The Scandal-Proof Producer

The victories were piling up, each one more audacious than the last, but they brought no peace. Instead, they left Yoo-jin feeling like a man juggling sticks of dynamite, knowing that eventually, one was bound to go off in his face. He had outmaneuvered a corporate shark, recruited a secret weapon, and launched a new artist into the global stratosphere. He had won. By all metrics, he was winning. Yet a persistent, low-grade hum of anxiety, a premonition that the other shoe was about to drop, followed him relentlessly.

He was in his office late at night, long after the rest of his team had gone home, mapping out a promotional strategy for Park Chae-rin's unexpected global hit. He was trying to figure out how to navigate the tidal wave of offers from Western labels without losing control of her narrative. It was in the midst of this new, exciting challenge that his secure work phone buzzed with a scrambled call. The ID showed it was Pluto.

A call this late from his journalist contact was never good news. He answered, his voice cautious. "What's wrong?"

"Yoo-jin, what did you do?" Pluto's voice was a frantic, harsh whisper, the sound of passing traffic in the background suggesting he was on a busy street, too agitated to even find a quiet place to talk. "What the hell did you do? The Kang Min-hyuk story just took a turn. A hard one."

Yoo-jin's blood went cold. He had successfully pulled Kang back from the edge, redirecting his self-destructive despair into a focused, vengeful rage aimed squarely at Chairman Choi. He had imagined Kang fighting the charges, dragging Choi's name through the mud in a long, messy legal battle. He had not anticipated this.

"What kind of turn?" Yoo-jin asked, his voice dangerously calm.

"The kind you can't control," Pluto shot back. "He's not fighting. He just made a deal with the prosecutors. A full plea agreement. He's pleading guilty to the lesser charges—tax evasion, breach of fiduciary duty. He'll get a reduced sentence, maybe even a suspended one if he plays ball."

"And what does playing ball entail?" Yoo-jin asked, though he already knew the answer.

"It entails him becoming the prosecution's star cooperating witness," Pluto's voice hissed, thick with urgency. "He's testifying before a grand jury. He's agreed to tell them everything. Every dirty secret, every backroom deal, every instance of corruption he ever witnessed. He's giving them Chairman Choi on a silver platter."

For a fleeting second, Yoo-jin felt a surge of grim triumph. It had worked. His weapon had found its mark. "Good," he said instinctively. "That's what I wanted."

"No, you idiot, it's not good!" Pluto practically shouted into the phone. "You're a producer, you think in terms of rivals and enemies. You're not thinking like a prosecutor! An investigation of this magnitude isn't a scalpel aimed at one man; it's a bomb that takes out the entire building! They're not just going after Choi anymore; they're launching a full-scale probe into systemic corruption across the entire entertainment industry."

The floor seemed to drop out from under Yoo-jin's feet.

"They are going to put your whole world under a state-of-the-art microscope," Pluto continued, his voice a torrent of panicked logic. "They'll subpoena phone records, bank accounts, emails, server logs. They'll talk to everyone Kang ever worked with, everyone he ever had a deal with. That means Stellar, Top Tier… and you, Yoo-jin. You were his direct subordinate. You were his public rival. Your company directly and immediately benefited from his downfall. And you can bet your entire company that the first question they're going to ask Kang is how this all started. Who fired the first shot? Anonymous tips don't stay anonymous for long when the feds get involved, my friend. They will follow the breadcrumbs, and every single one of them leads back to you."

As if summoned by Pluto's dire prophecy, a small notification chimed on Yoo-jin's computer screen. A new email had arrived. The sender line was stark, official, and utterly terrifying.

Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office.

"Pluto," Yoo-jin said, his voice now quiet, hollowed out. "I have to go."

He ended the call without waiting for a reply, his eyes fixed on the unread email. He felt a strange sense of temporal displacement, as if he were watching a movie of his own life. He clicked it open. The screen was filled with cold, formal, bureaucratic text, a government seal displayed in the header.

Subject: Formal Request for Cooperation in an Official Inquiry

Dear CEO Han Yoo-jin,

In accordance with Article 221 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office hereby requests your presence for a formal interview. Your cooperation is required in your capacity as a person of interest in our ongoing investigation into allegations of financial misconduct, insider trading, and corrupt practices within the domestic entertainment industry.

We wish to discuss, among other matters, your tenure as a manager at Stellar Entertainment and your specific professional association with former Executive Director Kang Min-hyuk.

A prosecutor will contact your office within 24 hours to schedule a time.

Sincerely,

Prosecutor Kim Young-tae

Special Investigation Division II

He had just walked into a new kind of war, against a new kind of enemy. A prosecutor couldn't be outmaneuvered with a clever press conference. You couldn't perform a targeted sync on the law itself. This new adversary operated on a plane of existence where his powers were not just useless, but a massive liability. They dealt in evidence, in facts, in sworn testimony under penalty of perjury. How could he possibly explain the source of his uncanny knowledge without either confessing to illegal activities or being committed to a psychiatric ward?

Every anonymous tip, every piece of leveraged information, every secret he had ever used was now a landmine waiting to be stepped on in an interrogation room.

He stared at the summons on his screen, the formal black text blurring before his eyes. The immense, crushing weight of his actions descended upon him. He had saved Kang Min-hyuk's life by giving him a new purpose, and that purpose was now about to unleash a firestorm that could consume them all. He had won his battles against the kings and queens of his industry, only to find himself facing a far more powerful and unforgiving opponent. The law had come for him, and in this arena, his greatest weapon was once again just a dangerous, useless decoration.