DEMON AT THE DOOR

The conference room on the fourteenth floor of JYP Entertainment's main building had not been designed for this.

It was a good room, objectively. Floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of one wall, Seoul sprawling silver and overcast beyond the glass in the grey afternoon light. A long table of pale wood, ergonomic chairs, a wall-mounted screen displaying nothing. Water pitchers. Glasses. The small, careful provisions of a meeting that had been planned by someone.

Nobody was touching the water.

The twenty women currently occupying the room had arranged themselves in a way that communicated, without anyone deciding this, exactly how each of them was feeling. Which was: not well.

TWICE had taken the far end of the table. Nayeon sat with her arms folded tight across her chest, jaw set, the specific posture of someone who had decided that if she was going to be frightened she was going to be frightened with her chin up and her guard fully raised. Jeongyeon beside her, both elbows on the table, hands clasped, watching the door with the flat attention of someone waiting for a thing they've been told is coming and have not been told enough about — and resenting that gap keenly. Momo had her phone face-down in front of her and was not reaching for it, which meant she had already decided that no amount of distraction was going to touch whatever was sitting in her chest right now. Sana sat very still in the way that was not calm — the stillness of someone who had decided that moving might make things more real. Jihyo was at the natural head of their cluster, spine straight, carrying the particular weight of a leader who has been told something is serious and is trying to hold that seriously without transmitting it directly into the people beside her, which was not entirely working. Mina sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching the door, saying nothing. Dahyun, who could be relied upon in nearly any circumstance to produce some kind of noise, was quiet. Chaeyoung had a sketchbook on the table, closed, her hands resting on top of it rather than opening it. Tzuyu sat at the end of their group with her hands flat on the table, her expression composed in the way that composure sometimes is when it is the only available option.

ITZY occupied the middle section with the close, slightly collapsed formation of a group that had walked in together and hadn't been able to make themselves spread out. Yeji was watching the door with the focused, measuring attention of someone who needed to understand what they were dealing with before they could decide how to deal with it, and had decided, based on nothing available yet, that she did not like it. Lia had her hands wrapped around a glass of water she wasn't drinking, her knuckles pale. Ryujin sat with her arms folded, not with Nayeon's front-facing defiance but with the inward, thinking quality of someone running through things, testing possible conclusions, finding each one insufficient. Chaeryeong was beside her, very still, eyes on the table. Yuna had her hands in her lap and was making no effort to hide the fact that she was unsettled, which in its own way took a kind of courage.

NMIXX had settled at the near end with the particular difficulty of a group that was the newest here, the least seasoned in the specific language of JYP's internal registers, and therefore the least equipped to calibrate how worried the current atmosphere required them to be. Which meant they had looked at TWICE and calibrated from there, which had not been reassuring. Lily sat with her spine very straight, her expression carefully managed. Sullyoon had her hands folded on the table. Haewon had leaned toward Bae without appearing to notice she had done it. Bae was watching the window with the stillness of someone whose mind was moving fast behind a quiet face. Jiwoo had moved her chair closer to Kyujin's at some point in the last ten minutes. Kyujin hadn't said anything about it.

The door opened.

Park Jinyoung walked in.

He looked the same as he always looked. Composed, pressed, the measured calm of a man who navigated this industry the way pilots navigated turbulence — not by pretending it wasn't there, but by not letting it fly the plane. He set a folder on the table and did not open it. He looked around the room once, unhurried, taking in each face with the attention of someone who knew all of them well enough to read what he found there, and who was reading things he did not entirely like.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I know you weren't given much context beforehand."

"We weren't given any context," Nayeon said. Her voice had an edge to it that she wasn't attempting to file down.

"I know." He didn't apologize. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat. "There's been a security situation."

The room sharpened. The ambient tension, which had been diffuse, found a point to collect around.

