In the End, Things Always Return to What’s Right
It was a four-character idiom that ant everything inevitably goes back to what’s right.
'Did it blow up?'
Even for soone like who prided herself on having lived a righteous life, I was still human, so I couldn’t help making a few mistakes.
"Ah... so there’s a post online right now exposing Contestant Lee Sion, and the PD called you in urgently to confirm whether it’s true."
I asked what the hell was going on after the production team suddenly summoned , and the youngest staffer, looking flustered, explained the reason.
An exposé post.
At first I thought it was complete bullshit, but then sothing surfaced in my head.
In my squeaky-clean life, there was exactly one place where controversy could possibly sprout.
The Rift—my whole gar life.
'Was it that match where I played Yasuo, that edgy swordsman character everyone knows? Or was it that old top-lane ga?'
People were fragile creatures.
No matter how much I carried every match while dragging around “teammates” like deadweight logs, when you play gas, sotis you still drop the log.
And when you drop the log, sotis you “accidentally” swing it and crack your teammate in the skull.
"SupreSion, you piece of shit, just 1v1 , please."
"How’s your mom doing? Actually, she won’t be doing so good anymore, starting today, because I’m going to—"
"Fuck, just don’t die! Is that so hard? I know you didn’t mute . I know you’re reading chat, you asshole."
When you play with Rift friends who have mouths like that, I can’t help it.
As a proud citizen of a country that loves manners and “proper conduct,” I can’t stop myself from correcting their chat etiquette in the mont.
'I should’ve changed my userna.'
I thought hard about how I’d gotten found out, and it was probably because during the contestant introduction interview, I ntioned my Legend of Valley rank, and my userna was basically an open giveaway.
I’d been playing Legend of Valley for about eight hours a day for years.
So wasn’t it possible that people I’d pissed off without even realizing it had been obsessively tracking down this whole ti?
But it was fine.
'Because the account’s under my mom’s na.'
To dodge the old underage gaming curfew law—the one that locked accounts at night—I’d made the account under my mom, Kim Sukja’s, na.
So in the worst-case scenario, I’d even considered claiming it wasn’t .
The pile of expensive skins I’d bought over the years was a little painful to lose, but whatever.
Once Bitcoin mooned later, I could just make a new account under my own governnt ID number and buy every skin again.
Offering Kim Sukja up as a sacrifice to dodge a crisis didn’t sound like a bad plan.
"You’re here? Sit down. I think we need to talk."
"Yes."
While I was thinking through possible responses, I arrived at the production team eting room inside the dorm.
The new main PD, Park Hyungsoo, had been staring at his laptop with a serious expression. When he spotted , he welcod and told to sit.
"Hak yoon, go out and keep checking the situation. If you find anything unusual, tell ."
"Yes, sir!"
Then Park Hyungsoo even sent out the youngest staffer who’d guided here, leaving the two of us alone in the eting room.
"Um... I’m sorry to say this, but there’s an exposé post online about you right now, Contestant Lee Sion."
With a serious face and voice, he explained that an exposé post had gone up, so that was why he’d called in, then turned the laptop screen toward .
'So it’s finally here.'
While I was thinking about what excuse I should make, my eyes landed on the headline on the screen.
"Did you really bully people at school?"
It was completely different from what I expected.
***
There were plenty of situations where a broadcast PD could have a ltdown.
For example, when every bit of staging you planned gets blown to pieces and you have to improvise a brand-new setup from scratch on the spot.
Or when you prepare everything around a guest you were planning to book, but they end up unable to attend for unavoidable reasons, so you have to urgently book a replacent.
Sotis a disaster like a blackout wipes out hours of editing.
In a station full of accidents and mishaps, there were more problems a PD dealt with than you’d think.
"Don’t do this... please..."
And if you asked which kind of incident was the most goddamn miserable, it was cast scandals.
-A famous actor caught drunk driving last night! Controversy after trying to flee the scene...
-Popular idol “A” in an assault dispute with a civilian at a bar?
-Film actress “B” accused of tax evasion, additional taxes alone at over a million dollars?
Celebrities were people.
Which ant they screwed up—and the aftermath, true to the fact they lived off popularity, couldn’t even be compared to what a normal person faced.
They didn’t just get kicked off the program they were doing. They couldn’t even show their faces around the station for a while, and if they were filming ads, they had to pay enormous penalty fees.
'Of course! You make money because you get attention, so you pay the price when you ss up.'
Hyungsoo didn’t consider it cruel.
Since celebrities lived off the public’s attention, he thought it was only natural that the backlash would be huge when they did sothing wrong.
The problem was that even if the celebrity caused the accident, the production team still had to swallow the aftermath.
"PD, the contestants are back at the dorm."
"Then call Lee Sion in first. Right now."
"Yes, sir!"
