Moon Village (6)

The wrap party had a slightly different atmosphere from the one for Along Along. Since Along Along had been a guaranteed mega-hit, they'd rented out a spacious, upscale restaurant — but the Daldongne set was a good deal more modest.

Even so, a sizable crowd of reporters had been lying in wait to capture Yoon Jay on camera.

"Mr. Jay! Welcome."

"He came with the writer, I see."

Everyone's faces were bright, though. Early on, the response had been lukewarm enough that it seemed the show wouldn't even crack 10% in the ratings — but now it stood on the threshold of 13%.

It was vying for first or second place among the dramas in its timeslot, and there was even hope that tonight it might post its highest viewership yet.

"Hello."

"······Y-yes."

The moment a staff member's eyes met Yoon Jay's, she bowed her head so deeply that Han Jin-woo, watching from behind, smirked knowingly. Our guy really does have a certain charm.

Come to think of it, Han Dayeon was acting suspicious too.

When she'd first met him, she'd seemed barely interested — but as filming wore on, something in her gaze had changed. It coincided exactly with the point in the story where Kim Sanghyeon started getting serious about Choi Ahra.

They say some actors can't tell the role apart from reality······ but if even a simple manager like me can sense it, aren't the other staff feeling it too? If a rumor starts spreading, it'll be a headache for everyone.

Well, I suppose that just means he acted that well.

Han Jin-woo stole a glance behind him. Han Dayeon, who had just arrived, was beaming at Yoon Jay.

Then again — does he not notice he's drawing a line, or is he just pretending not to? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ The moment Dayeon's behavior had turned odd, Yoon Jay had, in his subtle way, kept her at arm's length. From experience, if he had no intention of reciprocating, it was better to let her give up quickly.

Yoon Jay was looking over the wrap-party fan support with interest. Along Along had been such a phenomenon that he'd assumed this sort of thing was rare — so Daldongne got them too, huh.

"Do they do this for every drama?"

"The more fans a drama gathers, the more common it gets. And this one — your fans did almost all of it."

"Sorry, what?"

Lee Hyein, who played Kang Subin, and Choi Seongmin, who played Park Yoonseong, were critically acclaimed actors, not fandom-driven ones. Even Han Dayeon, only in her second year, had no real hit under her belt and hadn't amassed much of a following.

These days, young actors' fandoms were starting to resemble idol fandoms, and actors were signing up for idol-style communication apps to build their popularity.

"Sure, 'Daldongne' did well, but obviously it pulled lower ratings than 'Along Along.' So the fans apparently asked the company all sorts of questions about how to prop up our actor's spirits."

On top of that — he's gorgeous, and he's actually humble about his craft? And he's the rising star of the moment? People who'd felt a favorable flicker toward him got absorbed wholesale into his fandom. With barely a young actor in the industry who had both the face and the acting chops, they'd flocked to him all the harder.

For my sake······.

Having been run ragged back in his Yoon Jae-hee days, Jay never took ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the existence of his fans for granted.

"Are those people still nearby?"

"Yes. They're waiting at the shop next door until we finish up."

"Make sure to tell me."

"Will do."

Han Jin-woo stepped back, and Han Dayeon, who had been keeping an eye on things from behind, cautiously approached.

"Jay oppa. You got here early?"

"Oh, hey."

Yoon Jay acknowledged her greeting, then headed off toward the other staff. As gentle as ever, yet somehow unmistakably drawing a line — Dayeon bit her lower lip.

Park Yoonseong remained in Choi Ahra's house, combing the crime scene.

The killer knew this neighborhood suspiciously well.

At first he'd investigated on the assumption that the killer was a local resident, but he'd turned up nothing of substance. For a while, Choi Ahra herself had been on the suspect list.

But the killer had strangled every victim to death, and the autopsy showed he hadn't squeezed in a panic — he'd savored each victim's slow suffocation.

No small-framed woman like Ahra could have managed it. She was ruled out.

"Detective. Someone's here asking for you."

"Who?"

It was Kim Sanghyeon waiting outside. Why isn't he at the hospital? What's he doing here? It grated on him, but he let the kid in.

"How is Ahra? The hospital?"

"She's past the critical stage."

"Whew······ thank god."

"I just came to see if there's anything I can do to help you."

