The number on the screen was beautiful. It was the sexiest thing Han Yoo-jin had ever seen.
102,450.
That was the pre-order count for Sol & Luna: The Beginning. It had been exactly twelve hours since the teaser dropped.
"We broke the century mark," Kim Seo-yeon said, her voice trembling as she scrolled through the analytics on her tablet. "Rookies don't do this. Not without a survival show. Not without a year of hype."
"We had a survival show," Yoo-jin said, taking a sip of iced coffee. "It was just played out on Instagram instead of Mnet."
He leaned back in his chair. The "Cider" feeling from last night hadn't faded. In fact, it was getting sweeter.
The industry was in chaos. Titan Entertainment's stock was down another 2% this morning. Every major K-Pop news outlet was running headlines about "The Monster Rookie Project" and speculating on Isabelle's involvement.
But Yoo-jin knew the enemy wasn't dead. They were just waking up.
The door to the meeting room opened. It wasn't Director Park this time. It was the Head of Scheduling, a nervous man named Mr. Choi.
He looked like he was about to vomit.
"Assistant Manager Han," Choi stammered. "We... we have a problem."
"Let me guess," Yoo-jin said, not looking up from his monitor. "Music Bank cancelled?"
Choi blinked. "How did you...?"
"Music Core? Inkigayo? M Countdown?" Yoo-jin rattled them off. "Let me guess. 'Scheduling conflicts'? Or maybe 'sudden lineup changes'?"
Choi slumped into a chair. "All of them. Within the last hour. Every major broadcast station called. They said our slot for the debut stage has been revoked."
Seo-yeon gasped. "That's a broadcast ban. Titan is strong-arming the networks. Without music shows, we lose the general public!"
"We lose the old public," Yoo-jin corrected.
He stood up and walked to the whiteboard. He picked up a red marker.
"Titan thinks it's 2010," Yoo-jin said, uncapping the marker with a sharp click. "They think if they block the TV signal, we disappear. They think they control the gate."
He drew a massive 'X' over the words Broadcast Debut.
"They don't realize the gate is gone."
He turned to the nervous scheduler. "Mr. Choi, did you secure the permit for the Hongdae outdoor stage?"
"Yes, but..." Choi wiped sweat from his forehead. "That was just for a fan meet. It holds maybe five hundred people. It's tiny. Compared to a broadcast stage, it's nothing."
"It's everything," Yoo-jin said.
He looked at his System interface.
[Current Mission: The Debut Stage]
[Difficulty: S]
[Restriction: Traditional Media Blocked.]
[Objective: Secure 100,000 Concurrent Viewers.]
Yoo-jin smiled. The System liked a challenge. So did he.
"Call the production team," Yoo-jin ordered. "We aren't going to a TV station. We're turning Hongdae into a stadium."
Two hours later, the Starforce practice room was a war zone of sweat and bass.
"Again!" Hana shouted, her chest heaving.
Mina nodded, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. They were rehearsing the choreography for Eclipse. It was brutal—a high-tempo dance that required them to mirror each other perfectly while singing live.
Yoo-jin watched from the corner.
[Target: Lee Hana]
[Status: Highly Motivated (Rage)]
[Performance Sync: 94%]
[Target: Choi Mina]
[Status: Focused (Flow State)]
[Performance Sync: 94%]
They were locked in. The rivalry he had manufactured was now a fusion engine. They were trying to outdo each other so hard that they were becoming a single, terrifying unit.
"Break," Yoo-jin called out.
The music cut. Both girls collapsed onto the floor, panting.
"We heard the news," Hana said between breaths. "Titan blocked us from TV."
"They did," Yoo-jin admitted.
"So we're invisible," Hana spat, throwing her towel across the room. "All this work, and we debut in a parking lot?"
"Not a parking lot," Yoo-jin said. "A battleground."
He walked over and crouched down between them.
"TV stages are safe," he said quietly. "You get multiple takes. You get camera tricks. You get lip-sync backing tracks. Titan wants you to be safe. They want you to be polished dolls."
He looked at Mina. "Can you sing Gravity without a backing track?"
Mina looked up. Her eyes were dark and serious. "I can sing it in my sleep."
"Good." He looked at Hana. "Can you rap the bridge of Eclipse while looking a thousand people in the eye?"
Hana scoffed. "I can do it while choking a Titan executive."
"Tonight," Yoo-jin said, checking his watch. "7:00 PM. We are doing a guerrilla showcase in Hongdae. We are streaming it live on YouTube. No edits. No autotune. Just raw audio."
"Titan's idols lip-sync their debuts," Hana realized, a wicked grin spreading across her face. "If we go live..."
"We prove we're a different species," Yoo-jin finished. "Titan blocked us to hide us. We're going to use that block to show everyone they were scared."
He stood up.
"Get changed. The van leaves in twenty minutes."
