The Call Came
The thread itself was nothing more than a brief exchange, and neither the person who asked nor the people who answered seemed to take it seriously.
Even when a staff member from the CF shoot remarked that Woo Yeon-woo's skin was the most astonishing thing he'd ever seen—not a single blemish on it—the comment didn't immediately become a hot topic.
But little by little, the number of people quietly keeping an eye on that detail began to grow.
Rembrary received a call from an unknown number two days after the CF first aired.
The revelation of the two idols' competing concepts and their elimination penalties had sent the internet into a full-blown frenzy, and Oh Jung-shin's fans were burning with pure fanatical zeal.
Rembrary, meanwhile, had no schedule today. He was sitting comfortably with a dictionary open in his lap. Jong-woo had taken Cathy off to the Sing Survival set, and in the living room, Sa Gam-jae—freshly returned from his business trip—and the remaining members were huddled shoulder to shoulder watching a horror film.
It was a horror movie with a grim reaper for a protagonist, which Sa Gam-jae had purchased online in advance.
Has the man no sense of propriety, no shame, nothing at all? Rembrary, who knew exactly what Sa Gam-jae was, found it utterly absurd—but Sa Gam-jae himself seemed genuinely delighted that he and his kind had made it into a story, and had stoutly ensured that the movie he bought was the one playing on the TV.
The moment the film started, the members who had been idly bored drifted over one by one. And just like that, the living room turned into an impromptu DVD screening room—
"Why dost thou call a name three times before taking them, Gamjae?"
"In case of confusion."
"Confusion on whose part? The caller's, or the one who hears?"
"Both."
"And what if, having been called three times, I declare it is not my name, Gamjae?"
"I would return once to confirm. When I came back again and you knew you'd been caught lying, fraud charges would be added to the tally."
"And what if one did away with the grim reaper before the third call was finished, Gamjae?"
"Are you threatening me right now?"
Just as Rembrary and Sa Gam-jae were trading this utterly pointless back-and-forth, the phone Rembrary had set beside him began to buzz and ring.
"I only asked out of curiosity. Curiosity, nothing more."
Rembrary answered with a crooked grin, then flipped the phone open with a careless hand and raised it to his ear.
"I have answered. Who is this?"
- …
But no sound came through from the other end of the line. There were faint voices drifting about, as though people were passing by on the caller's side—yet the person holding the phone said nothing at all.
"Who is this?"
Only when Rembrary asked again did a quiet, level voice finally come through.
- This is Yeon-woo's phone, isn't it?
"It is. That would be me."
Rembrary answered absently, his eyes flicking between the black-robed grim reaper on the TV screen and Sa Gam-jae in his black suit.
He pointed a finger at Sa Gam-jae's clothing and mouthed silently, 'Uniform? Work clothes?'
While he was doing that, the person on the other end spoke slowly.
- It's me, Yeon-woo.
The voice sounded half glad, half worried.
- Your brother.
There were far too many people in this world calling themselves his "hyung," so Rembrary didn't immediately grasp which brother this might be.
To check, he pulled the phone a little away from his ear and looked at the name saved on the screen.
Astonishingly, the screen displayed nothing but the word "Brother."
'My blood brother?'
Flustered, Rembrary poked Jungseo beside him, and Jungseo informed him in a whisper, "Your actual brother. Your real, blood brother."
Rembrary pressed the phone back to his ear and slipped out of the living room, which was noisy with the movie.
"My brother, you say?"
Come to think of it, when Woo Yeon-woo's mother had come looking for him back in that place called America, the subject of a brother had come up once.
It hadn't been a long conversation—just a passing "Do you remember your father and your brother?"—and less than a day later, Rembrary had completely forgotten this so-called brother existed.
On the day Yeon-woo lost his memories and yielded his body to Rembrary, Yeon-woo's father had collapsed with a gunshot wound. The brother, by contrast, had nothing about him that stuck in the memory.
