The Scandal-Proof Producer

The celebratory atmosphere at Aura Management had vanished, leaving a cold, heavy silence in its wake. The remnants of their small party—a few half-empty glasses and a plate of uneaten cake—sat on the lounge table like relics from a forgotten era. In the conference room, under the harsh fluorescent lights, Yoo-jin convened an emergency council. The mood was grim, the air thick with a horror that was deeper and more personal than any they had faced before.

He sat his inner circle down: Da-eun, her arms crossed, radiating a tense, coiled energy; Chae-rin, looking pale and empathetic; Kang Ji-won, his usual artistic cynicism replaced by a profound unease; Go Min-young, her hands clasped, her expression one of deep compassion; and Oh Min-ji, her face an unreadable, clinical mask.

Yoo-jin didn't waste time with a preamble. The situation was too raw, too urgent. He simply connected his secure laptop to the main monitor. First, he played the audio file of Jin's secret demo. The song was beautiful and heartbreaking, a raw, personal piece of art. Jin's voice, full of its unique, powerful, and fragile textures, filled the room.

Then, without a word, Yoo-jin played the track for "Kai."

The effect was instantaneous and visceral. The perfectly produced, catchy pop melody was a Trojan Horse for the horror within. The voice—Jin's voice, but not his voice; his soul, but without a soul—slithered out of the speakers. It was a perfect imitation, a flawless synthetic ghost.

Da-eun's face contorted in a snarl of pure disgust. "What is that? What the hell is that?" she demanded, her voice low and dangerous.

"That," Yoo-jin said, his own voice tight with controlled rage, "is the debut single from OmniCorp's first virtual idol. And the voice they gave it… was stolen from Kim Jin-hyuk."

He explained everything he and Min-ji had discovered. The stolen demos. The vivisection of his vocal DNA. The creation of an AI-powered puppet designed to sing with the ghost of a real, living artist.

The reaction was a firestorm of conflicting emotions, revealing the core of each person at the table.

"They skinned him," Da-eun exploded, jumping to her feet. Her sense of artistic justice, the bedrock of her entire being, was incandescent with fury. "They stole his voice, his actual sound, and gave it to a cartoon. This isn't business; this is a desecration. We have to tell him. We have to expose them, right now! We go public with the demo, with the Kai track, with everything we have from the blueprint. We burn them to the ground!" Her response was immediate, absolute, and righteous.

Kang Ji-won, a man who had built his entire isolated life around the sanctity of artistic ownership, looked deeply, fundamentally disturbed. He stared at the speaker as if it had personally spat venom at him. "This is worse than plagiarism," he said, his voice unusually shaken. "Plagiarism is stealing a product. This is… this is identity theft on a spiritual level. They didn't just steal a song. They stole his sound. The one thing an artist truly owns."

Go Min-young, ever the heart of the group, looked heartbroken. Her focus wasn't on the corporate crime or the artistic violation, but on the human cost. "Poor Jin…" she whispered, her eyes filled with a profound sadness. "To have your most secret, personal work twisted into… that. To have your own voice used against you. What will this do to him when he finds out? How does a person even recover from that?"

Then, Oh Min-ji spoke. Her voice, cold and sharp as breaking glass, cut through the emotional turmoil.

"Going public now is a strategic mistake," she said flatly, looking not at her emotional colleagues, but at the logical pathways on an imaginary chessboard.

Da-eun whirled on her. "A mistake? Are you kidding me? This is a moral crime!"

"And moral crimes are not tried in a court of law," Min-ji retorted, her gaze unwavering. "They are tried in the court of public opinion, which is a fickle, unpredictable battleground. Look at the facts. We have the blueprint, yes. We have Jin's demo. But OmniCorp is a global behemoth with a legal team the size of a small army and a PR machine that can manipulate narratives on a global scale. If we go public now, they will bury us."

She began to tick off the points on her fingers. "One: They will sue us for corporate espionage, intellectual property theft, and defamation, tying us up in legal battles that would bankrupt us ten times over. Two: They will claim their AI simply analyzed market trends and 'coincidentally' arrived at a similar vocal style, and they will produce a thousand pages of doctored data to 'prove' it. Three: They will frame us as a jealous, failing indie label trying to create a scandal to sabotage a superior competitor. We have proof that would convince us, but we do not have the single, irrefutable smoking gun that would convince a skeptical world. A premature attack will waste our best weapon and destroy Jin in the crossfire."

Her cold, brutal logic was unassailable, and it created a stark, painful divide in the room. Da-eun's righteous fury versus Min-ji's strategic nihilism. Heart versus Head.

Yoo-jin felt himself torn between the two poles. The producer in him knew Min-ji was right. The artist, the human being, sided with Da-eun. He activated his Producer's Eye, not to see their stats, but to analyze the potential futures, the branching paths of this single, critical decision.

[Scan Scenario: Go Public Now] -> [Probability of Tactical Success: 15%]

[Predicted Outcome: Prolonged, resource-draining legal battle. Media narrative becomes confused, leading to public fatigue. OmniCorp successfully frames Aura as a jealous competitor. Kim Jin-hyuk's career and mental health are permanently destroyed in the public crossfire.]

[Scan Scenario: Withhold Information, Gather More Evidence] -> [Probability of Tactical Success: 65%]

[Predicted Outcome: Higher probability of a definitive public victory. Allows for the preparation of an unassailable case. Carries the immense moral and ethical burden of leaving Jin in the dark while his artistic soul is being actively exploited and profited from.]

The Eye gave him the odds, but it couldn't make the choice. It couldn't weigh the cost in human terms. This was a decision that would define him as a leader. Was he a general sacrificing a pawn for the sake of the war, or a protector who stood by his people no matter the cost?

The argument at the table escalated.

"So we're just supposed to sit here and do nothing while they parade his stolen soul around the world?" Da-eun challenged, her voice dripping with contempt for Min-ji's pragmatism.

"No," Min-ji countered coolly. "We are supposed to sit here and not commit strategic suicide. Your emotional response is a liability they would exploit."

Yoo-jin held up a hand, and the room fell silent. He had to manage this, the first major ideological fracture in his Aura family. He had to choose a path.

He looked at Min-ji, then at Da-eun, acknowledging the validity of both their positions. He made a choice that he knew would satisfy no one completely, a leader's compromise forged in a crucible of impossible options.

"We don't go public," he declared, his voice firm. A look of triumph flashed in Min-ji's eyes, while Da-eun's face fell in disappointment. "Min-ji is right. A premature attack is a losing battle. We hold our fire."

"But," he added, his gaze shifting to meet Da-eun's, his voice hardening with resolve, "we do not do nothing. We do not leave him in the dark."

He stood up, his decision made.

"I am going to meet with Jin. Tonight. He has a right to know. He deserves to know who is wearing his soul."