The Birthplace of the Demon King
I thought back to the time before my regression, when Team Leader Do Jaeyeon had passed away. The parts of a memory you most want to forget tend to fade on their own, but strangely, that day refused to fade.
The clearest thing was her funeral portrait.
Team Leader Do Jaeyeon, who had taken thousands upon thousands of photos of me, had nothing to use for her own memorial portrait except an ID photo from a passport renewal nearly ten years old. I just kept staring at that picture.
Fuck. How could I lose my family again? How cursed a life must I have been born into, for every single person I could call family to leave me like this?
Wasn't I the curse at this point?
I remembered thinking that, back then.
Team Leader Do Jaeyeon was the one who shook me out of that pit of bad memories.
"Where were you this whole time, and what were you doing? Actor Han Jeonghyeon is right over there."
"I got his business card. From the Mobydick CEO."
"...Here? Just now? Weren't you saying his wife is sick?"
Team Leader Do Jaeyeon looked bewildered by beings that hardly seemed human, then held out her hand to me.
"Give it here. The card."
"What for?"
"No reason. I just want to look at it."
"I already threw it away."
"You threw it away?"
"I'm never going there anyway."
I said it and jerked my chin toward the car.
"I have things to discuss with that Han Jeonghyeon. It'll take a while, so go on ahead."
"About what? Can't I hear it? Is it about Mobydick Ent?"
"It's nothing like that, so just go."
Team Leader Do Jaeyeon dug in her heels at first, but with Han Jeonghyeon watching, she couldn't make a scene, and in the end she left.
I turned toward Han Jeonghyeon.
The reason I hadn't properly perceived him was that his very existence had been erased. Which meant the more information I accumulated about him, the more clearly he would come into focus — and that transparency would gradually turn opaque.
Second seat in Class 2. The name Han Jeonghyeon.
And then.
"I went and saw your parents."
The son of Han Taerin, CEO of Mobydick Entertainment, and the actress Im Hyunjoo.
Once I knew that, I could finally look him dead in the eye and speak.
"Your mother does nothing but worry about you. She's afraid you don't love life. She even said she was relieved — since you don't have emotions, she figures you won't be able to feel the grief."
And to that bastard, I made a promise.
"But I'm not trash like you. So... if it turns out you're the one who killed my family — the Leader Actors people — this time, I'll kill you first."
If that bastard had killed my family, I would kill him. I was going to die a little past thirty anyway, and if the time I had left rotted away in a prison cell, so be it.
I never wanted to attend a family funeral again. I'd take prison over that.
"So wait for me. Until I find out the truth."
When I said that, I heard him laugh.
The mere fact that I could hear it sent a chill down my spine. Having laughed like that, Han Jeonghyeon spoke to me — and even that sound seemed to come from somewhere terribly far away.
"Didn't all of that already disappear?"
"...What?"
"We came back to this point in time. Which means whatever I did, it's as if it never happened."
I found myself at a loss for words.
Not because I had nothing to say — but because this bastard was somehow even more insane than I'd thought.
Han Jeonghyeon went on.
"And even if I did do something, there's no way for you to find out, Heeyoon. There's no evidence."
"Then I'll just sell the demon a little more of my lifespan."
I meant it.
Why else did I come back here?
I came back to save the people of Leader Actors. The acting was just a bonus. The moment I confirmed they wouldn't die young, I wouldn't care if I dropped dead tomorrow.
It's true I'd be sorry to lose all the countless productions I left behind. But that was mere regret — it didn't hurt like staring at my parents' funeral portraits.
It'd be better to wrap this up quickly and get out — go see my parents, recite sonnets to my heart's content with Grandpa Gam Ihyeon.
Han Jeonghyeon answered me with perfect calm.
"Then keep selling. Live until you're thirty, and act with me."
"...I swear, I can never get a read on you, you lunatic."
"If you're that curious, I'll tell you. Whether I've ever killed anyone."
Whether I threatened to kill him or tried to make him feel an ounce of guilt, there truly wasn't a shred of emotion in his voice. If anything could be felt at all, it was curiosity — and a hunger for acting.
"You won't tell me for free."
"Of course not."
"So what do I have to do?"
"Come practice theater. Any script will do. I'm bored, stuck in the hospital."
Looking at Han Jeonghyeon, I felt a flicker of worry. That people might see me the same way.
"You've probably heard by now, but I can barely feel emotions. The only ones that reach me are the extreme ones inside a play. Killing someone... or acting with you. Things like that."
What made my skin crawl in that moment wasn't fear of Han Jeonghyeon.
It was that, for an instant, I agreed with him.
When you deliver a certain kind of performance — there is no emotion in this world that can beat that electric thrill. They say art has no right answers, but there is undeniably a ceiling: the maximum you can draw out of everything you are.
It had been especially true right after I finished a performance I knew I could never repeat in my life.
Then Han Jeonghyeon took my phone. When he handed it back, he said:
"If I call, answer."
