The Hole in Her Vessel

Yu-yeong turned twenty-eight this year. She had become a trainee in the autumn of her sixteenth year, and debuted as an idol in the spring of her seventeenth.

Of all the third-generation girl idols, she had been the prettiest, the most captivating — and therefore, the greatest object of jealousy. That was Yu-yeong.

With flawless visuals, a voice that overwhelmed even those looks, and on top of it all genuine dancing skill and a brash, artless wit on variety shows, she had settled into place as the complete hexagonal idol.

Her group hovered in the ambiguous no-man's-land between A-list and B-list, but Yu-yeong alone stood firmly, unshakably, among the first-tier idols.

And at twenty-one, she tried acting for the very first time.

Amid the sneers and hand-wringing of those who scoffed — an idol, acting? She'll crash and burn — Yu-yeong transformed overnight into a stunningly beautiful girl who also, infuriatingly, knew how to act.

Her first drama was a runaway hit, and the group she belonged to released one final single album before slipping into an indefinite hiatus.

Having pivoted fully into acting, backed by directors and investors who adored her, Yu-yeong went on to film one teen drama, two movies that each drew ten million viewers, and three dramas that cemented her mature dramatic range — until she stood as a perfect, finished actress.

The nickname that stuck to her once she reached that height of fame was the nation's homewrecker.

Not a warm, flattering title like Nation's Little Sister or Nation's First Love. The Nation's Homewrecker — that was the label attached to Yu-yeong.

Her first scandal target had been the male lead of her debut film — a man a full ten years her senior. After that came an actor who modeled with her for a clothing brand, then an idol, then, presumably, a director — a rookie director famous for his good looks. And then another, and another…

In the years since her switch to acting at twenty-one, Yu-yeong had been caught up in dating rumors with more than ten men, every one of them riding the crest of the era's popularity. And so people whispered, wondering aloud: did they ride her to the top, or did she handpick only the ones already there?

But Yu-yeong had never truly dated a single one of them. Aside from scripted kisses delivered on camera, she was a person who had never once been kissed in her life.

The reason things had turned out that way with those men was…

Damn it all — the ghosts.

Said aloud, no one would believe it.

No — anyone who did believe it would have to be a con artist. If someone ever approached Yu-yeong claiming, I know exactly why this keeps happening to you, it must be so hard, she would report them for fraud on the spot.

Who on earth would believe a story like that?

It was hard enough for her to believe herself…

And yet every word of it was true. From the moment she became an idol trainee, Yu-yeong had never held the reins of her own life. For her, such a thing simply did not exist.

Half of Yu-yeong's life belonged to the ghost — the ghost that made her an idol, and then made her an actress.

It had seized her body without warning one summer day when she was sixteen, and ever since, it had steered her at its own whim.

Thanks to that, she had certainly gained a great deal.

A poor orphan girl living alone with her grandmother became the most beautiful idol in South Korea, and then a star actress.

Money overflowed. She was able to place her grandmother in a fine hospital.

But…

"Okay! Beautiful!"

Only when the director's cut rang out did Yu-yeong finally claw her way back to herself.

When she acted, Yu-yeong was not Yu-yeong. She was… something else again.

Ten hours, to the minute — ten hours of watching her own body move and perform without her. Only after filming wrapped could she reclaim command of herself.

Her throat felt packed solid; for a moment breathing turned so difficult that the world whited out before her eyes. She steadied her blurring vision, waited for the brightness to return —

and at last, the real Yu-yeong came back.

"Thank you for your hard work!"

At the sound of the wrap call beside her, Yu-yeong hastily collected herself and bowed in quick, repeated bows.

"Great work, everyone!"

She greeted them all in a voice so sweet and gentle you would never guess she had just delivered a performance touched by the divine.

Yu-yeong heard it all the time.

The moment she stepped in front of a camera, people said, she became someone else entirely.

She really was someone else — but that was hardly something she could say out loud.

While the crew bustled about gathering equipment, Yu-yeong stood dazed for a moment, utterly spent. Whenever she came back to herself, it felt as though every drop of vitality had been wrung out of her. She turned her head, searching for her manager.

