The Scandal-Proof Producer

The morning sun streamed into Han Yoo-jin's apartment, but it brought no warmth. He was a ghost in his own home, haunted by the phantom despair of Kang Min-hyuk. The involuntary synchronization had been a violation, a psychic intrusion that had left him feeling raw and vulnerable. He had spent the night in a state of low-grade, anxious dread, terrified of turning on the television or scrolling through his phone, lest another wave of raw, broadcasted emotion hijack his consciousness.

He could not live like this. He refused to be a passive victim of his own power. Fear was a cage, and if he didn't break out of it, it would become his life. His passivity, his constant reactions to the world, had nearly cost him everything. It was time to stop reacting and start acting.

He sat on his couch, a cup of coffee growing cold on the table, and for the first time, began to analyze the new ability not as a curse, but as a system. A system with rules. And if it had rules, it could be understood. It could be controlled.

He replayed the recent sync events in his mind, dissecting them with a producer's analytical detachment.

First, there was Ahn Da-eun on the music video set. That had been a controlled event. He had intentionally focused on her, and the sync rate had been low, a faint echo that had been manageable. The trigger: his own intense focus on a subject he was already deeply connected to.

Second, Jin's desperate phone call. That was semi-controlled. He hadn't willed the connection, but he had opened the channel. The sync had been stronger, triggered by a powerful emotional audio link. It had been disorienting, but he had remained himself.

Third, the news report on Kang Min-hyuk. That was completely uncontrolled. A psychic assault. He had been a passive observer, and the ability had latched on without his consent. The sync rate had been overwhelming, the experience debilitating.

He formulated a hypothesis. The trigger wasn't just his focus. It was a combination of his focus and the intensity of the subject's emotional state. Like a radio receiver, his ability was naturally drawn to the strongest signals. Public figures at their most vulnerable—in moments of extreme triumph, despair, or humiliation—were broadcasting on an open, high-frequency channel. And his mind was automatically tuning in. This made them his greatest psychic liability.

If that was true, then he needed to learn how to build a firewall.

He decided to start a training regimen, right there in his living room. He needed to build up his mental defenses, to learn how to tune out the noise. He pulled up a video on his laptop, a live concert from a hugely popular rival idol group, one famous for their perfect choreography and flashy, but emotionally hollow, performances. He took a deep breath, centered himself, and tried to force a sync.

He focused on the group's leader, a handsome boy with a practiced smile. He pushed with his ability, trying to find an emotional thread to latch onto. The interface flickered weakly in his mind.

[Synchronization Attempt... FAILED.]

[Analysis: Subject emotional resonance too low. Surface-level professionalism and minor physical fatigue detected. No core emotional signal available for lock-on.]

A small jolt of triumph shot through him. His theory was correct. He couldn't sync with something that had no authentic emotional core. His ability fed on truth, even ugly truth. It couldn't subsist on manufactured perfection.

Next, the firewall. He pulled up the "Echo in the Void" music video again, the raw footage of Da-eun's cathartic final take. He braced himself. He hit play, and as he felt the familiar pull, the nascent connection beginning to form, he fought back.

[Synchronization Rate with Subject... 10%...]

Instead of letting it in, he actively pushed it away. He closed his eyes and focused inward. He concentrated on his own physical sensations: the steady rhythm of his own heart, the feeling of the fabric of the couch against his back, the slightly bitter taste of the cold coffee still on his tongue. He tried to build a wall made of his own self, his own reality, to keep the incoming echo out.

It was incredibly difficult, like trying to hold a door shut against a strong wind. The sync rate wavered, fighting against his defenses. [...12%... 9%... 13%... 11%...]. He felt flickers of her exhaustion, her relief, but they were muted, distant, like a conversation heard from another room. He held the wall for the entire duration of the clip. When it was over, he was breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on his brow, his mind aching with a fatigue he'd never known before. But he had done it. He had proven he wasn't just a passive receiver. He could, with immense effort, modulate the signal.

It was in the midst of this mental exhaustion that a breakthrough occurred. A thrilling new idea. If he could build a wall to block the signal, could he build a lens to focus it?

He thought of his new rival, Sofia Kang. He needed to understand her to defeat her, but a full, open synchronization with a mind that sharp and cynical felt incredibly dangerous. He didn't need to feel her entire soul. He just needed to understand her ambition.

He searched online and found a video of a masterclass Sofia had given at a university in the U.S. a year prior. It was a recording of her at her most confident, her most arrogant, lecturing students on the "business of art." This was the perfect testing ground.

He focused his ability on her image, but this time, with a new, specific, surgical intent. He wasn't opening the floodgates. He was targeting a single, specific emotional frequency. He was aiming for her professional ambition, and nothing else.

The interface in his mind responded to his new level of control. The display changed.

[Synchronization Mode: TARGETED]

[Selected Frequency: Professional Ambition]

[Establishing Connection... Sync Rate Climbing... 25%]

It worked. The experience was completely different. He wasn't overwhelmed by a tidal wave of her entire being. Instead, he felt a clean, cold, and powerful sliver of her consciousness. He felt the relentless, driving need to win. He felt the intellectual thrill of taking a chaotic, artistic project and imposing her iron will upon it until it was a perfect, profitable product. He felt her deep-seated, contemptuous dismissal of artistic "purity" as a form of sentimental weakness.

He was experiencing her ambition not as a messy emotion, but as a pure, coherent force. This wasn't just feeling. This was targeted emotional data-mining.

He severed the link, the experience leaving him drained but utterly empowered. His power was not a weakness, a debuff he had to endure. It was a tool, and its effectiveness depended entirely on the skill and will of its user. He had been letting it wash over him, a passive victim of its evolution. Now he understood. Control was the key.

He could learn to build shields to defend against unwanted emotional attacks, like the one from Kang Min-hyuk. And he could learn to construct lenses to perform targeted emotional espionage, like the one he'd just tested on Sofia.

His ability wasn't a curse. It was a difficult, dangerous, and incredibly sophisticated new instrument. And he was finally going to learn how to play it with the precision of a maestro. The ghost in the machine wasn't his master. He was.