Those Who Remain
Pop!
"Hello, everyone! My dear Sarang-gwi! Yoon-sang here!"
Freshly home, Yoon-sang launched into the broadcast with his usual energy.
It was a stream switched on the moment he walked through the door. He'd figured the audience would be thin—yet far more people had shown up than expected.
As the misunderstanding ballooned in real time, Yoon-sang hastily waved both hands at the camera.
"No! No, no. Not yet, not yet. There is no collab on the schedule."
The grumbling reactions and stickers came in fast and merciless, but Yoon-sang understood the sentiment all too well.
Kang Hyeong-seok carried more impact than anyone realized. Rumor had it that streamers all over were hunting for the office worker who performed exorcisms—a man who would be impossible to find even if the sky turned inside out. Yoon-sang was the only streamer who knew anything. And he'd sooner be beaten to death than let some random hack steal a story this explosive; the thought of leaking it had never once crossed his mind.
"I'm sorry! Really. But think about it—why else would I turn on a stream without even washing up first?"
"Ahh! I know, I know. But here's the thing—this hyung-nim and yours truly? We've gotten really, really, really close! For real!"
Doubtful reactions did surface. Even so, Yoon-sang stood tall. Not a single word of it was a lie.
"We've eaten together, and this time we worked the same case, didn't we? And if the right piece of content comes along, I honestly think I could bring this hyung-nim on."
"Really. But let me be crystal clear about one thing. I will do whatever it takes to protect this hyung-nim. Even if he does appear, his face will never, ever be shown. I'll scramble his voice, too."
The responses stayed lukewarm, but he'd expected as much. Which was why Yoon-sang, shit-eating grin and all, could toss out his next line with total composure.
"You all know how it is. Instead, I'm going to prepare something that shows off exactly what that hyung-nim can do."
Still up in the air. Yoon-sang wrinkled his brow, let out a small groan, and shook his head.
"Because that hyung-nim is a genuine mudang—a true shaman. I won't have him showing up just for cheap spectacle. No. That much, I refuse to allow. Instead, I'm building the content around people who actually need his help—showing them what he can do."
Of course, a collab would require his consent. And Yoon-sang had no intention of twisting Kang Hyeong-seok's arm for it.
"Anyway—let me walk you through what happened. Alright, starting with the photos!"
Yoon-sang unspooled the whole saga, photographs and all. The tip-off about a rokurokubi. Meeting Kang Hyeong-seok. The jangseung guardian totem weeping tears of blood. The mudang who collapsed mid-gut ritual. The altar he'd seen inside the factory and—even with quite a lot left unsaid—the rite that guided the rokurokubi's soul into the afterlife.
He told everything that could be told, skipping only the parts that might land him in legal trouble—sneaking onto private factory property, disturbing a grave, that sort of thing.
Yoon-sang gave the camera a level nod.
"Yes. Without a shred of a lie. I don't have much in the way of photo evidence, but when you watch that hyung-nim guide a soul into the afterlife? You don't even think about picking up a camera."
Pop!
A paid chat had landed—the kind that could carry short video clips. It was really just a screenshot converted into a video file, so nothing in it actually moved, but the image was unmistakable: the jangseung, captured at a different hour than Yoon-sang's own photos, the tracks of bloody tears on its face vivid and stark.
"Oh—that! That's it! That's exactly it. Where did this come from?"
Anyone who had followed Yoon-sang's streams long enough knew the score: there was one streamer against whom Yoon-sang nursed a full-blown rivalry.
Which was why the name Gashiri was treated as taboo, an unspoken rule never to be mentioned—the streamer who had never once let the number one spot in horror slip from his grasp.
Chat poured in like a burst dam, his stream ranking climbing by the second, and Yoon-sang could only blink at the screen, at a complete loss.
He truly hadn't seen this coming. Who could have guessed he'd leapfrog the number one horror streamer—the very rival he'd chased for so long—like this?
"Uh, uh—"
Blinking like a man whose soul had briefly left his body, Yoon-sang's expression crumpled with emotion, and he bowed deeply toward the camera.
"Th-thank you! Wow—seriously. Thank you!"
The last thing he wanted was to show tears on stream. His head knew that perfectly well. Somehow, though, his tear ducts went hot and ached anyway.
"Ahh! Thank you, my dear Sarang-gwi!"
His viewers were having a field day teasing him, but he couldn't see a word of it. He'd buried his face in his sleeve, damming up the tears.