And Han Jeonghyeon disappeared in the direction of the intensive care unit.
Right after, I found a bench and sat down. There wasn't a corner of my body that didn't ache.
"That bastard's going to make me sick if I keep running into him."
When I muttered it to myself, the demon cut in.
"Ugh, I hope Exorcism Investigation gives me a fat paycheck."
I ignored the demon's shrieking protest and kneaded my throbbing arm.
"Director, I'm really sorry, but—"
"Oh, Joongsung. What is it?"
"Isn't this... a scam?"
Seo Joongsung, who had played a father to Heeyoon in Love in the Moon and come to cherish the boy as if he'd raised him in his own heart, asked with genuine worry. Director Jeon Changhwan answered:
"A scam? Joongsung, it's an effort to captivate the audience. Efforts like this, one by one, are what pile up until they win people over. That persuasion is what captures ten thousand, a hundred thousand, ten million viewers."
Director Jeon Changhwan of Exorcism Investigation had always been a smooth talker.
Put charitably, he was persuasive. Put less charitably, he'd have you nodding along with a dazed 'uhhh' midway through, and by the end you'd feel like you'd been swindled. Of course, the swindled feeling was never entirely imagined.
For once, Director Jeon Changhwan spoke with uncharacteristic steadiness.
"Just look at our actor Seo in this scene. If actor Lee Heeyoon does it, who profits? The audience wins, you win. Why, even the demons will be grateful we cast such a beauty!"
"No, but still... Heeyoon — I'm going to look after that boy like my own eldest son for the rest of my life. The late actor Gam, our father — it was that kid who gave him the chance to act one last time."
"I know exactly how you feel. That's why I'll film it beautifully. Genuinely, beautifully."
"...He'd still be the king of demons."
"Exactly. What could be lovelier than a beautiful Demon King?"
From the very first Exorcism Investigation, Director Jeon Changhwan had made no secret of his appetite for a franchise, laying the groundwork with hints about a 'Demon King' only he knew existed. Then recently, watching Garden of Manyusa, he'd been thoroughly smitten by the actor Lee Heeyoon who played Eun-ha.
He'd gone to the production company to pitch casting Heeyoon as the Demon King, only to belatedly discover that this same Heeyoon was already so beloved as Moon Gyeoul that a small role was out of the question — and he'd been heartbroken about it.
At that point the production company had asked whether he didn't know Seo Joongsung appeared in Love in the Moon. He didn't. Director Jeon Changhwan had never been much of a drama watcher.
Once he'd learned that, Director Jeon Changhwan sent Seo Joongsung the Exorcism Investigation 2 scenario and began peppering him with questions. Had he made a friend? Even with an age gap, he should get close to the boy.
Seo Joongsung had taken it for affection — when in truth it was nothing but cold, pure casting strategy.
Director Jeon Changhwan pressed on.
"The appearance itself is short. We'll shoot it quick, quick."
"But if Exorcism Investigation 3 gets made, I'd have to be in that one too."
"Aigo, we haven't even shot 2 yet and you're talking about 3."
With his terse manner and unhurried pace, Seo Joongsung stood no chance against the director's rapid-fire, airtight delivery.
Heavyhearted, Seo Joongsung sent Heeyoon an apology.
And Heeyoon replied right away.
That instant reply worried him all over again, and he fired back another message.
And back came a reply to that long-winded caution. Exactly three characters.
"...So many things to worry about, my son."
Seo Joongsung let out a sigh.
For a while after meeting Han Jeonghyeon's family, I felt grimy all over — I wanted to hire a shaman and have a cleansing ritual done, if such a thing existed. Not that I believed in that stuff.
Shooting Exorcism Investigation at a time like this was oddly fitting. With 'exorcism' right there in the title, what better film could I possibly need? Ideally, they'd purge the demon and every demon of a human being in one go.
Even though CEO Gam Seongbeom had begged and pleaded, Director Jeon Changhwan wouldn't send over the script. Instead he said the set was going up now and told me to come see the location first. What kind of bizarre arrangement was it to demand I show up on set before so much as telling me the role?
Anyway, I headed for the set.
CEO Gam Seongbeom and Do Jaeyeon were both too terrified, so it was Vice President Gam Soohan who came along to deliver me.
The set was being built, of all places, inside a cave in the mountains.
Director Jeon Changhwan gripped my arm tightly and led me into the cave. Then, gesturing grandly at it, he announced:
"This is where our actor Heeyoon was born."
"I was born at Jeil Hospital."
"No, no! The role!"
...What on earth am I playing, that I'm born here?
Just as I was thinking that, I heard the demon take a long sniff of the air.
...The demon says it feels like home? Then isn't this genuinely cursed ground?
I turned to Director Jeon Changhwan in a hurry.
"Director, this seems like a place the demon would really enjoy?"
At my warning, Director Jeon Changhwan broke into the brightest smile I'd seen on him since we'd met, right after Love in the Moon ended.