Episode 1
Twice with an idol group, once as a debutant from an audition program. There was an idol who had debuted three times in total.
His real name was Namumyeong, his stage name Na Dohyeon.
Suspecting that he was living in obscurity because of his name, he had tried to change it, but was met with opposition from his entire family.
So he remained obscure.
* * *
His heart-fluttering first debut was with a beast-idol boy group!
Though it was a small agency, such a bold, novel, and overflowing with masculine charms idol group was bound to succeed.
There were hardships, like being unable to part with chicken breasts in order to build muscle, but he was special even among them.
“Alright, my life is finally heading down a flower path!”
The problem was that a major agency had also taken a very fancy to their concept. It is the law of nature for a small beast to be devoured by a larger one. They were eaten, as nature intended.
There wasn’t even time to consider disbanding before the agency went under.
A second debut chance! A flower boy group! At first, he was slightly taken aback by the dazzling, genius-level faces around him, but it felt reassuring to be on the same team.
“Yeah, this was the level of visual that deserved to stand by my side.”
A solid mid-tier agency, home to active flower boy actors, had made a proper investment in a flower boy group. He had thought the agency was solid and his future was set in stone.
As if due to strict dietary control, the frail pretty boys flanking him turned deathly pale and collapsed left and right. They were edited out of broadcasts, and events became a total mess. The agency terminated the members’ contracts one by one, even before the terms were up.
Naturally, he was discarded too.
A third debut opportunity came. Dear God.
It wasn’t a group, nor was it a direct casting. It was an audition program.
As expected, God wanted him to live as a singer.
He had succeeded in earning recognition for his skills through his own power alone.
He had to survive without letting this chance slip away. Diligently and silently, he sang alone.
In the end, he faded into obscurity all on his own.
* * *
“Your grandfather gave you that name so the reaper wouldn’t recognize you and would pass you by, since you were destined to die young. How could you try to change it?”
“So you’re saying I became a nobody with three debuts all because of my name?!”
Dohyun had protested and argued with his family countless times. Determined that this time he would definitely change his name, he had secretly gone to the courthouse. He had failed, getting caught by his family before he could submit the paperwork.
In the end, he was reduced to sighing and staring into the mirror at home, with nothing better to do.
“How could I have debuted three times and still not have a single person recognize me? Is this not a celebrity’s fate?”
It felt as though his grandfather’s voice was brushing against his ear.
“An entertainer is the one thing you must not become!”
His grandfather had been the most vehemently opposed member of the family. It had been a terrifying opposition; his grandfather had argued that the fate of an entertainer and the fate of a shaman were but a hair’s breadth apart, and had even gone on a hunger strike at his age.
So he hadn’t been able to debut while his grandfather was alive, and only entered an agency as a trainee after the old man passed away.
Now, ten years into his debut.
Now twenty-nine, Dohyun dragged himself up to film for a cable channel with 0% viewership—a gig he hadn’t seen in a very long time.
‘Grandfather, instead of just opposing me, you should have just clearly told me I would never make it as an entertainer. You could read other people’s lives as easily as turning your hand over—so why did you only ever blindly oppose your grandson’s?’
Thinking of his grandfather, his heart ached for no reason. As a child, he had been afraid of his shaman grandfather, and as he grew older, he had even felt ashamed. But as he grew up, he learned the truth: that his grandfather had loved him more than anyone else.
He was living this entertainment life in defiance of even that grandfather’s wishes!
After comforting himself and resolving to do his best today, he got up from before the mirror.
* * *
The waiting room was dazzlingly splendid.
“Looks like my luck’s good today?”
Though he was in the position of having to come to the station early and do his makeup alone, Dohyun was genuinely excited. Not only had he landed this waiting room because a popular celebrity guest’s schedule had fallen through, but it had also been ages since he’d done his makeup comfortably, free from anyone’s scrutiny.
It had been so long since his last broadcast that Dohyun applied his makeup with extreme care. No matter how little money he made, he always bought the best cosmetics and hair products. Even if he had to skip meals, skincare and haircare were a bare minimum—how else could he go outside and call himself an idol?
After finishing his preparations alone, Dohyun looked over the script on the table.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE
“‘Wheel of Fortune’? ‘Wheel of Fate’? The guest is a shaman?”
He narrowed his eyes as he skimmed the profile of the guest appearing alongside him today.
Just then, the door burst open.
A man in vibrantly patterned clothes narrowed his eyes the moment he saw Dohyun and said, “I thought I was the only one using this room?”
“Ah! Hello.”
Dohyun had also thought he was alone, but it seemed the man had assumed the same.
“The staff told me to wait here too.”
“Oh? Are you a celebrity?”
“Yes. Aren’t you a celebrity as well, sir?”
“A celebrity? Well, I suppose I’m about as famous as your average celebrity.”
It seemed he was indeed the shaman appearing on today’s show.
