"He sounds exactly like you."
The words hung in the stagnant air of the basement studio. Isabelle's eyes were rolled back, her body limp on the dusty couch.
Yoo-jin didn't have time for existential horror. He didn't have time to wonder if he had an evil twin or if his missing memories concealed a monster.
He checked his watch.
"Mina," Yoo-jin said, his voice cutting through the silence. "Get her water. Make sure she doesn't swallow her tongue."
Mina jumped, snapping out of her shock. "Yes, PD-nim."
"Hana," he turned to the girl leaning against the soundproof door. "Stop looking at her like she's a bug you want to squash. I need your phone."
Hana arched an eyebrow but unlocked her device and tossed it to him. "You're ignoring the part where she said you have a soul-twin who's going to destroy us?"
"I'm ignoring the cryptic hallucinations of a girl who just had a mental breakdown," Yoo-jin lied.
He caught the phone. His hands were steady, but his heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
[System Status: Mental Stability Stabilizing.]
[Adrenaline Rush active. Fatigue suppressed for 2 hours.]
He didn't need magic shields anymore. He needed a strategy.
"Ghost," Yoo-jin spoke into the phone the moment the line connected. "Code Red. I need you to scrub the CCTV footage of the Starforce back entrance. The last twenty minutes."
"Whoa," Kang So-young's voice crackled, sounding amused. "Did you kill someone? Please tell me you killed Director Yoon. I'll do it for free."
"Better," Yoo-jin said, walking over to the mixing desk. He swept a layer of dust off the console. "I stole Titan's crown jewel."
There was a pause on the line. The sound of furious typing stopped.
"Isabelle Moon?" So-young whispered. "You actually kidnapped the Oracle?"
"She defected. But Titan doesn't know that yet," Yoo-jin said. "They'll think she was taken. Or that she wandered off. They'll start quietly at first, checking hospitals. Then they'll check the police. In about four hours, they'll lock down the district."
Yoo-jin looked at the unconscious girl on the couch.
Isabelle was the ultimate weapon. But right now, she was a ticking bomb. If Titan declared her a "missing person," police would raid every agency in Seoul. Starforce would be searched.
He had to stop them from calling the cops.
"So-young," Yoo-jin said, his eyes narrowing. "Can you access Isabelle's private social media? Not the official company accounts. Her secret ones. The 'Finsta' accounts idols use to stalk ex-boyfriends."
"Give me two minutes," So-young said. "If it's digital, I own it."
Yoo-jin hung up and turned to his team.
Mina was wiping sweat from Isabelle's forehead with a wet tissue. Hana was watching them, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
"This is insane," Hana said calmly. "We are harboring a fugitive. If Father finds out..."
"If Chairman Moon finds out," Yoo-jin interrupted, "he'll be impressed that we crippled his competitor without spending a dime."
He walked over to Isabelle. He grabbed her purse from the floor and dumped the contents onto the coffee table.
Lipstick. A bottle of prescription pills (Titan branded). A smartphone with a cracked screen.
"Wake her up," Yoo-jin ordered.
Mina hesitated. "PD-nim, she's exhausted..."
"Wake. Her. Up."
Mina flinched at his tone, but she gently shook Isabelle's shoulder. The Oracle groaned, her eyelids fluttering open. The SSS-Rank aura around her was dim, like a dying ember.
Isabelle looked at Yoo-jin. Fear spiked in her eyes.
"Where..."
"Safe house," Yoo-jin said. He held up her cracked phone. "Unlock it."
Isabelle stared at him. "Why?"
"Because Titan is looking for you," Yoo-jin said, his voice low and urgent. "And if they think you're missing, they will burn this city down to find you. We need to make them think you're safe."
"I can't go back," she whispered, tears welling up again. "The noise... please don't send me back."
"I'm not sending you back," Yoo-jin said. "I'm sending a message."
Isabelle's trembling finger pressed against the fingerprint sensor. The phone unlocked.
Yoo-jin scrolled through her gallery. Hundreds of photos. Sad selfies in hotel rooms. Pictures of bruising on her arms from IV drips. And then, he found it.
A folder marked 'Someday'.
It was full of photos she had taken but never posted. Candid shots. Artistic shots of the sky. Photos of lyrics scribbled in notebooks. It was the portfolio of an artist, not an idol.
"Ghost," Yoo-jin said, putting the phone on speaker. "You in?"
"I'm in," So-young's voice chirped. "I've got her Instagram, her TikTok, and her private Twitter. Titan monitors the official ones, but they don't have the passwords for these. They're too arrogant to think she'd have a secret life."
"Good," Yoo-jin said. A cold, predatory smile touched his lips.
It was time to stop bleeding. It was time to start biting back.
"Here is the plan," Yoo-jin addressed the room. "Titan is expecting silence. A missing girl leaves a void. We are going to fill that void with noise."
He looked at Hana. "Hana, what is the concept for your solo debut?"
Hana blinked. "The Sun. Dominance. Burning bright."
"And Mina?"
" The Moon," Mina whispered. "Mystery. Reflection."
"Titan has a schedule," Yoo-jin said rapidly, his brain firing on all cylinders. "They were going to drop the teaser for Aurora's comeback tomorrow at noon. They wanted to overshadow our announcement."
He tapped Isabelle's phone screen.
"Isabelle," Yoo-jin said. "Do you have any unreleased lyrics? Something about... freedom? Or breaking chains?"
