Chapter 85

Chapter 85. Twenty Forehead Flicks for Impersonation

He hadn't even been inside for three minutes, and she'd already caught him?

Did she knock him out the second she saw him?

Dae-hun and I immediately ran into the hotel.

"This is crazy! She's insane! Who handles something this huge without even warning us...?! Hyung, call 119."

"She'll be fine. She's a Marine who catches ghosts. And I called Lee Eun-bit."

Dae-hun and I stopped at the elevator for a moment, then decided to run up the stairs instead.

Eventually, we reached the door to Ha Yoo-jin's room.

We didn't have a key card, so we knocked and quietly waited.

It was a tense moment.

Beep.

The electronic lock sounded, and the door swung open.

The person who opened it was our valiant former Staff Sergeant Kim Jin-hee.

Jin-hee looked briefly confused when she saw how pale Dae-hun had become.

"Hey, why does your face look like that? Were you that worried about me?"

"Of course I was! Where's the stalker? He's not dead, right? He's alive, right?"

Dae-hun shoved past Jin-hee and rushed into the hotel room.

Jin-hee, who had welcomed us with a softened expression, immediately frowned.

He'd told me to call 119.

Apparently, he hadn't been worried about Jin-hee.

He'd been worried about the stalker.

Well.

We did need to get a confession out of him, so it would be troublesome if he died.

"Ha... Seriously. You're pissing me off the second the job's done."

Jin-hee sighed and followed Dae-hun into the room.

I followed too and checked the scene.

It was astonishing.

The man we'd seen entering through the front doors was struggling with all four limbs tied to the legs of an upright bed.

"Who the hell are you people?!"

"A-As expected of a Marine..."

Dae-hun stared in admiration at the stalker, who was perfectly alive and merely tied up tightly.

He had clearly crawled under the bed.

Apparently, Jin-hee had grabbed his arms and legs while he was still underneath, fastened them to the bed legs with cable ties, then lifted the entire bed upright with him still attached.

"What? Marine?! You bastard! I'm from the Invincible Marines, Class 80! What class are you?"

"What? Class 80? This bastard's impersonating the Marines? You're dead. Twenty flicks."

Apparently, the punishment for impersonating a Marine was twenty forehead flicks.

Every time Jin-hee flicked the stalker's forehead, the impact echoed through the whole room.

Thwack!

Thwack!

The sound of her finger striking his forehead was louder than his screams.

For some reason, I felt as though I were looking at my own future.

With trembling hands, I called Yoon Jin-seo.

"Why aren't you here yet? Hurry up. We tied the stalker up and we're hitting him right now. Would this still count as self-defense...?"

"What? You're hitting a stalker after tying him up? Are you using a blunt weapon? If so, is it something that was already in the room, or something you normally carry... No, wait. What did you tie him with? Rope? Electrical wire?"

"No, it's... Well, at least it's not a blunt weapon."

"Not a blunt weapon? That's fortunate. I'm already on my way, but are you continuing to hit him? Also, what you used to restrain him matters. What was it? Cable ties? Or possibly something like a dog leash..."

This bastard already had way too many questions.

Though if we were being technical, Kim Jin-hee's finger probably counted as a blunt weapon in its own way.

For now, I called Lee Ho-seong and Lee Eun-bit too and hurried them along.

At this rate, the stalker's skull might get crushed before they arrived.

After delivering all twenty flicks, Kim Jin-hee turned toward me.

"CEO, you should say something too. This arrogant intruder dared to impersonate the Marines."

At Jin-hee's words, an extremely nervous Dae-hun quietly left the room.

"Y-You should consider yourself lucky, punk. Back in my day, it was thirty..."

"Thirty? As expected of my senior!"

Once you told a lie you couldn't take back, your only option was to keep covering it with more lies.

That was the destiny of a liar.

To make sure Ha Yoo-jin didn't discover him, we moved the man, bed and all, into the room next door.

