JKA 75

But he couldn’t just stand still like this. Other than Hanbyeol, no one knew that Eggsy was a demon, or that he had the face of his dead brother. If he ignored his greeting in that situation, the atmosphere on set would obviously be ruined.

Eggsy probably knew that and still brought up such a topic and extended his hand. If he didn’t take it, he would be dragged along just as he wanted. Jiwoon quickly wiped the sweat from his palm on his pants and awkwardly clasped Eggsy’s hand. His hand was terribly cold.

A cold hand, yes. They had no warmth. It was one of the things that made them different from humans. Jiwoon knew this cold feeling. Was it because of his contact with 17? He had no memory of properly holding his hand, but anyway, Jiwoon knew this.

“Ah, hello.”

Jiwoon tried to let go of Eggsy’s hand, avoiding his eyes, but he couldn’t. It was because Eggsy was squeezing his hand tightly and wouldn’t let go. At this, Jiwoon looked at him with surprised eyes. There was something eerie about Eggsy’s smiling face.

“This is really amazing. Since it’s come to this, let’s get along well from now on. Where else would you find such a coincidence?”

Eggsy put a lot of emphasis on the word ‘coincidence’. A coincidence? There was not a single coincidence here. Everything was inevitable. And wasn’t it a game that Eggsy himself had entered and created? And yet, as if to prove he was a demon, he was playing completely innocent.

Hanbyeol was finding it harder and harder to endure his rising irritation. He was about to say something to at least pull Eggsy away from Jiwoon, regardless of what others might say, but at that moment, Jiwoon spoke first, shaking their clasped hands up and down.

“I-I know, right? I-I was v-very curious about a lot of things too.”

“Curious about something? About me?”

Eggsy, who had been avoiding his gaze as if he didn’t know where to put his eyes, burst out laughing as if it were absurd when Jiwoon made direct eye contact. At a glance, it was a cheerful atmosphere, but for Jiwoon, it was not at all.

His heart was pounding, and his stomach was churning. He was barely holding on because his actions, expressions, and even his voice were all different from the Seonwoo in his memory. He is not my brother; he is a demon wearing my brother’s mask. He repeated that to himself and faced Eggsy. For some reason, he felt that he couldn’t lose.

He couldn’t know what his purpose was, but if it was something that would harm him or Hanbyeol, he would absolutely not stand by and watch. He hadn’t come this far without any thought either. He wasn’t going to let Eggsy ruin this movie, or Hanbyeol and himself.

“Yes. A-a lot.”

“That.”

“…”

“I’m really curious.”

Following Eggsy, who burst into a hearty laugh, Jiwoon put on an awkward smile. Hanbyeol and the others just watched the two of them with faces that said they didn’t know what was going on. Presently, Eggsy let go of Jiwoon’s hand and left first under the pretext of practicing his lines. Only after he was a little ways off did Yeongeun lower her voice slightly and say.

“He has a bit of an eccentric side. He said he’s done a lot of this kind of thing. Appearing in movies made by university students, or modeling.”

“Well, he does know a lot. I got a lot of help with the script, too. You were surprised that it changed a bit, right?”

Huichan, who was nodding his head in agreement with Yeongeun’s words, pointed to the script Jiwoon was holding and asked.

“Th-the lines have in-increased a bit. I-I wonder if it’s okay for me to do it…”

His resolve to not let Eggsy be was still the same, but he also thought that if he, not him, became a problem for the movie, it might be better to drop out.

“It’s okay! It’s okay to stutter. We can just add that as a character trait. This is a department club project, so it’s more important that people from our department participate.”

“…”

“I’m sorry that we increased the lines without consulting you. We changed a lot of scenes because of budget issues… and that’s how the lines ended up increasing. It’s hard to secure many locations.”

Yeongeun looked at Jiwoon apologetically, and Jiwoon shook his head. It must have been unavoidable. It couldn’t have been an easy task for them to revise the script to fit the circumstances in a short period of time either. They could have just left Jiwoon out and let Eggsy play two roles, but the fact that they didn’t was also a consideration in its own way.

“Anyway, you’re the one I picked. We cast that person because you said you’d do this, so don’t feel too burdened.”

“Wouldn’t saying that make him feel more burdened, Yeongeun?”

“Then feel burdened. Feel burdened and do it. Let’s do a good job together, okay?”

Yeongeun patted Jiwoon’s shoulder and smiled, and Huichan gently restrained Yeongeun as if asking for understanding. Seeing the two of them, Jiwoon felt strangely reassured.

No one had ever shown him this kind of trust before. The two of them believed in him. Even though he had shown them nothing, they told him it was okay not to be good and to do a good job together. Jiwoon felt a strange tickling in his chest. It would be difficult alone, but he felt that if they did it together, he could somehow succeed.

“I-I’ll work hard.”

Jiwoon answered as if muttering to himself. Just then, as if something had occurred to him, Huichan said to Jiwoon and Hanbyeol.

“Oh, right. Um, Jiwoon. You live alone, right? Then could you bring several sets of clothes later? We’re going to shoot at a club member’s place in the evening, but he doesn’t have many clothes.”

“C-clothes?”

“Yeah. We need to have them scattered on the floor and hung up, but he doesn’t have many clothes. I don’t know what he even wears.”

He said that they had decided on one of the club members’ places as the shooting location, but they were short on clothes to decorate it to fit the theme of a messy room. The place was too empty because of the owner’s habit of organizing all his clothes by season and sending them to his parents’ house because he hated having a lot of stuff at home.

He asked if he could help, saying that he would have asked him to bring a couple of sets of clothes if he had known in advance, but he had forgotten to mention it because of all the other shooting equipment. Jiwoon readily nodded his head.

