There's the Monk!
The MC who had asked the question recoiled, blurting out a stunned "Hul-lywood..." under his breath.
The staff were deeply impressed as well. So the moment the manager steps away, his answers change completely.
Rembrary, unable to understand what everyone was so shocked about, simply stared back at them with a puzzled face.
The MC hastily got his expression under control and asked again in a slightly unsteady voice.
"Ah, um, how's Lim Yu-han? She's so elegant, isn't she? The icon of first love! Does she treat you well?"
"She treats me the best of anyone. She even brings me drinks."
"And Maeng Woo-shin? I happened to hear from a source that the success of this drama hinges on your chemistry with Maeng Woo-shin."
"He is a fine senior."
Rembrary recalled the advice Jongwoo had once given him and offered up some hollow praise.
At that, the MCs suddenly started snickering among themselves. It was because the tabloid rumor that had circulated between Rembrary and Maeng Woo-shin came to mind.
Although the police investigation had concluded that the sponsor allegation was just a rumor, there were still malicious trolls who insisted that the story involving Maeng Woo-shin had to be true.
Given the nature of the program, the MCs made a point of diligently collecting this kind of information, so naturally they were well aware of the embers of rumor still smoldering between Maeng Woo-shin and Woo Yeon-woo. The MCs traded glances and snickered at each other, silently daring one another: You bring it up.
Rembrary tilted his head, wondering what those people were doing.
This went on for about a minute, until one MC finally lost the staring contest and, grinning slyly, lobbed out a loaded question.
"Yeon-woo, there was that strange rumor about you and Maeng Woo-shin. And afterward, didn't Maeng Woo-shin ever say anything about it?"
He told me to drop dead in real life.
But Rembrary had enough sense to know he couldn't say that, so he mulled over recent events and answered.
"He hit me on the forehead."
Even that was enough to send the production team into a frenzy.
Violence! Maeng Woo-shin! A-list actor! Assaulting a junior! Ratings! Buzz! Incredible!!
The MC practically broke into a shoulder dance at the words tumbling out of Rembrary's mouth, though he deliberately put on an expression of utter shock and pressed further.
"Your forehead? Maeng Woo-shin hit you on the forehead? Hard?"
"Not especially hard."
"Did he come over and hit you while you were just standing there? Because of the rumors? Wow, Maeng Woo-shin. He's got quite the temper, huh? Am I right?"
"Ah, no, I was not simply standing there when he struck me."
"You were fighting? Is that when it happened?"
"I had crawled between my senior's legs, and that is when he hit me."
The MCs, who had been giddily hamming it up, froze solid in an instant.
Why were you between his legs?
Wondering why they had suddenly turned to stone, Rembrary tilted his head, then broke into a small smile and tapped the space in front of them with his fingers.
"Why are you freezing up?"
Jungseo, who had frozen up along with everyone else, hurriedly stepped in to salvage the situation once he confirmed that Jongwoo still hadn't come back.
"It was for the shoot. There's a scene like that."
"Wait, what kind of scene requires you to crawl between someone's legs?"
It did not help in the slightest.
Rembrary left the dorm at four in the morning in order to film the temple stay variety show he had signed up for in advance.
The makeup artist, dragged into work at dawn alongside him, yawned her way through touching up his face and hair. His outfit today, unlike yesterday's razor-sharp suit, was comfortable and casual.
"It's about a two-hour drive, so get some sleep."
Jongwoo was utterly exhausted, body and soul, from the way Rembrary's mouth had gone off the rails yet again the moment he'd stepped away at yesterday's Bee be Talking. Even so, he gripped the steering wheel and forced his voice into as gentle a tone as he could manage. Truth be told, it wasn't so much gentleness as it was half giving up.
Still, today's show is a temple experience. That should be fine. The guy wants to become a monk, after all. He'll probably adapt better than most.
Jongwoo pinned one thin shred of hope on the fact that Rembrary, whatever else could be said of him, threw himself into anything he was told to do.
