I Came Here Knowing Everything
"Well. How would I know."
"That's true, I suppose. Very well. Then this conversation is done."
"Hold on."
"What is it now?"
"We need to set a time to meet."
"Did I ever agree to meet anyone?"
"You said you'd think about it."
"?"
"?"
Because neither of them could make head or tail of the other, Rembrary and Woo Sung-woo both fell silent for a moment.
About fifteen seconds later, Rembrary was the first to fire back.
"Why would I have to meet him at all?"
"What?"
"Why must I go and meet that man?"
"He's the one who wants to see you."
"Well, I don't want to see him."
"So this is what having a brother is like. Utterly tiresome."
Muttering to himself, Rembrary came in from the balcony after ending the call.
Jungseo had been sent by Jong-woo to go find him, and the two had run into each other right at the balcony door. "What's wrong? Did something happen?" he asked.
Even as he asked, Jungseo's eyes swept over Rembrary's phone. But the screen was simply dark; nothing about it looked amiss.
"No, nothing. Though it seems my brother has a burning desire to manufacture problems."
"The brother who keeps picking fights, insisting you're not really you?"
"The very one. The man has gone completely strange."
At Rembrary's litany of complaints, Jungseo's brow furrowed. "Why? Is he harping on the same thing again?"
"There is a man who walks another mon... another person around on a leash, and he keeps insisting that I go meet him."
The moment he heard what came next, Jungseo entirely forgot the SNS fight story Jong-woo had told him about. He could only gape in disbelief.
"Is he telling you to take sponsorship from him? From a man with tastes that... warped?"
Lost memory or not, things had soured between them — surely that was still not the sort of thing an older brother should be pushing on his younger one.
"No, he's not asking me to take sponsorship. He just says I should meet him and see."
"That's the same thing!"
"Is it?"
"Yes! That's exactly how it always starts. Come by sometime. Just stop by and say hello. Let's grab a meal. Are you free tomorrow? Free at night? Then out of nowhere he hands you some random gift, and next thing you know it's let's do a deal that benefits us both. Like that."
"Ah."
"Tell me the details."
Jungseo genuinely wanted to hear the whole story, but since the tale inevitably involved youkai, Nakru, and Rembrary's brother, Rembrary deflected vaguely and retreated to the bathroom.
Still, he agreed with what Jungseo had said — that man in the suit surely hadn't come looking for him to talk sponsorship. After all, the one on that man's leash was a youkai, not a person, and a human was a human, whether saint or otherwise.
Jungseo couldn't follow him into the bathroom, so he simply stood outside the door, staring at it with worried eyes.
The next day, LLL Entertainment erupted into chaos.
With Hye-gyeol back, it had seemed as though everything was finally resolved — until Hye-gyeol recovered his strength, at which point the whole problem promptly rewound itself to the beginning.
Summer was nearly over, which meant this was the very last window to release the summer album. And so the office once again devolved into a free-for-all over who would sing that jaw-droppingly good summer song.
Some staff argued that Hye-gyeol had been through such a shock, he was better off dropping off the album entirely. Others countered that he should set aside the title track and participate with a low-pressure B-side instead.
Then there were those who insisted that would be far too cruel to Hye-gyeol, and that he had to keep working on the song. Hye-gyeol himself, for his part, stood firm: he would sing the title track.
Hye-gyeol was the group's main dancer, and as such had never been given a substantial part in their group songs. For the first time in his career, he was set to carry an outstanding song entirely on his own voice — and after everything, he had no intention of letting an incident like this snatch the opportunity away.
In the end, yet another inconclusive meeting was called.
Sa Gam-jae argued that they should simply push the album to next summer and prepare more carefully, but as a newcomer whose image was decidedly not "diligent," his voice carried almost no weight.
Rembrary, wary of provoking Sa Gam-jae, backed him up — but Rembrary himself had already been cut from the title track entirely, so as a non-participant, his say counted for little either.
And then, at last, the worst proposal of all reared its head.
"Why don't we have all five of them each sing the song in their own style? Like a rock version, an acoustic version, something along those lines."
The staff, worn ragged by the endless squabbling, immediately chorused their approval.
Sa Gam-jae, meanwhile, went ghost-white. One wrong move and he'd end up with four members strung up on the Underworld's tree in a neat little row — the very thought made him recoil in horror.
