An Unexpected Name
"Hey. You know what I just saw?"
Oh Jung-shin, who had been checking the reaction to a short video he'd posted on social media, turned his head.
A member of his own group was kicking off his shoes at the front door and coming inside.
"Saw what?"
Jung-shin asked curtly and dropped his gaze back to his phone. Ever since Sing Survival, followed by a string of variety appearances, CFs, and photo shoots with Woo Yeon-woo, photos of the two of them together had spread far and wide among the public.
From Oh Jung-shin's standpoint, it was a colossal pain in the neck, but mercifully, nothing had linked them lately, and the whole affair where the two of them had fought like slaves and dogs was slowly fading from people's memories.
Thanks to that, Yeon-woo's name hardly ever showed up in his social media comments anymore, which suited him fine.
"You know there's this LLL Entertainment guy, right?"
And then, out of nowhere, his groupmate brought up Woo Yeon-woo's name. Well—not Yeon-woo's name exactly, but something connected to him, and it soured his mood instantly.
"Hey, don't even bring that up. Bad luck, I swear."
"Thought you two were getting along better these days?"
"Not getting along—I just decided to suck it up. Fighting with a lunatic is exhausting for the one normal person, you know?"
And besides, there was something about it that gave him the chills. Oh Jung-shin rubbed the goosebumps off his arms.
Watching him, the member snickered and snorted. It sounded like he was laughing at him, and somehow that laughter rang deeply ominous.
Jung-shin set his phone down, bolted upright off the sofa, and glared at him. This was no joke—genuinely, he wanted nothing to do with anything connected to Woo Yeon-woo. If Yeon-woo were standing to the east, he wouldn't even want to look east.
So when his bandmate idly brought up Yeon-woo's agency, it made his skin crawl.
"Ugh, fine, I'm sorry, okay?"
"If you're sorry, then don't bring him up at all?"
"No, but you really need to hear this."
"What the hell is it then? What! If it turns out to be nothing—"
"An LLL Entertainment rep came by here, along with a licensed realtor?"
Oh Jung-shin froze mid-shout, mouth still hanging open. His pupils shook rapidly.
The member, apparently done with his part, sauntered off toward the refrigerator.
"Oh, hell."
Gripped by dread and a nameless unease, Oh Jung-shin rubbed his palms against his clothes.
"Hey, that lunatic isn't moving in here or something, right? It's got to be somebody else moving in?"
"How would I know? All I saw was some LLL people stopping by."
The date is September... what day was it again?
Anyway, a video diary for the first time in a while.
The time right now is... what time is it? No idea.
It's not that I was too lazy to check my phone. It's been confiscated. I physically cannot check it.
Reason number one this happened: rehearsals for the upcoming Chuseok special program.
Reason number two: the song we have to rearrange and sing is a Long Distance song.
Reason number three: Kasy is glued to a phone and refuses to give it up.
I cannot elaborate on the correlation between reasons two and three.
Because if I did, Jong-woo-hyung would try to kill me.
Anyway, thanks to these three reasons, everyone's phone got confiscated, and here I am writing a diary without knowing what time it is.
And in case a certain Shin Jo-woon happens to see this—hey, Anchovy. What happened to my king prawn butter grill?
Three p.m. Checked the time on the practice room clock.
We only have one day to rehearse, so we're practicing intensely right now.
"In-tense-ly, you dummy."
...Did Taein's voice just get recorded?
Did everyone hear that? That's a big one, folks.
Everyone, this is how he talks when he thinks no one's watching.
"Hey, Woo Yeon-woo! Are you filming right now?"
A brief pause...
Five p.m.
I went looking for our CEO to escape Taein, and since the CEO kept wandering off in search of cigarettes, I ended up on smoke-monitoring duty instead.
Ah, some of you may not know this, but our CEO is currently quitting smoking.
But his withdrawal symptoms are so severe that the moment his peace of mind cracks even a little, his hands start trembling uncontrollably.
Jong-woo-hyung marvels at his incredible willpower, but personally, I think he just says that because the man signs his paychecks. I bet Jong-woo-hyung is laughing at his idiot boss on the inside too.
Anyway, I was hiding out in the CEO's office when the dance teacher caught me and hauled me back to the practice room.
Long Distance's choreography is way more complicated than I expected, with tons of movement lines, so it's kicking my butt right now.