We didn't want to traumatize someone with a soft-tofu mentality.

At the very least, we wanted to protect her from learning that a stalker had been hiding underneath her bed.

Kim Jin-hee had apparently rented the neighboring room for days when she couldn't enter Ha Yoo-jin's room.

We immediately began questioning the stalker so we could hand him over to the police.

Since the interrogation would take several days, I left that part to Dae-hun and Jin-hee.

According to Dae-hun, horrifying torture was taking place inside.

Still, judging from the regular payment notifications coming from a nearby porridge restaurant, they seemed to be feeding him properly.

Then, on a day when Ha Yoo-jin's schedule allowed it, I personally visited Riven's practice room.

Of course, since it was Riven's home ground, I couldn't simply walk in whenever I wanted.

So I asked Ha Yoo-jin to meet me separately, telling her I wanted to help with the obsessive fan problem.

I suggested Universe Entertainment's dorm.

The facilities weren't as good as the hotel, but it offered proper privacy.

"Ah... the dorm? A dorm would be nice, but I don't think my living space is actually being threatened yet. Should I ask my manager?"

"Hold off on calling your manager for a moment."

Ha Yoo-jin, who had come into the café with me, ordered lemonade without hesitation.

Good.

Judging by her complexion, she could use plenty of vitamin C.

For now, this was what we'd learned from questioning the stalker.

The stalker himself wasn't currently affiliated with Riven, Root, or Route.

But back when Ha Yoo-jin had been at Route Entertainment, before joining 〈Rebooting〉, he'd been extremely close with the manager assigned to trainees there.

Close enough to plan crimes together.

That manager had been secretly in love with Ha Yoo-jin.

There was a ten-year age gap.

Of course, not every relationship with a ten-year age difference was problematic.

But this bastard's understanding of relationships was severely twisted.

He had hired a stalker to repeatedly create dangerous situations, then played the role of the dependable manager who came to rescue her.

In other words, the stalker played the hired villain.

The manager played the righteous male lead.

One bastard impersonated a Marine.

The other bastard impersonated a manager.

Route Entertainment was really running a fantastic operation.

"You had a lot of trouble with obsessive fans back when you were at Route too, right? And now you're staying at a hotel... Does Riven not know? I guess since you're technically a trainee, they may not have thought that far."

"No. I've never told Riven. ...But you're right. Back at Route, the dorm helped, but my manager also took incredibly good care of me."

"Your manager? The manager who handled you at Route?"

Ha Yoo-jin clearly had no idea he'd had ulterior motives.

Once this became public, she'd find out eventually.

It honestly made me feel bad for her.

Looking back, something from that night had started to feel creepy.

After we'd subdued the stalker and Ha Yoo-jin returned to her room, I'd noticed a suspicious man wandering meaninglessly around the hallway outside her door.

That was probably her manager.

He'd ordered the stalker to harass Ha Yoo-jin, then stayed nearby so he could rush in the moment she asked him for help.

But when she never contacted him, he'd probably gotten suspicious and come up to check.

"Then it sounds like obsessive fans have entered your dorm more than once. Didn't your manager ever tell you to report them to the police?"

"Hmm... He did, but he's a very considerate person. Before taking anything to the police, he'd calm me down properly first, so I've never actually reported anything. You need courage to report someone to the police, you know. And he said constantly sending people to the police station wouldn't be good for our image either..."

The bastard needed to keep playing the protector.

Of course he'd stop her from reporting them to the police.

Even if the incidents weren't staged, a manager who refused to call the police and allowed the same obsessive fan to keep harassing his artist wasn't a manager at all.

"He sounds like a wonderful person... What was his name, by any chance?"

"Manager Kim Tae-jung."

Kim Tae-jung.

It wasn't Shin Hyung-geol himself ordering the stalking, as I'd hoped.

Still, I should probably thank Tae-jung.

For remaining an employee of one of Shin Hyung-geol's subsidiaries.

