The First Meeting
Kim Ji-rok’s former classmate, the one who had shaken thirty million won out of him, was summoned to the police station on charges of spreading false rumors about Gal Neoul.
He decided there was nothing left to squeeze from Kim Ji-rok, who had already been dragged all the way to the bottom, and so he spilled everything.
He revealed that the person who had ordered him to spread the lies about Gal Neoul committing school violence was Kim Ji-rok himself.
He even turned over every scrap of evidence he had been keeping to threaten Kim Ji-rok with, just so he could insist that he had only posted online and had nothing whatsoever to do with Kim Ji-rok’s school violence or attempted murder.
His crimes never seemed to end.
Pathetic.
Can’t let Kim Ji-rok get away with this. He needs to be punished properly.
One lament after another followed, along with threats telling him to watch his back after dark, and wondering how someone whose character had rotted so thoroughly had ever had the nerve to go on broadcast in the first place.
Videos of Kim Ji-rok failing the lie detector three times at the glamping site began popping up all over MyTube. Every time a new clip went up, the comment sections were buried in mockery of every possible kind.
It was Kim Ji-rok’s complete collapse.
* * *
The day after Idol Travel ended, Neoul left home to meet the representative of the agency he would soon be signing with, FLUX.
Yeo Do-bin would be moving separately this time. Yesterday, he had stayed at the hotel with his parents, who had flown in from Australia to watch the final.
Secretary Song dropped Neoul off in front of a decrepit building on the outskirts of Seoul. He looked at the building, then back at the address, and asked Neoul,
“Mr. Gal Neoul, is this the right place? Did they give you the wrong address?”
“This is the only address I was given. It should be correct.”
Neoul got out of the car and looked up at the building. The small three-story structure looked as though it had been neglected for years and years.
Cobweb-choked windows, an air-conditioning unit coated black with dust, a lock lying abandoned on the ground—one by one, they caught his eye.
Secretary Song opened his window from the driver’s seat and asked once more,
“You’re really sure this is it?”
Just then, Ha On-ha climbed out of a taxi that had pulled up nearby, proving the address had not been wrong after all.
“Oh! Neoul~ Good mornin—uh…?”
Ha On-ha had been about to greet Neoul with a bright expression, but when he saw the building that looked ready to collapse at any moment, his words died away.
“Did I come to the wrong place?”
Having arrived perfectly on time, Ha On-ha ended up saying the exact same thing as Secretary Song. Neoul walked up to the entrance and pushed the door open.
Creeeeak!
A hair-raising noise rang out.
“Hey! Don’t just fling doors open like that. It might belong to someone!”
“There are footprints. Ha On-ha.”
Neoul had spotted several sets of footprints stamped across the dust that had collected in the building’s hallway. They led up the stairs.
“Looks like there are people here already. Let’s go upstairs.”
“W-wait, wait, wait! Let’s call first! Call them first!”
Ha On-ha stopped Neoul, who was about to stride in without a second thought, and dialed the number they had been given along with the company address yesterday.
It was supposed to be the contact for the head of the management team who would be handling the members’ schedules and daily lives from now on.
Rrrrring— Rrrrring—
The ringing went on and on before suddenly stopping. The other person had answered.
“Hello?”
— ….
But there was no reply. Ha On-ha glanced back and forth between the eerie building, as though a ghost might appear from it any second, and his smartphone, then cautiously introduced himself.
“Um, hello. I’m Ha On-ha~ Isn’t this the number for the FLUX management team leader?”
Kkiiik— THUD!
An unidentifiable noise sounded from the upper floor of the building at the very same time it came through the phone. Then, with a crackle of static, a rough, thick voice distorted beyond recognition spoke.
— Come… in…
Click.
And the call ended.
Ha On-ha came to a realization and turned deathly pale. So they were already filming something! A self-produced segment, or maybe variety content.