"Unauthorized personnel have been found within JYP's security divisions," he said. "The sweep is ongoing. The immediate threat has been contained for now, but contained is not the same as resolved, and I'm not going to tell you otherwise." He paused. "Someone has been attempting to establish access to this company. To the people in it. The investigation into who and why is active and being pursued with every resource available to us."

The silence that followed was the kind that had questions fighting to surface inside it, none of them sure they wanted to be the first.

"How long," Jihyo said. Her voice was level, which cost her something.

"We believe around one year”

The silence changed. Something in it went cold.

"one year" Jeongyeon repeated. Not a question. The repetition of someone making sure they had heard correctly and not liking the confirmation.

"Yes."

"And we're only hearing about this now." It wasn't a question from Jeongyeon either. It was the flat statement of someone deciding how angry they were going to be about something and arriving at an answer.

"The infiltration was concealed carefully," Jinyoung said. "The discovery was recent. I'm telling you now."

"Did anyone—" Momo started, and stopped.

"Every incident was contained," Jinyoung said. "Nothing reached any of you directly." He paused, and the pause had weight. "There was one incident at a fan venue that resulted in injury to a member of our security team. He recovered. You were not in contact with the threat."

"But we were in the room," Mina said quietly.

"Yes," Jinyoung said. "You were in the room."

Mina nodded once and said nothing further. Beside her, Chaeyoung's hands tightened over the closed sketchbook.

"As a result of this situation," Jinyoung continued, "I've made two decisions. The first concerns your living arrangements." He looked around the table. "Effective within the week, all three groups will be consolidated into a single compound."

This produced a different quality of reaction. Not relief. Not the comfortable surprise of an unexpected announcement. It was the particular unease of people understanding that the measure was proportionate to a threat they had not yet been told the full shape of.

"Together," Jihyo said.

"One compound, yes. Your own individual suites. Shared common spaces. The facilities are substantial. It has a kitchen, gym, recording space, pool. It is not a downgrade." He did not dwell on this. "Access will be controlled. The address will not be public-facing. Enhanced perimeter security throughout."

"For how long?" Jihyo asked.

"Until the situation is resolved," he said. "I will tell you when I know more."

"That's not an answer," Nayeon said.

"It's the only one I have right now," Jinyoung said, and there was enough gravity in it that even Nayeon didn't push further, not because she had accepted it, but because she could see the edges of what he was carrying and recognized that pressing wouldn't change its shape.

Yeji's eyes moved from the table to Jinyoung's face. "Is this just JYP?"

"No," he said. "Other companies are experiencing similar situations. Measures are being taken across the industry. You are not the only ones."

The fact that this was meant to be reassuring and landed somewhere short of that was visible on several faces. Not the only ones meant the problem was larger than JYP. A larger problem was not a smaller problem. The math was simple and none of them liked it.

"The second decision," Jinyoung said, "is the reason I've asked you here in person today." He set his hands flat on the table. "I have contracted additional protection. Personnel from outside JYP's existing security structures, brought in through an organization I have vetted personally. These individuals will be embedded directly into your daily operations. This means your schedules, your venues, and the compound itself." He paused. "They are not conventional security. They do not come from a conventional background. I want you to understand that clearly before you meet them."

"What does that mean?" Lia asked. Her voice was careful and a half-step too controlled.

"It means that the people I've placed in your lives are capable of dealing with the kind of threat we are facing," Jinyoung said. "More capable than a conventional security detail. That's why I chose them."

"More capable how," Ryujin said.

"The specifics aren't something I can share in this room."

"That's a non-answer," Ryujin said. "You’re saying we're supposed to accept strangers embedded in our lives, our schedules, our home, and the only thing you can tell us is more capable."

Jinyoung looked at her for a moment. "Yes," he said. "I know how that sounds. And I'm still asking you to trust it."

The room received this without enthusiasm.

"I thought the introduction should happen face to face," he said. "I don't like the idea of placing someone in your lives without giving you the chance to see who they are."

He nodded to someone outside the room.

The door opened.