The Correct Answer
Ahn Jinbae looked down at the actor asleep in his arms.
His eyes were closed peacefully enough, but he looked terribly worn.
He would have to explain things to the two of them as well—both still frozen in shock—but for now, making sure the actor slept properly came first.
Fortunately, even after several more minutes passed, his face never twisted nor did his breathing falter.
Jinbae moved carefully, laying him down flat, and the instant a stray sensation brushed his palm, he pressed his hand back against the boy's forehead.
His brow knotted. The forehead was burning hot.
"……He has a fever."
"I woke up because I was thirsty, and… I kept hearing him whimpering, so I thought he was having a nightmare and shook him awake…"
"He seemed fine before he went to bed. He never said anything about feeling unwell."
Jinbae nodded at the words from Seong Ijun and Nam Inhu. Guessing when the fever had started was a waste of time—this was hardly someone who would let an illness show.
He ushered the two out, saying they should talk in the other room.
"Shouldn't we take him to a hospital…?"
"I think it's best he rests first. Look at the time… it's four in the morning. I'll stay by the actor's side, so please both of you get some more sleep."
Throughout the conversation, Jinbae was anxious the whole time that the actor might wake.
The two of them looked dazed themselves, having been jolted out of their own sleep.
As Jinbae guided them to another room, he carefully—but firmly—asked them not to mention what had happened to anyone outside.
"Don't worry. I'm not so thoughtless as that."
"Thank goodness. I'll leave it in your hands, then."
They both looked bursting with questions, but apparently judged this wasn't the moment to ask, because they went inside without protest.
Jinbae returned and sat down beside the bed.
Even when he laid a damp towel across the boy's forehead, the actor didn't stir.
He looked so calm, sleeping there with soft, even breaths. And yet, even so…
He looks anxious.
Ahn Jinbae, who had been gazing down at him, let out a sigh. A tangle of thoughts churned through his head, but in the end, all he could do was stay at his side.
"Is this a dream?"
I knew it was a stupid question, but I couldn't help saying it out loud.
"So Cutie really is sick…"
"Is it tetanus or something?"
"Was that hammer rusty? Who cleaned it up back then, anyway?"
Every word I said came back at me fivefold, so there was no getting a word in edgewise.
It was a chaotic situation, but the one silver lining was that my headache was gradually fading.
Think this through.
For some reason, the fog—which had been trying to call me over in a hurry—had simply scattered. That part wasn't all that surprising, honestly; watching the mist break apart into microscopic molecules was what I saw every single time I woke from a dream.
But the sudden onset of pain paired with all this confusion was a first.
Having my meeting with the fog cut off mid-conversation was a first, too.
I had no idea what was going on.
Still, my hand had been holding onto the fog's, and there'd been no chance for anyone to pry loose the Black Stone or anything like it—so I wouldn't vanish the way I did before. Whatever this was, I could just ask the fog about it when we met again.
"Tae-il, here, take this first. It's a painkiller."
"Thank you."
"…? Why are you talking formally?"
I snatched the pill the man offered and swallowed it down. The way it scraped stiffly down the back of my throat was vivid—far too vivid. Just like reality.
Except this couldn't possibly be real.
Unless those actors were pulling some kind of hidden-camera prank, there was no way this situation was reality. And since my mind was perfectly clear, it didn't seem to be a dream either.
Whatever this was, I wouldn't be staying here forever. Just knowing that it would end someday calmed me down considerably.
A few minutes later, even the faint residual headache had vanished completely.
When I slowly looked around, an unfamiliar scene filled my eyes: old-fashioned interior furnishings, yellow oil-paper flooring, wooden sliding doors.
Exactly as it was written in the script.
So this is where Kang Tae-il grew up.
As I studied the room, a throbbing pain registered in my hand. I glanced down and saw it wrapped tightly in bandages.
Come to think of it, there had been talk of a hammer earlier.
So this is only a few days after the rival organization's raid.
The raw, stinging sensation in my fingertips made it all the more certain. This was not reality.
The conclusion of that chain of thought was simple: I had to get back to reality.
Now all I needed was the how.
"Tae-il, you really okay?"
"Yes. I'm fine."
"……This kid's not fine. Hey, somebody go fetch a doctor."
"Want me to bring up the guy we've got tied up in the basement?"
"…? He's still down there?"
I'd been answering on autopilot while my brain worked overtime, and apparently that was the wrong answer. The room grew even more rambunctious, and I swallowed a sigh.
No good. I'd just have to play it by ear.
"Ah, forget it. You old f—ers nagged me up and down to drop the honorifics, and now that I do, you lose your minds over it."
I pushed out a sigh of a voice, brows drawn tight—and at the same time, pressed my eyebrows outward, as if shoving them toward my temples.
That sharpened my gaze considerably, forging a far more intense expression. That was the face my Kang Tae-il wore.
"You little brat. Finally came back to your senses, did you?"
"You sure you're actually all right? Just in case, go bring up that guy from the basement."
"Nah, too much work. But seriously—was my formal talk that bad? I thought I was being pretty cute, honestly."
I drew out the corners of my eyes and flashed a crooked grin. When I let my mouth stretch into that lazy smirk, the faces in front of me snickered along with me.
"Cute my ass. Hey, keep that up and you'll get yourself knifed."
One of the gangsters laughed and flung the eraser sitting on the table at me. I swayed out of the way of its wobbly flight, and the thug standing behind me threw a joking headlock around my neck.
"A gangster choking a man out, real classy," I said with an easy chuckle—but there was no actual force in the hands wrapped around my throat at all.
The one who'd thrown the eraser got a brutal smack upside the head from another gangster.
