A Curse Sung in Darkness

"Can you really eat all that, kid?"

"Han Yeo-reum is starving? Of course we're packing it up. Packing! This is exactly what's wrong with old men these days—nothing on their minds but themselves!"

"No, no! You can't say that! Our Pachehi team is a family. A family!"

Myeong Je-ha gazed quietly at Dokgo Min flaying Director Jjang alive, right there in the café directly across from the studio.

I knew bringing her along was the right call.

For a man so thoughtful and self-sacrificing, an eccentric egoist like Dokgo Min was the perfect match.

And with her eye for beauty, she'll be a help with the overall scene concepts, too.

Dokgo Min, having stacked up a mountain of bagels, extorted Director Jjang's card and swiped it without ceremony.

"Mm-hm! The cakes here are cute, too!"

Even after running the card, she stood glittering at the cakes in the display case.

Having in the space of a moment become the very self-absorbed old man of her tirade, Director Jjang sidled up beside Je-ha.

"Young people these days are terrifying, Je-ha…."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought her. I'll cancel the charge and pay with mine."

"No, no. I'm glad you did. I was stuck on something, banging my head against the same wall trying to think it through alone. It's not like I can't read that look of his—like he wants to see just how extraordinary the person Jegal Rok scouted really is…."

Under the bright café lights his face looked even more hollowed out. Gaunt was the only word for it.

"I've had a lot on my mind lately. Mmgh… no, forget it. What a sorry sight I am, moaning to a junior so much younger than me. Haha."

"Well, I like it. This scenario."

"Right? Right? The moment I read the original, the inspiration just hit me. It would be wonderful, truly, if I could put it onscreen…."

He swallowed, his face a tangle of tension and hope.

"If we pull it off, it's going to be one of the great scenes in TVM history. Yes."

"Who are you thinking of for Yeom-ga? She's every bit as important as Seo-ryeong, and I suspect the climax will hinge entirely on her."

"Exactly! That's why, instead of the safe Plan A I mentioned, Plan B has her unmasked in the final ritual scene. Episodes one through fifteen will have applied the pressure for us."

Plan A. The ideal scenario Han Yeo-reum currently had memorized placed a wooden Hahoe mask over the shaman Yeom-ga's face.

It was a device meant to embody the urge to laugh—the moment her long-cherished wish was finally granted. Because Yeom-ga had lost her smile from the very instant she offered up even her own child as a sacrifice.

"You must have felt it too, Je-ha. In Plan B's final scene, if Yeom-ga wears the mask, the spotlight goes entirely to Seo-ryeong. It's the contrast—Yeom-ga, all the more chilling for having no emotion at all, against Seo-ryeong pouring her heart out."

As it happened, Je-ha knew exactly one person who would want to play Yeom-ga. He smiled.

"Director, could I have a copy of the scenario as well? Plan B."

"Of course, there's plenty—but why?"

"There's someone I'd like to show it to. Someone perfect for Yeom-ga. The scenario is so good it would almost be a waste to go with the safe Plan A."

"Hmm… now that really is a dilemma. My greed just keeps growing."

Director Jjang swept a hand down his sallow face. He was visibly caught between his own ambition and how dearly he valued his actor.

"Old man! Let's go!"

"…Kid? What is all that behind you?"

"Let's go see Han Yeo-reum, go go~."

"Kid? Kid!"

By then Dokgo Min was hauling a tower of packaged bread as tall as herself, marching out of the café without so much as a backward glance.

Ding-a-ling—.

The bell above the café door rang out, unusually light and clear.

Director Jjang divided the heavy bread bag between his two hands. Somehow the weight of what sat on his heart felt heavier than the bread itself.

What am I doing, getting swept along like this… letting myself hope again.

Memorizing every line in thirty minutes was remarkable enough on its own. The final scene was the moment Seo-ryeong staked her entire life on.

Her love-hate for Yeom-ga. Her guilt toward Jeong-an. Her love for Myeong-do. Her pity for the world he meant to protect. Her fury at herself for clinging to life where once she had calmly chosen death. Her grief for all the dead she had left behind.

Weaving all of those feelings into those long, punishing lines of dialogue…

It was acting that even veterans would struggle to carry.

But she wants to do it. So as a courtesy, I'll watch her once—and then insist on Plan A.

Splitting the scene of erupting rage with a proper Yeom-ga would surely be the less burdensome road.

With that resolution, Director Jjang pushed open the studio door.

"Yeo-reum~. Did the scenario read well?"

"Yes."

Something was off, though. The corners of Yeo-reum's eyes were rimmed red. She regarded the director with a serenity far cooler and calmer than before.

"Just run through it like a table read. Shall we begin?"

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"No. That's all right."

Yeo-reum shut the scenario in her hands with a decisive thwap and laid it on the table.

"I've memorized all of it."

It was a monologue that stretched across page after page. Memorizing it in thirty minutes was astonishing enough—but there was not a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.

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"Director, could you turn off the lights?"

"Uh— sure, with the lights out? All right, going dark."

As Yeo-reum asked, Director Jjang flipped the switch.

Click—.

Before the light had even finished dying, darkness flooded the studio. Only the breathing of four people sounded, at odd, intermittent intervals.

Cleaving the silence, Yeo-reum's voice rang out.

"Thou wretch, Yeom-ga… the most shameless creature this world shall never see twice…."