Watching Hak yoon answer imdiately and sprint out of the eting room, Hyungsoo sank into thought.
'Am I getting PTSD?'
Looking at the eting room, Hyungsoo suddenly rembered the previous main PD, Kim Miyoung, incident from not long ago.
Back then, calls had co in from all directions and paralyzed the MPlay variety departnt.
But this incident could, if things went wrong, surpass that one.
[I’m a victim of school violence by a contestant currently appearing on Idol Ground 100.]
It started with a post that went up around lunchti today on a major portal site’s forum.
That forum used to be a place for celebrity chatter and small daily-life posts, but at so point, it had long since rotted into a board dedicated to rumors and exposés.
Because of that, exposé posts about celebrities—especially idols—popped up there regularly.
"Do you think this one’s real?"
"Ha... I don’t know. It doesn’t look completely fake."
Of course, most of them were fake exposés ant to get attention, or things anti-fans cooked up to stir controversy.
But since there were cases that occasionally turned out to be real, you couldn’t completely ignore them.
"I’m a high school classmate of Contestant L, who is currently appearing on Idol Ground 100.
"At first, I was going to let it go, but as Contestant L keeps getting more popular and could even beco an idol on TV, it feels so unfair that I’m posting this.
"In high school, Contestant L would casually use violence against classmates. I was assaulted by Contestant L and suffered an injury requiring four weeks of dical treatnt.
"After that, a formal school disciplinary hearing for violence was held, and Contestant L was issued a Level 3 disciplinary asure..."
And this exposé post didn’t feel normal.
"Of all things, school violence?"
Among celebrity scandals—especially idol scandals—school violence was the one thing that absolutely could not happen.
Honestly, how many idols were actually quiet and ek in their school days?
These days it was a little less common because agencies managed trainees from their school years, but in the past there were plenty of idols who were genuinely wild kids.
Old “school days” photos of idols went up all the ti, after all.
Underage drinking and smoking.
Overly intimate couple photos.
Things that were enough to beco a scandal the mont they popped.
But you could sohow get past those.
"Why are you all losing your minds like you’re gonna kill soone over a mistake they made as a kid?"
"For real, did everyone here only do righteous things in school?"
"If they reflected and they’re doing well now, that’s enough."
Since it wasn’t exactly a serious cri, and it was sothing that happened while they were minors, it would blow up briefly, but in the end, if they did well at their actual job, it would pass sohow.
But school violence was different.
↳ Holy shit... are they really talking about Lee Sion? That kind of person crawled out wanting to be an idol?
↳ Couldn’t it not be Lee Sion?
↳ It’s obviously Lee Sion. She’s the only one from XX High.
↳ And she went on TV acting like she was so lovable character? Shaless.
↳ How is “school violence” already confird? Look at you people taking the chance to spew hate. Tch.
↳ If they attached yearbook proof and hospital records from back then, isn’t it ga over?
↳ A yearbook only proves you went to the sa school. How do you know those hospital records are proof of school violence?
The comnts under the exposé post—which had already risen to a trending post and was sitting right at the top of the board—were pure chaos.
Usually, since exposé posts were so often fake, the early comnts tended to say, “It’s not confird, so verify first.”
But this ti, the person posting it started with a yearbook photo that included Lee Sion, and the details were so specific and thorough that the comnt section was fiercely split, fighting over whether it was true or false.
The problem was that once it hit the trending section like this, it was only a matter of ti before it spilled into other communities.
And once it got posted elsewhere, reporters weren’t going to miss it.
If you had to pick one of the hottest people not just among Idol Ground 100 contestants, but among celebrities in general lately, Lee Sion was easily one of them.
A school violence scandal involving Lee Sion was the kind of bait reporters would never let go.
'You can’t just “get past” school violence.'
The entertainnt industry was the kind of place where even drunk driving would eventually get “washed clean” over ti as you started showing your face on TV again and took so cursing.
But school violence was the one thing people said ended your celebrity life—sothing you couldn’t scrub off.
Because it was too vicious to dismiss as “kids being thoughtless,” and unlike before, the pain of school violence victims had been getting highlighted again and again in news reports.
Public rage toward school violence perpetrators was burning hotter than ever.
"PD, Contestant Lee Sion is here."
"Everyone stay outside and respond to calls. Ask them to hold back on premature articles as much as possible. I think I need to talk one-on-one first."
"Yes, sir!"
At the staffer’s words that Lee Sion had arrived, Hyungsoo could feel tension crawl over his entire body.
'Please, let it not be true...'
If the allegation was true, Hyungsoo would have no choice but to give up on Lee Sion.
He’d have to drop Lee Sion from the program, cutting her loose even if it hurt.
If they didn’t drop her and chose to carry the controversy anyway, Idol Ground 100 would forever have the label of “the program that debuts school violence perpetrators.”