It wasn't a snark-fest variety show, so there'd be no one to pick fights with. The monks wouldn't do anything to provoke Rembrary. And that would be that.
But Jongwoo's expectations shattered the moment he pulled the car up to the meeting spot.
Because of the familiar face stepping out of a black van.
It was Oh Jung-shin.
"Is that fellow appearing on this program as well?"
Rembrary asked, having recognized Oh Jung-shin through the darkly tinted window.
Jongwoo's face twisted.
"You've got to be kidding. He's on this too?"
"The schedule does list one additional guest," Sa Gam-jae murmured from beside them, checking the itinerary he had received beforehand.
Jongwoo ground his teeth and thumped his forehead against the steering wheel.
Beep — a horn honked, every bit as short and unpleasant as Jongwoo's feelings.
Jongwoo wasn't the only one whose mood soured at the sight of the other.
If one could chart annoyance levels as an objective metric, the truth was that Oh Jung-shin was actually the more aggravated of the two.
Oh Jung-shin truly, sincerely, deeply, desperately did not want to get tangled up with Woo Yeon-woo.
"Hyung, do you think I committed some enormous sin against that bastard in a past life?"
The moment Rembrary stepped out of the van and removed his hat, Oh Jung-shin went weak in the knees and asked his manager in complete earnestness.
"It's a temple stay."
The manager spoke in a low voice, gesturing here and there at the staff members holding cameras.
"You both have to keep up appearances today, so he won't be able to pull his lunatic act either. Just play it cool."
Oh Jung-shin nodded obediently, even as he clenched his jaw.
A few days earlier, he had gone on a mild-mannered variety show, done every bit of image management imaginable, and declared that the entire "slave and dog" incident had been staged for the cameras.
Not wanting to be accused of setting contestants against each other, the Sing Survival side had refrained from denying it as well.
Thanks to that, the public still watched him with suspicion—well, still, something about it...—but his fans had relaxed considerably.
And now a temple stay with Woo Yeon-woo of all people. Worse, a temple stay meant spending at least one night and two days together. One night and two days, with Woo Yeon-woo.
Unable to properly vent his anger in front of the cameras, Oh Jung-shin quickly steadied his breathing.
Rembrary, for his part, took little interest in Oh Jung-shin. He did think the man was rather childish, but right now his excitement at being at a temple was far greater.
And here I thought I would not set foot in a temple again until my contract ended and I became a monk! Yet I have come already!!
To keep from showing too obviously how delighted he was, Rembrary kept rubbing his own cheeks.
"Stop that, you'll rub off your makeup."
"The Monk. Where is the Monk, I ask? Jongwoo, go and fetch the Monk."
"Don't order people around—go yourself. The trash-personality rumors were just barely dying down. Are you trying to set them on fire again?"
Jongwoo nagged at him repeatedly, barely moving his lips.
Afterward, the two main MCs arrived a little late, and Rembrary and Oh Jung-shin exchanged pleasantries with them.
Rembrary was startled to discover that the cameras were already rolling. On the old Daily Rail and at yesterday's Bee be Talking, there had been an announced start to filming, formal greetings, introductions—the whole ritual. Today, however, there was none of that ceremonial back-and-forth with the MCs. Apparently even within the same genre of variety show, the atmosphere could differ completely.
The camera captured all of it, down to the moment Rembrary stood there bewildered, glancing nervously between the MCs, Oh Jung-shin, and the managers.
Then an MC said, "This way," and walked on ahead. Oh Jung-shin followed, and so Rembrary followed as well.
Are we going to meet the Monk?
But no matter how far they walked, and walked, and walked, no monk appeared. Far from a monk, there was nothing but the mountain path continuing on and on.
He began to wonder if they were headed all the way to the summit—and in fact, it was only at the very top of the mountain that the production staff and MCs finally stopped.