Rembrary was every bit as worried, but even the two of them voting against it couldn't overcome sheer numbers.
Determined to salvage at least Jungseo out of the mess, Rembrary slid in a counterproposal.
"Then not all five. What if Jungseo and I took a different song instead? A duet, say — a song for two. Jungseo has said before that he'd like to sing a duet with me."
"I have?"
"What do you mean? Just a few days ago—"
Baffled by a claim he was hearing for the first time in his life, Jungseo nonetheless decided to play along.
"Ah — yes. I would like that very much. The duet."
Fortunately, Jungseo and Rembrary had little presence on this album anyway, so the A&R team leader let them off the hook.
On the ride back to the dorm, Rembrary pulled a still-bewildered Jungseo into the back seat with him and quietly filled him in.
"That song. Something's attached to it."
"Something... like what?"
"An evil spirit. A ghost. Things of that sort."
"Seriously? Then Hye-gyeol too?"
"Most likely. It's not good to sing it. Honestly, it would be best if no one sang that song at all..."
Jungseo faltered for a moment, then quickly steadied himself and murmured, "I'll look for a way."
Just then, the car finally pulled to a stop.
Rembrary and Jungseo, riding in the very back, were the last to get out.
But as they stepped out and moved toward the dorm entrance, a familiar figure was waiting there.
The man was leaning against a car parked in front of the building. The other members recognized him, threw him a perfunctory greeting, and filed past into the entrance.
Rembrary scowled and stopped right in front of him.
"What brings you here."
The man was Woo Sung-woo.
"I told you I had business," Sung-woo answered flatly.
"And I told you I had none."
"Give me fifteen minutes. It's important."
"Those fifteen minutes are important to me as well."
"It's for your sake."
"And this is for mine."
As the two locked horns, Jungseo couldn't bear to watch and stepped in beside Rembrary to block the way.
"Yeon-woo's had a long day and he's exhausted. Could you make an appointment and come back later?"
"Oh, hey, Jungseo. Hi. But this isn't any of your business right now, so step aside, would you?"
"He's been practicing all day. He's very tired."
"Fifteen minutes is all. And it really is important. For Yeon-woo's sake. Have you ever once seen me do something that would hurt him?"
"Good intentions do not automatically make good deeds."
Something in that odd remark of Jungseo's clearly rubbed Sung-woo the wrong way; his gaze went cold.
Rembrary found the whole thing tiresome, but he had no desire to watch Jungseo get dragged into a fight on his account. In the end, he simply stepped forward himself.
"Enough. Jungseo, go inside and blend the tomatoes. I will speak with him for fifteen minutes, then come in."
"Should I stay close by?"
"I am quite all right."
Rembrary clapped him on the shoulder, and Jungseo, reluctantly, nodded and climbed the stairs.
Once the two of them were alone, Woo Sung-woo asked, sounding distinctly sour, "You two didn't get along at all before. Got chummy pretty fast, huh?"
"State your business."
Sung-woo jerked his chin toward the car.
"Get in."
"You said fifteen minutes."
"Three minutes driving there. Three minutes back. Nine minutes of talking. Get in."
Rembrary reluctantly climbed into the car, switching on his phone's timer as he did. Sung-woo saw it and let out a hollow laugh, but didn't bother to stop him.
The car stopped at exactly three minutes and fifteen seconds.
Rembrary paused the timer and held the screen up to Sung-woo's face like a warning. "You would do well to learn to count properly."
"Fine, fine. Keep it running then. See if I care."
Rembrary restarted the timer and turned his eyes to the window.
Sung-woo had stopped in a dark alley. A tall streetlight glowed overhead, its orange light spreading out beneath it like a ripe persimmon crushed against the pavement.
And there, under that light, stood the man in the suit — the one Lim Yu-han had once called the CEO. Beside him, once again, the faceless youkai stood in its leash, quiet as ever.
Rembrary sighed and moved to get out, but Sung-woo said shortly, "If anything goes wrong while I'm watching from here, I'll come."
There was unmistakable worry in his voice, but Rembrary refused flatly.
"Just run the timer."
He shut the door with a firm thunk and walked toward the man in the suit.
As Rembrary drew near, the suited man smiled faintly.
"It's been a while."
