Is That Because Your Memory Came Back?
"Stopping him? You mean me?"
"That's what you said most recently, anyway. Oh, and..."
Before Hye-gyeol could finish, his head began bobbing side to side as though he might keel over at any moment, and soon he was nodding off entirely.
Rembrary rapped his knuckles twice on the table in front of him.
Jolted awake by the sound, Hye-gyeol quickly picked up where he'd left off. "You're such a rude bastard, hyung. Always going on about how idols this, idols that."
Somehow, the topic had shifted without anyone noticing.
Rembrary waved a hand in front of him and asked, "Continue what you were saying. Whom did I ever try to stop?"
"Huh?"
"You said I was stopping someone."
"Ah, that..."
But before Hye-gyeol could answer—
Clang! A cup hit the table, followed by a curse exploding from beside them. "Ah, damn it!"
Hye-gyeol's words died as he turned his head.
A cup lay on its side, and the water spilling from it was splashing all over Tae-in.
"Watch it, you little—" Tae-in snarled as he vented his irritation, and Jung-seo, seated across from him, apologized. "Sorry. I was reaching for the sesame oil."
"Then ask someone to hand it to you if you can't reach!"
"Sorry."
The timing was strange. Jung-seo apologized over and over, but Tae-in kept up his grumbling the whole time.
Did Jung-seo knock it over? Rembrary wondered. Cathy was sitting right next to Jung-seo, and the cup had fallen roughly between the two of them—either one could have tipped it. Tae-in, sitting across the table, on the other hand, was definitely out of range for knocking over a water cup.
Did he spill it on purpose to cut off the conversation? Or was it just a coincidence?
After a moment's thought, Rembrary turned back to Hye-gyeol. "Whom was it I tried to stop?"
But Hye-gyeol only blinked back at him. "What? You stopped who?"
He looked like he had absolutely no memory of what he'd been saying.
"You said I was trying to stop someone. Recently."
At Rembrary's prompting, Hye-gyeol tilted his head with a drawn-out "Huhhhh?" before answering, "Dunno."
Then he announced that he desperately needed the bathroom and got up and left.
Rembrary scanned the members one by one. Tae-in was still fussing over his water-soaked clothes, radiating irritation—any attempt to bring up the old conversation would earn a thrown dishrag. Jung-seo was dabbing at the spilled water with napkins. Cathy was checking his phone. And Jong-woo was pressing, "Don't tell me it's Yuli of all people?"—a question that shouldn't have been asked in front of the members at all. Though, admittedly, it seemed unlikely CEO Im would know the private life of his own talent, let alone his least popular one. Just as Rembrary leaned in to study his face on the off chance—
"Looks like he drank too much. Let's head out," CEO Im said, rising from his seat first. "Everyone done eating?"
Only a piece or two of meat remained, so Jong-woo and the members obediently got up. Just then, Hye-gyeol returned from the bathroom.
"We're leaving already?" He looked completely sober now.
There was nothing for it at this point. I'll just have to get him drunk again some other time...
Before work on the new song began, the members were granted a period of complete rest. Once prep for the new album started, they'd be slammed, so they were told to recharge now. The "recharge" amounted to exactly one day, mind you.
Still, having Jong-woo's surveillance regime lifted, however briefly, was enough to put the members in good spirits.
By one in the afternoon, there wasn't a single member left at the dorm.
Should I go out somewhere too? Rembrary thought, still planted on the living room sofa. He had no money and no sense of the local geography, but a stroll around the neighborhood had to be better than sitting here, didn't it?
As it happened, though, Jung-seo made the offer first. "If you've got nowhere to go, want to come with me?"
"Where are you going?"
"Ah, just a quick stop at the hospital."
"What ails you?"
He looked perfectly healthy—Rembrary could sense no illness in him at all. When Rembrary asked in surprise, Jung-seo's expression clouded over. "Not for me."
Then, as if he had no desire to elaborate, he changed the subject immediately. "I'll drop you off anywhere you want after the hospital."
"Would that not be a bother?"
"It's a bother. But I'm the leader."
At that brutally honest answer, Rembrary rose from the sofa without the slightest hesitation. "Then I am in your care."
"Get ready fast."
"Can I not go as I am?"
"Mask. Sunglasses. Sunscreen. Hat."
After rattling off the list, Jung-seo simply marched into a bedroom, came back with a cap, a mask, sunglasses, and sunscreen, dumped them all on the sofa, and disappeared into the bathroom again.
Ten minutes later, the two of them left the dorm in an utterly suspicious getup.
"Would this not make us more conspicuous?"
"Oh, definitely conspicuous."
"Will people not take us for suspicious characters?"
"They'll think you're a suspicious character, a celebrity, or a clout chaser."
"Then must we really go out like this?"
"Yep. Because nobody's supposed to know we're Jung-seo and Woo Yeon-woo of Wild Animal."
The hospital was about twenty minutes from the dorm. Rembrary rode the subway for the first time in his life, which produced a few minor incidents—taking a priority seat, sitting with his legs crossed, shoving aboard before anyone had gotten off—but the two of them arrived without further disaster.
Jung-seo considered himself glad he'd forced the mask on him. Otherwise, a photo might have surfaced online in a day or two captioned something like, Yeon-woo's True Colors Strike Again.
"Sorry. It was my first time riding, so I didn't know."
"It's fine. I didn't know my first time either."
Jung-seo gave the sullen, apologetic-looking Rembrary a halfhearted pat of comfort, then headed for the hospital counter. While Jung-seo collected a visitor's card for the inpatient ward, Rembrary took stock of the hospital around him.
