I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

* * *

Aetami frowned as she looked at the post uploaded to the anonymous board.

“What is this?”

[Anonymous 20s Board / hyl hate-account identity speed-deleted]

She was a classmate who showed her face briefly on 〈EmBubu〉... she’s my friend’s friend so we exchanged numbers a long time ago LOLOLOLOL this is creepy as hell

It shows they’re the same account and it’s real

(Jin Eunseol private-account capture.jpg)

If she trashed hyl on every post she’s probably here too? T_T Deleted in five minutes

Anonymous1: ?? wow that’s insane LOLOLOLOL

Anonymous2: that’s so shady, the type you never want around you

└Anonymous4: 22 don’t keep people like that close

Anonymous10: she’s supposedly debuting as an actress too, how’s she gonna look hyl in the face later

└Anonymous11: what actress LOLOLOL who’s gonna cast her now LOLOLOLOL no one would wanna work with someone that creepy T_T

To people who had seen Han Yeoreum’s 〈EmBubu〉 episode, it was a somewhat familiar face. Jin Eunseol’s main account profile photo and the black-profile sub account were flagged as being linked to the same phone number.

“Is she insane?”

Aetami’s voice rose without her realizing. Then she forced herself to calm down.

‘Heart fucking hot... head fucking cold....’

She had seen every kind of scandal while stanning actors. If she was going to move, she needed solid proof.

Input: ? LOLOL huh it could just be an error... I’ll PDF this and send it to J.E.S. maybe you’re the creepy one T_T this is why celebs draw lines with regular people, look at you acting like you know her just because you exchanged numbers

“Let’s scratch lightly first.”

The moment Aetami posted the comment, reply notifications rang. She baited them and watched the fire spread.

“Got you.”

Finally—concrete proof.

Anonymous101: I tried ID recovery and the last digits of the phone number for the verification code are the same LOOLLLLLL (capture.jpg)

“Then now—.”

Input: this is fucking creepy...; it needs to spread to other communities before it gets deleted

A little fanning was all it took.

It was late dawn—the hour of the truly dopamine-soaked. Soon the post spread like wildfire.

* * *

“What is this?”

“Interesting.”

MBS Variety Department.

True to their reputation for moving fast, the broadcast station crew had already caught wind of it.

“PD, what should we do about this?”

As always, the harmonious 〈EmBubu〉 team looked to Gam Dajeong. Scrolling with her thumb, Gam Dajeong first checked the direction the atmosphere was turning.

Intube

[Is This What DaeYeJong Classes Are Like? Actor Han Yeoreum, Four Words Only] 15:22

—came after seeing the exposed private account LOLOLOLOL

—wow even just looking at this you lose; that inferiority complex is crazy; don’t debut T_T even if she debuts she won’t make it and will just keep leaving hate comments on other actors

—she’s a classmate.. they’ve spent so much time face-to-face, how could she do something that nasty~ T_T please keep your heart kind... if you focus on yourself instead of others, good opportunities will come^^

Because of the post spreading in communities, comments were starting to trickle into the 〈EmBubu〉 channel too.

“Open the Intube Creative app right now.”

At Gam Dajeong’s words, a staff member immediately unlocked their phone. Real-time metrics were visible.

Among the 〈EmBubu〉 clips, the one featuring Jin Eunseol showed a vertical spike in views.

“At this rate it’ll go up by about 100k by tomorrow.”

Gam Dajeong checked the metrics and took a sip of coffee. Even at 3 a.m., she drank coffee like water; dark circles pooled under her eyes.

“When attention’s on fire like this, we should show something from our side too....”

She turned to the head writer.

“Can you send me the photo we took when we went to see the play last time?”

“Huh? Why suddenly?”

“It’s about time something like this went up.”

Gam Dajeong lifted her phone. On the screen, another rumor was about to ignite.

[Just between us]

But hyl probably didn’t have the best personality among classmates either... T_T isn’t the only close actress friend the one from ParCheHi? Hehe, meanwhile male actors are J.J.S., M.J.H., E.B.H.lined up LOLOLOLOLOL classmates would know better than us; I think that acting practice? was lowkey shading hyl’s personality T_T she must’ve been hurt before

—tbh it is kinda sus she has more male actor friends than female ones LOLOLOOL those who know know

—what are you even saying LOLOLOLOL Choo Gaeul even sent a coffee truck and isn’t she close with Do Gyeoul too? they were hugging at the awards ceremony; stop the rumors T_T

—Geum Bitgang: ???

Gam Dajeong uploaded a photo she had taken with Yeoreum to her story. No long caption was necessary.

Hope Han Yeoreum does even better ♥︎

* * *

“Ah, fuck, seriously.”

Gi Juye frowned.

3 a.m. Ordinary people were asleep—but two types weren’t.

Dopamine addicts. And broadcast station bastards.

“These people don’t sleep.”

Stories from MBS star PD So Yesol and the 〈EmBubu〉 staff went up. Then Ryu Risa and Dok Gogyeol uploaded photos with Yeoreum. It wasn’t the atmosphere Gi Juye had been trying to build.

Anonymous1: LOLOLL even if she doesn’t have close actress friends, if she’s close with female staff that’s real personality queen, no?

└Anonymous3: fr that makes her look better

└Anonymous9: anyone who knows knows she first got famous through a photoshoot with a close older female friend; saying she has no women around her is weird as hell LOLLLL

Scrolling through the comments, Gi Juye decided she’d be satisfied with having planted a faint seed of suspicion early on.

