The Scandal-Proof Producer

Go Min-young's small apartment felt like a hospital room where a soul was in critical condition. She was huddled on her couch, wrapped in a thick blanket, but a deep, unshakable chill had settled in her bones. The vicious, synthesized words still echoed in her mind, a toxic loop playing over and over. Fraud. A weight tied around their ankles. Dragging everyone down.

Yoo-jin's attempt to use his ability as a psychic shield was only partially successful. He knelt before her, his expression tight with concentration, and she could feel his effort like a warm, steadying hand on her shoulder. It blunted the sharp edges of her panic, kept the tidal wave of terror from completely overwhelming her, but it couldn't erase the poison. The words had already been heard. The doubt had already taken root.

"Maybe the voice was right," she whispered, her voice fragile and broken. She looked up at Yoo-jin, her eyes swimming with tears. "My songs… they're all about my own pain. About being lonely, about being scared. Maybe it's selfish. Maybe it is just… sad."

Before Yoo-jin could formulate a response, the apartment door opened. He had called them. Ahn Da-eun and Kang Ji-won stood in the doorway, their expressions a mixture of grim concern and fierce, protective anger. They had come as soon as they'd heard.

Da-eun, who understood trauma and psychological warfare better than anyone, moved first. She walked over to the couch, sat down next to Min-young, and took her small, cold hand. She didn't offer empty platitudes or tell her not to worry. She met Min-young's pain with the full, unflinching force of her own experience.

"Your songs aren't sad, Min-young," Da-eun said, her voice low and intense. "They're honest. And there is a universe of difference between the two." She squeezed Min-young's hand. "When I was at Stellar, they tried to make me sing bright, happy, empty songs about first loves I'd never had. The words felt like lies in my mouth. Like poison. I felt like I was suffocating."

She leaned closer, her eyes locked on Min-young's. "But your lyrics… the first time I sang 'My Room,' it was the first time I felt like someone else in the world understood the darkness. The loneliness. You didn't drag me down into your sadness. You reached into my own, gave it a name, and showed me I wasn't alone in it. Your words aren't a weight, Min-young. They're a weapon. And our enemies, these pathetic machine-worshippers, are so terrified of that weapon that they had to resort to this cruel, childish trick to try and break it."

Da-eun's words were a powerful balm, a direct counter-narrative to the AI's poison. Min-young's trembling began to subside slightly.

Then, Kang Ji-won, the cynical genius who communicated more fluently through minor keys than through human conversation, stepped forward. He held a small, portable Bluetooth speaker. He looked awkward, out of his element, but his eyes held a rare, fierce sincerity.

"Words are just one part of the equation," he said, his voice gruff. "They are the blueprint. But this… this is the building."

He pressed a button on his phone. A melody filled the small apartment. It was the instrumental arrangement he had written for their special encore medley, the one he had been composing when he'd first heard about the attack. The music was beautiful, a complex and soaring piece that was quintessentially his—it was melancholic and intricate in its verses, but it built to a chorus that was full of a defiant, resilient hope.

"I wrote this after reading your final lyrics for the encore," Ji-won said, looking not quite at Min-young, but at a point on the wall just past her shoulder, as if the emotion was too direct for him to confront head-on. "This melody… the hope that's in it… it only exists because of the honesty of your words. It's a response to them. They are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. Without your 'sad' words, my music would just be… empty notes."

It was the most vulnerable, most sincere praise he had ever given anyone. Coming from the guarded, cynical Kang Ji-won, it was more powerful than a thousand flowery compliments.

It was a perfect, three-pronged counter-attack, an unplanned symphony of support. Da-eun, the singer, offered the emotional validation. Ji-won, the composer, offered the artistic validation. And Yoo-jin, the producer, offered the steadfast, protective presence that held the space for them all. They were rebuilding her confidence, piece by piece, not with logic or data, but with a web of genuine human connection and shared artistic purpose.

They were being her firewall.

Min-young looked from Da-eun's fierce, loyal eyes, to Ji-won's awkward but sincere face, to Yoo-jin's unwavering, protective gaze. She listened to the soaring, hopeful melody that had been born from her own quiet pain. The algorithm had been designed to isolate her, to make her feel like a weak link, a fraud who was alone in her sadness. It had attacked her as an individual. It had not, and could not, account for the strength of her found family.

The doubt in her eyes, the poison that had taken root, began to recede. It was replaced by a new, quiet, steely fire.

"Okay," she said, her voice still shaky, but firm now. A single tear traced a path down her cheek, but it was a tear of release, not despair. She gently pulled her hand from Da-eun's and reached for a pen and a notepad on her coffee table.

"The second verse of the encore," she said, her voice gaining strength with each word. "It's not strong enough. It's too passive. After what they just tried to do…" She looked up at them, her team, her family. "It needs to be a counter-attack."

Yoo-jin felt a surge of pride so powerful it almost knocked him back. The AI had tried to break their lyricist. Instead, it had just given her a reason to write her masterpiece.

The team huddled together in the small apartment, the last vestiges of fear burned away by a shared, defiant purpose. They had faced OmniCorp's most insidious psychological weapon and had countered it not with technology, but with their greatest, most human strength: each other. They were stronger, more united, and more determined than ever. And they were ready to take the stage and show the world exactly what a human soul sounds like when it refuses to be silenced.