Chapter 108…
Real or Fake.
A red dot pointed to one spot on the screen.
“Please stop!”
The video froze instantly.
I pointed at the spot with the laser pointer.
“Do you see this right here?”
“Yes, I see it. As expected, Hyung Ho-yong breaks everything in sight.”
“Puhaha!”
“Kya-hahat!”
This guy… half comedian indeed.
But we needed to take a closer look.
“Do you see that whitish thing—kind of brownish?”
“Huh?”
Between the crumbling walls, something that looked like a bone could be seen.
“That’s the same bone from earlier.”
Right, Nara-noona.
The one you were swinging around so excitedly.
The one I told you to throw away.
Only then did the staff seem to realize it was a bone.
The camera directors switched to footage from different angles and started putting them on the screen one by one.
“Art team, who hid this?”
The PD turned around and called for the art team.
The art director tilted his head, pulled out what looked like a blueprint, and answered with an awkward look.
“We didn’t hide anything.”
“Could it be left behind by another team who filmed here before? This place does get rented out sometimes.”
Nope. Not that.
The reason I wasn’t surprised earlier was because the girl holding the leg bone had crouched down and was pointing at the wall.
Look at her—even now she’s teary-eyed, cheering me on.
Let’s pretend we didn’t notice. Let’s just… detective mode. Yeah, detective mode.
“It’s supposed to be a scare trap, but no one would cement bones into a wall just to startle people. And that spot wasn’t meant to be dug into anyway.”
“Uh…”
“Eheii.”
The mood suddenly turned cold.
I moved the laser pointer to the bones on the floor.
“These were probably mixed in with the sample bones, so everyone thought nothing of it. But look at the color—it’s faded, yeah, but doesn’t it look different?”
It was clearly different.
The dusty, grayish prop bones and the ones from the wall looked nothing alike.
The latter had a brownish tint—a darker, grimy hue.
“What the… is this a hidden-camera prank?”
At last, our Nara-noona turned pale, glancing around at me and everyone else.
She even began frantically scrubbing her palms, remembering what she’d just touched.
“Eheii. Soo-han, you and the crew planned this, didn’t you? Tell me you did.”
Even the “paper man”-looking younger guy spoke up.
Sorry. I was going to let the higher-ups or someone else handle it later, but these people were joking around while we were eating.
And food is sacred to me.
I turned to the staff.
“For a precise conclusion, let’s request an on-site forensic examination.”
The moment the show turned from variety to documentary.
Police officers in protective suits arrived around the collapsed wall, while PD Na Jung-won stood there, dazed.
A detective approached with a notebook in hand.
“Please explain the situation.”
“Uh… yes.”
Some of the crew had already packed up, while others kept filming.
People might call them heartless broadcasters, but honestly—it was instinct.
“So, during filming…”
In the end, they were human bones.
The production team had sensed it was serious, so they called the police right away.
When they tapped at the already-damaged wall, it crumbled further—revealing a complete human skeleton still wearing tattered clothes.
Everyone, including the actress Shin Nara—who had held the bone earlier—collapsed on the spot.
They contacted the police immediately and escorted the cast out.
PD Na still remembered what Woo Soo-han yelled as he was being led away:
“So what about our dinner?”
He reflexively sent everyone to the restaurant they’d booked—but who knew if anyone could eat after that.
Chop chop chop!
Yup, food paid for by someone else always tastes the best.
Paying with my own money? That’s how bank accounts die.
“Huh? Why aren’t you all eating?”
Everyone—crew and cast alike—flinched and looked at me.
“Come on, eat. Seriously, how do we even know that thing’s real? You saw the sample bones beside it. Maybe it just got mixed in during construction…”
Jeez… look at their faces.
No one’s buying it.
“Let’s eat. We’re all here to eat, right? Haha, imagine the story we could tell on another variety show like Video Star!”
As expected, Ho-yong-hyung was a professional.
Even while stuffing his mouth with meat, he knew how to shift the mood.
Sure, it was a tragedy—someone’s misfortune—but also a rare experience few civilians ever have.
We might even end up credited for uncovering an old cold case.
“Exactly. If it’s real, we just helped a wronged soul find justice.”
One of the staff spoke gently, and slowly everyone began eating again.
Except one person.
Nara-noona, who had been waving around what we now knew was a shinbone, still looked pale.
“Noona, please eat.”
“Did you… know?”
She asked instead of lifting her spoon.
“Come on, if I’d known, I’d have slapped your hand away yelling ‘No, no, no!’”
“But earlier you—”
“I didn’t know for sure, just felt something was off, so I told you to put it down. Like I said—who would rig a wall for someone to lean on?”
“Ah… I think I washed my hands a hundred times.”
Still trembling, she stared at her palms.
What should I do…
After a bit of thought, I gently took her hand.
“Huh?”
“It’s fine now.”
“What?”
She looked down—my fingers had left grease on her from the meat I’d just picked up.