Dohyun let out a small laugh without realizing it. During presidential elections, the house would be swarming with politicians, and countless celebrities would visit too. Yet his grandfather had never once claimed to be famous, and in fact, ordinary people hardly knew of him. So it felt strangely amusing to hear the shaman before him claim fame.
“Tch, it’s a doomed fate. A doomed fate. Your energy is strong—strangely strong!”
“Excuse me?”
“The fate of an entertainer and the fate of a shaman are but a hair’s breadth apart, yet your spiritual energy is strangely strong! Whether you undergo spirit possession or something similar, you’d do well to suppress that energy.”
A hair’s breadth.
At words he’d heard from his grandfather, Dohyun’s body stiffened involuntarily. It was true that he possessed spiritual energy. As if to prove he was the grandson of Korea’s greatest shaman, he had suffered from spirit sickness as a child. His parents hadn’t had it, but his grandfather had lamented that it skipped a generation and came to him. For his grandfather was someone who had wished for him to live an ordinary life, neither as an entertainer nor a shaman.
His grandfather had cured his spirit sickness. He had never heard of curing spirit sickness without undergoing spirit possession, yet his grandfather had somehow managed it.
“So you have ambitions of being a singer?”
“It’s not ambition—I’m active. I’m an idol.”
The shaman, who had been staring intently at Dohyun, suddenly burst into laughter.
“Ho, look at you. You refused a spirit possession ritual when you were young, didn’t you?”
From his eyes, hidden behind makeup as flamboyant as his clothes, a sharp light gleamed.
Dohyun involuntarily let out a gasp.
“An enormous Manshin was the one who blocked your spirit sickness. If you continue like this, you will never succeed as a singer. The Manshin’s energy has run out. Was it your blood relative?”
Dohyun nodded. “Yes… my grandfather.”
“Dohyun? I’ve never heard of a shaman with a grandson named Dohyun. If they were a powerful shaman, I would definitely know them. What was his given name?”
Dohyun couldn’t bring himself to utter his grandfather’s given name.
The shaman’s eyes curved into crescents, and the corners of his lips turned up.
“Now I understand. With this level of Manshin’s energy, you must undoubtedly be that person’s grandson. Indeed, one does not speak that person’s given name lightly. However, that’s strange. That person must have known the Manshin’s energy would eventually run out.”
The shaman paced in circles around the waiting room alone, lost in thought.
“Ah! Could this also be the Manshin’s will? That we should meet!”
The shaman placed a hand on Dohyun’s shoulder. “Since you refused spirit possession, you should maintain the Manshin’s energy through something similar.”
“Excuse me?”
“Seeing as that person blocked it, being a shaman is not your fate. Let me see, do you do tarot?”
“Tarot?”
A hollow laugh escaped him.
“As long as you refuse the Manshin, you can never succeed. If you maintain the Manshin’s energy, you will achieve great success. The way to maintain the Manshin’s energy is to undergo spirit possession and become a shaman, but you don’t want that, do you? It’s not your destiny.”
“That’s right.”
“So I’m telling you to at least read tarot. Try learning it. You’ll feel something change.”
“Learn tarot?”
The shaman grinned widely. “Yes. Or shall I perform an initiation gut for you?”
Dohyun got to his feet. “I’m fine.”
He looked like a con artist. Tarot was laughable enough, but a gut ritual? No, thanks.
Just then, the door opened and the production crew entered.
“We’re ready for filming, both of you!”
* * *
The filming ended in a blur. Dohyun hardly had any screen time. He sat there like a borrowed sack of barley, doing nothing but clapping.
The show belonged entirely to the shaman. The production crew seemed convinced that the ratings would rise now that they’d booked a powerful shaman, and they openly favored him.
As he trudged home, Dohyun shook his head.
“Getting caught up with a creepy shaman.”
Still, he had earned a performance fee from today’s appearance and added another line to his resume.
The shaman’s words continued to echo in his ears. The fact that the shaman knew his grandfather, and all that talk about the Manshin’s energy, didn’t seem like lies. The shaman he met today was the real deal—terrifying beneath all the flashiness. A spirit-possessed shaman.
‘It’s been ages since I’ve met a shaman like that since Grandfather, but… should I learn tarot?’
He had nothing better to do anyway. He thought he might as well study tarot in his spare time while sending out profiles and hovering around broadcasting stations.
When he got home, without even washing up, he ordered a tarot deck first thing. He flopped onto his bed and watched videos from all sorts of tarot YouTubers.
‘Frauds are running rampant everywhere.’
Though tarot readers and shamans were worlds apart, he could at least tell the difference between those who spoke truth and those who didn’t by the look in their eyes.
‘Is this even right?’
There was even a tarot master among them.
Dohyun closed his eyes, comforted by the fact that whether it was a shaman or a tarot reader, it all depended on the person.
It had been a truly strange day.