Harin arrived at LUNE before the sky had shaken off its night. The air in the office still tasted of anxiety—a stale blend of fear, burnt-out electronics, and something sharper. Sabotage, rumors, the smell of someone else's fingers on her work. She wore her hair up and her mouth in a line so tight not even a rumor could slip through.

The security guard greeted her with a nervous nod; she barely acknowledged it. She paused at the elevator, checked the logs herself, then took the stairs two at a time, her phone already in her hand. She scanned through overnight incident reports, a flood of group chats, flagged keywords: LUNE. Joon-ho. Sex. Stable. Harem.

The PR room was empty but already tense. She flicked on the lights, then called an all-hands staff meeting, voice clipped and cold. One by one, the team gathered: Hye-jin clutching a coffee, the IT manager blinking blearily, Rina and Jina lingering just outside the glass walls, trying not to be seen.

Harin didn't waste time. "As of now, all access cards are void. You'll be issued new ones in the next hour. No visitors without direct CEO approval. Artist schedules go through Soo-jin. All footage, backups, and logs get audited by Joon-ho personally. If you see someone you don't recognize, you challenge them—every single time."

She scanned the room, eyes icy. "We got hit because we left doors open. It won't happen again. Not on my watch. This agency—my agency—survives because we refuse to play stupid. You have one chance to prove you belong. Don't waste it."

There were no protests, only a shifting tension—a sense that the game had changed, that Harin was done being the friendly CEO. Even Rina, normally the first to push back, nodded, understanding that today wasn't the day for jokes.

When the meeting broke, Harin returned to her office, locking the door. She sat at her desk, rolled her neck, and stared at her own reflection in the blacked-out computer screen. She was tired—bone tired—but fury kept her upright.

She scrolled through her contacts, then dialed a number she hadn't used in months. The ringtone was a clipped jazz sample; the voice that answered was cautious but not cold.

"Harin? It's early. Trouble?"

She smiled, a sharp thing. "I need a favor, Jae-hyuk."

A pause. "Agency business?"

"Kakao's got a forensic team, right? I want to know who's pushing the new rumor threads about LUNE. I need IPs, handles, clusters, and who's paying for promotion. I know you have the access."

He whistled, impressed. "Someone made you mad."

"I'm not asking for a hack. Just data. I'll owe you."

"Send me the threads. I'll see what I can do. You know my fee."

"I'll make sure you get first invite to our next opening event. And you can pick the music."

He laughed. "That's worth more than money. I'll be in touch."

She hung up, heart hammering. This was the big league—she'd burned favors for less, but never for something so personal. She messaged him the threads, screenshots, every ugly hashtag and targeted reply.

While she waited, she paced her office, watching as the agency rumbled to life. The buzz of the new security system being installed, Soo-jin wrangling artist schedules, Joon-ho in the IT room reading line after line of access logs. The staff was tense but moving—she recognized the brittle energy of an army on high alert.

Then, like a fire catching dry grass, the day's disaster struck.

Just after lunch, her phone vibrated with a dozen frantic notifications at once. SNS was ablaze—a thread had gone viral, built overnight by rival fandoms and trolls, then picked up by gossip aggregators with no skin in the game but plenty of appetite for scandal.

Photos of Joon-ho with Mirae, Rina, and Jina—some official, some snapped by fans, one even a candid from a staff lunch—were splashed across the thread. Out-of-context captions and blurry close-ups fueled the fire: "Is LUNE a real agency or just Joon-ho's private harem?" "How does a rookie CEO pull idols this close?" "Which one is his favorite?"

The comments were a battlefield:

He's too kind for this, leave him alone!Open your eyes, he's fucking all of them.Harin's just covering for him, she wants him too.Of course idols join LUNE—they get 'special attention'!How do I apply?

The official LUNE fandom, LUNERIA, rallied fast. The group chat exploded with defense: memes, reposted interviews, photo evidence of Joon-ho's polite, almost shy distance from everyone. But not all fans were united. Some doubted. Others simply craved the drama.

Private messages pinged Harin's inbox:Mirae—"Should I post something? Deny it? I'm scared."Rina—"Do you want me to go dark for a while?"Jina—"Unnie, do you believe this? What if I get blacklisted?"

