The Idol Wants One Exception to the No-Dating Rule novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Rule One
The idol's sister photo is trending as a secret girlfriend, and his strict new manager takes his phone and reads him the rules; a camera flash hits the van window.
The photo was on every screen in the CEO's office.
It showed Ha-jun on a dark street at night, with his arms around a woman and his face turned away.
The headline under it said, "ARCLIGHT's Lim Ha-jun: his secret girlfriend."
"She's my sister," Ha-jun said for the fourth time that morning.
"I know," Park Mi-sook said.
"She's a nurse. She brought me soup because I had a fever."
"I know that too. Starline posted a statement an hour ago, and nobody believes it."
The CEO took off her reading glasses and let them hang on their chain.
"The face is blurred, so the internet decided she's whoever it wants."
Ha-jun sat back in the leather chair and crossed his arms.
He was twenty-four, he had been center of ARCLIGHT for five years, and this was his second scandal in a month.
The first was still sitting on the table, a clip of him snapping "Move!" at a staffer that had cost him two ad brands.
"There's one more thing," Park Mi-sook said. "Clause fourteen."
"I remember clause fourteen."
"Then say it back to me."
"If I'm confirmed dating, Aurora can buy my contract at half price."
Aurora Entertainment owned thirty percent of Starline, and its director had wanted Ha-jun for two years.
On a talk show last week, Director Choi had smiled and said, "We all know what a photo like that means."
"So we're done with ordinary management," Park Mi-sook said. "Meet your new manager."
The door opened behind Ha-jun, and a man came in without a sound.
He was tall and wide through the shoulders, with short black hair and black-framed glasses.
His dark gray suit had no wrinkles, and he wore a plain steel watch.
He looked at Ha-jun.
"Moon Seung-ho," the man said. "I start now."
"Now?" Ha-jun said.
"The car is downstairs. Your phone, please."
Ha-jun laughed, because it was funny, and held the phone against his chest.
Seung-ho waited.
He did not frown, or sigh, or lean in.
He just held out one big hand, palm up, and kept it there until Ha-jun stopped smiling.
In the van, Ha-jun took the back seat and Seung-ho took the one beside him.
The driver pulled out of the underground garage into the evening traffic on Teheran-ro.
"Three rules," Seung-ho said.
He had Ha-jun's phone in his lap and a second, black phone in his inside jacket pocket.
That one buzzed against his chest, and he took it out, looked at the screen once, and turned it face down on his knee.
"Rule one. No dating. Nobody touches you, in any way a camera can read."
"That's one rule."
"It's the one that matters. Rule two, your phone sleeps at my door at eleven. Rule three, you answer me within three rings."
"And if I disagree?"
"Then you'll be disagreeing from the back seat of a van."
Ha-jun looked at his profile in the window.
The man had a straight nose and a hard mouth, and his eyes were behind the glasses and gave nothing back.
Ha-jun had spent five years being handled by people who wanted something from his face.
This one did not seem to want anything at all, and it made Ha-jun want to find out why.
"Does the rule cover you?" he asked.
Seung-ho turned his head. "Me?"
"No dating, nobody touches me. You're somebody."
"I'm the one who enforces it."
"That isn't an answer, Manager Moon."
Ha-jun reached across for his phone.
He hadn't really meant to take it. He only wanted to see what Seung-ho would do.
Seung-ho caught his wrist before his fingers closed.
The grip was warm, dry and absolutely steady.
His thumb settled on the inside of Ha-jun's wrist, right on the pulse, and Ha-jun felt it hammer under that thumb.
Neither of them moved.
Seung-ho's eyes went from Ha-jun's eyes to his mouth and came back, so fast it might have been nothing.
It was not nothing.
"Sit back," Seung-ho said quietly.
"Make me."
Something changed in the man's face.
It was small, a tightening at the jaw, and Ha-jun felt it all the way down his spine.
"If you want an exception," Ha-jun said, softly enough that the driver couldn't hear, "I already know who I'd pick."
Seung-ho's grip tightened for one second.
Then a white light flashed outside the window.
It flashed again, hard and bright, and the whole back seat lit up.
"Get down," Seung-ho said, and put his hand on Ha-jun's head.
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