Chapter 95
Chapter 95
Demon (6)
“Urk…”
Of all places, the area around the set was a ruin with nothing but overgrown grass, making it unsuitable for hiding. He dragged his aching body as far away from the set as possible, but a surge of blood forced him to stop midway and hang his head low.
“Cough!”
Hearing the sound of someone retching, Im Seung-hyeon and Lee Tae-gyeom instinctively moved toward it.
“There he is!”
“Young Master?”
Yu Yeon-seo, who had been heaving amidst a patch of reeds, snapped his head up.
“What? Why are you here?”
“Blood, blood!”
Ah, Lee Tae-gyeom and his damn sharp eyes. There was no lighting out here, how did he even see? Yu Yeon-seo scowled. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he found it smeared with blood.
Im Seung-hyeon scanned the area, wary of anyone else approaching, while Lee Tae-gyeom pulled some tissues from his pocket and offered them to Yu Yeon-seo.
“I believe I told you not to come.”
How dare you ignore my words? A sudden wave of anger surged through him.
“Young Master, no one could have stayed away.”
“That’s right.”
“If we hadn’t come to check, it might have been Seo Ha-jun, Hong Min-a, or even the director who came.”
“Didn’t you think you were acting suspicious yourself? If you just storm off like that… everyone’s going to worry and follow you.”
And checking on this sort of thing was the job of a manager and a personal assistant. Yu Yeon-seo fell silent, watching the two who had somehow gotten perfectly in sync.
“We’ll talk later.”
“…When?”
“After this project is over.”
He could probably handle Lee Tae-gyeom, but Im Seung-hyeon’s intensity was formidable.
Wait, I’m the employer, why am I the one getting flustered? Yu Yeon-seo felt a surge of frustration and was about to say something, but he clamped his mouth shut. These volatile emotions were probably also because of the hallucination.
‘Well, I’ve been caught. Nothing to be done about it.’
He irritably ran a hand through his hair.
“Shouldn’t you really go to the hospital? Are you going to be okay?”
“So we should just scrap the whole shoot after they’ve set everything up, all because of me? Forget it, I’m fine.”
He had a point, but… Lee Tae-gyeom watched Yu Yeon-seo’s back as he strode ahead, muttering in an anxious, trembling voice.
“Don’t tell me this is what happens every time he suddenly storms off…”
“…No way.”
“It can’t be, right?”
When Yu Yeon-seo returned to the set, he could feel everyone pretending not to look while still keeping an eye on him. He sat down and opened his script. Dealing with the fallout was the manager’s job anyway.
“How is Yeon-seo?”
“He’s fine.”
“Really? Can he continue filming?”
Lee Tae-gyeom glanced at Yu Yeon-seo before nodding. Im Seung-hyeon stood silently behind Yu Yeon-seo, arms crossed.
‘I can feel him drilling a hole in the back of my head.’
This was why he hadn’t wanted those two to find out. They worried too much over nothing. No, was it really nothing?
‘Then again, anyone would be worried.’
Yu Yeon-seo knew his body was fine, but those two didn’t. And if something were to happen, the people closest to him would be the ones to suffer. The thought seemed to clear his dizzy vision slightly.
‘There’s so much to worry about…’
The hallucination’s effect was quite severe. Traces of his original self were emerging without him realizing it… He could probably manage the hot temper somehow, but the problem was that it was affecting his acting.
“Hyung, are you sick?”
“I just really had to use the bathroom.”
“…It didn’t look like that.”
“If I say that’s what it was, then that’s what it was.”
Yu Yeon-seo answered Seo Ha-jun curtly and leaned his head back.
‘Ah, this is so frustrating.’
Yu Yeon-seo was just as anxious. When the hell would he get used to this damn hallucination? He pressed his temples firmly, trying to get rid of the tinnitus that muddled his head. Not that it would actually disappear.
“Let’s resume filming!”
At those words, Yu Yeon-seo pushed himself up and took a deep breath. There was no time for other thoughts now.
