The Boy on the Stairs
Lee Hoseop was too stunned to speak.
The members watching from the sidelines were no different. The moment those black eyes swept over him, all he could feel was terror and an crushing sense of intimidation. It had only been for an instant, yet even his awareness that they were filming a broadcast had crumbled away.
"...Haha! You're all far more startled than I expected."
In the blink of an eye when everyone had lost their words, the boy's expression changed completely. That unnaturally upturned corner of his mouth had slid back to a modest position, and the eyes that had crawled over their skin dissolved gently into laughter.
"Our divine spirit is quite mischievous by nature, so I ask for your understanding."
"I'm... sorry?"
Smiling, the boy took Lee Hoseop's hand and raised him to his feet. The man who had led the members here also smiled and helped the others up one by one. But the members, Lee Hoseop included, still wore blank, dazed expressions.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Kim Suho, a shaman who serves the divine spirit."
"Thanks to the spirit and to Master Suho, our village remains at peace."
At the man's words, the boy laughed and waved his hands in protest. The small fluttering gesture looked terribly embarrassed.
"Oh, no. I don't actually do anything—I merely lend the spirit my body, that's all."
"...Then just now, was that the spirit...?"
When Lee Hoseop, who had been told he would be the first to die, asked back, the boy gave an awkward smile.
"Yes. It's been so long since he met strangers that I suppose he got excited. He doesn't usually play such nasty tricks..."
"I see..."
Looking at those eyes working so earnestly to convey his apology, Lee Hoseop found himself at a loss for words.
For someone who had introduced himself as a shaman, the boy was dressed rather plainly. Clad in white sobok, he exchanged a few words with the other members as well before vanishing up the stairs without a sound.
"We'll bring your meal in shortly, so please rest comfortably for now."
Smiling, the man closed the door behind him after leading the still-groggy members to another building. The moment they were finally separated from everyone else, a collective sigh burst from the members' lips.
"Wow, what was that?"
"I still have goosebumps..."
"I really hate stuff like this.... *Sob*, I'd rather do zombies or something."
The tension broken, the youngest member slumped down on his trembling legs. Shin Woocheol approached Lee Hoseop, who was standing there dumbly without managing a single line of patter.
"Hyung-nim, are you all right?"
"Huh? Ah, uh... wow..."
Shaken so badly he couldn't form a proper sentence, Lee Hoseop wiped his face dry before finally beginning to react like a professional entertainer.
"Agh, you really scared me! Scared me out of my skin! Seriously!"
"I would've fainted. How can a kid smile like that?"
"Isn't he the kid from that drama? Zelkova Tree."
"That's right! I knew I'd seen him somewhere."
That's it. The boy was Lee Yeonjae, who had become the hottest topic in the entertainment industry just recently. There was no way Lee Hoseop, working at the very front lines of show business, wouldn't know him.
The three syllables of the name had come to him instantly, as a matter of course, the moment he saw the face—only to be completely buried under the flood of terror that followed. His brief deliberation over whether to pretend not to know him for the sake of immersion hadn't stood a chance.
He really can act...
He was rationing his words for fear of breaking the mood, but everyone must be thinking the same thing. The boy they had just seen was a completely different person from the boy in the drama. It was like looking at a twin who shared only the same face. There was no feeling of performance at all. You'd almost believe that was simply who he was.
"Urp―."
"Well, the food's good, at least..."
Dazed and with hearts still pounding, they all finished their meal. Afterward, the man handed out clothes and told them to change. They were identical to the white sobok the boy had been wearing.
"We have to wear these too?"
"Everyone participating in the festival wears these clothes. Hurry and change, then come out."
The man was smiling, but something in his bearing made resistance impossible. The members changed without complaint, exchanging puzzled remarks as they did.
"No, but seriously—what's our mission today? I still have no clue."
"Maybe we won't know until the festival starts? It'll definitely have something to do with that spirit, though."
"Guys. You don't have to whisper. It's just us here."
"...Hoo, I'm unusually on edge today."
At one member's words, Lee Hoseop swallowed dryly too. It wasn't from nerves.
This episode is going to be huge.
He had walked the variety show path alone for twenty years now. From comedy sketches to variety, reality, and observational shows, a certain instinct had been forged in him across countless programs. Mission Clear was always a hot topic, but this episode—his gut was screaming that it would be a genuine smash hit.
Shin Woocheol, whose thoughts he could read from a single glance, must feel the same. He was simply holding it in for fear of jinxing it.
"Whoa, but don't you think this episode's gonna blow up?"
"..."
Ahn Jicheol, cast as the clueless character—or rather, simply lacking awareness—beamed brightly.
That little punk, I swear―.
The villagers greeted the members warmly, beaming, as they emerged in their new clothes. They pressed a pinwheel into each of their hands, then linked arms and led them off somewhere. The members, separated in an instant, cried out in flustered protest—"No, wait a second!"
The ones dragged to what looked like the village square learned traditional dances; the ones taken to the kitchen helped with food prep. Whenever members spotted each other and tried to draw close to talk, someone would come running and split them apart again. With no idea what the mission even was, their frustration only swelled as time slipped helplessly by.
"What on earth is today...?"
Hwang Minseok, who had barely escaped the kitchen under the pretext of fetching water, crouched down and muttered. Shin Woocheol, sitting beside him, kept a careful watch on their surroundings in case anyone approached.
"The people here really are strange. Something's not right with them."
"Yeah, so strange.... They just keep laughing and you can't actually hold a conversation with them..."
