89. TMI
What kind of nonsense is this?
Rembrary stared hard at the text message. Could something like this even be possible?
"What's wrong?"
Jungseo, who had been scrolling through viewer reactions beside him, perked up the moment he saw Rembrary's face.
"Did someone say something?"
"My biological brother."
On Rembrary's other side, Hye-gyeol — who had been quietly tapping away at his own phone — piped up. "Your brother?" He looked positively delighted about it, too.
When Rembrary shot him a why on earth would that make you happy look, Hye-gyeol blurted out, "Chicken!"
"Chicken?"
"Back when we were basically starving! He secretly ordered chicken delivery for us!"
"He didn't strike me as the charitable sort."
"He's your brother, isn't he?"
Rembrary merely shrugged and looked back down at his phone. He did, in the end, have to send some kind of reply…
In the end, Rembrary had offered his honest opinion.
Rembrary had absolute confidence that he had entered Woo Yeon-woo's body, so Woo Sung-woo's words held no fear for him. It wasn't as though the soul had arrived somewhere out of sight — it had arrived right in front of the mirror, with the other members standing there watching.
But just as Rembrary trusted the state of his own body, the man on the other end trusted nothing about Rembrary at all.
Having answered with firm finality, Rembrary switched the phone off and set it aside.
"Are you okay?"
Jungseo, sharp-eyed as ever, asked again.
"It was nothing but nonsense."
Rembrary replied with perfect composure and rose from the sofa.
"I'm tired, so I'm off to sleep."
The moment eight o'clock struck the next morning, Jongwoo flung the door open, marched in, and swept Rembrary up in a crushing hug.
"The reaction is insane! Absolutely incredible! We just have to keep riding this wave! People are saying it's a masterpiece!"
Only after pounding Rembrary's back hard enough to bruise did he finally step back.
Rembrary stared at him, wondering why anyone could be like this first thing in the morning, and only then did Jongwoo break into a beaming grin.
"Dear God pulled a seventeen percent rating on its premiere! Seventeen!"
Is that high? Rembrary, with no notion of the benchmark, simply blinked at him, and Hye-gyeol shouted on his behalf.
"Whoa, seventeen on a premiere is freaking huge!"
"Is it, now?"
"That's the best you can get on a debut episode!"
"Ahh."
Rembrary still only nodded, blank-faced. Hearing it was high, he could accept that it was high, but with such a hazy grasp of what a rating even meant, no real joy arrived. It had gone well, so good — that was the extent of it.
Besides, the whole reason he had set out to become a high-ranking celebrity in the first place had been to join Maeng Woo-shin's cult. But the cult — Buddhist or otherwise — was now of no use to him whatsoever. With his goal of succeeding as a celebrity effectively on pause, even Jongwoo's capering left him unmoved.
"Maeng Woo-shin and Lim Yu-han, and all the veteran actors too — their performances were obviously amazing, but out of everyone, yours got the best reaction."
Though Rembrary's deadpan attitude was more than a little deflating, Jongwoo kept chattering away, still buzzing.
"Is that so."
"The opening scene had you and Maeng Woo-shin, right? The moment you hand him the umbrella and look straight into the camera — oh, man — the response just — it's the best, I'm telling you!"
"Is that so."
When Rembrary answered flatly twice in a row, Jongwoo's energy finally drained a little, and he replied sulkily, "Is that so."
"You've got filming today, so go wash up and eat."
Only upon arriving at the set did Rembrary learn that Jongwoo's jubilation had not been overblown in the slightest.
"What in the world is all that?"
Several episodes' worth of outdoor scenes were scheduled to be shot in one go today, and garish banners were visible from well before the set itself. There was even a full fleet of bizarre trucks decked out in those banners, and every one of them wafted the smell of food in every direction.
Maeng Woo-shin's face and name featured disproportionately on the truck banners, and Jongwoo explained that his fans had sent them in droves.
"It's a rice truck — sounds like fans sent them to celebrate the premiere ratings."