It was already well past summer, so why they’d chosen horror content of all things was beside the point, but… he felt strangely wronged.
“They told me this was our first meeting with the CEO and the staff… and that they’d buy us something delicious, so I came looking forward to it!”
Ha On-ha pretended to swallow tears with exaggerated drama, then let out a long breath. Summoning up his courage, he stepped through the door.
Neoul waved his thanks to Secretary Song for bringing him this far, then followed after him.
“Don’t worry. I don’t see any ghosts on the first floor.”
“Really?”
Ha On-ha climbed the stairs, looking warily in every direction, and let out a shriek when he spotted a spider clinging to the window. He hurried back down and hid behind Neoul.
Neoul stared at him blankly, and Ha On-ha, his face gone white, offered a hurried excuse.
“I’m just not on good terms with spiders.”
Neoul gave the creature Ha On-ha had called a spider a sidelong look and asked,
“You know each other?”
“No, it’s our first time meeting.”
Well, yes. Even first meetings could go badly.
Neoul nodded and continued up the stairs.
On the second floor, several doors faced each other across the hallway. Footprints had been scattered all around them. A camera had been mounted in the corner of the wall.
Neoul yanked open the first office door.
“Hey! You have to knock—knock!”
Ha On-ha whispered from behind him, but Neoul marched inside without slowing down. Two gift boxes sat in the otherwise empty office.
“Don’t open them! Something bad is going to come out!”
“Were they not left here to be opened?”
“Eek! If you open a box like that, something disgusting always jumps out, or something falls from the ceiling! That’s just how it works!”
Ha On-ha couldn’t bring himself to step into the office, and stood trembling beside the door instead.
How could he be so frightened? Truly.
Neoul opened both boxes in Ha On-ha’s place. Inside were not the things Ha On-ha had feared, but neatly folded long-sleeved blue T-shirts, one in each box.
When Neoul lifted one shirt out, a card hidden beneath it was revealed.
Welcome to the Jjokbit team!
Neoul smiled and unfolded the shirt to show Ha On-ha.
“Ha On-ha. It seems to be only a welcome gift.”
Just then, a clatter exploded in the hallway, and Ha On-ha came running into the office, pale with fright, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Gh-gh-gh-ghost!”
“Ghost?”
“A ghost! It really was a trap!”
THUD THUD THUD!
Someone in ghost makeup suddenly shoved their face against the small glass window in the door.
Hiiiiiik!
Ha On-ha went white as chalk, and sprinted away from the door before fleeing to Neoul’s side. He pulled out the shirt that seemed to be meant for him, then draped it over his shoulders like a cape and tied the sleeves to hold it in place.
The person in ghost makeup stared wildly into the room for a moment before disappearing down the hall. Soon after, footsteps were heard going down the stairs.
Neoul, following Ha On-ha’s lead, tossed the blue shirt loosely around his neck as well, then headed toward the doorway with a little more excitement than before.
“Let’s go out.”
“What if the ghost comes back?”
“If it does, we should greet it and thank it for welcoming us.”
“Good heavens.”
Ha On-ha slapped his own forehead.
Neoul opened the door and stepped out, looking down the hallway. There was no sign that the ghost who had gone downstairs was about to come back up.
When he opened the second office door, this time there was a desk and a chair inside. On top of the desk sat a measuring tape, a sheet of A4 paper, and a single ballpoint pen.
Please fill out your mini profile.
Seven tables were lined up across the page. They included spaces for a name in Korean and English, birthday, height, favorite foods, and other simple personal details.
Five of the seven tables had already been filled in. It seemed they had been written in from top to bottom in the order the members had arrived. Baek Yuri and Baek Gi-yeom occupied the first table. Lee Gal-chae was third, Yeo Do-bin fourth, and Woo Cheong fifth.
Ha On-ha sat down in the chair first and began writing his answers smoothly into the blanks. Neoul watched from beside him and asked,
“What is a motto?”
