POV: Kang Yejun
The phone won't stop buzzing.
Yejun opens his eyes to an avalanche of notifications. His screen is bright white with message after message, notification after notification, each one a small avalanche adding to the last. He doesn't want to check. He already knows. But his thumb moves anyway, like it belongs to someone else, someone who still thinks there might be good news hidden somewhere in this digital pile.
There isn't.
The first thing he sees is #KangYejunScandal with a red notification badge showing 87,000 posts. Eighty-seven thousand. In one night. Yejun scrolls through them mechanically, watching his own face stare back at him from images that aren't real. In one photo, he's kissing a stranger. In another, he's in bed with someone he's never met. The photoshop is good. Too good. Anyone who doesn't know better would believe it. And most people don't know better.
His phone rings. Unknown number. Yejun ignores it. It rings again. And again. Different numbers. Same intention. They want a story. They want his humiliation packaged into something they can post by noon.
The apartment is quiet except for the phone. The morning light comes through cheap blinds that don't quite close properly, casting shadows across his face like prison bars. Yejun sits on the edge of the bed he hasn't left since walking home from Celestia.
His email notification shows 342 new messages.
He clicks on the first one. It's from Kang Industries' HR department, time-stamped 6:47 AM.
Subject: URGENT - Termination of Employment
Dear Mr. Kang,
Effective immediately, you are terminated from your position at Kang Industries following a board investigation into allegations of moral misconduct. The attached photographs, brought to our attention by CEO Kang Jihoon and verified by our legal team, substantiate claims that you have engaged in inappropriate personal conduct while representing our company.
Your access to company facilities has been revoked. Your company car has been repossessed as of this morning. Your salary has been frozen pending the outcome of legal proceedings. Do not attempt to contact employees or assets of Kang Industries.
You have 48 hours to return your access badge, company phone, and company property.
Park SeonjinHead of Human Resources
Yejun reads it twice. The words are official. Corporate. Cold. They don't say "we believe" or "it appears that." They say "allegations" and "substantiate" like the investigation already concluded and he's already guilty.
He should eat something. He should shower. He should do something. Instead, he sits very still.
The second email is worse.
Dear Mr. Kang,
Your landlord, Mr. Lee, has instructed us to formally notify you that your lease agreement is terminated effective immediately. Director Kang Jihoon has purchased the property and is exercising the right to remove all current tenants. You are required to vacate the premises within 48 hours.
All security deposits will be returned to your bank account within one month.
You can collect moving boxes from the building office.
Jihoon bought his apartment. His luxury penthouse in Seoul's most exclusive neighborhood. How much did that cost? How long was he planning this? Yejun tries to remember the last time he felt safe in that place and can't.
The third email makes his chest stop.
Subject: Trust Fund Account - FROZEN
Mr. Kang,
Your trust fund has been frozen pending the outcome of investigations by Kang Industries and the family trust board. During the period of investigation, all withdrawals and transfers are suspended. Your current account balance is accessible for basic living expenses only, with a daily withdrawal limit of 50,000 won.
50,000 won. That's forty dollars. Per day.
Yejun does the math. Food is expensive. Rent is expensive. Everything is expensive when you have nothing. He could survive for a while on that. A month maybe. Two if he's careful. But that's assuming he can find a new apartment, assuming the landlord doesn't google his name, assuming nobody discovers he's the disgraced heir and decides he's not worth the risk.
He calls Sera.
She answers on the first ring like she's been waiting. "Have you seen?"
"I've seen."
"It's everywhere. The photos are real-looking, but they're not real, right? You'd tell me if—"
"They're fake. I don't even know those people."
Sera exhales hard. "Okay. Okay, we'll fight this. My firm can take the case. We can prove they're photoshopped. We can sue for defamation. We can—"
"Sera, I lost my job. I lost my apartment. I lost my trust fund."
The line goes quiet. Yejun can hear her breathing, can hear her mind working through the implications of that statement.
"You have money saved though, right?" she asks carefully. "From before?"
