Give Me a Rice Cake and I Won’t Eat You (1)
As the contestants appeared, the audience stirred all over again.
“That real-life face is insane. Is he even human?”
The other contestants they had seen so far had also looked far better in person than on screen, but Gal Neoul seemed like something else entirely. He looked mysterious, like he had stepped out of another dimension of beauty.
Oh. I can see why unnie picked him.
She hoped he’d do well, but was this really the right song for him?
The fan who liked too many idols watched the stage darken further, worry settling in.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock....
The sound of a clock began to ring out.
Was the clock sound always like this in this song?
The atmosphere had turned strangely ominous and grim.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock....
The sound of footsteps that seemed like they belonged in a horror film began to mingle with the movement of the clock’s second hand.
The contestants looked like warriors with swords, or perhaps hunters. They all wore blue jeogori-style robes and cinched their sashes tightly around their waists.
First to catch the eye was Neoul, seated in the center in a posture so bizarre he looked like a dead man. His hair had been loosely tied back into a half-up style.
The other contestants stood behind Gal Neoul. They let long strips of cloth tied around their wrists fall forward, using them to hide themselves.
[It feels like time is getting slower and slower.]
Neoul, seated at center, began the first verse in a murmur. His voice was chillingly languid and dreamlike, catching the audience by the ear and pulling them into the stage.
The fan who liked too many idols sucked in a breath. Gooseflesh rose all over her body. For some reason, it felt hard to breathe.
The white cloth hanging down from the contestants’ wrists fluttered softly. In the airless indoor space, it waved as though a breeze were passing through.
[Why is that, I wonder.
Well.
You already know the reason]
Neoul snapped his head up and faced forward, spreading his palm wide as he dragged his hand from his chin down to his chest.
Blood...!
Like blood, red handprints followed Neoul’s movement, staining the blue fabric from chin and throat to collar and chest. Under the lights, the layered color briefly looked purple.
His expression remained blank, his empty eyes staring straight ahead.
Then Neoul slowly turned his head.
Creakhhhh—
The sound rang out like an old door opening, shrill as a scream. The guitar riff that followed moved in minor chords, unlike the bright original song.
Worse, it slipped and squealed as if notes were going out of tune, falling strangely out of sync with the drums and creating a grotesque effect. To match it, the other contestants moved the cloth left and right, revealing themselves as if opening a door.
Neoul rose from his seat with an awkward, ungainly motion, staggering to his feet.
The moment he turned his back, the contestants who had all looked at him in unison hurriedly lowered the cloth over their faces again as if trying to shut the door.
With the jerking bounce of the choreography and the clattering sound behind it, the white fabric fluttering about felt like a door.
And yet Neoul simply reached out toward the cloth as if nothing were wrong.
[Don’t pretend you don’t know me
Don’t act innocent and listen to me]
The contestants danced in wide, crossing paths, as if trying to flee from Neoul.
Neoul’s bloody hand reaching outward was not especially large in motion, but the group choreography surrounding him was broad and dazzling, making the whole stage feel intensely dynamic.
At last, after clawing at the air, Neoul caught someone. His pale face, once expressionless, twisted in pain for a moment.
Was the one he caught Baek Gi-yeom?
He was a contestant more famous as Baek Yuri’s cousin than for his own name. His striking, clean-cut good looks left a strong impression.
The paired choreography went on as if Neoul were strangling Baek Gi-yeom’s throat, and red paint smeared across Baek Gi-yeom’s neck and cheek as well.
When Baek Gi-yeom shook him off, a faint smile bloomed at the corner of Neoul’s mouth. A thrill flashed through him, as if he had thrown off something that had been binding him.
Baek Gi-yeom’s frightened eyes changed all at once, going blank in the same way Neoul’s had at the start. It was as if something had passed from Neoul into Baek Gi-yeom.
The voice that came next was low and distant, like it was echoing from a deep cave.
[Mm, I mean...
Without you, the whole world turns to ash
We have to stay together]
Wow, that cave-low voice is insane.
By then, the contestants were running from Baek Gi-yeom as they danced.
Baek Gi-yeom pulled in the contestant with blue hair. The blue-haired contestant’s possessed-looking choreography followed, and red paint marked his clothes as well, stamped here and there in large handprints.
Woo Cheong! I know him.
