You've Never Killed Anyone, Have You?
The moment I stepped onto the set, I sank straight into the emotion.
The scene we were shooting hadn't even revealed the killer yet. I was nothing more than a nun who had stumbled onto a corpse. I let my fingers keep fidgeting, as anxious as I could make myself while still failing to stay composed.
"You don't have to be so tense. This isn't your fault, Sister."
"Y-yes. Th-that's right. This isn't my fault."
I clutched the crucifix at my throat and murmured a small prayer to God.
O Lord.
Receive unto Yourself the end of this mere lamb.
We too are but young lambs,
driven to the precipice of life.
"A prayer? No—that's quite different from any prayer I know."
Kang Tae-oh, the detective played by Kim Haseong, tilted his head. The words I was reciting weren't the usual ones. And it was a prayer for what was still to come. He just didn't know that yet.
"It's nothing special. If I recited the same prayer every time, even God would grow tired of hearing it, wouldn't He? So I try all sorts of new ones, to offer Him something fresh."
"I see. More importantly, I'd appreciate it if you could tell us how you happened to be there."
I nodded slowly, calling the moment back.
"The day was bright and perfect for hanging laundry, so I washed it by hand and went out behind the cathedral with the priests. We were enjoying the peaceful everyday life God had given us, soaking up a little sun, when something bumped against my foot. A little thump."
"That was..."
The junior detective beside Kang Tae-oh swallowed dryly.
"That's right. It was the body of the person I reported. It was so brutal... pits all over, insects crawling, and the moment we stepped closer the stench of rot punched us in the nose. This... this is—!"
I slammed the desk and shot to my feet.
"This is a blasphemy against God! Every person has an allotted span of life! To defy that—it can never be forgiven!"
"S-Sister, please calm down first. Senior, say something!"
"Just leave her. Sister, you pour out every last drop of that grief right here, and when you walk out that door you wipe it from your memory. Holding onto ugly things only wears the body down."
Kang Tae-oh said it listlessly. There wasn't a shred of drive on his face—just the irritation of a man who wanted this hour over with.
This case was no different. The cleanup crew had already come and taken the body. After that, what was a two-bit detective supposed to find? The investigation was already finished. There wasn't a single trace of the culprit. At best they'd identified the murder weapon, and even that was a kitchen knife you could pick up at any supermarket. Finding the killer wasn't going to get any easier.
"Let's just wrap this one up fast."
"But, Senior—!"
"Whoa! Don't yell like that! You startled the Sister!"
"I-I'm sorry. You too, Sister."
The junior detective bowed to me as well. I smiled with my eyes at that.
"I'm quite all right. Seeing how much fire you have, Officer, I feel reassured that this country's peace is in good hands. Please keep working hard for the people. And for the lambs of God."
I took the junior detective's hand and met his eyes. His pupils wavered. Watching that, my smile only deepened.
"By the way, Officer, you look like a rookie. How old are you?"
"My age? I-I'm twenty-seven this year!"
"Wow. Same age as me. And you've already become such an outstanding detective... it makes me wonder what I was doing instead of studying when I was young."
"That's—no, not at all! I've heard the path to becoming a nun is incredibly hard. Completely different from a nobody detective like me!"
The junior detective's gaze drifted slowly downward.
"Besides... we're the same age. I still look like a student! Ow!"
"Cut the crap. You hitting on the Sister?"
"No, Senior! What are you talking about? I wasn't hitting on anyone. I-it's not like that, so don't get the wrong idea."
Watching him flap his hands in embarrassment, I smiled sweetly.
"Well then, if the questioning is finished, I'll be heading back."
"Yes. You're free to go."
I reached for the interrogation-room doorknob, about to step out—and the camera pushed in close on my face.
This was the most important beat. I wiped the smile I'd been wearing off the face of the earth and looked back with an expression of ice-cold cruelty.
"Cut! Okay~"
At the okay, Teresa mode switched off and I beamed.
"Man~ That's our Jiwoo! You played the Teresa I wanted, exactly!"
"This... I think I should be the one asking this time. You really... haven't actually killed anyone, right?"
