Why the Soul Turns Rotten (3)
Myeong I-dam had been about to blurt out that Kim Ji-rok had drunk something strange and rush over to stop Gal Neoul from taking a single sip of the water.
But then he thought it through and realized he had no proof. Kim Ji-rok had planned everything carefully while wearing gloves so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints, and Myeong I-dam was the only witness.
Without clear evidence, Kim Ji-rok might well turn the tables and frame him instead. And besides...
What if he tries to kill me too because I exposed him?
He had seen that kind of thing in movies all the time. The murderer going after the inconvenient witness before returning to the original target.
In that case...
“Gal Neoul!”
Myeong I-dam shouted first and hurried over. Gal Neoul, who had just twisted off a bottle cap, turned his head toward him. Myeong I-dam raised his voice so loudly it seemed to shake the hallway outside the door.
“That was the water Kim. Ji. Rok. hyung put there, right? I saw him carrying a whole bunch of water earlier!”
“Is that so? It was just out in the hallway, though.”
“Ah! So Kim. Ji. Rok. hyung must have set it in the hallway! Ah, I’m so thirsty! Let me have a sip too!”
“There are plenty of others. Please take one out yourself and drink it.”
“No! I’m drinking this one!”
Myeong I-dam strode up and snatched the bottle from Gal Neoul’s hands. Neoul looked as if he couldn’t understand why Myeong I-dam was insisting on taking his water when there was plenty more around.
Myeong I-dam tipped the bottle and took the water into his mouth. He was planning to pretend to drink, then spit it out and throw himself to the floor shouting, “My stomach! My stomach!” and put on a full-blown Hollywood performance.
He’d act like he had no idea what was going on. But everyone would pay attention to it and start harboring a little suspicion toward Kim Ji-rok.
Except he tipped the bottle too far, and the water suddenly poured straight into his mouth. Worse, the unexpected sweetness made him accidentally swallow several mouthfuls.
Why does it taste sweet?
Had Kim Ji-rok added sugar water?
Why?
Holding the bottle in one hand and wiping the water from his lips with the other, Myeong I-dam stood there in confusion.
What on earth is it? What colorless, odorless liquid tastes sweet?
Was it dangerous? Had he misunderstood and suspected the wrong person for nothing? But the palm of his hand, which had touched the unidentified liquid, was still reddening.
Neoul, whose water had been taken away, reached for another bottle, thirsty enough to be desperate. Myeong I-dam watched him in a daze, and then a wave of nausea suddenly rose in his throat.
“Ugh!”
Gah!
Severe stomach pain hit him all at once, followed by unbearable nausea. His throat burned, and some ominous rejection reaction flared through his body. Myeong I-dam dropped the bottle from his hand.
Ah! I shouldn’t spill it. I have to bring it as evidence.
The water, mixed with the unknown liquid, gushed across the floor. Myeong I-dam reached out to lift the bottle, but the vomiting sensation crashing over him had left him too dizzy to think straight.
“Myeong I-dam!”
“I-dam hyung! What’s wrong?”
People swarmed in to check on him or steady him. Someone set the half-spilled bottle upright.
But Myeong I-dam couldn’t even tell who was holding his arm, who was patting his back, or who had righted the bottle.
“Hhk...! An ambulance! Please call an ambulance...! Huek!”
Myeong I-dam shoved a finger into his mouth to make himself vomit, then, dizzy and half out of his mind, managed to beg them to call 119. Baek Yuri calmly singled out the nearest camera director and asked him to make the call.
“Director-nim! Please call 119!”
“O-okay! R-right!”
“I-dam-ssi! Did you eat something bad before coming here?”
“Hrk, kuhk... Water! It tasted sweet, ugh...”
“Sweet? The water tasted sweet?”
Even while he was losing his mind, Myeong I-dam tried to answer Baek Yuri’s questions. But without knowing what the liquid was, he had no idea how to treat it.
