“Open the door, Jo Inchan.”
As soon as Jo Inchan saw the face on the intercom screen, he panicked and curled up on the floor. Then, worried that his suddenly ragged breathing might reach Kang Hyukwoo’s ears, Jo Inchan hastily clamped his hand over his mouth.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
His heart began to beat faster, beyond the normal range.
‘Kang Hyukwoo? Why … why is Kang Hyukwoo here right now?’
He knew, of course, that the other person couldn’t see him. But one-sided violence, inflicted continuously over a long period of time, has a way of numbing a person’s reason and driving them to instinctively take a defensive stance.
‘What did I do wrong?‘, ‘What is Kang Hyukwoo angry about this time?‘. Until now, there had never been any proper reason or rule behind the violence Kang Hyukwoo inflicted. Even so, his fear-stricken mind frantically began searching for an answer.
The victim’s entire way of thinking revolved around catering to Kang Hyukwoo’s whims.
‘…Because of the contract renewal?’
As a result, Prism had lost all reason to renew their contract with RH Entertainment. The decision on their next company had already been made through an offer from Seo Yutae. Because of this, Prism didn’t even bother to entertain any of RH Entertainment’s attempts to persuade them with offers to improve the contract terms, refusing to engage in any discussions whatsoever.
“No matter how much you revise the contract terms, Prism will never sign with RH Entertainment. It’s over now.”
An agency and its affiliated artists were meant to have a mutually cooperative relationship. There was no way Prism would agree to sign another contract with those who had broken that unspoken rule and exploited them so one-sidedly.
It was a perfectly logical conclusion, but it looked like Kang Hyukwoo wasn’t happy about it.
In any case, Prism was still under RH Entertainment for the remainder of their contract, and they had to follow the schedule assigned to them. It meant that inducing the isolation of a specific member and getting reports from their managers on the current whereabouts of the other members was an easy task.
What Kang Hyukwoo was aiming for was the moment when the most vulnerable member of Prism, the one he believed he could control, Jo Inchan, was left alone.
‘Uh, what should I do?’
The old Jo Inchan would have been able to handle Kang Hyukwoo’s attacks far more calmly than he could now. With no way to escape, he endured all forms of violence like a dead mouse, choosing not to resist in order to avoid provoking Kang Hyukwoo.
In the beginning, he struggled against the pain, but as time went on, he stopped doing even that. In fact, he even burst into laughter. It wasn’t that he had gotten used to it; rather, he had simply given up.
But after Seo Yutae reappeared, he changed.
He wants to be happy. He wants to live a better life.
He wants to become someone who can stand proudlynext to his members without feeling ashamed.
The desires he had been forced to give up on were revived because of Seo Yutae. Now, Kang Hyukwoo had become the most threatening presence to Jo Inchan. He had become a lethal being, one who could crush his hopes and hurt his loved ones at any moment.
“…….”
When the doorbell was no longer ringing, Jo Inchan weakly raised his head.
He placed his hand on his thigh, where a cold sensation lingered, as if his strength was about to give out. Stumbling, he got up from his seat. He needed to listen for any signs of movement outside the door, but the pounding of his heart, which felt like it was about to explode, drowned out any sound.
In the end, Jo Inchan instinctively held his breath to slow his heartbeat, then approached the door at a slow, almost crawling pace.
‘Please, please…….’
There was no sound.
By now, if it had been an ordinary person, enough time would have passed for them to assume the homeowner wasn’t home and leave.
‘…Has he gone back?’
At the moment when he held a faint hope that Kang Hyukwoo had given up and left, the doorbell rang again.
Ding-dong.
Feeling as if his heart had dropped again, Jo Inchan shakily placed his hand on the wall and made his way back to the intercom. The screen lit up again and he saw Kang Hyukwoo’s face.
Kang Hyukwoo was still standing there.
BANG!
When the door wasn’t opened after the second ring, Kang Hyukwoo immediately kicked the front door. Each time the loud noise echoed, Jo Inchan flinched, but he couldn’t stop staring at the intercom screen. Then, as if he knew exactly how Jo Inchan would react, Kang Hyukwoo chuckled and began to threaten him.
