153. I Found a Way to Pass Judgment
"Just whose brain is the soft one, I wonder—"
Jong-woo hastily clapped a hand over Rembrary's mouth.
But the first half of the sentence had already slipped out.
The actor in question blinked, then scrunched up his face.
"Did you just say that to me?"
When the actor pointed a finger at himself, Rembrary—his mouth still blocked by Jong-woo's hand—pointed right back at him with his own finger. Yes. You.
"Unbelievable."
The actor let out a hollow laugh.
One by one, the surrounding actors and staff all went quiet as well.
When Jungseo had shown up with Yeon-woo, they'd been pleased—given what had happened a few days ago, they'd assumed the two had come to cheer him on, and besides, this was the hottest topic in the industry right now. But now that things had turned out like this, everyone's hearts were pounding.
He's serious?
He's even more of a lunatic in person than the rumors said.
He straight-up brought up someone's brain!
I thought the rumors were exaggerated, but turns out the exaggeration was the exaggerated part.
The actor laughed in sheer disbelief, haha, then pointed a finger at Rembrary.
"Now that I think about it, you're that guy. Famous lately for being a total nutcase."
Rembrary said something in reply, but Jong-woo's hand smothered every word.
"No, no—take your hand off. Let's hear what he has to say."
Jong-woo wasn't sorry in the slightest, but he bowed apologetically anyway.
"I'm so sorry. He's—well, as everyone knows, he's… you know how he is. A little."
"No, no, I said take the hand off. That's it—let's hear what Woo Yeon-woo, the famously certified nutcase, has to say to me."
Maybe he really shouldn't have brought Yeon-woo and left him be. Jong-woo regretted his choice inwardly.
And yet—watching a man who'd been insufferably smug while tormenting Jungseo just days ago now clearly seething behind a forced mask of calm was, frankly, delicious.
It tasted exactly like a sesame-salt cracker.
It would have been even better if he could chew it up bite by bite.
"I apologize, Lee Il-baek, sir."
Whatever he might be thinking, Jong-woo apologized over and over.
If he gave Rembrary's mouth its freedom back here, there really would be a catastrophe. This much could be brushed off as 'Yeon-woo getting angry on behalf of a friend who got disrespected'—plenty of eyes here knew the score—but if it went any further, it might spiral into 'Yeon-woo pulled a Yeon-woo again.'
"Tell him to take his hand off. Are you planning to keep his mouth covered forever?"
But Lee Il-baek was persistent.
"What's going on here?"
It was a genuine stroke of luck that the director arrived before things could balloon any bigger.
Only then did Jong-woo lower his hand, and Lee Il-baek abandoned his demand as well, smiling at the director with an "It's nothing."
And Rembrary—
"Nothing, you say?"
—won his freedom.
Is he seriously about to pick a fight in front of the director? Lee Il-baek stared at Rembrary in alarm. He had a rotten personality, but he wasn't without sense. He was exactly the type who knew precisely where he could and couldn't raise his voice.
What he didn't know was this: Rembrary was the type who could raise his voice anywhere.
"You made my kid cry, and it's nothing?"
No, I didn't cry. Jungseo's head snapped around toward Rembrary.
"Hm?"
The director, with no idea what was happening, looked at Rembrary in bewilderment.
"Your… kid?"
He thought for a moment, then let out a baffled "Huh?" and asked again.
"You mean Yeon-woo…? No, wait—why is he even here?"
Plenty of people had witnessed the exchange, so who had picked the fight was obvious. But in this industry, name value was equally obvious. Jungseo was a rookie actor—and an idol-turned-actor at that, carrying that stigma on his back—about to get into a war of nerves with Lee Il-baek, the film's lead?
If filming were nearly wrapped, maybe it wouldn't matter. But before a single frame had been shot, a person could be replaced on nothing more than 'ruining the set's atmosphere.'
Enough. Stop it already.
Jong-woo decided again that bringing Yeon-woo had been a mistake and opened his mouth to somehow smooth things over.
But before he could, Rembrary smiled warmly and greeted the director.
"Hello, Director. I'm a fan. We came to cheer on our leader."
