Winning a Senior's Favor
When they drew near the elevator, Sunwoo Sil and his cameraman came into view.
"Hello there."
When Rembrary greeted him with easy friendliness, Sunwoo Sil's eyebrows twitched.
But mindful of the cameras, he put on a chummy smile anyway.
"Oh, you're here? Come on over."
Under Sunwoo Sil's guidance, the four of them headed up to the fifth floor.
One of the rooms up there turned out to hold a piano. The space had a rather unusual layout—a single large booth housing both the piano and a microphone, with the wall between adjacent rooms made entirely of glass.
Jong-woo had stepped out to buy drinks and snacks, so before long only Sunwoo Sil, Rembrary, and the two cameramen remained in the room.
Still playing to the camera, Sunwoo Sil settled Rembrary onto the sofa and then took a seat a little apart from him.
"Have you thought about what song you'd like to do?"
"I've been thinking about it, but... I'm not sure."
"Not sure? There's nothing you want to sing?"
"I've never done a duet before."
At Rembrary's answer, Sunwoo Sil nodded with a laugh and stole a glance at the camera.
Apparently this was one of those moments where profanity would have slipped out if no one had been filming.
But thanks to the camera, Sunwoo Sil swallowed the curse and stood up instead.
"Well, I do have a song in mind."
He went off somewhere and came back carrying what looked like the head of some animal—impossible to tell whether it was meant to be a panda or a dog.
Rembrary was still puzzling over what the thing could be when Sunwoo Sil said, "Listen," and pressed one of its ears.
Astonishingly, a song began to play from the head's mouth.
Is this the song he wants us to do?
Rembrary listened closely. It opened with a woman murmuring as if whispering a secret, then climbed a tone higher toward the middle of the verse.
Just as he was thinking what a pleasantly ticklish voice it was, another woman suddenly cut in—husky and full of raw power—and the entire chorus shifted into soaring high notes.
It wasn't the kind of high note where a single tone is simply sustained and dragged out; the whole lyric was sung at full elevation.
Toward the end of the chorus, that voice seemed to break and vanish, and the whispering voice returned to open the second verse.
When the song ended, Rembrary found himself applauding without even thinking about it.
"Splendid."
It was a strikingly memorable song—the kind that made his original way of speaking slip out unbidden.
But it also looked ferociously difficult. The low notes were very low and the high notes very high.
And even through all of that, the diction stayed crisp—which looked like the hardest part of all.
"Is this the song you had in mind?"
At Rembrary's question, Sunwoo Sil broke into a grin.
"Yup. It's called Let Out. What do you think? Pretty good, right?"
"It's magnificent."
"Any mixed-gender team is going to do some love-song duet, you can bet on it. And the same-sex pairs will all go for bromance or womance vibes. If everybody's singing about love and friendship, it all gets predictable, doesn't it?"
What on earth is a bromance? And a womance?
But the part about love and friendship songs made sense, so Rembrary nodded along.
This song, if he had to describe it, wasn't about love or friendship at all—it was closer to confrontation and argument. The two women in the song weren't exactly fighting, but listen closely to the lyrics and they were delivering opposing opinions at each other like rival orators.
"Deal? We'll go with this one?"
"Yes."
When Rembrary agreed without hesitation, Sunwoo Sil smiled with satisfaction, clearly a man who'd been itching to perform this song.
"So the song is settled, then."
"Yes."
"We'll need to split it into a low part and a high part. Which do you want?"
Tapping the ear of the head that was either a dog or a panda, Sunwoo Sil looked over at him.
He seemed to be asking: high notes? low notes?
"Both are hard. Pick whichever you're confident in."
While Rembrary deliberated in silence, Sunwoo Sil pressed him again.
Rembrary smiled and answered with perfect composure.
"I'll take whichever part you lack confidence in, senior."
Sunwoo Sil mouthed the words you little bastard— almost invisibly, but like the professional he was, he swallowed the presumed profanity and said,
"Then I'll take the high part."
