On the first day of July, Chanyeol woke up at eight-thirty in the morning like he routinely did every day. Chanyeol always made sure that he got at least seven and a half hours of sleep so he could wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start his day. He read this fact on the internet somewhere. 

The first thing Chanyeol would do upon waking up was to reach for his phone on the bedside table to check how many new followers or new likes he had gained overnight on Instagram.

Then he’d read the new comments left on his pictures or short videos he posted. He’d like the comments praising him and occasionally left replies to those comments with heart emotes.

All the negative and disparaging comments would be deleted and sometimes, Chanyeol would even block their accounts. It was important that Chanyeol’s Instagram was filled with nothing but praise and adoration for him.

Park Chanyeol, also known by the songwriting pseudonym of LOEY, is a music producer signed under SM Entertainment. Chanyeol started writing and composing his own music in high school, which was also when he began submitting his tracks to record labels around Seoul.

Chanyeol continued to pursue music in college and also obtained a degree related to modern and applied music.

SM Entertainment signed Chanyeol right after college and for the past ten years of his career as a music producer, working for them was all he ever knew in life.

Chanyeol received fame from the songs he produced and wrote for SM Entertainment’s idol groups, which turned out to be a success on the charts and among the public.

Because of his good looks, some netizens had even suggested Chanyeol join a boy group, but he turned it down because he enjoyed writing and producing songs first and foremost.

That morning was a bit different though. Chanyeol not only woke up to the usual flood of Instagram notifications but also several missed calls and a bombardment of text messages, from his fellow producers and writers at SM Entertainment.

Chanyeol ignored the text messages to quickly call back one person who had missed called him, Lee Soo Man, the executive producer and founder of SM Entertainment.

Chanyeol had no idea what was going on and he just assumed it was something urgent for Lee Soo Man to be leaving him several missed calls and texts to call him back even before nine in the morning.

“Park Chanyeol!” Lee Soo Man yelled over the phone, while a loud thudding sound was heard in the background.

“Y-yes?” Chanyeol stuttered, afraid of his boss who instantly screamed at him over the phone. Chanyeol was still in his pajamas sporting a messy bedhead as he cringed over being scolded over the phone.

“What on earth do you think you are doing? Have you read the news!? Almost half of the songs you produced for CBX’s latest album which came out two days ago, were discovered to be plagiarized from an unsigned music producer! You said that you produced all those tracks by yourself! Why didn’t you tell me that you stole those tracks!” Lee Soo Man bombarded Chanyeol over the phone.

Even when Chanyeol pulled the phone away from his ear, he was still able to hear Lee Soo Man cursing at him while his assistant was trying to pacify him somewhere in the background.

“I-I..” Chanyeol was unable to form a response or lie his way through it again. He knew he was guilty and he knew what he did wrong.

“I don’t care! You come down to the office now and explain yourself! My stocks are plummeting down by the second as we speak. It hasn’t been this worse since Jessica left Girls’ Generation,” Lee Soo Man was then heard angrily weeping over the phone.

“Yes, I’m on my way there,” Chanyeol quickly ended the call and rushed out of bed.

There was no time to lounge around checking his phone while having breakfast which he usually did before working in his home studio every day.

Instead, Chanyeol dashed for the bathroom and quickly showered before throwing on the nearest pair of jeans and shirt he could find. Chanyeol grabbed his car keys, wallet and hat before running out of his apartment and slamming the elevator button down to the basement car park.

Once Chanyeol was inside his car, he quickly sped off and drove all the way down to the SM Entertainment building to meet Lee Soo Man.

When Chanyeol arrived at the building, all the staff he met on the way to Lee Soo Man’s office shook his head disapprovingly at him.

Chanyeol was already dying on the inside but he knew what he did.

When Chanyeol finally got to meet Lee Soo Man, his assistant was fanning him with a folder as he was hyperventilating on his high chair behind his desk.

“You! You better explain yourself right this instant! Do you know what you have done?” Lee Soo Man boomed, pushing his chair back and standing back up with a finger pointed at Chanyeol. His assistant had to restrain him from going around the desk and trying to choke Chanyeol.

“Huh?” Chanyeol pretended to be ignorant, surprised at Lee Soo Man suddenly jumping towards him.

“CBX! My best selling boy group is receiving flak and public disapproval because the songs you made for them were plagiarized! The real writer of the songs came out with the accusation and now that they have been proven, CBX is getting the rough end of it. My stocks are dropping and the netizens have begun speculating! Do you know what this means!?” Lee Soo Man shrieked.

“-but it’s not their fault. It’s mine, I’m really sorry. I will accept my responsibility for this I swear. I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Chanyeol pleaded, his hand shaking at the thought of the potential disaster this could mean.

“So you do admit you’re guilty of this. What is it that you did, Chanyeol?” Lee Soo Man jeered.

“I had no idea it would get this bad. I was facing writer’s block but I needed to produce a song fast for CBX’s comeback album. So I stole ideas and verses from this young aspiring writer who sent me his stuff, hoping that I could critique and comment on it.” Chanyeol explained, forced to fess up.

“You idiot,” Lee Soo Man slammed his fist down on the table, “I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid like that. You’re thirty-three years-old, Chanyeol! You’re a veteran in this industry and you should know better!”

