Chapter 5: 

Ghosts Part 1

Full glossy pages, spreads that gleamed like stained glass when held to the light. The group shot was on the cover—On the sofa, Soojin in black and gold at the center, shoulders squared but a smile on her lips. Hana and Suhyun flanking with softer warmth, balance and grace, sitting beside her.

The men were standing behind the couch. Han was smiling, one hand resting on the sofa head. Kaimin was on the other side, eyes sharp, hands folded against his chest like he owned the set. And between the two, in silver and silk, was V. His smile not quite a smile. His eyes carrying something the camera shouldn’t have been able to catch. Something the readers did.

The comments flooded in before the ink had even dried.

On social media, edits of the cover stacked by the thousands:

“He’s magnetic. Look at that stare.”

“They all look like professionals, but V looks like a star.”

“No one’s eyes go stray. Everyone’s looking at him.”

Then came the side-by-side comparisons, screen captures of the spreads where he and Kaimin had been seated closest together. Their postures didn’t quite mirror, but they clashed in a way that caught attention. Kaimin in charcoal, expression cool, shoulders drawn like a blade unsheathed. V beside him, softer at first glance, yet the angle of his body leaned subtly toward Kaimin—as though tugged by gravity.

“Intentional,” some fans claimed. “Styling choice. Contrast.”

Others weren’t so sure.

On one forum, the thread title exploded into the trending page:

“The tension between V and Kaimin Shin is insane.”

Replies stacked by the minute:

“That look on page 32—tell me it’s not personal.”

“You could cut the air between them with a knife.”

“Either they hate each other or…”

The thread ended in hundreds of emojis, censored words, and theories that spiraled into chaos.

A fan made a GIF loop of one particular shot: V’s hand against the armrest, fingers curved ever so slightly inward; Kaimin’s gaze angled just past him, sharp enough that even in still image it felt like motion.

It became a meme within hours. “Enemies to lovers?” captioned one. “Or just enemies.” captioned another.

V scrolled through them in the dead of night, the glow of his phone cold against his face. His thumb froze over a comment that clawed at him more than it should have:

“He looks like he’s trying not to fall apart when Kaimin’s in the frame.”

He told himself it was overanalysis. People read stories where they wanted to. Fans thrived on fiction.

But the pit in his stomach said otherwise.

By morning, hashtags mixed speculation with adoration. #LMCV, #LMCTension, #HeirAndStar. The last one trended for a day and a half, fueled by edits pairing his silver with Kaimin’s charcoal-grey, soundtracked by every tragic love ballad the internet could find.

V should’ve laughed. He usually did. But this time, his throat caught on it. He’d weathered gossip his whole life. He’d built a career on being looked at, dissected, loved, and hated. If people wanted to project, let them.

Only this wasn’t projection. Not to him. It was excavation.

They were digging too close. They weren’t supposed to see the cracks, but somehow they had. With every screenshot, every slowed-down GIF, every thread, it felt like strangers were circling closer to something private. Something buried.

He turned off his phone. Turned it back on. The notifications hit like hail.

It wasn’t just the photographs.

The interview they had was on Aurora’s official social media. In the video, the interviewer had asked about their dynamic as a group, how they saw themselves, after years of working together.

Soojin answered while smiling.

“We’re like a family. Hana and Han are the mischievous twins, always up to something. Suhyun’s like the middle child, the level-headed one who keeps her balance. I guess that makes me the older sister—the one who tries to make sure the house doesn’t burn down.”

It was lighthearted, charming, the kind of quote that made readers smile.

Then V, almost without thinking, asked, “So what about me and Kaimin?”

There was a beat of silence recorded. Then Han, ever quick, jumped in:

“Easy. V’s the chill mom, and Kaimin’s the strict dad.”

Everyone had laughed. Even Kaimin had a reaction, a short huff of indignation. V had smiled too, because what else could he do? It sounded wholesome on the video, something fans could eat up. The post went live at noon. By sundown, it had hundreds of thousands of likes. Comment sections turned into family sitcom casting calls, GIFs of bickering couples, memes that framed V and Kaimin in roles neither had ever wanted.