Yejun's laugh sounds broken even to his own ears. "I gave most of it to Minho. For his design studio startup. For the life we were going to build together."
"Oh, Yejun."
"Yeah."
"Okay. Come stay with me. I have a guest room. We'll figure this out—"
"I'm not your responsibility."
"You're my best friend. That makes you my responsibility." Her voice is fierce. "Pack what you need. I'm sending my driver."
After she hangs up, Yejun sits holding the phone like it might explode. He should feel grateful. He does feel grateful. But underneath that is shame. Massive, suffocating shame that his best friend has to rescue him from his own stupidity.
He packs one suitcase with clothes and documents. He leaves behind everything else. The apartment is small enough that nothing in it matters. He leaves a note for Mr. Lee saying he'll be gone by tonight.
Standing in the empty space, Yejun finally cries. Not the tears of someone mourning a lost relationship. These are worse. These are the tears of someone watching their entire identity dissolve. He's not Kang Yejun the heir anymore. He's not anyone.
Sera's driver arrives at noon. They drive through Seoul in silence while Yejun watches the city pass by. He used to own a piece of this place. Or thought he did. Now he's just moving through it like a ghost.
At Sera's apartment, she feeds him real food and holds his hand while he refreshes his phone obsessively. The scandal is everywhere. News channels are running segments about it. Celebrities are tweeting about the "shocking fall of Kang Industries' disgraced heir." Social media is treating his destruction like entertainment.
By evening, he's trending on five different platforms.
By night, he's receiving messages from strangers asking if the photos are real, asking if he's for sale, asking if he wants to meet up.
By midnight, he finally falls asleep on Sera's guest bed feeling nothing at all.
Three months pass like that.
Sera helped him get a job at a café. The manager didn't recognize him, thank god. But one day a customer does, and Yejun watches the moment recognition hits. Watches the woman whisper to her friend. Watches them laugh. After that, he stops making eye contact with customers. He just pours their coffee and counts the hours until shift ends.
The news that Minho and Jihoon are having an engagement party next month reaches him through a social media post he doesn't mean to see. They're calling it the wedding of the year. Seoul's elite are clearing their calendars. A celebrity blogger did a feature on Jihoon's new suits and called him "the future of Korea's corporate landscape."
That night, Yejun stands on Sera's balcony looking out at the city and thinks about disappearing. Not dying. Just disappearing. Becoming someone else somewhere else. Faking his own death would be less complicated than this.
He's so lost in thought that he almost doesn't notice his phone buzzing with an alert.
It's a message from an unknown contact.
"Stop looking back. Something is coming. Something that changes everything. Three days. Be ready."
Yejun stares at the message. It's not from Jihoon this time. The number is different. Unknown. Untraceable.
He reads it again.
"Something is coming. Something that changes everything."
Before he can respond, the message deletes itself.
The contact disappears from his message thread like it never existed.
Yejun checks his phone three times, scrolling through his messages, looking for it. But it's gone. No evidence that anyone sent it. No proof that the message was ever real.
He's almost convinced himself that he imagined it when another alert sounds.
This time it's from a news app. A breaking story that's just been published. The headline makes his blood stop.
"QUANTUM BREAKTHROUGH: Seo Kaien's Revolutionary Device Could Redefine Physics - And Change Everything We Know About Reality"
Yejun doesn't know who Seo Kaien is.
But the article mentions something that makes his hands shake.
Parallel universes. Alternate timelines. A machine that might be able to open tears in the fabric of reality itself.
And attached to the article is a grainy photograph of a man with silver hair and silver eyes that seem to glow even through the pixelated image.
For some reason, looking at those eyes makes Yejun feel like he's remembering something that never happened.
Like he's seeing someone he's been looking for his entire life.
The photo caption reads: "Billionaire genius Seo Kaien, 34, remains Seoul's most mysterious entrepreneur. What is he building? And who is he looking for?"
Yejun closes the article.
But he can't stop thinking about those silver eyes.
He can't stop feeling like his entire broken life has been waiting for this moment.
And he can't shake the feeling that whatever is coming in three days will either save him completely or destroy him forever.