The Name Dragged Out Along With It
At Rembrary's cry of "This is too sublime," Yu Ri-hye and the dance teacher just blinked at each other in bewilderment.
The choreography had been designed with Rembrary's inability to dance in mind — nearly all of the difficult movements had been allocated to Yu Ri-hye.
Considering he was an idol, they had even toned down the intensity of the dance and minimized physical contact as much as possible.
And this was still too embarrassing for him?
"Does it look hard to you?"
At the dance teacher's question, Rembrary shook his head.
"No, not exactly..."
It truly didn't look difficult — in practice, Yu Ri-hye was doing almost all of the dancing. The choreography reeked of the dance teacher's strategy to hide the fact that Rembrary was a complete lost cause with his own body.
But Rembrary was a High Priest who shunned contact between men and women more strictly than any idol, so even this level of intimacy flustered him.
"Haha. Naiveer than I expected."
Yu Ri-hye, assuming Rembrary was simply shy, burst out laughing.
"It's okay. Just don't think of it as touching me. Think of it as keeping me balanced so I don't fall backward."
Would it really be as easy as that sounds?
Rembrary sighed inwardly, but nodded for now.
"Yeon-woo. Should I show you the dance one more time?"
"No, I've memorized all of it."
"Wow, already?"
"Yes."
After a few words of caution, the dance teacher turned on the music.
Three drum rolls sounded, and just as he had seen earlier, Yu Ri-hye danced toward him with a seductive grace. And the moment her hands wrapped around Rembrary's neck—
Rembrary, entirely against his will, hunched into a stiff crane-neck posture and hunched his shoulders.
The dance teacher killed the music and barked.
"What is this, a sexy turtle? There's nothing sexy about it from where I'm standing! Straighten that neck!"
The music rewound, and Yu Ri-hye approached again with a more playful smile than before. But instead of fully wrapping her hands around Rembrary's neck, she deliberately hovered them just above it and leaned back as if falling away—
And toppled straight over backward with a crash.
"Hey, Woo Yeon-woo!"
The dance teacher exploded.
"I'm so sorry."
Flustered, Rembrary helped Yu Ri-hye back to her feet.
"Really, I apologize."
Yu Ri-hye reluctantly rose with a hearty laugh. She'd figured her partner seemed embarrassed enough already, so she had offered a courtesy hand — leaving a gap instead of holding on — as her own version of mercy.
But this meant Rembrary now had to support Yu Ri-hye even more securely during her backward-lean. In the original choreography, even if Rembrary fumbled, Yu Ri-hye could recover her own balance — but with her hands hovering in the air, that was impossible.
Instead, Rembrary had reflexively recoiled again and failed to catch her waist.
The dance teacher pressed a hand to his forehead and scolded him.
"That's dangerous! Someone could get hurt — be careful!"
"I'm sorry."
"Haha... I'm fine this time, but don't do it again."
A vein stood out distinctly on the forehead of the laughing Yu Ri-hye.
Rembrary apologized profusely, and the dance teacher started the music once more.
Fortunately, this time Yu Ri-hye's neck-wrap and Rembrary's waist-catch both passed without incident. While Yu Ri-hye danced like a swallow in flight, Rembrary wore the expression of a wooden marionette — but the movements themselves were correct.
The dance teacher lamented privately.
There were people who danced beautifully but couldn't memorize choreography. This one memorized the movements with freakish precision yet couldn't perform them to save his life. It was, frankly, maddening.
Meanwhile the dance drew near its end, and Yu Ri-hye, one leg folded, leaned her torso back once more.
The dance teacher held his breath — but this time, Rembrary supported Yu Ri-hye on the first try. When the music ended, she slid neatly into the circle of his arms.
Three out of ten. Point five for partnership.
The dance teacher thought this to himself, but for now he dangled the carrot and smiled.
"Not bad for a first run. Let's go again."
"Making chemistry this bad is honestly an achievement."