On top of that, our group has no rapper, so somehow I ended up doing the rap.
It's not that I got the rap because I'm good at it—the rap section just got longer during the arrangement, and since I was told I wouldn't have to dance as much, I had no choice but to take it.
This song is performance-heavy, which means the less I dance, the better the performance lives.
Everyone has things they can't do, and for me, that thing is dancing.
But I am not the least bit discouraged by my inability to dance.
I simply cannot dance. Everything else, I'm good at.
Besides, dancing is not an essential element of human life. Not being able to dance affects nothing whatsoever.
A full day spent drilling the choreography, tweaking the movement lines, and recording Long Distance's song rearranged to fit Wild Animal's style—the hours had flown by.
Rembrary and the other members, utterly drained, climbed into the car. Even once they returned to the dorm, they would have to head back out before long to stop by the shops.
The Chuseok special they'd be appearing in featured a huge roster of idols. To stand out there, they had to prepare even more thoroughly than usual.
Because of that, the members hurried straight up to the dorm the moment they got out of the car.
Rembrary, however, didn't go inside right away. He caught Sa Gam-jae instead.
"Gam-jae. There is something I must tell thee."
Sa Gam-jae checked his watch, nodded, and the two of them stepped into an alley near the dorm building.
"What is the matter?"
"Dost thou happen to know of a demon that taketh the form of a tall grown man, yet hath no eyes, nose, or mouth—only a flat, empty face?"
"A demon, not a youkai?"
"Aye."
"A demon, then... That would most likely be Labrum."
"Labrum?"
"Yes. Among demons, it is relatively docile."
Sa Gam-jae furrowed his brow for a moment as he combed through his memory, then added:
"There have been no reports filed concerning it in the last ten years, either."
"Demons file reports with thee?"
"We receive them. As I mentioned before, we are suffering from a chronic labor shortage."
"I see. But Gam-jae—there is no such thing as a docile demon. There are only demons that enjoy attention, and demons that do not."
"I agree that most of them are utter bastards, but not all of them are."
Rembrary called to mind the demons he knew and scowled. He could not possibly have disagreed more with Sa Gam-jae's claim.
But he was a High Priest of great magnanimity, and so he conceded that the demons of this world might differ somewhat from the demons of his own.
"I suppose the demons here may be so."
"The demons there likely are as well."
"More to the point—dost thou know aught else of the faceless demon's traits?"
"It is quite interested in human culture."
Sa Gam-jae answered obediently, then abruptly felt a prickle of unease and asked:
"But why bring up this demon so suddenly? From the way you describe its features in such detail, it seems you've encountered it."
"I have. And it was traveling in the company of a certain human."
"Did it threaten you?"
"The human accompanying that demon offered me a sponsor."
"I beg your pardon?"
Sa Gam-jae, who had been listening with rapt attention, frowned in sheer bewilderment. Out of nowhere—a sponsor?
"Why would it offer one to YOU of all people?"
"That, I know not. In any case, that demon is roaming not far from here, so keep a wary eye out. One can never be too careful."
Rembrary admonished him thoroughly.
He could not be sure Sa Gam-jae had truly taken his warning to heart, but it was something that needed to be said plainly, once and for all.
Then, back in his own room at the dorm, he flopped onto his bed and immediately pulled out his phone, lying prone atop the covers.
This world was woefully indifferent to supernatural phenomena, and information about demons or magic was correspondingly scarce. But for sweeping up whatever meager information existed without leaving one's spot, this world was remarkably convenient.
Labrum...
Rembrary typed the faceless demon's name—the one Sa Gam-jae had given him—into the search bar.
He held no great hope of finding anything remarkable. His intent was simply to conduct a proper investigation for once; if information turned up, well and good, and if not, he would contact Woo Sung-woo and probe him about the man in the suit and his demon.
But the instant he typed Lab, the letters rum followed on their own.
Rembrary stopped mid-keystroke, his fingers frozen.
Why is this word appearing on its own?
Thinking it might be nothing, Rembrary wiped away every one of his recently searched terms.
And when he checked again—there it was, unmistakably: a record of Labrum having been searched on this very phone.
Rembrary himself had learned that demon's name only today. There was absolutely no way he could have typed it earlier.
Which meant the real Woo Yeon-woo had searched it...
Wasn't Yeon-woo trying to join that very group Maeng Woo-shin belongs to?