64. Oh Jung-shin's Revenge
“No, come on. Clickbait headlines are everywhere these days.”
“Exactly, CEO Im. They probably slapped a title like that on there just to grab attention.”
“Right. That must be it.”
CEO Im rubbed his aching head and forced himself to read the article calmly.
Thirty seconds later, he slammed his fist down beside the keyboard and shouted.
“Clickbait my ass — the content is exactly the same!”
The beginning of the article briefly laid out the background of the situation, and the middle portion explained that Woo Yeon-woo's name had come up and he'd been called in for a reference interview.
The end was a single line.
[A police official tipped off reporters that "Woo Yeon-woo is a premarital chastity advocate."]
“Why would they 'tip off' anyone about THAT?!”
CEO Im grumbled and fumed, then called Jong-woo.
But Jong-woo, presumably busy fighting his way through a mob of reporters to bring Rembrary home, didn't pick up.
The comment section had already exploded in the few short minutes since the article went up.
Eventually, exercising what patience he had left, CEO Im kept refreshing the page — and articles that had shed their [EXCLUSIVE] tags finally began to appear.
Among them, he clicked one bearing the little (Roundup) tag at the end of its headline.
The title was still shamelessly provocative, but thankfully this time there was actual content to read — and it explained why the subject of premarital chastity had come up out of nowhere in the first place.
The detective who had questioned Woo Yeon-woo confirmed that while Yeon-woo had indeed been handed a business card by a sponsor, he had refused it, and had even submitted his phone for analysis without being asked — no deleted calls or messages turned up. In fact, Yeon-woo almost never exchanged contact with anyone at all.
His testimony had been consistent from start to finish, and he apparently maintained that he was incapable of reproduction, being pledged to never produce offspring.
With mounting dread, CEO Im checked the comments.
Rembrary remained at the center of public attention for several days after that.
But once actors who had actually accepted sponsorships began surfacing, interest naturally drifted elsewhere and he slid down the search rankings. Thankfully, the whole affair ended as a one-time sensation.
There were still a few procedures to come, and premarital chastity resurfaced in online communities roughly once every three or four hours, but at least there would be no more trips to the police station surrounded by reporters.
Jong-woo deliberately drove the members even harder in practice, so they'd have no time to dwell on other thoughts.
The showcase for their new album was fast approaching.
With public attention focused on them like this, the only way to turn this chaos into an opportunity was to practice that much harder.
Time slipped by once again, and the day arrived for the results announcement of Sing Survival's seventh contest.
Perhaps because of the sponsorship news, a noticeably larger crowd of reporters thrust cameras at Rembrary as he walked toward the studio.
There seemed to be even more people than when his peculiar palate had first drawn attention.
But Rembrary, as ever, walked calmly into the building, tapped his card, and entered.
Jong-woo was relieved by how rock-solid Rembrary's mental fortitude was.
Granted, the whole thing had blown over, but the word sponsor had still been thrown around — anyone would be embarrassed. And yet the man carried himself without a shred of shame.
Once again today, Jong-woo found himself envying Rembrary's nerves of steel.
That envy only deepened when Rembrary took last place in the contest for the very first time.
Last place. He'd had his suspicions ever since the reaction to the ASMR rap turned sour, and he'd still held out hope because it had generated buzz — but last place!
Even now, Rembrary wore the expression of a man thinking, well, these things happen, but Jong-woo could not stay calm.
“I'm worried.”
Jong-woo muttered under his breath, tapping his own chin with his phone.
“Worried about what, may I ask?”
Sa Gam-jae, standing beside him, inquired.
Jong-woo pointed at Oh Jung-shin with his eyes.
“The first-place winner this time is Oh Jung-shin.”
Truthfully, Rembrary coming in last wasn't a big problem in itself — it didn't mean immediate elimination from the program.
But Oh Jung-shin taking first was a serious problem.
There were two types of last-place penalties these days. One involved the top-ranked contestants, like when Rembrary had made Oh Jung-shin his slave. The other was something like a bungee jump, received regardless of the top-ranked contestants.
The latter would be fine. No — it would actually be good, since it meant more screen time.
But the former was a disaster. Oh Jung-shin and his fans were still grinding their teeth over the slave incident and the fan exodus. And now, of all things, he'd be tangled up with Oh Jung-shin again...
“I need to go talk to the PD.”
As soon as the main broadcast filming wrapped, Jong-woo hurried over to PD Kim Mu-rok.
But Oh Jung-shin was already there, pleading his case about the whole affair.
“You all saw exactly how that lunatic psycho treated me before. This time, let me be Woo Yeon-woo's master. Please?”
Oh Jung-shin's manager stood behind him with a hand pressed to his forehead, but he wasn't trying to stop him — clearly, he felt the same way.
Jong-woo scowled. Those wretched bastards...
Thankfully, PD Kim Mu-rok's tone leaned toward refusal.
“Doing it right away would make it look too much like revenge. Do you know how hard Representative Kwon begged me to protect your image? You really think I can let you paint a picture of getting even like this?”
“I don't care. PD-nim, please? Let me treat Woo Yeon-woo like a slave. Come on, please?”
Kim Mu-rok, unable to flat-out refuse Oh Jung-shin's wheedling, just laughed awkwardly.
Jong-woo remembered that Oh Jung-shin had been a main cast member on a hugely popular variety show that PD Kim Mu-rok once ran. Apparently the connection built back then was what allowed him to push like this...
No matter what, this is NOT okay!
Jong-woo finally decided to crumple his manners into a ball and barge into the conversation.
