Chapter 118

Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual

"Um, Director."

"Mmhm?"

"Someone's here to see you."

"All the way out to this mountain hollow?"

When Lee Seon-hae looked up with a 'well, that's unusual' face, screenwriter Hong Gyeong-yeon wore an odd expression. His face was drained white, like someone gripped by fear.

"But, from what the staff told me, they seem like detectives here to investigate a case...."

"......"

A beat late, Director Lee Seon-hae's expression crumpled into an uneasy frown.

"...Detectives? Why does that sound so ominous? Aren't we shooting a horror thriller? This is a very typical opening."

"Please don't joke around. That doesn't make the tension go away."

"So what is it, then? Don't they usually call ahead? Are we suspects or something?"

"Come on, please, Director."

The tearful writer's face made the director laugh as she slapped his shoulders.

"Hey, why so down in the dumps, Writer Hong? You're supposed to be our horror specialist."

"Fiction and real life are completely different things??"

His expression hardened further.

"And, from what I heard... it, um...."

"...Sounds like it's related to that hotel?"

"...Yes."

Though they knew no one was around since it was break time, both their voices naturally dropped. It was the sort of content no one should overhear, but more than that, it simply wasn't a pleasant topic.

Director Lee Seon-hae rolled her eyes and asked.

"...What did they say? Did our staff meet them first? Or the actors?"

"Fortunately, they haven't made contact with the cast. It hasn't spread from our side, either. They said they learned we were filming here through their investigation."

"So the crew met them first?"

"Yes, two on-set staff confirmed it, and the assistant director informed me. And then I'm relaying it to you now, Director. In, uh, that order...."

"Oh dear, in this gloomy mountain hollow of all places... that must've been scary."

The director quipped "I'd better get everyone their bonuses" as she rose from her seat.

"If they've come all this way, it must not be a minor case?"

"They said they wouldn't discuss details until the person in charge arrived, but from what we gathered, it seems related to a disappearance or murder."

"And here we are already shooting a horror movie, this is too much for the crew. Best to send them down for a few days off. We've mostly shot the important scenes... we were about to go on break anyway."

"Then do I go down too? I'm scared."

"Don't you dare. Writer Hong is a package deal with me. Where do you think you're going, leaving me behind?"

The director cackled, swatted the writer's side, and started walking.

"They'd be at the tent, then? It'll be faster if I go. You've done well passing along the message, Writer Hong. I'll handle the conversation with them, so take a rest and—"

"Do you think he's dead?"

"......"

The director turned to look at Hong Gyeong-yeon's face.

"...Dead?"

"That kid, you know."

"Why would you say something so scary, Gyeong-yeon?"

"There was nothing but lunatics in that place...."

Shadow fell across a white face. The bloodshot eyes and cold sweat trailing below them made him look exactly like someone crying in terror.

"I keep thinking... maybe we shouldn't have left him behind...."

"Gyeong-yeon."

"He gave us his business card, and not a single call has come since. I try to tell myself it's just because the signal cuts out at that place, but no. Why does the signal cut out? Does he even have a phone?"

"Hong Gyeong-yeon."

"I still can't believe he said he was an adult."

"Hey, you."

The director gripped his shoulders. Thanks to his considerable height, and the fact that Hong Gyeong-yeon was hunched over, he fit easily into Lee Seon-hae's arms.

"Calm down, Writer Hong. Did that kid look that helpless to you?"

"...No, he didn't."

"The detectives probably aren't here because of him, either. What kind of hotel is that place? The people running it aren't the type to let outside police find out if someone died inside."

"This is... this is supposed to be reassuring, right?"

"I can't tell you nothing happened to him."

Lee Seon-hae, who had seen it all firsthand, even less so.

"But detectives showing up doesn't constitute evidence that he's dead. That's what I'm saying."

"If you comfort people like that, kids these days will tease you for being a T-type...."

"Because of that damn MBTI or whatever, a person can't even speak in facts. Life is tough."

"It really is."

Hong Gyeong-yeon rubbed his reddened eyes and nodded.

"I'm sorry to bother you when you're busy."

"If you're sorry, get rid of the red eyes before you come back. If the actors get startled, that's on us."

"Every time a person tries to be touched, you won't leave them alone."

He nodded once more and left for the restroom. Probably to splash cold water on his face.

"......"

The director watched his retreating back, then let out a sigh and looked up at the sky.

