Running Too Far Ahead
It was the third day since the new album had dropped. But the album CEO Im had poured his ambitions into hadn't managed to crack the top six, instead hovering anxiously around its edges. The members and staff had all allowed themselves to hope—after all, they'd hit number one last time. Yet this round, for some strange reason, fifth place stood like a wall in their way.
"Ugh. If we'd just snagged another number one, we could've shaken off the nobody image for good."
"Didn't we already shake it off?"
"Shook it off for the fans, sure. But the general public only remembers you if you keep charting number one—at the very least number two—over and over."
Whenever they had a spare moment, the members clutched their phones, but nothing changed. Had they gotten popular at the worst possible time? Provocateurs had started crawling into the album review sections, doing nothing but rubbing salt in the members' wounds.
"Let's go practice our dancing and singing."
"We're still better than the kids who copy our choreography, aren't we?"
"If those kids were charting above us too, I honestly couldn't have sat still."
"And what would you have done about it, exactly?"
Because of his film shoot, only Jungseo was out with Jongwoo; the other members were ferried to the agency by Sa Gam-jae in the company van.
I see Mr. Sa Gam-jae has absolutely no intention of intervening while the members bicker instead of resting in the car.
Rembrary clicked his tongue and shot a look at Sa Gam-jae, who remained tight-lipped through it all—not so much as offering the members a perfunctory word of comfort.
For all anyone knew, he was thinking that humans were terribly greedy creatures, grumbling over failing to reach number one when sixth place was already impressive. Sa Gam-jae, after all, had his own blind spots where understanding people was concerned.
Then, just as they stepped out of the car and entered the building, an employee—one who seemed to handle Wild Animal-related work, though precisely what his position was remained anyone's guess—came sprinting toward Rembrary with both arms spread wide.
"Yeon-woo!"
He carried himself like a lover reunited across three thousand years and a past lifetime. Of course, Rembrary had never had such a lover, so he twisted sideways to dodge the welcoming embrace.
Even so, the employee showed not a trace of offense.
He's gotten used to it.
So this is how one becomes tempered—by enduring the unpleasant.
The members clicked their tongues inwardly as they walked toward the elevator to head up to the practice room.
"What brings you here?"
Rembrary asked once he too had taken his place in front of the elevator. The employee, a grin blooming across his face even now, sidled up beside him.
"You, my friend—you're about to hit the top. All that's left now."
"Hit the top with what?"
"You're going to be huge. There won't be a single soul in South Korea who doesn't know your face."
"Have the streaming rankings risen, then?"
"Not yet."
At Rembrary's question, the members—who had checked the charts on their phones on the off chance—slumped their shoulders. Rembrary pressed on.
"Then why the sudden fuss?"
He asked because something clearly had happened, something that had the employee in such an unusually fine mood. Jongwoo—come to think of it, Jongwoo had called earlier and started to say something strange before cutting himself off. Something about waiting until it was certain. Was this related to whatever Jongwoo had been about to say?
"Twelve advertising offers. Twelve! All for you."
"Advertisements?"
Rembrary thought back to the cosmetics shoot he'd done with Oh Jung-shin. The two products, released as if in competition with rival concepts, had turned out to be unexpectedly effective, and he'd heard both were selling well. They'd been launched to target the fans of Oh Jung-shin and Rembrary, but word of mouth had spread on their practicality instead.
Were they doing more ads like that?
"Cosmetics, perfume, coffee, air conditioners, snacks, an ice cream brand, a jewelry brand, a sports brand, a public-service campaign for speaking kindly, laundry detergent, a snow park that's just opened—even a car."
Ding. The elevator doors slid open. But no one boarded. No one except Rembrary, that is. The members stood gaping at the employee, their faces frozen in disbelief at the list he'd just rattled off.
"Are you not getting on?"
Only at Rembrary's prompt did the members file into the elevator. The employee stepped in after them and continued talking to Rembrary.
"Everything I just listed—that's all ad offers that came in for you. Woo Yeon-woo."
"Is that so?"
"They actually started coming in a few days ago, but CEO Im told us not to say anything until things were certain. Said you'd be crushed if they fell through halfway."
Which meant that speaking up now meant the odds had shot way up. The members stared at each other in a daze. Then Cathy spoke up.
"Are all of those Yeon-woo solo ads?"
"That part's still being discussed with the company."
The members, whose eyes had been sharpened by long years in obscurity, quickly caught on: the advertisers wanted Rembrary and Rembrary alone, and the company was maneuvering to insert the other members into the shoots alongside him.
In idol groups, where collective popularity mattered as much as any individual's, this kind of thing was far from rare. The members' pride was stung a little, but they felt a flicker of hope too. That was how groups worked, in the end. When you couldn't know who would rise, the system was built so that if even one person made it, everyone else could ride their coattails.
"We've been going back and forth for two days now. Your schedule is absolutely packed, but the advertisers say it doesn't matter—they'll bend their schedules around yours no matter what. Ha. Is that insane or what?"
"Why would they?"
"'Why would they?' Are you serious? Do you have any idea how proud advertisers are? And these people are falling over themselves to sign you as their model."
Ding. The elevator doors opened again. Rembrary walked out thinking only, so things are going well. Or perhaps, this will make gathering believers easier. The employee was making a huge fuss, but Rembrary wasn't particularly swayed by it.
Then, suddenly, it came back to him. What Nakroo had said. That promise to make him a star within three months. Rembrary stopped dead in the middle of the walkway to the practice room. Could it be...?
"What's wrong?"