Hongdae was already buzzing. It was Friday night. The streets were packed with students, tourists, and street food vendors.
But near the glimmering "Busking Zone 1," the crowd wasn't moving. It was growing.
Starforce had tweeted the location only thirty minutes ago.
SOL & LUNA. LIVE. 7 PM.
That was all it took.
Yoo-jin watched from inside the black van. The crowd was spilling out of the designated area and blocking the main road. There were easily two thousand people.
"PD-nim," the driver said nervously. "Police are asking if we have crowd control."
"Tell them to send more officers," Yoo-jin said. "And tell them to enjoy the show."
He turned to the back seat. Hana and Mina were dressed in their stage outfits—sleek, modern tech-wear. Black for Hana (Sol), White for Mina (Luna). Simple. iconic.
"Nervous?" Yoo-jin asked.
"Terrified," Mina admitted, her hands shaking slightly.
"Good," Yoo-jin said. "Fear is fuel. Burn it."
He handed them their custom microphones. Hand-helds. Not headsets. A deliberate choice to show they were singing.
"Go."
The van door slid open.
The roar was deafening.
It wasn't the polite scream of a music show audience. It was the raw, chaotic roar of the street.
Yoo-jin stepped out first, clearing a path. He signaled the sound engineer at the makeshift booth.
"Drop the beat."
BOOM.
The bass of Eclipse hit the street speakers. The crowd screamed.
Hana and Mina sprinted up the stairs to the small stage. No introduction. No "Hello, we are Sol & Luna."
Just instant violence.
Hana grabbed the mic. Her rap verse cut through the night air like a razor. It was aggressive, precise, and undeniably live. You could hear her breath control. You could hear the grit in her voice.
Then Mina stepped forward. The pre-chorus hit. Her voice soared, clear and bell-like, contrasting perfectly with Hana's fire.
Yoo-jin watched the crowd. They weren't filming with their phones. They were bouncing.
He checked the YouTube stream on his phone.
Concurrent Viewers: 150,000.
The chat was moving so fast it was a white blur.
"IS THIS LIVE???"
"THE VOCALS ARE INSANE."
"Titan blocked THIS? Are they stupid?"
"They are eating the CD."
[System Notification]
[Objective Complete: Secure 100,000 Viewers.]
[Bonus Objective: 'Public Humiliation of Rival' Achieved.]
[Reward: Skill Evolution Fragment x1]
Yoo-jin didn't care about the reward. He was watching the girls.
They were smiling.
Mid-performance, Hana looked at Mina. Mina looked at Hana. For a split second, the rivalry vanished. They were just two artists dominating a crowd that was supposed to ignore them.
They hit the final pose. The music cut.
For a second, silence.
Then, Hongdae exploded.
"ENCORE! ENCORE!"
Yoo-jin grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Cut the feed. Leave them wanting more."
The lights on the stage went black. The YouTube stream ended abruptly.
It was the ultimate power move. We came. We conquered. We left.
Inside the van, five minutes later, the girls were high on adrenaline. They were laughing, hugging, checking their phones.
"Did you see the comments?" Hana shrieked. "They're calling us 'The Vocal Gangsters'!"
"We did it," Mina whispered, tears in her eyes. "We really did it."
Yoo-jin sat in the front seat, listening to their joy. This was it. This was why he did it. Not for the stats. Not for the revenge. For this moment where potential became reality.
His phone buzzed.
He expected a congratulatory text from Director Park. Or a furious one from Titan.
It was the Unknown Number. The Doppelganger.
Impressive.
You bypassed the blockade. Classic move.
But vocals aren't enough to save you from what's coming.
Yoo-jin frowned. He typed back.
Who are you?
The reply came instantly.
I'm the one who wrote the code you're using.
Check your System, Yoo-jin. Check the 'History' tab.
Yoo-jin froze. The System had a history tab? He had never seen it.
He focused his mind.
System. Open History.
A new window flickered into existence. It was glitched, the text corrupted. But one entry at the very bottom, dated ten years ago, was legible.
[User: Han Yoo-jin (Version 1)]
[Status: DECEASED]
[Cause of Death: System Overload during 'Grand Music Awards'.]
[System Reset initiating... Loading User Version 2.]
The van hit a bump, but Yoo-jin didn't feel it. The world tilted on its axis.
Version 1?
Deceased?
He wasn't just an awakened producer. He was a reboot.
And the man texting him... was the original.
"PD-nim?" Mina's voice came from the back seat. "Are you okay? You look pale."
Yoo-jin shut the window. He forced a smile. It felt like a mask.
"I'm fine," he said, his voice hoarse. "Just tired. Great job today."
He looked out the window at the passing city lights of Seoul. The joy of the victory was gone, replaced by a chilling realization.
He wasn't fighting for his career.
He was fighting to survive the glitch that killed him the first time.