A Man From a World Built on Castes
Rembrary understood only a hundred percent of nothing the man was saying.
But he did catch the word advertisement.
The members, and even Jong-woo, had been known to belt out jingle after jingle about commercials from time to time. Film a commercial, they said, and the money started rolling in. They'd gushed about it being the very symbol of popularity — a shortcut to stardom — and envied anyone who landed one.
And now this man was offering to get him at least one such commercial?
Rembrary was tempted on the spot.
Then suspicion crept in just as fast. The commercial the members sang about like a hymn — something you could secure with a single conversation?
"I will consider it and contact you."
If I don't know something, ask Jong-woo.
Having already been on the receiving end of Jong-woo's would you please keep your mouth shut lectures more times than he could count, Rembrary answered this way and brought the conversation to a close.
The man in the suit, looking as if he'd lost nothing, simply turned on his heel and scurried back to the woman who seemed to float above everyone else.
Rembrary headed straight for the waiting room to find Jong-woo.
"Jong-woo! I have a question for thee!"
But Jong-woo had received an urgent call and returned to the company, leaving only Sa Gam-jae behind.
"Shall I answer in his stead?"
Rembrary considered it for a moment, then refused at once.
"Nay. That won't be necessary."
"That's literally what I'm here for. Ask away, it's fine."
Sa Gam-jae pressed him again and again, but Rembrary refused a second time.
"Thou art discomforting to me. I trust thee not. Nor do I find thee reliable."
Having unloaded those truths like a barrage of artillery, Rembrary tucked away the business card he'd received. Fortunately, before long the FD appeared to announce that Rembrary's turn had come and it was time for a simple rehearsal.
Rembrary grabbed his script and cue sheet, Sa Gam-jae gathered the water bottles, and they entered the studio together.
The atmosphere on set was unexpectedly bright. Maeng Woo-shin, dressed in his priest's vestments, was trading jokes with the actor playing his fellow clergyman, and a few of the surrounding staff were chuckling at the sight.
Rembrary waited until the staff called him, then made his way over toward Maeng Woo-shin's side. After running through his blocking a few times, the shoot began — and since he had no lines, Rembrary had no opportunity to blow a take.
The director, who had squared off against him again and again during the script reading, didn't touch Rembrary's side at all once filming started. He would only offer the occasional satisfied praise — "Good expression. Nice work. That's it, you look gentle." — and each time, the faces of the actors who had criticized the idol for riding on a free pass would twist. Rembrary didn't spare them so much as a glance.
And at last came the one scene in which Rembrary actually had a line to deliver.
He had expected it to be shot outdoors, but it turned out to be an interior set. Still, the set had been dressed up to look exactly like a real back alley, right down to a weathered streetlamp.
Rembrary stood holding an open umbrella as he received the director's instructions.
"Mr. Woo Yeon-woo, you stand over there, and once Deung-baek finishes his lines and collapses to his knees, prostrate on the ground, you walk over here. Tap, tap, tap."
"Like this?"
"Yeah, but tilt the umbrella so it covers your face a bit. No, no, that's too much now. Uuuuh! Yes, hold it just like that."
After a quick blocking check, Rembrary waited out of frame under the black prop umbrella. When the director gave the signal, artificial torrential rain began pouring down from the ceiling — the kind of rain that felt like it was being hurled at you.
Watching Maeng Woo-shin sink to the ground and wail, aaaargh, Rembrary thought himself fortunate to be holding an umbrella. As he stood there in a daze, Maeng Woo-shin finally let out his last line.
"There is no god! There isn't one!"
The FD waved both hands frantically at Rembrary. It was the signal to go in.
Umbrella in hand, Rembrary walked toward Maeng Woo-shin — neither slowly nor quickly, at a measured, even pace.
The director watched, tense, until he saw how remarkably steady Rembrary's steps were, and relief washed over him.
When rookie actors or idols performed, they often nailed the facial expressions and vocal tone while failing to move their limbs naturally. It was what happened when training focused on expressions and line delivery alone. Even rookies with exceptional acting chops made this mistake all the time.
Besides, unless you had a heart of steel, it was hard to walk toward your scene partner with cameras and staff ringed on all sides — at least until you got used to it.
But Rembrary paid no heed whatsoever to the cameras or the staff. He walked toward Maeng Woo-shin and Maeng Woo-shin alone.
He couldn't help it. He'd come to learn what a camera was by now, but to Rembrary it was still, at most, a black object.
People who fretted about cameras weren't afraid of the object itself — they were self-conscious about how they would appear on it. But Rembrary had lived his whole life in places without cameras, so naturally he felt no such awareness. He had marched and delivered speeches before the cheering of thousands; a staff of fewer than ten could hardly register as an audience either.
More than that, the sight of Maeng Woo-shin sobbing reminded Rembrary of the people he sometimes came across on his circuit of the land.
Rembrary drew up right in front of Maeng Woo-shin and tilted the umbrella up slightly. Then, bending at the waist, he extended one hand toward him.
Maeng Woo-shin looked up at him, trembling all over. That superb performance pulled Rembrary deeper into the moment as well.
Rembrary gazed down at him with pity, and smiled with benevolent grace.
"Sunbae. Why are you weeping here?"
In that instant, the perfectly fine streetlamp suddenly began to flicker.
Maeng Woo-shin's pupils, fixed on Rembrary, widened slightly.
The director swallowed dryly as he stared at the monitor, where the scene was being broadcast live. In the moment the streetlamp flickered, something black seemed to surface, just for an instant, over Rembrary's benevolent face.
Did I see that wrong?
