The Trashy PD Has To Survive as an Idol - Chapter 129

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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129

Paparazzi Kim Jae-yeon was living a remarkably peaceful existence.
That is, if we overlooked the fact that he’d been trailing Min Ji-heon—who was expanding beyond the Korean Wave into the global sphere as “Please Camera” spread through OTT platforms—without capturing anything of value.

‘How is it even possible for a person to be like that?’

Min Ji-heon’s daily routine consisted of maniacally stacking and devouring rice, helping flustered staff members, laughing cheerfully before suddenly transforming into someone entirely different and launching into acting with ferocious intensity.
And then: home, filming set, home, company, home, restaurant, restaurant, home….
That was all there was to it.

‘He’s genuinely a genius. No wonder he keeps Dae Pa-sung afloat.’

And recently, a rising newcomer had emerged from Dae Pa-sung. It was The Dun.
Or more precisely, it was Seo Ho-yoon, who was dragging the previously unknown and utterly unnoticed The Dun into the spotlight by the collar.

‘…How is this one also like that??’

Kim Jae-yeon took a sip of his warm Americano and fidgeted with his phone.
Even by ordinary civilian standards—forget idol standards—he was far from normal. What sane person would ever consider conspiring with a paparazzi?
Just thinking of Seo Ho-yoon, still smiling while invoking XX Construction, made his entire body tremble involuntarily.
So Kim Jae-yeon tried his best to accommodate whatever deals Seo Ho-yoon wanted to propose. It wasn’t as though he was losing anything in the bargain.

“Photos of Yoon Hee-eon at a hotel??”
[Yes.]

What are you planning to do with those?
Kim Jae-yeon pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment, staring blankly at the screen, then scratched his head before continuing.

“Look, Seo Ho-yoon… I mean, it’s all fine and good, but usually in those kinds of situations, both people don’t enter together. Plus, even if you have photos like that, if the other party is a chaebol, it’s pretty hard to release them, and you’re likely to face backlash too…. Unless you’re trying to extort money from the chaebol….”
[Oh, you’re even worried about me?]
“….”
[Don’t worry. I’m not doing this to extort money.]

And so Seo Ho-yoon cut short any discussion about himself and laid out Kim Jae-yeon’s tasks with crisp precision.
As Kim Jae-yeon pulled a pen and notepad from his pocket to organize Seo Ho-yoon’s instructions, he felt goosebumps gradually rising along his arms.
And for good reason.

“…Did you work as a paparazzi before becoming an idol?”
[That’s crossing a line?]

The methods he was describing were indistinguishable from those of a professional paparazzi.
First: Cross-reference Yoon Hee-eon’s unofficial schedule with eyewitness accounts from onlookers to identify gaps in his timeline.
Second: Narrow down to high-end hotels with tight security located in the Seoul Metropolitan Area or surrounding regions. Since rumors abound that the target is deeply infatuated with Yoon Hee-eon, cross-reference Yoon Hee-eon’s schedule locations and his residence against the hotel list to estimate locations requiring minimal travel time.
Third: During the schedule gaps, go to the suspected locations and stake them out individually to pinpoint the exact place. (If you can’t confirm a location, cycle back through the process—cross-reference the target’s residence and hotel list again to re-estimate.)

It was time-consuming, but not particularly difficult. However…
…it was hardly the kind of approach a twenty-three-year-old idol would casually devise and execute.

‘I’m dealing with a real monster.’

Kim Jae-yeon gently rubbed his arms.

“It might take some time, you know?”
[Yes, we’re building this slowly anyway… Oh!!]

‘…What is it?’

Seo Ho-yoon, who had maintained a flat tone throughout the call, suddenly added something as if he’d just remembered it.

[And there’s one more thing I need to ask. You know Yoon Hee-eon’s home address, right?]
“Yeah, I do.”

Kim Jae-yeon tilted his head as he continued taking notes on what Seo Ho-yoon was saying.

“…But what are you sending?”

Suddenly, a soft chuckle came through the phone.

