Trty

The blue light of the smartphone glowed like a radioactive ember on the coffee table. Daesung’s face, usually the picture of bright smiles and practiced variety-show energy, had gone slack, his eyes darting between the camera lens and the storm brewing just off-screen. The comment section was a vertical blur, thousands of fans screaming in text—confused, horrified, and demanding to know what was happening.

"Hyung, please," Seungri stammered, his voice cracking as he backed away from the sudden intrusion. He tried to maintain a sliver of his 'Great Seungri' persona, but it was peeling away like cheap paint. "We’re live. The fans are watching."

Kon Sonhyun didn't just walk into the room; he invaded it. The manager, usually the silent shadow behind the world’s biggest boy band, looked like a man who had stared into the sun and decided to burn it down. He didn't look at the phone. He didn't care about the hearts floating across the screen or the viewers peaking at record numbers.

"You think I give a damn about a livestream?" Sonhyun’s voice was a low, dangerous snarl that vibrated in the small room. He threw a thick manila folder onto the table, narrowly missing the phone. Papers spilled out—bank statements, chat logs, names that shouldn't have been whispered, let alone written down. "You think the fans are going to be your shield when the police come knocking for the filth you’ve been hiding?"

Daesung reached out, his hand trembling as he moved to turn off the stream, but Sonhyun slapped his hand away.

"No," the manager hissed, his eyes fixed solely on Seungri. "Let them see. Let them see the man they’ve been worshipping. Tell them, Seunghyun. Tell them about Burning Sun. Tell them about the rooms, the girls, the money you thought you were too smart to lose."

Seungri’s face went pale, a ghostly white that made his dark hair look like a shroud. "It’s not… it’s not what you think. I’m just the face of it, I didn't know the details—"

"Don't you dare lie to me!" Sonhyun roared, stepping into the light. His shadow loomed over Seungri, pinning the younger man against the wall. "I have spent fifteen years of my life protecting this brand. I have stayed up until four in the morning covering up your 'minor' mistakes, your ego, your reckless nights. But this? This is rot. You’re a cancer, Seunghyun. You’re disgusting."

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the frantic tapping of millions of people around the world watching the downfall of an idol in real-time.

"Hyung, you’re being too harsh," Daesung whispered, his voice small. He was the middleman, the one who always tried to keep the peace, but even he looked sickened by the words spilling out of the manager's mouth. "We can talk about this privately. We can fix—"

"Fix it?" Sonhyun turned his venom on Daesung for a split second before refocusing on the youngest. "There is no fixing this. Jiyong is in the army. Youngbae is trying to build a life. Seunghyun-hyung is already struggling. And you? You took everything they built—every drop of sweat, every year of their youth—and you pissed it away because you wanted to play at being a mogul. You’re not a businessman. You’re a parasite."

Seungri’s eyes welled with tears, his chest heaving. "I did it for the group! I wanted us to have something when the music stopped. I wanted to be successful so I wouldn't be the 'extra' member anymore! You don't understand how I feel!"

Sonhyun let out a laugh that sounded like glass breaking. It was a cold, mocking sound that stripped away any remaining dignity Seungri had left.

"Your feelings?" Sonhyun stepped closer, his finger poking hard into Seungri’s chest with every word. "I couldn't care less about your feelings. You’re pathetic. You’re a small man with a big ego who got caught in the mud, and now you’re going to drag four innocent men down into the grave with you. Do you have any idea what this does to their legacies? To the kids who looked up to you?"

"I'm sorry," Seungri sobbed, his knees buckling as he slid down the wall. "I'm so sorry, hyung."

"Don't call me that," Sonhyun spat. "I am your manager, and as of this second, I am the man who is going to watch the world tear you apart. You didn't just ruin your life. You ruined BigBang. You’re a stupid, greedy boy who thought he was a god."

Sonhyun finally looked at the phone. He reached down, his face filling the frame for a brief, terrifying second. His eyes were dead, devoid of the paternal warmth he used to show the members. With a flick of his wrist, he grabbed the device and slammed it face-down on the table, but he didn't turn it off. The screen went black, but the audio remained live, broadcasting the sound of Seungri’s jagged, hysterical weeping to the entire world.

"Get up," Sonhyun commanded, his voice devoid of emotion now. "The lawyers are in the lobby. The police will be here by morning. Enjoy your last night of being an idol, Seunghyun. Tomorrow, you’re just another criminal."

Daesung sat frozen on the sofa, his head in his hands. The weight of the revelation was a physical pressure, crushing the air out of the room. He looked at Seungri—the 'maknae' he had teased, the brother he had toured the world with—and felt a wave of revulsion so strong it made his stomach turn.

"Is it true?" Daesung asked, his voice barely audible over Seungri’s crying.

Seungri didn't answer. He couldn't. He just curled into a ball on the floor, surrounded by the spilled papers that detailed his sins.

Sonhyun walked toward the door, stopping only to look back at the wreckage of the group he had spent his career building. "I should have let you fall years ago," he said quietly, a final parting gift of honesty. "It would have been kinder to the rest of them."

The door clicked shut with a finality that echoed like a gunshot. In the silence that followed, the phone on the table continued to hum, the live stream still active, capturing the sound of a legacy shattering into a million jagged pieces.

Daesung finally stood up, his movements robotic. He walked over to the table and picked up the phone. He didn't look at the comments. He didn't look at the viewer count, which had climbed into the millions. He simply found the 'End Stream' button and pressed it.

The screen went dark. The light was gone.

"What do we do now?" Seungri choked out from the floor, looking up at Daesung with eyes begging for a lie, for a way out, for a brother to tell him it would be okay.

Daesung looked at him, and for the first time in his life, there was no smile. There was no light in his eyes. There was only the cold, hard realization that the BigBang they knew was dead, and Seunghyun was the one who had pulled the trigger.

"We do nothing," Daesung said, his voice flat. "There’s nothing left to do."

He walked out of the room, leaving Seungri alone in the dark with the evidence of his own undoing scattered like autumn leaves around him. Outside, the world was already beginning to scream, the digital wildfire spreading across every social media platform, every news outlet, every corner of the globe.

The manager had been right. It was over. The crown wasn't just heavy; it had turned to lead, and it was dragging them all into the depths of a sea they would never surface from.

Seungri reached out a trembling hand to touch one of the papers—a transcript of a chat he thought had been deleted months ago. His name was there, clear as day, linked to words he could never take back. He closed his eyes, but the image of Sonhyun’s disgusted face was burned into his retinas.

He had wanted to be the king of his own empire. Instead, he was the architect of his own execution.

In the hallways of the YG building, the staff were already scurrying, phones ringing off the hooks, the smell of panic rising like smoke. But in that room, there was only the sound of a man realizing that the world he thought he owned had finally decided to collect its debt.

Sonhyun stood in the elevator, watching the numbers descend. He felt a strange sense of relief amidst the ruin. The secret was out. The rot was exposed. He had failed as a manager to keep the peace, but he had succeeded as a human being to finally stop the lie.

As the elevator doors opened into the lobby, a sea of camera flashes erupted through the glass doors. The hunt had begun.

"Good luck, Seunghyun," Sonhyun whispered to the empty air. "You’re going to need it."