Isabelle nodded slowly. "I wrote a song called 'Birdcage'. Titan rejected it. Said it was too depressing."
"Perfect."
Yoo-jin handed the phone to So-young (via the speaker). "Upload the lyrics to her private Instagram. Post a photo of the sky from her gallery. And caption it: 'Finally breathing. Working on something new. Don't look for me, just listen.'"
Hana's eyes widened. "You're making it look like she went on a creative retreat?"
"Exactly," Yoo-jin said. "If she posts that she's working, Titan can't file a missing person report without looking like incompetent tyrants who lost their star. It buys us time."
"But that's not enough," Hana pointed out, her strategist brain catching up. "Titan will know it's a lie. They'll trace the IP."
"Ghost is routing the IP through a server in Jeju Island," Yoo-jin said. "Let them send their security teams to Jeju. While they're chasing ghosts on the beach, we'll be here."
"And the kicker?" So-young asked.
"Tag us," Yoo-jin said.
Silence filled the room.
"What?" Hana asked.
"Have Isabelle tag 'Sol & Luna' in the post," Yoo-jin said. "Just a tiny, hidden hashtag. #SolAndLuna."
It was a declaration of war.
If the Oracle of Titan, the face of the enemy, posted a vague support message for Yoo-jin's project, the internet would melt down. It would imply defection. It would imply collaboration.
It would imply that The Scandal-Proof Producer had stolen the Queen from the chessboard.
"Do it," Yoo-jin ordered.
"Posting in 3... 2... 1..."
Ping.
Yoo-jin pulled up his own phone. He refreshed Instagram.
There it was. A grainy, beautiful photo of a dawn sky. The handwritten lyrics about breaking a cage. And the caption.
Finally breathing. #SolAndLuna
Within ten seconds, the likes started to roll in.
100.
5,000.
20,000.
The comments section exploded.
"Isabelle unnie??"
"What is Sol and Luna?"
"Is she leaving Titan?"
"OMFG IS SHE COLLABORATING WITH STARFORCE?"
Yoo-jin watched the chaos unfold on the screen. He visualized the panic inside the Titan boardroom right now. Directors screaming. Phones ringing. Marketing teams scrambling to delete a post they couldn't access.
He felt a rush of cool, refreshing energy wash over him. The headache from the SSS-Rank static faded.
[System Notification]
[The narrative has shifted.]
[Reputation with 'The Public' increased significantly.]
[Condition 'Mental Fracture' removed.]
He took a deep breath. It tasted like cider.
"Okay," Yoo-jin said, clapping his hands. The weakness was gone. He was back in the driver's seat. "Mina, take Isabelle to the back room. There's a cot. She sleeps for twelve hours. No one disturbs her."
Mina nodded, helping the stumbling Isabelle up. As she passed Yoo-jin, Isabelle paused.
"The man," she whispered, her eyes clearer now. "The doppelganger. I didn't just hear him, Yoo-jin."
Yoo-jin stiffened. "Go to sleep, Isabelle."
"I saw the date," she persisted. "December 25th. The Grand Music Awards."
She leaned in, her voice trembling.
"He wasn't fighting you. He was thanking you."
She let Mina drag her away into the darkness of the storage room.
Yoo-jin stood there, the cold dread trying to creep back in. December 25th. Four months away. A man with his soul, thanking him? For what? For building the stage? Or for dying on it?
"Yoo-jin."
Hana was standing in front of him. She held up her phone. Her screen was glowing with a breaking news alert.
[BREAKING] Titan Entertainment Stock Plummets 4% After Cryptic Isabelle Moon Update.
Hana smirked. It was a vicious, beautiful expression.
"You're a crazy bastard," she said, admiration coloring her tone. "You didn't just hide her. You weaponized her Instagram."
"We're not done," Yoo-jin said, buttoning his suit jacket. He felt sharp. Dangerous. "Titan is confused. They're wounded. Now we go for the throat."
"What's the next move?"
Yoo-jin walked to the studio door. He looked back at the empty recording booth where 'Sol' and 'Luna' would soon make history.
"We release the teaser," he said. "Tonight."
"Tonight?" Hana balked. "The CGI isn't finished. The marketing plan was for next week."
"Screw the plan," Yoo-jin said. "The eyes of the entire country are on that hashtag right now. We have a captive audience of ten million people wondering what 'Sol & Luna' is. We don't wait for next week."
He opened the door, stepping out into the hallway.
"Get in the booth, Hana. We're recording the narration. I want raw vocals. No autotune. Just you, declaring war on the sun."
Hana stared at him for a second, then huffed a laugh. She tossed her hair back, the fire returning to her eyes.
"Fine," she said, following him. "But if I ruin my voice, I'm suing you."
"Get in line," Yoo-jin retorted.
As he walked toward the control room, his phone buzzed. A text message.
Unknown Number.
You play a loud game, Assistant Manager Han. But be careful. Noise attracts predators.
Yoo-jin stared at the text. It wasn't Director Yoon. It was someone else. Someone watching from the shadows.
He didn't reply. He just deleted the message.
Let them watch.
He sat down in the producer's chair and spun around to face the mixing board. He pushed the fader up to the max.
"Mic check," he said into the talkback.
Hana's voice came through the speakers, crisp and arrogant. "Sol, ready."
Yoo-jin grinned. The nosebleed was gone. The fear was gone.
"Rolling," he said.
It was time to make some music.