A sinister aura hung faintly in the air, barely perceptible.

Yeo-reum was performing—truly performing. This was no script reading.

"Bound in the iron shackle, I shall now reckon every sin thou hast committed."

A voice trembling between dread and fury, and yet perfect diction, and an atmosphere of sheer frost.

In that moment, Director Jjang had the illusion that he had become part of the ritual itself.

As though a real shaman had received her spirit, Yeo-reum began to sing. That voice with no clear high or low was unbearably, endlessly eerie.

At the tip of his nose, the damp smell of fresh earth mingled with blood-iron, ringing through his skull.

At some point, even the sound of the others' breathing had vanished from the room.

They had forgotten to breathe. As though the darkness had swallowed everything whole, the three of them sat frozen where they were.

And above all, what overwhelmed Director Jjang was Yeo-reum's staging.

One moment a child's voice, the next an old man's, the next a grown man's. Again and again, Yeo-reum cursed Yeom-ga.

Countless vengeful spirits seemed to linger just beyond that darkness.

…What is this…?

Director Jjang remained frozen in place until the monologue finally ended.

Thump— thump— thump—.

His heart was pounding. The back of his neck prickled with electricity. The ambition he had buried so carefully began to rise, smoldering like smoke.

Even if the weight of it crushed him—even if he could hardly breathe—the desire to direct the single greatest scene of his life made his head swim.

Was that really Yeo-reum, standing there in the dark? He had begun to doubt even that.

Click—.

Myeong Je-ha reached for the switch. Light flooded the space in an instant.

And still, no one opened their mouth. As if they had all forgotten how to speak.

"Yeo-reum…."

Only after a long while did Director Jjang stammer out her name.

"That— just now, I mean—"

He had a hundred questions. How she had memorized the lines so fast, where on earth she had learned to curse someone like a song, how any human being performed acting like that. But Director Jjang pushed all of it aside and asked the thing that had chilled him most.

"Just now—that—that voice. What was that?"

Yeo-reum answered calmly. As if it were nothing at all.

"The vengeful spirits who lost their lives to Yeom-ga over the years came to the ritual too, you see. The musicians are being possessed along with everyone else. One by one the spirits fall, and each one that remains takes Seo-ryeong's body in turn to lay her curse upon Yeom-ga—or so I imagined."

As though such an interpretation were simply obvious.

"…."

Pounding Director Jjang on the shoulder where he stood rooted, Dokgo Min declared:

"What did I tell you—never doubt the eye of the genius Dokgo Min."

"So she was right… the kid was right after all…."

"You're not some desk clerk—why are you obsessing over stability? If you're an artist, you need the spine to refuse to compromise!"

"What the…?"

Director Gong—the Chungmuro civil servant—was reviewing the rough cut of Faster Than the Law when an inexplicable feeling made him knead the back of his neck.

"What's wrong, Director?"

"Feels like somebody just badmouthed me… Ah. I knew it. I should have bowed properly at the gosa ceremony. The fact that my knees hurt, that was the problem…."

"There he goes again."

The editor, mouse in hand across the desk from Director Gong, shook her head.

"We'll clear the break-even point easily, I keep telling you. Okay—one last time, here's why it'll succeed. And no more after this."

"Mm…."

The editor, long practiced at humoring the sulking director, recited the reasons Faster Than the Law was destined to do well.

"JC picked a release date that lands square in summer, right? Jegal Rok himself is coming to the rough-cut screening, even. Manager Ma's producing merchandise, right? Yoon Hyun-jo and Gwak Cheol-sik's acting is incredible, right? And the edit is mine, and it's god-tier, right? There is no way this flops."

It was a speech he'd heard four times a day since stepping into the edit suite. Somehow even that wasn't enough for Director Gong, who requested further reasons.

"It gets stale, hearing the same lines over and over…."

"Ha! Honestly, you!"

His grip tightened on the mouse, but the editor forced a deep breath.

"And hey, look—if we just run auto-captions on this, her dialogue comes out word-perfect. I've been watching her since her web drama days. Her diction is clean."

Right on cue, Yeo-reum appeared on the screen.

Only then did Director Gong stroke his stubbled jaw, a smile creeping onto his lips.

"See? It'll do well, right? We can manage a sequel without breaking a sweat, right?"

"I said there'll be no problem."

Scenario two of Faster Than the Law rose in Director Gong's mind. Influencer 1, gracing the screen once more. It was not at all hard to imagine Han Yeo-reum slipping back into the ensemble like the pinch of seasoning that makes every dish complete.

A few days later, five volumes of the Strange Tales scenario lay on a stately walnut desk.

"Hoh…."

Episodes one through four—and the final episode, sixteen. The old woman who had taken in every last word to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very end removed her glasses and smiled.

"That rascal Je-ha has sent me something entertaining, hasn't he?"

Professor of the Korea National University of Arts, and Geum Bit-gang's friend of many long years—a smile spread across No Jeong-yeon's lips.

Inside the box Myeong Je-ha had sent, along with the scenario, sat a short invitation.

And one more copy of the scenario had been prepared alongside it, identical in every respect. As was the invitation tucked inside.

No Jeong-yeon's oldest friend and colleague—the veteran who had already made up her mind to retire.

For Geum Bit-gang, a throne was waiting.