At that same moment, on the rooftop of Daejeong Mulsan, Shin Jeong-ah was watching Yoon-sang's stream with a cigarette burning between her fingers.
"Knew it."
She shot a look of weary pity at Kang Hyeong-seok, who sat beside her sipping coffee.
"Some 'business trip' that was... Aigoo. You doing okay?"
"Is there anything to not be fine about?"
It was lunchtime. Everyone else would be out front of the building smoking or nursing coffee, which left the rooftop to the two of them alone. Kang Hyeong-seok answered easily, at his ease, while Shin Jeong-ah switched off her phone screen, slid it into her pocket, and shook her head.
"Something felt off. A business trip out of nowhere? I had my suspicions—and sure enough."
"Did I look that strange?"
"There was dirt on your trousers, for one."
Shin Jeong-ah pointed at his pants with a look of tender exasperation, and only then did Kang Hyeong-seok notice the grime, laughing sheepishly. It must have happened while he was digging up Hara Seiko's grave. He'd given his shoes a rough wipe-down with wet wipes at the time—he'd never imagined the backs of his trouser cuffs were smeared as well.
"You could have said something. The Department Head might have noticed, too."
"Doubt it. Men are surprisingly blind to this sort of thing, you know? At his age, doubly so."
Kang Hyeong-seok gave a wry smile and rubbed the dried dirt from his trousers. Then she drove the point home.
"Besides, would he even have noticed? He looked like a man in a spectacular mood."
"Ah—that would be the call from Shinjin Construction."
"I saw him earlier. Humming down the hallway, grinning like an idiot."
Shin Jeong-ah's shoulders bounced as she snickered. It was easy to picture Kwak Young-ho giddy with excitement, and Kang Hyeong-seok's lips quirked upward too. Then—
"Section Chief Kang, take a half day this afternoon."
"I've barely been back an hour."
"The Department Head would approve it on the spot. And honestly? You look rough. Tired."
Shin Jeong-ah bit down on her cigarette, brows drawn tight. Her eyes were genuinely worried, so Kang Hyeong-seok forced his face into calm and shook his head.
"I'm really fine. Nothing urgent on my plate."
"You'll be okay...?"
"Yes. Thank you for worrying about me."
"Aigoo, honest to god. Fine—if it gets bad, at least ping me on messenger! I'll talk to them for you."
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded with a smile. But he had no intention of landing Shin Jeong-ah with an awkward favor. He had no reason to—and above all, the simple truth was that he could still just barely bear it.
"Thank you for looking out for me."
"So. How was it this time? Because I don't think what made it onto the stream was the whole story."
A sharp read. Seeing this, it sank in all over again: Shin Jeong-ah had lived through it too, every bit as much as Yoon-sang had.
"Well—roughly what you'd imagine. It was a broadcast, so a few threads never got untangled."
Kang Hyeong-seok laid out what you might call the behind-the-scenes. The existence of Kim Ki-ok, and everything the man had done. And the karma that was surely already closing in on him.
"Shin Yo-sep texted me earlier, actually. Kim Ki-ok is dead."
"What?"
"Karma. It most likely happened right after Hara Seiko was freed."
Shin Jeong-ah's face twisted, the cigarette never even making it to her lips. Then she shot him a glance that asked, You're taking this awfully calmly, aren't you?
Maybe he did come across that way.
"The rokurokubi wasn't anywhere to be seen."
Having said it flatly, Kang Hyeong-seok went on, eyes on the pale, washed-out sky.
"She took him with her."
He would remain with the thing that could never again be called his mother, forever and ever. Through pain too relentless to ever grow accustomed to, through flames that even cascades of tears could not put out.
"Not an easy way to go."
Shin Jeong-ah took a long, slow drag, her face crowded with thought.
"So what are you doing with the rest of today?"
"Well. What else is there to do?"
Kang Hyeong-seok drained what little coffee remained, knocking back the last of it in one go.
"I came back. So I work."
The way it had always been. Whatever departed would keep on departing, and those of us who stayed behind still had to live out today.
Smack! A firm slap landed between the shoulder blades of the oddly melancholy-seeming Kang Hyeong-seok, and Shin Jeong-ah spoke up with a grin.
"Say the word if you need help. I've got you."
"Thank you—even if it is just words."
Watching her flick her spent cigarette into the empty paint can, Kang Hyeong-seok turned toward the stairwell.
Lunch was winding down. Somewhere below, the mountain of backlog was lying in wait for his return, like a yokai crouched in the dark.