With a Gentle Smile
It had shown during the photo shoot too, but Jong-woo seemed utterly terrified of ghosts.
Rembrary reasoned with him, perfectly calm.
"But even if a real ghost did appear, you would hardly charge into the set to rescue me, would you not?"
"Uh... well, no, I guess not."
"Then go with Cathy."
Jong-woo stared at Rembrary as if he found him strangely puzzling.
"Now that I think about it, it was the same back when an extra shadow got caught on camera. You're weirdly unshakable about this stuff, aren't you?"
"I do have my moments."
Rembrary smiled serenely.
He was the High Priest, after all — as if he would ever fear a ghost.
No, to Rembrary, ghosts were simply one more variety of human.
Jong-woo hesitated, but in the end he went off after Cathy, grumbling the whole way about how he hoped they'd hire a new manager soon.
After about fifteen minutes alone in the waiting room, a staff member came by and called him over. Eun-seon followed with her camera, and partway down the corridor Yuli O joined them as well.
She shared something of Jong-woo's disposition, because her face had already gone pale.
"Man, I won't even go into a haunted house at an amusement park."
Her tiny mutter carried all the same. Her cameraman filmed her intently, but Yuli O didn't spare him so much as a glance.
So their relationship must have cooled since that whole thing with Cathy got exposed.
But it really was strange.
Cathy seemed plenty ambitious about making it big as an idol. Why on earth would he pull a stunt like this, knowing full well the cameras were on him at all times?
Granted, according to Cathy himself, he'd kissed her on a stairwell specifically to dodge the cameras — but still, it was odd. Odder still given his partner was a pro who had gone two full years without a single whisper of scandal. It wasn't even a case of sneaking around on dates and getting caught; this was carrying on a fling right in front of the lens...
Come to think of it, the whole thing had been strange from the start.
They're both young, I suppose. Maybe they simply got swept up in their feelings.
While Rembrary was mulling this over, the staff member stopped in front of a building with an atmosphere entirely different from the main studio. It stood apart from the studio where the Sing Survival stage was housed — a plain rectangular structure with a second building built inside it, like a box within a box.
"It was shut down fifteen years ago, but it was built way before that," a staff member explained when Yuli O let out an awed breath. "CG wasn't as seamless back then as it is now, you know. They went for practical realism."
Yuli O pulled a face on the verge of tears and asked, "There's a rumor that a ghost haunts this closed set. Is that the place over there?"
It was the same story Jong-woo had told him. Apparently it was fairly well-known in these circles, if even Yuli O had heard of it.
"Probably so."
The staff member smirked and said it teasingly. It was obviously a joke, but Yuli O was too frightened, eyes locked straight ahead, to notice the expression at all.
By the time they reached the front of the building, Yuli O's face had drained completely white.
And with good reason — there wasn't a single person moving anywhere around them. If this were an ordinary building standing outdoors, there would at least be sky overhead and some of nature's natural liveliness. But because it sat inside another building, even that was denied them.
"It's a two-story building. Inside, you'll find an envelope."
"An envelope?"
"Yes. Just bring it out with you."
At the mention of the envelope, Yuli O's expression finally settled somewhat. With the staff member — and naturally Eun-seon and Yuli O's cameraman as well — gone, she still looked tense, but better than before.
"If they're telling me to fetch an envelope, that means someone put an envelope there, right? Which means staff have already been through the place, which means it can't be completely cut off from human contact. Right?"
Hearing Yuli O mutter to herself, she was clearly dredging up every rational argument she could muster.
"Let's head in, then."
Yuli O took several deep breaths, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.
Rembrary followed behind her, thinking a thought that would have made Yuli O scream had she known it.
It would be fine by me if we did encounter an actual ghost. Anything that shows itself must have some capacity for awareness — then I might even ask it whether an exorcist is about.
Inside the set lay a space pitch-dark, without a single point of light.
From the moment the door opened, Yuli O began reciting a prayer at tremendous speed.
"LoveyouMomDadMungsilOppaYunaUnnieYuliIthinkI'mdoingsomethingcrazyrightnowMomMomMomthere'ssomethingoverthereI'mlosingmymindI'mscaredtodeath"
Rembrary, closing the door behind them, felt a chill run up his spine despite himself. She was the frightening one.
Still, whether it was thanks to her personal incantation, Yuli O pressed shakily forward despite her ashen face.
Every so often she would call out,
"Excuse me?"
"You're following behind me, right?"
"Yes."
"You're back there, right?"
"Yes."
"You're not a ghost, right?"
"Yes."
"Give me longer answers! All these little 'yes, yes, yes'es are scaring me!"
"Yes... I am following along nicely behind you. Also, we have moved perhaps five steps in total."
While answering, Rembrary scanned left and right. Like the exterior, the inside of the set was laid out as a house. They had gone a little past the entrance hall, he judged — hallway-style, but short, with walls closing off both sides. With almost no light, he felt his way along the wall with an outstretched hand.
Before long, the wall ended.
The living room around here, perhaps?
"Um, Woo Yeon-woo?"
"Back here."
"Couldn't you make some footstep sounds coming up behind me?"
"?"
"Hnnng, it's scarier when you trail along in total silence!"
"Very well."
Fortunately, before long a faint glow appeared — a green light, a red light — just enough to make out the shapes of objects, barely.
"Let's head over there and talk for a second."
Yuli O pointed a finger at the red glow. "We should figure out where we're even going to search."
Rembrary nodded, and the two walked toward the wall bathed in red light.
But the moment they drew near—
The doll hanging beside the red light snapped its eyes open and began laughing furiously.
"KYAAAAAAA!"