The three discover an altar once used by the Dark Night Cult and are struck speechless by the horrific sight. Kim Leo even turns away and dry-heaves.
“Are you two not affected by this?”
“I’ve seen plenty.”
“Me too.”
Park Su-a and Father Raphael, who have both traveled through conflict zones in Africa, search the area around the altar for any potential clues.
“We can’t just leave it like this.”
Unable to simply walk away from the disgusting and gruesome scene, the three become hell-bent on finding the Dark Night Cult’s true base.
The scene shifts, slowly panning over the back of a man sitting on a throne-like chair in front of a sinister altar. The man, with one side of his face melted away, is the leader of the Dark Night Cult. A gruesome sound of bones crushing comes from his arm.
“Tsk… A half-measure.”
The body he possessed is also incomplete. The cult leader flips through the documents handed to him by a priest, casually snapping his crushed arm back into place as if intrigued.
A news article about a handsome priest spotted at a station on Line 2, a photo of which went viral on social media.
The article features a picture of Father Raphael. The cult leader looks at a photo of the child the body’s original owner had, and smirks.
“Bring him to me. Alive.”
It would be easy to transfer to the body of a blood relative. The fact that it’s a priest’s body is a bit troublesome, but as long as he can create a crack in his heart, he can slip in at any time.
And Father Raphael vaguely senses this as well.
“The cult leader is likely… my biological father.”
“What?”
“What did you say?”
Father Raphael brings out the files on the victims of the demon-worshipping ritual they found in the ruins and spreads them before them.
“This is him.”
“Wait, Father, I don’t understand.”
As Park Su-a asks with a frown, Father Raphael calmly recounts what happened in his childhood.
“That was when I fled with Father Leo and ended up at St. Peter’s Cathedral.”
“Huh…”
Kim Leo rubs his face dryly as if in disbelief. He speaks, gasping for breath.
“I had a mother?”
“Of course you did, why wouldn’t you…”
Park Su-a couldn’t finish her sentence. She knew all too well that the reason Kim Leo went off the rails in high school was because he was pointed at for being an orphan with no parents.
Even though Father Peter had been a father to him, he had always secretly longed for the life of a child raised by loving parents.
Father Raphael, not unaware of his feelings, silently unfolds the documents and shows him a picture of his biological mother.
“This is her.”
“…”
Kim Leo learns that the mother he thought had abandoned him had actually been sacrificed in a demon-worshipping ritual while trying to protect him. The scene shifts.
Having finally located the Dark Night Cult’s true base, the three make their final preparations and enter. Park Su-a documents the horrific atrocities happening inside with her phone camera, while the two priests rush forward to exorcise the cult leader.
“Su-a, behind you!”
“What? Aaargh!”
Just then, as the three let their guard down, a knife is plunged into Park Su-a’s side.
“Park Su-a!”
Kim Leo kicks away the cultist who stabbed Park Su-a, and Raphael applies pressure to her wound to stop the bleeding.
“This isn’t working. Take Park Su-a and get out of here for now.”
“What about you, Father?”
“…I have to perform the exorcism.”
Kim Leo stares intently at Father Raphael’s resolute eyes, then nods.
“I’ll be right back!”
Kim Leo carries Park Su-a on his back and heads outside. And then, the true nature of Father Raphael—the man who always broke the rules, persuaded by Kim Leo’s arguments—is revealed. He takes down the cultists one by one and heads for the altar where the leader is.
“Son, didn’t you miss your daddy?”
“…”
The face, half-disfigured by burns, was hideous. Raphael already knew the leader’s possession was incomplete.
“Daddy went through a lot of trouble raising you.”
“You are not my father.”
The leader’s goal was to draw out a response and create an opening in his heart.
“Well, fine. I expected as much.”
“…”
“Let me ask you a question. Do you know what I’ve done since I came here?”
Father Raphael pressed his lips together tightly. If he got drawn in, it was over. He carefully took a bottle of holy water from his bag.
“Nothing at all.”
