CRT Ch 32

💎

Noeul and Yoon Yubin moved in right upstairs. Within hours of moving in, Noeul had taken over the officetel with lightning speed. Seok Ryu, in a hurry, attempted to re-dope Yejun’s followers whom Noeul had stolen. However, perhaps due to his haste, all attempts failed. He couldn’t even meet most of them because some were away from home due to their schedules, or didn’t even open their doors.

Director Kwak, Team Leader Seo, the acting coach, and the executives of each department, as well as the top actors, had all fallen under Noeul’s sway and had blocked Yejun’s phone number.

Noeul and Yoon Yubin also went to Isak. Fortunately, Isak didn’t open the door for them, so they turned back, according to the report. Isak decided to take refuge at his villa for the time being.

Seok Ryu wasn’t sure whether Yoon Inoh’s objective was to secure the role of Biryu or simply to prevent Yejun from getting it. However, even if he doped Isak, there wouldn’t be anything more to gain. The rights had already been transferred to Songhyul, and Cha Yilhyun was someone who was prepared to be as ruthless as necessary towards the writer.

Hyun, the dorm supervisor, didn’t answer his phone in the end. At this point, it was certain that the Hyun brothers had intentionally betrayed them. In this worst-case scenario, Seok Ryu and Yejun were completely isolated.

The morning, which would have been filled with Yejun’s vocal practice, was crushed by silence. Yejun had been lying in bed all night, covered with a blanket. He hadn’t run upstairs to the upstairs plunderer in the end. It seemed he still believed it wasn’t bad enough to kneel before Yoon Inoh.

Seok Ryu thought the same. They could just re-dope the stolen followers and bring them back. Tens of times, hundreds of times, until Noeul gave up out of exhaustion. From now on, it was a battle of endurance.

Seok Ryu helped Yejun wash up and sat him at the dining table. Yejun’s face was half its usual size, probably from tossing and turning all night.

“You have filming today, so please eat at least a little.”

Seok Ryu put the spoon in Yejun’s hand, but Yejun’s hand dropped weakly.

“What are you going to do?”

Yejun opened his mouth for the first time since waking up in the morning.

“I will take measures to minimize contact between your followers and Noeul, and I will try doping them again.”

“Is that all? You’re so relaxed because it’s not your problem.”

“Your problem is my problem. But I apologize if it seemed otherwise.”

“As expected, you thought of it as ‘work’.”

Yejun seemed to have no more energy to reprimand or punish Seok Ryu. He suddenly hugged himself and sobbed.

“What about the Biryu audition? What about the CEO? He hasn’t already been taken, has he?”

He was the person Yejun was most afraid to ask about, the one he couldn’t bring himself to mention. Cha Yilhyun’s whereabouts had been unknown since yesterday. Seok Ryu had hidden him in the emergency exit yesterday, but that was only a temporary measure. Just as Seok Ryu had done, Noeul would also list Cha Yilhyun as the top candidate for enslavement. If Noeul targeted him, doping him was only a matter of time.

“It would be best to call and check.”

“What if the CEO has already blocked me? I don’t know his number, and I have no one to ask now… Do you really not know?”

“I swear, I really don’t know.”

Yejun still didn’t drop his suspicious gaze. Even though his phone had been ringing for a while, Yejun seemed not to hear anything. Seok Ryu brought the phone from the bedroom and handed it to Yejun.

“You have a call.”

A light flickered in Yejun’s eyes, as if he was expecting a call. But after checking his stepmother’s number on the screen, his expression turned grim.

“Why are you calling for a hospital visit when I’m dying?! Don’t call me again for anything trivial!!”

Yejun yelled and hung up the phone. Yejun’s stepmother had been calling continuously since yesterday. Jinguk, who had been taken to the emergency room, was still unconscious. His stepmother’s description of Jinguk’s condition was horrific. His arms and legs were fractured, his nose and teeth were shattered, and his face was so swollen that he was unrecognizable. It was strange that he was so excessively injured from just rolling down the stairs.

