100 Keywords (2)
At the word pig, an uneasy premonition crept over Rembrary.
The 100 keywords had supposedly been fixed since the day the program first aired, so they couldn't all have been brought in because of him… and yet it gnawed at him all the same.
No—he was quite sure someone would drag it out as a keyword.
Though his common sense differed from everyone else's, Rembrary was no fool, and he emphasized the fact to himself.
They're definitely going to use 'pig' as my keyword.
Having swiftly foreseen the future, he clutched his head in his hands.
As he did, ninety-five of the hundred keywords that had been floating lazily in the air sank down, sideways, and upward before vanishing, absorbed away—and the five that remained began to glow.
The five keywords were: whale, pig, love triangle, romantic rival, and trainwreck.
Yeah. Anyone can tell that's me!
While Rembrary writhed in fresh torment, a loud, delighted guffaw echoed in from outside.
Five seconds later, the door—which was said to open only when the audience guessed the keywords—slid smoothly open, and a faint mist rose from the floor.
Rembrary reluctantly stepped outside.
Evidently a measure of how many audience members had answered correctly, the words 95% were written beside the five keywords.
Shin Jo-woon was emerging from the box across from him, and the moment their eyes met, he wore an enigmatic little smile.
As if he hadn't expected the pig keyword to come up either.
After all, he'd been the one who said they shouldn't talk about pigs and whales in the first place. Awkward as Rembrary felt now, Shin Jo-woon was surely going to be even more flustered.
It stung, but with Shin Jo-woon sitting there so composed when he was the one who'd suffer more, Rembrary refused to be the one scowling.
Summoning his professionalism, he managed his expression as best he could and took the seat the MC indicated.
"Woo Yeon-woo, when you came out just now. You were frowning. What was that about?"
But the damage control had apparently come too late. One of the MCs had been laughing ever since Rembrary emerged from the box, and the moment he sat down, snickered and asked the question.
Rembrary faltered, then answered honestly.
"There was a keyword that said 'pig.' I don't like being called a pig."
"Oh, really? Everyone says pigs are cute, though."
"My mascot is a sloth. Keep saying pig, pig, and things start to get weird."
In the middle of all this, Shin Jo-woon chimed in smoothly from beside him.
"Shall we make you a pig-sloth, then?"
When Rembrary fixed him with a long stare, the MC who'd asked the question snickered again, and the other MC across the stage called out.
"But Woo Yeon-woo, you're dating Jang Tae-ri and you're romantic rivals with Shin Jo-woon, right? Yet on the broadcasts, you and Shin Jo-woon are always out eating together, just the two of you. What's the deal with that? Where does Jang Tae-ri go while you two run around?"
Rembrary answered flatly.
"If I'm seen out alone with Jang Tae-ri too often, my agency won't like it. They say it starts dating rumors."
When Shin Jo-woon added that their schedules rarely lined up well enough for the three of them to meet, the MCs nodded in instant understanding.
They weren't idols themselves, but they knew how that world turned well enough.
Next, the MCs offered some praise for the legendary face Shin Jo-woon was said to have in the entertainment industry, then briefly introduced Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon to the audience.
Though with ninety-five percent having answered correctly, the audience clearly already knew exactly who the two of them were.
And at last, as the program's centerpiece—the keyword talk—drew near, one of the MCs called out brightly.
"All right then, keyword talk! Keyword number one! Pig!"
We agreed not to talk about pigs. And it shows up as a keyword outright… Rembrary's expression curdled yet again.
Shin Jo-woon pressed his lips together and glanced away, but Rembrary was too busy managing his own face to check the expression of the man sitting beside him.
Even watching Rembrary's face curdle, the MC asked brightly.
"As it happens, we've already touched on this keyword a little. I'm a genuine Dating Process devotee, you see?"
"Yes."
"Every time I watch it, I've been so curious. On the show, Yeon-woo is always going on about pizza."
Having laid the groundwork, the MC turned to Shin Jo-woon.
"In real life too, is Yeon-woo always going on about pizza?"
The keywords belonged to Rembrary, but apparently the questions weren't always aimed at their owner.
Rembrary watched Shin Jo-woon with mounting anxiety. This was a man who made a daily sport of teasing people, so Rembrary worried how he'd toy with him this time—and whether the pig rumors would only balloon after today. Now he understood how Jong-woo felt, nagging him every day to watch his mouth.
Fortunately, Shin Jo-woon's answer was unremarkable.
"In real life it's even worse. He seems to really love eating."
"Wait, he's even worse in person?"
"Yes."
Then the other MC raised a hand and called out.
"Ah, Shin Jo-woon, I've seen you constantly trying to persuade Woo Yeon-woo to become your pet pig—what exactly does being a pet pig entail?"
Rembrary's heart thumped as he turned to Shin Jo-woon again.
Without so much as glancing in Rembrary's direction, Shin Jo-woon smiled lightly and said, half-joking:
"Eat, sleep, lie around playing—and once in a while, snuggle up to me."
It was delivered as a joke, but there was something ticklish in the timbre of his voice.
And with a speaker whose face was so effortlessly, unfair-to-look-at handsome, the women in the audience screamed, half in jest and half in earnest.
The female MC, feigning urgency, tossed out a joke of her own: "Do you take applications?"
Watching Shin Jo-woon's easy smile, Rembrary thought that the man might as well have nine tails swaying behind him.
When Rembrary had asked him something similar before, the answer had most certainly not been that.
Meanwhile, the conversation moved on to another keyword.
"Our next keyword is: whale!"
Just as the pig keyword had been directed at Shin Jo-woon, the whale keyword was aimed at Rembrary.
"Yeon-woo, you call Shin Jo-woon a whale, don't you?"
