3. It Became Noise Marketing
"Those... sheep are my parents?"
Rembrary murmured, dumbfounded.
"They look nothing like me. How could such a face have come from this face?"
At that masterpiece of a blunder, the bespectacled young man and CEO Im exchanged a look of absolute certainty.
He really has lost his memory.
From calling his own parents sheep, to that muttered 'How did an ugly couple produce a son as handsome as me?!' — no sane person could have said any of it. Woo Yeon-woo might have been an oddball, but he had adored his parents deeply. And yes, his face looked remarkably little like theirs, but in his right mind he would never, ever have said something like that aloud.
"Jong-woo."
CEO Im let out a long sigh and gave the bespectacled young man his orders.
"You said he hit his head, right?"
"Yes. Yes, sir."
"...Then get the kid to a hospital. Now."
So the young man with the glasses is called Jong-woo.
Rembrary made a careful mental note of the name. Until he found a way back to his original world, he would have to live in this body, in this world — and to adapt, he needed to memorize absolutely everything he saw and heard.
Even when Jong-woo brought him to the so-called hospital, a strangely shaped white building, Rembrary's eyes darted briskly in every direction. And then he discovered something astonishing. Mounted on the wall was a thin, enormous rectangular box — and inside it, his own reflection was moving. Or rather, the reflection of the body he had arrived in.
The same music from the stage was pouring out of the box. The young men who had performed alongside him were dancing with all their might. And in the middle of it all, he alone stood rooted to the spot, dumb as a statue.
When that scene ended, the image suddenly changed to a man and a woman standing on a raised platform. Both wore garish costumes and strange things on their heads, chatting away with stiff, awkward smiles.
— Yes, that was the stage of Wild Animal.
— Haha. The choreography is certainly... unique?
— Yes. It was... unique, wasn't it?
Even as they spoke, neither of them looked at the other — instead they kept glancing down at the papers in their hands and flicking their eyes toward some random point off to the side.
Is that some kind of moving picture device that records and projects images?
As he stared blankly at the box, he oddly began to feel the gazes of those around him. Rembrary tore his eyes from the screen and looked around. The people seated nearby were all sneaking glances at him. He even caught someone murmuring under their breath:
"Isn't that him? The guy from the broadcast?"
It hadn't been a question directed at him, but Rembrary answered with a smile nonetheless.
"Indeed, I am he."
But Jong-woo came sprinting out of nowhere and clamped a hand over Rembrary's mouth before he could say another word.
"No, he's not! He's not Woo Yeon-woo — he just looks like Woo Yeon-woo. Haha."
Having told a lie so transparent a child could see through it, Jong-woo hauled Rembrary off somewhere. As it turned out, 'somewhere' was a door barely a few steps away.
"Go on in. ...Mr. Lee Jong-woo is waiting."
When the person standing at the door said this, staring at Rembrary with eyes brimming with curiosity, Jong-woo smiled with excessive, almost painful politeness and tugged Rembrary inside again. The door shut behind them the moment they crossed the threshold.
The room held a large desk, and across from it stood a tall garment rack with a white coat hanging from it. Seated at the desk was the coat's owner, presumably.
"Welcome, Mr. Woo Yeon-woo. What seems to be the problem today?"
The doctor asked the moment the two of them walked in, and Jong-woo answered on Rembrary's behalf as he guided him into a small round chair beside the desk.
"He bumped his head hard in the bathroom this morning, Doctor."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. And ever since then, the kid's... um, well, you may have seen the news — actually, this has to stay confidential, but..."
"I already spoke with CEO Im. You can relax."
Jong-woo let out a breath of relief and continued his explanation.
"He says he's lost his memory since hitting his head. I thought he was joking, but he genuinely can't even recognize his own parents' faces."
The doctor, who had looked thoroughly worn out, finally raised his eyebrows with genuine gravity.
"Mr. Woo Yeon-woo. Exactly where, and what, did you hit?"
"I hit my head in the bath—"
"There are many places inside a bathroom, Mr. Woo Yeon-woo."
"I struck my head upon the marble bathtub."
When Rembrary invented this on the spot, Jong-woo lamented beside him.
"See what I mean, Doctor? Our dorm doesn't even have a bathtub, let alone a marble one. I'm afraid he's in a very serious state."
"No bathtub in the bathroom?! Is this true? If a bathroom has no bathtub, what manner of bathroom is that?!"
When Rembrary demanded in astonishment, the doctor's face went rigid as she murmured:
"Oh dear."
"It seems he's also showing signs of confabulation, or at least some memory distortion."
The examination stretched on for nearly three hours. In that time, Rembrary learned that the bleary-eyed man was in fact the doctor, and the person at the door had been a nurse. He also learned something far more troubling: there were no priests here at all. The hospitals of this world had no connection to any temple, and treatment was performed not by priests but by doctors directly. The doctor diagnosed illnesses and treated even a common cold — a fact that left Rembrary, who had assumed such things belonged to the clergy, utterly aghast.
Arriving in a stranger's body was strange enough. But a world without priests?
Whether Rembrary was astonished or not, the examinations marched on. When they finally concluded, he was led back into the first room he had entered. The doctor, who had been waiting with a rectangle of white board covered thickly in strange slips of paper, looked up at them with a grave expression.
"He's in perfect health."
Jong-woo's eyes went wide.
"Perfect health?"
The doctor pressed a hand to Rembrary's skull.
"Even here?"
"Yes. There's not so much as a bruise. The same goes for everywhere else."
Jong-woo's eyes grew even wider.