Huh? He's… actually acting normal for once…? Jong-woo, who'd been bracing to apologize and beg for leniency, went wide-eyed instead. Jungseo too stared at Rembrary in shock.
The people who didn't know Rembrary well were, ironically, the most at ease.
The director beamed and welcomed him gladly.
"Ah, you came to show your support. I've been enjoying your show."
It was a warm reaction born of cold calculation: if Woo Yeon-woo, currently a trending topic, promoted this new film—whether through video diaries, variety appearances, or social media—the publicity payoff would be substantial.
But setting the calculations aside, the director genuinely found himself thinking, Huh, he's politer than the rumors suggested. Nice voice, too. Solid kid.
That was because Rembrary, hoping to make a good impression, had mixed an unusually generous amount of Divine Power into his voice as he spoke—but neither the director, nor Jong-woo, nor Jungseo had any way of knowing that.
In any case, now that the quarrel seemed to have drifted out of the spotlight, Jong-woo bowed in greeting as well and retreated to the back with Yeon-woo in tow.
He agonized over what to do if the man tried to open his mouth again… but for some reason, Rembrary was now deep in quiet thought, saying nothing at all.
Then the full-scale script reading began.
Since this was the second reading, there didn't seem to be any separate round of introductions or greetings.
It was called a table read, but the actors' performances were tremendous. Each of them, armed with their own analysis of their character, shifted expressions and vocal tones as if the scene were unfolding right there in the room—watching from the side, involuntary gasps of admiration kept escaping.
The actor Lee Il-baek had treated Jungseo with contempt, but when it came to his own role, he was handling it with astonishing skill.
Jong-woo, however, couldn't focus on any of this magnificent reading.
He's not going to suddenly jump up and run out there, right? …No. No way. Even he wouldn't go that far.
Because of Rembrary.
But Jong-woo could rest easy.
Rembrary was far too busy comparing how Jungseo and Lee Il-baek each handled their lines.
Unfortunately… our Jungseo is losing ground a little, isn't he.
Rembrary, looking mildly bereft, picked up the extra script the staff member beside him had thoughtfully set aside—one more copy than needed—and began to read.
The film opened with a boss warning Seo-ho that tomorrow's meeting was extremely important and that he absolutely must not be late. "I hate people who are late more than anything," Seo-ho declared, swearing up and down that he would never be one of them, before heading home from work.
Then, the next morning, as Seo-ho was getting ready for work, he heard a security guard broadcasting a warning across the entire apartment complex. A killer had gotten inside and was prowling the corridors, murdering people. Everyone was to stay inside their homes. Absolutely no one was to come out.
"Is he out of his mind?"
Seo-ho, dumbfounded, kept getting ready for work anyway—until her husband Jeon-young murmured that the guard's voice on the broadcast was one he'd never heard before, and something in the air tightened.
While continuing to rush through her morning routine, Seo-ho dialed emergency services. But the call wouldn't connect. The internet was down. Wi-Fi and mobile data were both dead.
Only now did Seo-ho and Jeon-young truly begin to panic. The two of them started to bicker—one insisting it had to be some kind of prank, the other urging that they play it safe and stay put just in case.
"We live on the third floor. Six steps down and we're straight out the front door—and you're telling me we can't even manage that, so we should just sit here?"
Factoring in the morning traffic, they had to leave now to make it to the meeting with time to spare.
Seo-ho insisted they had to go and eventually put on her shoes. Jeon-young said he'd go out first, scout whether it was dangerous, and come back for her.
But waiting for him really would make them late, so in the end, the two stepped outside together.
Out in the corridor, something felt off—the atmosphere somehow more hostile than usual, even though daylight still poured in through the windows.
Seo-ho and her husband hesitated, wondering whether to ask the neighbors what was going on—but they'd never once exchanged a word with any of them, so they simply headed down the emergency stairwell.
Opening the fire door and descending one floor, everything was fine. The two of them relaxed a little.
But the instant they set foot on the last stair, a tearing scream rose from below, and they whirled around and fled back to their own floor.
"What was that just now?"