‘This way, if something comes out later, people can say it felt off from the start.’

[Delete all comments?]

Gi Juye deleted every comment she had posted in one go.

‘It wasn’t at a level I could get sued for anyway.’

Playing with the mood within proper boundaries—that was what Gi Juye did best.

‘Good thing I learned while filing lawsuits against hate commenters.’

Smiling, she considered another angle. A veteran of nearly ten years in the industry, Gi Juye understood exactly how this kind of controversy could affect Han Yeoreum.

‘People don’t really care about the truth anyway!’

Her manager, watching her, sighed.

“Juye, put the phone down.”

Even while getting hair and makeup done, Gi Juye had casually stayed on her phone. Her screen was visible. The manager knew exactly what she was doing.

“Just in case—I’ll never get caught. It’s a different number.”

“Yeah. I know that but....”

“Only idiots like that get caught, I told you? Stop worrying about useless stuff!”

The manager was used to absorbing Gi Juye’s irritation. But her heart kept pounding.

Uneasily.

Like something was about to explode.

* * *

Reporter Wi immediately published an article online.

“What angle did you focus on?”

“Han Yeoreum’s sincerity, obviously.”

“Clicks won’t be great.”

“So what can we do.”

The article that gathered the bastards who slandered, humiliated, mocked, targeted, and distorted our Yeoreum wasn’t journalism—it was a hate board... Reporter Wi swallowed the words and put on her professional mask.

“She wasn’t the kind of person who deserved to be cursed by a classmate. That’s what I’ll write.”

Her senior admired her journalistic spirit.

“That makes sense. Otherwise it’ll turn into a villain-versus-saint narrative.”

“Too much personality marketing is bad too.”

“Yeah, true.”

Her senior skimmed Wi’s article, then clicked others. The article that had scraped all of Jin Eunseol’s private-account comments had the highest views.

“This could overheat fast.”

“Eh. Han Yeoreum has an agency.”

At that, the senior thought of JC ENM.

The homeland of aggro.

The apex predator even among broadcast station beasts.

“Even if it’s JC, this one’s tricky. Someone who didn’t look like that was a hate commenter? And someone supposedly close to her? It’s the kind of material the public eats up.”

It was hard to imagine.

JC had always dominated when it came to stirring attention—but they’d never shown how they broke attention aimed at one of their own actors.

Then again, Han Yeoreum was JC’s first actor.

Reporter Wi answered in one line.

“There’s Manager Hong.”

* * *

Manager Hong had just woken up. His eyes were smaller than usual—so narrow they looked like two drawn lines. The JC ENM marketing team gathered at dawn whispered.

“...Can he even see the monitor with eyes like that...?”

“Shh....”

“My ears aren’t small just because my eyes are.”

Manager Hong immediately turned on dual monitors and slotted a tablet into the desk stand. He lined up several phones on the monitor stand.

In an # Nоvеlight # instant, he was scanning teen communities and various SNS platforms all at once.

“First, an article saying we’re filing charges—.”

“No. The other party’s the same age and a student. It could backfire.”

People want a spotless victim. If Han Yeoreum faltered even slightly here, stones would fly at her too.

Any atmosphere suggesting ‘there must be a reason,’ or ‘there’s something we don’t know,’ or ‘she feels guilty’ had to be cut off from the start.

“Yes. Writer, sorry to call so late.... Oh, you weren’t asleep. Yes.”

Manager Hong made a call.

The web drama Jin Eunseol had just landed the lead in was written by the Pi writer of 〈The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine〉.

“In the contract, the penalty clause for ‘negative statements or distribution regarding the work’ is clearly stated, right... Yes, it’s included. We’d appreciate that. Yes, yes.”

〈ParCheHi〉 had opened a new horizon for web dramas. It was the first model to prove that dramas premiering online could make money.

The Pi writer who had first built that historic board now operated on a different scale.

Many investors had backed projects simply because it was her. Other web dramas that followed 〈ParCheHi〉 were harshly criticized—but hers weren’t.

“So obstruction of business? Oh, that would be appreciated. Yes. Like you said, investors will probably call in the morning about ad placements and funding difficulties... No, JC can handle that. We’re not strangers.”

The PPL money attached to it was substantial. The Pi writer surely understood what Manager Hong’s call meant.

If they didn’t rein Jin Eunseol in properly, the project would suffer.

“On our end... you know the atmosphere. Yes. Once someone’s got venom in them, you never know what they’ll do again. Yeoreum’s probably quite anxious too....”

The JC ENM marketing team exchanged glances.

‘Did he talk to Yeoreum?’

‘No. He’s bluffing.’

‘As expected... Manager Hong....’

Manager Hong knew very well that the Pi writer had a soft spot for Yeoreum.

The call ended.

“What’ll they do?”

“They’ll charge double for all disrupted shooting schedules as damages. If a company squeezes a college student legally, what can she do.”

“And the clause in the contract?”

“She put the web drama in her story and feed, tagged Luda Entertainment. They left enough openings to nitpick all we want.”

The marketing team smiled brightly.

“So she was making noise about debuting....”

“Yeah.... Made plenty of noise....”

Legal punishment had now been perfectly outsourced.

Without ever putting Han Yeoreum or JC ENM forward, they had arranged everything cleanly.

And this was only the beginning.