But while LEAVEN was out there living their absolute best lives — beef, street food, gaming, double dates, and the sacred art of the "girl" dialect — back at the Golden Disk Awards, something else entirely was brewing.
And not the good kind of brewing. Not a refreshing summer storm rolling in with cool air and that petrichor smell that makes everything feel cinematic. Not a gentle spring rain.
No.
What was coming was a shit storm. The full, unabridged, industrial-grade variety — stinky, chaotic, gag-inducing, drama-farming, L's-distributing, and heading directly for one specific target like a heat-seeking missile with a personal vendetta.
Kang Seo-yul's evening was already going poorly, and that's putting it generously. His attempt at sabotaging LEAVEN's performance hadn't technically failed — the sabotages landed. LEAVEN just had the audacity to power through all of them anyway, which was arguably worse. There is nothing more infuriating than a plan that works and still doesn't work. He had been stewing in that particular brand of impotent fury all night, wearing his pissy mood like a second outfit.
Meanwhile, backstage was already operating at maximum tension. The finale was approaching. E:Den's finale performance — which meant everything had to be nothing short of perfect, flawless, and immaculate, or someone was losing their head. The air was wound tight, everyone moving with that specific kind of focused panic that live production runs on.
And then, out of nowhere —
Men in black appeared.
Not drifting in. Not walking in. Appearing — materializing from the edges of the backstage chaos and moving with swift, deliberate precision to form a clean perimeter around one person.
Kang Seo-yul.
The effect was immediate. Every nearby conversation dropped to a murmur. Heads turned. Eyes followed. The confusion was thick and collective — nobody quite knowing what they were looking at, but knowing instinctively that it was something.
Kang Seo-yul, for his part, had gone very still. The fury was still there — it hadn't gone anywhere — but now it had a very specific direction. His eyes locked onto the man at the center of the group, the one who carried himself like he was in charge, and the look on his face made it immediately clear that these two were not strangers.
"What the actual fuck," Kang Seo-yul said, quiet and sharp as a blade, "do you think you're doing?"
"Young master." The man's voice was low, measured, carefully calibrated to not carry further than necessary. Calm — but underneath it, urgency, running like a current. "Please come with us. It's an urgent matter."
"The FUCK?" Whatever restraint Kang Seo-yul had been maintaining evaporated instantly. "Can't you see I'm about to go on stage?! Do you wanna die?! Ahhh —" He cut himself off, jaw tight. "Shibal!"
"Young master," the man said, undeterred, "this is an order from your father."
That landed differently. Kang Seo-yul's eyes narrowed.
"Then the least you can do," he said, dangerously measured now, "is tell me what the hell is happening before I wring your neck."
The man held his gaze steadily.
"Your parents are currently on their way to the airport. The police have begun investigating your father and mother — and the investigation includes you as well."
A beat.
"Why are they running around like headless chickens?" Kang Seo-yul said, a dismissive edge cutting through the tension. "Can't we just pay the police off like usual?"
"I'm afraid I don't have much information on the specifics," the man said, calm and apologetic in equal measure. "Everything has happened very suddenly. What I do know is that the matter is urgent, and we have been tasked by your father to escort you to the airport immediately." A brief pause, and then — delivered with the same even, unhurried tone — "I would also ask that you please do not resist. We have been instructed to take you by force if necessary. So we ask that you come with us calmly."
The backstage noise continued around them. Nobody was pretending not to watch anymore.
Kang Seo-yul stood very still for a long moment. The options arranged themselves in front of him cleanly — resist, and get physically dragged out in front of everyone he'd spent years performing power in front of. Or walk.
"Aishh—"
The frustrated exhale came from somewhere deep.
"Fine," he said. "Let's go."
He reached up, grabbed the wireless headmic already fitted on him, and ripped it free with one sharp motion — not handing it to anyone, not setting it down. Just letting it fall, carelessly, wherever gravity took it.
And then he walked.
Head up. Jaw set. Every step deliberate.
As if he was choosing this.
As if he had anywhere else to be.
****
The moment Kang Seo-yul turned and walked away, the backstage erupted.
"Kang Seo-yul — where are you going?! We're about to go ON STAGE—" One of his groupmates broke from the pack, rushing after him, reaching out —
Kang Seo-yul didn't even turn his head.
Didn't slow down. Didn't acknowledge the voice. Didn't offer a single syllable of explanation. Just kept walking, steady and unbothered, swallowed up by the ring of men in black like he was always meant to leave.
The member stopped. Stood there. Frozen in place like a loading screen that had given up on loading.
Gooped. Gagged. Shocked Pikachu face in full, unfiltered, high-definition effect. The whole package.
And while everyone backstage wanted answers — while every single person in that space had a very loud, very urgent question forming in their chest — nobody moved. Nobody demanded anything. Nobody crossed the invisible but very well understood line.
Because he was Kang Seo-yul. Chaebol Kang Seo-yul. And that name, in this industry, in these circles, worked like an invisible fence. Everyone knew exactly where the boundary was. Nobody touched it.
So they did the only rational thing left to do.
They washed their hands of it. Collectively, silently, and with the resigned energy of people who had learned a long time ago to pick their battles. They straightened up. Pulled themselves together. And prayed — sincerely, desperately, with whatever spiritual currency they had left — for at least a passable performance.
E:Den took the stage.
Sans their center. Sans their face. Sans Kang Seo-yul.
In the few seconds before the lights hit them, standing in formation with one very conspicuous, very gaping hole in it, the remaining members of E:Den did what any reasonable professionals would do in this situation —
They internally cursed Kang Seo-yul straight to hell and back. Up one side and down the other. In ways that would make a sailor uncomfortable. Because that was the only avenue available to them — you don't curse Kang Seo-yul out loud, not in this industry, not with his last name. But in the privacy of their own skulls? Absolutely unhinged. Completely justified.
The lights weren't even on them yet and they were already sweating bullets.
And then the performance began.
And the spotlights turned on.
And it went downhill. Immediately. Rapidly. With zero hesitation and absolutely no intention of stopping.
The audience clocked the missing member within seconds — because of course they did. These were fans. Fans notice everything. A confused murmur rippled through the crowd like a wave, spreading from the front rows backward, everyone leaning slightly toward the person next to them with the same unspoken question.
Where is he?
The remaining members of E:Den held on. They tried. Credit where it's due — they genuinely, visibly tried to hold the fort, redistribute the energy, fill the space. But Kang Seo-yul hadn't given them seconds to prepare. He'd given them nothing. No heads up, no plan, no coverage strategy. Just an absence where a center used to be, and a formation that was designed around him.
So when his parts came —
The music kept playing.
The vocals kept going.
But the person those vocals belonged to was nowhere on that stage.
The track was singing. The stage was not.
And in one single, crystalline, completely unambiguous moment — broadcast live, streamed globally, witnessed by millions of eyes both in that arena and on screens everywhere — E:Den exposed themselves. Fully. Completely. Undeniably.
Lip syncing. The whole time.
"When you hit rock bottom, the only way is up," they say.
No.
No.
Absolutely not. Not today. Not even close.
Because rock bottom looked up at what E:Den just did and felt genuinely better about itself. There is a place beneath rock bottom — past the pit, past the abyss, past every dramatic metaphor ever coined for catastrophic failure — and E:Den found it, tripped into it, and somehow managed to dig further on the way down.
They had dug the pit themselves. And then they fell in it. And then they kept going.
The audience reaction was already shifting — that particular shift, the dangerous kind, the kind that moves from confused murmuring into something louder, sharper, and considerably less forgiving.
It was about to get bad.
The worst possible kind of bad.
And the internet hadn't even gotten involved yet.