The Scandal-Proof Producer

The air in the Aura Management conference room was thick enough to taste—a stale brew of cold coffee, fried chicken grease, and the electric hum of anxiety. It was ten o'clock at night, the eve of the biggest battle of their short, tumultuous existence. Empty energy drink cans stood like fallen soldiers on the long table, casualties of a war waged against exhaustion.

Han Yoo-jin stood at the head of the table, the blue light of the projector casting his face in a ghostly glow. He was in his element, the unflappable general surveying the battlefield one last time before the charge. On the screen was the final rollout schedule for Ahn Da-eun's first full album, a meticulous, minute-by-minute plan for its global release.

"The digital distributors are all green-lit," Yoo-jin said, his voice a calm anchor in the tense silence. "The pre-save numbers have exceeded our most optimistic projections by twelve percent. All major streaming platforms have confirmed playlisting for the title track." He tapped a key, and the powerful, stark artwork for the lead single filled the screen. "'Titan' will hit at precisely midnight, Korean Standard Time. It's the perfect opening salvo. Big, loud, and undeniable. It meets Chairman Choi's challenge of perfection with raw, untamable power."

He looked around the room for nods of agreement. Go Min-young, the shy lyricist, offered a tired but supportive smile. Kang Ji-won, the reclusive composer they called Ghost, gave a single, curt nod. His approval was purely technical; he had built 'Titan' to be an arena-shaking monster, and he knew it would perform its function perfectly.

Yoo-jin's eyes settled on Ahn Da-eun. She sat hunched in her chair, tracing the rim of a paper coffee cup, her gaze fixed on the table. She hadn't said more than five words in the last hour.

"Da-eun? We're all set," Yoo-jin said gently, mistaking her silence for last-minute jitters. "This is it."

Da-eun looked up. Her eyes weren't nervous. They were clear and intensely serious. "Wait," she said.

The single word cut through the room's fatigue like a shard of glass. Ji-won straightened in his chair. Min-young's small smile vanished.

Yoo-jin kept his expression neutral. "What is it?"

"I don't think 'Titan' should be the title track," Da-eun stated, her voice quiet but firm, leaving no room for misunderstanding.

The silence that followed was heavier than before. It wasn't just a disagreement; it was a crack in the very foundation of their unity. This was the artist, the heart of the entire project, rejecting the brain's final, critical command.

"It's the most commercially viable song on the album, Da-eun," Yoo-jin said, his tone shifting from commander to negotiator. He kept his voice even, reasonable. "It's a declaration. It's what we need to go head-to-head with a behemoth like Eclipse. It's the smart play."

"Is it?" she countered, leaning forward. "Or is it the safe play? 'Titan' is a perfect punch, I get it. It's what you built it to be." She glanced at Ji-won. "It's what we built it to be. But it's not my punch. It's not the heart of the album. The heart… the real story… is 'Echo in the Void'."

Kang Ji-won let out a slow breath. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "'Echo' is a seven-minute experimental rock ballad with a non-standard structure and a lyrical theme that will make half the audience want to call their therapist," he said, not unkindly. "It's a masterpiece. It's the song critics will write essays about a decade from now. But you release that into the wild against a perfectly engineered K-pop track at midnight, and it will get slaughtered in the first six hours."

"Why are you so afraid of being slaughtered?" Da-eun shot back, her voice rising with a passion that had been absent all night. "We were supposed to be slaughtered when we released 'My Room'! Everyone said it was too personal, too raw, that it wouldn't work. We didn't listen to them then. We asked people to listen, to really listen. Why are we suddenly afraid to ask them now?"

Her eyes bored into Yoo-jin's. "Are we becoming the thing we're fighting against? A company that polishes the art until it's just a shiny product? That sands down the most interesting edges for a better opening week?"

The accusation hung in the air, sharp and painful. It was Yoo-jin's own philosophy being thrown back in his face. He felt his control over the situation, over his meticulously laid plan, slipping away. He needed to understand. He focused his gaze on her, activating the ability that had never failed him.

He expected the familiar, clean interface. He expected a clear line of text under [Current Thoughts].

Instead, the system in his mind glitched.

For a terrifying split second, the pristine data fields fractured like a broken mirror. The text shimmered, broke apart, and reformed into something chaotic, something alien.

[Overall Potential: S]

[Key Strengths: Transcendent Vocal Interpretation, Unflinching Authenticity]

[Critical Weakness: Fear of Inauthenticity (NEW!)]

The line for her current thoughts was no longer a simple sentence. It was a corrupted data stream, a collage of nightmarish, symbolic images flooding his consciousness.

[Current Thoughts: A microphone falling in slow motion onto an empty, dark stage... the sharp, deafening sound of feedback static... Chairman Choi's smiling face reflected in a platinum record... Don't let me become a beautiful lie... Don't let me become them...]

Yoo-jin flinched. It wasn't information; it was a psychic wound. He wasn't seeing her logic; he was feeling her terror. The fear wasn't about choosing the wrong song. It was an existential dread of her success becoming a betrayal of her survival. If he forced her to sing 'Titan' as the lead, he wouldn't just be making a strategic choice—he'd be confirming her deepest fear: that even here, in the sanctuary he'd built for her, her truth would eventually be sacrificed for the bottom line.

"Yoo-jin?" Go Min-young's voice was barely a whisper, but it broke his stupor. He looked over at her. She had been wringing her hands, her knuckles white.

"She's right," Min-young said, her voice trembling but finding its strength. "I… I wrote the words for both songs. 'Titan' is a suit of armor. But 'Echo'… 'Echo in the Void' is her soul. It's the story. It's the reason we're all here. It just feels… more true."

The room was now officially divided. Two against two. The producer and the composer on one side, the artist and the lyricist on the other. Strategy versus spirit.

Yoo-jin was paralyzed. He looked from Da-eun's defiant face to Ji-won's pragmatic scowl. His ability had given him not a solution, but a horrifying glimpse of the potential cost of his decision. Forcing the issue would create a wound in the heart of his company, a resentment that might never heal. Giving in felt like tactical suicide, like bringing a poem to a gunfight.

He didn't get to make a choice.

Ahn Da-eun pushed her chair back, the screech of its legs against the floor a final, jarring note. She stood up. Her expression wasn't angry anymore. It was resolved.

"I can't do it," she said softly, looking only at him. "I can't stand on that stage and sell them a victory I don't feel is mine. Not as the first thing they hear."

Without another word, she turned and walked out of the conference room, leaving the door swinging gently in her wake.

The three men sat in a stunned, suffocating silence. On the projector screen, the bold, confident artwork for 'Titan' seemed to mock them. The perfect plan lay in ruins, shattered not by an outside enemy, but by the very authenticity Yoo-jin had sworn to protect. He stared at the empty doorway, the phantom image of a microphone falling in an endless, silent void burning behind his eyes.