"...It'll all come out eventually. Maybe I should gather the managers and give them a heads-up...."

The air of the rain-soaked mountain hollow was quite cool.

It seemed it could no longer be called summer, after all.

***

"......"

"...Rawi?"

"You're awake?"

"I don't think I was ever asleep."

"That kind of feeling, huh."

As Seome turned to look at him, Rawi sat down beside him.

"Seems like it was a somewhat dangerous situation."

"What isn't dangerous in this hotel."

"I still believe we can make it out of here alive."

"I'm not being sarcastic, but what makes you believe that?"

Beyond the window across from them, the rain still fell.

"Someone like Yeon-woo, for instance."

Having good eyes came with many uncomfortable aspects.

"He's a kind person."

"Wasn't that exactly what was making you uneasy?"

"Anyone would feel the same."

Rawi flopped back against the sofa.

"Isn't that just how the world is?"

A mess, ugly, covered in sores.

"It can look pretty, but it's precarious and fickle. Systems that seem harmonious are full of gaps, there are plenty who litter but few who pick it up, and people are born instinctively...."

"Selfish."

"So you end up getting pretty twisted."

He looks for discomfort in the gazes directed at him. He looks for hypocrisy in relationships between people. How mottled the essence was beneath the pretty wrapping — only Rawi could see it.

For a very long time, it had been that way.

"And then someone 'kind'?"

In a labyrinth of unprecedented scale, no less?

"I thought it didn't make sense. That I was being deceived, or at minimum, something was going wrong. But listening to what you said, sunbae-nim... it seems it's not entirely impossible."

"Because he was offered?"

"You said a labyrinth can't be born from just any story."

"So you thought Yeon-woo was just any person."

"Something like that."

He'd been uneasy with the very existence of something that defied logic.

But even after coming up to the hotel, Yeon-woo had been consistent. Perhaps, at least within these walls, Yeon-woo was that 'kind' of person.

"Until then, it hadn't particularly hit me."

"And then?"

"It was just at the level of 'I hope this is real.'"

From 'something like that can't exist,'

to 'I wish something like that existed.'

"That's about where I was...."

And then.

"Just look at this, the stench of blood is insane."

"It really is. We'll have to clean up."

Seome blinked slowly and asked, a beat late.

"Is that Yeon-woo's blood?"

"No kidding."

"Spilled because of me?"

"That's how it turned out."

"I should apologize...."

"Before that."

Rawi asked.

"Why does he go that far?"

"Hmm...."

Seome's head tilted.

"Sometimes there are people like that."

"Sometimes?"

"In my life, I've only seen that type exactly twice...."

"Right, the self-sacrificing type."

Laying down their life for what's right.

"He looked like he genuinely didn't enjoy any of it."

Bleeding,

suffering,

facing Dokkaebi.

Perhaps even breathing within these walls was something he didn't want to do.

"I still think it's strange."

"I see."

"Aren't people born that way? Your own safety comes first, and even people who help others when they have the means to spare... they're rare in this world, aren't they?"

"They're rare."

"Then I can't understand why Yeon-woo does what he does."

Rawi's voice continued without inflection.

"He said something, and I listened, but I still don't get it. He claims he's ordinary, but I can't fathom how he ended up that way...."

"You're talking about Yeon-woo's personality like it's some kind of accident."

"Is there a bigger accident than that? I think it's a more serious problem than most actual accidents."

He doesn't enjoy suffering in the slightest, yet he ceaselessly gnaws away at himself.

"It's terribly rude of me to say, given that I'm alive right now because of it, but doesn't it seem a bit wrong? When I was younger, I used to hope that somewhere in the world, a person like that existed...."

"And now that you've seen one in person, how does it feel?"

"Not great."

Far more unpleasant than he'd imagined.

"Even knowing it's to my benefit to have such a person beside me, I just feel bad."

"You're kind."

Seome, who had been staring only at the rainy forest, turned to look at Rawi.

"It's because you're kind."

"First time I've ever heard that."

"Because I wasn't like that."

"......"

A beat late, Rawi asked.

"...You, sunbae-nim?"

"I was too scared."

That was why.

"I was so scared that when someone reached out a hand, I couldn't bear not to take it."

Even knowing that person was in a difficult situation too.

"All I could do was beg them to please protect me."

"May I ask who you're talking about?"

"The first time, it was my younger sibling."

