Grab the Manual and Debut!-Chapter 31: ✦We’re Sorry...Kang-Joon!✦

The black van hummed with a quiet, expensive vibration as it tore through the grey streets of Incheon, heading back toward the heart of Seoul. PD Na Ye-eun was driving herself, a rare occurrence. She didn’t have a manager with her, and she didn’t have a camera crew. She just had Kang-joon.

Kang-joon sat in the passenger seat, his head leaning against the cold window. He watched the rain-slicked world fly by—a blur of concrete, neon signs, and people living lives that didn’t reset every time they failed.

"I’m sorry, Kang-joon-ah," PD Na said. Her voice was thick, lacking the sharp, directorial edge she usually carried on set. "I should have stood up to the CEO. I should have trusted my gut instead of the monitor."

Kang-joon didn’t look at her. He watched a single raindrop race across the glass. "You did what was logical for the show, PD-nim. A scandal of that magnitude is a variable that can’t be ignored."

"Stop," she said, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. "Stop talking like you’re a piece of data. You’re nineteen. You were framed for a crime that could have sent you to prison for a decade. You don’t have to be ’logical’ right now. You can be angry. You should be angry."

Kang-joon finally turned his head. His eyes were dull, the spark of the "Genius" dimmed by a bone-deep exhaustion. "Angry at what? The Consortium for trying to win? The CEO for protecting his stock? Or the people who threw milk at me because they were told I was a monster?"

He let out a short, dry breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. "I’ve lived... I’ve seen enough to know that people believe what is easiest to believe. It’s not about truth. It’s about who tells the story first."

The rest of the drive was silent. As they approached the Starline building, the traffic slowed to a crawl. Kang-joon saw them before PD Na did.

Fans.

Hundreds of them. They weren’t holding the "Leave the Show" signs anymore. The sidewalk was a sea of white and gold—the colors of his fan union. There were banners draped over the railings of the subway entrance: [WE ARE SORRY, KANG-JOON], [PROTECT OUR ARCHITECT], and [TRUTH PREVAILS].

The front gates of the Starline building were covered in thousands of colorful Post-it notes. It looked like a blooming garden made of paper.

"They’ve been there since the SBC broadcast at 4:00 AM," PD Na whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "The guards tried to clear them, but more just kept coming. They’re waiting for you."

As the van pulled into the underground garage, Kang-joon saw a glimpse of a girl standing near the front of the crowd. She was wearing a thick SNU law school hoodie, her face pale and her eyes red. He didn’t know for sure, but he felt a strange pull in his chest. Ji-hye.

He wanted to stop the car. He wanted to get out and tell her that the USB drive was safe, that her analysis had saved him. But the van kept moving, descending into the dark, sterile safety of the basement.

The walk from the elevator to the trainee floor felt like a mile. Every staff member they passed stopped what they were doing. Some looked away in shame; others offered awkward, fawning smiles that made Kang-joon’s skin crawl.

"Kang-joon-ssi! Welcome back!" a junior coordinator chirped, trying to hand him a bottle of water.

Kang-joon walked past her without a word. The hypocrisy of the building was suffocating. Three days ago, these same people were clearing out his locker and whispering about "criminal tendencies."

PD Na stopped at the door to the dorm.

"The other boys... they’ve been through a lot too," she said, her hand on the handle. "They were told they couldn’t contact you and were worried."

"I know," Kang-joon said. He didn’t blame them. In his ninety-six previous lives, he had learned that loyalty was a luxury most trainees couldn’t afford.

She opened the door.

The dorm was quiet, but it didn’t stay that way for long. Jae-hyun was the first one to see him. The youngest trainee was sitting on the floor, sorting through a pile of laundry. When his eyes met Kang-joon’s, he dropped the shirt he was holding.

"Hyung?"

Jae-hyun scrambled to his feet, his face crumpling in seconds. He didn’t care about the cameras that were hidden in the corners of the room for the "Behind the Scenes" footage. He threw himself at Kang-joon, his arms locking around the older boy’s waist in a desperate, bone-crushing hug.

"Hyung, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!" Jae-hyun sobbed into Kang-joon’s chest. "I didn’t believe the video, I swear, but they wouldn’t let us go to you—"

Kang-joon stood rigid for a moment, his arms hanging at his sides. He wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to people crying for him. Slowly, he raised his hands and patted Jae-hyun’s back.

