Almost Too Late
After three full days of practicing my smile, the corners of my mouth were already curling up effortlessly.
I tilted my head slowly, keeping my eyes on the pupils blown wide with shock.
Crack. The sound of the joint popping snapped the other man back to his senses.
"Whoa, that scared me…. Weren't you outside? Why are you suddenly—"
"You saw it?"
The action that would become Kim Suho's trigger was the crack of a neck.
The frozen gears in my head, jammed at a moment I never anticipated, came loose thanks to it.
I didn't think about what I had to do.
"So you did see it."
"……."
What mattered was that this man had seen something he was never supposed to see.
I'd grabbed this spot in a flash, the moment they said they'd spare my life if I played the shaman. Truthfully, I'd been worrying that once the children for sacrifice ran out, these bastards might decide to sell me next. If it weren't for the fools who'd wandered in so conveniently, I might be the one getting traded away. I couldn't let this slip.
"Mmph!"
I shot my hand out and clamped it over his mouth.
I was running through realistic ways for a child to subdue a grown man, reaching toward his eyes to put one into practice—
"Clue found! Everyone gather over here!!"
The voice ringing out from a distant room yanked me back to reality.
My shoulders, wound tight as a bowstring, jolted hard.
Before I knew it, my hand had loosened, and the man scrambled backward in a panic.
"You—you—"
"Shh!"
He was so startled he was practically hyperventilating. My heart was pounding just as hard, but what mattered right now was the shoot.
"Let's say I just knocked you out. You got subdued and dragged here. That's the story."
"……Excuse me?"
"Don't open your mouth, just slip out quietly. None of this is going in the broadcast."
Apparently it was true what they said about people who'd done variety for years—even my terse explanation was enough to change the look in his eyes. He shut his mouth at once and nodded, and only after confirming that did I check the coast was clear.
I eased the door shut without a creak and came down to the first floor, where the staff were waiting.
"Mr. Ho-seop, don't get too confused—just go with this: Suho overpowered you and dragged you here. Just follow this staff member, please."
"Yes, yes. Will do."
The comedian Lee Ho-seop stole a single glance at me, then obediently trailed after the staff.
After all, one member getting kidnapped had always been part of the script. Only the method and the timing had changed—nothing had really gone off the rails. Logically speaking, did it make sense for a kid to subdue a grown man alone? Well… I figured the editing would take care of that.
"Actor-nim. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
When I stepped into the booth, Manager Ahn Jinbae hurried over. His worried eyes swept over me, then he pulled out a chair and told me to sit. I drank the water he handed me and watched as the main PD chewed out the staff member in charge of set management. The main PD came over to me, repeating his thanks over and over, and only after the other staff had dragged him away could I finally catch my breath.
The staff member managing the set only burst into tears once the main PD had left the booth. He'd checked right up to the end and had no idea it was the script, he sobbed, repeating over and over that he'd thought it was just a notebook.
It was admittedly easy to confuse—the clue notebook happened to be white. And about the same thickness, no less.
"I'm so, so sorry…."
The actor who'd left the script lying there apologized with a quavering voice, whereupon the makeup artist came sprinting over, yelling that her work would smear if he kept crying.
It was pure pandemonium.
And yet, amid all that chaos, people were doing their best to pull themselves together for whatever filming remained. Which meant I had to do the same.
Pull yourself together.
My heart was still racing. The thundering beat echoed dully against my temples. My hands were trembling so badly I clasped them together and squeezed. Calm down. Come on.
'If I'd been even a little later….'
That had been a genuine disaster in the making. What honest method does an elementary schooler have for subduing a grown man? Of everything I knew, not a single one was fair and square.
What had flashed through my head in those few seconds was a script I'd read a while back—one where a street thug was the protagonist. I'd recalled a scene from it, and if I'd been even a little later, I might have actually carried it out. No—would have carried it out.
"……Actor-nim, are you all right?"
"Yes, yes."
