My Instincts Are Razor-Sharp
After the shoot ended.
While those cast in the important supporting roles filmed their scenes, Maeng Woo-shin sipped his water and studied Woo Yeon-woo, who was busy badgering Sa Gam-jae—demanding cider instead of the water being pressed into his hands.
"My apologies, but Jong-woo insists I give you water and nothing else. He says he doesn't know what Mr. Sa or the other executives might have been feeding you out there."
Even his manager's a weird one, Maeng Woo-shin thought, clicking his tongue at Sa Gam-jae's stiff manner of speech.
He called two grown company presidents by casual title, yet spoke in flawless formal honorifics to the young idol under his own care. No wonder the kid had come down with a case of king complex instead of mere celebrity disease, when he was being waited on hand and foot like that.
'Ah, wait. Wasn't it that Yeon-woo himself claimed he had celebrity disease? I'm pretty sure I heard something along those lines.'
Even as he shook his head, Maeng Woo-shin approached. It was because of earlier, during the shoot—the feeling he'd had the moment he first put in those earphones. He wanted to ask about that voice that had whispered directly into his ear.
Back when something strange had happened under the streetlight, he'd found it unsettling but hadn't dared ask. He had no idea how much the other man knew, or where the boundaries lay.
But now that he'd officially met Daeju as well, he intended to ask properly this time.
"Hey."
Woo Yeon-woo, who had been demanding they hand over a cola if there was no cider, glanced over his shoulder.
Maeng Woo-shin held out his water bottle and asked, "Hey, idol."
"Is this cider?"
"Barley tea. But listen, idol. During the shoot, what was that? That—there was a take in the middle, you know. You clung onto it and delivered your lines, didn't you?"
Rembrary, twisting the cap off the barley tea, stared at Maeng Woo-shin the way one might regard a very peculiar person. His eyes plainly said, Have you lost your mind?
Maeng Woo-shin flared up for no good reason, but his curiosity got the better of him and he pressed again. "It wasn't, then?"
"It wasn't. But is this for me? You're giving it to me to drink?"
Maeng Woo-shin's lips twitched. What he wanted to ask was whether some strange power had manifested just now—but Sa Gam-jae was standing right there, so he couldn't.
He assumed Sa Gam-jae knew nothing about Daeju, and so, lips flapping uselessly, he eventually reclaimed his barley tea and retreated to his own manager.
"What a strange person."
Rembrary muttered, frowning. Striding up out of nowhere with such an absurd question.
And yet, on the way back to the waiting room, Sa Gam-jae himself posed an equally strange one.
"Actually, there is something I would like to ask."
"What is it?"
"During the shoot—did you happen to notice anything odd about your memory?"
"My memory?"
"As in, a lapse. A stretch of time you cannot recall."
Rembrary raised an eyebrow. What's gotten into him now?
But Sa Gam-jae was dead serious. He, too, had sensed it—when Maeng Woo-shin heard Rembrary's voice so strangely, a short, sharp surge of dark energy had leaked from behind the confessional wall. When the true Woo Yeon-woo had surfaced back then, Rembrary himself retained no memory of that moment. Sa Gam-jae was recalling that incident and asking now, on the off chance it was the same case.
"You and Maeng sunbae both—what is it you people want from me? Material for a tragic tell-all?"
"...Your vocabulary has grown remarkably fluent, hasn't it?"
"Praise me for my brilliance. This is how I am. Adaptation is among my many talents."
Rembrary accepted the compliment, then knitted his brow again. "No, but why do you keep saying such things?"
"When you delivered the final line, the atmosphere was somewhat..."
"Was it cool?"
"It was demonic."
"It was that cool, was it?"
"...Aren't you supposed to be a Saint? Why are you taking this as a compliment?"
"I do not care for demons. But objectively speaking, they are beautiful of face. You possess depraved tastes, yet your own face is closer to something ascetic."
Sa Gam-jae grimaced at his own tangled wording.
Since the man was receiving his intended description of a demonic atmosphere as praise, it became awkward to ask outright: Did a real demon swap into your body for a moment, like back when it was Woo Yeon-woo?
But thinking it through, back then it had been Rembrary himself who first noticed something was off with him—the missing memory included. There was none of that now, so perhaps no demon had popped out after all.
Still, even as he tried to reason his way to calm, Sa Gam-jae kept rubbing his jaw, nagged by a faint unease.
Rembrary, by contrast, settled into a chair in the waiting room in the sunniest of moods and began composing a text to Daeju.
Some time ago, the ox-head monster had treated him with a strange familiarity, and Sa Gam-jae had said he sensed something faintly dangerous about it. He had meant to ask Daeju about that too, but he'd been thrown into another variety show and forgotten—until seeing Maeng Woo-shin brought it back to mind, and now he intended to ask properly.
He briefly considered just asking outright over text, but decided to do it face to face. These were matters best discussed in person, after all.
The reply arrived in under a minute.
"?"
Pinning down an actual date with Daeju—the man who had said come whenever—proved surprisingly difficult.
Rather than ask after another day, Rembrary tilted his head and stared down at his phone. In this world's way of speaking, didn't come whenever mean come whenever? Why so busy, when he'd said to come any time? And who exactly was going to welcome him gladly—the man himself, or Maeng Woo-shin?
In the end, before texting Daeju again, he asked Sa Gam-jae first.
"Gam-jae."
"Yes."
