For three days, Han Yoo-jin's small apartment became a command center fueled by instant coffee and nervous energy. His kitchen table was buried under a mountain of books with intimidating titles like Entertainment Law Basics and Startup Financing for Dummies. His laptop screen was a chaotic collage of open tabs: rental costs for small, forgotten offices in Mapo-gu, sample artist contracts he'd downloaded from legal forums, and articles about music production software. He was building an ark in his living room, preparing for a flood only he could see coming.
His personal phone lay face-up on a rare clean patch of the table, a silent, menacing object. Every few minutes, he'd feel a phantom vibration in his pocket, a ghost of a buzz that would make his heart leap into his throat, only to find the screen dark and lifeless. He had thrown a message in a bottle into the ocean, and now all he could do was scan the horizon and wait.
His plan, when he laid it out in the stark light of day, was utterly insane. His savings, meticulously gathered over a decade, were laughably insufficient to launch a company. He had no office, no equipment, no infrastructure, and a single potential artist who hated him and the entire industry he represented. He caught his reflection in the dark screen of his laptop—a tired man in his thirties with more ambition than sense. He instinctively tried to "scan" himself, to see his own potential, his own scandal factor. Nothing. The system was a window, not a mirror. For the first time since gaining the ability, he felt truly blind, operating on pure, terrifying faith.
The phone rang, a shrill, sudden noise that made him jolt so violently he nearly knocked over his coffee. His heart hammered as he snatched it up. PRIVATE NUMBER. It was just a spam call about a new insurance plan. He ended the call with a frustrated sigh, the tension in his shoulders ratcheting up another notch.
On the third night, just as he was finally succumbing to exhaustion, the phone rang again. An unknown number this time. He took a deep, calming breath before answering, forcing a neutral tone into his voice.
"Hello?"
The line was silent for a few seconds, filled only with a faint, staticky hiss. He could hear the soft sounds of city traffic in the background. He was about to ask who it was when a familiar, hostile voice finally broke the silence.
"...It's Ahn Da-eun."
A wave of relief so potent it made him dizzy washed over him. He leaned back in his chair, a slow smile spreading across his face. He'd done it. The hook was set. "I was hoping you'd call," he said, keeping his voice calm and even.
"Don't sound so pleased with yourself," she retorted, her voice sharp and abrasive. "I haven't agreed to anything. Don't even think about it. I just… I have questions. A lot of them."
"I'm happy to answer them."
"Meet me tomorrow," she commanded, not asked. "Caffè Bene near Sillim Station. Two o'clock in the afternoon. If you're one minute late, I'm gone. Got it?" Before he could even confirm, she hung up, the abrupt click leaving him in silence.
Yoo-jin stared at his phone for a long moment, the smile on his face growing wider. It was the most promising 'no' he had ever received. The game was on.
The next day, Yoo-jin arrived at the bustling cafe at precisely 1:45 PM. He found Ahn Da-eun already there, tucked away in a corner booth as far from the entrance as possible. She was nursing a single glass of ice water, her fingers tracing condensation rings on the table. She looked like a cornered cat, her body tense, her eyes scanning the cafe's entrance with a mixture of apprehension and defiance. He sat down opposite her, and the system's blue panel immediately flared to life beside her head, its text a swirling storm of her inner conflict.
[Ahn Da-eun's Current Thoughts: He came early. Annoying. He's trying to take control of the situation. Don't let him. This is a trap. It has to be a trap. I need to find the catch. There's always a catch with these people. But how did he know about my fear? That's the part that makes no sense. The part that kept me up for three nights.]
"You're early," she stated, her voice flat.
"So are you," he replied with a small smile.
She scowled. "Let's skip the pleasantries. I'm not here to make friends. What do you really want from me?"
"I want to produce your first album," Yoo-jin said simply, holding her gaze.
"Why?" she shot back, leaning forward, her voice a low, intense challenge. "There are a thousand pretty girls out there who can sing and dance and would probably kill their own grandmothers for this chance. Why me? The 'rebellious' trainee with the 'bad attitude' who got kicked out three years ago."