“H-how many do you need?”

Clothes were overflowing in his house. To think that the unworn clothes that filled his drawers and hangers to the brim would be of help like this. Jiwoon smiled brightly for the first time in a while.

“…I shouldn’t have just left him there.”

Hanbyeol stared out the car window with an anxious gaze. Hanbyeol, looking at the road that had grown dusky as the sun set, was filled with worry for Jiwoon, whom he had left behind. As luck would have it, he was the only one who wasn’t doing anything and at the same time knew where Jiwoon’s house was, so he had no choice but to leave the two of them and come out of the shooting location.

It was time to go get the clothes needed for the shoot, but he couldn’t just wait for Jiwoon, who still had scenes left to shoot. In the end, Hanbyeol came to Jiwoon’s house alone, and fortunately, with the help of 17, he was on his way back in the car he was driving.

“Stop shaking your leg. It’s distracting me from driving.”

17 said, glancing at Hanbyeol, who couldn’t keep still. At his words, Hanbyeol let out a sigh.

“Where did you get the car?”

“I have a smartphone, so why wouldn’t I have a car?”

Jiwoon had sent the hesitating Hanbyeol on his way, telling him not to worry because he had contacted 17. At the time, he had set out thinking that 17 would have taken care of what was needed, so all he had to do was bring it back, but on second thought, he could have just asked 17 to bring it.

“Then you could have just said there was no need to come, that you’d bring it. Aren’t you worried when he’s with a demon bastard?”

“You worry too much. Anyone would think you gave birth to Mr. Myeong Jiwoon, Mr. Im Hanbyeol.”

“That’s not it… he’s the demon attached to me.”

“Yes. The demon attached to you, Mr. Im Hanbyeol. What great thing could that demon do to Mr. Myeong Jiwoon, who has an angel attached to him?”

“He’s doing the crazy shit of suddenly appearing in front of him with a dead person’s face.”

Even at Hanbyeol’s sarcasm, 17 was expressionless. Hanbyeol, in the passenger seat, glared at that wax doll-like face before finally turning his head away. It was only his loss to argue with someone like this for no reason.

“Things keep getting tangled up like this because you think so complacently. It’s one thing for me to suffer, but why are you just standing by and watching Jiwoon go through this?”

“That wasn’t me, it was 1129.”

“So the person in charge has changed, is that it?”

“That’s not it.”

“…”

“Haven’t you considered that Mr. Myeong Jiwoon intentionally sent you away, Mr. Im Hanbyeol?”

Hanbyeol, who had been grumbling and complaining uncharacteristically, looked at 17 at the unexpected question.

“He probably intends to talk with the demon while you, Mr. Im Hanbyeol, are away. Because you, of all people, can’t remain calm in front of that demon.”

He said that Hanbyeol, who always acted more mature than his age, was always entangled with the demon when he couldn’t control his emotions. Jiwoon, who had noticed this, had intentionally sent Hanbyeol alone, and 17 had simply gone along with it. Hanbyeol felt strangely dazed.

“Mr. Myeong Jiwoon just has trouble voicing his thoughts; it’s not that he doesn’t have any. He went there with his own thoughts.”

“…”

“Shouldn’t we let Mr. Myeong Jiwoon do what he can, regardless of the outcome?”

“Are you saying I’m getting in the way or something?”

“Rather than getting in the way.”

17 slowly turned the steering wheel and glanced at Hanbyeol. People tend to grow according to their circumstances. The situation given to Im Hanbyeol had made him an adult quickly and made him much more mature than his peers. That must have been the driving force that allowed him to ignore the demon until now.

It must have been the foundation that allowed him to become a human who could follow what he believed in and pursued, without falling for sweet temptations. But at the same time, it must have also made him unable to trust or rely on others as he carried everything on his own. In any case, Im Hanbyeol was also only twenty-one years old, just like Myeong Jiwoon.

“He probably didn’t want to get you involved. Since you, Mr. Im Hanbyeol, must already be overwhelmed with what you’ve been given.”

“He wouldn’t have even met him if it weren’t for me.”

“That’s something we don’t know. There are many possibilities in the world. A case where you don’t meet, and where neither I nor 1129 exists for Mr. Myeong Jiwoon, could very well exist.”

“…”

“No one knows when or how the demon, who knows the strengths of my shell, will approach Mr. Myeong Jiwoon. As long as the demon has already bought Myeong Seonwoo’s face, nothing can be taken for granted.”

17 spoke as if he were reasoning with him, but he said it because it was, in the end, the truth. It wasn’t particularly for Im Hanbyeol’s sake, or for Myeong Jiwoon’s. He wanted to say that there was no use in trying to assign meaning to every single thing a demon does. Though he didn’t know if that would be conveyed well or not.

Hanbyeol, who had been silent for a while as if lost in thought, suddenly asked 17.

“Is that angel doing well?”

“I don’t know what ‘doing well’ means, but I haven’t met him since he came to the surface, so I don’t know.”

“…You mean he might have disappeared?”

“It’s a possibility. But… he probably hasn’t disappeared.”

“What do you mean, probably?”

“1129 has become a non-standard existence, so it wouldn’t be strange if he disappeared at any time, but he wasn’t sentenced to annihilation even when he cut off one of his wings.”

“…”

“He probably has his own intentions.”

There was no being who knew what God was thinking as he moved. Angels, demons, and humans were all the same. Perhaps all beings were living in the palm of his hand, moving only as he wished. 17 actually thought that 1129 was a being who should have already disappeared when he cut his own wings.