He kept forcing himself to vomit until he was exhausted, then sagged, gasping for breath. That was when he spotted Neoul, his eyes round with alarm.
Neoul picked up the bottle someone had set upright on the floor and handed it to Baek Yuri.
“There must be something wrong with this water.”
“Was it spoiled...? Did someone leave it in the sun? But why would it taste sweet?”
Baek Yuri sniffed the water, but he couldn’t identify it either.
Myeong I-dam was loaded into the ambulance that rushed to the scene and taken to the hospital, along with the mysterious water Baek Yuri handed over to the paramedics. The youngest writer contacted his guardian and headed to the hospital with them.
Even as the atmosphere descended into chaos, the trainees still had to prepare for the third round of competition. Myeong I-dam’s team could do nothing but stand there, at a loss, wringing their hands over the sudden absence of a teammate.
* * *
That evening.
X shit.
Kim Ji-rok, summoned by the producer, walked down the hallway with the urge to chain-smoke gnawing at him.
What the hell is that bastard meddling for now?
He had no idea why the water with 25 percent ethylene glycol, which Gal Neoul had been meant to drink, had suddenly ended up in Myeong I-dam’s mouth.
Kim Ji-rok had prepared this with some care. He had ordered ethylene glycol solution online, transferred it into a mineral water bottle, and carried it to the supply room hidden beneath a thick coat.
He had worn gloves so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints, and even hid the bottle in a staff bag so he could pin the blame on production.
From everything he’d seen so far, Gal Neoul was the kind of idiot who didn’t seem to care whether someone had already cracked open his bottle or not. If a water bottle was already open, a normal person might suspect someone had mixed something into it, but Gal Neoul looked incapable of even imagining that such a thing could happen.
He didn’t seem to think of anything as dirty, or maybe he just had no thoughts at all. If someone else was eating or drinking something, even leftovers, he’d simply gulp them down. And if someone offered him a snack, he’d take that too without a shred of suspicion.
Up until the moment Gal Neoul carried the water he’d left in the hallway into the practice room, everything had gone exactly according to Kim Ji-rok’s plan.
They said even humans could die if they drank too much water, and that monster was downing five or six 2-liter bottles a day.
The lethal dose of water for a person weighing 70 kilograms was 6 liters. If you drank too much, the electrolyte concentration in your body dropped, and you died of water intoxication.
He didn’t know how much Gal Neoul weighed, but it was obvious he was consuming more than a lethal amount every day.
So why isn’t he dead?
That was why Kim Ji-rok had increased the ethylene glycol concentration from the 10 percent he’d originally planned to a massive 25 percent. At that level, even if it didn’t kill him, it should at least leave him in no shape to stay on the program.
Everything had been perfect.
Then why the hell was the one hauled to the ER Myeong I-dam instead of Gal Neoul?
Until now, no other contestant had ever touched the 2-liter water bottles, except when they boiled ramen on Jeju Island! Everyone had been saying they were Gal Neoul’s water only!
But despite the irritation boiling in his chest, his footsteps across the hallway were light.
There were no CCTV cameras inside the supply room. They didn’t store anything worth stealing there in the first place.
The contract staff’s bag had been tossed in there carelessly, and the room was crammed with odds and ends like filming props, felt paper, tape, scissors, stickers, rope, snack boxes, and water. There was no need for CCTV.
Well, I figured I’d get called in anyway.
Kim Ji-rok had not bothered avoiding the cameras and people when he transported the water. He had moved it openly, set it down in the hallway, and told the other trainees,
“The water’s almost all gone, right? I brought some. Take it.”
At the same time, he had also grabbed two 500-milliliter bottles and taken them into the practice room. If he acted nervous and kept glancing around, that would only make him more suspicious. If he didn’t have the confidence to act upright and shameless, then he shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
The place Kim Ji-rok had been summoned to was a small conference room.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
At Producer Seok O-young’s voice, Kim Ji-rok opened the door and stepped inside with a composed expression.
