Kill Your X Chapter 79

This is the first time I’m seeing it like this, so it feels different.

“Wow. Is it because this is a product a professional designer uses? The monitor’s picture quality is really sharp. How much is this?”

“Song Gyujin, are you kidding me? What are you going to do with this? And why the hell is a video like this on a black box in the first place?”

“I didn’t intentionally try to record it, so don’t be like that. But this is what’s great about a black box. The time the video was filmed is displayed at the top, down to the second.”

On the day the incident broke out, a significant portion of the CCTV footage from near the villa was lost. The official reason was that there had been a problem with the electricity supply that night, but anyone who knew anything knew that the police had intervened due to external pressure from the Kumto gang. My guess is that since so many famous celebrities’ cars were coming and going, they chose to just bury all the data at once.

I thought they would come to retrieve Seo Seunghan’s car black box to align their stories, but that never happened. This was because the car itself was unregistered, and at the time, Seo Seunghan was definitively a member of the Kumto gang, so he was easily excluded from the line of investigation. It was a mistake born from the police not knowing the detailed internal divisions within the organization, as they only received orders from above.

Yeojun didn’t even have the courage to properly look at the video. We met at a gay bar and became friends, so we roughly know each other’s preferences, but seeing your friend fooling around with a partner with your own eyes must be a different level of shock.

When I briefly explained the situation with Seo Seunghan, Yeojun’s face turned ashen.

“I’m going to use it as evidence, but I don’t trust submitting it only to the police. Having been investigated myself, I found that it’s all a fixed game they play among themselves. After being burned once, I can’t trust them a second time.”

“Then where else are you going to submit it?”

“I’m going to upload it directly to an internet video site. It’ll probably get reported and taken down quickly because of the content, but there shouldn’t be a problem with it spreading. I learned a lot from my first live streaming experience a while ago. The influence of those sites is truly enormous.”

“You’re joking, right? Hey. If this gets out, you’ll be ostracized. You won’t be able to show your face in Korea, at least!”

When I remained silent, Yeojun looked like he was about to lose his mind. He pounded his chest, then tore at his hair, in a total frenzy.

“Haven’t I already been ostracized? The verdict just hasn’t come out yet. Now that I’m already being branded as a potential serial killer, will it really hurt to have the fact that I’m gay revealed too? And if you watch the black box video, you’ll see Seo Seunghan didn’t kill that rookie actor. He was definitely alive when we left the villa, and at the time he was killed and moved to another location, Seo Seunghan was with me.”

“So Ma Yubin went on TV and told a blatant lie?”

“It’s more than just blatant. That bastard is really…. Anyway, even if I die, I’m not dying alone. I’ve made up my mind.”

This might be the last act of rebellion in my entire life. An eye for an eye, a media war for a media war. I don’t know what else my father is preparing for the confirmation hearing, but I’ll show him that he’s not the only one who can drop a bomb. As long as the truth can be revealed, I didn’t care if it turned into a mudslinging fight.

After hearing the detailed plan, Yeojun continued to try and stop me. His persuasion was extremely sensible.

“Please, think again. This is too reckless a plan. It’s not revenge against your father, it’s just self-destruction. Say you mosaic your face. Do you really think people won’t be able to recognize you? Even if they don’t, why would you spread a video of you having sex with another man to the whole world with your own hands? By then, the charge of obscenity will be the most trivial of your wrongdoings.”

“Yeojun. The person I asked you to mosaic isn’t me.”

“What? If not you, then who….”

I raised my finger and pointed to Seo Seunghan on the paused screen. Even in the dark video, his features were clearly visible; whoever’s boyfriend he was, he was really handsome. It was a shame to release such a perfect partner’s private moments to the public. If we had met under normal circumstances, I could have had him all to myself for a lifetime.

“Of course, it has to be done for Seunghan. My face has already been revealed to the media. For it to have meaning as evidence, at least one of our faces has to be visible, don’t you think?”

“You crazy bastard.”

As I refused to back down, Yeojun clicked his tongue. When this is over, you and I are done, he added, in words that might have been sincere.

My father has no idea what I’m giving up, and to what extent I can endure pain. If he still sees me as a coward who can’t do anything, he’d better learn otherwise this time.

