After that earth-shattering shovel hit, Seo had to keep up the act. Namu felt really guilty and kept insisting on taking her cousin to the hospital, afraid he might have accidentally killed him. But Seo knew full well this was a superstar. Taking him to a hospital would expose the whole kidnapping and assault story.
She brushed it off. "It's okay. He just fainted for a bit. No big deal. I can handle it myself."
So she grabbed the big star's legs and dragged him back into the house like a sack of rice.
A long time later, Dohyun finally started to wake up. His head must have been spinning like a top at that moment, and he had no clue where on earth he was. Turning to the side, he saw Seo sitting with her back to him, laughing and mumbling to herself like someone from another world.
Actually, Seo was laughing because she had realised how ridiculous she was. She blamed herself. Oh my god, why was I crazy enough to try to use chemicals to get rid of someone who was still very much alive?
But Dohyun had no idea. Seeing her sitting there laughing to herself in the dark, he shuddered and thought, "Damn it. I've fallen into the hands of some deranged sasaeng fan."
Dohyun was already too familiar with those obsessive fans who stalk celebrities and break into private homes. So he was one hundred percent sure Seo was that kind of person.
Seeing him wake up, Seo quickly apologised. "I'm really sorry. It was just a misunderstanding. I thought you were my old boss, so I accidentally hit you."
Dohyun's eyes widened. "So you're not a fan of mine?"
"What kind of fan at a time like this? I'm the office girl from yesterday who lost her job because of you. I was so bitter at my manager that I planned to hit him. But who knew I'd hit you by mistake?"
Hearing this, Dohyun realised Seo wasn't a sasaeng fan. But she was someone who had assaulted him with a purpose. He was about to open his mouth and scream, "Help! Someone's kidnapping and killing me!"
But Seo was one step ahead. She grabbed a sock off the floor and stuffed it straight into the superstar's mouth without any mercy.
And so the superstar loved by millions could now only make muffled noises of pain with a sock in his mouth.
While Dohyun was being held captive in Seo's house, in the outside world everything was going crazy. His girlfriend Sarah, because she couldn't reach him, made a huge scene, and rumours of Dohyun's disappearance spread like wildfire on social media. Reporters surrounded the management company to demand answers from the CEO, who was also tearing his hair out because he didn't know where his star had disappeared to. He was extremely furious with Sarah, because she was the one who had started this news, which seriously affected Dohyun's image and his contracts.
The whole company was frantically searching for his whereabouts, not knowing that Dohyun was sitting there enjoying the taste of a sock in the small apartment of an unemployed girl.
At the management company, the CEO had a headache that felt like his brain would explode, because Sarah was causing trouble every chance she got. She demanded to go out and find her boyfriend.
"Are you trying to let the whole world know he's missing?" the CEO yelled. "Just shut up."
To quiet the public, the CEO ordered Sarah and Miran to agree on a story. If anyone asked, they were to say Dohyun was under heavy stress from overworking, so he had taken a leave of absence to go on a vacation and visit a spa for a massage to recover his health. He warned them over and over that they were absolutely not allowed to slip up and say a single word out of line.
Back at Seo's house, the situation seemed to have calmed down a little. Seo untied Dohyun's hands and took the sock out of his mouth so the two sides could negotiate.
Dohyun asked a very logical question. "If you say you hit me by mistake, why didn't you take me to the hospital instead of lugging me back here?"
Seo couldn't admit she had been planning to get rid of the body, so she made up an excuse. "You're a big star. If I took you to the hospital with a bloody head, wouldn't your fans rip me to pieces? I was so terrified that I brought you here just to stay safe."
Dohyun bought it, thinking she was genuinely scared. So he promised, "All right. Untie me, and I promise I won't call the cops. We'll just act like this never happened."
Seo was thrilled, thinking she was finally off the hook. She went to grab some scissors to cut the ropes on his legs. But right then, Dohyun glanced around the room and saw the pile of chemicals and butchering tools Seo had bought when she was planning to dispose of his body.
Oh man. Dohyun froze for five seconds. In his head, he started seeing Seo as some psycho killer, just pretending to be nice while waiting for him to let his guard down so she could slice and dice him.
Dohyun got scared out of his mind again and started screaming for help. And of course, to keep the secret, Seo had to repeat her usual move, stuffing that smelly sock right back into the big star's mouth.
Meanwhile, the police were starting to get involved, but they were keeping it low-key. A private detective was hired to go through security footage, and boom, he found footage of a girl carrying a guy, staggering down the street in the middle of the night. The first clue had finally surfaced.
In another part of town, the neighbour Namu brought over some home-grown vegetables for Seo. By chance, he saw a newspaper on the table with a picture of the missing star on it.
Namu blurted out, "Hey, this guy in the paper looks exactly like your cousin, the one I whacked with the shovel last night."
When Seo heard that, her heart nearly skipped a beat. She could only manage a fake laugh and pushed her neighbour out of the house as fast as she could.
The detective went to the management company to ask some questions. The CEO stuck to the script about the vacation and the spa. But then the party pooper, Sarah, showed up with a performance that couldn't have looked more fake. She had been told to act normal, but she started crying and overdoing it, making the detective suspicious right away.
After the detective left, the CEO was fuming and yelled at his assistant. "Fire Sarah's acting coach right now. What kind of coaching is this? When she's supposed to laugh, she cries. And when she's supposed to cry, she laughs. They've totally ruined my big plans."