After two hours of practice, the dance teacher clicked his tongue. But Yu Ri-hye had her own schedule, so he couldn't hold her any longer. Cathy needed practice too, and Rembrary still had solo parts to master, so the dance teacher bid Yu Ri-hye farewell and put things off until tomorrow.
Rembrary, for his part, heaved a sigh of relief the moment Yu Ri-hye left.
"Hey, Yeon-woo. You are never going to be able to do a drama."
"A drama? Are they offering me one?"
"You've got the visuals, so the CEO might slot you in as a supporting role at least."
"Is that so."
"Dramas have kiss scenes and stuff like that, you know. What're you going to do then?"
"A kiss... O God."
"Is this really something worth invoking God over?"
The dance teacher asked, dumbfounded, but before Rembrary could answer, Cathy came into the practice room.
With a brief lull in his schedule, Rembrary went alone to another practice room and spent about half an hour drilling the choreography before remembering Hye-gyeol's situation and stepping outside.
Will he be all right?
When he asked the staff, they told him where Hye-gyeol was. Apparently in the lounge.
Riding the elevator up to the lounge, he indeed found Hye-gyeol sitting on a bench, sipping an ion drink. Across from him stood Jong-woo, offering gentle words of comfort.
"The company's putting out an official statement by today, so it's fine. People who spread rumors like that mostly quit on their own once it escalates."
"...Okay."
"Right. Until things settle down, don't go searching the internet for no reason."
"Okay."
"You could take a page out of Yeon-woo's book on this stuff. Look at his mental fortitude. Doesn't matter what people say about him — the guy doesn't so much as flinch."
Hye-gyeol spotted Rembrary standing behind Jong-woo, gave a wobbly, unsteady smile, and answered, "Okay."
Only then noticing Rembrary, Jong-woo laughed awkwardly.
"Seriously, if you're here, you could announce you're here. Just standing there like that."
"I only just arrived."
Rembrary replied without missing a beat, then walked over to Hye-gyeol and patted him lightly on the back.
Perhaps the agency's statement had done its job. The person claiming Hye-gyeol was a school violence perpetrator — and that they themselves were the victim — went quiet by that evening.
Thanks to that, even the people who had been cursing Hye-gyeol unconditionally calmed down a little, and some began saying it might just be an unfounded rumor.
Hye-gyeol, too, seemed reassured; by evening he slowly began to settle. The next day he was entirely his usual self, chattering away about whose lyrics would be chosen for the album.
"Taein-hyung's is really well written, but it doesn't fit the concept at all. Yeon-woo-hyung's lyrics are terrifying. So it'll probably be one of ours — Jungseo-hyung's, Cathy-hyung's, or mine."
"I thought Yeon-woo's was the best, honestly."
"Jungseo-hyung, are you serious? You know that's an incredibly biased statement, right?"
Aside from Jungseo, who had apparently lost all sense of objectivity, most people expected the lyrics to be chosen from among Jungseo's, Cathy's, or Hye-gyeol's.
But when they arrived at the agency, the result was unexpectedly different.
"The main title track lyrics will be Jungseo's. And for Yeon-woo's solo track, we've decided to go with Yeon-woo's lyrics."
At CEO Im's announcement, not just the members but the staff all wore expressions of shock. Even the people who had cast the recommendations looked flustered, and CEO Im scowled.
"What."
"Did you all vote as a joke? Why does everyone have that face?"
"We recommended him, but we didn't think anyone else actually would..."
"Me neither..."
"Did that many people really vote for Yeon-woo's lyrics?"
CEO Im laughed hollowly, at a loss.
"How does it make sense for the people who voted to be asking that?"
"Who did you vote for, CEO?"
"Yeon-woo."
"..."
When the staff all stared at him in silence, CEO Im cleared his throat and muttered.
"Look, the lyrics are strange, granted. But when I lay down to sleep, they just kept echoing in my ears."
The staff rounded their eyes and chimed in one after another.
"Me too!"
"How do I put it — like someone whispering right into your ear? I got into bed and my eardrums were all tingly."