Harin replied with calm she didn't feel:Don't engage. PR silence. Anything you say will make it worse. We'll handle it. Focus on work. I have your backs.

She drafted a measured note to the PR team:No public statements. Moderate comments. Flag hate and threats. No interviews, no tweets, no leaks.

She sat back in her chair, watching the numbers rise—likes, retweets, angry faces, hashtags. Every tick was a tiny cut, a reminder that her reputation and LUNE's future were both in the hands of faceless strangers with nothing to lose.

Jae-hyuk texted:Looks like half the accounts are bots, the other half are EON-linked sockpuppets. Promotion paid via two shell companies, Singapore and Macau. We can trace the owners if you really want to go nuclear.

Do it. Quietly. I want to know exactly who.

Already on it. Don't let them see you sweat.

She exhaled, shoving her phone away, letting her eyes blur, trying to out-stare the hate through the window. The sky was turning that sickly evening color, all bruised gold and purple, the kind that makes you feel like anything could happen before morning.

The office was quieter than usual—staff trickling home, some artists retreating to practice rooms, even Rina's voice muted as she rehearsed. The agency felt more fortress than family now, every smile forced, every laugh too sharp.

Harin was still in her office at ten, lights low, an untouched mug of tea cold by her hand. She stared at the scrolling feeds, the numbers, the gnawing certainty that she was one misstep from losing everything. Her mask slipped when she was alone; the line of her shoulders drooped, her fingers picked at a chipped nail.

A soft knock. She ignored it. The door opened anyway.

Joon-ho entered, quiet but not apologetic. He set a bag of takeout on her desk and sank into the guest chair, sprawling in a way only he could—utterly unafraid.

She glared at him. "You shouldn't be here. Not tonight."

He ignored that, unpacking the bag—rice, dumplings, soup. "You haven't eaten."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're angry."

She didn't deny it, looking away. "We're losing control. They're making you out to be—" She broke off, choking on the shame. "All the things they say. About you. About me. About LUNE. I'm tired of being the one everyone expects to fix it. I can't even protect the artists anymore, let alone myself."

He slid the food closer. "You're the reason any of them are still here. You're the reason I'm still here."

She laughed, but it was all teeth. "That's not enough. You think a nice dinner and kind words solve anything?"

He didn't answer right away. He let her rant, watched her crack. "Harin, if I let you fall apart, who's going to hold the rest of us together?"

"I don't want to be held together!" Her voice spiked, ugly and raw. "I want to be angry. I want to scream. I want to hit something, break something, fuck something. I want to stop caring—just for five goddamn minutes. I want you to do something. I want you to fight back. I want to feel like I'm not alone in this goddamn mess!"

Joon-ho stood, came around the desk, and pulled her up by the hand. "You're not alone."

She resisted, her breath shallow. "Don't say that. Don't you dare—"

He kissed her.

It was nothing like the soft, careful kisses of a thousand midnight comforts. This one was all teeth and tongue and fury—her hands fisting in his shirt, his arms locking her to him. She clawed at his chest, sobbing once, then biting his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood.

He pushed her back against the desk, scattering papers and pens. She shivered, tearing open the top buttons of her blouse, baring the slope of her collarbone, the swell of her breasts. "Don't let me go," she gasped, voice ragged.

He kissed her throat, hands greedy and grounding. "Not tonight."

She wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into his hips, desperate for more contact. He slid his hands up her thighs, under her skirt, pushing fabric aside, his fingers brushing heat and silk and wet.

She whimpered, grinding against his palm, her body alive with need and fear and defiance. "I need you to make me forget. Just—please—"

He didn't make her beg. He ripped the rest of her blouse open, exposing her bra, breasts spilling into his hands, his mouth latching onto a nipple, biting, soothing, biting again.

She arched, nails raking his back, gasping as he pinned her to the desk, her hair tumbling wild around her face.

He pressed his forehead to hers, both of them trembling—two storms meeting, neither willing to surrender, neither able to walk away.

She closed her eyes, surrendered her weight, her power, her fury to him, just for this moment.

"Don't let me go," she whispered again, barely a plea, barely a prayer.

He kissed her deeper, promising with every movement that he wouldn't, couldn't, not now, not ever.

The office fell away—the rumors, the world, the hate. There was only the thunder of need, and the quiet before the next battle.

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