The first mistake happened on a Thursday.

And technically—

it wasn't even my fault.

"Wait, where's the final file?"

I looked up from my desk.

"What?"

"The campaign file," my team leader said, already sounding annoyed. "The client said half the edits are missing."

I frowned immediately.

"That's not possible. I finished it yesterday."

"Well, apparently you didn't."

He turned his monitor slightly toward me.

My stomach dropped.

The document was wrong.

Not unfinished.

Wrong.

Entire sections were replaced with random symbols and broken text, like the file had corrupted halfway through exporting.

"What the..."

I grabbed my mouse quickly, opening the backup folder.

Empty.

Every backup version was gone.

My chest tightened.

No.

No, I knew I saved them.

"I—I don't understand."

My team leader sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Look, just fix it before noon."

I didn't.

Because somehow, things kept getting worse.

A scheduled email disappeared before sending.

An edited video exported with missing audio.

Even my computer froze twice while I was working.

By lunch, everyone around me looked irritated.

By evening, they looked exhausted.

Mostly because of me.

"You've been really off lately."

Minji lowered her voice when she said it.

We were standing near the vending machines while the others stayed in the meeting room.

"I know."

"What's going on with you?"

"I don't know."

And that was the worst part.

I genuinely didn't know.

It felt like everything around me had started slipping slightly out of place.

Not enough for people to notice immediately.

Just enough to ruin things.

That night, I stayed overtime again trying to fix another corrupted file.

The office was almost empty now.

Only the glow from my monitor lit the room.

I leaned back in my chair with a tired sigh.

Then—

the screen flickered.

Once.

Twice.

And suddenly—

the video player on my desktop opened by itself.

My entire body went still.

"No."

A clip started playing automatically.

Not from a website.

Not from any folder I recognized.

Just—

there.

Kim Taehyung appeared on screen.

Not dressed for a stage.

Not smiling for cameras.

Just sitting somewhere dark backstage, looking unusually quiet.

Like this footage wasn't meant to be public.

I reached for the mouse immediately.

The cursor wouldn't move.

My pulse started rising.

"What the hell..."

Then he spoke.

Softly.

"See?"

I froze.

His eyes lifted slowly toward the camera.

"Now they're noticing you too."

A chill ran down my spine.

No.

This wasn't real.

It couldn't be.

I yanked the mouse harder.

Nothing.

The video kept playing.

"They don't like it when something changes the system."

My brain couldn't even process anything.

"What system?"

I whispered without thinking.

And for the first time,

he answered immediately.

"They'll remove you if they have to."

The lights above me flickered hard.

I shot up from my chair.

At the exact same moment—

my office phone rang.

Loud.

Sharp.

Making me flinch.

I stared at it for two seconds before picking up slowly.

"...hello?"

Silence.

Then a woman's voice.

Calm. Professional.

"Good evening. We'd like to discuss a new job opportunity with you."

My blood ran cold.

"You were recommended to us."

"We believe you'd be a perfect fit for our artist management team."