[Pfft, hehe….]
“…What is it?”
[Ah, this is seriously hilarious.]

Kim Jae-yeon asked in confusion, but I didn’t answer, just continued giggling a bit more.
As Kim Jae-yeon wondered how to deal with this lunatic and whether he could just hang up, Seo Ho-yoon hummed in a slightly calmer voice.

[Well, you don’t need to know the details, Kim Jae-yeon. Just make sure it doesn’t get stepped on, alright?]
“…Yes.”
[Then I’m counting on you.]

Once Seo Ho-yoon finished his business, he hung up the phone without hesitation, as always.

“…Why does this lunatic keep doing this?”

Kim Jae-yeon frowned and shook his head in disbelief.
But what could he do?
He’d given up trying to understand Seo Ho-yoon’s way of thinking long ago.
Despite the uneasy feeling, Kim Jae-yeon started the car engine.
Deals with Seo Ho-yoon were always hard to refuse, and the compensation was invariably profitable.

***

Yoon Hee-eon’s agency CEO realized that something was unfolding in an unusual way.
The entertainment industry was a kind of ‘light.’
A place where people’s dreams and idols were sold.
Naturally, there were bound to be plenty of bugs drawn to that light.
Among them, the most notorious were those who made money using rumors.
The CEO couldn’t close his mouth after seeing the report from the internal operations team.

“What, what is this?”

It was information that could be bought for small amounts of money on the Internet. Today’s hottest post was about sponsorships.

The post, led by the provocative title ‘The Entertainment Industry Really Is the Animal Kingdom,’ wasn’t written with particular detail, yet the agency CEO’s instincts kicked in.
Since the post was already up and had reached him, it must have spread to quite a few people. He quickly searched here and there, and sure enough, people were already trying to figure out who the post was about.

“Lol, anyone can see this is clearly G.H.W., but even if I’m being generous, it’s O.H.W., but this one is a bit ambiguous..”
[Don’t talk nonsense, who believes these posts these days? They write like garbage and people are treating it like a documentary]
[You guys, aren’t you curious? Ah~ let’s just stop. I’m more surprised that people actually buy and read that kind of stuff]
[Are you scared to ask what you’re trying to ask?? Hmm, that actually makes sense]

The CEO let out a hollow laugh as he read through the reactions.
He figured that a post of this caliber wouldn’t be enough to destroy anyone’s career. Besides, public opinion had already turned decisively against tabloid-style articles like this long ago, so it wasn’t something worth making a major fuss over.
But there was one problem.

‘It’s practically a targeted attack.’

Normally, posts like this would reach him before they went live, allowing him to suppress them preemptively.
The fact that the post had simply gone up, combined with how various rumors seemed deliberately crafted to heap scandal onto Yoon Hee-eon with vague bait mixed throughout, felt intentional.
And it was a mixture of fact and fabrication at that.

“…Is it a tabloid? Blackmail?”

Yoon Hee-eon arrived at the company in response to the CEO’s summons and asked in a composed voice. Rumors like this weren’t uncommon in the entertainment industry, and they usually died down quickly.
He knew this would just end up being a passing incident.

“I don’t know. Nothing’s come to us yet.”

The CEO pressed his brow repeatedly.
With so many potential media outlets or rival agencies that could be involved, it was difficult to pinpoint where this had originated from.

“Sigh, for now, keep a low profile for a while. No personal activities, stay home. Understood?”
“…Yes.”

Yoon Hee-eon had to return home with a lingering sense of unease.
Still, he thought it would be fine.
If anything, the CEO’s restlessness only made him look pathetic.

‘How are they going to spread something like this? It’ll all get blocked anyway.’

There had been countless crises like this before. Given his years in the industry, Yoon Hee-eon had weathered many storms.
So he knew that mere rumors wouldn’t bring him down.
It wasn’t even as if photos of him kissing someone outside the hotel had been taken—the hotel’s security made that nearly impossible anyway.
Even if they had been, he knew they could never spread. His backing was substantial.
It wasn’t baseless confidence so much as conviction born from experience.

