The Scandal-Proof Producer

The atmosphere in the Aura Management conference room, which had so recently been a bunker for their war against OmniCorp, was now something else entirely. It was a family living room where a devastating secret had just been laid bare. Go Min-young sat at the table, her face pale but composed, the storm of her earlier tears having passed, leaving an unnerving calm in its wake.

Yoo-jin had gathered his inner circle. His command staff. His family. Da-eun, Chae-rin, Kang Ji-won, and Oh Min-ji sat around the table, their expressions a mixture of shock and concern. With Min-young's quiet, pained permission, Yoo-jin had just finished laying out the entire situation in stark, unambiguous terms: her brother's addiction, the crushing debt to predatory loan sharks, and their imminent threat to weaponize her family's private pain against the company.

For a moment, the only sound was the low hum of the server rack in the corner. Then, the room ignited.

"Those bastards," Ahn Da-eun snarled, her voice a low, dangerous growl. She slammed a fist on the table, not hard enough to make a scene, but with enough force to make the pens on its surface jump. Her anger was a physical presence in the room, a wave of protective heat. "They're parasites. Leeches who feed on people's misery. We should find them and…" She trailed off, her jaw tight, her mind clearly finishing the sentence with something violent and deeply satisfying. Her instinct was immediate, primal: a direct confrontation.

Beside Min-young, Park Chae-rin said nothing. Instead, she reached out and gently placed her hand over Min-young's, which were clasped so tightly on the table they were bloodless. It was a small, silent gesture of profound solidarity. Chae-rin's eyes, which so often held the ghost of her own past trauma, were now filled with a deep, knowing empathy. She understood, better than anyone, what it felt like to have your most painful secret held up as a weapon by cruel, powerful men.

Kang Ji-won leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. His reaction was, surprisingly, the most detached. "So," he said, his voice clipped and analytical. "It's a PR problem. A classic smear campaign tactic. This isn't new territory for us." He saw the situation not as a moral crisis or a personal tragedy, but as a strategic challenge. It was a problem with variables and potential outcomes, just like a difficult musical composition.

Then there was Oh Min-ji. She hadn't said a word. While the others were reacting emotionally, she had already been working. Her tablet was propped up on the table, and her fingers were a silent blur across the screen. "What's the name of the lending agency?" she asked, her voice flat, cutting through the emotional haze. Her eyes, fixed on her screen, were cold and focused. "The one the brother used this time. I can start a background trace. Financial records, corporate registration, known associates. Find their leverage points, any illegal activities, other victims who might be willing to talk. We can't build a counter-offensive without intelligence." Her response was pure, instinctive counter-intelligence.

Yoo-jin listened, letting their reactions fill the room. He saw their anger, their empathy, their pragmatism. He saw a team ready to go to war for one of their own. A simple payoff, he knew, would be an insult to their collective fury. A quiet threat might work, but it would be playing the loan sharks' ugly game by their rules.

"They think they're holding a scandal over our heads," he said finally, his voice cutting through the chatter. He stood up and walked to the whiteboard, picking up a black marker. He felt the eyes of his team on him. "They believe we are vulnerable to shame. They believe they can hurt us by exposing a painful truth about one of our family members. They are treating Min-young's story," he glanced at her, his expression softening for a fraction of a second, "as a commodity. Something to be packaged and sold to the highest bidder for maximum damage."

He drew a circle on the board and labeled it AURA. "That is the exact same ideology as OmniCorp," he continued, his voice hardening. "They see a human story, a human struggle, and their only instinct is to analyze it, quantify it, and put a price on it. We are not going to play their game. We are going to change the rules entirely."

He drew three arrows branching out from the circle.

"Prong One: The Shield," he said, pointing at the first arrow and looking directly at Min-ji. "Your instinct is right. I want everything you can find on this lending company, 'New Dawn Financial.' Corporate structure, leadership, any provable connection to organized crime. I want to know who their lawyers are, where they bank, who else they've targeted. We need to know exactly who we are dealing with. Find their pressure points." Min-ji gave a single, sharp nod, her fingers already typing faster.

"Prong Two: The Spear," he said, pointing to the second arrow. "This one is mine. I will handle the brother. I'll meet with him. Not to threaten him or shame him. I'm going to offer him a real way out—a fully-funded, inpatient program at the best addiction and rehabilitation center in the country. We remove the source of the problem, not just the symptom." He paused. "And I will meet with the leaders of New Dawn Financial myself."

Da-eun looked ready to protest, to insist on going with him, but Yoo-jin held up a hand.

"Which brings us to Prong Three: The Megaphone," he said, his voice rising with a new, powerful conviction. He looked at his artists, at his lyricist. "This is the most important part of the plan. We are not going to hide from this story. We are not going to be ashamed of it. We are going to get so far ahead of it that by the time they try to leak it, it will be old news."

He gestured around the room. "We will use the release of 'Echo & Roar' to frame a new narrative for Aura Management. The music video, the press releases, the interviews for the song—everything will be built around a single, powerful theme: radical, unapologetic authenticity. We will talk about the beauty of imperfection. We will tell the world that every artist, every human being, has scars. Some are visible, some are not. We will champion the idea that these struggles don't diminish an artist's value; they are the very source of their art's power."

He locked eyes with Min-young. "By the time these thugs even think of making a call to a reporter, we will have already told the world that we are a company that embraces flawed, complex, real human beings. We will have turned their weapon into our shield. Their scandal will have no power because we will have already owned the story."

Min-young, who had been listening with wide, tear-filled eyes, finally found her voice. It was a broken whisper. "But… it will still be my story. My family's shame, out there for everyone to see."

Yoo-jin shook his head, his expression softening into one of profound gentleness. "No," he said, his voice firm but kind. "It won't be your story. It will be Aura's story. And it is not, and never will be, a story of shame. It is a story of how a family stands together and protects its own."

He put the cap back on the marker, the finality of the gesture echoing in the silent room. He was giving her the power, the final choice. "But we only do this with your permission, Min-young. The choice is yours."

Go Min-young looked away from Yoo-jin and around the table. She saw the fierce loyalty in Da-eun's eyes, the quiet solidarity in Chae-rin's, the focused intensity in Ji-won's, the dangerous competence in Min-ji's. She saw a group of flawed, beautiful people who were not just willing, but eager, to go to war for her.

A single tear traced a path down her cheek, but this one was not from shame or fear. It was from gratitude. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and gave a single, firm nod.

"Do it."