Kim Sanghyeon wore the expression of a man wondering, What if the detective won't take me? The killer had murdered five people and nearly made Ahra the sixth. He wanted to help catch him any way he could.

"Hmm······ is that so?"

Park Yoonseong sank into thought. Ahra had been stabbed once, in the abdomen. The fifth victim had been carved up — so why had the killer only stabbed Ahra once and run? It meant the killer had hesitated. Which meant he might be someone she knew.

"You've been seeing a lot of Ahra lately, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Anything you can tell me about her? Like — has she made any new friends lately, seen anyone suspicious······."

Kim Sanghyeon rattled on excitedly, but it was all empty calories, and Park Yoonseong's face went flat.

"Actually, uh······ this is a little awkward to say."

"What?"

"Ahra — she's been renting out her own place for poverty-tourism sleepover experiences."

"What?"

"Please don't be too hard on her about it."

Park Yoonseong's eyes went wide.

"When did she do this?"

"No idea when it started, but somebody reported it two weeks ago, so she's stopped."

"Two weeks ago?"

It matched the timing of the fifth body — the point when the killer's method changed. That meant one of the guests from those sleepovers was a prime suspect. But······.

"You said Ahra still hasn't regained consciousness?"

"That's right."

"Hmmm······ and you don't know who any of those guests were?"

"No. She kept it all hush-hush, so she probably didn't leave a trace. But there was this regular who kept com—"

"A regular? Hey! Don't trail off — where are you going?"

Park Yoonseong grabbed Kim Sanghyeon's shoulder in a panic. But Kim Sanghyeon was staring at the wardrobe as if something had seized hold of him.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"Hold on, Detective."

"What?"

"You said the killer leaves a paper crane at the scene, right?"

"I did."

Following his gaze, he found it — a glass jar filled with paper cranes.

Kim Sanghyeon hurriedly blurted that he'd only kept visiting Ahra's house so often because the serial murders had him worried — using the sleepover experience as his excuse — and added, in case anyone got the wrong idea, that nothing at all had happened between him and Ahra.

"Got it. Got it."

"Anyway! That's why this room feels so familiar to me?"

"And?"

Park Yoonseong's expression darkened by the second.

"That jar — there were never that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠few cranes in it."

"What?"

"It used to be packed to the top. But look."

The contents inside had thinned out. Park Yoonseong, pulling on gloves, carefully lifted the glass jar down from the wardrobe. On the dust-filmed lid, someone's fingerprints were plainly smudged into view.

"······Well, I'll be."

The killer's trace.

The killer's silhouette was slowly coming into focus, but Choi Ahra still hadn't regained consciousness. Afraid another victim would surface if they waited, Yoonseong decided on a stakeout.

"Doesn't Ahra worry you at all? Go to the hospital!"

"Once we catch the killer, she can check out and rest easy. Subin noona's at the hospital anyway."

"Whew······ fine. But don't go calling her noona."

Park Yoonseong sighed at Kim Sanghyeon, who had doggedly attached himself to the stakeout. With the serial killings threatening public order, the mayor had stepped in, and every available officer had been mobilized. The two of them planted themselves in one of the houses the killer might target.

"What do you even like about Ahra?"

"The way she fights to survive."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, even when her situation is completely hopeless, she still scrapes and claws her way forward."

No matter how people pointed fingers and talked behind her back, she bore it with her head high. When Sanghyeon talked about how she cried in despair yet always, always got back up, his face was so openly in love that the staff watching from the wrap party murmured in admiration and leaned back.

And then, deep into the stakeout, a figure passed before them.

"Hold it right there."

"What?"

"That person is······."

A brief memory flashed through Kim Sanghyeon's mind.

The moment Yoonseong read something deeply wrong in his expression, he bolted out the door. Kim Sanghyeon belatedly scrambled after him.

"Hey! Stop right there!"

"Grab him!"

Their commotion sent the nearby police sprinting too, but the killer scaled a wall and shook them off.

"Come on, then! You think you know this neighborhood better than I do!"

Kim Sanghyeon went over the wall after him as well. The chase, wavering on a knife's edge between caught and escaped, ended with a single frying pan.

"AAAGH!"

It was Im Seonja. And that wasn't all — the neighborhood's residents were lying in wait, each brandishing their own weapon.

"Mother! What are you doing out here!"

"Well, everyone's been working so hard — someone had to step up."