And.

"The next time, it was a passing stranger...."

"A stranger. That's unusual."

"One is still trapped in a labyrinth, and the other has already died."

He,

"They say kind people die young."

She whispered.

"......"

"Is Yeon-woo ultimately that kind of person too?"

Was it because he was destined to end that way that he wound up trapped in a labyrinth?

"You can trust it. You have good eyes, after all. If you saw something in Yeon-woo, trust it that much. Trust that such a person can really exist."

"And if I get stabbed in the back?"

"Then you just take the hit. At the very least, you tell yourself that the hand they reached out, or the help they gave, was no illusion. Holding onto just that one thing and living — it's not impossible."

"You're speaking quite like a senior now. A senior in life."

"That's right. I at least know that 'kind people' can exist...."

Seome murmured, looking at the window again.

"...I'm so sick of it...."

Kind people die young.

Sometimes, more terribly and miserably than anyone.

"I should have told you earlier. I'm sorry. I'm older than you'd think."

"Oh, really? What, like a hundred?"

"Not that old, come on."

"Practically a newborn."

"I don't think you're one to talk."

"Should I shut up?"

Snuggle....

"No."

Leaning back against the sofa just as Rawi had, Seome's lips parted.

"Talk a little more."

"You seem upset about something."

"I'm so upset I could lose my mind...."

Silently, quietly.

"I wanted to be happy."

Without so much as a blink, Seome cried.

"I wanted to live doing what I wanted."

She asked.

"Why is every place I go a hellfire?"

"How poetic."

"Is it because, in the end, the place we're in is hell, and we can't escape it?"

"I don't know."

"I needed something to mean something."

Devouring her younger sibling, turning away from her savior's suffering. Living as a worthless mercenary, witnessing every filthy thing there was to see. And yet wearing a precious body that was not her own.

A life too dear, saved by them.

"I have to live."

But.

"And to live, I need meaning."

She wanted to prove that she had value. That her younger sibling had not died in vain.

"Something...."

"Yes."

"That's why I wanted to at least be able to hold my head high."

"Who wouldn't?"

Rawi propped his chin in his hand.

"It's a bit late for this, but I don't think we're very compatible."

"I was thinking the same."

"But I can tell what you're trying to say."

Yeon-woo was no illusion.

He was a person who could absolutely exist — just rare. Too rare to appear in Rawi's short nineteen years of life.

But that made it ironic, all the same.

"......"

Rawi asked the empty air.

"...Are all the kind people in hell...?"

Unless it was a hell this vast, could they really be so impossibly hard to find?

***

Meanwhile, Yeon-woo, in the middle of performing an elaborate tap dance atop hellfire.

"A restaurant on the premises?"

He was dealing with a Monster Guest in whom conscience was as vestigial as a human appendix.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"That's harsh."

"You're the harsh one."

Yeon-woo had never encountered a problem guest this brazen.

"What I previously offered was a proposal of friendship."

"Yes, I remember it well, master."

"You really have lost your mind? For the sake of our smooth interactions, I'd recommend you specify more accurately as 'hotel owner.'"

"Hmm, then how about 'young master'?"

"The audacity knows no bounds."

His antics were a work of art.

"You've changed your appearance, and it seems you've changed your tongue as well. It's grown considerably longer."

"It is my devotion. Did I not go so far as to put on this cumbersome human skin to please you? I would be grateful if you looked upon me favorably."

"I wonder. What shall I do."

Yeon-woo surveyed the man with dispassionate eyes.

Neatly swept-back black hair and the gentle features of an East Asian. It was a far cry from the true form Yeon-woo remembered.

"So you're playing human right now, is that it."

He scoffed.

"I see your Korean doesn't come as easily in your original form. Given the stark difference in linguistic ability."

"You know all this and yet speak so cruelly. The architecture of noble blood and that of a lump of flesh are inevitably different, are they not? I do wish you would appreciate my devotion...."

He was being glib. Utterly detestable.

"You have no idea how difficult it is to speak 'Korean' while in a state of blood."

"And yet I understand that difficulty was considerably eased after you consumed me. Why, do you want after-service now? Before you left this hotel, you had no trouble running your mouth to my face."

"As you know, it is by the grace of God."

"Indeed it is."

He had no desire to understand which 'god' was being referenced.

"I wish to offer a prayer of gratitude for your contribution to my development."

"How wonderful to be so deeply cultured."

