Grab the Manual and Debut!-Chapter 30: ✦Scandal [8]✦
Ji-hye stood by the security turnstiles of the SBC, her damp clothes clinging to her skin. She felt small under the high ceilings, clutching her laptop bag like a life preserver.
"Ji-hye!"
A woman with short, sharp-cut hair and a lanyard that bounced against her blazer hurried toward her. Song Min-hee didn’t look like a mentor right now; she looked like a general heading into a breach. She grabbed Ji-hye by the shoulders, her eyes scanning her from head to toe.
"Are you okay? You look like you crawled out of a river," Min-hee said, her voice dropping to a low, urgent hum.
"I’m fine, unnie. Just... I have it. I have everything," Ji-hye whispered.
Min-hee didn’t waste time with small talk. She swiped her badge and pulled Ji-hye through the gates, leading her toward a private editing suite on the fourth floor. The room was cramped, filled with monitors and the low drone of cooling fans.
"Show me," Min-hee commanded.
Ji-hye’s fingers trembled as she plugged in the drive. She pulled up the side-by-side comparison she had made in the library. She showed the traffic cam from 2019—the grainy, dented sedan speeding away. Then, she pulled up the high-definition leak that had ruined Kang-joon’s life.
"Look at the bumper," Ji-hye said, her voice gaining strength. "The real car was a 2017 model with rear-end damage. The car in the leak is a 2019 model, pristine. And here—" she zoomed in on the boy’s glasses. "The reflection of the streetlamp is a cool white LED. Gangnam-daero didn’t have those in 2019. It was all high-pressure sodium. Yellow."
Min-hee leaned in so close to the monitor her breath fogged the screen. She was silent for a long, agonizing minute. As an investigative journalist, she had seen her share of forged documents and "anonymous" tips, but this was different. This was artful. This was a digital execution.
"The AI work is incredible," Min-hee whispered. "If you didn’t know exactly what to look for—if you weren’t looking for a reason to doubt it—you’d never see it."
"It’s not just the video," Ji-hye added, pulling up the IP logs she had scraped before her forum post was deleted. "The original upload came from an encrypted server, but the bypass leak—the one that sent it to the tabloids—originated from a VPN linked to Apex Media. That’s a Consortium subsidiary."
Min-hee straightened up, a sharp, dangerous light appearing in her eyes. "The Consortium. They’re trying to force Starline into a fire sale by tanking their biggest assets. They didn’t just target a trainee; they targeted the one without a family to sue them for every penny they have."
Min-hee turned to a junior producer who had been hovering by the door. "Wake up the legal team. I don’t care if it’s 2:00 AM. And get me the head of the digital forensics department. I want a certified report on these light-source inconsistencies in three hours."
"Unnie, can we run it?" Ji-hye asked, her heart hammering.
"Run it?" Min-hee laughed, though it sounded like a bark. "Ji-hye-ya, we’re going to do more than run it. We’re going to dismantle them. This isn’t just a scandal anymore. This is a corporate crime."
Kang-joon’s POV
Kang-joon woke up at 4:00 AM to the sound of a news broadcast on the communal television in the sauna’s lounge. He sat up on his mat, his muscles aching, the orange uniform feeling scratchy against his skin.
A group of early-morning laborers were huddled around the screen, clutching paper cups of coffee.
"Hey, isn’t that the kid?" one of the men asked, pointing at the screen. "The one they said was the hit-and-run driver?"
Kang-joon froze, pulling his towel higher around his neck. He looked at the screen.
It wasn’t a tabloid headline. It was the SBC Morning News. Song Min-hee was standing in front of a digital backdrop that showed the two cars side-by-side.
"...In a shocking turn for the ’Road to Starlight’ scandal, SBC has obtained municipal traffic logs from 2019 that directly contradict the evidence provided to the police. Forensic experts confirm that the video used to implicate trainee Lee Kang-joon is a sophisticated deepfake, likely created within the last three months..."
Kang-joon felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He sat back on his heels, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
"...Furthermore, investigative leads have tracked the origin of the digital smear to a shell company with ties to major corporate entities currently seeking a hostile takeover of Starline Entertainment. The police have confirmed they are opening a secondary investigation into the ’witness’ who provided the false testimony..."
"Whoa," one of the men in the lounge muttered. "So they really did frame the kid? Just because he’s an orphan?"
"That’s cold," another replied. "Rich bastards using a kid like that."
