Chapter 20
The Gyeryusan Bacchus Winery was located halfway up the mountain.
Gyeryusan’s cool climate seemed ideal for building a wine cellar.
I’d heard that the ideal humidity and temperature for storing wine were 60% and 12–16°C.
「Gyeryusan Bacchus Winery Summer Brewing Experience!」
「Women’s groups, couples, and married couples welcome!」
Looking around, I saw plenty of women.
There were also plenty of people who looked like older couples or young couples.
‘Am I the only man here who came alone?’
Of course, I’d come with Bori-bori.
But nobody else could see Bori-bori.
“Urrrr….”
For the record, ever since Bori-bori got off my back, it’s been in full-on defensive mode.
Whenever I so much as reach out a hand─.
Scurry─.
It immediately puts some distance between us, just like that.
‘What was that back there?’
I remembered what had happened when I carried Bori-bori up the mountain.
People couldn’t see me, and no matter what I said, they couldn’t hear me.
It felt as if the whole world had ostracized me.
Thinking back on it, I felt a little creeped out.
I looked around at the scenery, hoping to change my mood.
Even though we were only halfway up the mountain, the view was completely different from the city’s.
After living in a neighborhood of studio apartments, with power lines winding overhead like a spiderweb, it felt great to look down at this wide-open cityscape.
‘It’s 1:50 p.m….’
We were supposed to meet at two.
Thump-thump-thump─. My heart pounded as if it were knocking on a door.
So who was the person I was supposed to meet?
Where were they?
As I said, there were a lot of women here.
Had a women’s wine-lovers’ club reserved the place for a group event?
There were plenty of young couples and quite a few middle-aged couples, too.
I was the only man standing around by myself.
Maybe that was why I could feel people’s gazes lingering on me now and then as they passed by.
‘I look like some guest who wasn’t invited.’
Feeling awkward, I looked around, and my eyes landed on someone standing under a parasol that seemed to have been set up for the guests.
Long, jet-black hair.
Her skin was so pale it looked translucent, and her long lashes and reddish eyes immediately drew my gaze.
I could see a black women’s suit, a handbag in her hand, knee-high socks, and dress shoes.
Even someone as unobservant as me could tell at a glance that they were all designer brands.
I suddenly remembered the VIPs who used to rent out the restaurant where I worked.
The people whom the haughty head sommelier, Team Leader Jung, had personally served.
Maybe that woman was the same sort.
She was alone, too.
An absurd thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Could that be her─.
The person I was supposed to meet.
My heart was pounding harder than at any other point today.
Nervously, I took out my phone and tried calling.
Calling…
「010-9XXX-7XXX」
…….
The phone rang─.
The woman under the parasol took a phone out of her bag.
Then she parted her lips.
─Have you arrived?
“Have you arrived?”
Her voice was calm.
I heard it both through my phone and from beneath that parasol.
At this point, I couldn’t help but be sure.
That woman was the answer I’d been looking for on the 「Monkey’s Paw site」.
Still, my feet wouldn’t move toward her, and I froze for a moment.
The woman beneath the parasol seemed to spot me first.
She ended the call and slowly stepped out of the shade.
Shaaah─.
At that moment, the back of my head turned cold, as if it had touched a block of ice.
For an instant, her hair, black as ebony, looked wine-red.
I wondered if I’d imagined it, but before long the woman walked up to me and asked,
“You’re from Marina Entertainment, right? For the dating service?”
Huh? What was this about a dating service?
I’d heard of ‘Marina Entertainment’ somewhere recently.
The business card Jo Se-na had given me, tucked inside my wallet in my inner pocket.
「Marina Entertainment Director – Jo Se-na」.
Was it a coincidence?
While I was lost in thought, the woman in front of me looked me up and down.
Like Chef Sung inspecting a tuna he’d just brought in that morning.
It was an unmistakably appraising gaze, sizing me up.
“I asked for a model type from Cheongdam-dong. Your height is fine, but your clothes look shabby. It’s too late to ask them to send someone else.”
Her gaze slid over me─.
