The person sitting somewhat apart from them also revealed himself with a sigh mixed in.
“They say I’m the ‘Musician.’ I can’t even play an instrument, let alone—I’m tone-deaf.”
It wasn’t modesty—that middle-aged man’s voice was hoarse like a goose.
“The Godfather is mischievous too. I understand it means to forget all outside affairs and enjoy ourselves here, but why of all things is my nickname ‘Musician’?”
The hoarse-voiced man’s grumbling continued quite long.
“Wasn’t he originally someone who never made jokes at all? Whether his disposition changed as he aged or what, really……”
What they had revealed so far were naturally not their real names.
The Manghyang invitations the distinguished guests received had exactly two precautions, and the contents were as follows. One was to use all facilities within Manghyang with chips distributed daily instead of outside currency. The other was to use the ‘nickname’ written on the invitation instead of real names.
Things like Teacher, Director, General were all those nicknames.
After the goose-like croaking man finished his grumbling, people’s gazes gathered in one place—to the one person among the distinguished guests who had not yet opened his mouth.
It was Son Yowan, who had been continuously biting his thumb with a face that had turned pale. Even after gathering here at the Director’s suggestion, he had been without any proper words the whole time.
“Ahem.”
Even when the Director gave a hint with a cough, Son Yowan still didn’t catch on.
“Ahem, ahem. Yohan-gun?”
“……”
“I say, Yohan-gun! Yohan-gun!”
Finally, unable to watch any longer, the Director approached and grabbed his shoulder to shake it, and only then did Son Yowan startle and jerk his head up.
“Ah, ahh. Director hyungnim.”
“My, why are you so startled?”
“It’s nothing. But why did you call me?”
The Director clicked his tongue.
“My, look at this fellow. You weren’t listening to us at all.”
“No, no, I was listening. I was. You said to introduce ourselves, didn’t you?”
“You only listened up to there and then had other thoughts. Fine. Since everyone except you is done, you say something too.”
Sure enough, when he unconsciously looked around, everyone sitting around the reception room table was looking at Son Yowan.
Son Yowan’s head grew dizzy. It naturally wasn’t because thick-faced him felt awkward just from other people looking at him, and there was a separate reason.
‘Damn, what kind of situation is this again?’
Without understanding why, he became a character in a shitty murder play, and just before escaping from there, he was trapped in a locked room. That alone was enough to drive him crazy and make him jump, but with more maddening things bursting out one after another, Son Yowan wondered if he’d driven some endangered species to extinction in a past life.
Naturally, those ‘more maddening things’ were several matters flowing crookedly in a different direction from the scenes Son Yowan had seen, including the current situation.
Tracing back the start of that, his thoughts reached the Detective.
‘That bastard……’
Checking again, the Detective was definitely the starting point of the distortion. Son Yowan was dumbfounded. A person died, Goeidam occurred, and Manghyang was closed—that was all the same, but why had the Detective already appeared, and why had that bastard been hiding among the distinguished guests!
‘Ugh……’
Thinking about it, Son Yowan felt like groaning. There were more than one or two maddening things, but among them, the worst was ‘that.’
‘I’m already going crazy, but why of all things……’
Why was the disguised Detective of all people that glasses-wearing bastard? The moment it was confirmed that the Detective was him, Son Yowan experienced the bizarre phenomenon of the past few days flashing through his mind like a panorama.
“What are you doing? No answer? I’m coming in!”
“Why do you say it like that, that I broke the door? Anyway, the hotel room door is pretty flimsy—I kicked it a few times and it just broke. Did the Godfather also get scammed on interior design?”
“Anyway, friend. They say if you just lie around, mushrooms will grow on your body, you know? Ah, get up, get up.”
“Even if it’s hard to get along with people, you have to practice to improve. Come on, let’s go!”
“People need to see sunlight to photosynthesize—”
“Leaving already? No way. The party hasn’t even started yet, where are you going? How boring.”
“Come on, drink, drink.”
“Come on. Next card. Play your card, friend.”
“Friend? Friend? Ah, why is this guy so tired? Anyone would think I dragged a grad student who’s been sleeping five hours a night for a week writing a thesis.”
