The Scandal-Proof Producer

The news of Simon Vance's impending arrival and his documentary project descended upon the Aura Management office like a sudden, dramatic change in atmospheric pressure. The air grew thick with a new, heavier kind of tension. Han Yoo-jin had projected the critic's tweet onto the whiteboard, and the team stared at it in stunned silence. The simple, black-and-white text felt more imposing and more significant than all of Top Tier Media's flashy, billion-won advertisements combined. Their small, private war had just been given a global audience.

Go Min-young was the first to find her voice, and it was trembling. "A documentary?" she whispered, her eyes wide with a terrifying awe. "A real documentary, for the whole world to see? What if… what if we fail? In front of everyone? We won't just be a domestic failure; we'll be a global laughingstock."

"This is insane," Kevin Riley added, running a hand through his already messy hair. He looked pale, as if the blood had drained from his face. "I came here to record one song, to set the record straight. I didn't sign up to be in the middle of some international… music war reality show." The scale of the situation was threatening to swallow the fragile confidence he had just begun to build.

Ahn Da-eun was silent, her arms crossed, her expression a stony mask. But Yoo-jin, looking at her with his Producer's Eye, could see the storm of anxiety churning beneath the surface. [Current Thoughts: He's going to be watching everything. Every note I sing, every word I say. What if he decides he was wrong about me? What if he thinks I'm a fraud?]

It was Yoo-jin who had to be the anchor in this sudden tempest. He saw their fear, their panic, and he knew he had to reframe their reality before the pressure crushed them.

"No," he said, his voice sharp and clear, cutting through their collective anxiety. He walked to the whiteboard and stood beside the projection of the tweet. "You're all looking at this the wrong way. You're seeing the risk. You're seeing the pressure. You're not seeing the gift."

They all stared at him, confused.

"Don't you understand?" he explained, a new, fierce strategic light dawning in his eyes. "Chairman Choi's greatest weapon, his only real weapon against us, is money. His entire strategy was to outspend us, to bury us under an avalanche of marketing until we suffocated. He was going to make this a simple war of sales and visibility, a war we could never win."

He tapped the screen, right on Simon Vance's name. "This man changes the rules of the game. His presence introduces a new, independent judge that Chairman Choi cannot buy, cannot influence, and cannot control. The kingmaker is here, and he doesn't care about advertising budgets. He cares about art. This is no longer just a war of sales. It is now, officially, a war of artistic legitimacy, and it will be judged on a global stage. That," he said, looking at each of his artists in turn, "is a battle we can win."

His words began to shift the energy in the room. The fear didn't vanish, but it began to transform into a nervous, high-stakes excitement.

The scene cut across the city, to the cold, imposing office of Chairman Choi Tae-hwan. He, too, was staring at Simon Vance's tweet, but his expression was one of pure, undisguised irritation. He was on the phone with his right-hand man, Executive Director Yoon.

"This critic," Choi said, his voice tight, the usual charming warmth completely gone. "This foreigner… he is a nuisance. An unpredictable variable. He has turned my simple, controlled market competition into a public circus. It complicates things."

"He has a global reputation for being incorruptible, sir," Director Yoon's calm voice replied from the speakerphone. "Any attempt to influence him would likely backfire spectacularly."

"Everyone has a price," Chairman Choi scoffed out of habit, though he knew Yoon was probably right. "But finding his would be more tedious and troublesome than it's worth. No matter. We will adjust our strategy." His irritation was already being replaced by a cold, competitive fire. "If this Mr. Vance wants a story for his little film, then we will give him one. The story of flawless, overwhelming, and inevitable victory."

He made a decision. "Yoon, double the marketing budget for Eclipse. Effective immediately. I want their faces on a billboard in Times Square by the end of the week. Contact the producers of The Tonight Show in America; I want to see what it would cost to book them as a musical guest. Let's see this 'critic' ignore that kind of global dominance." Chairman Choi was going to fight the war of legitimacy with his own weapons: the overwhelming power of money and influence.

Back at the Aura Management office, Han Yoo-jin was adjusting his own strategy. "We have to assume that everything we do from this moment forward is being watched," he told his team. "Not just by our fans, not just by our enemies, but by Simon's documentary crew. They will be looking for cracks. They will be looking for any hint of inauthenticity. Our brand, our story of being 'real'—it can no longer be just a marketing tactic. It has to be our absolute, lived reality, every minute of every day."

He began to assign new, specific roles, adapting to the new battlefield. "Ji-won," he said, "I know you prefer to work by instinct, but I need you to be meticulous. I want every track on this album to be sonically perfect. Simon is a world-class audiophile; he will be listening with headphones that cost more than my car. He will hear every tiny flaw in the mix, every misplaced frequency. We have to give him nothing to criticize on a technical level."

Ji-won nodded, a grim look of determination on his face. This appealed to his deep-seated perfectionism.

"Min-young," Yoo-jin continued. "Your 'Story of the Songs' documentary series is now more important than ever. It's our primary weapon. I want you to continue producing it, but now with an added layer. It's not just the story of the songs anymore. It's the story of us creating these songs during this insane, high-pressure showdown. Document everything. The late nights, the frustrations, the breakthroughs. We will control our own narrative before Simon Vance has a chance to create one for us."

Finally, he looked at his three artists. "Da-eun, Seo-yeon, Kevin. Your job is the simplest and the hardest. Forget the documentary. Forget the charts. Forget Chairman Choi. All you need to do is focus on the music. Practice relentlessly. I need you to be so good, so emotionally connected to the material, that your performances are undeniable. Your honesty will be our shield."

Just as he finished his speech, an email notification dinged on his laptop. The subject line made his heart skip a beat.

Subject: Inquiry from Vance Productions

He opened it. It was a polite, formal request written by a producer from Simon Vance's production company. It requested an initial, off-the-record background interview with CEO Han Yoo-jin, to take place as soon as their team arrived in Seoul in two days. It was a preliminary meeting, a chance for them to "understand the key players" before principal filming began.

Yoo-jin read the email twice, then activated his ability, scanning the text itself for any hidden meaning.

[Email Intent: To gauge the subject's (Han Yoo-jin) character, intelligence, and strategic thinking. To establish a baseline for the documentary's potential 'underdog hero' narrative. The first impression is critical and will heavily influence the initial directorial approach.]

He knew instantly that this was not just a preliminary chat. This was his audition. This meeting would set the tone for how Simon's documentary would portray them to the entire world. It was his chance to frame their story before Chairman Choi could. He took a deep breath and began to type his reply. He agreed to the meeting, knowing he was about to step out of the familiar battlefield of the music industry and into a very different, very public kind of spotlight.