Grab the Manual and Debut!-Chapter 38: ✦Star-Stock [1]✦

The members of staryu were gathered in the living room.

The massive 85-inch television screen flickered to life. It was the special "Behind-the-Scenes: Road to Starlight Finale" broadcast.

"Everyone, quiet! It’s starting!" Jae-hyun chirped, clutching a pillow to his chest.

For the first ten minutes, it was exactly what they expected: high-energy montages, tears of joy, and shots of them sweating in the practice rooms. But then, the music shifted. The bright, poppy synth-pads were replaced by a low, dissonant cello drone.

The screen cut to a scene from three days before the finale. Kang-joon was sitting in the corner of the practice room, staring at his phone. In reality, he had been coordinating with Ji-hye to stop the Director’s sabotage. But the editors had stripped away the context.

They zoomed in on his face—eyes cold, lips set in a thin line. A subtitle appeared: [The cold calculation of a leader?]

The edit jumped to Gun-woo approaching him, looking exhausted.

"Hyung, I’m really struggling with this part," Gun-woo said in the clip.

The camera stayed on Kang-joon, who didn’t look up. He simply said, "Then do it again until you don’t."

The screen froze on Kang-joon’s face, desaturated into a grainy, grey-blue tint.

[A teammate’s plea or an obstacle in the Architect’s way?]

"Wait," Gun-woo said, leaning forward, his brow furrowed. "That’s not how that went. Joon-ah, you spent three hours after that helping me with the footwork. Why didn’t they show that?"

"Because ’kind leader’ doesn’t get clicks," Han-bin muttered, his face darkening. "But ’arrogant genius’ does."

Kang-joon sat perfectly still. He felt the familiar hum of the System in the back of his mind.

[System Warning: Negative Impression Spike Detected]

[Public Sentiment: Shifting to ’Suspicion’]

As the episode ended, a teaser for the next broadcast flashed on the screen. It wasn’t a clip of their debut song. It was a blurred-out image of a police report and a black car.

[Next Week: The Shadow Behind the Star. The 2022 Incheon Hit-and-Run. Who was really in the car?]

The living room went deathly silent. The transition was so abrupt, so violent, that Jae-hyun actually dropped his pillow.

"Incheon?" Doh-yun whispered, looking at Kang-joon. "Joon-ah, that’s where you’re from. What are they talking about?"

"It’s a hit piece," Kang-joon said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Starline isn’t just promoting us. They’re testing us."

He stood up, ignoring the worried looks of his teammates, and walked into his private bedroom. He locked the door, sat at his desk, and pulled out his laptop. He didn’t check the news first. He went straight to the source of the modern-day coliseum: Nutube.

The Digital Battlefield

He navigated to the Starline Entertainment Official Channel. The "Behind-the-Scenes" highlight clip had been uploaded only five minutes ago. It already had 400,000 views and 22,000 comments.

Kang-joon scrolled down. He had lived ninety-seven lives, but the sheer velocity of internet vitriol still felt like a physical weight.

[Comments: Highlight Clip - "The Leader’s Real Face"]

* @KpopDetective: I knew it. Look at his eyes. He doesn’t care about the other members. He’s just using them to debut. That "hug" on stage was 100% scripted.

* @Starlight_Watcher: Did you guys see the teaser at the end? A hit-and-run? My cousin lives in Incheon and there were rumors about a rich kid’s parents covering something up back then. Is that why he’s an orphan? Because his parents died fleeing a crime scene?

* @Gunwoo_Solo_01: Get Gun-woo out of staryu. He’s a hero who saved a kid, he doesn’t deserve to be led by a potential criminal and a narcissist. #ProtectGunwoo #KangJoonOut

* @JoonieLuv: Guys, please wait for an explanation! We don’t know the whole story!

* @Anti_Snake: @JoonieLuv Shut up, pay-pig. The evidence is right there. He’s a psycho. Look at how he treats his members when the "Loverboy" cameras are off.

Kang-joon’s fingers hovered over the trackpad. He felt a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. It wasn’t just the comments; it was the Star-Trade app notification that popped up on his phone.

[Star-Trade: Alert!]

[Stock: KANG-JOON (STARYU)]

[Current Value: $7.42 (-25.8%)]

[Status: Approaching Delisting Zone ($5.00)]

He opened the app. It was a chaotic mess of scrolling tickers and flashing red lights.

Fans weren’t talking about music. They were talking about "Selling."

[Star-Trade Community Feed:]

* "Dumping all my Kang-joon shares. If he gets delisted, I can buy more Jae-hyun stock while it’s on dip. Sorry not sorry, I want a group that actually debuts."

* "Is it true that if he drops to $5.00, the 6th rank trainee from the finale takes his spot? God, I hope so. Min-soo was way better anyway."

Kang-joon closed his eyes. The "Director" hadn’t just sabotaged the stage; he had seeded the media with enough poison to ensure that even a successful performance would be viewed through a lens of doubt. And Starline? Starline was letting it happen because the "Star-Trade" app was generating millions in transaction fees as fans panicked.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed. A private message from a hidden number.

[User_997]: "Do you hear the sound of the ’Nation’s Son’ breaking? It’s a lot louder than applause, isn’t it? If you want to save your stock, you have to admit it, Kang-joon. Tell the world you were in that car."

Kang-joon stared at the screen. The car. The 2022 hit-and-run wasn’t a lie. It was a memory he had buried deep in the static of his 97th life. His parents were driving him home from a math competition. It was raining. A man had stumbled into the road. His father had swerved, clipped the man, and panicked. They didn’t flee—they stopped—but the "man" was a local gang member, and the "incident" was settled quietly with money that Kang-joon’s parents didn’t have. They had died in a separate accident a month later, still drowning in the debt of that settlement.