At the time, Rembrary's nerves had been stretched to breaking over hunting down the blackmailer, and he simply hadn't had the leisure to keep tabs on a featureless brother as well.
"Brother. I know not whether word has reached thee, but I have lost my memories."
He knew the family had already been given an explanation of the situation, so he made certain to establish this fact first.
- Yeah. Mom told me. Are you okay?
"My body is fine. It is only the memories that are gone."
- I should have called sooner, sorry. Something urgent came up, and I was somewhere my phone couldn't get a signal.
"There are places such as that?"
- Yeah. A pretty far-off country.
The brother answered matter-of-factly.
Rembrary, phone in hand, rolled his eyes awkwardly this way and that. He'd wandered out with the phone on pure impulse, and now that it had come to this, he had no idea what he was supposed to say to this "brother."
That same uncomfortable feeling he'd had when facing Yeon-woo's mother welled up again.
Rembrary, who had dangled Woo Yeon-woo's soul from the frayed edge of a shadow and taken possession of his body, carried a faint guilt toward Yeon-woo's family. It wasn't his fault, but the fact remained that because of him, their precious son was currently shackled to an evil spirit.
Perhaps that was why. Whenever a conversation with Yeon-woo's family stretched on, he felt inexplicably burdened.
But if they came to see him, he would have to meet them. If they called, he would have to answer. Pressed down by this debt toward Yeon-woo, Rembrary sighed and asked:
"Then wherefore didst thou call?"
- Ah. Actually, I marathoned all those shows you were on.
"Is this meant as praise?"
- Huh? Oh, no. No, it's not—not that it's not praise, uh, yeah. You've got a real distinct thing going on. That. And you do a good bear impression.
Rembrary, who had never once had a sibling, rolled his eyes around again. What was one supposed to say at a time like this?
With anyone else, worshipping him would have been the natural order of things, and a simple "I see" would suffice—but faced with a blood brother, it was baffling to know what reaction would be proper.
Should he point out that he had never once done a bear impression? Thank him? Say that stating the obvious was rather embarrassing?
Fortunately, the other party kept talking.
- I saw that CF you shot recently too. The one under the waterfall where you, uh… wear nothing but pants and let the water hit your head.
"Ah. That product. It is fine work. Thou shouldst buy some too, Brother. Even standing beneath a waterfall, the stuff applied to the face did not wash away."
- Mm. Right…
The other party let the end of his sentence trail off ambiguously. Rembrary, once again out of things to say, stared blankly into empty air. Sensing the call dragging on, Jungseo cracked the door open and poked his face inside, mouthing, 'You okay?'
When Rembrary indicated he was fine, Jungseo closed the door again and withdrew.
Through all of it, the other party remained silent.
Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Rembrary was on the verge of telling him to call back later if he had nothing to say—
when the brother, who had been stewing for an eternity, forced the words out in a strained voice.
- I might be coming back to Korea soon. Want to meet up?
"What is there to hem and haw over for such a trifle? Of course that is fine."
Rembrary answered readily. He had already anticipated an invitation of some kind from the moment the man identified himself as his blood brother.
"Once the date is settled, send word by call or by letter. We shall arrange the day."
Rembrary spoke with a considerably lighter heart. He wanted nothing more than to end this awkward call and get back to the movie Sa Gam-jae was in. Earlier in the film, the grim reaper had called a name three times—and there had been three people in the scene sharing that exact same name. He was curious which of the three would follow the reaper away.
- The day after tomorrow. Is that okay?
The lighter heart darkened all over again the moment the date became concrete. He was awkward enough on the phone without seeing the man's face—how much worse would it be face to face? The thought struck him anew. And the day after tomorrow, no less. Far too soon.
But he couldn't bring himself to refuse, so he forced out an "That is fine"—at which the brother spoke up again.
- Would it be alright if we met at a swimming pool?
"…Pardon?"
"You're not just bumping into each other by chance at a pool—you're making an appointment to meet at a pool?"
