Page 2 of Tell Me Where It Ends

I’ve survived over a decade in this industry. Starved on 300-calorie diets. Slept on practice room floors. Skipped school and birthday parties just to dance until my toes bled. I bow at ninety degrees to PDs who look me up and down like I’m an item on sale.

It’s a simple, transactional logic, the kind only a desperate thirteen-year-old can invent afterwinning her first big audition to be an idol trainee. A kind of magical thinking.

If I just work hard enough—if I smile brighter, stay thinner, become so relentlessly perfect that no one can ever find a single flaw—then maybe the universe will have to balance the scales.

Maybe my father will see me on TV and finally put down the bottle.

Maybe my mother will see my face in a magazine and decide to come home.

So I keep paying. I look the other way when my father’s “grocery money” smells suspiciously like soju. I keep my mouth shut when my brother’s “business investment” turns out to be another all-in bet on some volatile biotech stock.

It’s a simple calculation: what’s a little money when the alternative is the crushing weight of their disappointment?

All of it—the lies, the sacrifices, the biting my tongue until it bleeds—is currency. A currency I use to buy one thing: my career. My one-way ticket out of that life.

And for a while, it works. I survive the blurry photos, the leaked dating rumors, the “insider” accounts of my bad attitude.

But those are just appetizers. This five-second clip, the one now spreading like wildfire across the internet, is the main course.

It’s not just an attack on my image. It’s an attack on my escape route.

The TV, which has been a low hum in the background, suddenly grabs my full, undivided attention.

My face—or a grainy, five-second clip of it—flickers on the screen, but my eyes lock on the woman talking about it.

A “commentary channel” personality I vaguely recognize is dissecting the video like a forensic expert at a crime scene.

Just a few months ago, this same woman posted a gushing review of my last drama. Now she’s gleefully narrating my downfall, convincing the entire nation that I’m consuming illegal substances. She’s not worried about destroying the career I’ve bled for; she only cares about the views.

Her expression is a mask of performative concern. “Notice the way her hand shakes here,” she says, her voice dripping with faux sympathy as the footage zooms in on my hand—the one holding a hand-rolled cigarette. “It’s a classic sign.”

Well,good for her if she recognizes it astheclassic sign, because the really sick joke is that I have no idea what was actually in that cigarette.

Last night was a chaotic blur. It started with the kind of expensive, free-flowing champagne that tastes like celebration until, three glasses in, it just tastes like regret. But the part that matters—the part that’s now a five-second viral video—happened out back.

The alley behind the exclusive Itaewon club was cold and sharp, a welcome shock after the crushing heat of the dance floor. It smelled of damp concrete, stale cigarette smoke, and garbage. A small group of us—models, actors, the usual industry crowd—huddled near the emergency exit, our laughter echoing off the graffiti-covered brick walls.

Someone—a model, an actor, I don’t remember his face, just the expensive watch on his wrist—leaned in and passed me a hand-rolled cigarette. He smirked, shouting over the muffled thud of the bass from inside,“This one’s a little different.”I remember a chorus of laughter that felt, even then, a little too sharp.

And I took it.

For five reckless seconds, I didn’t want to be Yoon Min-hee, the merchandise. The actress who hadn’t eaten carbs in a week and whose every public word was vetted by a team of PR professionals. I just wanted to be a girl in a back alley, doing something dumb.

And for five glorious, stupid seconds, I was.

Frustration, hot and bitter, swells in my chest. I grab the remote, aiming it at the TV like a weapon.

It misses, hitting the wall with a dull thud.

Pathetic.

The television still blares, looping that damned clip—a constant, flickering reminder of my impending doom.

Well, this is it, isn’t it? I can already see it all unfold in my head like a pre-filmed K-drama special: the police investigation, the lawsuit, the headlines screaming my name in bold, merciless letters. Maybe prison. Maybe a massive fine that will wipe out my entire bank account.

Then the inevitable hiatus—which, in this industry, is a polite term for “you’re fired.” No brands will want me. No casting directors will call. No new dramas, no endorsements.

This time, my career really is over.