‘Fuck, Son Yowan, you crazy bastard……’
Isn’t karma coming back way too fast?
Because of the beehive he’d stirred up over the past few days (the Detective) and the future where he only knew it was dangerous but didn’t actually know where the landmines were buried, Son Yowan’s head throbbed in a way unlike him.
‘What should I really do?’
As Son Yowan groaned with a lament he’d made over a hundred times already, the pot-bellied man who had somehow come right up to his nose urged him on.
“Yohan-gun? Should we wait longer?”
Though he was still smiling and pretending to be nice, the corners of his mouth were trembling. Son Yowan reflexively opened his mouth.
‘He said to introduce myself.’
Whatever, just do it. It’s not that hard.
“I’m Son Yowan. Not Yohan, not Joseph, not Yoseop but Yowan. I’m twenty-four this year, and my birthday is in winter, so if you like giving gifts, presents are very welcome. I’m not picky about gifts. Hmm, what else was there. Ah, strengths. My sister Son Yu…… no, my noona said that not dwelling on things for long no matter what happens is my only, no, my biggest strength, but I think I have way more strengths than that……”
But not long after opening his mouth, Son Yowan’s words gradually slowed down. It was because somehow, the more he talked, the stranger people’s gazes at him became.
No, actually rather than strange, they became cold. He even felt they were strangely wary.
‘If something’s bothering them, why don’t they say it instead of leaving their mouths alone and acting like that?’
“No, Yohan-gun……”
Fortunately, the pot-bellied ahjussi who seemed like the one doing social life among the distinguished guests opened his mouth.
“You said you heard everything, but that was a lie. We were, you see…… revealing ‘that.'”
The pot-bellied ahjussi, that is, the Director, drew a square with his finger for the bewildered Son Yowan and pretended to tap on top of that square drawn in the air. When Son Yowan still didn’t understand, he said with a sigh mixed in.
“The invitation. What name was written there?”
Son Yowan narrowed his brow. Not because he didn’t know the name written on the invitation, of course, but because he wondered why they were asking such a thing.
“You can’t answer.”
Taking advantage of Son Yowan’s brief pause, the old man who had been glaring at him with displeased eyes from earlier, the Teacher, sharply sneered.
“Thinking back, he’s been suspicious from the start. Seeing him deliberately spreading his real name here and there, I thought he was just a pathetic bastard who doesn’t follow rules, but who knew it wasn’t that! Ha! Come to think of it, when I heard Captain So say someone among us corrupted Goeidam, I thought he was talking nonsense like the Godfather’s dog he is, but now it seems that’s not entirely the case.”
Son Yowan squinted his eyes. Having lived for over 20 years under his noona, the family’s regent and his younger brother’s oppressor, Son Yowan might not know other things but he could recognize insults about himself like a ghost.
“Instead of being tiresome, why don’t you just ask me directly, Grandpa? Are you the culprit?”
“Grandpa? When did I say you could call me that?”
“Oh, you didn’t. Then old man.”
“You uneducated bastard!”
The Teacher immediately turned to the other distinguished guests and sought agreement.
“Did you see? Actually, gathering like this and suspecting each other is foolish! There can’t be a culprit among us! We know each other well and we have reasons why we can’t betray each other, don’t we? Even if it’s not the person themselves but representatives like children or grandchildren, it’s the same! But this bastard! Only this rascal among us is different! Neither this bastard nor we know each other well, and that bastard doesn’t have the ‘bond’ that ties us closely! Then isn’t the answer obvious!”
“Old man, I know your mouth is crooked, but you should still speak straight. Saying I’m the culprit—do you have evidence?”
Thud!
“Don’t call me by such a title!”
The greatly angered Teacher slammed the table and raised his voice.
“Do you think only old man can hit the table?”
Bang!
Before that collision sound had even ended, Son Yowan also slammed the table and burst out angrily.
“You, you, rude brat……!”
“The table isn’t yours or mine anyway, so don’t be stingy and let me hit it too? More importantly, where’s the evidence? What grudge do you have against me to frame me as the culprit? In the first place, I don’t even know the conditions for making godam into Goeidam and I don’t have the ability. Damn it, how great would it have been if I had that?”