“Stop hiding like a rat and open the door. I know you’re in there.”
BANG!
“I clearly warned you not to make me say it twice or three times.”
He didn’t even bother with the doorbell anymore. Unlike Jay’s house, which was a single-family home, this was an apartment building with other residents. If he kept making such loud noises, someone would surely notice something was wrong, but Kang Hyukwoo didn’t seem to be considering that at all.
‘What the hell is he thinking!’
Kang Hyukwoo had already realized the reality as he watched COMA-1 fail to achieve proper success, overshadowed by Pantheion. He came to understand that the success he had been enjoying until now was not his own, but entirely due to Seo Yutae. He also realized that RH Entertainment would be doomed the moment Prism left.
From Prism members’ perspective, they likely wanted to finish the contract as quietly as possible and safely secure their freedom. However, from Kang Hyukwoo’s standpoint, it was now a do-or-die situation
In order to catch the birds flying through his grasp, it wasn’t a bad idea to risk breaking one or two of their wings and grabbing them recklessly. After all, they wouldn’t be able to abandon their injured family, so they’d keep circling and eventually crawl back into his cage on their own.
Even if something happened that would lower their market value, Prism was still Prism, and for Kang Hyukwoo, taking a gamble was far more efficient than losing everything. It was similar to when he had exposed Seo Yutae’s father’s debt issues before.
But Jo Inchan, who had been thrown into a panic and whose mind went blank at the mere sight of Kang Hyukwoo, couldn’t realize it at that moment.
‘Police, should I call the police?’
With trembling hands, Jo Inchan gripped his phone and, after several typos, managed to type ‘112‘. However, his fear of escalating the situation, of becoming the subject of public gossip and endless rumors, kept him from pressing the call button. On top of that, he couldn’t be certain how effectively the police would handle this kind of situation.
Then, should he call the members? But it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to check their phones properly because they’re all in the middle of filming. And of course, RH Entertainment’s managers would be right beside them.
In the hopeless situation, as he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyelids shut, Kang Hyukwoo spoke again.
“Inchan-ah, are you sure you won’t regret this? If you keep provoking me like this, I might just expose everything.”
The question ‘That video’s already been deleted, so what are you talking about?‘ rose in his mind automatically, but before he could even get it out, Kang Hyukwoo continued in a mocking tone.
“You think just deleting that one video means I have nothing left? We’ve spent so many years together, don’t be so naive.”
At those words, Jo Inchan stood frozen in place, as if he had a malfunction, and muttered to himself.
‘…Was there something else?’
The hand holding the phone dropped down without him even realizing it. His breath caught in his throat, and his legs, which had felt so light he thought he could fly, now felt like they were weighed down by heavy shackles again.
No, no.
There should be no weakness that would disrupt Prism’s activities as long as his video was deleted. After everything they had gone through with Kang Hyukwoo, everyone had desperately worked to avoid creating any more weaknesses. They were cautious with everything, from how they interacted with the staff to even the smallest messages, the very idea that there was another potential threat was something he didn’t want to believe.
However, it was difficult to ignore Kang Hyukwoo’s words.
Because he still couldn’t tell whether it was a bluff or not.
“Open the door. This is your last chance.”
This was typical of Kang Hyukwoo’s way of speaking. He never revealed the weapon behind his threats, but instead, he would speak vaguely, heightening the anxiety and forcing the other person reveal everything they had first.
Jo Inchan knew that tactic all too well, yet he couldn’t bring himself to adopt a strong attitude.
‘It’s a relief that I didn’t contact the members…….’
Part of the reason was that Jo Inchan, more than anyone, understood how deadly the leverage Kang Hyukwoo held over Prism, and another part was his relatively gentle personality, compared to the more rebellious members of his group.
Creak.
When the door opened, Kang Hyukwoo tilted his head arrogantly and sneered. Then, with his dull, lifeless eyes, he scanned Jo Inchan as if appraising him, before pushing his head with a couple of light shoves.
“I told you, you’ll never escape.”
“…….”
“You’ve been living pretty well lately, huh? Your face looks a bit more lively.”