It was exactly as I'd imagined it.
"And look at our Cutie, all grown up and using polite speech and everything. Man, that's a weird feeling~."
"Right? When we first found him he was small enough to fit in your palm. We honestly wondered if he was meant to be eaten or what—"
"Ah, quit it with that story. Seriously. Even I'm sick of it."
The gangsters loved to talk. Since I had no way of knowing about events that weren't in the script, I just tossed out the occasional wisecrack and played along with their banter.
Even so, the conversation kept circling back to Kang Tae-il and refused to die down.
One of the gangsters ruffled my hair roughly every time I said anything. It was far too forceful to be called petting. Every violent jolt of my skull made me feel carsick to death.
If it had been Manager Ahn Jinbae, he'd have stopped the instant I flinched, no words needed.
"By the way, Tae-il, you've been coming home later and later these days? Get back early for once. You're such a sickly thing."
I'd been finally starting to relax into the mundane flow of the conversation.
Then that one word hit my ears like a slap, and my mind snapped wide awake.
"Sickly? You're not talking about me, are you?"
I swallowed dryly and answered as naturally as I could manage. When I pulled a face of utter disbelief, the big guy in front of me laughed.
"Then what would you call getting hit by a hammer once and going all wobbly because you lost a few fingernails?"
It was a familiar exchange. It was written in the script—word for word, not a syllable off.
I calmly delivered my next line.
"Come on, hyung-nim, were you even there? Three of them pinned my hand down and swung a hammer at it—how the hell was I supposed to dodge that?"
Kang Tae-il had been ambushed by the enemies of 'Hanseong'. Word had long since spread through the underworld that the Hanseong syndicate had picked up an abandoned newborn off the street and was raising it. Along with the fact that they'd given the child the name Kang Tae-il, and were doting on him in their own rough-handed way.
Having grown up far removed from any ordinary childhood environment, Kang Tae-il had been raised watching brutal sights from the time he was small.
He'd seen men he'd been roughhousing with that very morning come back soaked head to toe in blood. He'd seen the man who liked to tug his cheek and call him cute burying something in the yard with a shovel.
Even Kang Tae-il, who figured nothing much could surprise him anymore, couldn't help being thrown off by the ambush. He'd been alone in his room, working through a workbook, when it happened. He'd barely registered the commotion outside before they came crashing in.
They seized Kang Tae-il by the hair and dragged him out, yanked up his small hand, and brought the hammer down on it.
If the Hanseong men had arrived even a little later, his hand would have been shattered.
Kang Tae-il considered it a mercy that it ended with only a few nails torn out.—That was how Director Yoon had put it.
"Still, it's 'cause you're made of something else that you didn't pass out and held on right there. If it'd been me, I'd have bailed ages ago."
"Watch your mouth, punk."
I laughed it off and puffed up my shoulders, and the gangster facing me laughed too.
Right on script.
Everything since I'd arrived had unfolded exactly as written. The next beat was for another gangster to ask, "So? Did you ever go see that kid they say looks like you?"
After the talk about Lee Jin-woo, the scene moved on—and if I kept this conversation on its rails, wouldn't I be able to go back?
For now, I decided, no mistakes—I had to deliver every line precisely. No, actually—should I go ahead and act it properly? I was still debating it when—
"Tae-il, you're really okay, right?"
?
"Of course I'm okay. I already told you I was."
The man who'd handed me the painkillers suddenly cut in. Caught off guard by a line that wasn't in the script, I played it off smoothly. I thought I'd handled it pretty naturally, but the man didn't stop there.
"You've been having nightmares ever since, and you say you're fine? You don't have to front with me, kid. Just talk."
Kang Tae-il was having nightmares?
I'd never heard that before. Wasn't that completely different from Director Yoon's explanation?
'He's a kid who's used to violence, so let's go with him proudly showing off his wound like he's finally become a man.'
'And then Lee Jin-woo finds that strange and starts digging into his background?'
'Right. That's when he learns Tae-il doesn't live at the orphanage. Got it?'
Confusion locked my jaw in place.
"The kid's been having nightmares? How did I not know this?"
"Thinking about it makes my blood boil all over again. Should've killed every last one of them. Or what, want me to chop off their hands and bring 'em to him?"
"That'd just give him worse nightmares, you idiot."
Even as the gangsters around us cracked their jokes, the man never took his eyes off me. At that piercing stare, I lifted the corner of my mouth out of pure habit.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine! Who's fronting?"
"It's okay to be honest, you know."
The man was relentless.
Something was off here.
"Go on. Be honest with me. Who knows? Maybe I'll give you a reward."
"……"
I just stared at him in silence.
The gangsters must have sensed something too, because they began glancing back and forth between me and the man. The atmosphere sank in an instant.
"……So if I'm honest, you'll give me a reward?"
"That's right."
I studied his smiling face and weighed it. Do I take the bait? Or not?
My mind spun through endless calculations in the space of a breath before I sighed. I didn't know anymore either.
"How the hell would I know."
"Huh?"
"If you're curious about Kang Tae-il, ask Kang Tae-il. Why are you asking me?"
I dropped the even, level tone I'd been holding, and let the tension drain out of the eyes I'd kept sharpened this whole time. My voice, drifting out flat and indifferent, filled the room.
I'd thrown the dice thinking screw it, but with the outcome impossible to predict, I couldn't help being tense. I must have been holding my breath without realizing it, because only after I saw his face did air rush back into my lungs.
The way the man's eyes folded up into crescents was, frankly, disarmingly bright.
"Correct answer."
And with those words, everything before my eyes scattered into nothing.