The reason I couldn't calm down right now wasn't that I'd remembered how to jab a man in the eyes. It was that in that brief moment before carrying it out, I hadn't hesitated at all. Not once in my life had I poked someone in the eyes. I'd certainly never wanted to. And yet there had been zero resistance in me.
I suppose 'Kim Suho'—the boy who abandoned the friends he grew up with to save his own skin—could do that.
'But I'm not Kim Suho.'
Something was wrong, but I couldn't tell exactly what, or where I should even start untangling it.
My hands had settled somewhat compared to earlier, but they were still shaking, and I frowned at them. This wasn't the time.
"Whew…."
There was no time left. I had to be back on set soon. I shook my head hard, trying to rattle myself awake—when Manager Ahn Jinbae gently took my chin and lifted it.
"Actor-nim. You're not all right, are you?"
I met his mild, gentle eyes. Unlike the faint stiffness at their corners, his voice came out perfectly composed.
"When filming wraps, you can tell me all about it. Until then, just set it aside for a little while. Nothing catastrophic is happening right this second, right? Right?"
I stared blankly for a moment at that steady, unhurried voice, then slowly nodded. He smiled at that and began patting my shoulder.
"Only a little left to go—hang in there," he said, giving me a light massage. Except the pressure was anything but light, and a pained yelp escaped me before I could stop it.
"Hyung, that hurts!"
"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't even use that much force… Does it hurt a lot?"
It hurt a lot. Enough to snap me wide awake. I lifted my head, wiping away the involuntary tears welling in my eyes—and the face gazing at me with concern hardened in an instant, then launched into a frantic apology.
"I'm truly sorry, Actor-nim! I swear I didn't put any strength into it, I'm sorry. You're not bruised, are you? I'm so—"
"I'm fine. Wow, hyung, you are seriously strong."
I laughed, kneading my shoulder, which still throbbed. I was pretty sure this was going to bruise. But even as I insisted I was fine, I couldn't take my hand off my shoulder, and the face in front of me looked ready to burst into tears.
"Suho's going in right now!"
"Yes."
Thankfully, a staff member called for me just in time, and I barely managed to stop Manager Ahn Jinbae, who looked ready to strip my clothes off right there to check for bruises.
"The other members will be here soon. From here on out, you just follow the script! We're almost done, so hang in there."
Still dazed, I took my pre-assigned position, and a staff member whispered last-minute instructions like a rapid-fire rapper before vanishing. I stood there, nerves strung tight, and in the distance I could just make out the cast members being herded toward me, captured by the villagers.
Right. Focus on what's in front of me first.
I nodded once and sank into 'Kim Suho.' Into that terrible human being—a fictional character made up by the producers, and yet one who somewhere, somehow, seemed as if he might truly exist.
The creeping, crawling sense of unease vanished with a single clack.
Shin Woo-cheol and the members pored over the documents that had been tucked beneath the notebook. They detailed the order and method of the sacrificial rite, along with the storage location of the sleeping drugs fed to the offerings.
"So the order is—first the offerings drink the holy water, then the remaining villagers drink it?"
"Yep. We grab the sedatives in advance, then pour them into the holy water the villagers will drink—not the batch we're drinking."
"And how are we supposed to tell them apart??"
"Oh, come on—it's written right here. The containers are different colors!"
The plan went like this. First, sneak into the warehouse, find the sedatives, and swap them with the vat filled with water. Second, slip into the kitchen and dump the stolen sedatives into the vat of holy water meant for the villagers. Third, when the rite begins, dutifully drink the holy water and collapse in a group. And finally, once the villagers drank their holy water and dropped off to sleep, escape the village.
They left the whereabouts of the vanished Lee Ho-seop alone for the time being. Darkness had already fallen; they had to move fast and get through things one by one before it was too late.
Ahn Ji-cheol and Hwang Min-seok crept into the warehouse and made the swap, while the quick-footed youngest infiltrated the kitchen to pour the sedatives into the red vat of holy water.
