Grab the Manual and Debut!-Chapter 27: ✦Scandal [5]✦

Kang-joon didn’t wait for Kim Sang-hoon to answer. The moment the heavy glass door hit the wall, his body moved on instinct—a desperate, frantic coordination born from years of dodging the shadows of his own past.

"Hey! You there!" one of the men shouted, his voice cutting through the mindless hum of the gaming rigs.

Kang-joon bolted. He didn’t head for the front entrance; he knew the layout of these basement dens. He shoved past a row of startled teenagers, his shoulder clipping a monitor, and dived into the narrow corridor leading to the emergency exit behind the kitchen.

Behind him, he heard the heavy thud of boots and the clatter of a chair being kicked aside. He burst through the rear door into the freezing night air of the alleyway. The smell of rotten trash and salt hit him instantly, but he didn’t stop to breathe.

He ran. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

His lungs burned. Every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass. This wasn’t a scripted dance routine or a calculated move for a camera. This was the raw, terrifying reality of being hunted. He turned a sharp corner, his sneakers skidding on the damp pavement, and flattened himself against a rusted shipping container.

He stayed there, his heart hammering so hard against his ribs he thought it might crack them. He pressed a hand over his mouth to muffle his heaving breaths. He felt incredibly small.

I’m not a criminal, he thought, tears of pure, unadulterated anger pricking his eyes. I’ve done nothing but work. Why won’t they let me just... exist?

A few meters away, the heavy metal door of the cafe creaked open. The two men stepped out.

"He couldn’t have gone far," one muttered, his voice low and gravelly. "Check the docks. The Director said he can’t be allowed to talk to the witness again."

Kang-joon closed his eyes, his forehead leaning against the cold metal of the container. The Director. Not the CEO of Starline. Not a PD. A Director.

He waited until their footsteps faded toward the water before he sank to the ground, his legs finally giving out. He pulled his phone from his pocket with trembling fingers. It was a regular smartphone, the screen cracked at the corner, but it was his only link to a world that was currently trying to devour him.

He opened his social media app. It was a masochistic habit, but he couldn’t stop. He saw his own face in a "breaking news" thumbnail. The headline read: The Orphan’s Hidden Face: Was the ’Genius’ Persona a Cover for a Psychopathic Past?

He scrolled down, his vision blurring. A single sob escaped his throat. He was Rank 14. He was an orphan. He was a "hit-and-run" suspect. And right now, he was just a boy hiding behind a trash bin, wondering why the 97th life had to be the cruelest one of all.

Ji-hye’s POV

Ji-hye’s bedroom was a mess of law textbooks and empty coffee cans. She hadn’t left the house in two days. The air was stale, and her eyes felt like they were filled with sand, but she couldn’t stop.

She sat in front of her dual-monitor setup, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She was navigating a municipal database that most people didn’t even know existed—a traffic log archive for the Gangnam-daero district from 2019.

"Come on," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "The raw footage has to be here. The police only used a copy for the leak."

The screen flickered. A loading bar crawled across the monitor.

Access Granted: Municipal Traffic Archive - November 2019.

Ji-hye’s breath hitched. She navigated to the 14th. 11:40 PM. 11:42 PM.

She found the file. It was a wide-angle shot from a stationary city camera located two blocks away from the dental clinic. It was low-quality, meant for traffic flow, not identification, but it captured the black sedan as it sped away from the accident.

She played it. Then she played the "Evidence" video from the news report on her phone side-by-side.

"There," she whispered, a tear of relief hitting her cheek.

In the traffic footage, the black sedan had a noticeable dent in the rear bumper before the accident happened. In the "Evidence" video—the one that framed Kang-joon—the car was pristine until the collision.

"It’s a different car," she said, her voice rising in the quiet room. "They used a similar model for the deepfake, but they missed the pre-existing damage on the real one."

She quickly hit ’Export’ to her encrypted drive. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost missed the port.

"I have it," she choked out. "Joon-ah, I actually have it."

She grabbed her phone and went to a public legal forum she knew Kang-joon had been mentioned in. She knew he was probably monitoring the internet—it was the only thing he had left. She didn’t post the evidence publicly; she knew it would be taken down by the same "Director" who was silencing her threads.

She found a post about him and sent an encrypted private message to a throwaway handle she suspected he was using.

Kang-joon’s POV

Kang-joon had made it to a small, 24-hour laundromat three blocks away from the docks. It was empty, the rhythmic thumping of the dryers providing a hollow sort of comfort. He sat on a plastic bench, his head in his hands, the cold milk from the earlier protest still dried into his jacket.

His phone buzzed.

It was a notification from the legal forum. A private message from a user named JH_Law_99.

JH_Law_99: [If you’re reading this, don’t trust the Starline staff. I found the 2019 raw logs. The car in the video is a fake. It’s a frame job. Look at the rear bumper in the traffic cam vs the leak. They didn’t match. I have the files. Meet me at the SNU Law Campus. Building 15. Please. I’m just a fan, but I can help you.]

Kang-joon stared at the message.

"Ji-hye," he whispered, memorizing the handle.