The VIP in Tow
"How on earth did our actor Lee Heeyoon figure that out? You really do love the occult, huh?"
Director Jeon Changhwan's eyes were shining with a purity so pure it was actually uncomfortable to look at.
I've definitely seen this exact species of human at my school before.
It reminded me of Jang Chaerin introducing the Giyeon scenario to me. Come to think of it, that was the first thing she'd ever said to me, wasn't it?
Do you, by any chance…… like inhuman things?
If it hadn't been for Jang Chaerin, I'd have had no immunity to people like this and would've been caught completely off guard. Thankfully, I was used to it by now. Director Jeon was curious about my tastes, and the Demon was lounging at my side like it owned the place.
Even in the middle of this circus, at least one thing had become perfectly clear to me.
"Since this place was born for it, the person getting exorcised must be you, Director."
"Actor Heeyoon."
"You're about to say we're a perfect match for each other, aren't you? We are absolutely not."
"You can read my mind, too. We really do click."
His eyes were so lecherous that I cut him off flatly, and yet he was delighted anyway. I know it's rude to say this about someone nearly thirty years my senior, but…… the man was clearly deranged.
Apparently this site had always had bad energy, and the gut ritual was about to begin. He'd brought me here specifically to watch it, it seemed.
I stood outside the cave, watching the preparations for the ritual. Vice President Gam Soohan came over and asked me, his face full of concern.
"First time seeing something like this, right? If it scares you, you can go wait in the car."
"It does scare me. But I'm curious."
"Honestly, so am I."
Vice President Gam didn't scare easily. Quite the opposite of the notorious coward Gam Seongbeom and Team Leader Do Jaeyeon. It was a strange thing — a man who worried about everything under the sun, yet seemed to have no fear at all.
As for me, with a demon tagging along everywhere I went, there were plenty of things on this side of the world I wanted to understand. Like why this particular demon wanted to watch acting so badly. And what it actually intended to do with the lifespan it took from me. And the most fundamental question of all…… why, exactly, was it so obsessed with cute things.
[Hey, it's not an obsession. I'm just naturally adorable.]
[By the way, the shaman's gonna sense me. You sure you're okay with that?]
When I turned around, the shaman grandmother — who already looked eighty-something — was busy preparing the ritual space. Then, glancing around here and there, she stole a quick look in my direction.
Did she see the demon clinging to me? If so, she was genuinely gifted.
I was still thinking that when the old woman hurried straight toward me. Then she said, her face full of surprise:
"Gyeoul? That you?"
Ah. That……
Beside me, Vice President Gam brightened up even more than I did.
"Yes, it's Gyeoul."
"Oh my, you're so pretty I could hardly be sure."
The reflexive greeting I'd been trained to deliver through endless scolding from Team Leader Do Jaeyeon shot out at spinal-reflex speed.
"Thank you so much for all the love you've shown Love in the Moon."
While I was busy bowing, the Demon muttered beside me.
[Yo, the shaman's looking at me.]
Then the shaman grandmother asked me point-blank.
"You know what you're carrying around with you, don't you?"
Yikes. That was suddenly a little chilling.
I played dumb.
"……Carrying what?"
"What do you mean, what. Him."
"He's harmful, right? If you do the gut, will he come off?"
"This one's beyond me. He seems like the kind you can talk to, so you go negotiate with him yourself. Whew, and anyway, this land here is rotten to the bone — but with a big guest in town, the little vermin have gone quiet. Might not even be anything left for me to do."
With that, she waddled off toward the ritual grounds.
Beyond me? What kind of shaman washes her hands like that?
I was dumbfounded. The Demon, meanwhile, was preening.
[See? This is who I am.]
[I'm the big guest, haha.]
And then Vice President Gam turned toward me, his face gone pale. Not out of fear — out of worry.
"Wh-what do we do?"
"What do you mean, what do we do? She's just trying to spook us. More importantly, hyung, get a little closer. I'm a born coward, you know."
"Sorry, sorry."
Vice President Gam answered meekly. Really, it was because of this man that I'd come back from my past life less of a proper human being. Coddled like this all the time.
While the two of us trembled and shivered, the shaman grandmother began the gut as if nothing had happened. I watched from a distance. The dazzling spectacle certainly had the power to bewitch a person.
But watching her identify the demon attached to my side, I got the feeling it wasn't just a trick of the senses.
Meanwhile, Director Jeon, who had overheard the exchange between me and the shaman, came over wearing the face of a man moved to tears.
"Our actor Heeyoon…… seems to have quite the distinguished guest attached to him. Man, calling him a guest is scarier than anything. I'm using this. Definitely using this."
"……Why are you so excited? The man's saying I'm possessed."
"Come on, this is wonderful news for an occult film. Ahh, the movie's going to be a hit."
I was still getting chills down my spine, and this man was over here celebrating. Truly a fascinating specimen.
That said, as I looked around at the crew, I had to wonder whether people making an occult film were really allowed to be this terrified of ghosts. Everyone was deploying every ward and charm imaginable against the guests who might come calling.
Some people had brought hand-made talismans and kept them tucked in their bags. Someone else had turned theirs into a keychain to carry around.
Even Seo Joongsung handed me one, saying his wife had gotten it for me.
"My wife wants you to have this. Apparently ghosts show up whenever they're called by name, so you have to be careful on a set like this."
