Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“…Double contracts and a sex scandal?!”

SCREEECH—!

Lee Seong-ha’s foot reflexively hit the brake. The startled car behind them honked, but nothing reached his ears. What unfolded before his eyes was only the bizarre overlap of an actor’s face under dazzling spotlights and the words “ugly scandal” hidden behind it.

Coming back to his senses, Lee Seong-ha whipped his head around and snapped at Go Gyeol. His voice held naked disgust along with shock.

“Hey, Go Gyeol! Are you out of your mind? Double contracts and a sex scandal? You’re saying you want to bring that human garbage onto our team? I’m absolutely against it!”

But Go Gyeol did not waver. He still did not turn his gaze away from the window and muttered quietly.

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding? What part is a misunderstanding?!”

“You’re blocking traffic. If you’re not going to drive, get out.”

At that cold sentence, Lee Seong-ha bit his lip. Still fuming, he reluctantly started the car again. But his gaze kept darting toward Go Gyeol in the passenger seat, urging him to explain. At that impatient look, Go Gyeol let out a small sigh. Even becoming a priest had not improved that hasty temper of his in the slightest.

“Kwon Do-geun is.”

When Go Gyeol finally opened his mouth, Lee Seong-ha immediately asked back.

“Kwon Do-geun is?”

“Dyslexic.”

“What?!”

SCREEEECH—!

Once again, the car stopped on the road with a violent sound of friction. Although he had asked, Lee Seong-ha’s face had hardened into an expression that said he could not possibly believe it. Who was Kwon Do-geun? A genius actor acknowledged not only by the Republic of Korea but by the world. And that same man had dyslexia, difficulty reading words?

A blue vein popped out at Go Gyeol’s temple. He spoke through clenched teeth.

“Lee Seong-ha. If you slam the brakes like this one more time, don’t ever think about sitting in the driver’s seat of my car again.”

Those words were effective. After becoming a clergyman, the thing he most regretted and missed about the secular world was driving, and unfortunately, Go Gyeol’s car happened to be Lee Seong-ha’s dream car. Without complaint, Lee Seong-ha gripped the steering wheel again with a serious face.

As he drove smoothly, he cautiously watched Go Gyeol’s expression.

“…Seriously, Kwon Do-geun is really dyslexic?”

“Yeah. The reason he could succeed as an actor was entirely thanks to his older brother.”

“His brother?”

“His Manager. Kwon Do-geun’s Manager was his biological older brother.”

Go Gyeol continued his explanation.

Kwon Do-geun’s childhood dream had been to become an actor. But because of his fatal weakness, his difficulty reading text, he had tried to give up on his dream himself. The one who stepped forward for that younger brother was his older brother, an unknown actor at the time. For the sake of his younger brother’s dream, his older brother willingly gave up his own.

“When a script came in, his brother acted out and recorded every role with the proper tone. If reference material was needed, he prepared all of that too. Kwon Do-geun memorized all of it whole and performed from there. That’s how he succeeded as an actor, thanks to his brother’s devoted help and a face anyone could see was blessed. At twenty-two, he even Awakened, establishing himself as an A-Grade Water-Attribute Hunter, the highest tier among nature-type attributes.”

After hearing the whole story, Lee Seong-ha tilted his head. His boiling anger had softened before he knew it, and a new question arose.

“Wait. But what does dyslexia have to do with double contracts and the sex scandal? What exactly was misunderstood?”

“Think about it.”

Go Gyeol finally opened his mouth. His voice was cold and filled with sharp logic.

“Could a dyslexic person properly read and sign a seven-page contract full of clauses disadvantageous to him?”

“…Couldn’t he have just signed roughly because he couldn’t read it properly?”

Lee Seong-ha asked back, but certainty was already leaving his voice. Watching him, Go Gyeol shook his head.

“No. Kwon Do-geun was pathologically determined to hide the fact that he couldn’t read. Every contract after he became an actor was handled by his brother, who was his Manager and only representative. He was so afraid his handwriting might lead to his dyslexia being discovered that he never even gave a single autograph to fans. And someone like that personally signed a contract? It makes no sense.”

“Then that contract….”

“Was obviously forged.”

Go Gyeol crossed his arms and continued. His gaze did not waver by even an inch.

“The sex scandal was the same. Kwon Do-geun’s scandal involved offering sexual favors to an investor. And the evidence released was a text message supposedly sent by him personally. Now, think about it again. Could a dyslexic person send a long, fluent text like that?”

“Ha….”