Kang-joon closed his eyes. For the first time in ninety-seven lives, the script had flipped. Usually, by this point in a scandal, he was already packed and on a bus to nowhere, his name a curse word in every household.
But as he sat in the dim light of the sauna, surrounded by the smell of wood and sweat, he realized that the "Social Death" had been halted.
He pulled his phone from his locker. He had 5% battery left. He opened the Starline official fan cafe.
The site was crashing. The "Free Talk" board was moving so fast he couldn’t read the titles.
[TOP: WE TOLD YOU! THE PROFESSOR IS INNOCENT!] [TOP: APOLOGIZE TO KANG-JOON! APOLOGIZE NOW!] [TOP: THE CONSORTIUM KILLED OUR SHOW. SAVE THE TOP 14!]
His eyes stung. He felt a strange, terrifying warmth in his chest—a sensation he hadn’t felt since the very first time he stood on a stage a century ago. It was the feeling of being protected.
He looked at the small USB drive sitting on the bench next to him. Ji-hye had been right. She was his lawyer, his fan, and the first person in ninety-seven lives to treat him like a human being instead of a variable.
He stood up, his legs steady now. He didn’t need to hide in a sauna anymore.
The Starline Building - 6:00 AM
The atmosphere in the CEO’s office was like a funeral for a man who hadn’t died yet. The CEO sat behind his desk, staring at the SBC broadcast on his wall-mounted TV. PD Na Ye-eun stood by the window, her arms crossed, her face a mask of cold fury.
"We terminated his contract," the CEO whispered. "We released a statement saying we apologized for his ’background’."
"You did," Na Ye-eun said, her voice like a whip. "I told you to wait. I told you Kang-joon wasn’t the type to hide a crime like that. But you were too busy looking at the stock price."
"How was I supposed to know it was a deepfake?" the CEO roared, slamming his hand on the desk. "The police brought us a warrant!"
"The police brought you a lie that you were happy to believe because it gave you an excuse to cut an ’expensive’ trainee," Na Ye-eun said. She stepped toward the desk. "The public is turning, sir. If we don’t bring him back—if we don’t make this right—Starline won’t survive the week. The fans are already organizing a boycott of every sponsor on the show."
The CEO put his head in his hands. "Where is he? Where is Lee Kang-joon?"
"He’s in Incheon," the CEO’s assistant said, stepping into the room. "Wait... no. The security team says he left the safe house last night. He’s gone."
"Find him!" the CEO shouted. "Call his phone! Call the orphanage! Do whatever you have to do, but get him in front of a camera before the noon news!"
Incheon - The Grey Pier
Kang-joon wasn’t at the safe house. He was standing on the edge of the pier, watching the sun struggle to break through the grey morning mist. He had changed back into his own clothes—the hoodie and jeans that were still damp, but they felt like a second skin.
He pulled out his phone. 2% battery. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
He did something he had never done in any loop. He opened his camera app, switched to the front-facing lens, and took a photo of himself.
He looked tired. He looked like a boy who had been through a war. There was no makeup, no stage lighting, and no "Professor" mask. Just a nineteen-year-old with salt-stained hair and red eyes.
He uploaded it to his official trainee account. No caption. Just the photo.
[Post: Trainee #14 - Lee Kang-joon]
Within seconds, the notifications exploded. Thousands, then tens of thousands.
He didn’t read them. He didn’t need to. He turned the phone off and slid it into his pocket.
He looked out at the ocean. The 97th loop was supposed to be his last. He had planned to debut and then fade away, satisfied that he had finally "won" the game. But as the sun finally broke through the clouds, painting the water in streaks of orange and gold, he realized he didn’t want to fade away.
He wanted to sing. He wanted to dance. And he wanted to walk back into that Starline building, not as a "Genius" or a "Regressor," but as the boy who survived the Consortium’s best shot and stood his ground.
He turned away from the water and started walking toward the bus station.
"The hiatus is over," he said to himself.
He had forty-eight days left until the finale. Forty-eight days to show the world exactly what happens when you try to bury a man who has already died ninety-six times.
Behind him, a black sedan pulled up to the pier. But this time, Kang-joon didn’t run. He stopped, turned, and waited.
The door opened, and PD Na Ye-eun stepped out. She looked at him, her eyes softening for the first time since the show began.
"Kang-joon-ah," she said, her voice thick with emotion.
