Tabloid Rumors on the Loose
For the past few days, Rembrary had thrown himself into rehearsing the choreography for the album's title track, and back at the dorm he pored over the script for the next episode of Dear God, which Jong-woo had printed out for him.
His lines were still pitifully few, but since his character spent the entire episode trailing after the male lead, he needed to grasp the flow of the story and memorize his scene partner's dialogue.
Time slipped by like that, and Monday finally arrived.
It was also the day the sixth round results of Sing Survival were announced, so Rembrary and Cathy got up early in the morning, stopped by a hair salon, and headed to the studio.
Yeon-woo had landed safely in the middle of the pack in the sixth round, and while Cathy ranked low as well, he was no longer dead last.
By now Rembrary was used to the whole procedure, and he kept his composure even under the cameras. His uncanny eye for performances had become a talking point in the last broadcast, so the cameras lingered on him more than anyone else — yet his expression never changed.
"He's really getting the hang of it."
Watching him, Jong-woo muttered to himself with no small amount of pride.
Yes. He genuinely was proud. Especially when he remembered how, just a few days ago, Rembrary had accepted a sponsor's business card and then immediately handed it over to him.
The boy still came equipped with a mouth liable to go off in any direction at any moment, but at least he seemed to be making an effort to rein it in himself, didn't he?
But Jong-woo's fond smile crumbled at the words, "The theme for the seventh round is rap."
On the drive to the agency, Eun-seon kept the camera fixed on Rembrary's face as she asked,
"Are you good at rap, Yeon-woo?"
Rembrary shook his head honestly.
"No."
He had a rough idea of what rap was. He'd watched the other contestants' stages over the course of several rounds, and he'd heard Jeong-seo rapping a few times while they practiced the new song.
Though according to Jeong-seo himself, he didn't rap because he was good at it — the parts had simply been divided up, and rap had fallen to him naturally.
"So you're bad at it?"
"I would say I am bad at it."
Having volunteered his lack of skill without being pressed, Rembrary added,
"In truth, I still do not properly understand what rap is."
Eun-seon remembered how Yeon-woo had once shouted "I don't know how to dance!" on a live broadcast, and nodded along with a vague "Ah... right."
"I guess you analyze things a lot, huh?"
"If one is going to do something, it is better to analyze it and do it well."
"But this time you have to do it no matter what. Are you confident you'll be good at it?"
"I cannot say."
"Could I hear you try it just once?"
Rembrary, who had a habit of simply doing whatever he was asked, nodded at Eun-seon's request and then said,
"Then may I perform the rap portion of our upcoming new song?"
Jong-woo, who was at the wheel, let out a small gasp of admiration. The scatterbrain had really become remarkably quick, hadn't he? How on earth had he thought of promoting the new song so naturally?
"Of course!"
Eun-seon answered readily, holding the camera even steadier.
Rembrary nodded, tapped out the rhythm in his head a few times, and then earnestly recited Jeong-seo's part.
The moment Rembrary finished his first three bars, Eun-seon burst out laughing and toppled backward, camera and all.
The camera flipped over and filmed the car's ceiling while she clutched her stomach, utterly helpless with laughter.
"Ah... my abs. I'm so sorry."
Only after a long while did Eun-seon wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes and apologize.
"But you'll need to practice a lot."
With contest prep piled on top of an already packed schedule, ten bodies wouldn't have been enough. For days, Rembrary threw himself into practice, practice, and more practice.
It got to the point where even Sa Gam-jae asked Jong-woo, "Isn't this schedule a bit too brutal?" Jong-woo held up his phone, showing a calendar crammed full with no blank spaces, and answered.
"Look at this. This is the schedule of a moderately famous idol group. This is what busy actually looks like. Splitting people into tiers is honestly a terrible habit, but for convenience's sake I'll use it for now. This is what you'd call a typical second-tier group's schedule."
Sa Gam-jae studied the calendar and raised an eyebrow.
"Busy is busy either way, but Yeon-woo doesn't have that many official schedules yet. He's busy because he's practicing so much. Later on you get so busy there isn't even time to practice. That's when it's real death. Of course, that much money comes pouring in too."