It was a big place—as large as the general hospital he'd once visited for a full physical examination. The waiting area held an enormous number of chairs, and there were even more people than chairs to hold them. People in matching uniforms dragged tall triangular frames about, and others sat in chairs mounted on wheels. Even they kept glancing oddly at Rembrary, his face hidden entirely.
"Let's go."
By then, Jung-seo had gotten his card and tugged at Rembrary's sleeve. "All set?"
"Yes. This way."
Jung-seo led him to a spot walled in on every side by glass. There, he pressed the card he was holding against a strange device at its center. Rembrary was still puzzling over what it could be when the glass parted at the touch of the card, reconfiguring itself to let them through.
"A dungeon...?"
"What?"
"Is this place a dungeon?"
"?"
When the bewildered Rembrary stood frozen, Jung-seo grabbed his elbow and pulled him through. They took an elevator up to the eighth floor, where a similar glass contraption stood, though the crowds were far thinner than on the first floor. Except for a counter or two, the whole floor was one wide, branching corridor—a bit like a maze. While Rembrary was still looking around, Jung-seo started walking down a passage marked 801–810, and Rembrary hurried after him.
Jung-seo stopped in front of a door labeled 807. This time, instead of bringing Rembrary in with him, he gave instructions. "Sit on that chair and wait for me a bit."
"And I?"
"...I want to go in alone."
When Rembrary nodded, Jung-seo pointed at the chair with his finger for good measure, then went through the door by himself.
Rembrary sat obediently on the chair and frowned. The maze-like layout had startled him for a moment with its dungeon resemblance, but sitting here made it clear what kind of place this was: somewhere the sick had been gathered.
Many of the people he'd passed carried deep within them the grip of disease. How pitiable. When he caught sight of a child of four or five walking along hand in hand with his father, Rembrary's frown deepened further. The sickness in that child's body ran terribly deep.
So the person Jung-seo came to visit is ill as well.
That was when it happened. The child, passing by, pointed at Rembrary and shouted, "Money!"
Money? As Rembrary looked over in confusion, the child cried "Money, money, money!" and slapped his father's leg, pat-pat-patting it. Apparently he'd seen Rembrary's performance in the first round of Sing Survival.
"That's not him, Yumin. Let's go."
The child's father hadn't recognized Rembrary as Woo Yeon-woo; he smiled and gently tugged his son's arm. But the boy, brimming with conviction, shouted at Rembrary once more, "It's Money Hyung!"
Rembrary considered for a moment, then slid his sunglasses off, just slightly. At last the father recognized him too, and let out a small, awed, "Whoa."
"We kept the Sing Survival program on in his hospital room, and he watched it with us. But he'd only stop fussing when Woo Yeon-woo's song was playing, so I've been playing it for him on my phone ever since."
The father hurriedly pulled out his phone and made his request. "Would you take just one photo with our Yumin? He absolutely adores you."
Rembrary answered with a ready smile, "Yes."
He'd removed his sunglasses intending to make contact with the child anyway.
"Thank you so much."
As the father raised the phone, the sharp-eyed boy scampered over and plopped down beside Rembrary. Rembrary rested his arm naturally on the child's shoulder—and quietly sent his Divine Power flowing into him.
After a few clicks of the camera, the father tucked his phone back into his pocket, the rims of his eyes reddened, and bowed. "Thank you."
Then he scooped the boy into his arms. "Say thank you to Money Hyung, okay?"
The child beamed and waved, and Rembrary waved back. Once the two of them turned the corner and vanished from sight, Rembrary put his sunglasses back on.
When he turned his head, he found Jung-seo standing at the door of 807, staring at him with wide eyes. Through the gap of the open door, he could see a snow-white blanket and a thin, frail arm.
Jung-seo noticed where Rembrary was looking and shut the door quickly. "You're good with kids, huh?"
"Was I not supposed to show my face?"
"No. You did well."
Rembrary asked carefully, glancing sidelong at the door. "The person inside is...?"
"Ah. My mom."
With that, Jung-seo left it there and quickly moved off. Rembrary had suspected as much from the moment Jung-seo went into the hospital room alone—the man clearly disliked any topic touching on it.
As they rode the elevator down, Rembrary ventured carefully, "We are groupmates. Should I not pay my respects to her?"
They were teammates, after all, and although it was technically his duty, Jung-seo was also the one member who looked after Rembrary more attentively than anyone. If it was Jung-seo's mother, Rembrary had wanted to heal her himself.
But Jung-seo's answer was flat and final. "It's fine."
He said nothing further until they left the hospital. Is there some story behind it?
Jung-seo finally spoke again about five minutes' walk from the hospital. "I'm done with my errand. What about you? Anywhere you want to go? I'll take you."
There was far more Rembrary wanted to ask, but he didn't press. Instead, he brought up the matter he'd been planning to pursue since before they'd left the dorm. "Are there no people here who slay demons? Or those who converse with gods?"
"...What?"
At Jung-seo's incredulous look, Rembrary was about to explain—that he'd already searched the internet but found it flooded with joke posts—when Jung-seo cut in first.
"Your memory back?"
The moment those words landed, Rembrary shot back in shock. "My memory?"
"You were investigating that stuff all over the place before you lost your memory too."
"I was?"
"Is that why you're asking? What, the two of you, you and Hye-gyeol—"
"With Hye-gyeol?"
Rembrary startled badly. That was something he'd never once considered.
Wearing a grave expression, Jung-seo warned the flustered Rembrary, "Occult being your hobby is your business. Just don't fall in with the weird side of it."
"The weird side?"
"You know there's been quiet word going around lately about some cult groups in that scene."