Chapter 122: Debt (1)
“Welcome back? You worked hard.”
Zia’s greeting welcomed me as I stepped inside the house.
The way I greet Zia, and Zia greets me.
This warm, familiar exchange had become just another part of our everyday routine.
While I was taking off my shoes, Zia approached the entrance wearing a loose, comfortable T-shirt that slightly exposed her shoulders—her usual relaxed home outfit.
“When did you get home today?”
“Hmm… maybe about three hours ago?”
“You came back early?”
“Yup!”
Normally, Zia would explain why she came home early and keep the conversation going, but this time she cut it short with a simple answer.
Only then did I notice the satisfied smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
That’s when I realized.
She’d watched my stream.
“You watched it, didn’t you?”
“Ah, what the—! That doesn’t suit you at all!”
There was nothing to be embarrassed about, but the sudden wave of shyness was hard to suppress. So I tried saying it in an exaggerated, horror-movie-style whisper just to mess with her.
Zia burst out laughing at first, then—
“You know… a notice popped up in the fan café of my favorite singer. It said there was a broadcast at 7 p.m. tonight. So I came home early on purpose. To watch it.”
She whispered it right into my ear, mimicking the dramatic tone of some melodramatic movie scene.
The slightly sticky, romantic-movie vibe combined with Zia’s husky voice created an insanely powerful effect.
If I didn’t already know who that singer was, I might’ve exploded with jealousy on the spot.
Of course, since the jealousy would be directed at myself, it just felt like a pleasant kind of temptation.
“So what’s your username in the fan café, Zia?”
Instead of falling for the temptation, I lightly tossed out a 100% pure, playful jab wrapped in embarrassment and mock annoyance.
“Am I an idiot? They’d obviously kick me out if I told you. No way I’m telling! Bleh~!”
Zia immediately raised her energy to match, playfully firing back as if nothing had happened.
“Pfft.”
“Hehe.”
Without even trying to hide our leaking laughter, we held hands and headed toward the sofa.
“So how was it?”
“Hmm… It was fun. Hearing Soyagok again was nice too. Listening to it one more time made it really clear. Yeah… that song was definitely too good to keep just for myself.”
Zia spoke with her eyes gently closed, nodding slowly.
I already knew she wasn’t the type to want to monopolize my songs, so I’d gone ahead without saying anything—but she could’ve still felt a little disappointed.
Yet watching her speak so openly and refreshingly, with not a hint of regret,
‘Yeah… living with Zia really is… so good.’
Compared to my previous life where everything I achieved felt empty, right now I could genuinely feel that I was “alive.”
Wanting to feel that warmth more, I lightly rested my head on her shoulder.
“Ugh, seriously. Such a baby. Can’t stand being clingy for even a second, huh? Your fans would die if they saw this.”
“I only do this when I’m with you.”
“Ha, your words are smooth as silk these days.”
Even though she scolded me verbally, Zia didn’t push me away—instead, she lifted her other hand and gently stroked my face.
While I savored the warmth from her shoulder and touch for a moment, Zia continued sharing her thoughts.
“By the way, your fans are seriously impressive. Ahjeong unnie showed me the photos, and I was genuinely shocked this morning.”
The moment I heard that, I felt extremely lucky that my head was already resting on her shoulder.
Otherwise, she definitely would’ve seen my face freeze solid.
‘Hoo… that person, huh…’
Setting the minimum donation limit to 1 million won was basically the same as saying “don’t donate.”
After the stream ended, I’d heard from the content planning team staff that Lee Ahjeong had set it that way for the exact same reason—to discourage donations.
“Still, I guess she couldn’t completely block the urge to give, so she set the cap at 1 million and just donated everything that came in. That’s why donations are usually rare, and we forgot to change the setting. Sorry about that.”
The fact that my response had been exactly the same as Lee Ahjeong’s was a little awkward, but that wasn’t why my expression had stiffened.
“Ah, that. Yeah, I did donate too. But honestly, it’s highly likely that ‘Our Hye-yeon’ covered the whole thing by herself.”
The phone call I’d had with Kwak Sun-bin on my way home flashed through my mind.
“Look, Yujin-ssi. It’s not even run by official staff, and it’s not like some big-name fan either. What kind of idiot would just throw money at something like that? Right?”
He was right.
It wasn’t even a proper crowdfunding site. In this day and age, blindly sending money just because someone said so would be its own kind of problem.
As Kwak Sun-bin put it, even if people did send money, it would only be amounts they could laugh off if lost—and even then, only a tiny number of people would do it.
“I mean, I sent 100,000 won thinking of it as the cost of getting usable article material. But covering an entire transfer passageway at Gyodae Station with ads like that… well, let’s just say the amount I sent was basically pocket change compared to the real scale.”
The financial power to fill an entire subway station passageway alone.
The boldness to casually burn 2 million won on a few lines of chat.