Yuli O whirled away screaming, and Rembrary clapped his hands over his ears. In that instant, terrified out of her wits, Yuli O smacked the doll aside and flung herself through the door of the room beside them.
Ought I not to follow her?
Flustered, Rembrary hurried after Yuli O. She seemed to have entered one of the rooms, and the moment she crossed the threshold she let out another enormous scream.
"AAAAAAAACK!"
Her scream had gotten even more realistic than the last one. Then she spun and bolted sideways, and wondering what on earth the matter was, Rembrary saw it: a cockroach that looked a good thirty times larger than the real thing, wriggling its arms and legs.
This time Rembrary flinched too, and ran.
Yuli O, careening without any regard for her own safety, didn't stop until she slammed into the counter table.
"Ugh."
"Woo Yeon-woo?"
"Right here."
When Rembrary answered in a low voice, Yuli O turned around and pleaded, "You have to stay right behind me."
"I will."
Yuli O hesitated, then asked, "So where do you think the letter is?"
"No idea. I ran in blindly without looking for anything."
"Do you think... we're supposed to check inside the drawers too, and all that?"
"No idea."
"Hnnng."
Yuli O made a sound close to a wail. "I really, really hate this."
Even Yuli O's whining was unbearably adorable, befitting a top-tier idol.
Watching from the control room, PD Kim Mu-rok found his own hand hovering in the air, unconsciously sketching out a shot. When she whimpered in such weakness, the person standing across from her was all but forced to comfort her — and however that comfort took shape, he intended to drown it in pink heart effects. His mouth had already split into a grin.
Until now, Yuli O had done nothing but run herself ragged while Woo Yeon-woo trailed behind her with an easy smile, leaving nothing to work with at all.
Contrary to his expectations, however, the Woo Yeon-woo on screen spoke with exactly the same easy smile as ever.
"It's all right. I don't really sense anything strange in here."
It was a statement with something unsettling lurking in it. And not remotely the sort of line that could be spun into the romance Kim Mu-rok had been hoping for.
"Strange... energy?"
Perhaps thinking the same thing, Yuli O asked in a slightly trembling voice, "What do you mean, strange energy?"
"Ghosts and spirits, that sort of thing."
"...You can tell that kind of thing?"
Woo Yeon-woo smiled gently and dodged the question.
Watching the monitor, an AD clicked her tongue. "This isn't turning into romance — it's turning into the opening scene of a horror movie?"
Another staffer snorted. "Tell me about it. The two of them aren't even stepping within a meter of each other."
PD Kim Mu-rok scowled and grumbled. "Any other idol would've dropped a cool line right there. Woo Yeon-woo just... doesn't do it."
This was a punishment segment they'd pushed through fully prepared for Yuli O's fans to protest. If it went on like this, what exactly had been the point of the punishment?
That was when it happened.
Eun-seon, who had been watching the screens quietly, said through gritted teeth, "Hh. It's like last time."
The cameraman for Yuli O, standing beside her, asked with mild interest, "Last time?"
"I accompanied him on a photo shoot once. That's when something weird got captured in Woo Yeon-woo's shadow."
"Something weird?"
"It hasn't been published yet, so you wouldn't know — but his shadow. In Woo Yeon-woo's photos, there was this extra shadow stuck to his, like another person's silhouette."
PD Kim Mu-rok, who had been quietly studying the footage, pricked up his ears and turned to Eun-seon. "Seriously?"
"Yes."
"It wasn't the lighting?"
"No. It wasn't just one or two shots, either — multiple ones. Even after they changed the lighting setup."
"Ah — now that you mention it, there was a scene like that."
Digging back through his memory, Kim Mu-rok nodded. It had nothing to do with Sing Survival, and it didn't match the image he wanted to build for Woo Yeon-woo either, so it had been among the footage he'd simply cut.
"Find the dates and records from that shoot and bring them to me."
"Yes, sir."
Having given Eun-seon her orders, PD Kim Mu-rok spoke into his microphone, sending a signal to the ghost actors standing by inside the set.
"Looks like Yuli O and Woo Yeon-woo aren't scared of anything, so really bring it to them. Scare them until they're clinging to each other and shaking."
Yuli O had screamed her fair share, but somehow the two of them finished their sweep, and all that remained were the second floor and the bathroom. They decided to try the bathroom first and groped their way back along the path they'd come.
And just as they were about to open the bathroom door—
Someone with their hair come loose charged at them, shrieking "KAAAAAH!" like a crow.
The startled Yuli O staggered back bellowing "UWOOOOOCK!" — a scream a full octave deeper — and in the same breath, someone with chunks of flesh torn from their face came lurching down the stairs, gurgling horribly.
"Ah! Aagh! Aagh! What the hell!"
Almost in the same instant, Yuli O spat out a raw curse, punched the figure descending the stairs square in the face, and bolted forward.
The charging actor toppled over sideways next to Rembrary and spewed the same curse all over again.
"Ugh! Damn it!"
Ah, it's makeup.
Clicking his tongue, Rembrary moved to follow Yuli O up the stairs. The man would surely pick himself back up and carry on playing ghost, he assumed.
But the man kept groaning and cursing where he lay.
Rembrary stopped mid-step and glanced down. Under the dim lighting, the man who had been playing ghost was clutching his fingers and whimpering.
Did he break them?
Alarmed, Rembrary drew closer — the fingers were bent at an unnatural angle. Clicking his tongue again, he debated a moment, then descended the stairs. He reached out and took hold of the man's crooked fingers.
"GYAAAAH!"
"Does it hurt?"
To put the man at ease, Rembrary smiled — deliberately, radiantly kind — and soothed him.
"Bear with it just a little. I shall soon make it stop hurting."