"Same. It was bad enough I couldn't sleep."
"It might sound weird at first, but if word of mouth spreads well, I think it could actually reverse-run up the charts."
Rembrary looked over the staff as they spoke up one by one, and grew bewildered.
Not because they were praising his lyrics.
It was the claim that the words seemed to whisper in their ears at night that puzzled him.
That sort of addictive affliction was one of the Demon King's powers. But even that power only worked when the demon itself spoke the words. It was strange that merely writing something down — words that only whispered on the page — could produce such an effect.
Why on earth are they like this?
But the majority vote had already decided the matter. CEO Im hesitated for a moment, then nodded and made his ruling.
"Fine. The title track's demon concept is on the tamer side anyway, so let's take the B-side track somewhere bold."
"Go big or go home, huh."
"In exchange, we're toning down the lyrics."
CEO Im declared this flatly, then held out Rembrary's lyrics printed on a sheet of A4 paper and made his demand.
"Cut all the trash talk first, and the overly explicit parts too. Water it down and bring me a rewrite."
After the meeting, Jungseo left the office with Jong-woo to meet the composer who had sent in the song that might become the title track. Taein and Hye-gyeol had vocal training, same as yesterday, while Rembrary and Cathy practiced for the competition.
"Isn't there some variety show about finding people who can't dance? If there is, Yeon-woo, you'd be perfect for it."
The dance teacher despaired as he watched Rembrary attempt the sexy dance, while Eun-seon filmed the scene with evident delight.
Cathy, who had performed a musical number in the first round, practiced his singing and dancing with ease. At this rate, Cathy looked set to land comfortably in the upper ranks.
After hours of practice like that, it wasn't until time for a late lunch that the two cameramen finally left. Cathy went to the cafeteria in Jungseo's place to pick up boxed lunches, Rembrary caught his breath and flapped his sweat-soaked shirt, and Hye-gyeol did his finishing stretches.
"Look at this."
It was right around when Cathy returned with the lunches. Taein called Hye-gyeol over and held out the phone he'd been staring at.
"What is it?"
Hye-gyeol took the phone with a sulky look — then his face hardened as he saw the screen.
The person claiming he was a school violence perpetrator had posted a second thread. The poster, apparently incensed that the company planned a hardline response, was venting even greater fury than before.
With those words, the poster closed out the post by releasing a copy of the leg diagnosis they had received at a hospital years ago.
Rembrary, who took the phone next after Hye-gyeol, let out a soft "oh dear" after reading the post. Countless people were already talking as if Hye-gyeol's guilt as a school violence perpetrator were established fact.
"For now, reach out to the person who posted that."
Thirty minutes later, CEO Im confirmed the post and gave the order immediately. Since Jong-woo was away, a staff member from another team took on the task.
But within a couple of hours, an even worse post went up.
The person claiming Hye-gyeol was a school violence perpetrator had gone and publicized the fact that LLL Entertainment had contacted them, adding: "Seems like they're trying to gag me. How terrifying."
After that post, public reaction only soured further.
People took the agency's direct contact as proof: LLL had responded because Hye-gyeol was guilty.
The PR team and staff were mobilized to write counter-comments and posts posing as ordinary netizens, but it was useless.
This time, Hye-gyeol's name began climbing the real-time search rankings.
It wasn't swallowing the entire search bar the way Yeon-woo's had, but the problem lay elsewhere.
Compared to Yeon-woo's personal name recognition, Wild Animal and Hye-gyeol were far less known. And so, chasing clicks and reactions, reporters began wedging Yeon-woo's name into every single article they wrote.
Naturally, Yeon-woo's past misdeeds were dragged out along with the rest, and people debated whether "Wild Animal was seriously a group made up of nothing but beasts."
Two hours later, when Jong-woo asked whether a hardline response was still the right call, CEO Im issued his instruction with icy calm.
"First, go find the Ungin Middle School graduates and ask them whether that post is actually true or not."