The Algorithm of Spring

66

The Hongdae BB singing room belonged to another reality entirely. Its faded exterior and worn staircase led to rooms that hadn't been updated since the early 2000s. The scent of synthetic leather and stale beer created an atmosphere of unpretentious authenticity. Somewhere deeper inside, a distorted mic screech cut through the hallway — the building's only modern feature was its neglect.

Maya had chosen it deliberately—an old haunt with coin-operated machines and physical songbooks, the kind that hadn't been connected to any network in years. Private by design. And more importantly, unmonitored — a rarity in Seoul these days.

                                                                                                ***

Jun-ho found her in room three, bottles of Cass and dried squid waiting on the table. The dated wallpaper and fuzzy screen looping old K-pop videos created a strange bubble outside of time.

"How was the rest of Samsung City?" Maya asked, pouring him a beer.

"Like watching people drown in corporate luxury." Jun-ho took the glass. "The entire campus is designed to make people dependent. They do your laundry, there's a free gym on-site, free food in the cafeteria, and endless after-work activities. They'll even pay the wolse deposit on a new apartment—provided it's one they own. Their car service shuttles employees between home and campus. It's a closed ecosystem," he added. "Once you're inside, the outside starts to feel optional."

He took a sip, then added, "And HarmoniQ is being woven into everything."

"Min-seo has been cross-referencing the files from Dr. Park's drive with the corporate partnership records we found," Maya said, pulling papers from her bag. "Look."

The song menu cycled through hits from a decade ago, casting coloured light across the documents.

"These are the same women," Maya said, her voice low. "The ones being flagged by Dr. Park for 'preventative consultations' are the same ones whose corporate performance scores are being tracked by Nexus. It's not two separate systems; their data is being linked. "It's the same pressure from two angles," she said. "Corporate compliance on one side. Emotional compliance on the other."

Jun-ho examined the documents, his expression hardening. "So the corporate pressure and the medical pressure... they're connected."

"It's a feedback loop," Maya said, her voice dropping as the full picture clarified. "A pincer movement. HarmoniQ pressures you professionally at the office, using performance data from Nexus. Then it pressures you personally at the clinic, using the medical data Dr. Park found. Two different systems, controlled by the same hand, squeezing from both sides. You don't notice the walls moving until there's no space left to breathe."

The karaoke machine switched songs, Girls' Generation replaced by Wonder Girls. Jun-ho reached for the remote, killing the music. The sudden quiet felt uneasy.

"But who is pulling the strings?" Jun-ho asked, pushing back in the vinyl booth. "Is it Samsung? Or is this 'Nexus' company something bigger? We see the victims and we see the corporate mechanism, but we don't know who built it or what their ultimate goal is."

"We're missing the core of it," Maya agreed. "We're just seeing the damage."

Through the thin walls, someone butchered a BTS song with drunken conviction. The contrast between their grave discussion and the surrounding revelry felt surreal.

"I feel like I'm chasing a ghost," Jun-ho said. "I've been letting this happen to my sister, and I had no idea how deep it went." His grip on the beer glass tightened until it looked like it might crack.

Maya studied him across the table, disco lights painting their faces with shifting patterns. "It's not too late." She pulled out her device, showing him something new. "Min-seo thinks she found a weakness in their security protocols. A way in—or a potential way in. She noticed a timing mismatch between their audit logs and their user pings—something that shouldn't be possible unless there's a blind spot. But it's risky. If we misstep, they'll know someone's been inside their system."

The karaoke machine cycled to the next song—an old ballad about lost love and redemption. Jun-ho reached for the controls, turning it up slightly. Better to mask their conversation.

"Tell me," he said.

Beyond the window, Seoul's night pulsed with its own cadence. Somewhere out there, his sister sat in her manufactured life, while the system that had remade her expanded its reach to millions more. And whoever was orchestrating it wasn't finished — not with Yeon-joo, not with anyone else.