Flower Rain and a Peeved Demon
Exorcism Investigators was a film about a fictional police unit, the "Unusual Crimes Investigation Team," that solved its cases through exorcism.
The movie had done well enough that fans flooded the studio with demands for a sequel. Apparently they really were going to make one this time.
And as it happened, I'd always wanted to act in something about driving out demons. Just to piss off the demon who was listening, of course.
[Are you out of your mind? Why would you do that!]
[Ah, my heart's already pounding, this is terrifying]
'You have a heart?'
[Of course I don't, you emotionally stunted brat, it's a metaphor]
[What do I do, I feel so uneasy……]
If a demon found it unsettling, that was reason enough to think it was a good idea. Seo Joongsung spoke with a troubled look on his face.
"I know how busy you are. You can turn it down. An exorcism film is going to be grueling."
"The filming won't start for a while anyway, will it?"
"Right. Earliest would be summer?"
"What kind of role is it?"
"Ah, there are two, and one of them needs some action. The other's a demon role, so all you'd have to do is make an impact with your face — it'd be far too easy for you."
"I'll take the action one. We're the ones beating down the demon together, right?"
"Probably? But I won't be able to find you time to attend the Action School……"
"I don't need to go. I can do it."
Do Jae-yeon, who'd been listening in, gave me a scolding.
"These are the kinds of things you check with the company first."
"Even if they said no, I'd still do it."
"We all know we can't break that stubborn streak of yours, but at least have the decency to tell us."
Do Jae-yeon harped on from one side while the demon busied itself with cowardice on the other.
[It's all too horrible……]
'You said you're a high-ranked demon. Exorcisms don't work on you.'
[Horrible all the same! You humans can be so careful and dignified about depicting a human death, so why is it that when it comes to demons you try to banish us with filthy, disgusting nonsense like the Lord's Prayer!]
Watching this display, I had to admit the thing really was a demon. Maybe I'd visit a temple. Nah, it'd hate that.
[I'm not setting foot in a temple, lol. Like you'd actually go alone to a place full of strangers you don't know]
'I might go just to torment you.'
[……Isn't your taste a little strange? Are you sure you're not the demon here?]
The demon's already endless chatter only multiplied from there, and I agreed to appear in Exorcism Investigators as a cameo once the weekend drama wrapped.
Filming for Love in the Moon, which had begun in November, ran until early April. On the final day of shooting, the streets were in full cherry blossom.
Every last member of the cast and crew had come out to the night shoot under those blossoms. Everyone had grown so attached to this drama that the set was unusually thick with sentimental souls.
The cast gathered and shared a few words each.
"Will I ever meet another drama like this in my life…… Ah, I was already about to cry, why does the sky have to rain flowers on top of it."
Kang Minha choked up mid-sentence and stared up at the empty air. It hadn't rained all year, as if the blossoms had held on just for our final shoot and were now showering themselves down over us. It was a romantic wrap. Between my regression and this whole life, a day of filming in an atmosphere this good would never come again. That's how rare a thing it was.
Once the veterans had each said their piece, the moment arrived when I had to say something too.
I'm the sort who hates speaking in front of a crowd even when it isn't a shoot, so I had very little prepared. But they pressed and pressed until I promised to say something, so I decided to start with why I'd chosen this drama in the first place.
"Honestly?"
"……Am I allowed to be honest?"
Seo Joongsung worried beside me. Seeing my own company's people react the same way, I suppose I'd worn them down quite a bit over the months. I pretended not to hear and went on.
"Our drama is a family drama, after all. Through this show, I wanted to experience what family means — for a long while. And I really did."
Right. Do Jae-yeon had always told me to bow my head and give a proper greeting whenever I owed an elder thanks. So that's what I did.
"Thank you for giving me an experience I'll never forget."
Carried along by the moment, I bowed all the way at the waist, and when I straightened up, everyone was silently staring at nothing. Seo Joongsung sniffled, plucked a single cherry blossom petal from my hair, and pressed it into my hand. I wasn't entirely sure why. Some kind of keepsake, maybe.
Anyway, the whole crowd was in tears. Normally, when a shoot ends, I feel that classic mix of relief and reluctance — sometimes the relief wins, sometimes the reluctance. On the film Strange Fate, where I'd had to sit through full monster prosthetics, the relief clocked in at about ninety-eight percent.
And this time, with Love in the Moon, the relief was only around thirty-five percent, and the rest was reluctance. After fifty straight episodes, for the relief to amount to so little was a strange thing indeed — especially considering how brutally hard the shoot had been, hard enough that I couldn't make it to school once.
Whether I'd ever again get to shoot a drama of this length somewhere in my thirty-two years of life, I couldn't say. But I suspect that even if I'd invested a far longer stretch of time here, it wouldn't have felt wasted.
For the past half year, it had been good to have a family.
The moment the final shoot ended, I went straight back to school. There was still more than a month to go before the last episode of Love in the Moon aired.
The moment I walked through the school gates, students swarmed me with questions.
"Hey, does Moon Gyeoul die?"
"My grandma has to know. She says if he dies, she's done watching."
Ah. It had been exactly like this during Garden of Manyusa, too. An endless loop.
"You're all future industry professionals and you're asking me for spoilers?"
"Ugh, shut up — is he gonna die or not!"
These deafening adolescents. Barely finished growing, utterly impossible to talk to.
Without a shred of exaggeration, I must have been asked whether Moon Gyeoul dies ten thousand times over the past six months. Good grief. Exhausting.