I could probably cook something up with this.

I stepped outside the café for a moment and called Park Gwang-cheol.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok! I was starting to worry because the next 〈Rebooting〉 performance must be coming up soon and I hadn't heard from you."

"Sorry. Something came up. For now, I think we should postpone the American tour until after the broadcast and just get a song from Billy Aaron first. That's why I called."

"I've already asked him to compose something. We couldn't afford to waste too much time."

Someone only earned the compliment good at his job once he started treating other people's work as seriously as his own.

"All right. Understood. I think I'll be able to give you even better news soon, so please tell Billy Aaron that too. And tell him I said thank you."

"Sure. I'll do that."

More or less, the connection between the stalker and Kim Tae-jung had been confirmed.

Wherever you went, apparently there were always managers hiding in people's lives who could easily qualify as Nam Won-soo Season 2.

As Park Gwang-cheol already knew, the fourth competition was just around the corner.

I couldn't afford to delay any longer.

I called Shin Hyung-geol to the café on the first floor of Ha Yoo-jin's hotel.

"You called me, so I came in a good mood. But what is this place, and what exactly do you want?"

Shin Hyung-geol greeted me in his usual friendly tone.

He probably already suspected that I was going to propose another deal.

"If you're planning to bring up control of the debut group again, I'm afraid I'll have to apologize in advance. It's difficult to give you what you asked for, CEO Do."

After the debut group's six months of promotions ended, I could debut the Univ members again as a proper Universe team.

But the debut-group period would still be when their influence was at its highest.

Because I was going to make sure of that.

"Let's go upstairs and talk. There are too many ears around here."

Shin Hyung-geol was right.

I planned to bring up control of the debut group again.

This time, with a stronger piece of leverage.

Kim Tae-jung.

Shin Hyung-geol quietly turned his head toward the elevators before speaking.

"I know CEO Do Jun-hyeok isn't the type to offer improper hospitality... but I'm not sure today's conversation will actually be meaningful."

"I'll make sure it is."

"...Let's go upstairs, then."

I headed with Shin Hyung-geol toward the glorious Marine Room.

Before we even made it there, Yoon Jin-seo called me.

"Yes, hello."

"Hello, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok? We have a major development."

His voice sounded unusually urgent.

"What happened?"

"There's a hidden camera installed above the built-in closet in Ha Yoo-jin's room! This guy wasn't just pretending to be an obsessive fan. He's a real stalker too!"

So it had really gone that far.

Then again, Kim Tae-jung was exactly the kind of bastard who would order someone sneaking into her room to do something that invasive too.

"This won't do. I think we need to report this to the police immediately. I don't want to delay any longer! Lee Eun-bit agrees with me."

"You're right. Still, give me exactly two more minutes. Just two."

I ended the call.

Apparently, the future was telling me to drive the nail all the way in.

Commissioned stalking.

And now hidden-camera filming.

This was a serious sex crime.

"Whose call was that? You look surprised."

"Ah, it was nothing."

The more I looked at Shin Hyung-geol, who knew absolutely nothing, the more certain I became of victory.

If another disgraceful manager-trainee scandal broke out after the Lee Eun-ji incident, then at the very least Chairman Shin would have no choice but to completely withdraw from the front line of 〈Rebooting〉.

We reached the Marine Room and knocked.

About five seconds later, the door quietly opened.

"Ah, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok. You really did arrive in two minutes. Can I report it now?"

"Yes. Go ahead. Chairman Shin? Please come in first."

Shin Hyung-geol gave Yoon Jin-seo a deeply suspicious look before stepping into the room.

And there, he was greeted by quite the spectacular sight.

A group of complete strangers he'd never seen before.

Yoon Jin-seo.

Lee Eun-bit.

Lee Ho-seong.

Kim Jin-hee, holding a bundle of cable ties.

And finally...

The stalker, whose wrists and ankles had swollen bright red.