Chapter 24: The Whispering Stalker

[You published an article to tell me not to worry? That’s so cute.]

A few days later, the official casting announcement hit the press, confirming that Hari and Yijeong had been cast as the leads in the upcoming drama. Not long after, another anonymous letter from the stalker arrived at the agency office.

At that point, Yijeong, his manager Jooseok, and Jaeryun still hadn’t taken the matter entirely seriously.

But perhaps the stalker interpreted the sudden casting statement as a form of special treatment directed entirely at them. From that moment on, the intruder gradually began to expand their territory.

‘What on earth is this? I bought the exact coffee he requested, but…’

‘Did you leave it sitting out here?’

‘No. I just bought it a second ago, didn’t I?’

At some point, the stalker moved past letters and began delivering physical objects directly into Yijeong’s immediate vicinity.

‘No, this is a highly secured filming set. How did they manage to plant this here? How?’

‘Can we request the security footage from the crew?’

‘No. There are plenty of top celebrities who deal with invasive sasaeng fans. If we make a formal legal complaint over a cup of coffee, the industry will just claim I’m causing a fuss over nothing.’

‘Didn’t any of the security guards see someone pass by?’

‘I’ve quietly asked all the production staff multiple times. Every single one of them said they didn’t notice anyone suspicious lurking around.’

The drops happened everywhere—on active filming sets, and once even inside his private apartment mailbox. After Yijeong relocated to a high-end residential complex famous for its tight, premium security, the instances of items appearing in his mailbox finally decreased, but the stalker still managed to materialize anywhere he went.

The most unsettling part of the entire ordeal was that the perpetrator never once revealed their true identity or left a single trace of physical evidence behind.

Because reporting minor boundary crossings to the police was awkward for a high-profile celebrity, requesting official CCTV footage from public spaces proved incredibly difficult. And even when the agency managed to review the private security cameras positioned directly in front of the company building, the suspect’s build, perceived gender, and clothing style seemed to change completely every single time.

Two years after the delivery of that first letter, and nearly six months into the full-scale stalking campaign, Yijeong and Jaeryun still couldn’t determine the stalker’s actual gender, age, or build.

[ I know you think I’m special ]

[ You wore my favorite clothes today. See, we really understand each other. ]

Still, Yijeong endured it. What public figure didn’t have to deal with overzealous fans? He held out without showing a single sign of distress to the public, terrified of being labeled dramatic or difficult by the media. But a month ago, the stalker’s methods shifted once again.

‘Hey, Yijeong.’

The first time he actually heard the stalker speak, it wasn’t a natural human voice. It sounded heavily distorted, as if they had inhaled a massive amount of helium to produce an unnatural, chilling pitch. The moment the sound cut through the quiet, Yijeong froze entirely, forgetting his long-standing resolve to at least catch a glimpse of the stalker’s face if he couldn’t physically stop them.

‘Heehee.’

While Yijeong stood completely paralyzed, the stranger vanished just as abruptly as they had appeared. By the time Yijeong snapped out of his shock and chased after the sound, the alleyway was completely empty.

“From that day forward, the stalker began approaching Yijeong periodically,” Jaeryun explained, his voice heavy as they stood in the cold night air outside the apartment building. “He followed him around with terrifying precision, almost impressively, as if he had an active leak for every piece of confidential schedule information.”

“Did you try to report it to the local police…?” Yehyun asked quietly.

“If we went to the precinct with this level of evidence, they’d just claim Kang Yijeong was throwing a tantrum and laugh it off behind our backs. Anyway, from that voice incident onward, Yijeong has been under severe psychological stress. I heard that on the specific day he was approached, the stalker caught him entirely alone while Jooseok had stepped out to a nearby convenience store.”

Jaeryun let out a long, exhausted sigh. He had jokingly suggested back then that maybe if Yijeong publicly got himself a boyfriend, that lunatic would finally lose interest and back off, but he had never imagined the joke would culminate in a massive contract relationship.

“But anyway, right after the official dating confirmation article broke last week, the stalker completely went dark. Normally, they would make an appearance or leave a token two or three times a week. Because of the sudden silence, I assumed they were shocked by the relationship news and had finally given up… I had no idea they were redirecting their focus toward you this entire time.”

Jaeryun bowed his head in a deep, formal apology once more.

“And this specific scarf…” Jaeryun reached out, his fingers gently tracing the edges of the red fabric visible in the defaced photograph. “How did you end up receiving this from Kang Yijeong in the first place?”

“I went to his apartment a few days ago… He mentioned it was a highly recognizable designer scarf, so people would easily spot it on camera, and told me to wear it out.”

“That absolute idiot. I told him to throw that thing in an incinerator months ago, but he still kept it lying around his house…” Jaeryun muttered under his breath, pressing the palm of his hand firmly against his forehead in deep frustration.

Yehyun watched his reaction cautiously, wondering if there was a darker history tied to the item. “Does the scarf have some sort of special significance to him?”

“…Did he ask you to take absolute care of it when he handed it over?” Jaeryun countered with a question of his own.

Yehyun paused, carefully recalling the exact conversation from the actor’s living room. “When I explicitly told him I would wash it thoroughly and return it, he shrugged and told me I could keep it permanently, or even sell it online. I didn’t get the impression that it was something he considered precious or irreplaceable.”

