The Scandal-Proof Producer

The restaurant was a place that didn't officially exist. It had no sign, no public listing, and a waiting list that was measured in years, not months. It was a hyper-exclusive private dining club in a Gangnam skyscraper, and its primary function was to serve as a neutral ground where power could dine with power. The room Yoo-jin was led to was a study in minimalist wealth: dark wood, brushed steel, and a single, breathtaking floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the glittering diamond-dust sprawl of Seoul. It was soundproofed, secure, and oozing with the kind of quiet authority that made a man feel small. It was the perfect executioner's chamber.

Chairman Choi was already seated at the head of the long, dark table, looking for all the world like a benevolent patriarch about to host a family dinner. He wore a simple but exquisitely tailored charcoal suit, a small, benign smile on his face. To his right, Nam Gyu-ri sat perfectly still, a silent, observant cobra in a sheath of black silk. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes missed nothing.

Yoo-jin was shown to his seat opposite them. The guest of honor. The fatted calf.

"Han Yoo-jin," Chairman Choi boomed, his voice warm and welcoming. "Thank you for coming. Please, sit. Have some tea."

A waiter materialized out of the shadows and poured a fragrant, pale gold liquid into Yoo-jin's cup. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the faint clink of porcelain.

"I must admit," Choi began, breaking the quiet. "Your Aura Management has been a most… invigorating addition to the landscape. A disruptive energy." He took a slow sip of his tea. "I have always believed that true competition sharpens the entire industry. You, my boy, are a whetstone. Annoying, abrasive, but ultimately useful for making the rest of us sharper."

It was a perfectly delivered insult wrapped in a compliment. Yoo-jin felt his hackles rise but kept his expression neutral. This was his first opportunity to get a live, unfiltered read on the Chairman in a controlled environment. He focused, letting his ability wash over the man.

The interface that bloomed in his mind was daunting.

[Name: Choi Jin-hwan]

[Overall Potential (Manipulation): SSS]

[Key Strengths: God-Complex Narcissism, Absolute Resource Control, Master of Psychological Framing, Emotional Detachment]

[Critical Weakness: Grossly Underestimates Threats Not Backed by Conventional Power (i.e., money, political influence, brute force)]

[Current Thoughts: The boy has nerve, I'll give him that. He walked in here alone. Good. Let's see if that nerve holds when we apply a little pressure. Let's peel back the layers. Is his insight just luck, or is it a system? A source? I need to know.]

The information confirmed Yoo-jin's worst fears. The Chairman wasn't just trying to beat him; he was trying to understand him, to deconstruct him like a piece of machinery.

"You flatter me, Chairman," Yoo-jin replied, his voice steady. "I'm just trying to make music people want to hear."

Choi waved a dismissive hand. "Nonsense. You're trying to build an empire, just like I did. Don't be so modest. It's unbecoming." He leaned forward, his benevolent mask shifting slightly to reveal the predator beneath. "But that brings me to the reason for this dinner. A piece of history. The Prism dossier."

He let the name hang in the air. "A masterpiece of predictive analysis. I've read it three times. It's more accurate than any report my own risk management teams have ever produced. So, tell me, Yoo-jin. Indulge an old man's curiosity. What did you see back then that an entire team of seasoned experts at Stellar completely missed? Was it a secret source inside the other company? A particularly insightful gut feeling? Or do you simply understand the fundamental flaws in human nature better than anyone else?"

This was it. The first direct probe. They weren't asking about his company or his artists. They were asking him to explain his power. To lay his soul bare on the dinner table next to the perfectly folded napkins.

Yoo-jin knew his answer here was critical. He couldn't reveal his ability, obviously. But he also couldn't claim it was just a lucky guess. That would sound weak, evasive. He had to construct a believable, alternative explanation for his genius. An explanation that protected his secret while simultaneously reinforcing his own legend.

He took a slow sip of tea, mirroring the Chairman's earlier gesture. He placed the cup down carefully.

"It wasn't a secret source, Chairman," he said, his voice calm and measured. "It was just data. The right kind of data." He met Choi's intense gaze. "People leave traces of their desperation everywhere. It's in the small credit card debts that start piling up. It's in the late-night phone calls to a number they try to hide. It's in the flicker of fear in a singer's eyes during a showcase when they hit a note they know they can't sustain. Most executives are too busy looking at sales projections and social media metrics to see the actual human being who is about to break."

He leaned forward slightly, matching the Chairman's posture. "You don't need a crystal ball to see disaster coming. You just need to be willing to look at the ugly, messy, human data that no one else wants to see. Stellar's experts were looking for flaws in the product. I was looking for cracks in the people."

It was a brilliant deflection. He wasn't lying—he did see those things. He was merely omitting the supernatural interface that collected and analyzed the data for him. He framed his incredible power as a highly developed, almost obsessive, form of empathy and observation. He was claiming to be a better student of human nature, a claim that would appeal to the Chairman's own cynical worldview.

Chairman Choi seemed to consider this, a thoughtful look on his face. He nodded slowly. "A fascinating philosophy."

But before he could respond further, Nam Gyu-ri, who had been as silent and still as the centerpiece, spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the room like a shard of ice.

"A fascinating philosophy indeed, CEO Han," she said, her eyes fixed on him, her expression unreadable. "A very compelling explanation for three of the four risks you identified in the dossier."

She paused, letting a beat of silence hang in the air.

"But it doesn't explain how you knew about the obscure Japanese indie song that Prism's debut demo had allegedly plagiarized. You can't observe a data trail that doesn't exist yet. There was no desperation to read, no flicker of fear to analyze. You predicted a scandal that had no precursor in human behavior."

Her words were a shiv, slid expertly between his ribs, right through the weak point in his carefully constructed armor.

"That wasn't seeing desperation, CEO Han," she concluded, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "That was seeing the future."

Yoo-jin felt a jolt of genuine, ice-cold fear. The polite dinner was over. The pleasantries were done. The interrogation had officially begun. And he had no idea how to answer the question.