He really did have a rare knack for controlling the force of each movement and bringing out every detail. Even so, he still looked loose and easy, as if he were playing with the beat.
[Truth is, you feel it too.
Tell me honestly, my dear]
Neoul and Baek Gi-yeom added harmonies on either side of Woo Cheong, as if the devil itself were whispering indecent things into his ear.
But the lyrics were a little different.
Wait, did they translate the entire English lyric into Korean?
As Woo Cheong’s clothes were also smeared with blood-red paint, the ominous drum sound deepened into a heavy pounding that filled the space, and the dance grew even more feverish.
[I won’t wait anymore
I’ll come get you
Take my hand (take it)
Don’t let go and follow me]
The group choreography continued. Yet each team member felt similar, and different, at the same time. The choreography of Baek Gi-yeom, Woo Cheong, and Neoul, along with that of the other two contestants, moved in completely opposite directions.
Huh? Was that a mistake?
But if it was, there was no sign of it in the performers’ faces. So it had to be deliberate.
[Shall we walk together
All the way to the end of the earth
I feel like I could go
Even to the end of the world, don’t you?]
The choreography crossed back and forth like an exchange.
The original song was about liking someone so much you kept hesitating and couldn’t approach them, until you realized how lonely and dull life was without them and gathered the courage to go first.
But this stage looked as though someone who had met an unnatural death was luring a living person to come away with them.
What are they trying to express? Some kind of Joseon zombie?
But even that felt off....
The sweeping cloth and the quick, light footwork felt less like a zombie and more like a ghost.
Besides, the two contestants who still had not been smeared with red paint kept approaching them on their own, as if swayed by a ghost’s persuasion, only to pull back again as though regaining their senses.
[We cross beyond the boundary of light
Skipping along with light steps
Anywhere is fine, as long as our feet touch it
Just let yourself fall into it.]
Baek Gi-yeom’s sing-rap came out low and seductive, but static crackled steadily beneath it. If you listened closely, it almost sounded like a beast’s cry.
A lion? A bear...?
At that moment, their bizarre team name surfaced in her mind.
Give me a rice cake and I won’t eat you.
It was a line from the fairy tale about the brother and sister who became the Sun and the Moon. The tiger in that story used those words on the mother of the siblings, who were carrying rice cakes, and slowly extorted a cake at a time before finally eating them.
The roar of a tiger. A ghost that kept coaxing them to come along. Could this possibly be....
Changwi?
Changwi was a ghost that followed a tiger around and lured people it had known in life, leading them to be eaten by the tiger. Only then could the changwi escape the tiger, and the newly eaten ghost would become the next changwi, wandering off in search of another victim.
And so it repeated, again and again....
[Feels so good, don’t stop
Let’s just keep walking like this
That’s right, straight ahead]
Hahh...!
Now that she understood, the lyrics sounded even more chilling. It felt as if they were saying he was happy because, thanks to you coming, he’d been able to escape the tiger.
Even the line “I will be over the moon” had been changed into “That’s right, straight ahead.” As if urging them to go right ahead toward the tiger.
[In my dreams, I can feel your breath
We’re already tangled up too deeply
A maze with no way out
We have to fall together]
The original line, “We have to walk together,” had been boldly changed into an invitation to fall together.
They had deliberately blended in breath sounds as they sang, making the whole thing feel even more urgent. By then, the last two contestants’ faces and necks, and even their clothes, had been stained red with the paint Woo Cheong had spread.
Their eyes, which had chased and fled and turned toward one another throughout the performance, now turned in unison toward the audience. As if the next prey were the viewers.
Waaah! These lunatics!
[I won’t wait anymore
I’ll come get you
Take my hand
Don’t let go and follow me]
Backed by the hungry roar of a tiger, fiercer than before, the choreography surged forward. Gal Neoul, wearing a dangerous smile, broke away from the group choreography and darted to the side, laying a piercing, high-pitched ad-lib over the others’ voices.
[Shall we walk together
All the way to the horizon
Even to the end of the world
I feel like I could go, don’t you?]
Uuuuu— uuu— u— uuuuu— uuu—
Holy crap, how many octaves is that?
It sounded like a ghost wailing in the distance, sorrowful and spine-chilling at the same time. She wanted to turn and run, and yet she also felt herself helplessly drawn into the beauty of the melody.
