“Lee Yeonsu, you need to eat.”

“No, I’m fine.”

Even after coming home, I had no appetite at all.

Right now, Joo Seunghyuk was probably undergoing an intense interrogation with the Inspectorate.

Just thinking about that made my stomach churn, and I didn’t want to eat anything.

“Inho, you go ahead and eat without me.”

“If you say that, you won’t eat at all, will you?”

“......”

“Eat. If you starve, my salary gets docked.”

“You get a salary?”

“Of course. I never work without pay.”

Kang Inho said it with a straight face. He really seemed to hate unpaid labor.

Honestly, it was unexpected. Kang Inho was an A-rank Esper, but since he wasn’t contracted with any organization, I had the impression he was indifferent to money.

But if he was in an employment relationship with Joo Seunghyuk, then he must be getting paid more than he would at most major guilds, so my impression of him must have been wrong from the start.

“Eat at least one spoonful. I don’t want my employer to chew me out.”

“...Fine.”

When someone who’s normally indifferent to what others do says that much, I couldn’t stubbornly refuse to eat.

Besides, if I didn’t eat, he probably wouldn’t eat either.

I tried ordering food through a delivery app so I could force myself to eat. But two spoonfuls was my limit. I was about to take the third when I realized I just couldn’t, and I set the spoon down on the table.

Kang Inho just stared at me quietly. But he didn’t press me any further.

After the meal, I went into my room and turned on the TV.

And then Joo Seunghyuk’s face filled the entire screen.

“Esper Joo Seunghyuk’s role in orchestrating Esper Park Geonwoo’s car accident has come to light, shocking the public.”

The reporter’s solemn voice delivered the news of Joo Seunghyuk’s arrest.

“These are not the only allegations against Esper Joo. There are also suspicions that he manipulated his matching rate with Guide Lee Yeonsu through the use of illegal drugs. The Central Control Center’s Inspectorate for Ability Users is currently investigating this matter, as well as additional crimes beyond the matching rate manipulation.”

They were even reporting about me. Honestly, I was surprised.

That Joo Seunghyuk had been arrested for orchestrating Park Geonwoo’s car accident was the kind of sensational story the media would love to pounce on, so of course I expected it to be everywhere.

But the drug-related matching rate investigation was something the Inspectorate had been handling in secret. They probably didn’t have decisive evidence yet. So their plan was to first detain him on the accident charge and then investigate the drugs.

Yet, something the Inspectorate had been keeping under wraps was suddenly in the news within hours.

The existence of the Special Red Lotus Flame or anything about Abite Island hadn’t been mentioned, but it was still information only an insider would know.

Who the hell leaked it to the press?

Was it the Inspectorate themselves, trying to sway public opinion in their favor?

No. The car accident alone was enough to capture the public’s attention, and the criticism toward Joo Seunghyuk would already be intense.

So why leak an allegation they didn’t have solid proof for?

The only outcome would be damaging his image further—there was no other benefit.

From that first news report, TV and the internet became flooded with articles about Joo Seunghyuk.

It was still under investigation, but people already believed he was guilty and hurled vicious insults at him—things too filthy to repeat.

The reporters grew more frenzied, racing to push out more sensational stories.

Some wrote that all of Joo Seunghyuk’s power had come from drugs. Others spliced together old interview clips to “prove” that he had long harbored jealousy and hatred toward Park Geonwoo to the point of wanting to kill him.

Still others dug up irrelevant incidents from his past to claim he must have been developing illegal drugs all along.

Then came an article claiming he wasn’t even Chairman Ju’s biological son. Not only was that untrue, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with the case.

The comments were even worse. People wrote things like, “I knew it,” “No wonder he reeked of vulgarity,” “You can’t hide dirty blood.”

Those who once excused his personality as bad but praised his looks for having the aura of wealth now turned on him in an instant.

I only read the news articles on the major portal sites. But both the comments and the articles themselves kept getting worse.

I thought it couldn’t possibly get any more extreme—until the tabloid hacks proved me wrong.

Joo Seunghyuk Plots an S-Rank Gate Break in Seoul

Despite the provocative headline, the content was nothing more than speculation posted by an internet user.

Someone had written on a popular online community that during the Horaitron Gate incident, Joo Seunghyuk had deliberately attacked Lee Yeonsu to trigger a “Gate Break.” The post had gained traction, and the article reported on the “buzz.”

