I Have Something to Check
Though the shape overlapped heavily with his original shadow, it definitely looked like the silhouette of a person.
Eun-seon let out a small sound.
"Eek."
"Things like this scare me."
The reporter chuckled, then laughed heartily.
"Honestly, this kind of thing is always just coincidence. It's a lighting issue. When the light and shadows line up just so, it can look like this — so I've heard."
"'Just so' meaning what, exactly?"
"Ah, well, I wouldn't know that either. I was a liberal arts major."
Eun-seon pulled a face like she was about to cry, asking what on earth that was supposed to mean.
But the one most frightened of them all was Jong-woo.
"What about the photos from earlier?"
When the reporter asked, the photographer muttered, "Hold on a second," and went back to review the earlier Good Me shots.
"No. Nothing here."
He then checked the Evil Me portion, murmuring as he went.
"Some parts of this section don't show it, some parts do..."
The atmosphere turned icy.
Nobody said it out loud, but everyone was feeling an involuntary chill.
Finally, to break the tension, the photographer forced a bright grin and shouted, "Let's keep shooting!"
Eun-seon hastily chimed in.
"They say if a ghost shows up in a photoshoot, it goes totally viral!"
Which only made the atmosphere even frostier — so not helpful.
In any case, the shoot resumed, the only sound in the silence being the pop of the flash.
When the shoot wrapped up, the reporter came over and asked a quick question.
"I hear a strange shadow got captured during the shoot. How did that feel?"
Before giving the shooting directions he'd been all brusque commands, but now his tone was completely different.
What's more, he was holding some oddly-shaped silver-gray device near his mouth.
Rembrary found it strange, but answered obediently all the same.
"I sensed no evil aura just now, so you may rest at ease."
At the answer, which sounded like it came from some kind of expert, the reporter's eyes went round.
Is he joking? he wondered — and yet the answer had sent an odd shiver down his spine.
But instead of elaborating, Rembrary gave a slight bow and headed off to change his clothes.
After changing carefully so as not to wrinkle the sponsored clothes, the ride to Sunwoo Sil's agency passed in silence — Jong-woo and Rembrary alike saying nothing.
Jong-woo, terrified of the supernatural, was badly shaken by the fact that a second shadow had appeared in a photo.
On top of that, hadn't Yeon-woo recently lost his memories despite being perfectly healthy?
He couldn't speak for the others, but for Jong-woo, all of that together made the day genuinely frightening.
Because of it, unlike his usual self, he skipped the nagging and simply kept glancing at Rembrary through the rearview mirror.
Rembrary, for his part, felt no fear of the supernatural whatsoever.
The reason for his silence was that he was pondering the shadow's true identity.
Could it be Yeon-woo?
Rembrary wondered whether that human-shaped shadow might be the real Woo Yeon-woo, whose body he had taken over.
If he hadn't entered an empty corpse after Yeon-woo died, but had instead overwritten himself onto a body that already belonged to Yeon-woo, then it was entirely possible.
Rembrary judged it fairly likely that the shadow was Yeon-woo.
But another possibility stood at nearly the same likelihood.
That the shadow was the trace of the one who had sent him to this other world — and dumped him into this absurd body besides.
True, as he'd told the reporter, that shadow carried no evil aura.
But evil aura was relative.
Even among vampires, some emitted an evil aura and some did not.
The same held true for humans.
A thoroughly wicked and dangerous being did not necessarily radiate evil aura at every moment.
Besides, if it hid behind Rembrary's own shadow, it could cleverly conceal even its original aura.
What am I to do about this...
Regrettably, there was no way to find out whose shadow it was right away.
After long deliberation, Rembrary resolved to investigate properly once he got home.
He couldn't identify the shadow's owner for certain — but there was a surefire way to determine whether it was dangerous.
After stopping by Sunwoo Sil's agency for three hours of practice, Jong-woo dropped Rembrary off in front of the dorm, watching him carefully.
"Good work today. Go in and get some real rest."
"You've worked hard as well."
"You know we have the music show tomorrow, right? You've got to be up before dawn, so sleep as soon as you're in."
"Understood."
"..."
"May I go up now?"
"Hey. Yeon-woo."
But instead of sending him straight up as usual, Jong-woo stalled.
When Rembrary looked at him, wondering what was wrong, he asked hesitantly.
"Your memory still hasn't come back?"
"Sadly, it has not."
"I see..."
"Then may I go up now?"
Rembrary asked, checking the time on his phone.
He couldn't just wash up and go straight to bed.
There was something he needed to verify, so he was eager to get back quickly.
Jong-woo answered with a troubled look — "Yeah." — and climbed back into the car.
Rembrary waved and hurried up the stairs.
"Welcome back!"
"How was the shoot today?"
"Did it go well?"
But when he reached the living room, three of the members were all gathered there.
The one he couldn't see appeared to be in the bathroom.
"Perfectly ordinary."
Even as he answered, Rembrary thought, this is exhausting.
To check whether the shadow's aura was truly evil, he needed his own blood.
Infuse divine power into the blood, then pour it directly onto the shadow — that was the verification method.
This method would reveal not a relative evil, but the evil inherent to the being itself.
But if he drew blood from his own hand and splashed it on the shadow in front of the members, they would surely recoil in horror.
He already struggled to fit into this world, and was sometimes treated like a madman. He could not bear to be called a self-harmer on top of it.
Nothing for it, then. I'll simply have to wait until the members are asleep.
"Jungseo."
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Where might a knife be?"
"A knife? What kind? A kitchen knife?"