"Impressive."
"We'll be getting busy right along with you. We have to. You'd better brace yourself in advance."
"Understood."
Jong-woo nodded and pocketed his phone. The buzz around them was the wrong kind, sure, but Wild Animal was enjoying the most attention it had ever received since debut.
If all this enormous attention fixed on Woo Yeon-woo could just be funneled toward the group... then at the very least, Wild Animal's lifeline would stay connected. And if things went really well and the new song charted, even better.
Just then, the phone he'd only just pocketed buzzed again. Jong-woo fished it out and checked the message that had just arrived. It was from the PR team, with a large photo attached.
"What the—?"
Jong-woo frowned and zoomed in on the photo as far as it would go.
"What is this?"
His voice rang out across the entire practice room.
Rembrary could sing well. Setting aside his Divine Power entirely, he was simply a good singer. But the way people got chills down their spines and fell head over heels for his singing, just as they were now — that was the Divine Power's doing. Rembrary's greatest weapon had never been technique but timbre, and that timbre was a talent born of the Divine Power.
Rapping in that same voice produced a similar result.
"Wow. Yeon-woo, you're really bad at rap. Genuinely terrible — but somehow it goes straight into your ears."
At Eun-seon's candid admiration, Rembrary looked toward the vocal teacher.
Rap wasn't the vocal teacher's specialty, so he gave an awkward nod of agreement and asked,
"Same thought here. Still, his voice is good enough that we could package it well somehow. But you two are swamped practicing for the new song — I'm not sure there's time to bring in a rap coach and train."
The vocal trainer, dance teacher, and acting coach all belonged to LLL Entertainment, but there was no rap teacher on staff.
Which meant they'd have to invite someone from outside, and realistically, Rembrary couldn't spare that kind of time right now.
"Then what are we to do?"
In the end, the three of them put their heads together to figure out how to dress up Rembrary's rap skills — until Eun-seon suddenly went, "Oh!" and lit up with an idea.
"ASMR!"
"What is that?"
"Stuff you listen to with your ears... good stuff! The real name's super complicated, but that's not the point — it's like, this tingly thing where someone scratches around near your ears and your brain and spine go all shivery and it feels amazing? And hearing Yeon-woo sing just now, his voice is exactly that kind of voice."
"Mine?"
"Hold on a sec."
Eun-seon rummaged through her phone and played an ASMR track she had saved.
"You're supposed to listen to this with earphones, but since we don't have any, I'll play it on the speaker."
A moment later, a ticklish voice came through the speaker, murmuring as if whispered right against the ear. Rembrary shuddered and rubbed his forearm. Watching his reaction, Eun-seon grinned.
"That's what it'll feel like when Yeon-woo raps. Wow, you're really bad at— sorry. You're not exactly good, but your voice is so nice. It's like a cotton swab brushing the fine hairs inside your ear, you know? Why not make that your concept instead?"
Rembrary agreed, and the vocal teacher clapped.
"If he takes first place, that's thanks to my teaching — steak's on me!"
Eun-seon clapped in delight, and Rembrary, as requested, lowered his voice ASMR-style and murmured softly for her.
"Waaah! Yeon-woo, you could start a YouTube channel and it'd blow up! Amazing! The best!"
They were in the middle of all this fooling around when Jong-woo came in and said CEO Im wanted to see him.
"Me?"
"Yeah."
Jong-woo's expression was so grim that the vocal teacher and Eun-seon both went pale with worry.
Rembrary hurried after Jong-woo to the CEO's office.
As always when stress hit, CEO Im was sitting on the couch, chewing candy in place of cigarettes. The moment Rembrary walked in, he demanded,
"Please tell me it isn't true!"
"It is not."
Rembrary had no idea what he was talking about, but he answered anyway, and CEO Im asked with a face on the verge of tears,
"Yeon-woo, are you... getting sponsorship from someone?"
"I received a business card, but I never contacted them. I gave the card to Jong-woo as well."