“You called for me?”
“Yes. Well, the thing is...”
Producer Seok O-young frowned as if troubled. Then he said in a sharp voice,
“You know contestant Myeong I-dam was taken away in an ambulance earlier, right? We got a call after that, and they said some kind of drug was detected in the water Myeong I-dam drank.”
“A drug...?”
What a load of crap.
Kim Ji-rok sneered inwardly while keeping his face suitably shocked.
“Yeah. But everyone says contestant Kim Ji-rok was the one who brought that water over. So we checked all the hallway CCTV and camera footage, and it shows contestant Kim Ji-rok carrying the water out of the supply room and placing it in the hallway.”
“...”
“I’m not saying this because I suspect you personally, but we still have to check the procedure. Don’t take it too hard.”
“Ah... yes.”
Kim Ji-rok nodded as though he understood perfectly.
“I was just thirsty, and the water had run out... and everyone else looked busy, so I brought it myself. I never imagined something like this would happen.”
“When contestant Kim Ji-rok carried out the water, the plastic wrap on the 2-liter pack had already been torn open.”
“It was already torn when I got to the supply room. So I just thought someone had opened it and took it.”
“We also found a bottle on the floor of the supply room that appeared to contain the drug. Did you happen to see that too?”
What?
Kim Ji-rok had been replying smoothly so far, but for a moment he almost lost his composure.
I definitely put it in the staff bag. Why was it found on the floor?
A cold premonition brushed through his mind. So did Myeong I-dam’s bizarre behavior earlier, when he had suddenly run into Gal Neoul’s practice room and stolen Gal Neoul’s water to drink it himself.
...He saw it.
Myeong I-dam had seen him.
“Ah, yes. I saw it. An empty bottle. I figured someone had drunk the water and thrown it away, but... I never imagined there’d be drugs in it.”
Kim Ji-rok rubbed his arm as though creeped out.
“Ugh... How am I supposed to drink water now? I’m going to get suspicious and scared every time I drink anything.”
Producer Seok O-young let out a heavy sigh and scratched his head.
“Well, we’ll manage it strictly from now on, so don’t worry. Don’t drink anything with the cap already opened. Only drink new bottles.”
“Yes... Ah, how is I-dam doing? Is he okay?”
“Not sure yet. Anyway, that’s enough. Go back and rehearse.”
“Yes...”—
Kim Ji-rok bowed his head politely with a worried expression and stepped back outside. Then he headed straight for the bathroom.
As soon as he entered and confirmed no one was there, his expression twisted. He couldn’t keep up the mask anymore.
God... damn it. Fucking hell.
Myeong I-dam saw me, so he did that shit. Fuck.
Was he hiding in that storage-room-looking supply room like a rat and watching everything?
Ha. Wow. But why the hell would he stupidly drink it himself?
Did he think he knew what I’d spiked it with?
Once Myeong I-dam can talk again, he’s going to spill everything about what happened.
Kim Ji-rok ground his teeth and stared at his own face in the mirror without expression. He needed to keep his face under control, but the anxiety and panic kept leaking out anyway.
Ha! What, did I threaten him to drink it? He was just stupid and drank it! I didn’t do anything wrong.
The reflection in the mirror struggled to force his mouth into something like a smile. But ever since he realized there had been a witness, his mind had refused to settle. His pupils trembled, and an anxious look kept breaking through.
I wish he’d just died.
If only Myeong I-dam died, no one would ever know what he had done.
He brought it on himself. It’s not my fault.
If he hadn’t been spying like a rat and interfering, none of this would have happened.
Kim Ji-rok suppressed his nerves as hard as he could and repeated the thought over and over while smoothing his expression back into place. There was no evidence anyway. Whatever statement Myeong I-dam made, without material proof there would be no problem at all, he was sure of it.