Because of this, the people who attended the meeting believed that Seok Ryu had pushed Jinguk. At the time, Seok Ryu had been grappling with Jinguk and didn’t know what had happened. Whether Seok Ryu had pushed him or Jinguk had missed a step, it was true that he had felt murderous intent at that moment.

“He was a customer at Jo’s workshop, wasn’t he?”

Yejun, having calmed his agitated emotions, asked a belated question. Overcome by a momentary emotion, Seok Ryu had made an irreversible mistake. He had nothing to say even if Yejun complained to the workshop about Jo Youngseop.

“I’m sorry. I will take responsibility for that incident no matter what. Jo Youngseop won’t make a big deal out of it, and if it doesn’t work out, we can make him one of your followers.”

A sneer formed on Yejun’s lips.

“Why bother when he’ll be taken away anyway?”

Yejun left his untouched food and went to his room.

After staggering a few steps, Yejun collapsed on the lobby floor. He sat there, staring blankly at the sailboat-shaped stone fountain. Seok Ryu helped Yejun up and headed for the main entrance. He was worried that Yejun might collapse during the filming of “Green Tea and Macchiato” today.

He told Manager Byeon to wait in the car. He minimized the movements of Yejun’s dedicated staff for the time being. It was an unavoidable choice, as restricting them completely would hinder Yejun’s activities. Director Kwak was needed to smoothly control all of this, but it was a fatal misstep that he had gone over to Yoon Inoh’s side.

He could see actors just entering through the revolving door. They were the ardent followers who had welcomed Yejun with banners and bouquets of flowers on the day he was discharged from the hospital.

“Senior……”

Upon meeting his allies, Yejun’s eyes welled up with rising grief. But the actors pushed past Yejun’s shoulders. A male actor in the group suddenly sniffed.

“Doesn’t it smell like a sewer?”

“It’s probably because a rat that rolled around in the sewer is running around.”

“Oh right, rats love this kind of thing.”

The actors poured the drinks they were holding onto Yejun’s shoes and threw snacks at his face. It seemed they had been taken by Noeul while Seok Ryu was unable to evacuate them.

Pale and frozen, Yejun watched helplessly as his paradise was being defiled. The world Seok Ryu had painstakingly created for him was collapsing.

Seok Ryu kicked the traitor’s shin and forced him to kneel. His head was hot with anger at Noeul and at himself for not being more thorough.

“Apologize.”

“You stay out of it! We should be the ones receiving an apology!”

He made eye contact with each of the traitors, but he couldn’t concentrate at all, so he failed to dope them again this time.

He had to pay the price for his failure immediately. The actor whose shin he had kicked and his colleagues retaliated several times over and disappeared.

Yejun, drenched in drinks, bit his lip until it bled, his body trembling with rage. Seok Ryu took out wet tissues from his bag and wiped the snack crumbs that clung to his master’s body like barnacles.

Now Yejun was in more danger than Seok Ryu. Yoon Inoh’s hatred for Yejun would be adopted by his slaves. Moreover, the retaliation would be fiercer due to the resentment of those who had once submitted to Yejun.

Yejun suddenly grabbed Seok Ryu’s hand.

“You know you’re the only one who can protect me, right?”

The choker wrapped around his master’s wrist twitched faintly. What choice would this hand make when he was threatened, pleaded with, and driven to a place where he could no longer escape? When Seok Ryu hesitated to answer, Yejun offered the card he had been saving.

“If I get the Biryu role, I’ll give you back the choker!”

Yejun’s eyes, which had been fearless, were shaking like before. The situation was spiraling into the worst, but on the one hand, he felt strange. It was as if he, who had been stuck in a dark and narrow jewelry box, had been chosen by his master after a long time. It was sad that Seok Ryu’s value shone only when his master fell into ruin.