"Whale-anchovy."
"Ah. Do you have to add the anchovy part?"
"You can call him anchovy or whale-anchovy, but you can't call him just whale. The whale part may be dropped, but the anchovy must stay."
At Rembrary's resolute answer, the MC snickered and asked, "So why did you call him a whale in the first place?"
"I mistook him for a people person."
"'Mistook'—so you don't see Shin Jo-woon as a people person anymore?"
"No. I was deceived. He's not a people person at all. All he does is tease people all day."
Shin Jo-woon bristled—"Who's the one teasing people all day?"—but Rembrary cut back crisply: "You are."
"You two could just fight openly, you know."
Whether they found the pair's bickering entertaining or not, the MCs all but rolled out a mat for a brawl, but Shin Jo-woon shook his head and defused the mood with a joke mixed in.
"Not here. We'll fight later, just the two of us."
Watching the scene unfold, Jong-woo thought how relieved he was that Shin Jo-woon had come out with him today.
Rembrary was choosing his words carefully today too, true—but with Shin Jo-woon cutting in smoothly beside him, it was a mercy.
After a bit more back-and-forth, the topic finally turned to the love triangle.
The MC introducing this keyword, once again, called on Rembrary.
"Oh? But didn't Woo Yeon-woo say he was going to become a monk someday?"
He seemed about to ask why someone like that would appear on a love-triangle variety show, but Rembrary answered crisply.
"I won't be doing that anymore."
"Oh? Really? Why? Did trying the dating show change your mind?"
"No. My goal changed."
"Wow, really? To what?"
"Cult leader—no, I want to become a top star."
"A very strange word just appeared and vanished there, didn't it?"
"I'm going to be a top star."
"No, didn't you just say you wanted to be a cult leader?"
"Did I?"
At Rembrary's shameless deflection, the MC snickered and pointed a finger at the camera.
"It's all on tape~. You definitely said cult leader at the start."
Rembrary was flustered—and watching him, so was Jong-woo.
Because he knew how deep Rembrary's interest in fringe religions ran, none of it sounded like an empty slip of the tongue.
But contrary to Jong-woo's worries, Rembrary plastered on a gentle smile and smoothly patched over his own statement.
"Actually, I'd also like to found a school. But that's still a dream I haven't worked out in detail, so I'd rather not talk about it yet."
It was thanks to all the dictionary-digging he'd done, grieving after being called a blockhead.
Jong-woo exhaled in relief, while Shin Jo-woon tilted his head and fought down a laugh.
Since the talk ran on a fixed schedule, the MCs, sensing the cult topic wasn't going anywhere fruitful, hurried back to what they'd meant to discuss.
"Ah, I see. Well, if you're not becoming a monk, I guess you'll be dating for real now too, won't you, Yeon-woo?"
Silently congratulating himself on how neatly he'd rescued the conversation, Rembrary answered firmly.
"Dating is out of the question. I'm an idol, after all."
But here, an unintended problem reared its head once more.
Because in Wild Animal, there existed—one idol couple that everyone knew about, even if the members themselves kept silent.
In the MCs' minds, and in the audience's, the image of Cathy bubbled up all at once.
Had this been a vicious, cutthroat variety show, the MCs would have brought him up—but the 100 Keywords MCs were not vicious characters, so they merely exchanged knowing little smiles, unable to pounce on it right away.
But while they were still deliberating whether to drop the topic or run with it, Rembrary added, naturally and unprompted:
"Of course, there is one exception nearby."
At the blunt fastball thrown with zero subtlety, everyone who'd gone momentarily blank burst out laughing in unison. Dropped.
One MC, laughing so hard he clutched his belly, called out:
"By the way, does LLL have some kind of dating ban or anything?"
"I've never asked, so I don't know."
"Then when your idol days end, will you date? If you date, who would you want to date with? Your ideal type!"
Didn't he already say on a past broadcast that his ideal type was Guan Yu? Why are they asking again?
Rembrary found it odd, but gave the same answer as before.
"Guan Yu."
A ripple of stifled laughter ran through the crowd.
The moment he heard it, Rembrary recalled the Three Kingdoms story he'd once heard from—Jong-woo, or was it Jeong-seo?—and hurried to add:
"Of course, I do know now that Guan Yu is a man."
Everyone who remembered Rembrary's famously clueless remark began laughing even harder.
But Rembrary, unable to grasp what was so funny, blinked blankly.
Then, glancing over, he caught Shin Jo-woon making some kind of face at him.
He had no idea what the look was meant to convey, but upon receiving it, Rembrary was able to spot the logical hole he'd just dug for himself.
Rembrary gave Shin Jo-woon a grateful nod, then hastily revised his statement.
"Not that I'd be dating a man, mind you."
***
Jong-woo monitored the real-time reactions and let out a long sigh.
He'd been dreading that someone might bring up the rumors, but since nobody seemed to be, that at least was a mercy.
At that very moment, in a dark room with the lights off, a man sat on a one-seater sofa, toying with the collar chain around his neck as he stared at 100 Keywords.
He watched the TV blankly for a while, and then, when Rembrary appeared on screen, pointed a finger at it and spoke toward the kitchen.
"Hey. I told you. I told you. Didn't I tell you?"
A blunt voice drifted back from the kitchen. "Told me what."
The man toyed with the chain, a smirk curling across his face.
"That's not him. That's not human. Not human at all."
There was a brief silence, and then another man appeared from the kitchen—an apron thrown on over a suit.
It was the owner of the club Lim Yu-han frequented.
Slipping off his bloodstained apron, he looked in the direction the demon was pointing.
"Ah, the one Yu-han brought back before… what was his name again?"
"Yeon-woo!"
— End of <116. 100 Keywords (2)> —