For nearly five hours after that, the two of them practiced nonstop.
Rembrary discovered what the piano in the room was for. Astonishingly, Sunwoo Sil played the accompaniment on it himself—just tapping out simple chords on the keys, yet the sound came out impressively rich.
Moreover, Sunwoo Sil was dead serious when it came to music.
"No, in that part, press in harder. Like you're bearing down on him."
"Not a whisper?"
"You whisper—but you know how there's that kind of whisper where you grab someone by the collar and threaten them? Let's go with that."
"······"
"I want it to feel like a fight turning violent. I'll be screaming my head off in the high part, so if you're just quietly whispering, how does that read as a fight? That's why—quiet on the surface, threatening underneath. That's the move."
Rembrary's voice carried a faint undercurrent of Divine Power, which gave his timbre an exceptionally beautiful sound.
Put another way, it made singing anything deliberately ugly or rough rather difficult.
Even as he marveled at Rembrary's voice, Sunwoo Sil kept hammering at this one point, insisting he bring out the song's atmosphere.
"I was wondering why they arranged it like a choir piece. Turns out that was the best call."
"Does it still not sound like a threat?"
"Have you ever actually threatened somebody? Even messing around with friends—you'd have done it at least once as a kid, right?"
"I have not."
"Really? Not even in jest?"
"No."
"...Ahh. Of course. Neither have I, obviously."
After nearly five hours, the song session finally came to an end.
Utterly drained, Rembrary chugged down bottled water like it was going out of style.
But he wasn't the only one surprised by the other's attitude.
Sunwoo Sil, too, found it unexpected that Rembrary had kept up with his relentless barrage of nitpicking without a single word of complaint.
Every now and then—usually at the request of a vocal trainer or a company executive—he would teach rookies or trainees.
It was rare, very rare, but it happened.
And every single time, Sunwoo Sil walked around muttering, kids these days, honestly.
Say that out loud and people would call him a out-of-touch old-timer or worse, but he simply couldn't help it.
One trainee would burst into tears at the slightest criticism. Another would lose his temper, huffing and stomping around, unable to swallow his pride.
Another would listen meekly enough—and then change absolutely nothing.
Yet another would work hard at first, then start slacking the moment things got tough.
But Rembrary was astonishingly identical from the first minute to the last.
Unshakable.
He couldn't speak to what went on inside the man's head, but on the outside, that was exactly what he looked like.
Even now, drinking water because he was tired, wasn't his expression perfectly serene?
After thinking it over for a moment, Sunwoo Sil stepped out into the hallway and made a request of Jong-woo.
"Jong-woo. If it's no trouble, may I take Yeon-woo out for a drink tonight?"
"A drink?"
Jong-woo echoed, startled.
"Yes. He follows direction well. I'd like to treat him."
Jong-woo was dumbfounded.
Having not seen inside the practice room, he had no idea what could have happened.
No—Jong-woo had been busy making the rounds of community sites, the fan club forum, celebrity photo boards, and the news sections of the major portals, reporting the malicious comments Oh Jung-shin's fans kept posting about Yeon-woo.
You'd wonder why a report button even existed—for the most part, even the vilest invective went unremoved no matter how many times he flagged it.
And after five grueling hours of that battle—
Sunwoo Sil, of all people, the man who'd openly disliked Yeon-woo, coming out like this? Jong-woo could only stare blankly.
But this was a golden opportunity.
"Oh, uh—of course, absolutely."
Getting caught drinking with a female idol would be one thing, but this was a male senior with a sterling reputation in the music industry.
Yeon-woo was a legal adult. Even if a photo surfaced of them drinking, the worst case was a post like Huh? Woo Yeon-woo and Sunwoo Sil seem close?—and if anything, that would help his image, not hurt it.
Even with no photo at all, mending fences with Sunwoo Sil would be a win in itself.