It was a ritual between them: after every shoot, her manager would pop a chocolate candy into Yu-yeong's mouth. Several times in the past, her legs had given out the instant filming ended and she had crumpled to the floor.

Was it really that hard on you? What kind of acting leaves you collapsing every single time, hmm?

That was how Seul-a, Yu-yeong's manager, worried over her. And because Yu-yeong couldn't very well explain that it was because the possession had worn off, she could only offer an awkward smile.

And so Yu-yeong wore her scarlet tag — the Nation's Homewrecker — while still earning the grudging praise of an actress who, whatever her sins, delivered when it counted.

An actress with no scandal in her craft. If only her private life were a little cleaner—

She could almost hear the voices again, and Yu-yeong let out a long sigh before turning to find her manager once more.

"Unnie-ee, candy, please."

Her voice had gone soft and small, like a child not quite grown.

…

Cha-mu, sorting through a jumble of props, noticed her. The woman still standing blankly before the camera, glancing this way and that for her manager — the image was, unmistakably, a child who had lost her mother.

Tsk.

Cha-mu clicked his tongue at the sight.

Yu-yeong was a celebrity even he knew of, a man who lived walled off from the world. On film sets thick with dark energy, where Cha-mu often worked, celebrities were a familiar breed.

He'd seen madmen carrying impossible dokkaebi on their backs, and others ridden by lust demons until their eyes gleamed slick and wet.

But Yu-yeong was a little different.

Even Cha-mu had never seen an actress so thoroughly haunted that a ghost took her place and did her acting for her. It wasn't unheard of, exactly. But it never lasted long. Yeong-ga who borrowed the bodies of the living to chase their unfinished dreams always, in the end, wanted to own those bodies outright.

And if even beings called gods behaved that way, what chance did lowly departed spirits have? Yet the yeong-ga coiled inside Yu-yeong's body was different. The moment a scene wrapped, it vanished without fail — as if it didn't covet so much as an inch more than it was given.

That was not a sight one saw often.

A real oddity, Cha-mu thought, hefting the yellow container box overflowing with props and headed for a corner of the set. Filming was scheduled again tomorrow, so the equipment and props all had to be stacked away neatly in one spot.

"Yu-yeong!"

A woman's voice rang out, and every gaze swung toward one place.

Every gaze but Cha-mu's.

For a foolish human who surrendered her body to ghosts, it was only natural that her vitality drained away the moment her soul left it.

"Her hole is simply too wide."

So Cha-mu murmured to himself as he sorted the props.

The hole.

A human that yeong-ga came and went through freely was like a broken vessel. Regardless of the vessel's innate size, a hole opened in it — and through that hole, the spirits slipped in and out.

For now, the yeong-ga that took her body knew its place and withdrew when it was done. But if that crack widened any further, the story would change. There was no telling what manner of wicked, twisted thing might move in and claim her completely.

Twisted things loved what was broken. And they hungered, always, for human flesh.

Cha-mu thought that someday he might turn on the television and hear that the actress Yu-yeong had died suddenly. He only hoped he would never have to witness that ending with his own two eyes.

…

For a moment, his hands went still.

Not my problem.

Helping others to repay his own karma — that was the work given to him. But he had no desire to help someone twisted this badly out of true.

Above all, Cha-mu's calling was to guide the dead, not the living. Yeong-ga were souls whose thread of fate had already been cut; gathered up, they crossed quietly into the afterlife. Helping the living was another matter entirely.

Presume too far, meddle carelessly in a human life, and unwanted karma could wrap itself around your ankles and drag you under.

His hands, sorting props, grew a touch irritable.

Tink.

Then something dropped from his body. A bell — the shamanic bell Cha-mu carried everywhere. He looked down in silence at the brass bell rolling across the floor.

The bell belonged to a god. Like the knife that had veered on its own this morning and fallen, the bell, too, was moving as it pleased.

It rolled and rolled, as if it had sprouted feet, until it stopped right in front of someone.

A woman with a candy between her lips and exhaustion etched across her drained face.

"Damn it."

Cha-mu muttered under his breath, too quiet for anyone to hear. The bell had come to rest — at Yu-yeong's feet.