The internet didn’t just eat. It feasted. At first it was funny. Then it was relentless.

V caught himself staring at the spread again late one night, the line replaying in his head like a glitch: “So what about me and Kaimin?”

His own voice on clips, stripped bare, a question he should never have asked.

And the answer, Han’s easy joke, Kaimin’s reaction, the internet’s wildfire stuck to his skin like oil he couldn’t wash off.

The more he read, the more it felt like everyone else had seen a truth he hadn’t meant to reveal. He should have ignored it. He told himself that over and over as he lay on his bed, the magazine still open on his desk across the room like it was watching him.

But at 2 a.m., his thumb hovered over Aurora Magazine’s Instagram page, and then he tapped.

The family post was everywhere, his face framed neatly under the caption “the chill mom.” Kaimin’s under “the strict dad.”

The comments ran wild.

“They didn’t have to expose them like this.”

“I KNEW IT. Look at them sitting apart like divorced parents during holidays.”

“Strict dad scolding chill mom for spoiling the kids is canon.”

“It’s the way V asked what about me and Kaimin… like HELLO? Why would you even ask that???”

“Bro set himself up.”

He scrolled faster, hoping the motion would blur the words before they could sink too deep. But they stuck anyway, needling into him with every swipe.

One thread of replies spun out beneath a fan edit—his white suit beside Kaimin’s charcoal-grey, the caption: “Mom & Dad after fighting but still showing up for family pictures.”

Then, the digging. It started small. A single comment under the Aurora Magazine interview clip.

“Wait. I think I saw V with that guy (Kaimin Shin??) in a restaurant outside Seoul like two-three years ago. Didn’t know who he was back then but now… 100% it was him.”

At first, it blended into the noise. Another baseless fan theory. But within hours, the replies swelled.

“You’re right, I remember this! People said V was spotted in the countryside that summer but there were no pics.”

“OMG I WAS THERE. Saw them leaving a high-end restaurant, thought the guy looked crazy handsome but unfamiliar. Bro it was Kaimin Shin???”

Soon another story surfaced. This one from Japan. A grainy phone snap taken at the edge of a busy crosswalk. V in a mask, head turned. Next to him, a tall figure in a dark coat, features indistinct but posture eerily familiar.

Someone posted a blurry photo: V at a restaurant table, baseball cap low, head ducked as though trying to hide. Beside him, just out of frame, a man’s shoulder. Grey shirt, pale wrist with a watch. Too vague to be proof, but suggestive enough. The caption read: “201X. Random dinner spot. Just realized who I might’ve actually captured.”

The rumor spread like wildfire.

The fan account who posted it wrote:

“Went to Tokyo with friends in spring. Thought I saw V with someone but dismissed it. Looking now… does that not look like Kaimin Shin???”

Quote tweets poured in:

“The way he’s leaning slightly toward him???”

“They’re together outside of events. Don’t tell me this is coincidence.”

“So mom and dad WERE real all along...”

“Enemies? Lovers? Whatever it is, they go way back.”

Each piece flimsy on its own. But together? They wove a story. One V had spent years trying to erase.

He read them all in silence, jaw locked so tight it ached. His chest squeezed, cold and hot all at once.

They weren’t supposed to know. Those moments weren’t supposed to belong to anyone but him and Kaimin.

And yet, here they were. Cropped into blurry photos, dissected by strangers, turned into hashtags and edits.

V locked his phone, but the afterimages still burned in his vision. The restaurant, the crosswalk, the laughter that used to be just theirs.

He imagined headlines: “Actor V and Heir Kaimin, what’s the truth?”

He imagined faces in meetings, voices whispering behind doors: “Can we control this? Should we?”

He imagined Kaimin seeing all of it and knowing, instantly, that V had failed, that his performance, his mask, had slipped.

Sleep didn’t come. His ceiling felt like it was pressing lower. He found himself whispering aloud, to the empty dark, “It’s nothing. It’s fiction. It’s just fiction.”

The lie tasted brittle.

Because deep down, the fear wasn’t that people were wrong.

It was that they were right.