The Witness
Shin Jo-woon only belatedly realized that Rembrary was in the middle of filming.
The situation had progressed so strangely that the VJ, unable to bear it any longer, had quietly and deliberately walked around behind Rembrary, camera in hand.
Shin Jo-woon burst out laughing, utterly dumbfounded, not even bothering to stifle it.
He had no idea whether the earlier conversation would make it into the broadcast, but he figured that if they didn't edit it out, it would look absolutely bizarre.
Either way, something had clearly gotten tangled up, and tangles had to be untangled…
Meanwhile, Rembrary was briskly carrying on his lines all by himself.
"Yes, I'm sure it's funny, hearing these words from someone courting you. Yes, I am shameless."
Shin Jo-woon leaned back comfortably in his chair and smiled a crooked smile. Well, the kid was working that hard, so he might as well play along.
In the meantime, Jang Tae-ri had also caught on and put on a grave expression. After all, with all three members of a love triangle gathered in one place, the mood couldn't very well be warm and cozy.
But given the pleasant banter they'd exchanged just moments ago, picking a fight out of nowhere felt a bit awkward too.
As for Rembrary, he'd nearly finished his mandatory lines, and when the other two held their silence, he found himself with nothing left to say.
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.
I suppose I have no choice but to keep driving the conversation myself. Sighing, Rembrary decided to broach the subject of the father, and turned to Jang Tae-ri first.
"Ah, and earlier, Tae-ri — you mentioned your father was ill. Is he doing all right?"
"Yes. Apparently he just had a bit of an upset stomach. He's fine now."
Rembrary hastily opened his mouth to connect this to line number five.
But at exactly that moment, Sunwoo Sil's call came in.
Rembrary tried to decline it, but the VJ, perhaps to preserve the realism, gestured that he could take it.
"One moment."
Phone in hand, Rembrary stepped away briefly.
In his absence, Shin Jo-woon picked up the thread about the father and asked Jang Tae-ri with apparent concern.
"The whole business with your father almost getting scammed by that voice phishing ring. Did they ever catch the culprits?"
"No, not yet."
"Voice phishing is terrifying these days. When the calls don't work, they just lure you out in person—"
"Exactly. Thank goodness she figured out it was a scam halfway through, honestly. It really is frightening."
The two murmured on in low voices.
Rembrary returned, having fobbed Sunwoo Sil off with a vague 'I'll call you later,' and delivered line number five.
"Ah, Tae-ri. Please tell your father I'm sorry about the other day."
"Sorry about what, exactly?"
"What do you mean, 'the other day'? A few days ago, when I tried to summon your father."
Thinking it over before bed after the three-way meeting, it rankles me anew that Shin Jo-woon called me a pig.
What if that scene airs and everyone starts calling me a pig wherever I go? Once was unavoidable, but a second time must be prevented. So I texted Shin Jo-woon and demanded that he stop using such words from now on.
Unexpectedly, Shin Jo-woon refused point-blank.
Excuse me? Why should he?
So I protested that there was no pig in this world as handsome as I, and he sent me a photo of a pig he used to raise. It was extremely handsome.
Still, I refused to be called a pig, so he asked what he should call me instead.
I told him to use my name, and he asked why he should treat me like a person when I go around calling him a whale and an anchovy.
...A fair point, irritatingly.
So I asked to be called a tiger or a lion, and he sneered that my conscience was the size of a rat's whisker.
So I asked to be called a sloth, and he said that would feel like he'd become my fan, which he hated.
So I asked what he wanted to do about it, then, and after some deliberation he declared he would call me "Piggy."
When I asked what that meant, he said, "An extremely lovable cat."
I protested that he shouldn't spout nonsense — I knew perfectly well it meant pig-cat — and he pretended not to know what I was talking about and flew into an even bigger rage himself.
The liar even has the gall to get angry.
From now on, I shall call him Whale-Anchovy. Or Anchovy-Whale.
Jang Tae-ri offered to buy me grilled lobster, so I went out, and Shin Jo-woon joined us partway through.
No idea why he came, but as we talked, the subject of swimming pools came up.
Shin Jo-woon said he goes to a pool regularly.
"Swimming is essential."
He said it with tremendous condescension, then asked if I was any good at swimming.
I answered that I was extraordinarily good, and he suggested we go to the pool together.
Jang Tae-ri said she was an excellent swimmer too and should come along, so off to the pool we went.
It was all very sudden, so I borrowed a swimsuit from Sa Gam-jae.
Shin Jo-woon said he'd never in his life seen someone show up to a pool wearing that.
I told him I'd borrowed it from my manager, and he declared that no amount of money could get him into such a thing.
"Why do you have to mock the kid like that? It looks perfectly fine!"
When Jang Tae-ri stepped in to take my side, Shin Jo-woon made an exceedingly strange face, clicked his tongue, and then told her that she was shamelessly, blatantly in love with me.
"I simply adore every single thing about Woo Yeon-woo!"
When Jang Tae-ri retorted like that, Shin Jo-woon warned that while he respected her taste, neither of them was to come within two meters of him.
My swimsuit, Shin Jo-woon's swimsuit, everyone else's swimsuits — they were all equally reverent in their coverage. I don't understand what the difference was supposed to be, for him to carry on like that.
The moment Rembrary posted a photo of himself in a swimsuit with the caption "Is this strange?", a call came in from Jong-woo — who was supposedly sick in bed — within five seconds.
"Jong-woo. Did you see the picture?"
"Take the photo down. First things first — TAKE IT DOWN!!"
"Why?"
"Ugh, I said TAKE IT DOWN!"
At Jong-woo's explosive shouting, Rembrary hung up, thoroughly bewildered, and opened social media again.