“…Just get to the point. What exactly are you going to expose?”
Jo Inchan asked with his head lowered, but Kang Hyukwoo didn’t answer. Instead, he walked into Jo Inchan’s house as if it were his own. Then, acting with blatant disregard for Jo Inchan, Kang Hyukwoo sat down on the sofa and began to just ramble on about his own things.
“I heard the rumor. You guys are in the middle of contract negotiations with the company that person just founded? Hey, that’s so unbelievable, right?”
“Please, stop…….”
“But there’s something I’m curious about. Honestly, that person never really cared about you guys, did he? The only one he cared about was Seo Yutae, not Prism. So why, when he’s already doing well with his own business, is he going to all this trouble to bring you guys along?”
“…How am I supposed to know that?”
“So, did you go and beg him? After all, you’re the kids Seo Yutae cherished, did you ask him to save you just this once? But, f**k, your pride is too strong for you to do that. I remember perfectly well how much you guys hated him.”
Kang Hyukwoo was right.
If it weren’t for Seo Yutae, Choi Jeokhyeon would have chosen a more profitable business than the entertainment industry, as he had done in the past, and would have attempted to expand it. Even if, by some chance, Choi Jeokhyeon had started his own agency, Prism would have avoided his company, as they had never gotten along well with him before.
So, why, despite all that, is Prism negotiating a contract with his company?
It was a situation that would be quite suspicious to anyone who didn’t know Seo Yutae’s existence.
“What’s more, Pantheion is supposed to be in the period where talks about post-disbandment contracts should be happening, but aside from Nicholas, who’s returning to his mother’s company, no one has taken any action. I heard they turned down every company that reached out to them … You usually can’t afford to do that unless you have something solid to fall back on.”
“…….”
“But I also heard that this CEO’s subordinates have been seen making regular visits to Pantheion? Doesn’t that sound a bit like what happened with you guys? What kind of assurance do those young punks have to all stick together and go there? It’s also strange that someone as picky and cold-hearted as that person would bring all of Pantheion’s members on board. Technically, the members of Pantheion are the type to make more money when they go their separate ways.”
Fearing that he might make even the slightest slip-up, Jo Inchan met all of Kang Hyukwoo’s suspicions with silence. He only kept repeating the question about what the weakness he had mentioned earlier actually was. It was because he felt that, if he didn’t do so, all of his inner thoughts would be exposed in an instant.
But Kang Hyukwoo, unbothered, stood up from his seat and brought his face close to Jo Inchan’s.
Then, without even blinking, he asked,
“Hey, what’s the deal with you guys and Han Seungbeom?”
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Translator’s Corner:
Oh, this situation is quite long. I like it. My good deeds definitely should be rewarded with isekaing to there so I can beat Kang Hyukwoo directly.
Also, instead of spouting nonsense and trying to make Inchan’s blood pressure rise, Yihwon should’ve just teach him acting T_T
I should be sleeping (but now it’s already morning) but the way my releases for this novel already got marked as dead links on NU just in 4 hours after I locked the blog wake me up so bad …..
NO BUT THIS IS SO ODD??? LIKE, IT HAPPENED TWICE? The first thing could be genuine concern, but twice ??? and just in 4 hours after the site got locked ???
So, here’s my guess:
1. It’s NU’s bot doing cleaning (but to be fair, if it’s a bot, all my releases should have been flagged, not just this series???)
2. People just hates me (make sense)
3. Maybe some other tlers trying to take over this series and see the chance ? (just usual NU snipe drama)
4. Someone thought if they send report to NU, somehow they could access this blog again ? More likely to make me do the opposite, lock it forever, since I’m annoyed with having to submit reports everytime tbh …. this time I’m going to write e-mail…..
The No. 2 made sense the most after the bot, but tbh, WHY WOULD THEY EVEN KEEP TRACK ON ME? I mean, if it’s after 24 hours I would understand, but just in two hours??????? It can’t be someone is seriously having the No. 4 mindset, right ??? okay I’m going to sleep, if there’s a typo … I’m going to check after I woke up
Thank you D20owlbear for the lighsticks!
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