Kang Tae-oh—no, Kim Haseong—heaved a long sigh as he came back to himself and tossed that weird question at me.
"What are you talking about. Me, murder? I don't do that kind of thing. Why would I even need to kill anyone? If I just run my mouth on stream a couple of times, dropping one or two people into hell is easy. Heh heh."
I laughed like a villain, and Kim Haseong said it was a joke and asked me not to smile like that.
"All right, all right. We still need other angles, so let's do one more take and move to the next scene. That okay with you, Jiwoo?"
"Yes. I'm fine."
I understood Director Shin Yeomyeong's concern. I felt like I'd been asked whether I was okay today more than ten times already. Even if my acting was outstanding, we had to shoot both the beginning and the ending of the film in a single day. The emotional drain was bound to be several times worse than usual.
After shooting the same scene three more times, I was given about three hours of rest to lock in the emotions for the later shoot.
I dropped into the actor's chair and let my whole body go slack.
"You're okay, right?"
"Ah... Hoyeon unnie. I'm fine. More importantly, thank you."
Hoyeon came over with a worried look and handed me a cold bottle of water. I put some force into twisting the cap, advertising that it was still a sealed new product.
"Ahhh~ As expected of a Dohan Group product. Delicious."
"Aren't you promoting the family company a little too hard?"
"So you don't like it?"
"No, I like it a lot. Thanks to that, the shoot's been plenty well-stocked. We might actually hit ten million tickets."
It was a secret from the other members, but I'd told Hoyeon and CEO Jo Kyuhyun who my grandmother really was. And about the terms of the bet, too. The company didn't want to lose me, so for the past few days they'd been going all-out managing my condition and rearranging my schedule. Thanks to that, the streams I'd been doing every other day had been cut back to once every four days, giving me a lot more rest.
Of course, I explained to the fans that the film shoot didn't leave room in the schedule to stream. My fans—Kumongdan—didn't push back the way I'd expected. They all just told me to stay healthy and film well. There were the usual few bastards leaving hate comments. I personally reported those and asked Mom to handle them.
"Huh?"
"What is it? Something happen?"
Startled by the sound I made, Hoyeon asked worriedly.
"I asked Mom to report the hate comments... so I guess I'll be holding a fan meeting at the police station before I even book a venue?"
"...Is that supposed to be a joke. If you've got time to talk nonsense, go lock in your emotions."
"Yeees~"
I looked down at the tattered script and slowly pulled up a killer's feelings. Being a murderer didn't mean you had anger-management issues. Teresa was the opposite. It wasn't hatred or rage at the world. With a cold, clinical judgment of people, she decided who deserved to go to hell. Fifteen murders, plus one last believer who tried to take the fall in her place—sixteen killings in all, and that was the end of it.
"Jiwoo! Makeup, we're going again!"
"Yes."
I rose from the chair, my voice already calmer than before.
"Um... Jiwoo?"
"Yes. What is it?"
The makeup team, still not adjusted to the shift in atmosphere, flinched. A veteran from the team stepped in to look after the newbies, and I sat for makeup again.
"All done. I've been doing makeup for over ten years, and I've never seen skin as good as yours, Jiwoo. Is it because you're still young? Or were you just born with it?"
"Probably born with it."
Mom was like that, and Grandmother too. Even Dad, who'd been stressing himself into hair loss lately, had great skin. The members even asked me sometimes which cosmetics I used. I never knew what to say. I just slap on whatever.
"Nothing weird, right?"
I looked in the mirror. A nun's habit, looking like I'd been doused in blood. But Teresa's overflowing sex appeal was still right there. The blood makeup even added a layer of sensuality. I nodded.
"Nice. This is more than enough."
I thanked the makeup team and headed back onto the set.
"Oh... Jiwoo. The vibe is completely different."
"Of course. This is after I've killed sixteen people."
The girl who'd come in as a witness after her first murder couldn't possibly look the same as the woman turning herself in after sixteen.
"Then we'll begin! High—cue!"
The cue dropped, and I looked at Kang Tae-oh.