‘Everyone rises this way.’

He recalled the junior who had mocked him a few days ago. The memory of their snide remarks still made his blood boil with anger, but instead of irritation, Yoon Hee-eon let out a bitter chuckle.
Under the certainty that no matter how clean they pretended to be, as long as they remained in this industry, they would eventually become like him.

“How foolish….”

Yoon Hee-eon rubbed the back of his neck as he opened the digital lock and punched in the password with deliberate taps.

‘Ah, but I really wish Composer Chung-beom could have been here.’

Just as he was about to open the door,

Thud.

Something was blocking the door from opening. Looking down at his feet, I found a neatly wrapped box—neither too large nor too small—sitting in the doorway.

“…?”

Under normal circumstances, I would have assumed it was fan mail and discarded it without hesitation. But the small memo wedged on top of it stopped me cold.

[Early Christmas Present
A gift from H Hotel ^^]

At first, I didn’t understand what it meant, but gradually my jaw went slack.

“…What is this?”

That place I’d been visiting frequently lately.
Until just moments ago, I had dismissed it as insignificant, but now faced with this uninvited threat laid bare before me, I found myself speechless.

“…No, that’s not it.”

I glanced nervously around before hastily grabbing the box and rushing inside, terrified someone might see.
Once inside, I set the box on the marble table and let out a heavy sigh.

“Ha….”

Who could it possibly be? No—did this mean that rumor about a sponsor was actually aimed at me?
I couldn’t report this to the police, and telling the CEO wouldn’t change anything. If this person operated in the shadows like this, even tracing who shipped the box here would likely prove futile.
I paced back and forth around the table, wrestling with countless possibilities.
But ultimately, all my thoughts converged on a single conclusion.

For now, I had no choice but to open the box and see what was inside.

‘…Right. I need to know what’s going on so I can prepare for what comes next.’

Yoon Hee-eon hesitated before reaching toward the gift box. The moment he untied the ribbon and opened it,

Pop!
Whoooosh—!!

A spring-loaded doll shot out, and glittering powder cascaded over Yoon Hee-eon.

“Cough, cough…!”

Yoon Hee-eon had expected at worst some blackmail photos or a USB drive, so he was completely caught off guard.
But that wasn’t the end of it. As if some mechanism had been rigged, the box beneath the doll burst open, launching another spring doll, and this repeated multiple times.

Pop!
Pop!
Poooop!
Whoooosh~~!

Multiple boxes, enough glittering powder to obscure his vision, and dolls littered the floor.
Yoon Hee-eon stood up abruptly and spent a long moment coughing while brushing powder from his shoulders and body.

“Ptui, ptui… What the hell is this?!”

It was a malicious prank. Yoon Hee-eon spat out the powder that had invaded his mouth and kicked at the scattered boxes on the floor.
They’d already burst open and didn’t react further. When he kicked a box once more, a card emerged from the pile of scattered powder.

[Earn money the right way, you bastard!]

“What the… Who, who is this?”

Yoon Hee-eon trembled as he read the card’s message, then flipped it over to check if something was written on the back.

[Congrats! Yoon Hee-eon’s become a eunuch! Celebration!]

“…What?”

What was this supposed to mean?
Yoon Hee-eon crumpled the card in one hand and hurled it to the floor.

‘What is this?’

Was this some kind of metaphor? Did it mean my sparring partner had disappeared? No, that couldn’t be right.
Yoon Hee-eon knew full well that his current partner was completely infatuated with him. After all, it wasn’t easy to find someone as refined and classy as himself.

“I need to figure this out, damn it….”

Yoon Hee-eon kicked the box rolling across the floor, stripped off his shirt, and headed toward the bathroom. He’d decided to wash away this strange, unpleasant powder first, wherever it had come from.
His scream came just days later.

.
.
.

Meanwhile, I remained alone at the dormitory, reading the message Kim Jae-yeon had sent me while soaking in the warm winter sunlight on the veranda.

“Man, the weather’s nice today.”