"It’s okay, Jae-hyun-ah.

At least its all over."

From the kitchen area, Gun-woo and Min-soo emerged.

Gun-woo looked haggard. He stayed back, leaning against the doorframe, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the words were stuck. He just nodded, his eyes shining with a rare, watery emotion. "Glad you’re not in a cell, Joon-ah. The room was too quiet without your annoying lectures."

But it was Min-soo, the "Nation’s Center," who looked the worst. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the scandal broke. He stood in the middle of the room, his gaze fixed on the floor.

"I saw the news," Min-soo said, his voice a low rasp. "I saw the part about... the orphanage. Evergreen."

The room went deathly still.

Kang-joon felt a cold prickle of defensiveness. The secret was out. The one thing he had fought to hide for ninety-seven lives was now a matter of public record.

"Yes," Kang-joon said, his voice turning flat and professional. "That is where I grew up. If that creates a problem for the team’s image—"

"No!" Min-soo shouted, finally looking up. His face was twisted with a mixture of guilt and self-loathing. "That’s not it! I... when the video came out, for one second, I thought... I thought maybe it was true because you never talked about your family. I thought you were hiding something bad."

Min-soo stepped forward, his fists clenched at his sides. "I doubted you because I’m a coward who was worried about his own debut. I’m the Center, and I should have defended you, but I stayed quiet because the managers told me to."

A tear tracked down Min-soo’s cheek. "I’m a piece of trash, Kang-joon. You don’t have to forgive me."

Kang-joon looked at Min-soo. In his earlier lives, Min-soo was always the golden boy—the one who succeeded because he was kind and bright. Seeing him broken like this felt wrong.

"Min-soo-ssi," Kang-joon said. He disentangled himself from Jae-hyun and walked over to the Center. He didn’t hug him. He just stood in front of him, eye-to-eye.

"In 2019, while that accident was happening, I was counting coins in a convenience store so I could buy a pair of shoes for my graduation," Kang-joon said quietly. "I didn’t tell you about my past because I didn’t want your pity. I wanted to be your equal."

He paused, looking around the room at the boys he had spent months with.

"You doubted me because the evidence was designed to be believable. That’s not cowardice but human nature. But if we’re going to stand on that stage in forty-eight days, I need to know one thing."

The trainees leaned in.

"Do you see a criminal standing here? Or do you see your teammate?"

Gun-woo was the first to speak. "I see a guy who needs to take a shower and help me with the bridge of the finale song. You missed three rehearsals, Joon-ah. You’re behind."

Jae-hyun wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I see the person who’s going to win Rank 1."

Min-soo looked at Kang-joon, a small, fragile hope flickering in his eyes. He reached out a hand, hesitating, before resting it on Kang-joon’s shoulder. "I’m sorry it took a news report for me to see the rest of you."

Later that night, after the cameras had been turned off and the dorm was finally quiet, Kang-joon sat on his bed. The staff had returned his belongings. His books were back on the shelf. His clothes were folded.

He pulled out his phone. He had thousands of messages, but he ignored them all to find one specific forum thread.

The SBC report had gone viral, but the most shared post wasn’t the news clip. It was a long, detailed post on a legal blog titled: ’Why we owe Lee Kang-joon more than an apology.’

It was written by Ji-hye.

She had detailed the history of the Consortium’s takeover attempt, the mechanics of deepfake technology, and most importantly, she had written about the "Orphan" label.

> "We treat ’orphan’ like a warning label," she had written. "We look for shadows in their past because we can’t imagine someone surviving without a safety net and coming out whole. But Lee Kang-joon didn’t just survive. He excelled. He became a genius not because he was born with everything, but because he had to learn everything twice as fast just to stay in the race. He doesn’t need our pity...he needs our respect."

Kang-joon stared at the screen for a long time.

For ninety-six lives, he had been running toward a debut like it was a finish line—a place where the reset button would finally stop. He thought that if he reached the top, he would finally be "fixed."

[System Notification: Humanity Metric: 22%.]

[Synchronicity: 95%.]

[Status: The Narrative has been Reclaimed.]

"Thank you, Ji-hye-ssi."