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Chapter Nine: The Midnight Meeting
The message came in code.
"I left the blue scarf at the old gallery."
Only one person would understand it: Eunha.
Three years ago, Sae-jin had once tied a scarf around Eunha's wrist during a casual fan meet, saying, "If anything ever happens, look for blue."
Everyone thought it was a joke.
Eunha never did.
So when the message arrived through an anonymous Instagram account, her blood ran cold.
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It was 1:30 a.m. when Eunha reached the abandoned gallery in Mapo-gu — an old building near the river, closed since a fire in 2020.
She was wearing a hoodie, gloves, no makeup. She had to.
These days, defending Ji-hoon was dangerous.
You could be doxxed for tweeting the wrong thing.
She stepped into the dark hallway, flashlight shaking.
Dust covered the floor, graffiti on the walls.
Then, a flicker of movement.
Someone stepped out.
It was her.
Sae-jin.
She looked thinner. Her hair was dyed black again.
There was a faint scar on her wrist, but her eyes — her eyes were clear.
> "You're alive," Eunha whispered.
> "Barely," Sae-jin said. "They drugged me. Isolated me. Called it 'treatment.' But I escaped two weeks ago."
> "Why contact me?"
> "Because you were the only one who ever asked why I was crying, not how to fix it," Sae-jin said. "And because I need your help."
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They sat on the floor of the gallery.
Sae-jin unzipped her backpack.
Inside were flash drives, printed screenshots, bank transfers, and something that made Eunha's jaw drop:
A video file.
Titled:
"PRESSURE ROOM - March 2024 - Original.mp4"
It showed a man — older, glasses, well-dressed — yelling at her.
> "You want to survive in this industry? You better make that boy shut his mouth. Post the photo. Play the victim. Or I'll take your sister next."
> "He never touched me," she whispered in the video.
> "Doesn't matter. We just need to make it look like he could have."
---
Eunha's stomach turned.
So this was the game.
Frame Ji-hoon. Erase the truth. Turn tragedy into content.
> "Why come out now?" she asked.
> "Because he read the letter," Sae-jin said. "And when he did, for the first time… I didn't feel like a product anymore."
---
Suddenly, footsteps.
They weren't alone anymore.
Sae-jin grabbed her scarf and nodded to the emergency exit.
> "They've been tracking my phone. We have five minutes."
Eunha copied the files onto her encrypted drive, stuffed the rest back into the bag, and ran with her.
Outside, a black van sped past.
Too late.
The gallery door slammed behind them.
Sae-jin turned to Eunha.
> "This time, I'm not running. I want to fight."