Jeong-hyeok and Seri have maintained their love and commitment to each other, despite only being together once a year. But will they ever have the opportunity for more than that? Will Jeong-hyeok ever realise his full potential as a musician? Perhap...
There is something uniquely disturbing about a ringing phone early in the morning. A sudden knot twisting in your stomach, the anxiety present as your struggle to open your eyes and understand what is happening. Something bad must have happened. Why else would someone call so early? And recent experience of early morning phone calls can only make that worry worse. So when Seri's mobile started ringing repeatedly early the next morning, she grabbed it, her heart thumping.
"What's going on? It's Manager Hong, what can he want?"
Jeong-hyeok too was sitting up, disturbed by the call, anxiously wondering what was behind it.
Mr Hong's voice came through speaking fast, panicking.
"Ms Yoon. It's terrible, you must check the news and social media immediately."
"Why? What's happened?"
"There is some CCTV footage of Ri Jeong-hyeok fighting from five years ago. Every news channel is showing it. It's everywhere!"
"Fighting? What do you mean?"
Jeong-hyeok had turned on the television and was hurriedly searching for the news channel.
"All the comments! They recognise him, and say he's a spy or gang member or something!"
Jeong-hyeok and Seri looked at each other, confused and worried. They couldn't quite understand. Then they found the right channel. A short clip of CCTV footage was showing on a loop. It clearly showed a date from 5 years ago and Jeong-hyeok was indeed fighting with a group of men in a warehouse. A sign in the background was easily identifiable as South Korean.
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They looked at each other horrified.
"What's going on?"
"Where has that come from?"
"Look at the comments on social media! Look at them!" Mr Hong practically shouted at them.
Jeong-hyeok grabbed his phone and found the social media comments, hundreds of them, and more coming all the time. He showed them to Seri, his face pale.
She started to read them out loud.
"Yoon Seri's new husband must be a spy!"
"Ishe involved in drugs or gangs?"
"What was a North Korean doing here five years ago!"
"Oh no, no!" Then she stopped, too horrified to continue.
Jeong-hyeok carried on scrolling through them. Every comment was bad.
"She said he was a musician, but what musician fights like that?"
"He should be arrested!"
"How dare Yoon Seri bring a thug like that into the country!"