But Father Raphael, who could glimpse his father’s image in the cult leader, narrowed one eye.
“I simply fanned the flames of desire in the hearts of humans. Just a tiny bit.”
“No, that can’t be…”
Then does that mean the horrific events weren’t orchestrated by the demon, but…
Having answered reflexively, Father Raphael clamped his mouth shut. He had fallen for the demon’s whisperings. The cult leader grinned from ear to ear. It was eerie on its own, but it would probably be made even more grotesque with additional CG.
“Look at me! What can I possibly do with this body!”
His voice boomed as if he were singing. His body was twisted bizarrely, a side effect of the incomplete possession. An unapproachable aura emanated from his emaciated frame. Raphael’s shoulders trembled slightly.
‘He’s overwhelming…’
The actor playing the cult leader was a veteran stage actor, accomplished enough to be the director of a theater company. But in this battle of wills, he couldn’t let his presence show. The early part of the scene required Raphael to be on the defensive. After a brief thought, Yu Yeon-seo centered himself and put on Raphael’s mask once more.
“Had they lost their reason?”
Raphael’s eyes widen slightly.
[Why do I have to live my life getting walked all over! What did I do wrong!]
[It was fun… watching them get on their knees and beg me to spare them…!]
[Why? Why should I live by the law? When there are so many fun things to do?]
The people he had exorcised since coming to Korea had been mad, but they hadn’t lost their minds. Raphael’s pupils trembled. He couldn’t show weakness in front of a demon, yet he inadvertently revealed an opening. And the cult leader skillfully exploited it.
Without a sound, the cult leader closed the distance to Raphael and placed a hand on his bowed head. The camera captures this from afar. It looked as if he were receiving a baptism. A demon baptizing a priest—a contradictory image.
“Who is the real demon here?”
Raphael lifts his head and looks at the cult leader who was once his biological father.
“Me?”
The cult leader sneers, bringing his face close to Father Raphael’s.
“Or…”
…you people?
The cult leader mouths the words.
Raphael—no, Yu Yeon-seo’s eyes shot wide open. Because behind the cult leader, he could see a white skirt and two legs. His body instinctively stiffened, and a cold sweat broke out.
‘Stop…’
He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. The figure was still shimmering behind the cult leader. Yu Yeon-seo’s eyes became bloodshot.
“Something’s a bit off.”
The script direction only said, ‘Raphael glares at the cult leader, teeth clenched.’
“Wait. Quiet.”
At the assistant director’s whisper, Director Choi put a finger to his lips and stared intently at Yu Yeon-seo on the monitor. If this was Yu Yeon-seo’s interpretation of Father Raphael, the priority was to capture it on camera without interruption.
‘This is my body.’
Yu Yeon-seo didn’t shy away from the hallucination; he faced it head-on. A single tear rolled down his cheek from his bloodshot eyes. Even this appeared as sorrow for a father who couldn’t rest in peace, and a glare directed at the demon possessing his father’s body.
“No, I’m different from you.”
Yu Yeon-seo’s desperate struggle to break free from the hallucination blended perfectly with Raphael’s performance of trying to escape the cult leader’s psychological warfare.
“Get out of that body.”
He’s not someone you can treat so carelessly. Taking out his cross, Father Raphael confronts the cult leader.
“Cut! Great work, everyone!”
“Good job, everyone!”
After nearly a full day dedicated to filming, the final shoot for ‘Demon’ had successfully concluded. Yu Yeon-seo casually accepted the greetings while secretly spitting out blood. The aftereffects of the hallucination were lingering. He desperately wanted to go home and rest.
“What’s the first step?”
“The hospital.”
“You heard him, right?”
After taking a final commemorative group photo, the atmosphere turned to one of dismissal. Since they would all see each other at the wrap party anyway, Yu Yeon-seo quickly got into the van. He sighed upon hearing the conversation between Lee Tae-gyeom and Im Seung-hyeon.
“Haa… Fine.”
They won’t find anything even if I get tested… For now, Yu Yeon-seo decided to play along with the two of them.