And beyond that, from the many companies currently sponsoring the program, they could face anything from formal complaints to lawsuits.
'It’s even worse because dropping her doesn’t solve anything.'
The problem was that even if they dropped Lee Sion, it wouldn’t create a “good” outco.
Lee Sion wasn’t just any contestant—she had overwhelming popularity.
If she left, the impact wouldn’t end at “one contestant is gone.”
It would obviously hurt other contestants who’d built close ties with her, and the center of upcoming episodes was also Lee Sion.
The mont they cut all of that out, the show would have no choice but to slide downhill.
'Haa... the higher-ups are already excited, saying we should prep Season 2 the second this ends.'
As Idol Ground 100 achieved unprecedented success, not only MPlay but even their parent company, KJ Group, had already started talking about turning the show into a seasonal franchise.
In that situation, if the show got ruined by this scandal, even if it wasn’t a mistake Hyungsoo personally made, it would still be enough to beco “Hyungsoo’s responsibility.”
Hyungsoo suddenly resented Kim Miyoung, who’d shoved this bomb onto him and disappeared.
"PD, were you looking for ?"
"Ah, welco, Ms. Sion. I called you urgently because there’s sothing we need to talk about."
But resenting Kim Miyoung and Lee Sion was pointless.
What mattered now was understanding the situation.
***
"So, on our end, we wanted to confirm the facts with you first..."
The new main PD, Park Hyungsoo, was speaking to carefully, with a fidgety expression.
'What was this guy’s na again?'
But none of what he was saying really went into my head.
The mont I got to the eting room, Park Hyungsoo showed the post on his laptop.
And as I read what was written there—
"Wow. What kind of evil bitch does that?"
My fist tightened.
But as I ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) kept reading, I felt sothing oddly familiar.
I realized what that familiarity was when I saw the yearbook photo attached at the end.
"That’s our school yearbook."
"Yes... that’s right. Right now, Ms. Sion, your na is being ntioned as the target of this exposé post."
I thought it was soone else’s story, but it was my story.
"The bottom line is, we urgently called you in because we need to ask whether you really committed school violence."
"Hm."
Park Hyungsoo spoke with a solemn expression to my confused face.
Only now did I understand exactly why I’d been called in.
'I didn’t think this would beco a problem. Was I not thinking enough?'
I didn’t have a good sense of what I should say.
Because part of what was in the exposé post was true.
"I did hit her."
"Excuse ?!"
But I couldn’t hesitate anymore, so I told the truth.
"Not everything in here is true, but I did beat her down."
"W-What on earth happened? No, wait—this is really true?!"
Park Hyungsoo asked again, looking like his world had collapsed.
His expression was so pitiful I almost wanted to say it was all a lie, but facts were facts.
'Oh. I rember now. Pancake-Faced Pig.'
I couldn’t rember her real na, but I rembered who wrote the post.
It was definitely Pancake-Faced Pig from my class in sophomore year of high school.
Why Pancake-Faced Pig?
'She wore so much makeup it looked plastered on.'
A pig with makeup caked on.
For the record, I wasn’t soone who insulted people based on their looks.
I didn’t rember exactly, but I think her na had “dae” in it, and that was why I gave her that nickna.
'Should I have hit her more back then?'
If she was posting sothing like this, maybe she really was a piglet instead of a person.
"Um... do I need to explain the detailed reason?"
"Of course. If this keeps going, the controversy will spiral out of control. More than anything, school violence—no, school violence is the one thing we can’t just brush past."
"...Right."
Dropping out.
Back then, the thing I’d wanted more than anything was to drop out of this program, but when I wanted it, they wouldn’t let even if I died.
And now I was about to get forced out all of a sudden.
"Was there a reason? If you were wronged, we could step in and clarify—"
"That part isn’t in there, but actually..."
"Actually?"
"It wasn’t one-on-one. It was seven-on-one."
"What?!"
Pancake-Faced Pig probably left that out because it was embarrassing.
That day, at the recycling area—the day she got hit so hard she lost a tooth—six of her friends were there too.
"Have you ever boxed, PD?"
"Why are you bringing that up...?"
"While fighting seven-on-one, I sent them one by one. Cleanly. Left, right. Really precise."
That mory was pretty unforgettable for too, so I still rembered it clearly.
A bunch of girls had even brought a baseball bat because they were going to “take on,” so I was a little tense, but co on.
Weren’t they still just kids?
I dodged their swings, then countered and snapped their jaws shut, and they dropped one after another.
Like in that old Three Kingdoms story—when the legendary general Guan Yu cuts down enemy generals one after the other, and everyone watching realizes the fight is already over.
That was the day “Kim Duhan of Haan-dong”—the kind of tough-guy nickna you give yourself when you feel like a gangster—was born.
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