story! The fans will all walk! And if that gets stacked on top of the post you put up—!"
"Damn it, voicemail again! Where the hell did she dump her phone and wander off!"
Both of them rattled on, anxious, each talking over the other.
Joohwan's leg was jiggling as he placed the dozenth call.
"H-hyung! Hyung! The article's up!"
The youngest, fussing with a tablet, shouted it.
In an instant everyone was crowded in front of the screen. While pair after pair of eyes traveled down the article, a suffocating silence settled over the dorm living room.
Joohwan's face had gone the color of dirt. His mouth opened and closed and nothing came out.
The chief snatched up the phone that had started ringing like mad and bolted into the room.
And the main vocalist shot Joohwan a glance.
"We're completely fucked."
As if that were a signal, Joohwan poured out curses at the top of his lungs.
The sky was unusually clear, brilliantly so.
So much had happened overnight that I was short on sleep, but my mood was as fresh as the weather.
Bagels and coffee from a nearby café in either hand, I stepped into the Neptune dorm. The kids, huddled together on the living room rug, looked up at me.
I'd already messaged them at dawn that it was handled, and yet every one of them looked like they'd been up all night with their eyes glued open.
Lim Seoyoung, eyes hollow as a zombie's, tottered over.
"Oppaaa, what on earth happened last night?"
"A lot of things. Why do you all look this rotten? You didn't sleep?"
Seoyoung swallowed.
"No. It looked like a typhoon was about to make landfall, so we were bracing for it."
"The typhoon came. It just veered off a little."
I answered with a grin, and only then did a bit of color come back into her face.
From one side of the rug, where she'd been tapping at a laptop, LJ said it like a scoff.
"That typhoon went Punchline's way, looks like. Total chaos over there."
It had landed a direct hit, sure enough.
While idle netizens had been spreading screenshots of Joohwan's post and herding the blame onto Lee Songha, G-Today had taken that same post, dumped his dating partner on top of it, and run an exclusive. After that, the follow-ups and the clickbait pieces popped up one after another. Just as Team Leader Park had intended, Joohwan's image got a thorough coat of filth, and the fans who had been wailing that he was their oppa deserted in droves.
And without us having to lift a finger, Joohwan's side desperately explained the post they'd put up. They had to, if they wanted to look even a little less like trash. Between that explanation and Team Leader Park's push on public opinion, the people gearing up for a witch hunt over Lee Songha had tucked their heads and gone quiet.
While the others browsed the articles and comments about Joohwan, I set a bagel down in front of Songha and asked, "You were waiting?"
"Yes. I was waiting."
Lee Songha answered with a smile like a sky gone clear.
"And what exactly are you proposing?"
The division head scratched his chin as he asked.
The Team 2 leader and Chief Jo sat on the sofa opposite. The Team 2 leader took a sip of tea, steam still rising off it, and opened his mouth. The pitch he'd prepared to persuade the division head came spilling out in a steady stream.
"That Songha girl—what matters is from here on. You think it's just one or two kids who blow up their first project, debut in a blaze of glory, and then bomb follow-up after follow-up? If we're going to raise her properly from this point, better to have a veteran stuck to her. Obviously."
"So instead of the Lucky Charm, you want to take her, Chief Jo?"
The division head asked it while blowing across his teacup.
Chief Jo, looking considerably better than he had, nodded without hesitation.
"Chae-young's situation being what it is... there's no need for me to be attached to her right this moment anyway."
The Team 2 leader chimed in.
"Songha's only going to get busier, and once she really wades into dramas and films, problems are going to start bursting out of everywhere. We can't just leave her in that Jung Sunwoo's hands forever. Cat Guardian Spirit was fine because Lee Bong-joon was on it with him, but from here on he'll be hitting the walls alone. The guy's got five months on the job at most, a total hatchling. You think he can handle it?"
"You didn't hear about last night?"
The division head asked it out of nowhere.
"Last night?"
"Well, Songha's name was bobbing up and down in the articles... didn't seem like that big a deal, though."
At Chief Jo's answer, the division head clicked his tongue and went on.
"According to Team Leader Park, we were about to spend the start of the year in a full-blown mess over Songha getting dragged into a scandal, and that Lucky Charm kid cleaned it up just like that. Pretty deft hands for a five-month hatchling."
"Even so..."
"If a man's doing the work, leave him alone. Don't go poking him."
The Team 2 leader started in, displeased, but the division head looked at Chief Jo as if he'd heard enough.
"And why do the lot of you keep taking turns at this? I hear that Chae-young girl begged the CEO to be assigned to the Lucky Charm, and now you want Songha? If you're that set on switching your charge, come back after you've got Songha's okay."
Chief Jo, who had been slumped, jerked his head up.
"If I persuade Songha, you'll entrust her to me?"
"Bring me an okay. Then I'll think about it."
That evening, Chief Jo called Lee Songha out of the basement practice room, where she had been buried in preparations for the next album, and the two of them sat facing each other in a small meeting room. All smiles, he spread out the materials he had prepared.
The conversation lasted all of ten minutes.
Ten minutes later, Songha returned to the practice room looking no different than usual. Chief Jo did not come out of the meeting room until long after.
And from that day on, Chief Jo never again so much as mentioned changing his assignment.