The High Priest Is Not Sexy
A sexy dance. A sexy dance!
Rembrary's jaw dropped in bewilderment.
He'd been to a handful of music show broadcasts by now, so he had seen idols perform their sexy dances. The dazzling, writhing spectacles flickered past his mind's eye, one after another.
"Would it not be more difficult— er, more difficult, I mean? The difficulty seems higher."
Of course, difficulty was just an excuse. What flustered Rembrary wasn't the difficulty — it was the sexy dancing itself.
Having lived his life as a priest who kept temptation at arm's length, the very idea of appealing to someone sexually struck him as mortifying.
The dance teacher shook his head.
"I'm not asking for twerking. Just lightly sweep your hand down your body here, then down there — that's plenty."
"S-sweep my body? With what?"
"With what? With your hand, obviously. You gonna sweep it with a broom?"
"!"
"And then in the second half you dance a little bit with one of the girl dancers."
The teacher seemed to have a composition in mind already, nodding with satisfaction.
"The girl dancer's a great dancer, so she'll pull the audience's eyes. Meanwhile, you just manage your expression, hold her hand, touch her a little — make it feel just a bit naughty. That way you can hide in the mix."
"Touch..."
Rembrary was nearly beside himself.
Touch a female dancer in a suggestive manner? As a priest, this was absolutely impermissible.
"Could it not be done with a male dancer?"
"What?"
The dance teacher stared at him, incredulous.
"You that unconfident?"
"My image is one of elegance and nobility, is it not."
"Says who? No, it isn't."
"......"
Having delivered his verdict without a shred of hesitation, the teacher turned to Jong-woo.
"Jong-woo, could you pull up 'Password'? It's a B-side off King Rage's first album."
"Oh, that one! You're going with that?"
"The choreography isn't flashy, so it's the least bad option."
'Least bad,' he says. Honestly...
Rembrary clicked his tongue inwardly, but it was a pragmatic point, so he held his tongue for now.
Jong-woo said he'd take care of it and rummaged through his phone, soon playing the track.
"Watch."
The dance teacher began dancing along to it, and with every line of the lyrics, Rembrary felt as though another handful of his sanity was being torn away.
"It's a song where you give your lover your door passcode and seduce them to come over anytime — got it? So the key is never looking anxious. Take it easy — laid-back, leisurely sexy. Eh? Got it?"
"No, that is not sexy in the slightest! The man sings of loneliness at night — why do you wear the face of a man at solemn prayer! As though you would enter, join him in devotion, and depart!"
"I said sweep your hand down your neck? That's stretching, not sweeping!"
Only after shouting "That's not it!" at Rembrary what felt like a hundred times did the dance teacher finally render his verdict: slightly improved.
When the dance was over, Rembrary staggered across the room and bonked his head against the mirror.
Just as the teacher had said, the choreography itself wasn't all that demanding — it was his composure as a priest that felt like it might crumble at any moment.
'Had I done this as an apprentice priest, I would have been defrocked on the spot.'
But Eun-seon, filming the whole thing on camera, was delighted.
"This is great! I bet people will say it's cute how unexpectedly innocent you are! Total gap appeal — cha-ching! This is the stuff!"
Cathy had his lesson after that, and then the camera crew packed up and left.
Rembrary drank the water Jungseo handed him, fanning at his sweat-soaked shirt. Even if his divine power restored his body, it wouldn't dry his shirt for him, which left him feeling unpleasantly clammy.
Just then, Jong-woo — who had stepped out earlier when CEO Im summoned him — came back carrying a stack of lunch boxes and called out,
"Good news!"
Good news? As they looked up, wondering what he meant, Jong-woo set the lunch boxes down in the middle of the members.
"Two of the new songs we commissioned came in. I told them to hustle, and I guess they pulled some strings."
At the mention of new songs, every face in the room lit up.
"How is it? How were they?"
When Hye-gyeol bounced on his toes and asked, Jong-woo gave a thumbs-up.
"I only listened to the beginning of each, but they were really good."
"Ohh!"
"One of them was recorded all the way through for another singer a while back, but apparently got canceled at the last minute over something on their end. So they rearranged it. And, well... whoa. Compared to the original, it's like two hundred times better now. The other one's brand new."
While tearing open the bag of lunch boxes one-handed, Jong-woo connected his phone to the speaker with the other.
"Eat while you listen. I've got something to tell you after."
As Jong-woo fiddled with the music, the members spread the lunch boxes out across the floor.
The trouble was, every single one had a different flavor.
Rembrary reached for the mushroom salad — but the instant his chopsticks touched it, Cathy slyly snatched the box away.
Before Rembrary could even gape at him in astonishment, Jungseo snatched that same lunch box right back.
"H-hey!"
Cathy, apparently oblivious to what he'd done himself, squawked in protest, but Jungseo calmly held the box back out to Rembrary.
"Here."
The moment Rembrary accepted it as naturally as anything, the members — and even Jong-woo, pausing mid-setup of the music — all wore expressions of what on earth is going on here?
Hye-gyeol, who had been asking about this nonstop since yesterday, couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Seriously, what's with you two? Jungseo hyung, did Yeon-woo hyung blackmail you or something? Do you have dirt on Jungseo hyung, Yeon-woo hyung?"
Rembrary expected Jungseo to brush it off like before, but Jungseo answered placidly.
"I've decided to become a believer of Yeon-woo."
"What?"
"Believer No. 3."
When Rembrary corrected him with "Believer No. 23," Jungseo shot back flatly,
"A fellow member gets pushed all the way down to twenty-three?"
