The Scandal-Proof Producer

The walls of Yoo-jin's apartment felt thin, the city outside too loud. He was stretched taut as a piano wire, the pressures converging on him from all sides. Jin's desperate, protocol-breaking call had left a residue of secondhand guilt in his mind. Sofia Kang's blatant power play with the scheduling leak was a logistical and PR nightmare that demanded an immediate, strategic response. He was exhausted, his mind a frantic buzz of calculations and counter-moves.

He paced his living room, a glass of water in his hand, trying to think. To distract himself, to find a moment of grim satisfaction that might clear his head, he pulled up a news report on his tablet. The headline was about his own invisible handiwork: DIRECTOR KANG MIN-HYUK FORMALLY CHARGED; PROSECUTORS CITE 'OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE' OF EMBEZZLEMENT.

The report cut to a chaotic video clip from earlier that day. A haggard, broken-looking Kang Min-hyuk being shoved through a ravenous mob of reporters as he left the prosecutor's office. The cameras flashed like strobing, merciless weapons. Microphones were thrust in his face. His hair was disheveled, his expensive suit rumpled. The arrogant, powerful man Yoo-jin had known was gone, replaced by a cornered, terrified animal.

Yoo-jin watched, a cold, detached sense of victory settling in him. This was the consequence. This was the result of his decision to finally unsheathe his sword.

And then it happened.

He wasn't trying to. He wasn't focusing. He was just watching the news, a passive observer. But the raw, uncut desperation radiating from the man on the screen, the sheer psychic force of his terror, was a magnet. Yoo-jin's ability, now hypersensitive and unstable, latched onto it against his will.

[Forced Synchronization Initiated. Subject: Kang Min-hyuk]

The interface slammed into his vision, unwelcome and jarring.

[Emotional State: Acute Terror (90%), Impotent Rage (80%), Public Humiliation (95%)]

[Synchronization Rate... 10%... 25%... 40%...]

"No," Yoo-jin whispered, trying to look away from the tablet, trying to sever the unwanted connection. But it was like trying to stop a tidal wave with his bare hands. The link was established, and he was locked in, a helpless passenger in another man's nightmare.

He was hit by a flood of another man's emotions, and they were toxic, corrosive things. He felt the suffocating, claustrophobic terror of being trapped, the feeling of the walls of the world closing in. He felt Kang's burning, impotent rage, a white-hot fury directed at everyone and no one. He felt the bitter, acidic taste of betrayal as the memory of Yoo-jin's "Loyalty. It's expensive" email flashed through Kang's mind, a looping, torturous thought that confirmed his baseless conviction: he had been sold out by Chairman Choi.

But the worst of it, the most profoundly disorienting sensation, was the crushing weight of Kang's public humiliation. Yoo-jin felt the phantom burn of the camera flashes on his own skin. He felt the contemptuous stares of the reporters, the shame of knowing his wife and children were watching this, the absolute, soul-crushing certainty that his life, as he knew it, was utterly and completely over. It was a profoundly unpleasant experience, like being forced to swallow poison.

He gritted his teeth, fighting against the invasive feelings, trying to maintain a sliver of his own consciousness. But the sync rate deepened, pulling him further under. 50%... 60%...

And then he saw it. A flash of something from the darkest, most secret recesses of Kang Min-hyuk's mind. It wasn't just despair. It was an image, clear and cold. A high bridge at night, the dark water of the Han River swirling below. The feeling of the cold metal of the railing under his hands. The overwhelming, seductive desire to make it all just… end. To leap into the silence and escape the noise. It wasn't a plan. It was an impulse. A suicidal ideation, born of absolute hopelessness.

A new alert, one Yoo-jin had never seen before, flashed red in his mind, screaming at him.

[CRITICAL ALERT: Subject exhibiting signs of extreme psychological distress. Probability of self-harm actions in next 24 hours: 45% and rising.]

The message was a bucket of ice water to his face. He had destroyed this man. He had meticulously, ruthlessly, torn down every pillar of his life to protect his own people. He had justified it as a necessary act of war. But this? Was this part of the victory? Did his success require this man's actual death?

The horrifying moral calculus of the question—the sudden, terrible weight of responsibility for another human soul—was so shocking that it gave him the surge of adrenaline he needed to fight back. He squeezed his eyes shut, violently wrenching his consciousness away from the connection. He threw the tablet onto the couch and stumbled back, gasping for breath, his own body trembling.

The link shattered. The phantom emotions receded like a foul tide, but they left a toxic residue behind. He was nauseous. A cold sweat covered his body. The image of the bridge, the feeling of Kang's despair, was burned into his brain.

He had just been forced to experience the full, devastating human cost of his own actions. He had thought that unsheathing his sword had been the hard part. He was a fool. This was the hard part. Dealing with the ghosts of the men he struck down.

His ability, his greatest weapon, had revealed its terrible price. It would not allow him to have clean, righteous victories. It would not allow him the luxury of seeing his enemies as mere obstacles on a board. It would force him to feel the shrapnel, to experience the suffering, to witness the collateral damage of his own war. He was a predator who was now cursed to feel the dying heartbeat of his prey.

Yoo-jin slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, staring at his own shaking hands. The question was no longer if he had what it took to win. He knew he did. The new, terrifying question was whether he had what it took to survive his own victories without losing himself in the process.