Kang Joon sat on the edge of his narrow bunk, his back against the cold metal rail. Across the room, a wall-mounted camera; the "Dorm Vlog" eye glowed with a steady red light. It was watching him. It was watching the way he rubbed his tired eyes, the way his shoulders slumped, the way he looked at his phone. Every micro-expression was being recorded, ready to be sliced, slowed down, and captioned by an editor whose only metric was "engagement."
He navigated to the Nutube homepage. The algorithm, ever-efficient, placed the latest "Road to Starlight: Uncut Special" at the very top. The thumbnail was a high-contrast shot of Kang Joon's face, shadowed and stern, next to a crying trainee named Han-eol.
The title: "The Tyranny of the Top Rank? Kang Joon's Hidden Audio Revealed."
Kang Joon clicked it. He knew he shouldn't. In ninety-seven lives, he had learned that feeding a wound only made it fester, but in this life, he needed to know the shape of the weapon being used against him.