"I'll have him back at the dorm before it gets too late."
With Jong-woo's blessing secured, Sunwoo Sil—wearing the look of a man who understood exactly how the idol world worked—went over to Rembrary and made the offer.
"Let's grab a drink with your manager hyung... I mean, with me, before you head home."
"I can't go out without permission, though..."
"Just got it. He says it's fine."
Rembrary wasn't particularly fond of alcohol, but at the news that Jong-woo had approved, he nodded. The man must have had his reasons, he reasoned.
Besides, Rembrary was in a position where he needed connections beyond his own members.
Every move he made was under the control of his manager, Jong-woo, so he was always surrounded by nothing but the other members.
For someone like Rembrary, who knew nothing about this world, he was curious about the "real world" beyond the internet.
Curiosity aside, thinking ahead to life after quitting the idol business, friendships with other people would be necessary too.
"All right, then. Get changed and wait for me."
After telling Jong-woo to head out first, Sunwoo Sil sent the two cameramen home as well.
Jong-woo left, trusting in the fact that Sunwoo Sil had never once been involved in a scandal in all his years in the industry.
Once the two of them were completely alone, Sunwoo Sil handed Rembrary a marked-up sheet of sheet music covered in the points they'd worked through today, then led him to the parking lot.
And about twenty minutes later—
Rembrary set foot in a bar for the first time since arriving in this other world.
It was also the first time he'd eaten or drunk anything with someone outside his members or family.
When Sunwoo Sil ordered a modest round of drinks and side dishes, the server gave Rembrary and Sunwoo Sil a quick once-over, then quietly shut the door and left.
The bar was laid out so that patrons dined inside private rooms, which was why it was a quiet haunt for Sunwoo Sil and a handful of other celebrities.
The moment they were alone, Sunwoo Sil clicked his tongue.
"You, kid. If you were capable of putting in honest work like this, why'd you talk so much trash at the start, huh?"
Talked trash?
The reproachful tone was unmistakable. Bewildered, Rembrary asked back.
"What exactly did I say?"
Apparently he was referring to the incident that had sparked the fight with Woo Yeon-woo. Naturally, Rembrary had no memory of it.
Sunwoo Sil's eyes flared into slits.
"What is wrong with you? You get my blood boiling and you don't even remember?"
When Rembrary shook his head vigorously, Sunwoo Sil looked at him in exasperation.
"You and that guy—Hye-gyeol, was it? The two of you were going around saying idols are just 'stepping stones to an acting career,' stuff like that. Ringing any bells?"
Rembrary's eyes went round.
Woo Yeon-woo said that?
Then Yeon-woo's goal wasn't to be an idol at all?
Well, that was a new piece of information.
Rembrary filed it away carefully in his memory, resolving to write it down once he got back to the dorm.
Little details like this might prove useful someday when it came time to track down whoever had been blackmailing Woo Yeon-woo.
When Rembrary offered an awkward smile, Sunwoo Sil pressed him again.
"Do you still think that way?"
"Absolutely not."
"Good."
Apparently satisfied with the answer, Sunwoo Sil nodded and went on.
"So when your idol days are over, will you go solo?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The way I see it, you're built for solo work, not a group. You might blow up even bigger than you have as a group member. Think about it—when your group contract's up, I could put in a good word with my label, if you like."
Sunwoo Sil made the offer in complete earnestness.
It wasn't idle talk. He had genuinely come to love Rembrary's voice over five straight hours of practice.
And the way he took instruction—humbly, without a flicker of resistance—even that had won him over.
Flustered, Rembrary replied.
"Thank you. But when my idol activities end, I intend to walk a different path."
"Doing what?"
Modeling? Sunwoo Sil thought, smirking to himself as he poured a glass of water and raised it to his lips.
"A Buddhist monk."
The water came spraying right back out.
Choking at a volume the whole room could hear, Sunwoo Sil stared at Rembrary through his coughs.
"What?"