After wrapping up the Sing Survival shoot and hauling Cathy home, Jong-woo made him repeat it three times, dumbfounded, when Rembrary mentioned the call with his blood brother.
"You're sure it was actually your real brother who called?"
When Rembrary showed him the call log, Jong-woo clicked his tongue.
"It's real. Man, your brother's a real piece of work."
"Did I ever care for swimming pools?"
"Beats me. Never asked, so I wouldn't know."
"Jungseo. Did I ever care for swimming pools?"
"Like I said before, we weren't exactly close back then."
Rembrary pressed the other members as well, but they all just said they didn't know.
They'd never once gone to a pool for fun, so they had no way of telling him.
Then again—it wasn't as though men desperately clawing their way out of obscurity had the leisure to go lounging around at swimming pools.
Aside from the scraps of free time they were occasionally given, nearly all of their daylight hours had been under manager Jong-woo's control, hadn't they?
"It's a weird spot for a touching family reunion, I'll give you that. But you brothers probably have some family thing of your own, right?"
"Do you think so?"
Rembrary tilted his head, then let out a sigh.
A swimming pool, of all places…
There had been swimming pools in the world he came from, too.
Most of the patrons were nobles. The water there was floated with every manner of bath oil, bath salt, and decorative flower—dozens of varieties of infusions alone.
The more eccentric establishments even had alcoves where one could read with one's feet dipped in the water, and staff pushing silver carts piled with plates of every food imaginable wandered about, doling out whatever the guest desired.
The nobles would slip into the water draped in thin robes, and flanking them, a paired set of beautiful male and female slaves—lavishly ornamented—would attend the water-frolicking nobles hand and foot.
When the nobles tired of splashing about, they would recline on wooden chairs and survey how other people's slaves had been decorated.
Studying how the slaves were adorned was, in effect, a silent contest of measuring just how wealthy and how powerful each rival was.
It was, how to put it… a rather blatant and vulgar arena of sociability.
And he was supposed to meet there?
"I suppose Yeon-woo's family must be an odd bunch. He rarely went anywhere with them."
Jong-woo nodded along absently.
"Right? But hey, Yeon-woo. Can you actually swim?"
"I can breathe even beneath the water."
"So that's a yes?"
"Walking and running pose me no difficulty, though I cannot speak to what ordinary folk call swimming."
Rembrary sighed.
"The swimming is not the problem."
"Then what is?"
"There are no slaves here, art thou not listening? Then whom am I to bring along to attend me?"
"…Attend you?"
"The one who brings food and sets it out when one tires of water play, and fans one with a great feather fan."
Jong-woo's face crumpled.
"What is this, a Roman emperor's pool? I knew you'd been watching movies, but what exactly have you been watching?"
Rembrary blinked blankly for a moment before letting out a soft "Ah" of realization.
He had just grasped that the swimming pools of this world might be rather different from those of his own.
Still, the broad strokes—frolicking in water—had to be roughly the same, surely.
Rembrary quickly picked up his phone and searched for what swimming pools were like here.
The atmosphere was surprisingly different. There was no assortment of scented waters, but there were all manner of strange play apparatuses, and while the pools hardly looked tranquil, they seemed cheerful and bright.
And then…
"Wh—why is everyone half-naked?!"
"Those are swimsuits."
"What yonder man is wearing looks nigh identical to the undergarments I have on at this very moment. Jongwoo! And they call THIS a swimsuit?"
"Different fabric."
"Is the shape not the same?!"
Rembrary's face went pale.
"Am I truly to wear this thing as well?"
And then the pale face crumpled entirely.
Compared to his original world, where one swam draped in a thin robe that fell all the way to the ankles, the swimwear of this world was scandalously immodest on men and women alike.
But immodest as the swimsuits were, the blood brother of Woo Yeon-woo—who insisted on arranging a meeting while everyone was dressed in such a state—was every bit as strange.