The Scandal-Proof Producer

The two days following Yoo-jin's interrogation were a unique form of torture. The office at Aura Management was shrouded in a tense, suffocating silence. The triumphant buzz from the Starlight Festival premiere had been completely extinguished, replaced by a collective, unspoken fear. Every phone call, every email notification, sent a jolt of anxiety through the small team. They were all waiting for the axe to fall, for a news report or an official summons that would signal the end of their company and their leader's freedom.

Yoo-jin maintained an outward façade of unshakable calm, for the sake of his people. He went through the motions of his work, reviewing budgets and taking marketing calls. Inwardly, however, he was replaying every second of his meeting with Prosecutor Kim, dissecting his own performance. His decision to abandon his lawyer's carefully constructed narrative for a raw, emotional confession had been the single biggest gamble of his life. He had bet everything on the hope that he had correctly read the soul of his interrogator. Now, all he could do was wait for the verdict.

His lawyer, Kang Hye-rin, was not so calm. She arrived at the office unannounced on the second morning, storming past a nervous Go Min-young and barging into Yoo-jin's office. She closed the door with a sharp, definitive click.

"Are you insane?" she began, her voice a low, furious hiss. Her usual polished, imperturbable demeanor was gone, replaced by a fiery anger. "I am the best defense lawyer in this city. We spent two days building a perfect, airtight, logical narrative. A fortress. And the moment the first arrow was fired, you walked out of the fortress, threw down your shield, and decided to recite poetry to the enemy!"

Yoo-jin remained seated, his hands clasped calmly on his desk, and let her tirade wash over him.

"You confessed to having a motive!" she continued, pacing in front of his desk like a caged panther. "You didn't just admit you despised Kang Min-hyuk; you gave an impassioned, philosophical monologue on why you despise him! You gave the prosecution everything they needed to paint you as a righteous, arrogant vigilante who took the law into his own hands! I am trying to keep you out of prison, and you are busy trying to win a debate on the soul of the music industry!"

"I felt it was the correct strategy at the moment," Yoo-jin said simply.

"'Strategy'?" she scoffed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "That wasn't a strategy! That was professional suicide! You paid me an exorbitant amount of money for my expertise, and then you ignored it completely! What was the point?"

Before Yoo-jin could answer, the direct line on his desk phone, the one reserved for important calls, rang. Its sharp, piercing chime cut through the tension in the room. Both he and Kang Hye-rin froze. The caller ID was blocked.

Slowly, deliberately, Yoo-jin reached out and pressed the speakerphone button. The entire office outside his glass walls seemed to fall silent, everyone sensing the gravity of the moment.

"Han Yoo-jin speaking."

"CEO Han, please hold for Prosecutor Kim's office," a secretary's voice said, polite and formal.

Kang Hye-rin's face went pale. This was it. The call.

After a moment of static, a different voice came on the line. It was not the prosecutor himself, but one of his junior aides. "CEO Han Yoo-jin? My name is Lee Jin-ho, calling from the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, Special Investigation Division II."

"I'm here," Yoo-jin replied, his own voice steady.

"I'm calling to inform you," the aide continued, his tone bureaucratic and rote, "that after a thorough review of your testimony from two days ago, the prosecution has concluded its preliminary inquiries regarding your person. At this time, you are no longer considered a person of interest in our ongoing investigation."

A collective, silent gasp seemed to come from the team members huddled outside Yoo-jin's office door. Kang Hye-rin stared at the phone, her mouth slightly agape in utter disbelief.

"However," the aide continued, "given your extensive history at Stellar Entertainment, we may request your presence as a witness for context at a future date. We trust you will continue to make yourself available should that be necessary. That is all. Thank you for your cooperation."

The line went dead.

A stunned, profound silence filled the room. It was over. He was cleared. Kang Hye-rin sank into the chair opposite his desk, looking completely bewildered. Her logical, by-the-book, legally sound strategy would have kept him in a gray area of suspicion for months, a constant target. His insane, emotional, high-risk gamble had gotten him cleared in forty-eight hours. It defied all legal logic.

Yoo-jin leaned back in his chair, a wave of relief so powerful it almost made him dizzy washing over him. He knew what had really happened. It wasn't just his speech. He had forged a connection with Prosecutor Kim, an unspoken alliance based on a shared pain and a shared contempt for the industry's monsters. By confessing to his philosophy, he hadn't just convinced the prosecutor of his innocence in the matter of the leaks; he had convinced him of his righteousness. He had accidentally turned a powerful legal adversary into a tacit, unofficial ally. Prosecutor Kim would now pursue Chairman Choi and the rest of the corrupt establishment with a renewed, personal vigor, and he would leave Aura Management out of the line of fire, seeing them as one of the few "clean" players in a very dirty game.

The news spread through the industry with the speed of a viral tweet. The narrative, expertly spun by Pluto and a handful of other friendly journalists, was not that Yoo-jin had gotten lucky. The story they told was that the prosecution had come after the industry's most honest CEO and had found his integrity so absolute, his purpose so unshakable, that they had no choice but to back down. Overnight, his reputation was elevated. He was no longer just a scrappy upstart or a clever producer. He was becoming an icon, an untouchable moral force in an industry starved for heroes. He had, through no intention of his own, weaponized his integrity.

Later that evening, as the celebratory mood finally settled in the office, Yoo-jin received a private, encrypted message on his personal phone. It was from an unknown, untraceable number. The message was short.

Your speech was... effective. You have a powerful sense of conviction. But do not mistake my professional discretion for friendship. The powerful men you are fighting do not play by the rules. The law is a shield, but it is not always a fortress. Be careful.

It was signed with only three initials.

K.Y.T.

Kim Young-tae. The prosecutor had sent him a personal, off-the-record warning. Yoo-jin had won the battle. He had been cleared, vindicated. But the prosecutor's message was a stark reminder that the war was far from over, and that he now had a powerful, unseen observer watching his every move from the highest levels of the law.