The media didn’t have the truth. They had a distorted fragment of a tragedy.

The Room of Shadows

A soft knock came at his door.

"Joon-ah? It’s Gun-woo. Open up."

Kang-joon wiped his face and opened the door. All four members were standing there. Gun-woo was holding his phone, the Star-Trade app open.

"I just sold my car," Gun-woo said abruptly.

Kang-joon blinked. "What?"

"The old sedan I had back home. My sister just listed it for me," Gun-woo said, his voice trembling with anger. "I’m putting all the money into your stock. I’m buying every share these idiots drop."

"Gun-woo, don’t be stupid," Kang-joon said, his voice cracking. "If the stock crashes below $5.00, you lose everything. You won’t have a car, and you’ll be tied to a ’delisted’ leader."

"Then we’ll be delisted together," Jae-hyun said, stepping forward. He held up his phone. "I’m a minor, so I don’t have much, but I’m using my allowance. I don’t care about the ’Devil’s Edit.’ I was there. I know you helped me."

Doh-yun and Han-bin nodded in unison.

"We talked about it," Doh-yun said. "This ’Star-Trade’ thing is sick. They’re trying to make us compete against each other. If one of us falls, staryu isn’t staryu. We’re holding the line."

Kang-joon looked at them—really looked at them. For ninety-six lives, he had viewed teammates as variables. Assets to be managed. But as he looked at Gun-woo’s determined face and Jae-hyun’s teary eyes, the Humanity Metric in his peripheral vision flared gold.

[Humanity Metric: 52% (New Record!)]

[System Evolution: ’The Hive Mind’ Skill Unlocked]

* Effect: You can now see the ’Value’ of the group as a single entity. Individual stock crashes can be mitigated if the group’s bond remains at 100%.

"Thank you," Kang-joon whispered. "But you don’t need to go broke for me. I’m not going to let a Nutube edit be the end of this."

"What are you going to do?" Han-bin asked.

"I’m going to use their own system against them," Kang-joon said, his eyes sharpening. "They want ’The Architect’? Fine. I’ll design a narrative they can’t delete."

The Counter-Strike

Kang-joon didn’t call the agency. He didn’t call a lawyer. He opened a live-stream on the staryu official account at 1:00 AM.

Within sixty seconds, 100,000 people joined. By five minutes, it was at 1 million. The comments were a blur of hate, questions, and "support" emojis.

Kang-joon sat in front of the camera, wearing a simple black t-shirt. No makeup. No "Loverboy" hoodie. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"I’m not here to talk about the show," Kang-joon began, his voice steady. "I’m here to talk about the ’Star-Trade’ app. Today, I saw my value drop because of a ten-second clip of me being tired. I saw people betting on my life like I’m a horse in a race."

He leaned closer to the lens.

"Regarding the 2022 incident... the records show a settlement was paid. It’s true. My parents spent their last month on earth in debt to save their son from a scandal he wasn’t even responsible for. I was sixteen. I wasn’t driving. But I watched them break under the weight of it."

He paused, letting the silence hang.

"If being an idol means I have to be ’perfect’ while my parents are slandered as criminals, then I don’t want to be an idol. But I do want to be a member of staryu."

He turned the camera to show the other four members sitting behind him on the floor.

"These four people just tried to sell their belongings to ’buy’ my stock so I wouldn’t be delisted. Does that sound like a group led by a narcissist?"

He looked back at the camera.

"To the person who is manipulating this app... to ’User_997’... you think you can win by making us fear the numbers. But you forgot one thing. The fans aren’t just investors. They’re people."

The Short Squeeze

While Kang-joon spoke, Ji-hye (LawFan_99) was working behind the scenes. She had organized a "Hold the Line" campaign across every major fan forum.

"Don’t just buy Kang-joon stock," she posted. "Buy STARYU. If we drive the collective group value up, the delisting threshold for individual members rises. We can lock the ’Director’ out of the algorithm."

As the livestream continued, a miracle happened in the digital world.

The red downward arrows on Kang-joon’s stock stopped. They flickered, turned green, and began to climb.

$4.50... $6.00... $9.00... $15.00!

The "Short Squeeze" was in effect. Anti-fans who had "shorted" the stock (betting it would fall) were suddenly losing millions as the price skyrocketed.

[System Notification: Impression Roulette]

[Reward: Skill - ’Public Sincerity’ (Level Max)]

[Bonus: The ’Star-Trade’ App has crashed due to excessive traffic.]

Kang-joon saw the notification and let out a small, tired laugh.

"It looks like the app is down," he said to the camera. "I guess we’re priceless for tonight."

He ended the stream.

The Glitch in the Dark

Back in his room, Kang-joon stared at his phone. The screen was black, reflecting his own face. He felt the weight of the 52% humanity. It hurt. It felt like a raw nerve exposed to the air.

Suddenly, a final message from User_997 appeared.

[User_997]: "Impressive. You used the ’Truth’ card. But you’ve only delayed the inevitable. The hit-and-run victim isn’t dead, Kang-joon. And he’s very, very hungry for more money. I’ve already sent him the address to your new ’High-Security’ dorm. See you at the front gate."

Kang-joon stood up and walked to the window. Down on the street, twenty stories below, a single black car was parked at the curb. A man in a tattered jacket was leaning against it, looking up at the penthouse.

"Gun-woo," Kang-joon called out, his voice cold and sharp. "Get your shoes on. We have a guest."