---
Chapter 24: Ashes and Echoes
By the next morning, Seoul was a city split in two—those who wanted the truth, and those desperate to bury it.
Eunha woke to dozens of missed calls and a dozen more new messages. Victims. Journalists. Whistleblowers. Each one bringing with them another thread in the ever-expanding web of corruption that reached far beyond Baek Do-jin and Luma Entertainment.
Ji-hoon was already up, sitting by the window with his laptop open. His face was pale, his eyes locked on a headline.
"Baek Do-jin's dead," he said without turning.
Eunha froze. "What?"
"They're calling it suicide. Found him in his car. Sleeping pills."
Her stomach turned. "They silenced him."
"Or he knew he'd be exposed, and took the only exit left."
Silence settled between them.
Eunha stepped closer. "Do you think... this will stop it?"
Ji-hoon closed his laptop. "No. It just means they'll get smarter."
---
That day, the police announced they were reopening Sae-jin's case.
The public pressure had become too loud, too angry, too powerful to ignore. But Eunha knew better than to trust the system entirely. Not yet. She needed more.
She arranged a meeting with someone who had remained in the shadows throughout this saga: Jang Min-ho—Ji-hoon's former mentor. The man Eunha had discovered on Luma's board of directors. A man who once claimed to raise stars, and now only extinguished them.
They met in a private gallery in Gangnam, surrounded by abstract paintings and silence.
Min-ho looked older than in his photographs, though his charm remained. "So you're the woman stirring the hornet's nest."
"I'm the woman making sure the hornets don't get away with murder."
He smirked. "Do you even understand what you're playing with?"
"Yes," Eunha replied. "And I think you do too. Enough to know it won't stay hidden."
Min-ho stepped closer. "You're brave. But brave people often vanish quietly."
She met his gaze. "Not anymore."
---
Outside, Ji-hoon waited in the car, watching her silhouette through the glass. He clenched his jaw as Min-ho leaned in close.
The old man was threatening her. He didn't need to hear the words to know.
Ji-hoon remembered how Min-ho once told him, "Your silence will make you a star. Your voice will make you a target."
He chose his voice.
Now, they all would.
---
That night, Eunha released another clip—this time from a different victim. A well-known singer who hadn't been seen publicly in nearly a year. Her video confession shook the nation: forced relationships, career sabotage, fabricated scandals used as blackmail.
The internet caught fire again.
But so did something else.
The Luma Entertainment building.
Footage showed flames licking up the side of the executive wing before fire crews arrived. No casualties. No suspects.
Just ash.
And silence.
---
Eunha and Ji-hoon stood side by side watching the news feed in her apartment, the glow of the screen casting sharp shadows across their faces.
"They're trying to erase the trail," Eunha whispered.
Ji-hoon didn't respond right away. Then, softly, he said, "But we lit too many matches. The fire's not going out."
Eunha turned to him. "You still want to keep going?"
He looked at her. "We have to."
She reached out and took his hand.
Not romantically.
But like two soldiers who'd survived the same war.
Outside, the city moved on.
But inside, something had changed—forever