“Hey. Hey. Min Cheol-woo. You still out of it?”
“Leave him. Let him be, Detective Lee.”
“I’d like to get off work too, damn it. Just how much did he take that he still hasn’t come to?”
Cheol-woo opened his eyes in the police station detention cell.
As he barely gathered his senses, he realized it was chaos.
They shoved a photo of a bag filled with some kind of clear powder in his face, pointed at the bruise on the inside of his elbow, yelling who-knows-what, but with the alcohol still clouding his head, Cheol-woo couldn’t take in any of it.
“I’m asking what the hell this is!”
“I-I don’t know anything about that…”
“Don’t lie, you bastard. Then what are those needle marks on your elbow?”
“I don’t remember that…”
“Oh, you don’t remember? Picked that up from somewhere, huh? Son of a— You think this is funny? You think the cops are a joke?”
“T-the truth is… I was half asleep…”
“Oh, you were half asleep, huh?”
“Alright, that’s enough. That’s enough.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Min Cheol-woo’s manager. We’ve called a lawyer, so until they get here, Cheol-woo, shut your mouth. These guys are only thinking about throwing you in jail.”
“What?!”
Just before Cheol-woo could drunkenly blurt out more incriminating nonsense, his manager arrived.
The lawyer sent by the agency was a pretty skilled one from Geummyeong Law Firm, who took on Cheol-woo’s case exclusively and stayed at the police station constantly to manage everything.
The manager also raised his voice just as much as the lawyer, and to Cheol-woo, that was something he was tearfully grateful for.
“So you’re saying it was your ex-girlfriend who did this? That you didn’t know anything?”
“Detective, this woman is a known drug offender. She has four previous arrests for drug use.”
“What are you doing? Get a warrant. Put out a warrant for her arrest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Min Cheol-woo. Why don’t you just go all the way and say you didn’t even know your girlfriend of six months was a junkie?”
Faced with the detective’s sarcasm, Cheol-woo could only stare blankly.
He hadn’t even told his family the door lock code.
The only people who knew were himself and his girlfriend.
Meth… meth… what? He hadn’t even heard of the name of the drug.
The only one who could have put it there was his girlfriend.
The only one who could’ve stuck a needle in his elbow while he slept—was her.
‘Ah, shit. Is this what they call a “honey trap”?’
The girlfriend had already disappeared and was completely out of contact.
When they tried calling her supposed workplace, the response was that no such person had ever worked there.
That “father” she talked to on the phone last time? A temp day laborer.
The man who had been asked to pretend to be her father was a complete stranger, and he knew nothing about Cheol-woo’s girlfriend either.
So… had this all been planned from the very beginning?
Why? For what reason?
She didn’t steal anything, so it wasn’t for money.
Cheol-woo felt so overwhelmed, it was hard to breathe.
“What the hell is this? Why’s the result negative? You bastard, you were on something! Min Cheol-woo!”
The hair follicle test came back negative.
There were plenty of needle marks on his arm, but they’d missed the veins, and there wasn’t a trace of any drug in his muscle tissue either.
Apparently, he had thrashed around in his sleep, broken the syringe, torn up his own skin—it had been a mess.
In a way, it was lucky that his arm had ended up so wrecked.
Detective Lee flew into a rage, insisting Cheol-woo must have tried to inject himself while drunk and botched it.
“We find the defendant not guilty. However, shouldn’t this case have been dismissed outright instead of going to trial? Why did the prosecution even charge him?”
The police pushed for a handoff, and maybe the prosecution got greedy for results or pressure came down from above, but the case went to trial—only for the expected verdict to come in: not guilty.
There was no appeal, and the ruling was finalized.
Cheol-woo was finally cleared of all charges.
“Cheol-woo… because of you, the whole team got disbanded. One team vanishing messed up the league schedule, and we had to pay a huge penalty fee. … I’m not going to make you pay for that, but you’ll need to return your signing bonus.”
“But this wasn’t my fault, manager-hyung. It was all because of that crazy woman! If anyone should pay, it’s her!”
“That’s just how the contract works, Cheol-woo. If a player causes a public scandal…”
“Ah, f***…”
Cheol-woo felt like he was losing his mind.
Not guilty, right? That means I didn’t do anything wrong, right?
But they still wanted to void the contract and take back the signing bonus.
100 million won.
He had to cough up a whole hundred million won.
He had just finished paying off all his debt and catching up on his overdue rent—where was he supposed to get 100 million now?
His sister’s credit was wrecked, and he was jobless with no income, so there was no way a bank would loan him that kind of money.
“Cheol-woo. Did you check? Legally, you need to return the bonus by next Thursday.”
“Yes, sir… But…”
“What are you going to do? Take out a private loan?”
“That seems like the only option.”
“Pay it back slowly.”
“Excuse me?”
“I won’t charge interest. Just pay it back over time. In return, do some odd jobs for us now and then.”
He had nearly gone back to borrowing from shady lenders.
Thanks to the agency president’s generosity, it became an interest-free loan.