The summit was dotted with peculiar one-story buildings, and beyond them lay a wide open courtyard. Sculpted statues stood here and there, but their look and atmosphere were quite different from the temples of the world Rembrary had come from. Neither did it much resemble the cathedral he had visited first upon arriving in this other world.
So this is a temple.
Rembrary hastily rolled his eyes about, searching for the monk.
"Wow, the air is so fresh."
"Strange, isn't it? Every time I come to a temple, I feel my heart grow calm."
"Same here."
He paid no attention whatsoever to the quiet exchange between the two MCs and Oh Jung-shin.
Then, at last, Rembrary's eyes found the monk.
Gray robes, a gleaming bald head—exactly the appearance of the monk Rembrary had learned about beforehand.
Whether he felt Rembrary's gaze or simply turned his head because there were many people present, the monk looked over in their direction.
Rembrary pointed at the monk with one finger, then rubbed that hand over his own head and flashed the monk a friendly smile.
"Don't. Stop it. You're making fun of the monk."
"Huh?"
"Put your hand down."
Jongwoo had clearly misunderstood something, but Rembrary decided not to concern himself with it.
The monk was walking toward them. There was no time to humor Jongwoo.
Even as the monk drew near and pressed his palms together in greeting to the MCs, Rembrary continued to watch him with eyes full of expectation.
But the monk, having exchanged greetings with the MCs, did not spare Rembrary so much as a glance. He merely tilted his head and shot a brief look toward Sa Gam-jae.
Rembrary finally tried to take matters into his own hands and draw the monk's attention, but the chance slipped away when the whole group was ushered off to the rooms where they would be staying for the temple stay.
After that, a woman approached—dressed in robes of a design similar to the monk's but slightly different in form, and crucially, with a full head of hair—and explained the rules of the temple stay, so there was no getting near the monk.
"You may leave your luggage here, and you'll each use that room and that one. The rooms are arranged for two people to share—is that all right with you?"
Then came the shock of learning he would have to share a room with Oh Jung-shin, and he forgot all about finding the monk.
After that, he was simply left to his own devices.
Rembrary had no idea what kind of variety show this was, but the staff, saying they needed to install cameras inside the room, merely urged him and Oh Jung-shin to go outside—without telling them where to go.
The monk, too, had vanished somewhere out of sight.
After exchanging a few awkward looks with Oh Jung-shin, Rembrary went looking for the main MCs, but they were nowhere to be found either.
"Is it always like this?"
That was how adrift the two of them were—Oh Jung-shin half-whispered the question to the cameraman trailing them to film it, there being no one around to tell them do this, do that.
"It changes with each experience. Some are brutal, where you follow a strict schedule minute by minute. Others just leave you to fend for yourselves like this."
Fortunately, the cameraman offered a bit of an explanation about the program.
"Honestly, since it's a temple stay I expected it to be intense, so I was a little surprised too. But well, it's not like this never happens. You've watched our show before, haven't you?"
"I have, but I thought there would at least be some kind of script. You're really not going to tell us what we're supposed to do?"
"Figure it out for yourselves. Sometimes that's where the funny moments come from."
Oh Jung-shin scrunched up his face and shot a sidelong glance at Rembrary.
At that very moment, Rembrary, who had been walking along in silence beside him, suddenly broke into a run toward somewhere.
Oh Jung-shin instinctively ran after him.
The place where Rembrary, running at a fairly brisk pace, came to a stop was—unexpectedly—right beside the monk from earlier.
Oh Jung-shin was slightly impressed, inwardly. Ah, right, they said if you find a monk, he'll tell you what to do. So he ran over to ask what we're supposed to do.
Though he hated to admit it, Oh Jung-shin thought to himself that Woo Yeon-woo was actually decent at variety shows. Otherwise, the two of them would have been doomed to stand around like a pair of posts, endlessly repeating What do we do? What do we do? And there was no more boring camera setup in the world than that.
"Monk. Your head."
"!"
— End of Chapter 73 —