“See? Just the delicious scent of grilled pork.”
“Hey!”
She swung her spoon at me. Finally, a laugh burst out of her.
“Ugh, seriously!”
She muttered, wiping her hands again with a wet tissue.
“Have some soybean paste stew, noona. People say you feel worse if you skip food.”
“Jeez, really.”
Guess my tactic worked.
She finally took a bite.
“Should we order some jokbal (pig’s feet)?”
“Why, do you want some?”
“They say new memories overwrite the old ones.”
“…I don’t think I can ever eat pig’s feet again.”
…Guess that failed.
So I grabbed the wrist of the “paper man” sitting next to me and held it out toward her.
“Huh? Hyung, why my arm—?”
“Noona, maybe start rehab by holding something similar…”
“Hey!”
“You can’t just use a real person’s arm!”
Ah… thank goodness.
At least the mood was lively again.
Even amidst the laughter, Ho-yong-hyung gave me a thumbs-up while chewing.
That’s right.
Food solves everything.
I returned the thumbs-up.
Chief Park Yoo-chun grabbed Woo Soo-han by the collar and dragged him into the car as soon as they left the restaurant.
“Why… WHY did you do that?!”
“Mmm, because the truth has to come out?”
“Not for food?”
“…”
Yoo-chun clutched his head.
He couldn’t tell if this guy was a psychic, a shaman, or just cursed.
“My life’s turning from an entertainment show into a horror movie, you know that?”
He looked at Soo-han with tearful eyes.
“At least mine went from poverty horror to entertainment horror…”
“AAARGH!”
Yoo-chun lost it.
Soo-han had turned a variety set into a crime scene, and when questioned about it, had simply said, “Justice served?”
Naturally, his manager Yoo-chun had to spend all his energy covering for him at the police station.
He’d been terrified that Soo-han might start babbling about ghosts again.
But when Soo-han left the station muttering, “Think they’ll find the rest?”—Yoo-chun realized there were more bodies.
Thankfully, the police found them all, and even identified the culprit.
The perpetrator had been a hospital facilities manager who’d committed the murders and secretly buried the bodies under the guise of maintenance work.
“I told you—I didn’t get anything out of this either!”
Soo-han protested as Yoo-chun shook him by the collar.
“You got a meal! A MEAL!”
“You think food solves everything?!”
“Then why’d you start this mess?!”
“Because, justice—ack!”
Only after shaking him thoroughly did Yoo-chun let go.
Still fuming, he sighed as Soo-han cautiously asked,
“So… can the footage air?”
“Luckily, yeah. Since the culprit was caught fast, we settled things with the police. The network’s saying we heroically reported suspicious findings, and the police solved a cold case thanks to us. The news even ran a headline about their quick investigation…”
“Ha, covering their failure for all those years, huh?”
“Sigh.”
Yoo-chun sighed again at Soo-han’s grumbling.
Then he glared at him.
“Please, next time—warn me before you start something. It’s impossible to stop you after the fact.”
It wasn’t like they could see the ghosts he worked with anyway, but at least if he warned them, they could prepare.
“Okay, okay. Honestly, I was gonna pretend I didn’t notice, but how could I ignore bones coming out of a wall?”
“Ugh.”
“And besides, John came chasing after me himself.”
Yoo-chun shook his head.
“Would Momo have been found if not for me? Dae-sung-hyung would still be suffering. That girl might’ve gone from stalking to something worse.”
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry.”
“Aw, you don’t have to apologize.”
Yoo-chun hadn’t gained anything from this ordeal, but he did make one agreement: from now on, Soo-han would give advance warning.
“By the way—”
“What, what, WHAT?!”
“You told me to warn you first, right?”
Tearing up, Yoo-chun groaned.
“You’re an entertainer, not an exorcist. Please.”
“Really? Then hold on—I’ll cancel this one.”
Yoo-chun blinked, surprised at his compliance… until he heard the phone dialing.
“Hello, sir? You know the ghost stuck in your lobby?”
“Wait—don’t tell me that’s Baeksan Corp…”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll tell them we’re not taking the job.”
Yoo-chun snatched the phone in panic.
“Ahahaha! Hello, sir!”
—“And who might you be again?”
The familiar voice belonged to Chairman Yang Man-sik.
“This is Park Yoo-chun, manager from GB Entertainment.”
—“Ah, you’re working hard.”
“I’m terribly sorry, sir. About that ‘spirit in the lobby’—I accidentally scheduled Soo-han without realizing, but I’ll take care of it quickly.”
“Wait, didn’t you say not to—”
Yoo-chun mouthed shut up! at Soo-han.
—“No need to make such a fuss. By the way, our brand’s new model list came out recently. I said I really like that actor Kim Dae-sung.”
“Oh, thank you so much!”
—“Just saying.”
Yoo-chun was, after all, a helpless slave to capitalism.
