Kang Woojin—or Kiyoshi—thought of the only person he had ever respected, the one who had thrown herself over the railing.
Misaki Toka.
That detached, lonely smile of hers, and the school uniform buttons that looked as though someone had torn them off by force for no clear reason.
'It had to be you, Kinjo.'
He had bullied Misaki Toka just like the others, but Kinjo had always looked at her in a strangely unsettling way. It was because of his sick obsession with women.
That was why that smile on his face now felt wrong.
It wasn't that he had no right to smile.
He just shouldn't be allowed to forget.
It wasn't violent hatred. If anything, he felt completely empty. All it did was remind him that there was still homework left to finish.
Right now, there was a worn scrap of paper in Woojin's pocket.
Nine names were written on it.
At that moment, Kinjo finished talking with the woman and began walking again.
Swish.
Kang Woojin, who had been watching him with bored eyes, also started moving. Kinjo had no idea that a stranger was following behind him. More than a month had already passed, yet he hadn't picked up on so much as a single clue, while during that same month, Kang Woojin had finished learning even his smallest habits.
He was fairly tall.
But still shorter than Woojin.
That alone was enough of an advantage.
He didn't look it, but Kinjo had a family and young children. He also worked at a decent company. His hours for leaving and returning from work. The train he took. The bars he frequented. The acquaintances he met. The routes he used. The lover he saw in secret. The illegal meetings he arranged once a week. Even the karaoke girls he met under the excuse of business trips.
At this point, Kang Woojin probably knew Kinjo's life in greater detail than Kinjo himself did.
His life.
His existence.
He recorded and stored it all with frightening precision.
And so Konakayama Kinjo entered his office building.
"8:48. Three minutes later than yesterday."
Kang Woojin—or Kiyoshi—pulled out an old cell phone. It wasn't under his own name. He had bought it, along with several others, from a homeless man in an empty lot a short distance from the station. The camera he carried was a film camera too.
By now, he had gathered more than enough dirt on Kinjo.
That was enough.
Now it was time to rig the fireworks.
First, he would shake him by using his company and his family as leverage. Woojin sent Kinjo a text. The message was short.
'For the beginning… yes, adultery sounds good.'
Exactly one minute after he sent it, Kinjo called. Woojin answered with a blank expression.
"Hello."
Kinjo's furious voice burst out through the phone.
"You— you! Who the hell are you?!"
"Does it matter? First, come outside."
He hung up immediately. The phone rang again, but Kang Woojin ignored it. Across the street, Kinjo came running out of the company building with despair and rage mixed across his face. Woojin watched him for a moment through a hazy gaze.
'What kind of shape would be best?'
He had no intention of giving Kinjo the comfort of death right away. He would tighten the noose slowly, little by little. After today, that smile from earlier would no longer exist.
'And the final touch?'
Well, I won't get an answer from you, so I'll decide that part myself.
Either way, you'll be isolated. What you'll be tasting for more than a month from today onward will be a dessert called mental hell. Anxiety, suspicion, discomfort, restlessness, dread, and every emotion like them.
"That should do for today."
Leaving the frantically raging Kinjo across the street behind him, Kang Woojin entered a nearby fast-food restaurant.
He was just a little hungry.
From that day onward, one of Konakayama Kinjo's dirty secrets was delivered every single day.
The number changed often.
But the person behind it was clearly the same.
"Damn it!! Who the hell are you, you son of a bitch?!"
Kinjo's days became disgusting. His wife's suspicions deepened, and he could no longer function properly at work. Even the women he liked so much stopped appealing to him. The moment a person's peace is shattered, extreme anxiety takes hold.
Kinjo lived in pain every day, and ended each one with alcohol.
But every morning, without fail, another text arrived.
Why are you doing this to me?
If you want money, I'll give you money. If you want women, I'll give you women.
But the anonymous other party demanded nothing.
He simply kept taking Kinjo's life away, day by day.
Then—
"Ghk! Ugh—"
Kinjo, who had blacked out from drinking, forced his eyes open with difficulty. His body was lurching. And he was cold.
Why is it so cold?
Letting out a faint groan, Kinjo slowly pushed himself upright.
"...Huh?"
His eyes widened instantly.
He had realized he was lying in a rocking boat floating on the sea.
It was right then.
"You awake?"
An expressionless man sitting in front of him came into view.
"Long time no see, Kinjo."
It was Iyota Kiyoshi.
──────────
The 20th.
Kyoto, Japan.
Late afternoon. Ine Funaya, the fishing village with the sea stretching out in front and thick mountains behind it. Normally, the floating village, which looked as though it rested directly on the water, overflowed with tourists.
But since yesterday, Ine Funaya had been packed with a film crew instead.
It was the team for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice.
The place where more than seventy or eighty Japanese staff members had gathered was the far edge of the tightly packed houses floating above the sea, near where several boats were moored.
The filming conditions were not especially good.