Hearing her response, Jaeryun’s expression turned incredibly complicated. Sensing that the item carried a weight that wasn’t ordinary, Yehyun offered carefully, “…Should I return it to him through you? I haven’t put it through the wash yet, but I only wore it once and didn’t get it dirty. If it’s a problem…”

“…No. If that brat handed it over to you directly, it’s your legal property now. But…” Jaeryun’s voice trailed off entirely. He bit his lower lip hard, appearing to lock down a private thought. Only after a long, tense silence did he speak again. “I’m sorry, Yehyun-ssi. It’s an incredibly personal matter… Since I’m not the party directly involved, I hesitate to speak on his behalf.”

“Oh, no. It’s completely fine. You don’t have to explain it to me if it’s private.” Yehyun quickly waved her hands in front of his serious face, trying to ease the tension.

Jaeryun offered a short, grateful nod, acknowledging her consideration. “The scarf… yes. It’s a highly famous piece among his core fandom. It was worn during the most iconic emotional sequence of his breakout project, and before that specific scene aired, it was considered an immensely precious personal item to Yijeong.”

“I did hear a bit about that from him. He mentioned that if I sold it to a collector, it could easily fetch two million won… Oh.” Realizing she might have crossed a line by mentioning the monetary value, Yehyun quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Yes. It’s also entirely out of stock globally,” Jaeryun continued with a faint, humorless smile. “It was widely celebrated as his signature treasured item, but he abruptly stopped wearing it in public at some point last year. Because of that, many fans assumed he had simply lost it during production. The stalker most likely operated under that exact assumption.”

“Then…”

“It seems that seeing a photograph of you casually wearing that exact scarf in public thoroughly unhinged them,” Jaeryun said, his eyes locking onto Yehyun’s pale face. “But more than anything, you made an incredibly sharp judgment call by contacting me directly instead of alerting Yijeong first. I know it might sound presumptuous of me, but I would deeply appreciate it if you continue to route any future incidents or strange deliveries through me first.”

“But Yijeong is the one being targeted…”

“Oh, make no mistake, I will absolutely inform him tonight that the stalker has resumed activity. That’s not what I meant by my request…” Taking a slow breath, Jaeryun looked at her with absolute solemnity. “…Please just don’t mention the scarf to him. I am begging you. I will handle the matter with that brat myself, but please, do not bring up the history of that scarf to his face.”

It was an inexplicable, highly specific restriction, but the manager’s demeanor was far too earnest to dismiss. The sheer gravity in his voice made Yehyun nod slowly without pushing for an explanation. “Alright. I won’t bring it up.”

“Thank you.” Jaeryun let out a massive sigh of relief, finally checking on Yehyun’s well-being. “I’ve spent the last twenty minutes talking entirely about our agency’s problems. You must be completely terrified right now.”

“…”

Yehyun fell silent. Was she shocked? Of course she was. Incidents she assumed she would only ever read about in true-crime articles had completely disrupted her ordinary life in the span of a single week, as if she had suddenly triggered a lifetime’s worth of terrible luck all at once.

“I’m okay,” Yehyun said after a long pause. But both the speaker and the listener knew the statement was far from the truth. “Still, it’s incredibly fortunate that I was the one who pulled the envelope out of the mailbox. If my younger sister had seen that defaced image first… just thinking about it makes my blood run cold.”

If Yeseo had encountered the letter, she would have completely panicked, absorbing the terror as if it were her own crisis. Yehyun wanted to prevent that at all costs. She knew her sister was alarmingly naive and endlessly optimistic, but she wanted her to protect that innocence for as long as humanly possible—to live without the suffocating weight of fear, enjoying her ordinary daily routine. That was Yehyun’s singular, burning wish for Yeseo.

“I was honestly startled a few days ago when Yeseo casually mentioned she spotted a suspicious figure lingering right in front of our building entrance…”

“She saw someone suspicious?”

Startled by Yehyun’s unconscious murmur, Jaeryun intervened loudly. Shocked out of her thoughts, Yehyun finally realized she had completely omitted a crucial detail.

“Oh, right. I completely forgot to lead with that.” Yehyun lifted her eyes to meet Jaeryun’s anxious gaze. “A few days ago, Yeseo told me she noticed a suspicious man carrying a camera loitering near our house. And the exact location where she spotted him matches the geometric angle of this photograph perfectly…”

“Please tell me every single detail she remembered,” Jaeryun urged immediately. The man who had spent the entire week acting entirely blunt or subtly mocking Yijeong now looked visibly shaken.

Slightly taken aback by his sudden intensity, Yehyun paced her words carefully. “At first, I assumed the man was just a tabloid reporter. Oh, I should explain the context—a persistent reporter had cornered me at my company office earlier that week, and I had firmly sent him away. So when Yeseo mentioned the stranger, I figured it was the same journalist trying to dig up dirt. The physical description she gave perfectly matched his general height and build.”

Jaeryun listened intently, his expression darkening by the second.

“He kept following me around demanding an exclusive interview, so I figured if I cooperated with a reputable reporter from a different outlet and put out a controlled statement, he would finally give up and leave me alone…”

“Wait a minute. So Yijeong wasn’t the one who initially proposed doing that exclusive interview today?”

“He suggested the specific reporter after I brought up the issue of being followed,” Yehyun clarified.

That absolute brat never mentioned a single word of that context to me… Jaeryun muttered quietly under his breath, shaking his head. He quickly looked back up at Yehyun. “That specific timeline isn’t the priority right now. Please continue.”

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Ability Inside

AngstBLFriendsToLovers

Read Now →
Not interested