"I'm grateful, really, but······ it's dangerous, so get inside! Detective!"

The killer looked to be around Kim Sanghyeon's age. He was the regular who had come and gone freely from the poverty experience, using his dissertation as the excuse.

"Why did you do it? Huh?"

"Heh, heh, heh······!"

"Do you have any idea how much those people have suffered!"

"You were the same."

"What?"

"Choi Ahra. You only saw her easily because she was poor, didn't you?"

"I······!"

Yes — of course, in the beginning, that was true. Even if he could swear it wasn't now, the fact that he had first approached her lightly remained unchanged. Kim Sanghyeon's words broke apart before they could finish.

And so, after a midnight chase, they took the killer down. But he said nothing. Only asked for a lawyer.

"Still not talking?"

"No, sir."

"Here — give me that one."

Park Yoonseong walked into the interrogation room carrying the glass jar from Choi Ahra's house. The killer's face contorted — half grin, half grimace.

"Why did you take the cranes from here?"

Yoonseong unscrewed the lid and scattered the contents across the table. The killer's body shuddered as if in convulsions.

"B-because they were pathetic."

"I'm sorry?"

"Pathetic. What good is this garbage supposed to do?"

After a long silence, head bowed, the killer finally spoke.

"A long time ago······ twenty years ago, maybe? This was a fad."

The killer tilted his head back toward the jar.

"Fold a thousand paper cranes and put them in a jar, and your wish comes true — wasn't that it? It probably came over from Japan."

"······."

"And what is this garbage even supposed to be — handing out 'stay strong' to people who are starving to death······."

And then the killer's past unspooled.

A single-parent household. A mother begging the landlord, please, just let us stay a little longer. And paper cranes tucked inside the low-income assistance packages. Presumably the well-off elementary schoolers nearby had been roped into folding them — let's give them to neighbors in need!

"Heh, heh, heh······ why hand out trash that isn't even good enough for kindling? Do I look like a joke to you?"

He had been born a psychopath, but he'd done his best to suppress the murderous urges for his suffering mother's sake.

His mother's death, however, became the trigger — setting his impulses ablaze into a killing spree. He wandered in search of places to kill, and Choi Ahra's poverty experience had been a perfect hunting ground.

"So — all of these, you killed them?"

"Cleaning up trash that's no use to society anyway — what's the big deal?"

"You son of a—!"

Then he had removed the paper cranes from Ahra's house and left them at the crime scenes. Having extracted the confession, Park Yoonseong shot to his feet.

Then the scene changed. Awake at last in the ICU, Choi Ahra looked at Kim Sanghyeon — soaked in tears — and burst out laughing.

Recovered enough to take a walk outside the hospital, Ahra glanced up at the phone Kim Sanghyeon suddenly thrust out in front of her.

"Hey. I deleted your number."

"What?"

"So give it to me again."

The number she'd left behind for the poverty-tourism guests — not one of those you could save at a glance, but one you had to key in by hand. Feeling strangely flustered, Ahra tossed it out almost spitefully.

"What, you can't memorize eight little digits?"

"Oh, come on — you have zero romance. Are you giving it to me or not?"

A drone camera swept wide over the pair, and the scene cut again. At the very top of the moon village, Kang Subin and Park Yoonseong clinked their beer cans together.

"Our Detective Park did it."

"Five people still died."

"But we caught him. That's what counts."

The two gazed down over the neighborhood with unburdened faces.

"And that's a wrap!"

"Great work, everyone!"

The moment the final episode ended, the staff erupted into applause and cheers. One by one, the lead actors shared their closing thoughts, and Yoon Jay took the microphone as well.

"It was an honor to work on such a wonderful project with such wonderful people."

The sly street punk from the television screen was nowhere to be found, and the staff watched his usual, courteous self with fond smiles. Soon after, the rowdy company dinner began.

"Good work out there."

"You too, oppa."

Han Dayeon, seated across from Yoon Jay, stole a glance at him. The closer she got, the more firmly he drew that invisible line.

I know it was just acting.I was careless. Acting is supposed to be received as acting — but he's just too good. Anyone would start confusing the two. Han Dayeon furrowed her brow.

Whew. Maybe tone the acting down a notch, oppa.

And she drained the glass in front of her in one go. It was her way of saying: with this one drink, she was letting it all go.