"When someone tells thee, 'Come by whenever'—what do they mean by it?"
"They mean: do not come until summoned."
"!"
It was late in the evening when Rembrary arrived at the dorm. Jungseo was in the living room, and the members were gathered around him.
"Jungseo."
The moment Rembrary spotted him, he hurried over and sat down nearby. "So—how went the audition?"
Jungseo rubbed his hair awkwardly. "Hard to say."
"How canst thou not know?"
"The vibe seemed good. But nothing's confirmed yet."
"It will go well. Set thy worries down."
Rembrary said this honestly, remembering how Jungseo had practiced clutching his script. It was a kind thing to say, but not an empty one.
Watching Lim Yu-han and Maeng Woo-shin—both exceptional actors—and the other performers around them, Rembrary's eye for acting had sharpened considerably. Jungseo's line delivery and emotional control during the script reading had been steady and smooth. His face was already proven; if he didn't fumble the audition, Rembrary judged he had every chance of landing the role.
He gave Jungseo a light pat on the back and stood.
He meant to fetch his phone from the bedroom to film a self-cam video diary. But before he could take two steps, Jungseo caught him again.
"Hold on."
When Rembrary turned, Jungseo drew the other members' attention as well before relaying the news. "Jong-woo hyung asked me to pass this along. About the dorm move we talked about before."
The members, who had been about to scatter to their own corners, all rounded their eyes and bombarded him with questions.
"So what happened?"
"What did he say?"
"Who's splitting off with who?"
Jungseo answered. "Apparently the consensus is that since we haven't firmly established ourselves as a group yet, splitting up right now would leave us worse off in every way—so they've agreed to stretch the budget if they have to and move all five of us somewhere we can live together with solid security."
What Jong-woo had actually said was, 'If you idiots live apart, you'll have discord rumors, outcast rumors, and disbandment rumors by next week'—but Jungseo deliberately left that part out.
Perhaps living together beat being carved up in a state none of them liked, because the members grudgingly accepted it and immediately fired off more questions.
"Where is it?"
"Wait, isn't the guy who sent that creepy letter laying low lately? We could probably just keep living here."
"Still, if it's a nicer place, moving's a win, isn't it?"
"No, that's what I'm asking—where IS it?"
When Jungseo replied, "XX Villa," the members went quiet for the briefest moment before whipping out their phones to search the location, chattering anew.
"Huh? Isn't that place nice?"
"I heard it's really good."
"Right, the security there is supposed to be top-notch. Yuli said other idol teams besides us—"
Then Cathy, chattering away in high spirits, suddenly froze.
"What's wrong?"
Hye-gyeol, who had been scrolling through photos of XX Villa on his phone, stared at Cathy strangely. But Jungseo, who seemed to already understand exactly why Cathy was reacting like that, answered flatly, "Yeah. That's right."
Hye-gyeol grew even more bewildered and asked again. "No, I mean—what is it?"
Cathy, instead of answering, clutched his head in both hands and shouted, "That's THAT place!"
"No, that's what I'm asking—where's that—"
"Oh Jung-shin's group dorm!"
The instant the words left his mouth, everyone reflexively looked at Rembrary.
Rembrary himself, however, was utterly calm. "Why dost thou all look at me? It makes no difference to me."
"You might run into Oh Jung-shin coming and going, and it makes no difference?"
"I am fine with it."
Taein clicked his tongue. "Hey, the 'are you okay' question is supposed to go to Oh Jung-shin. Why are you asking him?"
It was deep in the night.
Hye-gyeol was playing a mobile game, Cathy was texting Yuli O, Taein was studying composition, and Jungseo—unwinding the tension from his audition—had been the first to fall asleep.
Rembrary donned his three-piece disguise of mask, hat, and sunglasses and slipped quietly out of the dorm.
He was going to look for a demon beast to give Lim Yu-han as a gift.
Her birthday was in two days. Nearly the whole day had already passed, so the eve of her birthday would arrive before long. She had looked after him so well on set and helped him in countless ways—he truly wanted to give her a birthday present.
Rembrary wandered here and there, searching for things demon beasts were likely to fancy. But did the demon beasts of this world simply have different tastes from those of his original world? Or had their numbers dwindled in this world itself? He could hardly spot any at all. Back home, finding a demon beast had been the easiest thing in the world...
'Ah, right. The youkai here like people who are loved. So would I have to go where loved people are to find one?'
But the only thing he'd seen at the filming site was the ox-head... And he certainly couldn't give her the evil spirit bound into that song. That thing was nothing but sinister and not cute in the slightest—besides, the song itself wasn't even Rembrary's to give.
'The ox-head is sort of cute, but it's targeted Lim sunbae before, so obviously that's out...'
Was there no demon beast that was harmless, small, and adorable? Rembrary tilted his head—then jolted at a thought that suddenly struck him.
Come to think of it, had Lim sunbae ever actually said she liked small, cute demon beasts? That small and cute made for a suitable gift was purely his own preference.
Lim sunbae might well prefer the kind of enormous, human-shaped monster that a man in a suit had kept leashed and walked around.
'Right. I should have asked this first.'
Rembrary hurriedly texted Lim Yu-han to find out.
Oh dear. Rembrary chided himself for his carelessness in setting out to find small, cute demon beasts in the first place.
'So human-shaped it is.'
< Chapter 130. Quick on the Uptake > — The End —