And on top of that, the username combination of “Our” and “Hye-yeon.”
‘Is it really her…?’
It felt way too on-the-nose to be Woo Hye-yeon, which actually made it seem even less likely—but unlike during the stream when I’d just laughed it off, that possibility now lingered faintly in the back of my mind like sediment.
Of course, the thought didn’t last long.
“What are you thinking about?”
Zia’s voice came from close to my forehead.
I could feel her tilting her head toward me, trying to look into my eyes, so I quickly scrambled for an excuse.
“Nothing. I was just surprised too. Even now it feels unreal.”
“About what?”
“Just… if things had gone even a little further, it could’ve turned into something like a truck protest, you know?”
“Pfft, that’s way too far. How can you not trust your own fans, Yujin?”
Hearing that scolding from Zia finally made me think—
‘Do I really need to keep this a secret?’
The thought crossed my mind.
‘Well… it doesn’t really matter, does it.’
I wrapped up the thought right there.
‘From the chat messages, she clearly knows how to read the room and act accordingly.’
She’d described the Soyagok announcement as “something I did out of greed” rather than “something I accomplished.”
Someone with that level of self-awareness—who admitted they’d caused trouble and inconvenienced others—probably wouldn’t go around bragging publicly.
So even if the person behind that username really was Woo Hye-yeon, it wouldn’t change anything.
In that case, there was no need to bring it up and plant unnecessary thoughts in Zia’s head.
‘There’s still something else that’s bothering me a little, though…’
This whole line of thinking felt vaguely like an excuse.
But I couldn’t quite put it into clear words.
‘Ugh, whatever. I don’t want to think about it anymore.’
Not wanting my head to get any more complicated, I shifted my position.
I lifted my head from Zia’s shoulder and dove straight into her waist.
“Ah—again?!”
Of course Zia tried to pull away, but when it came to clingy attacks like this, her arms were still no match for my ant-lion grip.
“Eububeubeub (I don’t know, I don’t wanna think about anything!)”
“That tickles!!”
Her waist was still soft and plush.
Burying my face in it and mumbling made my words come out all muffled, and Zia—whose sides were especially sensitive—flailed in panic but still didn’t forcibly push me away.
“Hey, Han Yujin. Stop it.”
Her voice had cooled down a little, sure.
“You really want me to stop? This is literally the joy of my life…”
“If this is the joy of your life, then what are we even supposed to do… Just go wash up already…”
The way her voice softened right after that tiny bit of whining made my mischief flare up again.
“Ah… I don’t wanna wash…”
“What’s with you today? Are you actually a baby?!”
“The person who just went ‘bleh~’ at me is calling me a baby?”
The moment our eyes met after I said that—
I saw Zia’s face flushed bright red and realized.
‘Ah… I crossed the line.’
Smack!
Because I realized it too late, I couldn’t dodge the full-force backhand slap to my back.
“Enough already—go wash up!”
Even as she huffed “Hmph!” and flicked her nose, the fact that she headed straight to the kitchen…
For a brief second, I had the slightly dangerous thought that even the stinging pain on my back felt happy.
‘Ah.’
But then someone’s scolding suddenly popped into my head, and my gaze drifted toward the window.
Fortunately, the window was tightly shut—not a single crack open.
***
A few days after a serenade made for just one person had spread to the ears of countless others…
In a large conference room of a certain building, two men sat facing each other.
One wore a gentle smile; the other looked like he’d bitten into a sour persimmon.
“So… shall we wrap things up today?”
The smiling man was Seo Yoonje.
Ryu Je-hoon—the PD holding the reins of Project Trinity—immediately sensed the unspoken meaning of “this is the last time” hidden in that declaration. He tried to mask his sour expression with a forced, bitter smile.
“Uh… yes. I understand. Just the fact that MyWay is participating has already boosted interest tremendously.”
The idea that MyWay Entertainment was known only for niche, non-mainstream music was now a thing of the past.
The 2025 spring music scene had been dominated not by the big three idol agencies or the rising newcomer Starlight, but by the eccentric MyWay with Hylliy and Orion at the forefront.
And now MyWay was stepping into the current three-way battle among the idol giants—Project Trinity’s attention was already piercing the sky.
Ryu Je-hoon was the one physically feeling the tailwind blowing in from that momentum.
Yet even in front of that favorable wind, he couldn’t simply smile.
“But… Director-nim…”
When Ryu Je-hoon trailed off, unable to continue, Seo Yoonje just kept smiling gently.
There was no real fault on Seo Yoonje’s part, but to Ryu Je-hoon, that smile felt unbearably infuriating.
He’d already dropped plenty of hints.
But the old fox sitting across from him just kept playing dumb, acting like he was some clueless bear.
“Hoo…”
No matter how much Ryu Je-hoon held the baton for Project Trinity, he was still just one PD.
