26 Degrees
After dinner was over and done with, the auditorium where the contestants had been gathering was used for an extra round of filming.
Producer Seok put part of today’s footage up on the screen.
It showed Baek Gi-yeom, who had drawn the turtle-shell-shaped tube during the partner selection draw, hiding inside it. Someone had hung a wet beach towel over the top to dry, and the shell pattern had been hidden from view.
Seok paused the video, then played the next clip, which showed Baek Gi-yeom after he had been left behind, looking flustered.
"The fairy tale tied to the prop drawn by Baek Yuri, the contestant who was last chosen as a candidate for Signal Song Center, the rabbit headband, is 'The Rabbit and the Tortoise.' In the mission, Baek Yuri’s partner was Baek Gi-yeom."
The contestants seated in rows began to stir as they watched.
Baek Yuri, who had the most reason of anyone to be shaken, could only stare blankly at the screen without a word.
As Seok explained the arrival of the new additional contestant Neoul and the detailed circumstances surrounding it, following the fifteen local finalists, Baek Yuri listened in silence without asking a single question.
In the end, Seok declared that Baek Yuri had failed the mission.
"Therefore, Park Da-han, who succeeded in the mission in sixth place, and Logan, who placed fifth, will move up to participate as Signal Song Center candidates."
"……!"
[Busking Mission Rankings]
1st - Ha On-ha / Gye Tae-seok
2nd - Myeong I-dam / Seo Chi-eum
3rd - Woo Cheong / Kim Ji-rok
4th - Lee Gal-chae / Ko Un-gu
5th - Park Da-han / Logan
The revised rankings appeared on the screen.
With the result of being visually eliminated from the center candidate lineup displayed for everyone to see, Baek Yuri’s gaze drifted helplessly toward Park Da-han and Logan.
"Logan! We’re center candidates! Center candidates!"
"Yes, I heard. That’s good."
Park Da-han’s eyes widened in surprise as he could not hide his joy and threw his arms around Logan’s shoulders. Logan grinned and patted Park Da-han on the back.
Baek Yuri lowered his eyes to his toes in silence. He felt awful.
After the announcement, the contestants moved to their assigned lodging. Just as expected, the partners shared rooms, four people to a room.
On the beds in the lodging were practice clothes and welcome gifts. They were nicely wrapped assortments of snacks, the kind that were everywhere in Jeju Island souvenir shops.
It was a small gift, but the contestants reacted to it with enthusiasm.
"Wow! There are snacks too!"
"Thank you! We’ll enjoy them!"
They greeted the camera with delighted faces and happily shared the snacks among themselves.
There was another room, however, where that kind of atmosphere could not be enjoyed. It was the room for Baek Yuri, Baek Gi-yeom, Woo Cheong, and Kim Ji-rok. Neoul was added to that room as well.
In a room that had only two bunk beds, one single bed had been hurriedly added on the first floor. Neoul looked around, taking in the room and the scenery outside the window with open curiosity.
He could sense that the mood had gone oddly subdued, though he did not understand how serious the matter of being excluded from the Signal Song Center candidate list was, or why that had caused it.
"Can I take the top bunk?"
As though trying to lift the heavy atmosphere, Woo Cheong spoke first.
"Sure. Of course."
"Yeah."
Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom answered at the same time. Baek Yuri decided to take the remaining top bunk, while the comparatively larger Baek Gi-yeom, Kim Ji-rok, and Neoul would use the lower beds.
Neoul placed the sharks he had been holding in his arms on the bed.
Kim Ji-rok, the one with no eyebrows, went into the bathroom, saying he was going to wash up, and Woo Cheong and Neoul tore open snacks and ate them. Neoul had now learned that humans had the habit of wrapping all food in an outer shell that could not be eaten.
Woo Cheong ate one snack, found it wasn’t to his taste, and shoved the rest at Neoul before launching into an attack of questions at Baek Gi-yeom.
"Hyung, hyung! Weren’t you hot inside the turtle tube? You stayed in there the whole time, for real?"
Baek Yuri, seated on the ladder leading up to the top bunk, sat quietly fiddling with his practice clothes all by himself. Neoul, chewing a snack with his mouth full, watched him.
He had two questions. One was...
What have I ruined?
And the second was...
Is that person really a rabbit?
Baek Yuri had clearly said that he was a rabbit himself and that he knew the dragon kingfish as well.
