The disastrous creative meeting ended with a slamming door as Kang Ji-won stormed out, leaving a toxic silence in his wake. The accusation, once it was spoken aloud, could not be taken back. The unity of Aura Chimera, and perhaps Aura Management itself, was broken.
Later that evening, Da-eun and a still-furious Ji-won appeared in Yoo-jin's office. They hadn't come to apologize. They had come to deliver an ultimatum.
"We can't work like this," Da-eun said, her voice blunt, all traces of her usual boisterous warmth gone. She stood with her arms crossed, a formidable, unmovable object. "We are a team. A family. Or at least, I thought we were. A family doesn't keep secrets that affect everyone. If you can't be honest with us about what's really going on, then we don't have a team."
Ji-won, standing beside her, chimed in, his voice dripping with a cold, artistic fury. "I can't create if I feel like a puppet. I can't write music if I'm constantly second-guessing whether the melody is truly mine or just some idea you planted in my head. I need the truth, Yoo-jin. All of it. Or I'm done."
They were giving him a choice: reveal what he was hiding, or lose them. The two artists who formed the very foundation of his company were threatening to walk away.
Yoo-jin was trapped in an impossible position. He looked at their determined, angry faces and knew they were not bluffing. But the secret he was keeping—the existence of the recording that proved their lie about the Producer's Challenge—was a company-ending secret. If it ever got out, if Nam Gyu-ri ever found out they had that tape, she would have the leverage to destroy them completely. His silence was a shield, meant to protect the very people who were now demanding he lower it.
After they left his office, the ultimatum hanging in the air like the scent of ozone after a lightning strike, Yoo-jin felt a profound, crushing exhaustion. He was at his lowest point. He was fighting a cold war with a global superpower, holding a nuclear bomb he couldn't use, and the generals of his own army were on the verge of mutiny.
He sat alone in his darkened office, the weight of his unwinnable choice pressing down on him. For the first time in a long time, he felt truly, completely alone. His power, his Producer's Eye, could show him probabilities and emotional states, but it couldn't tell him how to solve this. This was a problem of the human heart, of trust and faith.
He needed counsel. But he couldn't turn to Min-young, the team's heart, because he couldn't burden her with this secret. He couldn't turn to Min-ji, the team's brain, because she would only offer the cold, logical, and correct answer: maintain secrecy at all costs.
He turned to the only other person in the world who knew the full, terrifying truth. He summoned Chae-rin to his office.
She entered quietly, her expression worried. She had seen the confrontation, felt the seismic shift in the company's atmosphere.
Yoo-jin didn't waste time. He laid out the situation, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "They gave me an ultimatum," he said, running a hand over his face. "Da-eun and Ji-won. They know I'm hiding something. They want the truth. Or they walk."
He explained his terrible dilemma. "They're right to be suspicious. I am keeping a secret from them. But if I tell them the truth about the recording, about Hana, about Ryu… that secret is a weapon that can be used against us. One wrong word, one accidental slip in a conversation, and Nam Gyu-ri finds out what we have. She'll figure out our 'Producer's Challenge' was a lie, and she will crucify us with it. We'll be ruined." He slumped in his chair. "But if I don't tell them… I lose them anyway. I lose the trust that holds this entire company together."
He looked at Chae-rin, this quiet girl who had been at the center of it all, seeking an answer he couldn't find himself.
Chae-rin listened, her expression thoughtful and serious. The terrified girl who had confessed to him in this very room was gone. In her place was a young woman who had walked through fire and had come out forged into something new. She understood the weight of secrets.
"When I lied to them about Ryu," she said, her voice soft but steady, "it almost destroyed us. And when I confessed, they were angry. But the anger was because of the secret I kept, not because of the mistake I made. The secret was the poison."
She looked at him, her gaze clear and direct, filled with a wisdom that seemed far beyond her years. "You are trying to protect the company. But Aura isn't the office or the bank account. It's them. It's Da-eun's trust. It's Ji-won's creativity. If you lose that, what are you protecting anymore?"
She took a small step closer. "Maybe," she suggested gently, "the biggest risk isn't telling them the truth. Maybe the biggest risk is trying to fight this war without your whole army by your side."
Her words, simple and profound, hit Yoo-jin with the force of a revelation. He had been thinking like a spymaster, like a CEO, prioritizing the security of the asset—the secret—above all else. He had been so focused on the strategic risk that he had completely ignored the human cost. Chae-rin was reminding him to think like a producer again. To prioritize his team, his artists, his family. The secret was only valuable if there was a company left to protect.
He had to trust them. Not just with their careers, but with their shared survival. It was the biggest, most dangerous gamble of his career, a bet placed entirely on faith.
He stood up, a new, terrifying resolve hardening his expression. "You're right," he said. He picked up his phone and sent a message to the core team group chat.
Conference room. Now. All of you.
A few minutes later, they were all assembled. The tension was thick enough to choke on. Da-eun and Ji-won stood with their arms crossed, their expressions a mixture of defiance and apprehension. Jin and Min-young looked on, worried and confused. Chae-rin and Min-ji stood near Yoo-jin, knowing what was coming.
Yoo-jin stood at the head of the table. He looked directly at Da-eun and Ji-won, the two pillars of his company who felt so betrayed.
"You're right," he began, his voice clear and ringing with a new, raw honesty. "I haven't been honest with you. I have been keeping a secret. A very large and very dangerous one. And you deserve to know the truth."
He turned to Min-ji, who was standing by her laptop, her expression grim.
"Play the recording," Yoo-jin commanded. "All of it."
He was about to show them the buried bomb. He was about to reveal the existence of their unusable nuclear weapon, to expose the lie that their greatest victory was built upon. He was choosing to trust his family with the one secret that could destroy them all, betting everything on the hope that the truth, no matter how ugly, would be the thing that could finally heal the cracks between them. He had no idea if this act of radical transparency would save them, or if he was about to personally detonate the bomb that would blow them all apart.