"It's first come, first served."
Wearing a look of what is wrong with these kids, Jong-woo pressed play.
"Listen."
Rembrary peeled the clear plastic lid off his lunch box and took out his chopsticks. He was still fumbling the mushrooms with his unfamiliar chopstick grip when the music began.
The first track was drenched in synthetic sounds, and yet the melody felt less grating than oddly exhilarating.
The second was the exact opposite — an almost antique, classical piece with barely any electronics, its rhythm darting between low and high registers in a way that left a striking impression.
When the song ended and the intro of some other agency's girl group track started immediately after, Jong-woo hastily lowered the volume and asked,
"Well?"
Jungseo replied flatly,
"They're good."
Taein asked brightly,
"'Good' doesn't cover it, though. I really like the second one. Hyung, are we picking one of the two?"
"You're picking two out of three, so you can take both. The last track hasn't come in yet."
This time it was Hye-gyeol who asked.
"Like you said before — one's the title track and one's Yeon-woo hyung's solo song?"
"Yep."
Jong-woo played the songs once more.
Rembrary, absorbed in his food, jolted in surprise.
The members, who had been eating at first, were now sitting frozen with nothing but forks or chopsticks in their hands — as though they'd forgotten to eat because the music had taken hold of them completely.
The moment the song finished, Cathy spoke up in a rush.
"I say track one for the title. Dancing to track two would be hilarious."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Taein fired back,
"I think track two's the better title song."
And with that, the two launched into bickering — one versus two, back and forth. Perhaps the rumors about them not getting along were true after all, because the mood soured fast.
"That's enough."
In the end, Jong-woo stepped in to break it up.
Both fell silent the moment he did.
But that wasn't the end of it.
"And hey — Cathy. Fair warning. You seriously need to fix that punching habit."
Jong-woo apparently intended to get everything off his chest in one go, and he dressed Cathy down firmly.
"But—"
"No buts. I mean this. Before you blew up, nobody cared that you were getting buried. But if you keep this up, the day you actually take off, you can crash and burn for real."
"O-okay, I got it. Drop it."
"Not 'drop it.' For real. If you get caught throwing a punch again, the CEO will cut you loose, you hear me?"
Jong-woo was usually strict enough, but his face right now was colder than usual. Cathy seemed to realize this was no ordinary scolding — he hunched his shoulders and mumbled, "Okay... I got it..."
Only then did Jong-woo return to his usual tone and address the members again.
"Oh, right — the new songs. They sent lyrics along too, but honestly, nothing really fits. The CEO wants you all to try writing lyrics to match the tracks yourselves. If it turns out you wrote them, that's great promo material — so whoever writes something good, those are the lyrics they'll use."
"Whoa!"
"Hyung, there are two songs and two concepts. Which concept and which song do we write for?"
"For each song, write with both the title track and Yeon-woo's solo in mind. If you can't do it, just say you can't. If your lyrics end up as Yeon-woo's solo song, we can spin it as you writing them for your member, whatever works."
"Okay."
"The CEO's going all-in on the push this time. When the new songs drop, we're shooting a big-budget music video and getting you on variety shows too."
So bring your A-game, yeah? With that parting question to the members, Jong-woo thumped Hye-gyeol on the back and told them to hurry up and finish eating.
Back at the dorm, the members each claimed a spot with an A4 sheet of paper, earphones, and a pencil.
Since there were no private rooms to go around, two settled at the table and two in the living room, while Jungseo retreated to the bedroom alone, saying he needed to concentrate.
Rembrary sat on the sofa beside Hye-gyeol, started the music, and closed his eyes.
The earbuds — practically jammed straight into his eardrums — were unfamiliar, but no less wondrous for it.
And the music... the music, too, had grown on him.
The first time he'd heard a Wild Animal song after waking up in this body, he'd wondered what manner of bizarre noise it was supposed to be. These days, he'd more or less gotten used to how music worked here.
'And one of them is to be my solo song...'
Rembrary played the second track again and thought. The concept was clearly the Devil's whisper.
Back in his original world, he had actually heard a demon whispering once.
Could he simply write it down as it was?
Granted, no one would be able to understand it anyway.
After a moment's deliberation, Rembrary picked up his pen and began to write — when suddenly the bedroom door opened and Jungseo emerged, his face rigid.
Rembrary briefly wondered if he was off to fetch tomato juice again, but Jungseo strode straight over and held out his phone to Hye-gyeol.
"Take it."
"Huh? Me?"
Bewildered, Hye-gyeol looked at the phone screen.
"It's Jong-woo hyung? Hello?"
Rembrary glanced over Hye-gyeol's shoulder.
Hye-gyeol's phone was resting neatly on his lap.
Then why would Jong-woo go out of his way to have Jungseo switch phones with Hye-gyeol?
As he looked over in puzzlement, he saw that Jungseo's expression had grown even stiffer than before.
"What troubles thee?"
It didn't seem to be good news, and when Rembrary asked, Jungseo explained in a taut voice.
"Something strange was posted online."
"Strange how?"
What kind of post could it be, to rattle him so?
Since Rembrary had appeared on Sing Survival, nasty posts about him had surfaced, and there had been ugly talk about Wild Animal too — but even then, nothing like this.
Apparently this was no ordinary post.
Thinking that, Rembrary turned to Hye-gyeol.
The color had drained from Hye-gyeol's face almost as fast as he'd taken the phone.
"Someone posted claiming that Hye-gyeol bullied them back in school."