And yet the rabbit who had taken off his ears looked no different from a human. The other animals who had removed their ears earlier had been the same.
Why would someone take off their own ears and give them to another?
Neoul thought hard, then remembered his father and the Sea Witch.
Maybe rabbits also wander around in human form?
That made sense. If they were a supernatural being who had lived for more than fourteen hundred years, that could be possible.
Where does a rabbit put in and take out its liver? Through its mouth?
That seemed difficult, since a human mouth and throat were far too small. Did a rabbit’s true form have a very large throat?
"......"
Neoul stared at Teacher Rabbit’s abdomen. Should he cut it open, as the Sea Witch said?
When the Sea Witch snatched away his bag, she had not taken the short blade he had brought all the way from the Dragon Palace. The palm-sized weapon was still tied at his waist.
"......"
Neoul gripped the hilt, then let it go, hesitating.
No matter how urgent Father’s condition may be, harming another creature...
Lost in deep thought, Neoul kept observing the rabbit.
Feeling his gaze, Baek Yuri lifted his head, and their eyes met. Baek Yuri mistook the way Neoul kept staring for guilt or self-reproach.
There’s no need for that.
He had made the mistake himself by not properly checking whether Neoul was a program contestant or simply an ordinary person who liked sketch comedy.
From the moment he had failed to find hidden Baek Gi-yeom, Baek Yuri’s failure had already been sealed. If it hadn’t been for Neoul, he would never even have made it into the center candidate lineup, and in that chaotic situation it would have been difficult to secure any real attention or screen time.
"I thought about it, and..."
When he spoke, Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong, who had been making a racket, fell quiet. Baek Yuri smiled as if to tell them not to worry about him.
"I don’t think there’s any reason to be this upset."
His voice, spoken gently and evenly, was neither especially heavy nor particularly gloomy.
"It was a little startling because it was an unexpected situation, but... thanks to Neoul, I even got a nickname, and I think I’ll end up with good screen time. Maybe I’ll leave more of an impression on viewers than I would have as center?"
His crescent-shaped eyes curved softly.
"This happened because of my mistake, though, so I’m sorry for dragging the mood down. I’m sorry to Cheong and Gi-yeom too."
Baek Yuri apologized to his temporary roommates in a bright voice. Whether that brightness was something he had forced himself to make, or something that truly came from the heart, was impossible to tell.
"No, no! What are you apologizing for? If it had been me, I would’ve stood on my hands and run around the yard protesting to the PD!"
Now that the mood had improved, Woo Cheong bounced right back to life and chattered happily.
"Exactly. You can cry if you’re upset too. Gi-yeom understands too, yong. Pwee-ehng."
"I said I’m not upset! When did I cry?"
Baek Gi-yeom teased him by pretending to cry. Baek Yuri gave Baek Gi-yeom a shove on the shoulder, telling him not to make things up. The two seemed to know each other well.
Neoul had already eaten almost all the snacks and was in the middle of opening the wrapper on the very last one.
"Anyway, I should have thanked you, Neoul. I’m saying it now instead. Thank you."
At Baek Yuri’s expression of gratitude, Neoul blinked.
The other humans, who had been chatting cheerfully, also turned their attention toward Neoul. No one said anything, but the atmosphere made it feel as if he ought to say something.
Neoul quietly blinked, then let go of the knife hilt. After that, he looked down at the snack in his other hand.
There’s only one left...
After twitching his brows in thought for a moment, he held it out to Baek Yuri. Baek Yuri smiled and took the snack without hesitation.
* * *
A little later, after Baek Gi-yeom graciously let him wash first, Neoul opened the bag the Sea Witch had given him and took out the toiletries. She had explained all kinds of things about how to use them, but it was still his first time using them, so he was at a loss.
Once inside the bathroom, he opened the toothpaste cap and tried squeezing some onto the toothbrush, but he misjudged his strength. With a pop, the sink and mirror were smeared with toothpaste.
He somehow got it onto the toothbrush and scrubbed his teeth, only to swallow the toothpaste.
She said to rinse it out with water!
Because it tasted sweet!
The Sea Witch had given him strawberry-flavored toothpaste for children that was harmless even if swallowed, but Neoul, unaware of the truth, was a little flustered.
This one is for rubbing into your hair...
