Who Are You
The day had come to meet Woo Yeon-woo's brother.
"Gam-jae. You go with Yeon-woo."
Jong-woo was apparently too uneasy to send Rembrary anywhere alone, so he went out of his way to attach Sa Gam-jae to his side.
"Why must I go with Gam-jae again? Am I not capable of going by myself?"
Rembrary protested, but Jong-woo had no intention of letting Rembrary loose in a crowded place unattended.
"Gam-jae. You go with him. No arguments."
"Understood."
Sa Gam-jae answered flatly. For someone who had caused trouble after trouble, he carried himself as though he were some kind of Doberman on duty.
"Oblivious as ever, are we, Gam-jae?"
Rembrary grumbled, but Sa Gam-jae silently picked up the car keys.
The truth was, Sa Gam-jae could hardly defy Jong-woo's order. Since this wasn't his real job, getting fired here wouldn't put food on the table — but Yeomra had commanded him to stay near Woo Yeon-woo, both to protect and to surveil him. Given the peculiar nature of his profession, manager was the ideal position for staying glued to an idol's side.
Lately, however, tending to his actual duties had earned him plenty of dirty looks at the office. On a day like this, with nothing to do with his real work, he was more than willing to oblige his senior Jong-woo. Besides, trailing after Woo Yeon-woo did him some good too.
And so Rembrary, Sa Gam-jae in tow, headed for the pool where the meeting had been arranged.
It was a pool inside a hotel. Woo Yeon-woo's brother had said he was staying at that very hotel, so why not meet there?
The hotel pool was nearly deserted on a weekday afternoon, so even a celebrity could come and go quietly — or so the pitch went.
"Would you call this a small crowd, Gam-jae?"
"I only visit human pools when my duties require it."
Contrary to Woo Yeon-woo's brother's bold claim that the place would be empty, quite a few people had shown up. It wasn't packed, exactly, but it was far from the quiet atmosphere he'd promised.
Rembrary scanned the interior of the pool and clicked his tongue.
"And why, pray tell, is Woo Yeon-woo wearing a swimsuit when he complained they were so immodest?"
"Everyone else is half-naked. Would it not be stranger for me alone to be wrapped up like a mummy?"
"You adapt to any situation remarkably fast, don't you?"
"And you — is it fitting for a Grim Reaper to dress so immodestly?"
"I only need to match the black dress code."
Rembrary nagged him about his inexplicable obsession with the color black while glancing around in search of Woo Yeon-woo's brother.
As he did, Sa Gam-jae pointed at a man lying on a sunbed.
"That should be him."
"How can you tell? Is that some power of the Grim Reapers?"
"It's written all over his face. They look alike."
Now that Sa Gam-jae mentioned it, the man did indeed have a face that strongly resembled Woo Yeon-woo's.
"What in the world did Woo Yeon-woo's parents eat to birth children with faces like these? Neither son looks a thing like them!"
"I share the sentiment. But you might refrain from saying that in front of others."
"Am I too honest, then?"
"You sound like an insolent brat."
Sa Gam-jae's blunt assessment stung a little, but Rembrary forced a smile onto his face and approached the man on the sunbed.
As he walked over, Sa Gam-jae offered a brief warning.
"This Woo Yeon-woo fellow has something unsettling about him. Better be careful."
"What?"
Before Rembrary could ask what he meant —
The man on the sunbed, who had been on a call, spotted them and immediately hung up, sitting up.
Up close, the resemblance to Woo Yeon-woo was even stronger.
Rembrary, unable to press Sa Gam-jae about his cryptic remark, plastered the smile back on and called out to the man.
"You're Woo Sung-woo, yes?"
The man gave a nod and clapped Rembrary casually on the shoulder.
"So you really did lose your memory."
It seemed this was indeed Woo Yeon-woo's brother. Rembrary nodded, stood there half-crouched and awkward, then laughed stiffly.
"Ah. Yeah."
For a moment, the two of them simply stood there, staring at each other in silence.
The same awkwardness he'd felt during their phone call came rushing back. Rembrary scratched his forehead, unsure what else to do.
How long did that go on? mercifully, Woo Sung-woo spoke first.
"I heard you lost your memory."
"Yes, so I'm told. I'd heard once that I had a brother, myself."
"I looked up every broadcast you've been on, and—"
"Good, good. I heard about that recently as well."
"You've changed a lot."
"I thank you. And… who was it again? Your father. No — our father. Is he recovering well from the gunshot? I heard his life was never in danger."
"He was about to call you, but the time difference kept getting in the way. You should give him a ring sometime."
"I shall."
But the conversation didn't last two minutes before it died again, and the awkward silence that had retreated came sprinting right back.
So Yeon-woo wasn't very close with his brother after all… Rembrary thought to himself, shooting Sa Gam-jae a look that begged for help.
Sa Gam-jae held up three fingers. It looked like some kind of signal — shall I call his name three times?
So Gam-jae is useless. Rembrary sighed and turned back to Woo Sung-woo.
Woo Sung-woo, apparently just as flummoxed by the situation, had been standing there blankly before finally making a suggestion.
"Wanna swim?"
What a truly peculiar human being.