Being exhausted was no excuse for spoilers, though.
I was busy ignoring the pests who kept coming at me, hands clamped over my ears, when Woo Woong-bae poked briefly into our classroom, spotted me, and walked straight back out.
Ki I-an, my classmate, turned to me.
"Did you two fight?"
"We didn't fight. We simply discontinued dialogue."
"Because he's the lead?"
"That bastard wouldn't even look at me when he asked around, remember."
Woo Woong-bae had finally finished the screenplay for his graduation film. And he'd handed the lead role to Ki I-an.
He hadn't so much as glanced my way. And here I thought we were friends. Apparently not.
Ki I-an said,
"Who do you think you are, some kind of star? I brought your autograph home for the holidays and my grandma fussed over it more than she did over me. How is anyone supposed to put a guy like that in a high school graduation film as the lead?"
"Why couldn't he? What exactly disqualifies me? Ugh, thinking about it again is making me mad."
"Then go tell Woo Woong-bae that to his face."
"No."
With that, I folded myself down onto my desk.
Of course I understood why he hadn't asked me, too. You can't exactly go looking for someone who hasn't set foot in school once the entire time he was shooting a weekend drama.
Still, I'd helped him out a few times back when he was banging his head against the screenplay. By my own standards, granted. Whether I actually helped is another question, but I made the effort, so that was that.
Either way, come to think of it, he'd never once let me read it. From the very beginning, I'd been excluded.
While I was grumbling away like that, Hong Hyeonsang — the teacher who'd supervised us through the regular-performance survival rounds — called for me.
I followed him into an empty practice room for a few minutes.
"You've heard about the graduation production?"
"Yes."
"And Jeong-hyeon?"
Oh, for crying out loud. That bastard was here. No wonder my eyes had been stinging.
This guy had a habit of slapping you on the shoulder when his presence was utterly unnecessary, then going dead silent the one time a warning would've been useful, just to startle people.
At any rate, having him nearby didn't floor me the way it had back in first year, though the air around me still thinned out more than usual. And once I registered his presence, a certain degree of it became tangible.
Hong Hyeonsang went on.
"For high school students it would naturally be an adaptation, but if the two of you join as actors, I'm thinking of staging it as close to the original text as possible."
This was what the school had been holding out until April for. I had no idea what Han Jeong-hyeon had been up to in the meantime, but he must have been busy with something I couldn't perceive. Speaking of which — what was with that bastard making an interesting movie? Could it be I wouldn't be able to see it in theaters either? Because that would interfere far too much with my life.
Hong Hyeonsang glanced briefly toward where Han Jeong-hyeon stood, gave a nod, then looked back at me.
"What about you, Heeyoon. If your schedule's too packed, don't join. Of course, it's because of you two that we're pushing to stage Hamlet at all. But if this is a high school play you can't commit to properly, then it costs us too."
My second half of the year was looking light. Outside of the friendly cameo in Exorcism Investigators, it was nothing but commercials and photo shoots, and the company itself had recommended I stay in school until my high school graduation if at all possible.
Besides, with the weekend drama over, Leader Actors had finally scraped past the brink of shutting down for good. They told me I was free to loaf around for a while. Evidently the company still hadn't accepted the fact that I liked working.
But then, if I could act at school, there wasn't really a reason to go running off to a set, was there.
"I'll do it."
And it was theater, no less.
"I've wanted to do theater ever since I watched Han Jeong-hyeon perform it."
"Ah, I went to see that too. He was genuinely incredible. Are these two really not even adults yet? I felt a wall, and it was mine."
There was no reason to refuse. Provided the bastard actually agreed to do it, of course.
Above all, I still had to keep hunting for the truth behind Leader Actors' downfall. If I prepared a play alongside this guy, something was bound to surface.
I turned my head toward the spot where his head should be. Maybe I'd been staring at the wrong place, because he grabbed my skull and set it facing the right direction. If I focused hard enough, I thought I could almost make out a shape.
"Agh, my eyes hurt."
I gave up almost immediately and covered my eyes with my hand, and Hong Hyeonsang spoke.
"Y-you're in a Park Kihong film?"
At those words, I whipped my head back around toward where Han Jeong-hyeon had been standing.
"You're doing a Park Kihong movie?"
I asked, despite being unable to hear any answer.
Ah, I'm furious. Every single emotion I've felt today has been pure anger.
I couldn't make out what he was saying, and it put me in a foul mood. He was probably baiting me on purpose. No — I was certain of it.
If I listed the people in this country I admired most, the first would be Choi Yu-jin of drama. Then Yeon Haeum, renowned for her beautiful cinematography. And last, in film, Park Kihong.
Before my regression, I had never once been cast in a Park Kihong film. That old man…… that gentleman sketched out his actors at the screenplay stage and cast accordingly, and since no actor alive ever turned down Park Kihong, he worked only with the performers he'd envisioned from the start. There was no crack anywhere for me to wedge into.
And this bastard had gotten there first. No — that director's gaze had found this bastard before it found me.
As if I wasn't already seething, the demon had to open its mouth too.
[Of course you traded away five years, so I'll keep helping you hunt down the truth about Leader Actors' collapse! But still!]
[You go and announce you're doing some Exorcism Investigators knockoff, and nothing happens but things that piss you off]
[The demon following you around is fuming]
[You know what happens when a demon gets angry, right? Bad luck comes your way]
Today really must not be my day.
'……I should demand more screen time than just a friendly cameo.'
[You little—!]