I Saved a Person
Oh Jung-shin was the prince. Not the slave.
It rankled a little, but Rembrary let it pass.
That is, until he checked what role he had been assigned — and his eyebrows shot up on their own.
He was Dwarf No. 6.
A supporting role. And not even a supporting role with a single line of song.
Being a supporting character was no great grievance in itself — but as a human being, the page count was simply insulting. Had he even been given lines? He flipped back through the script to check, and his brow creased of its own accord.
"What's wrong?"
Director Oh Ki-yong had been circulating among the idols, confirming lines and offering advice. Spotting Rembrary's expression, he walked over and asked, "Anything you don't understand?"
"Yes."
"Like what? I'll explain."
"Why am I a supporting role?"
It was a question Rembrary asked in all sincerity, but to everyone else's ears it sounded unbearably arrogant.
The room went quiet.
Even Director Oh Ki-yong laughed awkwardly.
"What, you want to be the lead?"
Plenty of idols harbored ambitions of playing the lead, but none had ever come right out and asked. He was caught off guard for a moment.
"Yes."
At Rembrary's unflinching answer, the director laughed even more awkwardly. "Ha ha. Which role were you hoping for?"
Oh Jung-shin, who had been watching the exchange, clicked his tongue. There was only one male lead — the prince — so it was a foregone conclusion the man would ask for his role. Or so he assumed.
Director Oh Ki-yong thought much the same. So it really is true that Yeon-woo and Oh Jung-shin don't get along. The lead is just an excuse — what he actually wants is to steal Jung-shin's part, isn't it?
"The queen, or the princess."
He was wrong.
The actress playing the princess and the one playing the queen, who had been watching the whole thing with great interest, turned wide eyes on Rembrary.
Director Oh Ki-yong's smile grew more strained still.
If the man had asked for the prince, he could have refused outright. But a request for the princess left him with no clear way to respond.
"We do have a prince, and a huntsman too. Why on earth would you want the queen or the princess…?"
"They have the most lines, don't they?"
"…If you take the princess role, there's a kiss scene with the prince. Will that be all right?"
"I won't be fooled. There is no such scene."
Director Oh Ki-yong gave a clipped ha. ha. ha. and jabbed a finger at the script. "Just learn your lines."
After he submitted his script,
Jong-woo collected Rembrary outside and ushered him into the van, asking anxiously, "You didn't cause any trouble, did you?"
"I worked very hard."
"You're serious?"
"Of course. I was dissatisfied with my role at first, but it all worked out in the end. The director even looked over my lines and praised me with a laugh."
"Really? He was actually praising you? You didn't mistake mockery for laughter?"
Rembrary frowned as he wiped down the van door. "Do you take me for a fool?"
Jong-woo wasn't remotely convinced, but he made himself accept it and asked again. "Still — what role could you possibly be so unhappy about?"
"Dwarf No. 6."
"That's fine, actually. Really earnest, good-hearted character. The exact opposite of you — so it might suit you? No pressure on you at all, either."
Rembrary already had more than enough buzz to spare. Ideally he'd have made a dazzling impression, but failing that, lying low for a while might not be the worst thing.
At Jong-woo's upbeat reasoning, Rembrary considered it briefly and was persuaded. "Hmm. That is true."
"Thank goodness."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You don't know the Snow White story, so I was worried something weird might've slipped into your script. But I looked it over again, and it doesn't seem like anyone did."
"Ah — there was no trouble. The synopsis was all laid out right there in the script."
Fully reassured, Jong-woo settled his hands on the wheel and pulled away calmly.
Meanwhile, Rembrary lounged comfortably in the van, mid-yawn —
The handprint!
Only now did he recall the mark that had clung to Im Yu-han's back.
And with that, his gaze drifted naturally to Sa Gam-jae, who sat thumbing busily away at his phone.
From time to time Gam-jae would hold his phone like this and work his thumbs furiously, and whenever Rembrary peered over to see what he was doing, the reaper would erase a person's name. He was writing a list. No doubt he was at it again today.
In any case, what mattered now was not Gam-jae's useless hobby but his suspicious nature.