While Rembrary slipped into the water without so much as a stretch —
Woo Sung-woo locked his phone away in a locker with a passcode, and only then walked toward the lane where Rembrary had already entered the pool.
But instead of getting in himself, Woo Sung-woo simply stood at the edge, quietly watching his younger brother splashing around in the water.
Just as Rembrary had looked at Woo Sung-woo and thought what an odd man, Woo Sung-woo was looking at his brother and thinking something was very wrong.
Just as Rembrary suspected, he and his brother had never been especially close. But they weren't on bad terms either.
After the car accident caused by his own carelessness when they were young, the brothers had grown distant — and Woo Sung-woo had been left carrying an enormous weight of guilt.
Because of that, when Yeon-woo announced he would stay in Korea alone and become a trainee at an entertainment agency, Woo Sung-woo personally stepped in to cover his living expenses and allowance, and blocked their parents' objections.
When Yeon-woo showed no results and their parents began worrying that he should quit before his face became any more public, it was Woo Sung-woo who talked them down.
Naturally, Yeon-woo — who stood in awe of his older brother — knew nothing of any of this.
The point was: Woo Sung-woo wasn't close with Yeon-woo, but he felt his responsibility as an older brother keenly enough.
And that emotionless sense of duty gave Woo Sung-woo a certain clarity of judgment.
That kid has changed.
Woo Sung-woo was bewildered.
First, he'd been stunned to hear his brother had lost his memory. Then, watching his behavior after the memory loss, he'd been stunned a second time. And a third time, watching the commercial shoot.
That last one had genuinely made his blood run cold. The scar from the car accident along his side — gone, without a trace.
Ordinary people, seeing an old scar vanish, would simply find it curious and think nothing more of it. Surgery must have removed it, or makeup covered it up, they'd assume.
But Woo Sung-woo knew that the world was full of strange and uncanny things.
The moment he learned that his brother had 'lost his memory, changed his personality, and lost a massive scar,' his mind went straight to the youkai — the monsters that killed people and wore their skins. And there was more than one kind.
Online, everyone carried on as a matter of course — 'it's makeup, it's contouring, it's Photoshop' — but Woo Sung-woo hadn't been able to rest until he saw it with his own eyes.
So he'd booked a ticket on the spot and flown in on the red-eye, and he'd deliberately suggested meeting at a swimming pool. At a pool, a youkai or demon couldn't drape itself in clothes to hide its aura — and the scar would be immediately visible.
Fortunately, looking at his brother in the flesh, he sensed no youkai aura.
But the side exposed so plainly by the swimsuit was completely free of scarring. It had vanished so seamlessly that surgery couldn't possibly explain it.
And then—
"Whoa, that guy swims so weird."
"How is he even doing that?"
"Isn't he just flapping his feet around in the water?"
Woo Sung-woo, lost in thought, snapped back to himself at the voices around him and looked up.
Rembrary was standing dead still in the deep end of the pool. Half his body above the surface, half below.
A mermaid?
As Woo Sung-woo stared wide-eyed, the man who had come with his brother hurried over and yanked him toward the deeper end of the pool.
He waited a moment — and in the blink of an eye, Rembrary surfaced all the way over there, impossibly far away.
"Huh? Isn't that guy Woo Yeon-woo?"
"Oh my god, it is!"
The moment his figure caught their eye, people who'd been minding their own business began recognizing Rembrary and whispering among themselves.
Woo Sung-woo pressed a hand to his forehead.
Suspicious, definitely. No — not merely suspicious. Utterly bizarre.
Why does the man propose swimming together, then stand there looking so sheepish?
Rembrary, who had swallowed a mouthful of water when Sa Gam-jae yanked him away so abruptly, was rubbing his stinging throat when he noticed that Woo Sung-woo still hadn't entered the pool.
Not only had he not come in — Woo Sung-woo was standing rooted in one spot, almost intimidatingly so.
Standing there like that in such an immodest swimsuit made it all the more unsettling.
Rembrary clicked his tongue, shook his head, and gripped the ladder to climb out of the water.
If the man has no intention of swimming, might as well share a meal and send him on his way.
"Woo Sung-woo."
Walking over to where he stood, Rembrary poked the stock-still man's arm with the tip of his finger.
"I am hungry. Let us go eat. Buy me pizza."
But something was off. As if he'd pressed a broken button, Woo Sung-woo's expression warped in an instant.
Rembrary flinched, wondering if pizza was terribly expensive.
The agency always fed him nothing but chicken breast and salads, so he'd asked for the pizza he'd seen in TV commercials. Was it really such a costly dish that it would make the man scowl that fiercely?
"Beef would be acceptable as well."
Rembrary hastily backpedaled.
But Woo Sung-woo's expression did not soften.
He stared at Rembrary with a grave face, then — mindful of the eyes around them — motioned for him to follow and walked ahead.
Woo Sung-woo strode along without so much as a glance back, stopping only when he reached the lockers. No one was around.
When Rembrary came up beside him, Woo Sung-woo seized his shoulder hard enough to bruise, his face twisted into a ferocious scowl, and demanded:
"Who are you? Where's my brother?"
— End of < 86. Who Are You> —