The piece ended with a roundup of netizens’ condemnations of Joo Seunghyuk.

The gall of the journalist disgusted me—they claimed they were “just reporting on a post that was getting attention online” as if that absolved them of responsibility.

But they were the one who plastered that internet rumor on a major portal’s front page ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) for the whole country to see, and now they were acting like the article’s fallout had nothing to do with them.

The comments on that article were filled with insults, and plenty of people said they hadn’t believed the rumor until they saw it reported in the news—now they thought it must be true.

The reporter didn’t delete the article, of course. On the contrary, other outlets jumped on the bandwagon, publishing their own “Joo Seunghyuk tried to cause a Gate Break” stories.

At some point, the disclaimer that it was “just speculation” vanished, and the rumor had become established fact.

In just a few hours, Joo Seunghyuk had gone from being the man who orchestrated Park Geonwoo’s accident and manipulated his matching rate with me, to someone who gained S-rank power through drugs, and finally, to a psychopathic mass murderer who had tried to open an S-rank Gate Break in the middle of Seoul.

People, consumed by madness, demanded his immediate execution in the comments.

Knock knock.

With that sound, the door opened. Kang Inho walked in.

Until now, the one who always opened that door and came in was Joo Seunghyuk....

“Lee Yeonsu, it’s nine o’clock.”

“Ah, I’ll get ready.”

When I checked the time, it was already nine. With the blackout curtains drawn and the entire room decorated in black, I hadn’t even noticed daylight.

“Don’t tell me you stayed up all night?”

“Yeah...”

“You’ve been on the internet?”

He glanced at the smartphone in my hand.

“Yeah, a little.” 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“Why bother? You usually don’t look at that stuff.”

“Just....”

If it had been about me, I could have ignored whatever people said. But with Joo Seunghyuk involved, I couldn’t.

Besides, since he was in custody, he had no way of knowing what was going on out here. Someone had to keep a clear head and track the situation.

“Ignore the nasty comments. And I’ll have a lawyer deal with any malicious posts about you.”

Some people were targeting me too.

They said Lee Yeonsu knew what kind of bastard Joo Seunghyuk was but dated him for money, so I was an accomplice. Or they couldn’t understand why I’d date someone who had tried to kill me, so I must be suspicious or a psychopath myself.

But that was the minority opinion. Most said I was clearly a victim and should be left out of it. So the comments didn’t really bother me.

Right now, the problem wasn’t me.

“More than that, there are too many negative articles about Seunghyuk. The fake news is getting out of hand.”

“Don’t worry about that guy.”

He said it like it was nothing. Surely he had seen the same news and articles—how could he be so calm?

“But I heard Chairman Ju collapsed.”

I had just read an article saying Chairman Ju Wonchan had been rushed to the emergency room at Seonghan Hospital after collapsing from the shock of the incident.

Honestly, I had no personal concern for Ju Wonchan as a person. But resolving this mess would absolutely require his power.

“Seunghyuk expected that, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

That Joo Seunghyuk knew Park Geonwoo and the Inspectorate were investigating him and planning to arrest him—I could believe that. His information-gathering was top-tier, so maybe he had even planted people inside the Inspectorate.

But how could he have predicted Chairman Ju’s collapse? That would take clairvoyance, not intelligence.

Did Chairman Ju have some illness?

I couldn’t make sense of how things were unfolding.

“Anyway, why don’t you take the day off from school? You seem really tired.”

“This much is fine.”

“If you go to school, all eyes will be on you. And today’s the start of the mock battle, so the entire student body will be gathered in one place. Reporters will use the mock battle as an excuse to swarm in and try to interview you.”

“That’s exactly why I need to go. If I’m absent, people will think the rumors are true.”

If I didn’t show up today, they’d assume I was so shaken by the incident that I couldn’t face anyone.

They might even spread nonsense that the matching-rate drug’s side effects had hit me.

It wouldn’t just stop at gossip—there was a good chance the vultures would turn it into a “scoop” article.

For the sake of both Joo Seunghyuk and myself, I had to go to school.

“Lee Yeonsu, you don’t have to push yourself.”

“I’m not pushing myself. I’m going because I want to. I’ll get ready quickly.”

“...If you want to, I won’t stop you.”