“The confirmation hearing is in two days, so please work on this as quickly as possible. Thank you so much, Yeojun.”

✽✽✽

I moved to a hotel with the edited video on a USB. Yeojun’s boyfriend visited his house frequently, and once was enough to experience the police raiding a place while I was imposing on someone else. Moreover, Yeojun was an ordinary person completely unrelated to this case, and having already made a difficult request, I didn’t want to inconvenience him any further.

I had a simple meal via room service and opened the laptop I had borrowed from Yeojun. I was carefully rewatching the video to check for any scenes where Seo Seunghan’s face might have been revealed without being mosaicked when a small pop-up ad appeared at the bottom of the screen.

‘The Cruel History of a Rookie Actor – What Happened That Night.’

Bright red letters on a black background. Seeing Ma Yubin’s face embedded in the background, I realized this was the biased documentary CEO Kang had mentioned. I clicked the ‘Premiere’ button, and it connected to the OTT site. It seemed Yeojun was already a subscriber as it logged in automatically, so I could watch the broadcast right away without the cumbersome sign-up process.

The hour-long broadcast went exactly as I had expected. It was structured around Ma Yubin’s interview, tracing the reality of the mutant gambling that had spread throughout the entertainment industry.

It draws in aspiring actors and idols under the pretext of helping them build connections with celebrities, then gradually gets them involved in drugs, prostitution, and gambling. By the time they come to their senses, there are only two choices left. Either become one of them, or remain a victim.

The PD shed a fairly detailed light on the reality of the brokers who had spread through the entertainment industry in a multi-level pyramid structure. In this, the brave whistleblower was Ma Yubin.

[In that world, the so-called celebrity status didn’t matter. It was common for more successful people to be controlled by those who were not, due to having their weaknesses exploited. There were also many who set foot in it out of curiosity and disappeared without a trace.]

Claiming he was also a victim, Ma Yubin confessed in tears. To an outsider, the fact that a top celebrity like Ma Yubin had been victimized would be shocking, but to my eyes, it just looked like a desperate struggle to minimize his own crimes in any way possible. Because contrary to what he spouted in the interview, he was the one at the very top of the broker pyramid.

I closed the laptop and lay down on the bed. Even though I had encountered several unpleasantly produced videos in the program, I strangely felt no particular emotion. Rather, I felt relieved that the broadcast came out before my father’s confirmation hearing. By tomorrow, at least the fact that Ma Yubin had lied would be clearly revealed.

Late at night, my cell phone rang repeatedly. After checking the caller and the text messages, I was filled with a strange emotion.

[Sunbae, are you okay?]

[If you’re okay, please just send a period]

[Please ㅠㅠ]

At some point, even my family had stopped contacting me, but Hyun Jin was a truly loyal friend. Even when it’s revealed that I’m gay from the video that will be posted online tomorrow, Hyun Jin will support me without change. I was ashamed of my past self for having naturally assumed he would change.

“If I hadn’t met Seo Seunghan, I might have fallen for this kid.”

I muttered words in the darkness that would make Seo Seunghan scowl if he heard them. I was very, very lonely and struggling.

After some thought, I sent a period, and then the words ‘thank you’ as a reply. Less than a minute later, I ignored the frantically flashing screen and closed my eyes.

✽✽✽

The confirmation hearing for the police commissioner nominee began at 2 PM the next day.

I prepared to upload the video on my laptop at any moment and tuned the hotel TV to a news channel. My father appeared, dressed not in his police uniform but in a black suit. He seemed a bit nervous, given the occasion.

The first half of the confirmation hearing proceeded much like any other nominee’s. The format was that members of the National Assembly would question him about his past actions as a police officer, and my father would respond.

Watching the broadcast live, I learned something new: among the cases my father had handled, there were more than one or two where the handling of the case was suspicious.

“While you were serving as a senior police officer at the Gwanak Police Station, you were once accused of accepting bribes in exchange for providing favors to a prostitution establishment. What are your thoughts on this, nominee Song Jeonggun?”

“As you can see from the case records, the matter was closed with no charges.”

“Looking here, you received the exact same suspicion while you were at a different police station as well. Once could be a misunderstanding, but twice means you did something to warrant suspicion, doesn’t it?”