It started with a phone call no one expected.
Joon-won burst into Ji-hoon's apartment just after dawn, his jacket flapping behind him, sneakers squeaking on the wood floor. His face was drawn tight, pale in the early morning light.
"They found something," he said, barely able to breathe the words out. "But you're not going to like it."
Ji-hoon stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the pale sun bleed into the city skyline. He didn't move, didn't even flinch. He just waited.
Joon-won swallowed hard. "You were right. Si-wan's been paying people off. Not just inside the Conservatory... but police, journalists, judges. The kind of corruption that doesn't just rot one man—it rots whole systems."
Ji-hoon let out a slow, deliberate breath. "How much?"
"Millions. Spread out through shell companies, fake charities, anonymous donations. It's bigger than we thought." Joon-won hesitated, then added, "There's more. The investigator found evidence that links Si-wan to... other things. Things that aren't just career sabotage."
Ji-hoon turned then, his face a mask. "What things?"
Joon-won looked away. "Disappearances. Bribes to silence families. A girl who went missing after accusing someone powerful—someone the investigator suspects Si-wan was protecting. Maybe more."
The words dropped between them like stones.
Ji-hoon closed his eyes, feeling the weight settle into his bones. It wasn't just about him anymore. It never had been. This was rot so deep it poisoned everything it touched.
And now he was standing in the middle of it, exposed and vulnerable.
"They're already trying to cover it up," Joon-won said, voice tight. "The investigator warned me—Si-wan's people are moving fast. They know we're onto them."
Ji-hoon opened his eyes slowly. They burned like fire had been poured behind them.
"Good," he said.
Joon-won blinked. "Good?"
Ji-hoon stepped away from the window, his body radiating a quiet, lethal energy. "It means they're scared."
And fear made monsters reckless.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, shrugging it on with sharp, deliberate movements.
"Where are we going?" Joon-won asked, already falling into step beside him.
Ji-hoon's mouth twisted into something almost like a smile—cold, hard, fearless.
"We're going to break the one thing they can't buy," he said. "The truth."
They met the investigator in a crumbling parking garage on the edge of the city.
Ji-hoon didn't need his sight to feel how wrong the place was—the sharp smell of oil and damp concrete, the faint echo of footsteps overhead, the tension that crawled like spiders across his skin.
The investigator—a woman named Park Hye-sook—was waiting near a rusted stairwell. She wore a black cap pulled low over her forehead and sunglasses that hid half her face.
"You're lucky I still believe in doing the right thing," she said by way of greeting. Her voice was low, rough with exhaustion and cigarettes. "Most wouldn't have even answered your call."
Joon-won nodded respectfully. Ji-hoon tilted his head slightly, trying to read the nuances in her tone.
"You have the files?" Ji-hoon asked.
Hye-sook pulled a flash drive from her jacket pocket, holding it between two fingers like it was made of glass. "Everything I could find. Bank statements. Testimonies. Surveillance footage. Some of it's raw. Some of it... you won't be able to use publicly. But it's proof."
Ji-hoon reached for it, but she didn't let go right away.
"You understand what happens once you open this box?" she said quietly. "There's no coming back. They will come after you with everything they have. Your career, your friends, your life."
Ji-hoon didn't flinch.
"They already have," he said.
Hye-sook studied him for a long moment, then finally released the drive into his hand.
"Good luck, kid," she muttered. "You're gonna need it."
Back at the apartment, Ji-hoon and Joon-won sat side-by-side on the floor, the laptop open between them.
The files loaded slowly, one by one, spreading like a virus across the screen. Names. Numbers. Faces. Documents stamped with false dates. Videos too grainy to be clear but unmistakable in their implications.
Each new file was another brick in a wall built of blood and lies.
Ji-hoon's stomach twisted as he listened. The words blurred together—payoff, hush money, accident, disappeared, never found.
He heard Si-wan's voice once, laughing in a recorded phone call, a sharp, ugly sound so different from the careful public mask he wore.
And then he heard something worse.
A name.
His mother's name.
Whispered in a conversation that wasn't supposed to be recorded.
"We handled Yoo Ara, didn't we? No loose ends."
Ji-hoon's hand jerked against the laptop, nearly sending it flying. Joon-won caught it at the last second, his face stricken.
"Ji-hoon—"
But Ji-hoon didn't hear him.
Blood roared in his ears. His heart slammed against his ribs like a fist pounding to be let out.
Handled.
Handled.
It wasn't random. It wasn't a mistake.
His mother had been silenced.
Because she had known something.
Because she had been brave enough to stand against them.
And they had murdered her for it.
Ji-hoon folded over himself, fists clenched so tightly his nails cut into his palms. The scream stayed trapped in his throat, a sharp, metallic taste filling his mouth.
They had stolen her.
They had stolen everything.
And now they were trying to do it again.
But not this time.
This time, Ji-hoon wasn't a scared boy hiding behind locked doors.
This time, he was ready to burn it all down.
When he finally raised his head, Joon-won flinched at the look in his eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked, the question hopeless even as he said it.
Ji-hoon shook his head slowly. "No."
And he didn't plan to be.
Not until every lie was dragged into the light.
Not until every hand stained with blood was broken.
Not until justice, raw and brutal and real, was the last thing standing.
He wiped the blood from his palms on his jeans and said, "We start leaking it tomorrow."
Joon-won nodded grimly. "And after that?"
Ji-hoon smiled, slow and merciless.
"After that?" he said. "We make them wish they'd left me blind."