"Because those thousand pretty girls have, at best, B- or C-rank talent," Yoo-jin said, his voice dropping slightly. "Their ceiling is a three-year career singing forgettable songs, a handful of fried chicken endorsements, and then a slow fade into obscurity. Your ceiling… is limitless."
Da-eun scoffed, a raw, cynical sound. "You sound just like them. All of them. You fill a girl's head with pretty words about her 'limitless ceiling' until she signs her life away. How could you possibly know any of that? You watched a three-year-old video of me practically sleepwalking through a ballad."
This was it. The crucial moment. He couldn't tell her about the glowing S-Rank panel floating beside her head. He had to translate the system's cold, hard data into believable, human intuition.
"I don't need to see you at your best to recognize your talent, Da-eun," he said, his tone shifting from confident to analytical. "I saw it in the things you couldn't hide, even when you were trying to. I saw it in your posture, in your breathing. Even when you were 'sleepwalking,' your pitch control was perfect. Your rhythmic sense was innate. You have a natural understanding of phrasing. Those things are genetic. They're built-in. They can't be taught in a practice room."
He leaned in closer, forcing her to meet his eyes. "What I also saw was a classic case of cognitive dissonance. A textbook example. Your body and your instincts wanted to perform—I could see it in the micro-expressions on your face—but your conscious mind was actively sabotaging it. It wasn't a lack of passion. It was a war inside your own head. A civil war."
His voice dropped to a near whisper. "I'm not interested in your voice. Your voice is just a tool. A beautiful one, but a tool nonetheless. I'm interested in winning that war. Because the artist that emerges on the other side of that victory… she won't just be a star. She'll be an icon."
The air in the booth grew thick. Da-eun was silent, her defensive posture slightly slackened. Her thoughts, visible only to him, were in turmoil. [He's not talking about music. He's not talking about my face or my dance skills. He's talking about… me. It's unnerving. It feels like he's looking right through me. It feels like he's reading my mind.]
She was shaken, but she was a fighter. She visibly gathered herself, her jaw tightening as she rebuilt her walls. "Okay," she said slowly. "Let's just say, for one second, that I don't think you're completely insane. If I were to even consider this… I have conditions. Non-negotiable."
"I'm listening," Yoo-jin said, leaning back to give her space.
"First," she began, ticking a point off on her finger. "No trainee debt. Not one won. I don't care if you spend a billion won on training, production, and marketing. If I debut and I fail, that's your loss, not my lifelong burden."
"Agreed."
Her eyes widened slightly at his immediate concession. She pushed on. "Second, a completely transparent contract. I want to see every line item, every deal, every expense report. I want it reviewed by a lawyer of my choosing, and I get quarterly financial statements."
"Of course. It's your career. You should know where the money goes."
"Third," she said, her voice gaining intensity as she threw out her most impossible demand, "if I want to quit, I can quit. At any time. No ridiculous ten-year term, no insane penalty clauses that would bankrupt my entire family. I walk away clean."
She delivered the terms like a final, unanswerable challenge, expecting him to laugh, to argue, to finally reveal the true nature of the trap. It was the rookie artist's fantasy contract, a deal no sane company in Seoul would ever offer.
Yoo-jin didn't hesitate for a second. "Agreed. To all of it."
Ahn Da-eun was stunned into absolute silence. Her mouth hung open slightly. Her thoughts flashed in a single, clear line of utter disbelief. [He agreed? Just like that? What is his angle? Is he really that confident in me? Or is he that stupid?]
"I'll have a draft of the contract incorporating all of those terms ready in two days," Yoo-jin continued smoothly, as if they'd just agreed on where to have lunch. "We'll meet again to review it. And you can bring a lawyer. In fact, I insist on it."
He stood up from the table, leaving his own untouched coffee. He looked down at the shocked young woman who was staring up at him as if he'd just grown a second head.
"I'm not looking for a product to sell, Da-eun," he said, his voice sincere. "I'm looking for a partner. And partners don't trap each other in slave contracts."