The air in Han Yoo-jin's cheap motel room was thick with the smell of stale coffee and the low hum of a struggling air conditioner. It had become a transatlantic war room. On the small, scarred table, his laptop was open, the faces of his team—Ahn Da-eun, Go Min-young, and Kang Ji-won—looking out from the screen via a video call, their expressions a mixture of nervous excitement and sheer disbelief. Sitting awkwardly on the edge of the other bed, looking pale and like he hadn't slept a wink, was Kevin Riley.
Kevin had shown up at Yoo-jin's door just after dawn, his old acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. He hadn't said much, just a single, quiet sentence: "I don't know if this is the stupidest or the best decision of my life, but… I'm in."
Now, he was being introduced to the people he had been paid to help destroy. The awkwardness was palpable.
"This is brilliant, CEO Han!" Min-young's voice crackled through the laptop speakers, her eyes wide with the sheer audacity of the plan. "It's so bold! It's like something out of a movie!"
"It's insane," Ji-won grunted from his corner of the screen, but for the first time, Yoo-jin saw a flicker of a genuine, admiring smile on the cynical producer's face. "I like it. It's got style."
"Okay, team, listen up," Yoo-jin said, taking command and shifting the atmosphere from awkward to operational. "This only works if we move fast, before The Viper has time to realize what we're doing and formulate a counter-plan. Our strategy is a two-pronged attack."
He laid it out for them. "Phase one: The Collaboration. We need to create a new song, and it needs to be genuine. Kevin, Min-young, you two are on lyrics. I want you to start collaborating immediately. Video calls, shared documents, whatever it takes. Find a common ground between your two styles. Ji-won, you're on music. Listen to Kevin's old demos, get a feel for his aesthetic, and start composing a track for him. We need to document this entire creative process—time-stamped screen recordings of your writing sessions, video of the musical creation. We need irrefutable proof that this is a real, organic collaboration."
He then looked at Kevin, who was watching all of this with a dazed expression. "Phase two," Yoo-jin continued, his voice hardening slightly, "is the ambush. While you are all creating, I will be preparing our own leak. We are going to beat them at their own game."
The next forty-eight hours were a whirlwind of frantic, inspired creation that spanned continents and time zones. An unexpected chemistry sparked between Go Min-young in Seoul and Kevin Riley in Austin. Her poetic, introspective Korean sensibilities blended surprisingly well with his raw, Americana-tinged lyricism. They found a shared language in themes of loneliness and the hope of being found. Da-eun, surprisingly, became a crucial part of the process, joining the calls not as a star, but as a fellow artist. She listened to Kevin's melodic ideas, offering encouragement and small suggestions, her own experiences giving her a unique insight into his. For the first time in years, Kevin Riley wasn't a failed musician or a guilty pawn; he was part of a band, a collaborator, a respected artist. A new, fragile confidence began to bloom within him.
In his basement studio, Kang Ji-won, energized by the sheer insanity and artistic purity of the mission, worked feverishly. He composed a powerful, melancholic rock-ballad track, a perfect fusion of his own atmospheric, electronic texturing and the soulful, guitar-driven sound that was Kevin's signature.
While his team built the weapon, Yoo-jin sharpened the blade. He spent hours drafting a press release, not as a corporate statement, but as a compelling narrative. He compiled the evidence—the bank transfer records, the technical analysis of the fake demo—into a neat, undeniable package. He coached Kevin, helping him write a sincere, heartfelt affidavit that told his side of the story without making him sound like a mere victim, but like someone who had made a mistake and was now choosing to make it right.
On the third day, their counter-attack was ready.
Yoo-jin, using an anonymous, encrypted email service, sent his carefully crafted package to two specific people: Kim Ji-soo, the honest reporter from Sound & Seoul, and the one man he knew would appreciate the sheer strategic elegance of the move, Simon Vance.
The email subject was direct and powerful: "The Truth Behind the Ahn Da-eun Plagiarism Scandal: A Story of Manipulation and Artistic Solidarity."
The email contained a clear, chronological narrative of their investigation, a digital folder with the evidence of the wire transfer, and the signed, notarized affidavit from Kevin Riley confessing his role in the scheme. And then, it delivered the bombshell, the move that no one could have predicted.
"In light of these events," Yoo-jin had written, "and in the spirit of supporting artists who have been exploited by the darker corners of the music industry, Aura Management is proud to announce that we have officially signed 'Fading Echoes' (Mr. Kevin Riley) to our label. We are currently in production on his official debut single, a collaboration with our own artists. We believe the best response to a false accusation of theft is a true act of creation. We look forward to sharing this new music with you soon."
The scene cut to Nam Gyu-ri's pristine, white office. An underling, his face pale with panic, rushed in holding a tablet. "Vice President Nam," he said nervously, "you need to see this. The reporter Kim Ji-soo from Sound & Seoul just broke an exclusive story. Aura Management has responded to the plagiarism allegation."
The Viper smirked, taking a slow sip of her espresso. "Good," she said calmly. "They took the bait. Their denial will only feed the flames."
"Not exactly, ma'am," the underling said, his voice trembling. "They… they didn't deny it. They… well, they've signed the American artist. They're producing his debut album. They have a signed confession from him about the payment we arranged."
The Viper's smirk vanished. Her hand froze, the espresso cup hovering halfway to her lips. Her mind, a supercomputer of strategic calculation, struggled to process the new data. This was not a move she had calculated. This was an illogical, emotional, and devastatingly effective counter. They hadn't just defended. They hadn't just attacked. They had absorbed her weapon, reforged it, and turned it into an asset.
[The Viper's Current Thoughts: Impossible. How did they find him so fast? How did they turn him? This Han Yoo-jin… he is not a standard corporate drone. He is more resourceful and more audacious than I credited him for. This changes the game completely. The plagiarism narrative is dead.]
The final scene. Kim Ji-soo's article, complete with quotes from Kevin's affidavit, had exploded online. It was a journalistic nuke that completely reversed the public narrative. The hashtags changed from #AhnDaEun_Plagiarism to #AuraManagement_TheTruth. The story was everywhere.
Then, Simon Vance, the kingmaker himself, delivered the killing blow. He tweeted a link to the Sound & Seoul article to his hundreds of thousands of followers. His comment was short and sharp.
"This is how you fight back. Not with lawyers, but with integrity and audacity. I am now even more interested in what Aura Management does next."
In the cheap motel room in Austin, Texas, Yoo-jin, Kevin, and the faces of their team on the laptop screen watched the online reaction in a state of stunned, triumphant silence. They had won. They had faced down an impossible, insidious attack and had emerged stronger, their reputation not just restored, but enhanced.
But Yoo-jin knew the war was far from over. His personal phone, the one with his Korean number, buzzed. It was a text from an unknown, blocked number. He opened it.
The message contained only one word.
Clever.
Yoo-jin stared at the word, a chill running down his spine despite the Texas heat. He knew, with absolute certainty, who it was from. The Viper. It wasn't a message of concession. It was a nod of acknowledgement from one predator to another. It was a promise. A promise that the next attack would not be aimed at his artists or his company's reputation. It would be aimed directly, personally, and ruthlessly at him.