Her red eyes narrowed to slits.
“Still, you barely pass. Let’s go inside. The event support will be over soon. If I miss this chance, I’ll have to wait until next year.”
What was she talking about?
Why was everything moving along so smoothly?
“Um, I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?”
Crease─.
A wrinkle appeared between the woman’s brows.
Maybe because her face was so striking, even that single wrinkle made her seem imposing.
“There’s a couples-only program at the winery event tonight. That’s why I requested a stand-in boyfriend. Didn’t the company tell you?”
“Oh.”
“Are you perhaps not from Marina Entertainment?”
At that moment, several thoughts raced through my mind.
Depending on how I answered her, my future could turn out in all sorts of ways.
After a brief moment of thought, I took out my wallet.
Then I pulled out the ‘Marina Entertainment’ business card Jo Se-na had given me.
“I am from Marina Entertainment. My name is Ha Yu-seong.”
“I’m Saya.”
Saya. What an unusual name.
I thought it was a pretty name that suited her face.
Step, step─.
And so, I walked with her along the gravel path.
Meanwhile, Bori-bori was circling around Ms. Saya, tilting its head.
“…Malka…?”
It was mumbling something incomprehensible to itself, too.
As I watched Bori-bori’s tail curl into a question mark, amazed by a tail pattern I’d never seen before─.
Ms. Saya asked me,
“If you keep acting so awkwardly, it’ll be obvious you’re a stand-in boyfriend. Let’s hold hands as we walk.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t couples usually hold hands? That seems like the normal thing to do.”
As Ms. Saya looked up at me, her eyes seemed as sharp as a bird of prey’s.
Now that I looked more closely, this woman barely had any expression at all.
It was hard to tell what she was thinking.
Maybe that was why she had a strange kind of presence.
“Oh.”
I awkwardly held out my hand.
Ms. Saya took it without the slightest hesitation.
Her hand was much smaller than mine.
I couldn’t believe anything in the world could be so soft.
It felt as if she’d gently laid a silk handkerchief across my palm.
“The couples’ experience program is at seven tonight, after dinner. I really wanted to take part. It seems like it’ll make me even more beautiful.”
I’d worried an awkward silence might stretch between us.
Fortunately, Ms. Saya seemed more talkative than she looked.
Before the awkward silence could envelop us, I quickly picked up the conversation.
“It’ll make you more beautiful?”
“Yes. More beautiful. Isn’t it normal for a woman to pursue beauty?”
“Well, that’s…”
My younger sister used to smear yogurt on her face with Mom, supposedly to make herself prettier.
They fell asleep like that once, and ants swarmed all over their faces. It was a disaster.
Thinking of that made me want to laugh.
But that urge disappeared completely at Ms. Saya’s next words.
“So, what should we do until seven?”
Good question.
What should we do?
I was at a complete loss.
“…Would you like to have some wine?”
# # #
“Oh, Oppa, hurry up and get over here!”
Kim Seon-yeong urged her boyfriend, Bang Su-hyeok.
She kept heading down the stairs toward the basement where the wine was stored as she spoke.
“I said hurry up!”
“Seon-yeong, wait a second… Haa. We’re not late yet, so let’s just leave. We can wait until seven and come back then! What if we get caught?”
“Oppa, don’t you want me to be prettier? If I get prettier, it’ll be good for you, not me!”
“I like you just the way you are…”
“What? Anyway, it looks like we’re almost there, so hurry up!”
Seon-yeong continued down into the basement.
She thought of her friend.
Kim Ye-eun, who’d been overweight and had bad skin.
When Ye-eun showed up to hand out wedding invitations, Seon-yeong was stunned.
Her friend had become so beautiful she was almost unrecognizable.
When Seon-yeong asked what her secret was, Ye-eun had said,
‘There’s a couples’ experience program at the Gyeryusan Winery….’
Seon-yeong couldn’t stand the thought of Ye-eun, who’d once been less attractive than her, becoming prettier and marrying a better man because of it.
So she’d come to Gyeryusan today, ready to take a chance herself, whether the story was true or not.
