Free Web NovelIn the End, Things Always Return to What’s Right
It was a four-character idiom that meant everything inevitably goes back to what’s right.
'Did it blow up?'
Even for someone like me 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 me, and the youngest staffer, looking flustered, explained the reason.
An exposé post.
At first I thought it was complete bullshit, but then something surfaced in my head.
In my squeaky-clean life, there was exactly one place where controversy could possibly sprout.
The Rift—my whole gamer life.
'Was it that match where I played Yasuo, that edgy swordsman character everyone knows? Or was it that old top-lane game?'
People were fragile creatures.
No matter how much I carried every match while dragging around “teammates” like deadweight logs, when you play games, sometimes you still drop the log.
And when you drop the log, sometimes you “accidentally” swing it and crack your teammate in the skull.
"SupremeSion, you piece of shit, just 1v1 me, 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 me. 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 moment.
'I should’ve changed my username.'
I thought hard about how I’d gotten found out, and it was probably because during the contestant introduction interview, I mentioned my Legend of Valley rank, and my username 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 me down this whole time?
But it was fine.
'Because the account’s under my mom’s name.'
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, name.
So in the worst-case scenario, I’d even considered claiming it wasn’t me.
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 government 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 meeting room inside the dorm.
The new main PD, Park Hyungsoo, had been staring at his laptop with a serious expression. When he spotted me, he welcomed me and told me to sit.
"Hak yoon, go out and keep checking the situation. If you find anything unusual, tell me."
"Yes, sir!"
Then Park Hyungsoo even sent out the youngest staffer who’d guided me here, leaving the two of us alone in the meeting 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 me in, then turned the laptop screen toward me.
'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 meltdown.
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 replacement.
Sometimes 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 meant 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 mess 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 something 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 immediately and sprint out of the meeting room, Hyungsoo sank into thought.
'Am I getting PTSD?'
Looking at the meeting room, Hyungsoo suddenly remembered the previous main PD, Kim Miyoung, incident from not long ago.
Back then, calls had come in from all directions and paralyzed the MPlay variety department.
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 lunchtime 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 some 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 meant 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 become 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 medical treatment.
"After that, a formal school disciplinary hearing for violence was held, and Contestant L was issued a Level 3 disciplinary measure..."
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 meek 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 time, after all.
Underage drinking and smoking.
Overly intimate couple photos.
Things that were enough to become a scandal the moment they popped.
But you could somehow get past those.
"Why are you all losing your minds like you’re gonna kill someone 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 crime, and it was something 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 somehow.
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 some lovable character? Shameless.
↳ How is “school violence” already confirmed? 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 game over?
↳ A yearbook only proves you went to the same school. How do you know those hospital records are proof of school violence?
The comments 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 comments tended to say, “It’s not confirmed, so verify first.”
But this time, the person posting it started with a yearbook photo that included Lee Sion, and the details were so specific and thorough that the comment 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 time 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 entertainment industry was the kind of place where even drunk driving would eventually get “washed clean” over time as you started showing your face on TV again and took some cursing.
But school violence was the one thing people said ended your celebrity life—something 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” outcome.
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 moment 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 become “Hyungsoo’s responsibility.”
Hyungsoo suddenly resented Kim Miyoung, who’d shoved this bomb onto him and disappeared.
"PD, were you looking for me?"
"Ah, welcome, Ms. Sion. I called you urgently because there’s something 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 me carefully, with a fidgety expression.
'What was this guy’s name again?'
But none of what he was saying really went into my head.
The moment I got to the meeting room, Park Hyungsoo showed me 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 something 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 name is being mentioned as the target of this exposé post."
I thought it was someone 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 become 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 me?!"
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 remember now. Pancake-Faced Pig.'
I couldn’t remember her real name, but I remembered 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 someone who insulted people based on their looks.
I didn’t remember exactly, but I think her name had “dae” in it, and that was why I gave her that nickname.
'Should I have hit her more back then?'
If she was posting something 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 me 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." frёewebnoѵēl.com
"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 memory was pretty unforgettable for me too, so I still remembered it clearly.
A bunch of girls had even brought a baseball bat because they were going to “take me on,” so I was a little tense, but come 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 nickname you give yourself when you feel like a gangster—was born.