He couldn’t simply ignore directives coming down from “above.” In the end, after letting out a deep sigh, he had no choice but to finally bring up the topic he’d been hinting at all along.
“There’s some concern that… the name value of the producer is a bit lacking compared to the other agencies.”
“You mean our Han PD is lacking?”
“Yes. His track record isn’t exactly overflowing with achievements either…”
“It’s a little embarrassing to say this myself, but… is the title of ‘Seo Yoonje’s successor’ not enough?”
“Successor still means he’s not you, Director-nim.”
“And that successor has already accomplished things even I couldn’t?”
Throughout the conversation, Ryu Je-hoon kept feeling the sharp, unwavering gaze flying toward him, carrying the unspoken question:
“Do you really think that?”
In the end, he had to look away.
Because he wasn’t saying it out of genuine ignorance.
‘If anything, the problem is that he knows it too well.’
The era when girl groups’ main consumer base was solely men had long passed.
Unlike boy groups, which were still primarily consumed by women, girl groups had firmly established themselves as the ultimate role models and objects of aspiration for women and girls in their teens and twenties.
How much of Project Trinity’s target audience—new girl group creation—was made up of women in their teens and twenties? It didn’t even need saying.
‘And on top of that, the producer is young, handsome, and talented.’
What more advantage did you need?
In the end, the pressure bearing down on Ryu Je-hoon came from the concerns of “someone else.”
That “someone else”—the three major idol agencies—were the very foundation of Project Trinity itself.
‘Fuck… this feels like shit.’
Even though it wasn’t his intention, being forced to act as their mouthpiece left Ryu Je-hoon feeling utterly miserable.
Han Yujin.
A live clip of a song that hadn’t even been officially released yet had already climbed to second place on YouTube’s trending music chart.
The song that had been sitting there before was “Voltex”—the track from the boy group that had suffered a crushing defeat in last month’s idol showdown and was desperately trying to claw its way back.
And right above it? None other than the legendary singer “AZ,” whose name alone made people say “as expected.”
There was no way Ryu Je-hoon didn’t know the kind of buzz Han Yujin could bring.
“I… I’m aware that Producer Han Yujin is generating a lot of attention right now… but there’s some worry that it’s limited to him as a singer, rather than as a producer…”
He knew full well that what he was saying right now was utter nonsense.
Yet he had no choice but to say it anyway, and that fact alone made it feel pathetic.
‘Ha… looks like MyWay won’t be coming along after all…’
He had no idea what the higher-ups were really thinking.
Were they trying to discipline MyWay for refusing at first and then suddenly changing their mind?
Or did they figure AZ was already active enough through her own YouTube program “INDEX on AZ,” so there was no need to force anything?
Whichever it was, Ryu Je-hoon knew perfectly well that what he was saying right now boiled down to “get lost.”
‘Fine, AZ I can understand… but what about Hylliy? Orion and E-GIS?’
Hylliy had become a genuine first-tier girl group. Orion was arguably the biggest boy group breakout of the 2025 season, and E-GIS was right there with them. Were they really okay with letting them go?
Or was this some kind of push-pull tactic—push MyWay away hard now so they could later give special treatment to the other three and try to reel MyWay back in?
Was it really that easy?
While Ryu Je-hoon’s head was spinning with all these thoughts, Seo Yoonje—who had been smiling gently the whole time—deepened that smile and finally spoke.
“Then how about we make a little concession?”
“I can’t really—… Sorry?”
Ryu Je-hoon—who had been convinced this was a declaration of withdrawal—blurted out something stupid in his confusion.
“You said there were four recommended trainees from our side, right? How about we give up one of those spots? Would that be enough to make negotiations possible?”
Seo Yoonje—still wearing that innocent bear-like expression but now showing his true fox colors—continued without paying any mind to Ryu Je-hoon’s reaction.
“Well, if we keep arguing, we’re just going to stay at a stalemate. This is MyWay’s final line. I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss… If you get good news, give me a call. Otherwise, let’s just end things here without hard feelings on either side.”
“Recommendation” was just a polite word—the trainees themselves were the actual participants in the survival show.
No matter how important the producer was, the stars were the trainees. So saying they’d give up one of them left Ryu Je-hoon stunned.
But…
‘This… might actually work?’
A faint hope began to rise in Ryu Je-hoon’s heart.
If MyWay was willing to bend this far and they still rejected it, that would basically be the same as declaring war on MyWay.
“PD Ryu, you owe us one now.”
“I’ll contact you with good news!”
Ryu Je-hoon shouted those words at Seo Yoonje’s retreating back as he walked away casually.
Of course, Ryu Je-hoon had no idea.
MyWay had never even considered the fourth recommended trainee in the first place.
And that was exactly why Seo Yoonje was smiling.
***************
TL Note:
Want to read ahead?
Chapters 122–141 are available on My Patreon (Premium Tier) together with 5 other novels.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/Vritratls
[This series is in the “Regressed Idol” collection]
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