Yejun was right. Now was the time to judge coldly, like a machine, like a job.

“You should focus on filming. I’ll go to the company and try doping as many as possible.”

💎

Even after arriving at the main gate of Songhyul’s headquarters, Seok Ryu couldn’t easily enter. He was afraid to confirm the state of Yejun’s paradise, which had turned into ruins.

The reason Noeul’s value was astronomical wasn’t only because of his perfect bonding ritual and 100% doping success rate. Noeul was a perfect gem who could transfer hundreds, even thousands of people at once without harming his master.

After taking a deep breath, he entered through the revolving door. An unknown stench rushed into his nostrils. It smelled like the stench of moss and garbage-laden water rotting. It was strange that such a smell would emanate from a meticulously managed building. He felt like he had smelled it somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember where.

Seok Ryu covered his nose with the back of his hand and looked around the spacious lobby. The employees he saw here and there had faces worn out from all-nighters, as usual. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be any noticeable changes.

The list of Yejun’s followers was recorded in the lost notebook. It was impossible to remember all those people, and there wasn’t enough time to meet them all in a single day. He needed to find at least the key figures again and hide them where they wouldn’t be targeted by Noeul. If he didn’t keep his wits about him, it would become Noeul’s world.

Employees lined up at the security checkpoint were chatting excitedly.

“I heard a rumor that Yoon Yubin already has a fan cafe……”

“I didn’t think much of him at first, but the more I see him, the more charming he is. You have to acknowledge Director Kwak’s eye for talent.”

The Yoon Yubin the employees were talking about seemed to be Yoon Inoh. No one would believe it if he called himself Yoon Inoh with that face, so it seemed he had changed his identity. Seok Ryu didn’t understand why he would do something that would be exposed so quickly, especially because of Yejun.

Team Leader Seo, who had just arrived at work, was scanning her employee card at the security checkpoint. Her eyes sharpened when she spotted Seok Ryu. If she had already become Yoon Yubin’s slave, she would recognize Seok Ryu and Yejun as enemies, so it wouldn’t be any different from before. He approached Team Leader Seo and attempted to dope her, but unfortunately, he failed.

The more he rushed, the less likely things were to work out. Even if Noeul had a 100% success rate, it would be impossible to dope all the thousands of employees in time. It would be better to gradually increase the number of followers by making those who hadn’t been targeted by Noeul into followers. The problem was how long Yejun could hold out.

Someone tapped Seok Ryu on the shoulder. When he turned around, he saw Ryu Jihoon with heart-shaped sunglasses and a bag as big as himself slung over his shoulder. Ryu Jihoon asked bluntly.

“It’s the ‘Green Tea and Macchiato’ filming today, so why did you come to work here? I stopped by briefly because I have something to pick up, but shall we go to the set together if you’re going?”

Ryu Jihoon hesitated and added,

“I was actually going to contact you, Seok Ryu, but I might not be able to take care of Park Yejun. Director Kwak told me to be in charge of a rookie actor named Yoon Yubin. I have so many places to go that I need ten bodies.”

Seok Ryu didn’t answer and abruptly took Ryu Jihoon to a corner.

“Have you taken off your sunglasses recently? No, have you met a man with wine-colored hair and eyes?”

“I haven’t taken them off except when I sleep. But because of the sunglasses, I can’t really tell if the color of my eyes is wine or makgeolli……”

Noeul also couldn’t dope someone unless he made eye contact with them. However, it wasn’t a situation he could be relieved about. Given Noeul’s personality, once he targeted someone, he would go through with it, even if it meant taking off their sunglasses.

“If you happen to meet a man with wine-colored hair and eyes, run away without looking back. And never, ever take off your sunglasses.”

“Well, that’s good for me, but I wonder if there’s a new trend I don’t know about these days?”

Ryu Jihoon gave a strange answer and then suddenly raised his voice.