“Hmm. Like a principle? Something like… ‘This is how I want to live,’ or ‘This is the one thing I’ll never give up,’ stuff like that. Words you’d want to follow and learn from. Something that can be a guide for your life.”
Neoul read the mottos the other members had written and grasped the meaning roughly, then nodded.
“But, Ha On-ha. Your handwriting is very crooked.”
“Aren’t you the last person who should say that? At this rate, the fans are going to start calling us the Terrible Hands writing squad.”
Ha On-ha snickered, set down the pen, and made room for Neoul.
“Well, in my opinion, you’re not quite terrible.”
Neoul took the pen and carefully filled in the blanks, pressing hard as he wrote his name first. He left the Hangul and English sections empty, since he wasn’t sure about them. Then Ha On-ha searched for an English name converter and taught him how to write “Gal Neoul” in English.
“I haven’t measured my height in a long time.”
When he was little, the Sea Witch had sometimes brought out a long measuring rod and measured Neoul’s height with it.
That was when he had first learned about units of length, and later it came in handy whenever he looked at Sangsangi and Byeoldtongi and wanted to know how much they’d grown. It also let him tell how tall his little siblings were getting as they shot upward.
“Stand next to me. I’ll measure you.”
Ha On-ha held up the tape measure, took Neoul’s height, and showed him the result with awe.
“One ninety-two centimeters. You’re seriously tall.”
“I shall still grow more.”
“More than this?”
For some reason, his growth had stopped since coming to land, but Neoul never doubted that it would begin again someday. Merfolk usually grew to nearly three meters, after all.
Neoul finished filling out the mini profile in his crooked handwriting, then stood.
Crash!
At that moment, the cabinet at the front of the office rattled violently, and the door flew open with a bang. Out sprang a person with bandages wrapped all around their face, dressed like a mummy.
“Aaaah!”
“Oh.”
Neoul marveled at how someone had managed to hide inside such a cramped cabinet.
Ha On-ha grabbed the dazed Neoul, who was still staring at the mummy in wonder, and fled into the third office, locking the door behind them.
The mummy seemed to chase them for a moment, then collected the sheet with the seven profiles written on it and went back downstairs.
Neoul looked around the third office. Heavy curtains blocked out the sunlight, making it very dark. Ha On-ha tried the wall switch, but the light would not come on.
“Sh-should we leave? I think we came into the wrong place. Is there maybe a mission sheet or something? Let’s just check whether that exists and get out quickly.”
Ha On-ha plastered himself against the door as if he were ready to flee at any second, his eyes darting round and round.
Neoul glanced at him, then pointed to a pair of shoes visible beneath the curtain. One wall, too, was bulging in a way that was clearly unnatural, as if someone were pressed up behind the wallpaper… in the shape of a person.
And this time there was more than one.
Just as Ha On-ha hurriedly reached for the lock on the door handle,
“Aaaah!”
“Surprise!”
“Waaah!”
The curtains were drawn back and the wallpaper was ripped away as a whole crowd of people in ghost makeup burst out all at once.
Ha On-ha screamed and, in a desperate bid to save only himself, ran outside and slammed the door shut.
Neoul, now surrounded by ghosts, stared blankly at the closed door.
“And I am…?”
To shut the door entirely just to save himself—Ha On-ha had thrown Neoul to the ghosts as bait so he could run.
And yet the ghosts’ costumes were all terribly amateurish, and their voices sounded oddly familiar.
“Heyyy~ Gal Neoul~”
“On-ha hyung! Where did your loyalty go? You ran off on your own!”
“Neoul hyung, hello.”
Three of the five ghosts removed their masks and called out one by one. Baek Gi-yeom, Woo Cheong, and Lee Gal-chae.
And behind them, Baek Yuri, laughing sheepishly as he took off his long black wig and white funeral-style robes, and Yeo Do-bin, wearing a wig and looking delighted.
The members were all here.
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