"Director! Please check the monitor!"
A few cameras had been installed on land, but a couple of them had to be mounted on boats. Because of that, two members of the filming team had to climb aboard rocking boats with cameras on their shoulders. Meanwhile, the man in overall charge of the set, Director Kyotaro, whose hair was full of gray, was seated in front of a monitor station set up on the pier.
"Let's pull Camera Two a little farther back!"
"Yes!"
Voices crackled endlessly over the radios. Not just the filming crew, but the lighting team adjusting the lights to match the darkening sky, the dive team stationed there for safety, and even the drone team handling inserts and background shots.
"Director! Launching the drone!"
"From the entrance of the village!"
Every team pressed forward with serious faces despite the cold weather. Today was the official first day of shooting for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice. Strictly speaking, they had already prepared in earnest since yesterday's rehearsal, but as expected, the tension was several times greater on the actual first shooting day. On top of that, the directing and production teams were busy controlling the onlookers, including villagers, gathered behind the tent where Director Kyotaro stood.
There were also quite a few visitors that day.
Most of them were gathered in the second of the two large tents. A few of the lead actors had shown up even though they had no scenes scheduled for today, along with Akari, the original author of The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice, key staff from Toega Film and the distributor, and about five Japanese reporters who had been granted access to the set.
Author Akari, her glasses resting at the tip of her nose, stood beside Director Kyotaro and took in the scenery. She seemed quite pleased with how the setting looked according to the script.
"This is nice. Just as you said, Director, Ine Funaya was the right answer."
Kyotaro, who was busy speaking to the staff over the radio, smiled faintly.
"Thank you. I tried framing a few shots with the actors during rehearsal yesterday, and it came out better than I expected."
"Ine Funaya is a beautiful place, but it also feels frightening. Blue sea in front, green mountains behind. But depending on how you stage it, the village itself can look bizarre."
Meanwhile, as dozens of staff members prepared for the shoot, they kept sneaking glances toward the first tent. That was where the actors for today's scene were gathered.
"Did you see rehearsal yesterday? I thought it felt a little flat."
"I think it's because the actors performed with the energy dialed down. The director was guiding it that way too."
"...That may be true, but Kang Woojin still felt weaker than he did at the script reading."
"Did he?"
"Yeah. It got pretty noisy among the crew because of that."
Surprisingly, a lot of the talk among the staff carried concern.
"Do you think this will be okay? Their chemistry looked kind of uncomfortable during rehearsal yesterday."
"Kang Woojin, the main lead, came to Japan and immediately dropped a bomb. Of course things are going to feel a little off."
"Even so… it was kind of disappointing."
A lot of the people gathered for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice that day had not attended the earlier script reading. In other words, quite a few staff members were seeing the lead actors for the first time.
Naturally, most of the conversations included Kang Woojin, the center of the controversy.
He was the only Korean actor on the set.
And not just them. Plenty of others were thinking the same thing.
Will this really be okay?
At this rate, the film could end up stamped as nothing but a controversy-ridden production. Right now, the attention on The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice in Japan was explosive. On top of that, the entire Japanese entertainment industry was focused on Kang Woojin.
"If the end result feels weak, the hardcore fans of the original are going to tear it apart the moment it comes out."
"And the press will happily mock it to death."
"I'm worried. The noise around this got much bigger than the original plan. That means expectations and hostility have both risen way too high. If they want to shut everyone up, the quality has to be untouchable…"
As those conversations among the film company staff suggested, The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice was in an uncertain position. In terms of buzz, it was at the very top, but it was also standing on the edge of a cliff. They had forced production forward while ignoring every bit of criticism, and if the final result turned out lukewarm, the film was sure to be torn to pieces.
That was probably why worry could be seen on the faces of about half the people present—staff, film company employees, and distributor guests alike.
It was then.
"Actors, standby!"
At Director Kyotaro's signal, wrapped in a thick padded jacket, several members of the directing team hurried toward the first tent, and the actors who would appear in the scene began filing out. This cut required four performers in total. The handsome Ogimoto Yasta as Konakayama Kinjo, Nakajo Kimi as Misaki Toka in the flashback, an unidentified man played by a supporting actor—
And then—
Slide.
Kang Woojin, who was playing Iyota Kiyoshi, stepped out last.
"..."
His costume, fitting the heavy cynicism of the role, was a simple suit. His makeup was done, but lightly, and his hair was slightly mussed.
If anything, even his outward appearance looked no different from Iyota Kiyoshi himself.
In any case, the moment the key figure of the scene appeared, dozens of gazes snapped toward Kang Woojin. The lighting team moving equipment, the directing staff around Kyotaro, the props team crowding the pier, the reporters beside the tent—everyone.
As for Kang Woojin—
"Hoo."
He didn't pay much attention.
He just let out a quiet breath.
He was receiving a great deal of attention, but he had grown somewhat used to this kind of gaze.
'Okay. Let's crush this.'