"Can someone lose their memory while being completely unharmed?"
"The human body is a complicated thing, so it's not absolutely impossible, but..."
The doctor answered while sneaking glances at Rembrary, who was busily poking at a skull model on the desk.
"In short — yes. No injury has been confirmed."
Watching Jong-woo's face carefully, the doctor asked:
"Shall I refer you to the psychiatric department?"
The implication was clear: this might be a problem of the mind. Jong-woo waved his hands in frantic refusal for now, then led Rembrary to a changing room — where he stood watching him get dressed with an expression of utter despair.
"Huh?"
Then something odd caught his eye, and he asked:
"Yeon-woo. Didn't you have a scar here?"
"A scar?"
"On your side. A surgery scar. From the car accident."
"You think that amid losing my very memories, I would recall a mere scar?"
"Fair point, but..."
Jong-woo blinked rapidly, muttering to himself.
"They said that scar couldn't be removed even with surgery..."
So my divine power healed the wound of its own accord. Rembrary's heart lurched inwardly, but he feigned ignorance and hurried into his clothes. Jong-woo, meanwhile, kept stealing glances at his side.
The lost memory was one thing, but a vanished scar was another entirely. The thought had occurred to him: could this be a twin, or some lookalike? But there was absolutely no way that was possible. Access to the dorm was strictly controlled, and Rembrary had been there before the members dragged him straight here. Besides, the important thing right now wasn't the scar. It was that head of his.
"Yeon-woo. Stay right here. Don't go anywhere else, you hear me? Right here."
Jong-woo deposited Rembrary in the company's night-duty room, drilled into him that he must not leave under any circumstances, and headed for the CEO's office. CEO Im had been pacing the room in an agony of suspense, and the moment Jong-woo stepped in, he demanded:
"Well? How is he?"
He'd already received the results by text in real time, but apparently he wanted to hear it again anyway.
"Perfectly healthy, apparently."
"His head too?"
"If you mean physical trauma... yes. His brain's clean as a whistle."
CEO Im let out a long, deflated sigh and muttered:
"I'm losing my mind."
"Dr. Park said he should see a psychiatri—"
When Jong-woo ventured this cautiously, CEO Im waved him off violently.
"Absolutely not."
"But if it really is a mental issue—"
"If we say he lost his memory from an injury, people will feel sorry for him. Any mistakes get swept under the rug, and even the people who were cursing him out will apologize."
"..."
"But if his memory just vanishes for no reason? Then you know what people will say? That he's gone insane. Do you not know how this industry treats rumors? A single scratch on someone's wrist and the whole world's screaming suicide attempt!"
CEO Im twisted his body with a long groan of anguish, then collapsed onto the sofa and clutched at his own head.
"And you know how hostile this country is toward mental illness!"
"That much is true."
"The only mental illnesses the public will accept from a celebrity are exactly two. Depression and panic disorder."
Jong-woo fell silent. It was heartbreaking, but it was the reality of the entertainment industry right now. If a genuine superstar developed a mental illness, people might look the other way. But as a starting point for a no-name idol, it was a distinct handicap.
Sensing he'd gone a bit too far, CEO Im continued in a considerably quieter tone.
"His face is already out there. If we announce a mental illness, it'll haunt him even after he quits idol life and tries to get a normal job."
"...Right."
"And it's not like the kid's turned violent or uncontrollable or dangerous to anyone."
"No."
After a long silence of thought, CEO Im sighed and spoke.
"For now, we keep the memory loss private. And we run articles saying he collapsed on stage because he's been in poor health."
"Will people buy it?"
"Doesn't matter — we make the announcement anyway."
"Yes, sir."
"It's bad news, but the name 'Wild Animal' is planted in people's heads now. Let Yeon-woo rest for a while, and rotate the other members in his place. I'd call that noise marketing accomplished."
"Yes, sir."
"Contact Yeon-woo's parents honestly, too. He'll still get settlement payments even without promoting... not that 'settlement' means anything when we're in the red. Anyway, break it to them gently so they're not too heartbroken."
As sorry as he felt for Yeon-woo, this was the best CEO Im could do. He sighed again and told Jong-woo to get going — but just as Jong-woo was about to leave, a burst of loud music blared from the phone carelessly tucked into the back of his pants. It was a song by another idol group that had debuted around the same time and was now riding a wave of success.
CEO Im's eyes went cold, and Jong-woo hastily fished out the phone and hurried out to answer it.
"Yes, this is Lee Jong-woo of LLL Entertainment."
CEO Im sprawled out across the sofa. Jong-woo had left the room, but his voice carried down the hallway loud and clear. Thinking longingly of the cigarette he'd quit, CEO Im fished out a candy instead.
"Yes."
"..."
"Yes."
"..."
"Yes, of course... I'm sorry, WHAT?!"
Jong-woo, who had been answering the call with the utmost deference, suddenly burst out shouting. CEO Im looked up mid-unwrap, wondering what on earth had happened — and the door flew open as Jong-woo stormed back in, phone still pressed to his ear.
Why is he walking in without even hanging up? As CEO Im stared in bewilderment, Jong-woo deliberately spoke louder, framing his words as an explanation:
"Our Yeon-woo is trending everywhere? On social media AND the forums? Because of the 'I don't know how to dance' shout? And because of that, they want to interview him? An interview AND a photoshoot?!"
Jong-woo shot CEO Im a wordless look that screamed what do we do? CEO Im gaped for a second, then gestured furiously with both hands.
We take it! We take it, obviously!