Wondering at it, the director moved to call cut —
And then.
On the screen, Rembrary's eyes abruptly swung toward the camera.
A chill crawled down the director's spine, and he hastily shouted, "Cut!"
As the staff shut off the rain, Maeng Woo-shin's manager came running and draped a huge beach towel over him.
"Oof, that's cold."
Winding the towel around himself, Maeng Woo-shin asked the director, "Do we have to do it again?"
Because the director hadn't called cut immediately after the line, there had been a slight pause — so it seemed Maeng Woo-shin assumed it was an NG.
But the director reviewed the footage and shook his head. It wasn't the scene he'd intended, but it carried a spine-tingling chill, like the climax of a horror film. An actor looking into the camera was a taboo of drama — and with that taboo broken, the terror felt as if it had lunged right up to the screen. And then, timed perfectly, the streetlamp flickering for no reason at all.
"Whew."
The director shivered, then asked Rembrary, who was folding the umbrella to hand back to a staffer, "Did you do that on purpose just now?"
"Do what?"
"You know. Look into the camera."
"Did I look into the camera?"
"......"
The director swallowed dryly and stared at him. Then a staffer nearby laughed, taking it as a joke, and the director laughed along before he could help himself.
Only three people weren't laughing.
Rembrary, who truly had never looked at the camera.
Maeng Woo-shin, who had been right there and seen Rembrary looking not at the camera, but up at the top of the streetlamp.
And Sa Gam-jae, who had been watching Rembrary intently from a distance the whole time.
Those three, and no one else.
The reason Rembrary had looked up at the streetlamp mid-shoot was simple: he'd felt a strange energy squirming in the direction of his own shadow, and then that sinister sensation had slithered straight across the streetlamp.
Rembrary had stared at his own shadow the entire ride back to the dorm, but it had settled down again, still and quiet.
The last time, too, something went wrong during a shoot.
Could it be that his shadow throwing a fit during every filming had something to do with the environment? He turned the thought over, but no answer came, and by the time he finished thinking, the car had arrived at the dorm.
Once home, Rembrary set the matter aside for later and told Jungseo about the business card he'd received that day.
"A business card? An advertisement?"
Jungseo didn't catch on right away either.
"Here it is."
But the moment he saw the card Rembrary held out, his face hardened and he gave his advice in clipped, absolute terms.
"No. Absolutely do not contact them."
"What did he mean by his words, thinkest thou? Might he have wished to become my believer?"
At Rembrary's guileless question, Jungseo let out a sigh and explained.
"He was asking if you're willing to take a sponsor."
"A sponsor?"
"Not a proper sponsor. The other kind."
"What manner of thing is that?"
"It means if you eat meals with him and, you know... keep him company, entertain him, he'll help you make it big as a celebrity."
Rembrary grew only more puzzled at Jungseo's explanation.
"Ahh. He wishes to be entertained? That much I could surely do, could I not?"
Jungseo jolted and shouted.
"No!"
"Wherefore not?"
"It's not about entertaining him. It's, well. That is..."
"That?"
Cornered, Jungseo scratched the bridge of his nose. Rembrary was, of course, a grown man — under normal circumstances he wouldn't have needed any of this spelled out — but he had no memory of such things now. Facing someone so utterly ignorant made Jungseo cautious about how to phrase it.
But Taein, who was nowhere near as considerate as Jungseo, walked past with a glass of juice in hand and said it outright, as if to say he'd heard every kind of nonsense under the sun.
"He's not some preschooler, why can't you just say it? Night games. It's about night games. Take a sponsor, and you might end up sleeping with him — that's what they're talking about."
Rembrary, less ignorant than Jungseo had assumed, caught on immediately.
"Ah. Thou speakest of the act of procreation, for the purpose of producing descendants?"
"...Producing descendants probably isn't the goal, but yeah, that's the idea. Depending on the situation, they might not demand it go that far. I've heard there are cases where they just call someone out to a drinking party or a dinner for show — something to flaunt in public."
Rembrary shook his head at Jungseo's explanation.
"That would be troubling indeed. I cannot engage in the act of procreation."
Marriage was forbidden. Courtship was forbidden. And now he was to perform the act of procreation in exchange for payment? As a priest, that was utterly beyond the pale.
Granted, if he accepted the offer and rose to success that much faster, he could expose Maeng Woo-shin's cult that much sooner as well. But no matter how quickly it might bring him success, it simply would not do.
Then, before long, a fine idea struck Rembrary, and he announced it to the members, who had clustered around, intrigued by the topic.
"But you lot may do it freely!"
Taein's face scrunched up.
"What?"
"I cannot, but should there be any among you who objects not, then go forth and do it."
The atmosphere froze over in an instant.
Unable to grasp why the mood had turned so awkward, Rembrary looked to Jungseo in flustered confusion.
In the world Rembrary came from, a colossal wall called the caste system stood before everyone, so it was not uncommon for lowborn commoners with lofty ambitions to become the lovers of nobles in order to climb over that wall. Such people had been numerous — men and women alike — and many of them would seize the chance if it came.
If any of you object not, then do it — Rembrary's suggestion was the natural product of the values of that world.
But to the members, who knew nothing of that, his words sounded exactly like my body is the only one that matters.
Only Jungseo thought that Rembrary's remark must be ignorance talking — nonsense born of simply not knowing.
Rembrary, whose values were different but who wasn't entirely oblivious, awkwardly placed the business card on the table and corrected himself.
"It was a jest."
And yet, in the small hours of that night —
While everyone lay asleep, a bedroom door eased open, and one of them slipped out into the kitchen, phone in hand.