“I’ll do anything you tell me to in order to control this situation. Anything, I swear. I’ll make a public apology if you want me to,” Chanyeol suggested in the midst of his panic.

“No need for that,” Lee Soo Man hissed, “I don’t want you ruining things than it already is. We will make a public statement soon but it is only to absolve CBX from the scandal because they had no part in this. We will pin the blame and responsibility fully on you, do you understand? This scandal is all your fault.”

“-but what will happen to me after that?” Chanyeol gasped, looking up at Lee Soo Man from the other side of the table with shaking hands lifted in front of his face.

“In our public statement which we’ll release in a few hours, we’ll say that you have been forced to take an indefinite leave, that you are sorry for what you have done and that you will take the time to reflect on your actions. You are not allowed to speak to anyone else of this and your actions will have to reflect what we tell the public. Do you understand?” Lee Soo Man asserted.

“Are you firing me?” Chanyeol blurted out.

“Fire you?” Lee Soo Man laughed, “We own your life and where can you go if you leave us anyway? Now leave before I change my mind.”

Chanyeol didn’t need to think twice before dashing out of the office and running back to the parking area.

As Chanyeol was driving out the SM Entertainment building, he spotted fans and the media gathered outside the building. Chanyeol thought they were just there to see an idol, only for him to see a signboard one of the fans help up reading, “CBX did nothing wrong”.

Chanyeol felt guiltier than ever and pulled the front of his cap lower over his face before driving away, hoping no one would recognize him.

Back at his apartment, Chanyeol turned off his phone, avoided the entertainment news channel and curled up on his bed watching movies while eating cup ramen for the rest of the day.

Chanyeol was still too scared and timid to face the repercussions of his actions, especially now that SM Entertainment had released an official statement on the scandal, absolving CBX of any involvement and directing the blame to the guilty as charged Chanyeol.

He was even scared of going out in public because he was afraid of people who might recognize him. Chanyeol decided that he would just have to survive on bottled water, instant ramen and delivery until the whole situation died down.

Abstaining from his phone cold turkey was proven too much for him, however. In the evening, Chanyeol’s temptation got the better of him and he his phone, thinking that it wouldn’t be that bad.

Chanyeol checked his Instagram and his jaw dropped open when he saw that he had lost tens of thousands of Instagram followers from the almost one million followers he had.

Chanyeol had even planned to make a one million follower special when he reached that milestone, but it didn’t seem like it would be happening anytime soon now.

There were still likes left on his pictures and videos but fewer than usual, and the comments were now overwhelmingly negative. People called him out as a copycat, as a plagiarizer on his posts. His usual fans who praised him were expressing their disappointment at him and some even left hateful comments telling him to go die for staining CBX’s name particularly.

Thinking that it couldn’t be worse, Chanyeol checked internet portals to see his name and CBX’s trending throughout the world and even in different countries.

The netizens were sympathetic and supportive of CBX, which Chanyeol was glad for. He had worked alongside the members of CBX for years, and they had become like good friends to him. The last thing he would want is for their careers to be affected by his mistake, so he accepted the full responsibility of his actions.

Sure, Chanyeol was a plagiarizer but he wasn’t evil.

Chanyeol was even more devastated when he went to message one of the CBX members on Instagram to apologize, only to find out that they had unfollowed him, presumably because of their manager’s orders to disassociate from Chanyeol to clear their names from the scandal.

Another executive from SM Entertainment also later sent him an email that his indefinite leave would begin that day and that he would not be involved in any activities with the company until a specified time.

Chanyeol knew he wasn’t technically fired from his position as a producer, but that he was technically excommunicated from the company.

Chanyeol wept and called his parents and sister that evening, be his situation to them. They remained supportive of him although they did reprimand him for doing such a thing that jeopardized his career.

Chanyeol later went on his computer and searched on how to hide from the public and other people, but ended up at a shady site teaching him how to fake his death instead.

Chanyeol went through the property and rental sites, searching for decent places he could rent and live at as long as it was outside from Seoul.

Chanyeol decided that he needed to move away from Seoul for the time being before making a return. In his mind, Chanyeol had already envisioned a spectacular comeback where he produced a full album by himself full of original tracks which would be sung by the most popular artists and then top the charts.

Chanyeol clicked on random towns and provinces in the drop-down menu on the rental site before he came across a room for rent offer in the island town of Jindo, which was far south in the Korean peninsula with a population of 18,000.

The house was a bit old and traditional but the interiors were modernly furnished. The house was listed to have a working internet connection, heated baths, and an interior cooling and heating unit. The price was also very affordable and the owner of the house left his phone number on the site and his name as “Do Kyungsoo”.

Just by the pictures and description alone, there really wasn’t anything special about it but Chanyeol had been attracted because of the surrounding area being described as a quiet, peaceful getaway not far from the sea or the beach.

More research on the Jindo Island and county led him to breathtaking pictures of the scenery, anecdotes by satisfied travelers and blog posts about the hospitality of the place and its people.

That was all he really needed right now; a quiet and calm place for him to clear his mind and gain new inspiration before making his envisioned comeback into the industry.

Chanyeol picked up his phone and dialed the phone number on the listing which belonged to Kyungsoo, the owner of the house.

Kyungsoo initially spoke in the South Jeolla provincial dialect before sw