Gam-jae seemed to possess some strange, unexplained abilities. It wouldn't hurt to ask him about the handprint — perhaps he would know something.
Having finished his calculations, Rembrary put on a subtly affectionate voice.
"Gam-jae."
Sa Gam-jae's moving fingers stopped. Only his eyes rolled over to look at Rembrary.
"Gam-jae."
"What is it?"
"You are a suspicious man."
"?"
"I saw a black handprint on someone's back."
A flicker of surprise crossed Sa Gam-jae's bored face.
"A black handprint? On someone's back?"
"Yes. Like so — as if ink had been applied to a palm and pressed there."
Rembrary made a quick motion of pressing both hands against the empty air.
"Do you happen to know what that might be?"
"Couldn't it be dust? Black dust."
Sa Gam-jae answered lightly.
But for all the lightness of his words, his face had darkened. It was the face of a man who plainly did not believe it was dust.
"You truly don't know what it is?"
"Whose back was it on?"
"Im Yu-han's. The one playing Yangheung, you know."
"I know who she is."
Then he muttered something to himself in a foreign language that was impossible to follow, his features twisting into a scowl. He fished an antiquated flip phone out of his pocket and began typing out a message to someone.
So he has no intention of answering me.
Rembrary stared blankly at the back of Sa Gam-jae's head, then took out his own phone.
Im Yu-han's number was saved in here somewhere. He'd never once texted her — too much bother —
Though if I text her out of nowhere, I suppose it will only be a nuisance to her as well.
Besides, asking did you happen to wash and change your clothes? was a rather absurd thing to say. It didn't seem as though Im Yu-han or her manager could even see the handprint. Rembrary deliberated a moment, then started with a simple greeting.
Huh?
Im Yu-han had been trading texts with a friend, a cigarette between her lips. At the sudden message she turned her head.
Nobody was there.
Well, of course there wasn't.
This outdoor terrace was a garden attached to her own apartment. Anyone coming here would have to pass through her bedroom first, and apart from her manager, she rarely invited people into her home.
You're hilarious.
Giggling, she held the phone in both hands, gripping the cigarette only with her lips, and began typing a reply to Rembrary.
A moment later, a message chimed in.
"Hm."
Im Yu-han tilted her head and laughed, baffled.
What was this? A signal that he was interested? But for a signal of interest, it was unsettlingly ominous.
She thought back to visiting San So-ra in the hospital yesterday.
They had talked about San So-ra and Woo Yeon-woo.
San So-ra, who knew Im Yu-han's personality and tastes inside and out, had noted that she'd taken a liking to Yeon-woo, but declared she'd given up after hearing the marriage rumor — then doubled over laughing.
Come to think of it, didn't Yeon-woo say something about San So-ra to his manager?
Something about her having a slightly unsettling quality to her — she'd heard remarks like that here and there too.
These days, the three hottest places Yeon-woo came up were entertainment communities, the news, and ghost-story forums. Apparently the ghost-story community treated him like a treasure trove, his fans were in an uproar expanding and repurposing everything he said.
So that's the image he gets, from casually tossing out remarks like that?
Im Yu-han recalled Yeon-woo once asking whether she used the same shampoo as her agency's dog, snorted, and ground her cigarette out in the ashtray.
Not that it's my place to worry about anyone else right now.
Lately, someone had been putting strange things in her mailbox, over and over.
The kind of things that, even with a good confession, would accomplish nothing — and that left the recipient feeling sick to receive.
Her apartment had burly professional security guards working around the clock in three shifts, and the CCTV coverage was so dense it left not a single blind spot.
And yet, every two or three days, someone had been tampering with her mailbox.
Who on earth would do something like that? Could it be someone in the building?
Im Yu-han turned away with a scowl — and flinched.
It was as if someone had slipped a chunk of ice between her clothes: a chill crawled down along her spine, tingling and deeply unpleasant.
She swallowed dryly.
What was that just now?
She couldn't say what it was, but she wanted to look behind her. She wanted to turn around and check.
And yet — perhaps because of that strange text from Yeon-woo just now — even turning around felt frightening.