About thirty minutes later.
A faint darkness had settled over Ine Funaya. It wasn't completely black yet, but beyond the far edge of the sea, darkness had already gathered thickly. At that moment, Kang Woojin was on a boat. A slightly unstable-looking wooden boat. Sitting in front of him was Japanese actor Yasta, preparing to collapse over, fully in character as Konakayama Kinjo.
He spoke softly to Woojin in Japanese.
"For our first shoot to be this one. There are so many people watching, so I'm a little nervous. You feel it too, don't you, Woojin? Especially with the media and public opinion so focused on us."
Kang Woojin answered in a low voice.
"No, not really. I'm just here to act."
"Haha… i-is that so?"
"Yes. I look forward to working with you."
"Yes, yes. Me too."
By the time the short conversation ended, two boats carrying cameras and another carrying soft lighting had drawn in around them. A drone also rose high into the sky. Soon, once preparations were complete, Director Kyotaro sat back down in front of the monitors. Several screens showed Kang Woojin and Yasta.
At last, The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice was appearing on the monitors.
A great many people were watching.
Most of all, the world-famous original author Akari stood right beside them. The master director Kyotaro of Japan quietly closed his eyes and took a breath.
"Hoo."
Then he exchanged signals with the key staff around him. Camera, audio, lighting. Everything was ready. Kyotaro slowly lifted the megaphone, and the more than seventy staff members all swallowed hard and fell silent.
Across the eerie yet quiet pier of Ine Funaya, his first command rang out.
"Action."
In the brief instant it took to blink atop that wooden boat—
Drawn up from somewhere deep inside, Iyota Kiyoshi surfaced in Kang Woojin. It was only for an instant. No one on the set could possibly have noticed. But Woojin's entire body was already full of Kiyoshi.
Though he floated on the deep sea, the current of emotion inside Kang Woojin was extraordinarily faint.
Empty.
Hollow.
Blank.
His calm yet chilling eyes turned toward the camera directly in front of him. His posture was perfectly straight.
"..."
With an expressionless face, he did nothing but stare. On the monitor, Kang Woojin appeared as someone impossible to read. And for some reason, Kyotaro, who had practically buried his nose in the monitor, parted his lips slightly.
'To make "nothing" look so easy—what actor could express emptiness that clearly?'
There was no desire in him at all.
And yet his dim eyes looked like something that could never be broken.
Then—
"O—"
Yasta, lying in front of Woojin—or rather, Kinjo—slowly sat up, clutching his head. At the same time, Kang Woojin's vacant gaze, which had been resting on the camera, lowered toward him. As Kinjo took in the situation, his eyes widened.
"Huh…?"
He jolted in shock, and the boat rocked slightly. He was supposed to be in a bar, so why was he suddenly on a wooden boat in the middle of the sea? Where even was this? That confusion filled his eyes.
Then a man's voice, perfectly level in tone, reached his ears.
"You awake?"
Kinjo turned his gaze forward. It was too dim to clearly make out the man's face. He narrowed his brow. The other man's voice, meanwhile, didn't waver at all.
"Long time no see, Kinjo."
"Wh-who are you?!"
"You'll know. We went to school together."
"…What?"
Woojin's face stayed stiff. Only his mouth moved.
"And I'm the one who's been waking you up every morning."
"!!!"
Kinjo's eyes widened even further, and he hurriedly pressed his back against the end of the boat.
"Y-you!! You're the one who's been sending those texts!"
"I'm glad to see you too. But greetings can wait."
Creak.
Suddenly, a presence made itself known beside Kinjo. The sound of another wooden boat. Kinjo gasped and whipped his head to the right. An unidentified man sat in a small wooden boat, rowing toward them slowly.
What the hell?
Kinjo turned back toward the front.
"Ugh!!"
He nearly threw up from the shock.
Woojin, who had clearly been sitting at the far end of the boat, was now only a fist's distance away. His expressionless face, those vacant eyes, were right in front of him. Like a mannequin. Nothing had changed. There wasn't the slightest twitch on Woojin's face.
And yet it was terrifying.
Grotesque.
"So you can make that kind of face too."
Kinjo's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. By contrast, Woojin, who had been staring at him without even blinking, spoke in an even tone.
"Are you alright? Calm down."
"Wh-who are you?!"
"My introduction? Of course I'll tell you. Later."
Soon, the sound of the other wooden boat came again.
Creak.
At some point, the boat carrying the unidentified man had drifted right up beside them. Woojin, still expressionless, pointed toward it and calmly explained to Kinjo.
"I'll introduce him before I introduce myself. He's the man who's going to rape you. Say hello."
At that moment, looking at the mannequin-like face of Kang Woojin directly in front of him, Kinjo—or rather, Yasuta playing Kinjo—genuinely felt like he was about to wet himself.
'W-wait a second! Don't get genuinely scared. It's acting, it's just acting.'
It was completely unconscious.