Remembering the kitchen, which had rung with laughter, Hwang Minseok shuddered. What could possibly be so funny? The people had done nothing but laugh the entire time. Whenever they tried to strike up conversation for hints, it just kept skidding off the surface. It had sounded pleasant at first, sure—but hours of nothing but laughter on end was enough to drive a man mad.
"The only ones we could actually talk to were that guy who guided us earlier and Kim Suho, right?"
Shin Woocheol, the designated brain of the team, laid out a hypothesis.
"What if those two are the ones controlling the villagers? We dig into that, save the villagers—that's the mission."
"How would you control people?"
"Could be drugging them with something. And if you consider that ritual they mentioned, they could be using hypnosis or the like."
"Hmm-ho..."
Hwang Minseok began pushing his catchphrase once more. "I smell something, I do."
Unfazed, Shin Woocheol said, "If it's really like that, we need to save the people before the ritual starts."
"If they're being drugged, getting them out early could help too."
"Then first we need to find where they are. Hm... what about that gray building we went to earlier?"
At Hwang Minseok's offhand remark, Shin Woocheol froze.
Clearly, just a while ago―
"...Kim Suho went up those stairs, didn't he?"
Their eyes met in midair.
Lee Hoseop beat out a white blanket while sinking into thought. He had no idea what they were supposed to be doing here. Even when he looked for a chance to run, the villagers never left them alone. And even if he'd wanted to hold a strategy meeting with the members, he couldn't get close enough—all he could do was watch from a distance.
His eyes met the youngest's, who was making pinwheels far off in the distance, and Lee Hoseop sighed.
"Why sigh on such a lovely day? Haha!"
Somehow the woman hanging laundry beside him had heard his tiny sigh, and she laughed. At this point, that "haha" alone was enough to irritate him. He'd asked this and that hoping for a hint, but the harvest was nil. Was it really okay to just keep wasting time like this? The blood of a professional entertainer began to boil.
He was about to sigh once more and barely managed to swallow it when something caught Lee Hoseop's eye. Come to think of it...
"E-excuse me, teacher."
"Teacher? Haha! Just call me Mija."
"Right. Ms. Mija, is there by any chance a rumor attached to that gray building over there? Something about a ghost appearing..."
Bingo.
The woman's face, which had been beaming the whole time, froze solid. It was a reaction unlike her—she'd given the same rote answers every time he'd asked about the festival or Kim Suho.
"...Why do you ask?"
"Huh? Oh, I just wondered if you knew."
"But why did you ask?"
What is this. Lee Hoseop was thrown off by a reaction sharper than he'd expected. Before he could even prepare his next words, the woman's eyes flew wide in hysteria.
"Why did you ask!"
"No, I―"
"Why! WHY!!"
What the—is she insane?
Just as he was stammering at a loss, the woman's voice climbing past shouting into outright shrieking, someone grabbed him by the nape and yanked him urgently away. He spun around in alarm—it was the youngest.
"Maknae?"
"Just run for now!"
Bumbling along after the youngest, Lee Hoseop arrived at an abandoned building beside the gray one. In a space that couldn't have been more than four pyeong, the members were huddled together.
"When did you all gather in here?"
"Me and Woocheol met up first and pulled you guys out one by one."
"I've been signaling you and hyung for ages, but you would not look my way for the life of you! Haha."
Even in the middle of all this, Ahn Jicheol was smiling brightly. Everyone glared at that signature airy laugh of his.
"Don't laugh. Nobody laughs from here on. At this point, someone so much as giggling is going to give me chills."
"No, but am I seriously the only one who still doesn't get it? What even is happening right now?"
Lee Hoseop, apparently still haunted by the woman's sudden shrieking, asked.
"That woman—she screamed when the ghost came up, right?"
"Yep."
"I got the same treatment from some guy earlier when I asked him. I bolted out of there screaming the second he started yelling."
Ahn Jicheol scratched his head.
Putting the members' accounts together, the villagers laughed abnormally much, couldn't hold a conversation—and the one and only thing that provoked a reaction from them was the ghost of the gray building.
"One way or another, we've got to get into that gray building..."
"Just like Woocheol said, there might be drugs or hypnosis tools in there. Let's check the building out first."
"Maknae, what's it like outside?"
"Seems... normal? I don't think they're searching for us yet, anyway."
"It's only a matter of time. We have to move fast."
"You're just saying we barge straight in? We need at least a rough plan. What if we open the door and Kim Suho's standing right there?"
His head had been a jumble all day. As if to prove it, the members' opinions scattered in every direction, refusing to merge into one. All this time, they'd always attached one explainer actor to keep the basic story moving.
Well, it certainly helps with immersion.
Swallowing a sigh, Lee Hoseop quietly hushed the members as their voices rose. Outside, dusk had crept over the sky before anyone noticed. They had to move before it got any later.
First, they needed someone to scout out whether there was any way to sneak into the gray building. Without hesitation, the members sacrificed their sniveling youngest.
"One of the windows is unlocked!"
Thankfully, the youngest completed his patrol without being spotted by anyone. One unlocked window. It was also a signal from the production staff—this is the story's route, so get in here, quick.
Finally reassured, the members slipped quietly out of the abandoned building and infiltrated the gray building one by one. They emerged into the living room with their breathing stilled—but no one was there.
"Thank god..."
"They must be upstairs..."
"Who's upstairs?"
A composed voice cut through the members' whispers, dropped to their lowest register. They turned, smiles frozen on their faces. And slowly, slowly tilted their heads back.
"Did you come looking for me?"
His mouth curved upward—but his eyes were cold, and black.