After a moment's hesitation, she made herself walk, as if nothing were wrong, to the sofa and sat down.
Just then, her phone chimed.
She opened it quickly.
Her fingertips trembled; she pretended they didn't.
The message was from the friend she'd been texting all evening.
But the content was wrong.
Im Yu-han's eyes trembled. With shaking fingers, she scrolled up through the thread.
She and her friend had been planning a surprise party for a classmate who was getting married soon. Naturally, they weren't together right now.
The friend's last message before that had been 'Should I bring balloons or something? I saw these pretty sparkly ones.', and Im Yu-han had replied 'Yes please lol'.
There was no possible moment for a question like this to come up.
In that instant, it felt as though a hand had been laid on her back.
Phone clutched tight in both hands, Im Yu-han raised her head and looked at the television facing her.
In the dead-black screen, the room behind her was reflected like a mirror.
She barely stopped the scream from tearing out of her.
There, in the dark glass, behind her own seated reflection — stood a strange beast, upright on two legs.
Both of its hands rested on Im Yu-han's back as it lowered its head and stared, unblinking, at her phone.
Her legs buckled with the urge to bolt — but she understood instinctively. She must not let the beast know that she had noticed its existence.
Instead of screaming, Im Yu-han closed the window with her friend and opened the one with Woo Yeon-woo.
"Surely they're not broadcasting this script as written?"
"Why? Is it strange?"
"Your lines are the only weird ones. Did someone play a prank and give you a script full of nonsense?"
"…I wrote those lines myself, Jungseo."
"They stand out way too much, though?"
When the message arrived, Rembrary had been studying the Snow White script beside Jungseo, committing his lines to memory.
He set the script down on Jungseo's knee and checked his phone.
A message from Im Yu-han.
"Ah."
A groan escaped Rembrary's lips.
He had been waiting for her to reply that nothing was wrong, that she was fine — and instead she was asking him to come. Read one way, it looked like an invitation to visit; but the demand that he come at once made it certain that something had happened.
Rembrary sprang to his feet in haste.
Jungseo, mid-anguish over the script, looked up, rose to follow, and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Something has happened to Im Yu-han."
"Something like what?"
"That much, I cannot say."
Rembrary told Jungseo about the black palm print.
Jungseo already knew of his mysterious powers, so there was no harm in telling him.
"So you're going to her now?"
"One cannot be certain. If all is well, we need only return — but if it is not, the consequences would be grave."
"It's night out. I'm coming with you."
"Do you worry for me?"
"Im Yu-han is one of the most famous actresses in the country. Who knows where reporters might be staked out. And you're rising fast yourself these days — if a photo got taken of you visiting her place alone at night, it would be a field day for misunderstandings."
Jungseo went into his room, threw on a light jacket, and came back out with a hat, a mask, and both the Dear God script and the Snow White script in hand.
"Why bring the scripts?"
"Even if someone photographs us, we can say we went over for acting practice."
"Your words are wise."
The two of them hurried out of the dormitory and headed for the address Im Yu-han had texted them in the meantime.
"What floor is it?"
"It says the sixth floor—"
Stepping out of the taxi, Rembrary pointed a finger up toward the building as he spoke, and Jungseo looked up with him.
In that instant —
A person came plummeting down from above, at terrible speed.
Im Yu-han!
It was her. Rembrary bolted forward and caught her in his arms.
The momentum and her weight drove crushing force into his arms and collarbone — but the Divine Power that had surged out of him by pure reflex in the moment of danger healed both their bodies in the space of a breath.
Holding Im Yu-han, Rembrary looked up.
The jet-black beast was peering down at them — and the moment its eyes met Rembrary's, it scrambled away and fled inside.
Holy crap, no way. This is huge!
At that very moment, not far away, a gossip reporter stood gasping for breath, frantically checking his camera.
Did Woo Yeon-woo just save Im Yu-han from killing herself? That's what it looked like — clearly, that's what it looked like?
And in the opposite direction, not far away, Sa Gam-jae was placing a call to his superiors, asking questions.