"Why is anyone spending money on this stuff?"
"Trust me, I said the same thing. But my wife worries about you."
I grumbled, but I clipped the talisman keychain onto my bag anyway. Just in case. The Demon hated it.
[Ack.]
[Bad energy. So much bad energy.]
[Why would you hang this thing on?]
The set itself was eerie enough that the crew's mass hysteria didn't even look out of place.
I was halfway through thinking, We've got a near-impossible-to-remove demon trailing us anyway, so what's the point, when —
……No. It's still terrifying.
This was going to be no small ordeal for a coward like me, and for everyone at Leader Actors besides.
I could feel it in my bones.
If you asked third-year acting major Jang Chaerin — child actress turned performance high school senior — who she envied most in the world these days, the answer was Lee Heeyoon.
When he'd first enrolled, she hadn't paid him much attention. Their only point in common was that they'd both started out as child actors, and that was that.
But from the moment she'd pored over the Giyeon scenario, and from the moment he'd actually pulled off the performance of that grotesque hybrid creature, interest had curdled into envy. No matter how she turned it over in her head, she couldn't imagine herself handling that role, even if it had landed in her lap.
"Must be nice…… I'm so jealous……."
She'd heard the news of his friendly cameo in Exorcism Investigation 2 from her agency's CEO — her father — a man whose ear was glued to every whisper in the occult film world.
From the sound of it, this "friendly appearance" carried a surprisingly hefty weight of screen time.
Lee Heeyoon, having confirmed that Jang Chaerin already knew about the cameo, had come to find her and asked her, dead serious.
"So, turns out I'm apparently playing the one who gets exorcised. What kind of role does that make it?"
"Getting exorcised is a given. You haven't seen Exorcism Investigation 1?"
"I have. Why is it a given?"
"Look at the cops on that exorcism task force."
And so, lamenting the fact that Director Jeon had handed such a major role to a man who clearly knew nothing, Jang Chaerin showed him her most treasured possession: the character book for Exorcism Investigation 1.
"Look. Look at those builds. How are you supposed to fit in there?"
Exorcism Investigation, summed up in a single line, was the story of cops who exorcised demons with their fists. Fittingly, the task force was made up of people who could all bench-press a refrigerator. All four members were either hulking giants like squad leader Seo Joongsung, former athletes, or — once again — hulking giants. Lee Heeyoon flipped through the character book and gave up on the spot.
"Yeah, absolutely not happening."
"A twig like you would get crushed to death wedged between those guys."
"Shouldn't the demon be a little offended? Why would you make these people my enemies?"
"That's the fun of it. That's why the demon shows up but it's never actually scary."
"If you say so. Funny how Woongbae and everyone at our company couldn't watch it in a theater, though. They waited for it to hit streaming. With the lights on."
"If you couldn't even handle 1, 2's going to be so much worse."
Lee Heeyoon knew next to nothing about the occult, so he listened to Jang Chaerin with real attention. For all his usual rudeness, whenever the conversation touched on something he needed, he'd stare at you with eyes that seemed ready to absorb absolutely anything, nodding along.
So that's a demon for you. The head demon, no less. Bewitching humans — textbook behavior.
Arms crossed, Jang Chaerin studied him as he bent intently over the character book.
"Exorcism Investigation 1 drops a hint, you know."
"What hint?"
"Ugh, did you even watch the movie properly?"
"Twice. But what hint?"
"It's right there. The demon king foreshadowing."
"……Where?"
"Wow, you really watched it carelessly."
Jang Chaerin pulled up the film on streaming and showed him a particular scene.
"Look at the wall here."
"Yeah. Saw it."
"What does it say?"
"……That's supposed to be writing?"
When Lee Heeyoon asked that back, Jang Chaerin looked at him with utter contempt.
"You can't read Hebrew?"
"Am I supposed to?"
"Obviously. Anyone making occult films who can't read Hebrew is guilty of gross negligence."
Jang Chaerin shook her head solemnly, and Lee Heeyoon nodded along. So it's negligence, then. Truly, when it came to anything related to acting, he was an idiot who would swallow any insult whole. Of course, that same trait was occasionally, rarely, charming — but it was rare. Jang Chaerin's heart, after all, beat eternally for the inhuman…… though she supposed she could give it a flutter or two if he ended up playing the Demon King.
Jang Chaerin copied the Hebrew scrawled on the wall, letter for letter, onto a sheet of paper. Lee Heeyoon punched it into a translation app and frowned.
"It won't translate."
"Because it's mirrored, obviously. How do you know so little about demons?"
Lee Heeyoon stared hard at the flipped script, and then — without touching the translator at all — murmured under his breath.
"Our king is coming."
At those words, Jang Chaerin froze for a split second before rounding on him.
"What? You said you don't know Hebrew."
"Right, I guessed."
Lee Heeyoon gave an answer that would have fooled absolutely no one, then plugged one ear with his finger as if someone were nagging loudly beside him.
The more she looked at him, the stranger he got.
In any case, Jang Chaerin declared with full confidence:
"So the role you're taking is that king from the wall."
At that, Lee Heeyoon covered his other ear as well. When Jang Chaerin gave him an odd look, he answered with a perfectly blank face.
"The shaman grandmother says I've got a big guest attached to me."
"……Must be nice."
Truly the most enviable creature on the face of the earth……