Chapter One: The Whisper War
The news broke on a cold Monday morning in March.
It was early—just past 6 a.m.—when Ji-hoon's manager barged into his apartment, cellphone in hand, his face drained of color. The air was quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the slow drip of coffee that no one would drink that morning.
Ji-hoon sat on the edge of the couch, bleary-eyed, shirt crumpled from sleep. He rubbed his temples as his manager shoved the phone in his face.
"Look at this," said Min-kyu.
On the screen was a video: a young woman's face, eyes glossy with unshed tears. The title blared in all caps:
> "KIM JI-HOON EXPOSED—The TRUTH About Her Death"
The girl was Kang Sae-jin. Once a child star with a promising career, her name had faded into obscurity after a series of DUI charges and club photos gone viral. But today, she was everywhere. The headline trending globally?
> "Kang Sae-jin Dead by Suicide—Family Demands Answers."
Ji-hoon's heart thumped slowly. Not from guilt—he hadn't seen Sae-jin in years—but from dread. The video was already at 2.4 million views.
In it, a popular YouTuber named Yu Seul—a self-styled investigative journalist—claimed Ji-hoon had groomed Sae-jin. The evidence? A photo from six years ago, taken on the set of a commercial shoot. He had been 27. She had just turned 17. There was no romance. No contact afterward. Just a staged photo, the kind taken with dozens of crew and co-stars that day.
But now, that photo was everywhere.
"Why now?" Ji-hoon muttered.
Min-kyu didn't answer.
Instead, he handed Ji-hoon a folder. Inside were screenshots—thousands of them—compiled by the agency's legal team. Tweets calling Ji-hoon a predator. Comments saying he had "driven her to the edge." A trending hashtag:
> #BoycottJihoon
Another page revealed something more alarming: someone had leaked his private number. Threatening messages were pouring in.
Then came the most painful part: a line from Sae-jin's alleged suicide note, shared by her aunt in an exclusive interview:
> "He promised to protect me. But he turned his back when I needed him most."
Ji-hoon's eyes froze on the words. He had never made such a promise. Not to her.
"I need to speak," he said at last. "I need to say something."
"Absolutely not," Min-kyu snapped. "Not yet. It's too fresh. Too emotional. We wait. We prepare."
"But lies travel faster than truth."
Min-kyu rubbed his face. "And truth gets buried when people are mourning a pretty girl with a tragic past."
---
Across the globe, in a cramped dormitory room in Lagos, Nigeria, a nineteen-year-old girl named Eunha was scrolling through the same trending hashtag. But her fingers didn't tap "like." She didn't retweet the rage.
Instead, she was reading.
Reading the timestamps. Reading the old interviews. Reading Kang Sae-jin's career timeline, her psychiatric evaluations, her old photos—zooming in on inconsistencies, like how the alleged suicide note was dated four hours after the reported time of death.
Eunha wasn't a fan of Ji-hoon's. Not really. She had watched one or two dramas of his in high school. But she hated lies. And this? This didn't add up.
She opened a spreadsheet and typed:
> "CASE: Kang Sae-jin / Kim Ji-hoon. Timeline discrepancies – start here."
Then she clicked "Save."
She didn't know it yet, but her small act of defiance would ripple across continents—and eventually help bring down a house of cards built on tears, fame, and carefully orchestrated deceit.