For its entire running time, the film unfolded within that single apartment building, following the couple's desperate struggle to escape outside. But as time passed, they realized that getting out was nowhere near as easy as it seemed, and every time they attempted an escape, horrific sounds echoing from somewhere not far off forced them to turn tail and run in another direction—again and again.
Then more people joined them—others who wanted out of the building. A student who had to get to school. Office workers bound for other jobs. A patient with a hospital appointment. Someone summoned to court. The number of people wandering the corridors swelled, yet not one of them ever made it outside.
Eventually, the residents began to suspect one another—that the killer might be hiding among their own number.
Worse, since only screams could be heard and the killer was never actually seen, opinions splintered further: there was no killer at all, someone was playing recorded sounds as a sick prank, and so on.
Only in the latter half did the people finally learn what was really prowling among them. Not a mere murderer. Not a malicious prankster. But something… strange. Something else entirely.
According to the description written in the script, it was 'a person so abnormally tall that he walked with his body half-folded over, so as not to bump his head against the ceiling.'
Having finished the script, Rembrary glanced sideways at Lee Il-baek.
As an escape thriller, the film had several protagonists, but the central leads were the married couple Seo-ho and Jeon-young—and Lee Il-baek played the husband, Jeon-young.
Jungseo, meanwhile, was cast as the high school student who had to rush to school because of his exams.
Hmm. Rembrary let out a small sigh of disappointment, narrowing his eyes.
Lee Il-baek had been so insufferably irritating toward Jungseo that Rembrary had actually been considering finding some way—any way—to drive the man out of this film altogether.
He held no power here, granted. But if he put his mind to it, there were certainly a few methods that might persuade Lee Il-baek to quit of his own accord.
If it were Rembrary himself being slighted, he'd have let whatever anyone said wash over him like water off a feather. But Jungseo was his Believer, was he not—someone it was his duty to protect?
Watching the table read, however, had shifted his thinking somewhat.
Lee Il-baek really could act. His terrified expressions in particular were so vivid that the mere sight of him being afraid was enough to make one's own skin prickle in sympathy.
Rembrary wanted Jungseo's film to succeed. For that, it needed actors who could deliver outstanding performances—and, annoying as it was to admit, Lee Il-baek fit that puzzle rather well.
Regrettably.
But what can I do about it? It's not as if I can tell Jungseo to just put up with him…
While he was still turning the problem over, the break arrived.
People rose from their seats—to use the restroom, to grab a snack, to stretch their legs for a moment.
"I need the restroom too."
Jungseo, having drunk water nonstop through the reading, headed off as well, but Rembrary, his thoughts still unsorted, simply stayed where he was, sitting in place.
Come to think of it, Sung-woo did say that guy is a complete lunatic. Then why is he staring at me like that? What if he works himself up and actually comes over here to throw a punch?
Rembrary had no idea that this was precisely what Lee Il-baek was nervously worrying about on the inside.
That was when it happened.
"Yeon-woo? Yeon-woo, is it?"
The director, who had stayed behind scribbling dense notes all over his script, suddenly called out to Rembrary, looking a little awkward.
"Yes?"
Rembrary turned with a swift, pleasant smile.
He hadn't yet decided exactly how he would deal with Lee Il-baek, but there was no harm in getting friendly with the director in the meantime. After all, this was the man who would be shepherding Jungseo through the entire shoot.
What came out of the director's mouth, however, was something neither Rembrary nor Sa Gam-jae—who had been staring blankly into space beside him—could have predicted.
"Well, you know, watching you in Dear God, I thought your acting was pretty decent. Since we're all here anyway—how would you like to do a cameo role?"
"A cameo?"
"Yeah. There are a ton of minor characters who pop up briefly in this. You did read the script, right?"
"I did."
"The roles marked with a '(C)' next to the character names—those are parts we left uncast because we're planning to offer them as cameos. Any of them catch your eye?"
In that instant, Rembrary remembered.
A perfect way to save the film and pass judgment on Lee Il-baek, all at once.
"This role."
Rembrary pointed a finger at a single entry.
"Huh?"
The director's eyes went round.
End of Chapter 153: I Found a Way to Pass Judgment.