And beside me floated an Item Window I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
A few days before calling Kim Jae-yeon, I’d been browsing the Item Shop looking for anything remotely useful when I spotted something and stopped scrolling.

[Anti-Love Doll
Self-control is essential for idols!!
Designate a concerning colleague and gift them a doll box!
The recipient of this gift will feel no emotional turbulence when seeing any attractive person.
Enjoy safe and worry-free idol activities.
※Effect applies only to the designated person. (The player may also use it.)
※Stacking and multiple uses are possible.
※Warning: Since it suppresses oxytocin and testosterone, excessive use may cause side effects.
Points: 1,500]

“What is this trash item.”

It could suppress hormones?
I’d thought it useless until now since I’d never felt my heart race looking at anyone.
I scrolled through the System Window and my eyes caught on the warning section.

“Is that the side effect from overusing it?”

I posed the question to confirm for certain, but the System Window gave no response. However, rather than finding that reaction surprising, I—being the diligent student I was—deduced the answer myself.

After that intimate encounter with Yoon Hee-eon in the Bathroom, when I recalled this item, I purchased multiple copies to maximize the stacking effect.

[What is this?]
“Just a small Christmas gift, you could say.”

Kim Jae-yeon sensed something off in my tone and grumbled about it, but apparently it had been delivered successfully—only today did I hear that Yoon Hee-eon’s expression hadn’t been good these past few days.

If the item with that splendid name, “Anti-Love Doll,” had arrived properly, then something precious of his would have stopped functioning correctly—.

“How long does the effect last?”

In the end, he would have become (temporarily) impotent.

“Hahaha!”

I didn’t think I’d gone too far. The filthy things I’d heard back then came flooding back, and every time I saw Sung Ji-won smiling so purely in contrast to that, my blood boiled again.
And this item had been discovered at such perfectly timed circumstances, as if heaven itself had arranged it specifically for me to use on Yoon Hee-eon. It would be foolish not to use it.
As I snickered to myself, the System Window came to mind.

[…Are you insane?]

“Yes, I am.”

Normally I would have ignored such a remark, but in my good mood, I responded lightly—yet even that seemed to displease the System Window, which erupted in a torrent.

[Don’t use it for this…!! I prepared this item with such pure intentions, and you’re going to use it like this, seriously??]

“Hey, don’t scold me like that. I’m upset too….”

[I don’t even want to respond… I’m not curious why you’re upset….]

Even beyond the text, I could feel the System Window’s disgust. I spoke regretfully while rubbing my chin.

“I wish I could have seen Yoon Hee-eon’s pale, sickly expression with my own eyes.”

If that were the case, it would have become the source of laughter that sustained my difficult life.
While this wouldn’t be a fatal blow to bring him down, the thought of Yoon Hee-eon’s face turning pale made another laugh burst out of me.
Well, it seems like it’ll become half a year’s worth of snacks for me to savor alone anyway.

[What a vile person….]
[We’re going to dispose of this permanently….]
[For the safety and wellbeing of everyone in the entertainment industry….]

“Aha, what a shame.”

I was planning to use it again next time.
My points had been depleted somewhat after grinding so hard all this time, but this much was acceptable.
Stretching my arms, I surveyed the view outside the dormitory.

Zing—.

My phone rang. I immediately pulled it out to check and couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction.

“Kim Jae-yeon, did you do good work?”

Another text had arrived from Kim Jae-yeon.
After days of undercover surveillance, he had finally found something.

‘Hmm, I can’t expose it right now.’

The text contained a photo of Yoon Hee-eon’s vehicle leaving the hotel.
At this level, it would only be gossip that passes with the season. However, if things went well, it could become the spark at the end of the fuse that detonates a bomb.

‘What should I do….’

I heard there was a possibility that Yoon Hee-eon would participate in Shining Star Season 2, but it was still undecided.
However, there was one thing I was certain of.
With anticipation thrumming in my chest, I rested my head on one arm and hummed playfully.

“Let’s take this slowly, Yoon Hee-eon~.”

You really stepped right into the trap.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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