Ji-hoon stayed awake that night, sitting at the kitchen table, the laptop humming softly in front of him. The files spread across the screen like bruises — deep, ugly truths hidden under thin layers of lies.
Every few minutes, Joon-won stirred from the couch where he pretended to sleep, glancing over at him with worried eyes. But Ji-hoon didn't speak. Couldn't. Not yet.
He scrolled through document after document, each one a testament to the rot Si-wan had built into a throne. It wasn't just music competitions rigged or concert deals stolen. It was lives crushed under boot heels, futures rewritten by money and fear.
One by one, Ji-hoon memorized every name, every account number, every face.
If he was going to tear Si-wan down, he needed to know it all. He needed to understand every brick of the empire he was about to smash.
At around three in the morning, a message popped up on his phone. From an unknown number.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. STOP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
Ji-hoon stared at it for a long moment.
Then he smiled, slow and cold, and typed back:
Too late was when you touched my mother. See you soon.
He deleted the thread after sending it, burned the memory into his mind, and went back to work.
The next day was a blur of movement. Joon-won contacted trusted reporters under anonymous accounts, each one receiving a piece of the story just enough to bait curiosity but not enough to get them killed.
They chose carefully: young reporters, the ones still hungry, still reckless, still willing to chase real stories no matter the cost.
Leaks started to appear online by afternoon. Small at first. Headlines murmuring about financial misconduct at the Conservatory. Anonymous tips about bribery in the judging panels. Questions about missing funds in Si-wan's charity organizations.
At first, no one connected it directly to Si-wan. He was too polished, too beloved.
But the cracks had started. And Ji-hoon knew: cracks always spread.
By evening, the first real blow landed.
A viral thread exploded on social media, accusing Yoon Si-wan of covering up an old assault case at a music festival he had sponsored years ago. Victims, previously silenced by payoffs, began to speak.
Some of them still too scared to use their real names.
Some of them shaking but brave, stepping into the light.
Si-wan's PR team moved fast — statements, denials, lawsuits threatened.
But it was too late.
The dam had broken.
Ji-hoon watched it happen from the silence of his apartment, his heart beating a slow, steady rhythm.
It wasn't victory yet. It was just the first breath before the plunge.
But it was happening.
And for the first time in what felt like his entire life, Ji-hoon allowed himself to believe that maybe — maybe — the truth could still win.
Late that night, there was a knock at the door.
Joon-won jumped to his feet immediately, grabbing the baseball bat they kept near the couch. Ji-hoon stood too, muscles tight with tension.
"Who is it?" Joon-won called.
There was a pause.
Then a voice, low and desperate: "It's Ji-eun."
Ji-hoon's blood turned to ice.
He nodded once at Joon-won, who carefully cracked open the door, the bat still hidden behind his leg.
Ji-eun slipped inside quickly, pulling her hood down to reveal her pale, strained face. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, dark circles hollowing out her eyes.
"You're in danger," she said without preamble. "Real danger."
Ji-hoon tilted his head. "Tell me something I don't know."
Ji-eun shook her head furiously. "You don't understand. It's not just Si-wan anymore. His allies — people you've never even heard of — they're panicking. You're exposing things they buried for decades. They won't just ruin you. They'll... they'll erase you."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Ji-hoon moved closer, searching her tone, her breathing, the way she hugged herself like she was trying to hold herself together.
"What are you doing here?" he asked quietly.
Ji-eun swallowed hard. "I made a choice."
Joon-won crossed his arms, wary. "And what choice is that?"
She looked at Ji-hoon, eyes shining with something close to grief.
"I'm not standing with him anymore," she whispered. "I'm standing with you."
The silence in the room was suffocating.
Ji-hoon stepped closer, close enough to feel her shaking.
"Why?" he asked.
Ji-eun's face crumpled, just a little. "Because once, a long time ago, Si-wan protected me from something terrible. I owed him. I believed he was... saving people. Fixing broken things. But it was a lie. Everything he touched turned to ash. And now... now I can't pretend anymore."
She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a worn, folded envelope.
"This," she said, voice trembling, "is the last thing I have. Proof of what he did to your mother."
Ji-hoon's breath caught.
Carefully, almost reverently, he reached out and took the envelope from her hand.
Inside was a photograph — grainy, taken from a distance — of a meeting between Si-wan and two men Ji-hoon didn't recognize. One of them was handing over a thick, heavy envelope. Money. Or something worse.
The timestamp was the night Yoo Ara had died.
Attached was a memo, hastily scrawled: Payment confirmed. Target neutralized.
Ji-hoon felt the world tilt sideways for a second.
This wasn't just suspicion.
This wasn't just theory.
It was real.
It was proof.
He folded the photograph back into the envelope with shaking hands.
When he finally looked up, Ji-eun was crying silently.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should've come sooner."
Ji-hoon nodded once, the motion sharp and small.
"You came when you could," he said. "That's enough."
For now.
Nothing could undo the years of pain. Nothing could bring his mother back.
But this was a step.
One step closer to tearing down the monster that had stolen everything.
Ji-hoon closed his hand around the envelope like it was a weapon.
Because it was.
Joon-won locked the door behind Ji-eun after she left, watching her disappear into the night like a ghost.
Ji-hoon sat back down at the table, staring at the cracked envelope.
"Are you ready?" Joon-won asked quietly.
Ji-hoon's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"No," he said. "But I'm going anyway."
And with that, he picked up his phone and made the first call that would start the end of Yoon Si-wan's empire.