Hye-gyeol asked, trailing behind him with a yawn.
"Something bothering you? Your face looks off."
The employee, who had been leading the way, turned around.
"Yeon-woo, you feeling sick?"
It wasn't pain that had seized him. It was suspicion. Three months. Star. Connections mobilized to the fullest. Rembrary's eyes narrowed. If the employee was this breathless with excitement, leaping around like a grasshopper, this couldn't be an ordinary turn of events. The timing was too neat. Could Nakroo be behind this?
Rembrary had refused Nakroo's offer. But Nakroo had not accepted that refusal gracefully. If this was the result?
"Yeon-woo, want me to drop another bomb on you? An overseas luxury brand is in talks too. They love your... fearless way of talking. With the internet these days, characters who speak their mind without a shred of concern for anyone's opinion—like you—have gotten genuinely rare."
Before entering the practice room, Rembrary pulled Sa Gam-jae aside into a corner of the hallway.
"What is it?"
"I have a question for you."
"If it's about the ads, I'm too low on the ladder to have any say."
"It's not about that."
"Then?"
"Those twelve ad—"
"Twelve."
"—if I accepted all twelve, and they all got cut around the same time, what would people think?"
"That there was some problem with you."
"Just as I thought."
"And once it came out that there was no problem, they'd conclude the ads simply had no effect. One or two falling through might be excused, but if all twelve were cut at once?"
"......"
"What is it?"
"Someone may be aiming for exactly that."
The price for being raised to stardom within three months. It wasn't free. The condition was joining Nakrou. And yet before he'd even accepted the condition, they were already holding out the payment.
"What do you mean?"
"Nakrou asked me to join them."
"Really?"
"Their offer was to make me a top star within three months."
"You... accepted?"
"Would I accept? What those people ultimately want is this body of mine, no?"
"That's true."
So it wasn't that he lacked sense—he simply hadn't cared enough to notice. Sa Gam-jae grasped the situation at once and his expression turned grave.
"So they plan to hand you everything first, then take it all away if you don't do as they wish."
Redrin had commanded it, too—he had to become a top celebrity here. He could not lose the image he'd so diligently built while playing the part of a demon over something like this.
"This cannot be allowed. Gam-jae, you must block it."
"Block which part?"
"Every single ad connected to Nakruo must be stopped. Not one may be filmed."
Sa Gam-jae repeated himself with a troubled look.
"As I said before, my rank here is too low for my word to carry any weight."
"Even so, you cannot simply stand by and let it happen."
"I will attempt it."
Having finished the conversation, Rembrary returned to the practice room, thinking anew that Nakru really did have its tentacles everywhere.
"Hey there, superstar!"
Now what on earth does that mean? Rembrary, who had been walking in staring at the floor, lost in thought, lifted his head. It was the dance teacher, giving him a thumbs-up and guffawing.
Superstar?
He'd thought he'd grown familiar with most of the words people used these days. But a new one appearing always threw him off.
Then he simply had to search it. Rembrary pulled out his phone.
But his eyes, drifting down toward the screen, rose right back up. The members, who had been sneaking glances at him from the corners of their eyes, hastily looked away. One at the mirror, one at his own sneakers, one at the ceiling. Unnatural, all of it.
Rembrary thought back to his days as a high-ranking priest. By the time he ascended to High Priest, the gulf between him and the others had grown so vast that the other priests couldn't even gossip about his meteoric rise. Perhaps they had stayed quiet because they understood that the seat of High Priest was not one reached through mere ambition.
But when he had risen from ordinary priest to high-ranking priest—that time, the entire temple's atmosphere had turned strange. Few had offered sincere congratulations on his unusually rapid promotion. Even those who weren't jealous.
The dance teacher, sensing the awkward mood, quietly lowered his thumb. Ahem. He cleared his throat with an embarrassed cough.
"Let's practice, everybody. Practice."
"Why's the mood so dead in here?"
Jongwoo froze in the entryway, Jungseo in tow, startled to find a storm cloud hanging over the entire living room.
He'd spent the whole day trailing Jungseo at the film set and had only just managed to claw his way free, and it was nine at night now. For a first role, Jungseo's shooting load was heavy, but the real culprit was the shooting order. Scenes kept getting shunted around, stretching the waiting time endlessly.
Thanks to that, the waiting room had been gloomy all day. But the dorm was somehow even darker. Jongwoo set his bag down by the entrance and asked.
"What happened to you guys?"
Hye-gyeol, mid-game in front of the TV, answered immediately.
"Nothing."
Taein answered from the kitchen as he pried the cap off a bottle of supplements.
"Nothing at all. We were in the practice room all day."
When pressing got him nothing but silence from the members, Jongwoo let it go, albeit suspiciously. He was exhausted himself, and he needed whatever sleep he could scrape together before work tomorrow.
But for Jungseo, this was where he'd come home to. No matter how heavy the atmosphere, he had nowhere else to be. Watching the members drift around oddly deflated, Jungseo headed into the room he shared with Rembrary.
"Something happen? What's wrong with the guys?"
Jungseo asked, trusting without quite realizing it that whatever had happened, Rembrary would be untouched by it—off in his own world, idly posting photos and having fun.
Which was why he was a little startled to find Rembrary lying face-down on the bed. Rembrary's expression was frozen on an entirely different track from the members'.
"What's wrong with you? You okay?"
Both hands were clenched white around his phone, and his eyes were nailed to the screen, refusing to budge. Jungseo walked over beside Rembrary and looked down at the phone. What on earth—?
It was the news.