“But I heard that yesterday, Seok Ryu, you grabbed CEO Jo Youngseop by the collar and it was quite a scene? I deliberately didn’t attend the meeting because I was afraid he would invite me to his son’s first birthday party, but I guess I should have gone. CEO Jo Youngseop is really something. Before, he was so obsessed with the boy he adopted, and then when they had their own baby, he just abandoned him? That’s just wrong. Oh, even if everyone kept quiet about it, everyone who needed to know, knew.”

Seok Ryu stared intently at Ryu Jihoon, who was chattering away. At this rate, he was going to lose not only Yejun’s followers but also everyone connected to him. Perhaps he was taking back what had been taken from Yejun. He had intended to wait until Ryu Jihoon’s surgical site had fully healed, but now wasn’t the time to consider other people’s circumstances.

“Wh-why? Why are you coming so close? It’s scary.”

As Seok Ryu slowly approached, Ryu Jihoon backed away and then threw down his bag and ran for his life. Ryu Jihoon, who had escaped behind a lobby pillar, disappeared without a trace.

He went to Director Kwak’s office immediately, but Director Kwak wasn’t there. It seemed that they had hidden Director Kwak somewhere else in advance, worried that Seok Ryu would try to dope him again. Company work could be done by phone or video call anyway. If they couldn’t meet like this, it would be impossible to win Director Kwak back.

Seok Ryu headed for the CEO’s office. His heart churned as if he was about to vomit, and his fingertips turned cold. If even Cha Yilhyun had been taken… After countless failures, he had finally managed to make him a follower, but the thought of how to dope him again made his vision go dark.

When he arrived at the CEO’s office on the top floor, silence reigned. He could see secretaries working at their desks in the distance. The absence of Secretary Yang suggested that Cha Yilhyun hadn’t come to work yet, or had stepped out for a while.

Just then, his phone rang, and Seok Ryu went behind a pillar and quietly answered it.

—What happened to the CEO?

Yejun’s voice was strained. Seok Ryu lowered his voice so the secretaries wouldn’t hear.

“I’m in front of the CEO’s office now, but he doesn’t seem to be here.”

—Don’t tell me, he hasn’t already been taken by Inoh? If I lose the CEO too, I’m really finished!!

Yejun shrieked sharply. Yejun’s current desperation wasn’t just because he had lost his most competent follower.

“I’ll keep an eye on him and call you back. I’ll keep watch, so……”

“Why are you watching me?”

The sudden voice made him hold his breath. Cha Yilhyun had been standing behind him at some point. He was listening intently to Seok Ryu’s phone, as if he had been eavesdropping on the conversation the whole time.

Seok Ryu hurriedly hung up the phone while backing away. He had assumed that Cha Yilhyun was somewhere else because he didn’t see Secretary Yang. His mind went blank, and he stammered without realizing it.

“Wh-when did you get here? How much did you hear?”

Cha Yilhyun slowly straightened up.

“Up to the part where you said you’re finished if you lose me.”

“…….”

Cold sweat ran down his back as he wondered if he had blurted out any crucial information during the call. Seok Ryu clutched his phone and scrutinized Cha Yilhyun’s face. Judging by his expression alone, it was ambiguous whether he had been taken by Noeul or not. Seok Ryu asked bluntly.

“Have you met Yoon Yubin by any chance?”

“Who is that?”

“The rookie actor that Director Kwak and the casting director are pushing.”

Cha Yilhyun furrowed his brow and muttered.

“I think we signed a contract with him recently……”

A CEO wouldn’t know every rookie actor. Seok Ryu decided to change his question.

“Then have you seen a man with wine-colored hair and eyes?”

“I’m looking at him right now.”

Judging by his reaction, it seemed he hadn’t come into contact with Noeul yet. No, it was too early to be certain. He might have already become Noeul’s slave and be pretending otherwise. Cha Yilhyun stared intently at Seok Ryu and then turned around without warning.

“Follow me.”

“Where……”

“You said you were watching me.”