[We have to fall together]
With a heavy thud, the four of them collapsed to the floor and dropped their heads. The stage ended with the last contestant, the Japanese participant who had become the changwi, standing alone in the center and reaching a hand toward the camera.
Everything around them fell utterly silent.
The fan who liked too many idols stared blankly at the stage, mouth open, before jerking back to her senses. Looking around to see why everyone was quiet, she found that they all wore the exact same expression she did.
Waaah!
Don’t fallll!
You guys should go uplll! I’m the only one allowed to fall!
Someone let out a shout from the depths of their stomach, and the spell broke. People snapped back to reality and burst into enthusiastic applause and cheers.
The song choice had seemed like there would be no expectations at all, but no one had expected to be hit in the back of the head like this. Who would have thought they’d see a stage like that in an audition survival show for trainees?
The fan who liked too many idols clasped both hands tightly together. Her heart was pounding like mad.
She didn’t know whether she was shaking because of the suspension-bridge effect or because she loved it too much, or both, but one thing was certain: those changwi had thoroughly bewitched her.
The contestants who had been sprawled on the stage caught their breath and got back up. Smiling brightly, they patted each other on the shoulders and bowed to the audience.
“Thank you!”
“Thank you so much!”
But one contestant did not get up on his own and was still lying flat on the stage. It was Gal Neoul.
What’s wrong? Did he faint?
She craned her neck and looked at Neoul anxiously. Other audience members also began to murmur in confusion.
“Looks like Raccoon Brother died. Oh no....”
“Neoul, get up! We have to go down.”
“H-hhgh, no, I can’t, huff, I’m... h-hhgh, cough....”
Gal Neoul lay sprawled on the floor, gasping as though he were about to die any second. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be an emergency, and he didn’t seem to have lost consciousness.
For a body that looked like it should have had steel in it, he seemed even more exhausted than the perfectly fine middle schooler standing beside him.
“Water... some water...”
“Water?!”
The team scrambled in confusion, looking for water. When Jeong On-do handed some over, Woo Cheong hurried off at top speed, came back with a bottle, and passed it to Neoul.
Neoul, swaying as he raised his upper body, drained the bottle in one go before finally gathering himself and standing.
“Ugh, huff.... Freshwater tastes baaad....”
Neoul! Are you okay?!
Gal Neoul!
At the worried calls from the audience, Neoul stopped struggling for a moment, his eyes going round as he looked around in confusion.
Huh! So cute! Looks like he’s searching for whoever called him.
His expression was completely different from the cold, eerie look he had shown during the performance.
Why are his eyes so adorable? Is he surprised that someone’s cheering for him?
Fresh and charming. This was exactly why people got into survival shows!
The fan who liked too many idols forgot her sister’s request to take photos and instead happily admired his face.
The other members did well too, and they seem fine.
The earlier team had also been strong, so it looked like this would be a close race. Still, she had already made up her mind, so voting would not be difficult.
It felt as though electricity were still crackling down the back of her head. The lingering shock had left the hand she’d clenched tight and numb.
She had stanned countless idols and seen hundreds of stages, but she didn’t think she’d ever forget Gal Neoul’s opening vocal and ad-libs.
This was the first time she had felt truly, literally “bewitched.”
Not only was his face astonishingly handsome, but his tone was absurdly good and his range was broad enough to make him a monster-level vocalist. On top of that, his acting ability in carrying the concept was pretty excellent too. Not once had the immersion broken; she had been able to sink into the stage completely.
“Th-thank you,”
she thought, watching Gal Neoul’s back as he bowed and stepped down from the stage.
When was the first episode supposed to air again?
She wanted to see his other sides too. The thought of rewatching today’s stage over and over already made her restless.
Ugh. Why is my heart beating like this?
She had clenched her fist so hard her hand had gone numb.
Then a bad feeling crept over her.
Somehow, she had a nasty suspicion her precious MyTube channel might end up turning into a fanTube channel for Gal Neoul.
When you stan the idol world, you’ve got to keep it broad and shallow. If you fall too deep into one hole, it gets dangerous.
If she fixated on one thing too obsessively and some scandal blew up.... Ugh. She didn’t even want to think about it.
But falling for someone was not something you could control just because you said you wouldn’t. The urge to make a fan account for Gal Neoul on social media and gush shamelessly about today’s stage was already rising in her chest.
She clutched her head and let out a groan.
Ah. I think I’m already doomed.
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