An empty breath burst from Lee Seong-ha’s mouth. Once he knew Kwon Do-geun was dyslexic, every accusation and every piece of evidence the world had thrown at him collapsed in an instant into an impossible lie. It felt as if the puzzle pieces were fitting together in a chilling way.

That was when it happened.

“Pull over up ahead.”

At Go Gyeol’s instruction, Lee Seong-ha parked the car by the roadside as if possessed. Only after he finished parking and turned off the engine did he exhale the breath that had been caught in his chest and ask,

“If it’s as you say, then it was all a misunderstanding and he was framed… so why didn’t Kwon Do-geun explain?”

“Would he have?”

Go Gyeol jerked his chin forward. When Lee Seong-ha turned his head, he saw a shabby multi-family house, just as worn down as Go Gyeol’s office. It was a miserable sight, utterly impossible to believe as the home of a top star and A-Grade Hunter who had once shaken the world. That sight itself seemed to be the answer to Kwon Do-geun’s silence.

“If I hadn’t explained it to you like this, Father, would you have been able to believe that Kwon Do-geun was dyslexic?”

“…….”

Go Gyeol lightly tapped Lee Seong-ha’s silent shoulder and got out of the car. Unlike the car interior, where a fresh citrus scent lingered, the alley of the old residential area gave off a damp, unpleasant smell.

“There’s something I’m curious about. Then did Kwon Do-geun’s brother betray him?”

Lee Seong-ha, who had gotten out of the car after Go Gyeol, spoke toward his back. The final puzzle piece was fitting together in his mind.

Only family would know the fact that Kwon Do-geun was dyslexic. Then the only people who could exploit that weakness, set a trap, and drop him into the abyss were also family. The most likely suspect was his representative, the one who knew everything about him and had made him who he was—his older brother.

As Go Gyeol walked toward the entrance of the old multi-family house, he answered without looking back.

“No. His brother is dead.”

His voice was so terribly emotionless that it was chilling instead.

“The one who trapped him was Kwon Do-geun’s biological mother.”

“His biological mother? Why….”

Lee Seong-ha’s voice scattered hollowly.

Faced with a truth that common sense could not understand, his thoughts stopped. Go Gyeol said nothing more. With his mouth firmly shut, cutting off every question, he went down the damp, dark stairs.

The place where they stopped was in front of the door to a semi-basement unit that looked at a glance as if no human hand had touched it for a long time. The paint had peeled off like scales, and the area around the doorknob was rusted a deep red. Even more awful were the delivery containers piled like a mountain beside the door. No one knew how long they had been abandoned there, and black mold and nameless insects feasted on the rotten food, giving off a nauseating stench.

“Ugh….”

Unlike Lee Seong-ha, who covered his nose without realizing it, Go Gyeol knocked on the door with an expressionless face despite the horrific sight.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He knocked on the unmoving iron door at steady intervals, like a machine. Who knew how much time passed? At last, the sound of something being dragged came from inside the door, and with a friction noise like a painful scream, the door opened ever so slightly.

At that moment, Go Gyeol shoved his arm without hesitation through the crack of the door as it tried to close again. Then he looked down at the figure crouched like a shadow, visible through the gap.

Hair matted into clumps like rice cake, a T-shirt whose neck was stretched out as far as it could go. A neck and back hunched heavily like a turtle’s. And even the sour smell that stabbed the nose. No one could have imagined the actor Kwon Do-geun, who had once lit up the world, from his current appearance. He looked perfectly like a homeless man on the street.

Go Gyeol bent down and whispered in his ear with a voice as cold as a razor blade.

“Are you planning to die like this?”

At that single sentence, Kwon Do-geun’s unmoving head shot up. Shock and faint fear appeared at the same time in his empty eyes. Go Gyeol met those eyes directly and said,

“Let’s talk for a moment.”

Without waiting for an answer, Go Gyeol lightly pushed aside Kwon Do-geun’s resisting shoulder and stepped inside.

A darkness so thick that it made the fact that it was broad daylight seem meaningless greeted them. Go Gyeol familiarly felt along the wall and flipped the switch, and with a click, the room’s scenery was exposed in all its nakedness.

The sight outside had been nothing more than a preview. Clothes, trash, and liquor bottles lay tangled together in chaos, leaving not even a place to step. Only then did Lee Seong-ha realize it. Kwon Do-geun’s brother had not simply been his Manager. He had been his hands and feet, his eyes and mouth, and like a mother, the person who supported his entire life.

“First, let’s clean.”

It was not a suggestion. It was a declaration.