The moment Rembrary answered without hesitation, Jong-woo grumbled from the side, "I already told you that."
Still unconvinced, CEO Im pressed again.
"You're not? Really not?"
"I am not. What is the matter?"
"A tabloid about Do Ji-ho's sponsorship is going around, and your name came up in it."
"My name?"
"Do Ji-ho was getting sponsored by a chairman who 'only picks handsome actors,' and the story says you stole that sponsor from him."
"Ah."
Only then did Rembrary recall how Do Ji-ho had been yapping at him about foxes stealing lovers and whatnot.
"So it's half true. Do Ji-ho did bark at me about someone being stolen from him. Did that become a problem?"
"That's part of it. And then you... ugh."
CEO Im pressed a hand to his forehead and crunched furiously on his candy, signaling Jong-woo to take over the explanation.
Jong-woo spoke in his place.
"The story going around is that the reason you took that sponsorship is because of Maeng Woo-shin."
"Why would he come into it?"
"It says you made a move on Maeng Woo-shin, he turned you down with 'I only associate with people of the proper class,' and in your desperation you latched onto a sponsor instead."
"Huh?"
Rembrary frowned in sheer bewilderment, and CEO Im asked once more,
"That's not true either?"
"Of course not. Did I not just say I never once contacted the sponsor?"
"Maeng Woo-shin, the sponsor. Neither of them?"
"Maeng Woo-shin..."
"Don't. Don't you dare hedge here. I'm begging you."
"Something did happen with Maeng Woo-shin, but it has been rather distorted."
"What thing?"
"I did not ask Maeng Woo-shin to date me. I asked him to join the same fraudulent cult."
"..."
CEO Im's face went white as a sheet.
"You're in a cult?"
"He refused me on the grounds that my rank was too low."
CEO Im couldn't bring himself to dig any deeper. He hastily turned to Jong-woo.
"Enough. First thing, Jong-woo — put out a statement that we're taking a hard line against the spread of false information. Legal action."
"Yes, sir."
"And Yeon-woo. You are never to join a cult. You'd probably be perfectly safe in one, but still — no. If you really want to, do it after your contract's up. Okay? Got it?"
"After the contract ends, I intend to become a monk."
As CEO Im's hands began trembling violently as he fumbled for cigarettes, Jong-woo rushed to drag Rembrary out of the office.
There was one more agency taking a hard line against the tabloid besides Rembrary's — Maeng Woo-shin's.
After hearing about the tabloid, Maeng Woo-shin cursed Rembrary out roughly a hundred and twenty-three times. He burned all the hotter because roughly fifty percent of the tabloid's contents were true in his case as well.
Worse still, the two of them played characters who were constantly glued to each other in Dear God.
From the start, the director and screenwriter Shim Kyung had seemed to be hoping the pair's chemistry would become a hot topic once the drama aired. But if this trashy tabloid made the rounds first, then when Dear God finally aired, viewers wouldn't be talking about chemistry at all — they'd be thinking of nothing but the tabloid's contents as they watched.
Though as a separate matter, the ratings buzz would probably be great.
Maeng Woo-shin's fury over these various affairs piled up layer upon layer, until at last, at the next filming of Dear God, the sight of Rembrary's face made him blow his top.
The moment Rembrary, whom he ran into in the hallway outside the green rooms, calmly greeted him with "Hello, sunbae," Maeng Woo-shin ground his teeth and issued a warning.
"You crazy bastard, don't you dare come near me!"
"Sunbae, precisely what distance does 'near you' refer to?"
"My entire life!"
Maeng Woo-shin bellowed, stormed into his green room, and locked the door behind him — and Rembrary gave an awkward smile.
As he stood there, a passing staff member spoke up hesitantly.
"Hang in there. My partner pulls that kind of thing sometimes too, but it blows over with time."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"..."
As the embarrassed staffer retreated, muttering under his breath that the guy was even more insufferable than he'd expected, Rembrary mused that this other world really was full of strange people, and stepped into his own green room.
— End of Chapter 62: Tabloid Rumors on the Loose —