Grab the Manual and Debut!-Chapter 24: ✦Scandal [2]✦

Through the tinted glass, Kang-joon watched the city fly by. At a bus stop, a massive digital billboard that had featured his face—part of a fan-funded "Road to Starlight" ad—suddenly flickered and went dark. It was replaced by a generic advertisement for a luxury watch.

"You’re remarkably calm for a kid whose life just caught fire," Detective Han said, glancing at Kang-joon in the rearview mirror. "Usually, they cry. Or they start telling me who their father is."

"Crying does not alter the metadata of a video," Kang-joon replied, his voice a flat, steady line. "And I have no father to call. I am simply calculating the probability of a dashcam recovery from 2019 still being viable."

He wasn’t calm. Inside, the System was a chaotic mess of red windows and error codes.

[System Error: Timeline Divergence!]

[Event: ’Gangnam Hit-and-Run’ was not present in Loops 1-96.]

[Host’s Mental Integrity: 42% (Decreasing)]

Kang-joon looked at his cuffed wrists. In ninety-six lives, he had never been a criminal. He had been a failure, a backup dancer, a vocal coach, and a forgotten trainee, but never a monster.

Who is the boy in that video? he thought. He wears my face. He wears my jacket. He even breathes like me.

***

The SNU library had become Ji-hye’s war room. She had three laptops open, her law textbooks pushed aside to make room for external hard drives.

The internet was a bloodbath. The hashtag #HitAndRunIdol had reached 1.2 million posts. Every major news outlet was running the grainy footage of the boy stepping out of the car. The public didn’t need a trial; they had a "Professor" they could finally hate for being too perfect.

"Focus, Ji-hye," she whispered to herself, her eyes burning from the screen glare.

She opened the "Evidence Log" she had surreptitiously downloaded from the leak. She wasn’t looking at the car or the victim. She was looking at the environment.

"Gangnam-daero, November 14th, 2019. Time: 11:42 PM," she read aloud.

She cross-referenced the weather reports. It had been raining, just like in the video. But then she looked at the background of the footage—a specific neon sign for a 24-hour pharmacy.

She pulled up the historical Google Street View for that intersection from late 2019.

"Wait..."

She leaned closer. In the "Evidence" video, the pharmacy sign was a bright, neon green. In the actual Street View from November 2019, that specific pharmacy was under renovation, covered in blue construction tarps.

"The sign in the video shouldn’t be visible," she muttered, her heart beginning to race. "Unless... the video isn’t from 2019."

She began a reverse-image search on the boy’s jacket—the one with the ’Evergreen Hope House’ patch. Her search results were a dead end until she hit the facility’s archived newsletter from 2021.

There was a photo of the 2021 winter donation drive. A group of boys stood in a line. Kang-joon was there, looking older, sharper. But next to him was a younger boy, his face partially obscured, wearing the exact same jacket.

"The jacket wasn’t issued until 2021," Ji-hye realized, her hands shaking. "The video is a composite. It’s a Deepfake stitched together from a recent recording of Kang-joon and a 2019 accident clip."

But who had the resources to forge a police-grade file? And why target an orphan who had nothing?

The interrogation room was cold. Kang-joon sat under the harsh LED lights, his jacket stained with the milk thrown by the fan earlier that day.

"We’ve looked at your records, Kang-joon-ssi," Detective Han said, tossing a folder onto the table. "Orphanage raised. No permanent address until Starline. A history of high academic scores but ’socially isolated’ behavior. You’re the perfect candidate for a hit-and-run. No one to miss you if you disappeared for a few hours that night." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"On November 14th, 2019, I was working a double shift at the GS25 convenience store in Mapo-gu," Kang-joon said. "The store manager’s name is Mr. Choi. You can check the clock-in logs."

"We did," the Detective replied, his voice dropping to a low, predatory growl. "Mr. Choi says he doesn’t remember you. The logs for that month were lost in a ’server migration’ last year. Convenient, isn’t it?"

Kang-joon felt a chill. Mr. Choi loved him. In every loop, that man was the only person who gave Kang-joon extra kimbap because he knew he was hungry. For him to "not remember" meant the erasure was thorough.

"Detective," Kang-joon said, his voice regaining a sliver of its analytical edge. "If I were a sociopath capable of leaving a man to die, would I be foolish enough to do it while wearing a jacket that identifies my place of residence?"

The Detective paused. "Sometimes the smartest ones want to be caught. Or maybe you just didn’t care."

The door opened, and a junior officer leaned in. "Sir, PD Na from Starline is here. She’s brought the contract termination papers."

The meeting with PD Na was held through the glass of the visitor’s room. She looked like she hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.

"The show is officially on hiatus," she said, her voice sounding dead through the intercom. "The CEO... he can’t have you on the roster anymore. Even if you’re proven innocent, the brand is poisoned. To the public, you’re the boy who got back in the car."

She pushed a document through the slot.

"This is a mutual termination. We won’t sue you for damages if you sign this and agree to never mention Starline again. We’ll even provide a small ’settlement’ to help you... find a new life."

Kang-joon looked at the paper. In ninety-six lives, this was the moment he usually gave up. This was the moment the loop ended—either by his own hand or by a slow, fading disappearance into the crowd.

"I won’t sign it," Kang-joon said.

PD Na blinked. "Kang-joon-ah, be realistic. You have no money. You have no family. The entire country wants you in prison. This is the only mercy you’re going to get."

"I am an orphan, PD-nim," Kang-joon said, and for the first time, he didn’t say it with shame. He said it like a fact of physics. "... I have survived a long time with nothing. I am not afraid of being alone. I am only afraid of a story that doesn’t add up."

He stood up, leaving the unsigned papers on the table.

"Keep your settlement. I’ll keep my name."

As Kang-joon was led back to his cell, the "Social Death" reached its climax.

Starline released an official statement: [Starline Entertainment has terminated its relationship with trainee Lee Kang-joon. We apologize to the victims and the fans for the lack of a more rigorous background check.]

The other thirteen trainees were seen leaving the dorms, heading to their respective homes for the two-month hiatus. Jae-hyun was photographed by paparazzi; he was crying, being shielded by his mother.

Kang-joon sat on the thin mattress of the holding cell.

He looked up at the small, barred window.

[Humanity Metric: 2%.]

[System Status: Critical.]

[New Objective: Survive the Silence.]

"Two months," Kang-joon whispered. "I have two months to find out who stole my face."