And when there were no more stairs to go down─.
Seon-yeong discovered a wine hot spring bubbling away in a very cold, damp place.
It was exactly as Ye-eun had said.
“Oppa, hurry up!”
“Haa, haa.”
“Hurry up and take your clothes off. Get in there.”
“Huh? Me? No way. You’re the one who wants to get prettier, so why do I have to…?”
“I don’t know! They said the man has to get in!”
Su-hyeok had never been able to get the better of his girlfriend, Seon-yeong.
If he won even once, she’d make his life miserable for a month, so it was better to give in.
So Su-hyeok reluctantly took off his clothes and climbed into the so-called wine hot spring.
The water was lukewarm and slimy, and just as he was thinking how unpleasant it felt─.
“Wh-what is this? This is weird, S-Seon-yeong! Seon-yeong! Aaah, aaah!”
Su-hyeok’s plump body began shrinking in an instant.
His cheeks grew hollow, and his skin dried out like the rough bark of an old tree.
Seon-yeong could only stare in horror, her face turning white.
“O-Oppa!”
She rushed over to save her boyfriend.
Then she suddenly looked at her reflection in the wine hot spring and froze in place.
Her pale skin, her sharp nose, even her red lips─.
Her face had blossomed into something so beautiful she could hardly believe it was hers.
“Ah…”
“Haa… I-I’m alive… Haa…”
By then, Su-hyeok had barely managed to pull his upper body out of the hot spring and catch his breath.
That hot spring was dangerous.
He had to get out of there! With that thought, he reached out to his girlfriend, Seon-yeong.
Seon-yeong seemed about to take his hand─.
Splash─.
Instead, she shoved him right back into the hot spring.
Then she gripped his head with all her strength, making sure he couldn’t climb out.
“Guh-blub, blub-blub, Se… Seon-yeong-blub, ugh, he…”
The more he struggled, and the more splashes of wine hit Seon-yeong, the tauter her skin seemed to become. She felt better than she could put into words.
Splash, splash─.
Splash─.
When Seon-yeong came to her senses, she was alone in the bath, soaked.
Su-hyeok was gone.
Instead, women draped in red cloth stood in a circle around the wine bath.
They spoke from beneath their red cloth.
“Maina-desu.”
“Ba-kai.”
“Bakan-tesu.”
They were words she couldn’t understand.
But Seon-yeong felt wonderful.
For the first time in her life, she felt so euphoric she thought she could do anything.
Seon-yeong accepted the red cloth they offered her and draped it over her face.
She had become a bride in the truest sense of the word.
Just like them.
Then who were their husbands?
Who was her husband?
The answer came to her at once.
A gigantic wooden idol had been carved among them.
Blasphemous, ominous, and therefore sacred.
The bride trembled with joy at the sight, while one of the women made a phone call.
“Tell Team Leader Jung to prepare as planned. The requested order quantity will be taken care of soon.”
She was the magician Joo Do-yeon.
The inheritor of bloodline magic that had taken root on Gyeryusan.
Even the Witch of Isan didn’t dare intrude on Joo Do-yeon’s Gyeryusan.
That was why Joo Do-yeon could sense it.
Something utterly absurd had just entered her domain.
For some reason, it seemed to be imitating an ordinary person and hiding its identity.
But it couldn’t escape Joo Do-yeon’s instincts.
Without hesitation, Joo Do-yeon raised the 「Magical Chalice Kantaros」 high.
As wine bubbled in the chalice like carbonated water,
Bubble, bubble─.
All the wine in the Gyeryusan Winery began to boil.
Rumble─.
Clouds gathered over Gyeryusan, where the weather had been clear.
But what fell wasn’t rain. It was something unusually red.
“Huh? Oppa, look. There’s something red falling from the sky…”
“Huh? What is this? Wine?”
Those who
were
struck by
it.
...
..
.
.
.
.
“H-Honey! Aaaagh!”
“Aaaaaah, fuck! What the hell?! What is it?!”
“Close the door! The door!”