"Thank you for the compliment, Monsieur."

"From France, I take it."

"Have you considered becoming a multicultural enterprise? Appearances aside, I am a polyglot, and if you were to take me on, I would be of great help to the hotel's operations."

"À vrai dire, je suis surpris qu'un tel ermitage doive requérir le talent d'un polyglotte de votre trempe, Chef."

Frankly, I'm surprised a hermitage like this would require the talents of a polyglot of your caliber, Chef.

"Don't you think?"

"Oh."

Most detestably, The Guest Without Taste was delighted.

"I imagine you've been told you're off-putting quite often."

"Thank you for the compliment, Teacher."

"We really do get along quite well."

"I don't."

"It seems staying here will bring many entertaining things."

"Do not derail the discussion. I'll say it once more —"

Yeon-woo looked at The Guest Without Taste's perfectly unremarkable face and said,

"I don't accept people like you who look like they'd handle human flesh in the kitchen."

"How can you be so heartless."

"This is maddening. The fact that you don't even deny my absurd example makes it all the more out of the question."

"You won't find a chef as skilled as me anywhere in the world."

Indeed. This deranged guest was currently in the middle of a job interview.

"......"

An interview in which Yeon-woo's wishes had, naturally, not been consulted.

"...How did a proposal of friendship turn into a job offer? That's where my understanding breaks down. This hotel is not the kind of place where wanting a job gets you one."

"I'm aware you have the resources."

"Do you truly not understand that it isn't a question of whether I have the resources or not?"

Insanity.

"Would you prefer a contract?"

Yeon-woo thought of a certain 'freeloader' who was probably rolling around in the Aqua Park.

That one did nothing but harass him and the guests, yet ate three square meals a day without fail. Granted, because Yeon-woo served them. To that, The Guest Without Taste shrugged.

"I'd rather not be entangled that deeply."

"And yet you lapped up my blood."

"Lapped, rather than sucked, yes."

"Where exactly am I supposed to find the difference?"

Yeon-woo sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

"I have no intention of adding variables to this hotel right now."

He felt exhausted enough to die. He'd resurrect, but still.

"As you noted, the restaurant space is still vacant, but that was a plan for after hotel operations entered a more stable phase."

The Guest Without Taste, wearing an utterly unfamiliar face, smiled serenely.

"Plans exist to be changed."

"You must reside in a worldview with a different dictionary than mine."

"Quite similar, actually. I expected to be refused, but this level of obstinacy is heartbreaking."

"If that's the case, shall I at least hear you out? On account of the bond we've forged rolling in each other's blood."

He added,

"And for the sake of the successor who has inherited my emotions."

Yeon-woo asked.

"......"

"What is your reason for going this far?"

He was genuinely curious.

"Because I'm Velmareth?"

"That is not entirely absent."

"Are you waiting for another day when I'm weak enough to devour? It must be quite an appealing fantasy for you, but you must know it's an even dimmer hope than before."

"Of course I know. You've become considerably stronger and more meticulous in the interim, young master."

"If you persist with such preposterous forms of address, I may take you on not as head chef but as a butler."

"I feel great warmth in the fact that you're at least considering taking me on."

"Sarcasm is truly exhausting depending on the opponent."

"Is it, now."

The Guest Without Taste shrugged and continued.

"The fact that you are stronger than me — that is what drew me."

"By certain measures, I could also be weak."

"Even that is nearly gone now. Weak, yet you do not die. You will be one with this hotel forever."

"There's no curse quite like this one."

"A leash upon your hands, shackles upon your feet...."

Tilting his head, he rolled his eyes sideways.

"It's a tired old story, but a nobleman stakes his life on honor. If there is something that separates man from beast, it would be wisdom. Fortitude, nobility, responsibility, and mercy. Probably."

"......"

"Were you not afraid?"

He was referring to when Yeon-woo had registered his authority in the Central Control Room.

"At that time, I was stronger than you, and more desperate, and — setting that aside — you entrusted your body to tens of thousands of needles to improve further. All to become better than you were."

"Everyone does that."

"If everyone could do that, the world would already be paradise by now."

"Get to the point."

"One more leash."

Roll. Dark black eyes took in Yeon-woo.

"...Have you no thought of seizing a few more?"

"......"

"Teacher."

"What?"

***

And from that point on, Yeon-woo was beset by a total of three Monster Guests.