"No — that small blade you used before. The one for cutting the yellow string off a box..."
"Ah, ah — a box cutter. And it was tape, not a yellow string."
"Yes, the box cutter. Where might it be?"
At Rembrary's question, Jungseo gave him an odd look.
"Why?"
"I have need of it."
Rembrary answered as if it were nothing, walked to the refrigerator, and took out a grape-flavored sparkling water.
But when he turned around, water in hand, Jungseo's expression was still distinctly uneasy.
"What do you need it for? I'll cut it for you."
Rembrary, still unfamiliar with everyday household items, had suddenly announced he wanted to use a blade — and it clearly didn't sit right.
But then, he hardly could say, Slice open my flesh for me.
Rembrary thought for a moment, then ultimately shook his head with a smile.
"No, on reflection it's fine. I can do it tomorrow."
At those words, even the other members, who had been snickering at the television, turned to look at him.
Rembrary slipped into his room as naturally as he could manage and lay down.
He would have no choice but to wait until everyone was asleep, then fetch the kitchen knife.
Fortunately, perhaps because of tomorrow's music show schedule, it wasn't long before Jungseo urged the members into their room.
Rembrary kept his eyes closed, ears open, tracking everything around him.
Since all the members shared one room, he had to wait until every last one of them was deep asleep.
Thankfully, the grueling dance practice meant they usually drifted off within a short time.
Holding his breath, Rembrary listened to the members filing in, the rustle of bodies climbing into beds, their low murmuring among themselves, and Taein snapping irritably at everyone to just go to sleep already.
How long had he been lying there?
Even Rembrary's consciousness began to blur at the edges.
He dozed, head nodding, until he realized the room had gone quiet — then quietly raised himself up.
Even after sitting up, he checked that the members were all truly asleep.
Snoring rose from here and there, and from the ones sleeping silently came slow, steady breathing.
Rembrary carefully slipped out from between the covers and went to the kitchen.
He didn't even turn on a light for fear of waking someone, and relying only on his phone's glow, he took out the kitchen knife.
"..."
Even after retrieving it, he listened carefully once more.
Thankfully, everyone seemed to be asleep.
Let's finish this quickly and get back in.
Rembrary stepped into the bathroom and locked the door.
Then he gripped the knife he'd brought from the kitchen in his left hand.
He examined the shadow his own body cast against the mirror.
Looked at this way, nothing about it seemed strange.
During the photoshoot it flickered — appearing, then not.
Rembrary fetched a basin and set it on the sink.
Then, stealing a glance at his own shadow, he pressed his right palm into the basin and pushed the blade's tip against it.
Ngh.
A cold, unpleasant pain bore down on his palm.
At first it felt like mere pressure, but as he pushed harder, he felt something split.
A drop or two of blood would not be nearly enough, so Rembrary endured the pain and pressed harder still.
The blood that had been dripping began to seep out in a steady stream.
Even after he pulled the blade away, the blood kept flowing.
Rembrary clenched his fist to make the blood fall faster, and let it drip.
And when a sufficient amount had pooled —
he channeled divine power into it.
The task finally complete, he set down the knife and picked up the basin.
Then he raised his left hand under the light, so that his shadow would fall directly beneath it.
Now all that remained was to pour the blood, infused with divine power, onto the shadow.
Rembrary tilted the basin slightly.
When this was done, he would know whether that shadow was likely Yeon-woo — or the mark of the one who had cast him into another world.
The blood rippling at the bottom of the basin slid slowly down.
But the instant it was about to touch the shadow —
with a click, the door swung open.
Rembrary startled and looked to the side.
"Yeon-woo...?"
Jungseo, the leader, stood frozen, eyes wide.
His gaze was not on Rembrary, but on the basin full of blood, the hand smeared with it, and the bloodstained kitchen knife.
"What are you—!"
But I definitely locked it?
Rembrary and Jungseo stood rigid, staring at each other.
Rembrary came to his senses first — and finished the task at hand.
All that remained was to tilt the basin a little further.
He'd been seen anyway; there was no point in pouring it somewhere else now.
Whether it splashed here or was dumped there, the difference was nothing.
The blood flowed down onto Rembrary's shadow.
"What are you doing right now!"
Jungseo belatedly snapped out of it, rushed over, and snatched at Rembrary's injured hand.
"Are you insane?"
And yet his voice was barely a whisper, as if he feared waking the other members.
Rembrary left his hand to Jungseo's ministrations and kept his eyes on the shadow.
The blood pooled along the shadow's contours, as if the shadow itself were a plate.
"Were you cutting yourself? Are you self-harming?"
Oblivious to the fact that the blood was taking a very strange shape indeed, Jungseo gripped Rembrary's wrist tight and pressed him for answers, a towel in his other hand to stop the bleeding.
"Self-harm? Absolutely not."
Rembrary answered calmly, all the while watching the shadow's reaction.
"Then what — you were holding a knife, were you trying to kill yourself?"
"Absolutely not, I say."
"Then what?"
"There is something I needed to verify, so think nothing of it — no misunderstanding, I beg."
When Jungseo pressed the towel into his palm, the pressure and stinging pain made Rembrary's face scrunch up despite himself.
"You lunatic — what could you possibly need to verify by slicing open your hand?"
"The color of my blood?"
"What?"
At last, the shadow reacted.
That's—!
Rembrary hastily yanked his hand free and shoved Jungseo toward the door.
"Go out first. Are you not busy?"
"Hey, you—!"
"Keep this a secret for now. When it's all done, I shall explain everything."