CH 58

I wasn’t the one to answer that question. Rather, the one who raised their hand was Seohang, who was listening in on the conversation like Raehee. Something must have occurred to him because his face was as pale as when we first found Goyeon. Matching his complexion, his voice sounded terrified. “By any chance, does anyone know any of the staff they saw yesterday?”

Seogeung must have thought that this was an irrelevant question since his face fell completely.

However, he couldn’t ask Seohang why he had such a question. He was trying to recall the faces of the filming crew one by one. “Well, how would you expect me to remember what all of them looked like?” he grumbled. In the end, he couldn’t say that he knew any of them.

The others were the same.

The temperature in the room plummeted like the frosty autumnal air. It was the air filled with the nervous tension of many people.

I got a peculiar feeling from these reactions. It was natural for me to be unfamiliar with the faces of the filming crew. I had never really participated in television shoots, so I failed to realize this point. I whispered to Hyehyun without thinking twice, “You didn’t recognize them either?”

“…Yes, I’ve never seen any of them,” Hyehyun replied, sounding strained, “But I also quit being Yeonseon’s manager… Plus, many people quit in the industry because it’s such difficult work.”

How could this be?

Oddly enough, most of the people gathered here were people who didn’t shoot shows very often. There were idols who failed to rise to stardom, a critic whose name I had never heard before, an aspiring singer who never debuted, a sportscaster past her prime, and a professional bit actress. We were all people who wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong even if an unfamiliar face gave us their business cards while introducing themselves as filming staff.

We stared at Seogeung and Seoyoon, who had relatively longer media histories than us. However, they couldn’t answer in the affirmative. They both had troubled faces.

“I-I also saw that producer-director for the first time. That’s why I went to visit him with beer. I thought it would be nice to make friends with someone who became a TV producer at such a young age.” This was Seogeung’s answer.

“I don’t have as many gigs as before. I’m only on one or two shows this year.” And this was Seoyoon’s answer.

Upon noticing the disappointment and anxiety in everyone’s eyes, Seogeung burst out in rage. Of course, the target of the answer was Seohang, who asked this question. Seogeung yelled, “So what? Why’s that important? Obviously, I don’t know a lot of faces because I don’t have a lot of gigs! Why the hell would you ask that?”

“…” Seohang covered his ashen face with his hand that was raised instead and used his other hand to point to the ceiling. He pointed where the typical black lens of the security camera was hanging. As if the black and spherical lens that looked like a spider’s eye was masked with the will of an unknown party, it sent shivers down the spines of all the subjects of observation as they locked eyes with it.

Seohang lowered his hand slowly and muttered in a depressed voice. “…They’re running as they should.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even in the hallway where Goyeon fell to her death and in the room where she died, they were there! I’m telling you, they were all running like usual!” Seohang used the fear of the people like fodder as his strident voice rang throughout the hall. “We’re not the only ones who saw that woman die!”

Someone gasped sharply at the piercing, near-screaming yell. Their gazes were glued on the little red light on the corner of the camera.

“That…”

Even if the people here didn’t have a lot of television work, they weren’t amateurs. Everyone could recognize a running camera. That was more reason why they couldn’t take their eyes off the cameras with the red light on. The camera was running even now.

The existence of CCTVs and cameras which had been naturally ignored thus far brought about so many epiphanies. It irreparably shattered their dogged refusal to believe our situation.

“Th-there must be someone monitoring us, right?” Raehee asked, completely frightened.

Seoyoon whispered, “How many hours have passed since Miss Goyeon fell?”

All electronics including phones were confiscated by the staff. Hawoo Kang quickly went into the kitchen to look at the clock on the wall.

“It’s 1:29 p.m!” he announced and Seoyoon’s face grew dumbstruck. Goyeon had fallen long before 10 a.m.

“Even though at least four hours had passed…”

Even so, the cameras were running normally and nobody ran upstairs urgently.

After Seoyoon’s last words, the hall sunk into silence once more.