Out of habit, Rembrary put on his gentle, gracious smile — but offered no word of greeting.
Apparently unbothered, the man, gloves already on his hands, smoothly extended one for a handshake.
Why the gloves?
But there was nothing natural about the way he'd put them on, and Rembrary's brow creased slightly.
Had the man simply offered his hand, Rembrary would have taken it without a second thought. Had the man been an ordinary believer, just another person, he would have returned the greeting all the same.
But when a man who set his instincts on edge suddenly donned gloves before offering a greeting, the whole thing looked unbearably strange.
"Remove the gloves, and I shall shake your hand."
At his cool reply, the suited man apologized. "My apologies if that offended you. I have something of a cleanliness obsession — I always wear gloves before shaking hands with people."
"Forgive me as well. I suffer from a certain... condition of my own, whereby I only shake hands with those who come bare-handed."
At Rembrary's immovable answer, the suited man let out a long breath. He deliberated for a moment, then asked, "Well then, forget the handshake. Would you care to try on a necklace?"
Is this man out of his mind? How does a handshake suddenly turn into a necklace?
While Rembrary stood there dumbfounded, the suited man — quite seriously — pulled a necklace out of a small paper bag he'd been carrying on his arm and held it out.
Calling it a necklace was generous. Its shape looked exactly like the dog collar the youkai beside him was wearing.
Rembrary was about to demand, with full force, what business a necklace had replacing a handshake — when the memory of Jungseo's lesson on sponsorship flashed through his mind, and he took a careful step back.
He'd assumed this was youkai business... but was it actually a sponsorship pitch? And what was with that necklace?
As Rembrary retreated, the suited man said with a smile, "You've probably heard from your brother — I'm not a strange person."
"I heard nothing whatsoever."
"Ah. Well, I'm not a strange person regardless."
"..."
"It's just — I thought that if you tried on this necklace, we might be able to make a deal that benefits us both."
Right out of Jungseo's playbook. The flow was identical.
While Rembrary flinched, the suited man gestured to the youkai standing at his side.
Noticing it had become the center of attention, the youkai tapped its own collar lightly with a finger, then stretched its empty, featureless face into a smile — nothing but bare lips curving upward.
But Rembrary had heard everything from Jungseo already. Wary to his very bones, he spoke with sharp precision.
"You think I cannot see through your game?"
As if the remark had caught him off guard, the suited man's eyebrows rose.
"...You claim to know what I'm after?"
Truthfully, from the suited man's perspective, the surprise was warranted.
Few people knew it, but the necklace he always carried had the power to detect youkai — and to bind them.
On an ordinary person, it was nothing more than a necklace of eccentric taste. But worn by a youkai or a ghost, a creature of dark power, a control leash would manifest.
Moreover, anyone without the Eyes couldn't see the collar at all, and only a handful of people knew the secret. Even his own subordinates who possessed the Eyes simply regarded their boss's collared necklace as an embarrassing private kink.
Even if Rembrary was not human, as the demon's words implied, there was no way he could have known the necklace held such power.
The necklace's true purpose was to control evil spirits and youkai — but on the surface, it had been crafted so that youkai and evil spirits would feel drawn to it, the way a cat is bewitched by a pinch of catnip. Shown the necklace, most youkai would each in their own way become desperate to have it.
And yet Rembrary had spoken as he had. Human or not, the mere fact that anyone had said such a thing was unexpected.
"And what exactly is it that I'm after?"
The suited man asked with a smirk, dismissing Rembrary's words as simple bravado.
It had slightly surprised him that Rembrary had come away without hearing a single word about him from Sung-woo — but he chalked up the wariness, those strange sidelong glances, to that alone. There was no way the boy actually understood his intentions.
"Your 'deal' is a trap, is it not. In truth, you simply wish to keep me in your grasp."
But when Rembrary pierced the truth in a voice like cold steel, cutting closer than seemed possible, the suited man couldn't help but be impressed.
He was right. If Rembrary truly was not human, as the demon claimed — if, despite not being human, he had dared to hold his gaze without flinching, converse with him face to face, and move among Nakru — then he was something the man wanted, badly, to add to his collection.
"You seemed so dim on television. Was that an act, then?"
"Indeed it was."
Rembrary, voice like a blade, squared his shoulders with utter confidence.
— End of Chapter 118 —