It had been less than a minute. Everyone was absolutely loving it, and the number of hearts beneath the photo was astronomically high.
What's more, that number was climbing faster and faster with every refresh.
People were unanimous: there was nothing strange about it at all — it was the most incredible celebrity swimsuit photo they had ever seen.
Some were apparently so deeply moved that they were shouting about the Great Expansion of the Korean Republic.
Reluctantly, Rembrary deleted the photo and called Jong-woo back.
"Deleted."
"Too late… it's probably already spread everywhere…"
Rembrary had done exactly as he was told, yet Jong-woo still muttered on in a sulky voice.
"Where on earth did you even buy something like that?"
"Gam-jae liked the design and bought it, then gave it to me, saying he couldn't wear anything that wasn't black."
"That ascetic-faced son of a— Sa Gam-jae… hoo… no, wait, that's beside the point. You actually put it on when he handed it to you? You, who leaps three feet in the air whenever a girl group wears skirts a centimeter too short?"
"But at a swimming pool, everyone dresses thusly."
"Good Lord…"
"Are you a Christian?"
"Is that what matters right now?!"
"How fares your illness, by the way? You said you'd be getting rid of your phone — why do you still have it?"
"I got a new one. Only the number stayed the same. Oh, and I've been nagging the CEO to hurry up and get you guys moved to a new dorm."
"The dorm is being moved?"
At Rembrary's words, Hye-gyeol, who had been eating a salad nearby, looked up with wide eyes.
"Huh?! Our dorm's getting changed?!"
Rembrary shrugged, as if to say he didn't know yet either.
"Nothing's confirmed, but you've kept getting those weird notes delivered, so I was planning to move you somewhere with better security anyway. Oh, right — but when the dorm moves, you might not all be able to live in one place anymore."
It was a filming day for Dear God.
Today's shoot was outdoors and scheduled for the early hours, so Rembrary had to wake up before the sun had even risen. Still half-drowned in sleep, he washed, changed, and climbed into the car — where he promptly dozed off again. When Jong-woo shook his shoulder and he dragged himself upright, they had already arrived at the set. It was four in the morning.
Script in hand, yawning again and again, Rembrary climbed out of the car.
He was greeting people in a daze when Sa Gam-jae materialized from somewhere with a folding chair. Rembrary sank into it, still foggy, and spread open the script.
Today marked the first scene where Im Seo and Deungbaek clashed.
Or rather, a scene where Deungbaek berated Im Seo one-sidedly.
In the final scene of the previous episode, the figure who had brushed past Im Seo carrying a knife stabbed Yangheung. Yangheung was fortunately not seriously hurt, but required surgery and hospitalization.
Because Im Seo had been the last person to see Yangheung before the incident, he was called in to the police station as a person of interest.
Deungbaek came to the station as Im Seo's guardian — and after reviewing the CCTV footage, grew furious that Im Seo hadn't gone to Yangheung's aid.
The knife-wielding man hadn't stabbed Yangheung anywhere near Im Seo, and the footage showed that Im Seo never witnessed the attack.
But Deungbaek's thinking was that any ordinary person, seeing someone walk past with a knife, would at least glance after them wondering what was going on — or report it.
Im Seo could not comprehend Deungbaek's fury, and Deungbaek, though he knew in his head what kind of person Im Seo was, could not contain his anger.
Afterward, the police concluded that the culprit had not chosen his victim at random, and began investigating whether Yangheung had any grudges against anyone.
Deungbaek told the police that Yangheung had no enemies — but privately, he began to wonder: could the couple who had killed her in a past life have come to kill her once more?
After all, just as Deungbaek himself had been startled by Yangheung's face, the past-life couple, too, must have been startled to see a woman who looked exactly like the one they had murdered.
According to the script, Im Seo is bewildered because he can't understand the situation — the guardian he called for his own protection is angry at him instead of worrying about him. Is bewilderment also a kind of emotion, then? So Im Seo isn't entirely without emotion? Or does puzzlement belong not to emotion but to reason?
Rembrary was deep in the script, trying to map the contours of Im Seo's emotional throughline, when it happened.
An unpleasant prickling feeling made him lift his head — and in the distance, Im Yu-han and Maeng Woo-shin stood facing each other, with the Ox-Headed Monster from before standing between them.
Something had clearly happened: one of its horns was broken. As it happened, the monster sensed Rembrary's gaze at that very moment and glanced over this way.
The instant their eyes met, the Ox-Headed Monster flinched, backed away step by wobbling step, then whirled around and bolted.
Rembrary tried to call for Sa Gam-jae, but Sa Gam-jae was nowhere in sight — apparently off being scolded by Jong-woo over the swimsuit incident.
Left with no choice, phone clutched in hand, Rembrary broke into a run after the Ox-Headed Monster.
It was an outdoor shoot, but with the late hour and the crew having secured the area's cooperation and restricted access, there was no one about.
The Ox-Headed Monster kept glancing nervously back at Rembrary as it ran for its life.
Then, from somewhere, a figure appeared wielding a long spear and swung it down at the monster in a great arc.
But the Ox-Headed Monster swiftly evaded the spear — and, plucking out its own broken horn, severed the spear clean in two before fleeing once more.
So the horn wasn't a horn. It was a weapon.
Even with his weapon destroyed, the spearman moved to give chase — then, sensing a presence, he stopped and turned his head toward Rembrary.
When their eyes met, the man raised an eyebrow and murmured, "Yeon-woo?"
He knows Yeon-woo?
As Rembrary hesitated, wondering if the man was an acquaintance of Yeon-woo's, the man came bounding over with an explosion of exclamations — wa-wa — and asked:
"I thought you were just some weirdo crackpot celebrity, but — hey, hold on. Did you chase after that thing just now because you saw the youkai?"