His hands shaking violently as he poured, the youngest's eyes went wide at the sound of footsteps drawing near. He dumped the rest in a frantic rush and had just crawled under the table when someone walked in.
"Still haven't found him?"
"Obviously not. He's probably hiding in some abandoned building out there. There's no getting out of this place anyway. Don't worry."
The two men strode across the kitchen and were at the youngest's hiding spot in seconds. One asked, "What were the offerings drinking again? The red vat?" and the other shot back, "The blue vat! The blue vat! How many times do I have to say it? If you're still getting that mixed up after all this, there's something wrong with your head."
"I can forget things too, you know… You're terrifying, seriously."
"After all these years, and you're still confused. Ugh, my cheeks are killing me. Laughing this much gives me a headache."
"Just bear with it. It's almost over now anyway. Once the offerings fall asleep, we won't have to smile anymore."
The man yawned, bored, and poured the sedative into the blue vat—never knowing it was the water the members had swapped in earlier. Not a trace of mirth remained on the faces of the two chattering men.
"Were you the one who screamed earlier? That was quite the performance."
"Figured it was time to act a little. The Guardian Deity really does have a wicked sense of humor, though. Did we really need to frighten the offerings like that? They're dead soon anyway."
"You'll be the death of us! Don't curse the Deity. He can probably hear every word!"
The men went silent in an instant and left the kitchen, fear written across their faces. The members, who had been watching everything from outside, hurried in to pull the youngest to his feet.
"Ji-cheol, was that the guy who yelled at you earlier?"
"Yes… but am I the only one who didn't understand? What was all that?"
When Ahn Ji-cheol asked, bewildered, Shin Woo-cheol answered, exasperated.
"The entire village was acting. Chatting us up while grinning nonstop, and that screaming—both of it."
"Why?"
"How should I know? Sounds like Kim Suho ordered it, but ugh, I honestly can't make heads or tails of any of this."
"Hyungs, what do we do now? We just let ourselves get caught, right?"
At the youngest's tense question, everyone just traded uneasy glances—until a squabble broke out over who'd get caught first, and that commotion was what landed the members squarely in the villagers' sight, taken prisoner all together, in perfect harmony.
In the middle of the village square, Lee Ho-seop was already bound and waiting, and beside him stood Kim Suho, expressionless.
"So you've finally arrived. What a troublesome lot you are."
The words floating through the air were smooth, without a single rough edge—but the face delivering them was achingly cold. That gap put not just the members but every villager on edge.
"Ha… what a bother. Let's just get this over with. Serve the holy water to our guests first."
As Kim Suho—once again playing the vessel possessed by the Guardian Deity—waved his hand, the villagers drew holy water from the blue vat and passed it around to the members. Under the coercive weight of their stares, refusal wasn't an option. The members exchanged uneasy glances and drank, while the bound Lee Ho-seop was fed his by the villagers.
When the members collapsed, feigning sleep, the utterly clueless Lee Ho-seop read the room and shut his eyes too.
Celebrating yet another successful rite, the villagers all drank at once from the holy water drawn from the red vat.
"All hail the Guardian Deity!!"
"Thank you for always protecting our village!"
"Thanks to the Guardian Deity, we'll see this year through safely too!"
The ones who'd been shouting at the top of their lungs began toppling over one by one, not long after sharing the holy water. Empty cups clattering against the ground, the rustle of white sobok robes—sounds mingling together, and in a blink the once-raucous square fell silent.
The members, who had been biding their time, carefully cracked their eyes open. Through the sliver between half-raised lids, what they dimly made out was everyone lying collapsed on the ground.
Shin Woo-cheol, about to open his eyes fully in relief, caught sight of something and swallowed a gasp, snapping them shut again.
"I know you're all awake. Open your eyes."
At that voice—remarkably matter-of-fact—the members cautiously opened their eyes.
There, amid the heap of collapsed villagers, one figure stood tall.