Next he stepped into the shower stall and poured shampoo over his head. It was fascinating to rub it with his hands and watch bubbles bloom into froth. Too many bubbles formed, but Neoul did not realize anything was wrong.
He poured on body wash as well and tried to clean himself, but the shampoo suds ran down his face and stung his eyes.
He wiped his eyes with the hand that had body wash on it. His eyes stung even more.
Why do humans torture themselves every day?
Tears streamed from his stinging eyes. The mermaid, now soaked in chemicals, finally managed to turn on the showerhead in torment.
"Ah!"
Too hot!
He hurriedly twisted the tap the other way, and cold water poured down.
The temperature I know...
At last Neoul felt relief and rinsed away the suds. Even when he was standing under the pouring water, his legs did not disappear, whether because he only returned to his true form when submerged in deep water, or for some other reason.
After showering, he awkwardly dried his wet body with a towel and pulled on underwear and summer sleepwear. His hair and body, which had been heavy with the smell of the sea, now gave off an unfamiliar artificial fragrance.
When he opened the bathroom door and came out, everyone else was already under their blankets, resting quietly. Only Baek Gi-yeom, who had not yet washed, was using the few spare minutes before his turn to do planks on the floor beneath the bed. He got up when he saw Neoul.
"Neoul. You screamed earlier. Are you okay?"
"Yes..."
Neoul, exhausted from self-inflicted torture, collapsed onto the bed without even the strength to dry his hair.
Baek Gi-yeom, who had been about to go into the bathroom, paused and asked,
"Did you film a disaster movie in there or something?"
There had, in fact, been quite a flood.
Neoul, curled up face-down, muttered his answer. He had been asking what a disaster movie was, but since his face was buried in the blanket, Baek Gi-yeom could not understand him.
"Oh, right. The thermometer."
As Neoul drifted on the edge of sleep, Baek Yuri muttered and peeked his head out from the top bunk.
"Neoul, how are you feeling? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
Ugh. Neoul turned his head and opened his eyes with difficulty. The pain was gone now that it had been rinsed away with water, but the whites of his eyes were completely red.
"Gasp! Look at his eyes!"
"I’ll go tell the PD and bring someone back."
Baek Gi-yeom stopped as he was about to head into the bathroom to wash up, then rushed back out.
"Raccoon hyung’s eyes are red!"
Woo Cheong, who had gotten curious and stuck his head out too, was horrified.
Why, and since when, had Neoul become a raccoon? There was no way to know.
They didn’t look alike at all.
* * *
The youngest writer and the assistant director, who had been working overtime, came running to check Neoul’s condition.
"His eyes should be fine pretty quickly if there isn’t any pain now, right? You said you rinsed them right away. The problem is..."
The abnormal reading on the non-contact thermometer: 26 degrees.
"The kid’s ice-cold. Let’s get him to the hospital first."
"Isn’t the thermometer broken...?"
The youngest writer tilted her head and checked the temperatures of the others. This time, the numbers came out properly, around 36.5 degrees. No matter how many times they measured Neoul, though, it never budged from 26, ten degrees lower than it should have been.
"Maybe the thermometer’s gone crazy..."
"At this point, don’t we need to call 119?"
They took care of Neoul and headed straight for the hospital. On the way, the assistant director found the business card he had received from Neoul’s aunt and called the number, but no one answered.
After arriving at the emergency room and waiting for a while, a doctor came, examined Neoul, took his temperature and blood pressure, and then tilted his head. He quickly ran a few more tests first.
Once the results came back, he checked whether the thermometer had broken again by bringing over several more and taking Neoul’s temperature with those too.
"Is his eye broken too?"
Muttering that, he even pressed at the skin around Neoul’s eyes.
"Uh, how are you still alive...?"
The doctor asked with his face full of question marks, then shut his mouth. Everyone else nearby was staring at him as if to say, What kind of thing is that for a doctor to say?
The doctor felt wronged.
"Ahem. Other than the low body temperature and slow pulse, everything else is within normal range."
"Isn’t that the most important part...? How can you just leave that out?"
The assistant director and the youngest writer looked dumbfounded, while the doctor broke into a cold sweat. He had never seen a case like this anywhere, so what was he supposed to do?
Neoul, who had obediently followed instructions and undergone the tests, kept looking around the hospital until finally, with a perfectly ordinary face, he yawned.