[KM Games requests media to refrain from asking questions about player Min Cheol-woo…]
[‘Min Cheol-woo’, ‘Cheol-woo’, ‘SteelRain’ banned across platforms like Twitch, AfreecaTV, Chzzzik—Why?
[SteelRain plummets to rock bottom. Any chance of a comeback?]
Cheol-woo knocked on every door he could for a professional comeback, but it was useless.
A video taken by a reporter at the time of his arrest had spread online like wildfire.
It showed him, arms bruised and punctured, stumbling around like a junkie, completely out of it.
That day, the world had labeled Cheol-woo a drug addict—and by the time the not-guilty verdict came out, the name “Min Cheol-woo” had already faded from public interest.
KM Games had no plans to form a new team after the last one disbanded.
No other team would take on someone like Cheol-woo, who was all risk and no reward.
He tried to clear his name by starting a personal stream online, but what he got in return was complete indifference.
“Yes, yes… Even as a trainee… If I slowly rebuild my image, it’ll be okay. Really. I’ll talk about how I was found not guilty in interviews and stuff… Yes. Yes, sir… Okay, goodbye.”
“They turned you down again? Even when you said you wouldn’t use the name ‘SteelRain’?”
“They said the risk is just too high…”
Cheol-woo and his agency had tried everything, but nothing worked.
Even offering to rejoin under a near-slave contract as a trainee—no one would take him.
It was time to accept it:
He had been completely exiled from the esports world.
At the time, Min Cheol-woo was just 21 years old.
After the trial and running around non-stop, nearly two years had passed in a blur.
He had a high school diploma, and his dream of becoming a pro gamer was dead.
Now he truly didn’t know what to do—his future looked like a blank void.
“Yes, sir. You called?”
[Cheol-woo, I found a job for you.]
“Yes, please go ahead.”
[I’ll text you the address. Go there for an interview by 9 a.m. tomorrow. If it goes well, you might get a full-time position. The pay’s decent—you should be able to pay off your debt pretty quickly.]
The call ended with no explanation of what the job actually was.
As he pulled out and dusted off his old suit, Cheol-woo couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
The way the boss had phrased it made it sound like something you couldn’t openly talk about.
And just his luck—the address was in the middle of a mountain.
It was marked on the map, but when he looked it up, nothing showed up.
Just forested hills.
What kind of work was there to be done in the mountains?
Creeped out as he was, Cheol-woo went to the interview without a word of complaint.
He trusted the boss.
And really, he had nothing left to lose—so what was there to be afraid of?
“Ah, hello. I’m Min Cheol-woo.”
“Follow me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m the team lead.”
“Yes, Team Lead.”
“Call me Chief Yoo.”
“Yes, Chief Yoo.”
By the time he climbed the dirt-covered slope, his suit pants were filthy.
There, a stern-looking woman in a suit greeted him.
Though the map showed nothing, the place had proper barricades and a concrete lot.
Following Chief Yoo carefully, he arrived at… an outdoor shooting range.
After a long silent walk, she suddenly turned around and snapped her fingers quickly in front of his eyes—left, then right.
“Tsk. I was told your reflexes were great. Why do you seem so ordinary?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Try shooting this gun. Watch the targets closely when they pop up.”
“….”
“You didn’t serve in the military, did you?”
“No, ma’am.”
Chief Yoo stared at him standing awkwardly in front of the rifle and let out a dry laugh.
Then she handed him the gun and briefly explained how to use it.
The magazine was loaded with shiny brass rounds.
When he pulled the charging handle, the gun made a crisp metallic sound.
Even though it was his first time holding a firearm, Cheol-woo instantly knew—it was real.
“We’re starting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Chief Yoo pressed a button, a metal target popped up in the distance.
Cheol-woo immediately aimed and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Startled, his whole body jerked, trembling from the recoil.
Chief Yoo burst out laughing, while Cheol-woo, red with embarrassment, took a deep breath and tried again.
He gradually adjusted his stance to better handle the kick.
But bang—bang—bang…
Even from just 100 meters, every shot missed.
Chief Yoo’s expression grew increasingly cold.
Why is he so bad at this? she seemed to be thinking.
‘Ah, crap. I forgot to explain how to aim using the sights… He probably doesn’t even know how to line them up.’
And then—ping!
One of the targets fell with a clean, satisfying sound, and a new one popped up.
Ping—ping—ting!
The muzzle snapped from target to target, knocking them all down as soon as they appeared.
Chief Yoo’s eyes widened.
Finally, with the last bullet fired, the rifle began clicking dry as he pulled the trigger.
She quickly snatched the gun from his hands.
“Start work here tomorrow. Wear something comfortable.”
“Wait… I passed?”
“Yeah. You’re hired.”
With that, Chief Yoo drove off, leaving Cheol-woo standing alone at the shooting range.
He looked closely at the business card she had left behind.
“Geummyeong Security… Providing elite domestic security and protection services…”
The name sounded oddly familiar.
When he got home and looked it up, articles popped up by the dozen.
“Wow… Violation of firearms laws… War crimes charges? Pretty intense…”
Most of the articles were negative.
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