The Scandal-Proof Producer

The world had tilted. Han Yoo-jin paced his living room like a caged animal, the first rays of dawn doing nothing to dispel the chilling darkness that had enveloped him. His apartment, once a sanctuary from the industry's storms, now felt like a fragile bubble, its walls paper-thin against a vast, invisible reality he had never known existed.

SYNCHRONIZATION IS MUTUAL.

The words were burned into his mind, a psychic brand left by the impossible connection with Simon Vance. It wasn't just the shock of the event itself; it was the catastrophic implications. His entire understanding of his own existence had been built on a single, foundational belief: that he was unique. A freak of nature, perhaps, but a singular one. His power was a secret, a burden, and a weapon that was his alone.

That foundation had just been obliterated.

He felt a frantic, paranoid energy thrumming through his veins. He snatched his laptop from the coffee table and replayed the video of Simon Vance's monologue. He watched the critic's face, listened to his voice, his own heart pounding in anticipation. He waited for the jolt, for the psychic tidal wave to hit him again.

Nothing.

The connection was gone. He replayed the clip again, focusing on the key phrase. "A kind of Producer's Eye." Still nothing. The silence from his ability was almost as unnerving as the previous night's chaotic overload. It had been a one-time event, a freak alignment of cosmic tumblers, triggered by a specific, shared concept. It wasn't a repeatable experiment. And that made it even more terrifying.

He sank onto the couch, his mind racing, formulating a new, more profound set of hypotheses. The questions were no longer about business strategy or rival producers. They were existential.

Was his ability a "type"? A known phenomenon in some hidden corner of the world, like being a prodigy or having perfect pitch, only infinitely rarer and more dangerous? Was Simon Vance like him? Did he have his own interface, his own set of rules? Or was he something else entirely, a different model from the same mysterious manufacturer?

And the name. "Producer's Eye." Yoo-jin had always assumed it was a system-generated name, a label created by the ability for his own benefit. But what if it wasn't? What if it was a known term? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. The idea of a hidden world, a secret society of people with powers like his, was the stuff of fantasy novels. It was also a deeply unsettling possibility. Was he a lonely god, or just another player in a game whose rules he didn't even know?

He couldn't find the answers in his own head. He needed data. Cold, hard, verifiable data. His obsession shifted. The war with Chairman Choi, the battle with Sofia Kang—they were still critical, but they were now secondary. His new primary objective, the one that consumed him with a burning, desperate need, was to understand the truth of his own power and Simon Vance's connection to it.

The investigation began immediately. This was a new kind of production, the deconstruction of a human life. He started by calling Go Min-young.

"I have a new project for you," he said, his voice low and intense. "Strictly off the books. Top priority. I need a deep-dive background check on Simon Vance."

"The critic?" Min-young's voice was filled with confusion. "What kind of…"

"Everything," Yoo-jin interrupted. "And I mean everything. I don't want a Wikipedia summary. I want the kind of file Nam Gyu-ri would build. I want you to use every back-channel resource you have. Financial records, property deeds, university transcripts, LexisNexis archives. I want to know who he talks to, where his money comes from. I'm looking for an anomaly, Min-young. A ghost in his history. A moment in his past that doesn't add up. A moment that looks like one of mine."

While Min-young began her digital ghost hunt, Yoo-jin embarked on his own. He locked himself in his office and began a methodical, obsessive review of Simon Vance's entire public-facing career. He pulled up dozens of hours of old video reviews, television appearances, and podcast interviews. He wasn't watching as a fan or a producer anymore. He was watching as a fellow predator, searching for a tell. He fast-forwarded through the music, listening only to Vance's analysis, his turn of phrase, his choice of words.

For hours, he found nothing. Vance was brilliant, articulate, and insightful, but his insights were all grounded in a deep, encyclopedic knowledge of music theory and history. There were no overt displays of supernatural knowledge.

And then, he found it.

It was a small, grainy clip from an obscure British music talk show from fifteen years ago. Vance, looking younger, his hair darker, was being interviewed about a now-forgotten post-punk band called "The Pale Saints," a group he had championed relentlessly when every other critic had dismissed them as derivative noise.

The interviewer, a smarmy man in a cheap suit, leaned forward. "You were truly the only critic who saw their potential, Simon. Everyone else wrote them off, and yet their debut album is now considered a cult classic. What did you see that the rest of us missed?"

Vance leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful look on his face. "That's the thing, you see," he said, his voice a familiar, gravelly rumble. "I didn't see anything. Not in the traditional sense." He paused, searching for the right words. "I felt it. When their singer, a troubled lad from Manchester, performed… it was like feeling a phantom limb ache. A deep, melancholic echo of something I'd felt before. I knew his pain was real, and therefore, I knew his art was real. It wasn't an analysis. It was a recognition."

A melancholic echo.

The phrase hit Yoo-jin like a physical blow. The poetic language, the description of a shared, phantom feeling… it was the language of synchronization. It was the same uncanny sensation he had felt with Da-eun, with Jin, with Kang Min-hyuk.

He rewound the clip and watched it again. Vance's eyes held a familiar, distant look as he described the feeling—the look of a man trying to explain an internal experience that had no logical vocabulary.

Yoo-jin's heart hammered in his chest. This was it. This was the anomaly. The ghost in Simon Vance's past. A hint that his polished, intellectual critiques were built on a foundation of raw, empathetic, and possibly supernatural, feeling.

He leaned back in his chair, the pieces clicking into place. He couldn't get the full truth from a distance. A digital investigation would never be enough. The Starlight Festival was in two months. Simon Vance, drawn by the public battle Yoo-jin had created, would almost certainly be there.

Yoo-jin now had a new, overriding objective, one that dwarfed everything else. It was more important than beating Sofia Kang, more important than taking down Chairman Choi.

He had to get into a room with Simon Vance.

He had to get a live, direct scan of the man. He had to face this echo, this other ghost, and find out the truth of what he was. The corporate war was still raging, but a far more important and deeply personal investigation had just begun. An investigation into the nature of his own soul.