But the very moment he took a step forward—
“Hmm, why not?”
Kim Mu-rok, who had been deflecting the whole time, suddenly changed his tune.
“That picture does sound pretty entertaining, actually.”
A satisfied smile spread across Oh Jung-shin's lips.
Jong-woo thought it was the most vile smile he had ever seen.
Meanwhile, at that very moment, Rembrary was lingering in the waiting room to carry out his penalty, taking selfies.
When someone knocked on the door, he answered “Come in,” without rising from the sofa — naturally assuming it was either Jong-woo or Eun-seon.
But the people who entered were Oh Jung-shin and his camera crew.
Why is HE here? As Rembrary looked at him in puzzlement, a fresh, charming smile bloomed across Oh Jung-shin's lips — the kind that sent his fans into ecstatic fits.
It was a pleasant enough smile, but it meant nothing to Rembrary. He'd asked why the man had come, and all he wanted to know was why he was smiling.
Oh Jung-shin spoke.
“This time, I get to be your master, Woo Yeon-woo. Only for three hours, though.”
Perhaps because he was mindful of the camera, his voice was considerably friendlier than usual.
Rembrary grasped the situation and nodded. “Ah. I see.” So he'd been assigned a penalty, and Oh Jung-shin would apparently be playing the counterpart.
Oh Jung-shin struggled to suppress the corners of his mouth, which kept threatening to split wide open, eagerly anticipating the blow to Rembrary's pride.
But Rembrary simply smiled and replied, “Very well.”
That composure made Oh Jung-shin bristle.
“So what shall we do?”
Oh Jung-shin bristled a second time at the question, delivered as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.
“Order me to do whatever you like.”
Finally, bristling a third time, Oh Jung-shin steeled himself. He would pay back every humiliation he had suffered — to this lunatic, in full.
Instead of answering, Oh Jung-shin turned to the camera and asked:
“I went to Woo Yeon-woo's dorm to serve my penalty before, remember? So today, Woo Yeon-woo can come to my place and serve his. I'd like to do it exactly the same way.”
The truth came spilling out of him, disguised as a joke.
And one hour later.
Rembrary stepped through the door of Oh Jung-shin's dormitory.
The moment he saw it, he gasped in genuine astonishment.
Wild Animal's dorm, setting aside the total lack of privacy, hadn't been uncomfortable enough to complain about — but Oh Jung-shin's dorm was on an entirely different level.
It was enormously spacious, immaculate, and impeccably tidy. Framed portraits of the members hung in the living room, and one side of a display cabinet was neatly lined with gifts from fans.
As Rembrary wandered around marveling at everything, Jong-woo said sorrowfully:
“Let's ask to move dorms if this album does well.”
Watching this, Oh Jung-shin felt his mood quietly lift.
No matter what a raving lunatic Woo Yeon-woo is, in the end it's me that the public and the fans chose. The thought had surfaced on its own.
Realizing this, he turned to Rembrary with a much more relaxed manner and smiled.
“You were pretty harsh with me last time, weren't you, Woo Yeon-woo? Well, I don't plan on going that far.”
It was an impulsive, heartfelt remark — born of the magnanimity that had so suddenly swelled within him.
He meant to show the public, too: he's the lunatic, not me.
But the moment Rembrary said, “That's hardly the sort of thing a man who just seized his chance for revenge ought to say.”—
that brief flicker of generosity sank away like water into a cracked, dry field.
Oh Jung-shin flipped his words as easily as flipping his palm.
“For the next three hours, be the dog I own.”
Oh Jung-shin's manager, who had been watching Rembrary with an amused grin as though sprinkling seasoning on the moment, let out a soundless scream and frantically signaled the cameraman to cut.
But Oh Jung-shin pretended not to see his manager's signals and carried on with perfect composure.
“I've always wanted to raise a dog, you see.”
Then, the moment his manager succeeded in getting the camera shut off, he rounded on Rembrary and snarled under his breath.
“And look at that — there's a dog right here, isn't there?”
Rembrary clicked his tongue.
“Power in hand, and now nothing registers behind those eyes, does it, senior?”
Furious, Oh Jung-shin snapped and snarled, hurling curses too garbled for Rembrary to make sense of.
“Jung-shin, pick something else. If this airs, that sweet, passionate image of yours is dead.”
Oh Jung-shin's manager tried to talk him down, but Oh Jung-shin stood firm.
“Hyung, do you not remember me groveling and playing tricks in front of that bastard? I wake up in the middle of the night just thinking about it! Every time my antis turn that scene into a GIF and post it to mock me, my blood boils backwards!”
Whether the torment was genuine or not, Oh Jung-shin's manager could push no further and backed off.
Oh Jung-shin had debuted only six months before Wild Animal, but his popularity was so explosive that he seemed far less controllable than Jong-woo managing Wild Animal.
“Don't worry, hyung. I'll keep the broadcast image in mind — to a reasonable degree.”
At Oh Jung-shin's clipped words, his manager finally retreated, and the camera started rolling again.
True to his word, Oh Jung-shin fixed his on-camera smile in place and made his demand of Rembrary.
“For the next three hours, you're a dog. So crawl on all fours like one.”
“Your tastes are quite appalling, senior.”
Oh Jung-shin exploded, parroting Rembrary's words back at him with a sneer.
“Since when does a dog talk?”
Jong-woo and Oh Jung-shin's manager retreated to the wall in rare solidarity, watching the scene unfold with dread.
< 64. Oh Jung-shin's Revenge > — End
ⓒ Shinhwajin