"Trucks?"
"Food delivered by truck."
"Ahh."
"That one was sent by the actor who played Lim Yu-han's love interest in her last drama."
"Is one only permitted to eat from trucks bearing one's own name?"
"No, no, anyone can eat from any of them. It's more like — a statement. 'We're eating thanks to this person, so please look after so-and-so and take good care of them.'"
Rembrary was nodding along when he caught sight of pizza being handed out from one of the trucks — and stopped dead.
The banner on that particular truck, of all trucks, bore Maeng Woo-shin's face.
Rembrary did not dislike Maeng Woo-shin nearly as much as Maeng Woo-shin disliked him — but neither did he wish to feel gratitude toward the man.
"Just eat it. Nobody's going to care."
"May I, truly?"
"You were singing that pizza-pizza song just now, weren't you?"
"Then I shall not refuse—"
"One slice. It's fattening."
Ignoring Jongwoo's warning entirely, Rembrary scampered off in high spirits toward Maeng Woo-shin's pizza truck.
The moment Rembrary drew near, an employee handing out food from inside the truck recognized his face and struck up a cheerful conversation.
"Oh, Mr. Woo Yeon-woo? I watched episode one yesterday. You came across so incredibly charismatic!"
"Thank you."
"Great acting, too."
"Thank you."
The pleasantries are concluded — now hand over the pizza. Rembrary kept the thought to himself while his eyes swept rapidly across the selection.
Perhaps sensing the urgency, the employee laughed and called out.
"Which flavor would you like? We can't match a proper pizzeria, but we've got all the classics."
"The most delicious flavor, please."
"How many slices?"
Rembrary glanced back to check Jongwoo's line of sight before answering in a whisper.
"Three slices that look like one slice, please."
The employee, equally quick on the uptake, nodded, flashed a grin, and cut the pizza noticeably larger than usual before plating it up.
Rembrary broke into a radiant smile and reached eagerly for the plate.
But just before the one-slice-that-looked-like-three could land in Rembrary's hands—
"Got a minute to talk?"
Maeng Woo-shin snatched the plate clean out of the way.
Rembrary, left clutching nothing but air, hung his mouth open and stared at the man.
Utterly oblivious to the problem, Maeng Woo-shin picked up the stolen pizza, popped a piece into his own mouth, and angled his eyes toward some secluded corner.
"Let's have a talk. Just the two of us."
"Y-you… fiend—"
"The what now?"
"…"
"I said let's have a little chat?"
Thanks to Jongwoo's warning, Rembrary swallowed the cry of You fiend! and ground down his fury — whereupon Maeng Woo-shin, one hand holding the pizza, used the other to grab Rembrary by the clothes and tug him along, telling him to hurry.
Seething, Rembrary shook him off and huffed.
"You're awful, sunbae."
"Ahh, yes, yes. Which is why we should talk."
"When I wanted to spend time with you, you kept me at arm's length. Then the moment I lose interest, you come sidling up out of nowhere. I truly cannot fathom what you're playing at."
"…Fine, fine. So let's talk somewhere quiet."
"You—"
Maeng Woo-shin, who had been burned more than once by Rembrary's dangerously ambiguous statements, clamped a hand — practiced, almost elegant — over Rembrary's mouth with the pizza still in his teeth, and dragged him off.
Only when they had reached a spot entirely devoid of people did he finally free Rembrary's mouth.
Having eaten nothing, Rembrary's nostrils full of nothing but the scent of pizza bitten through by Maeng Woo-shin's own hand, he glared at the man with rage boiling all the way up to his hairline.
"I don't know what you intend to say to me, but if it turns out to be nothing, you had best brace yourself."
Rather than answer, Maeng Woo-shin drew a wine-colored handkerchief from his pocket.
"What is that?"
As though to say see for yourself, he silently unfolded the handkerchief and held it out in front of Rembrary.
"…An earring?"
Rembrary looked down at it with a frown, as if this were some kind of practical joke, and plucked the earring up with his fingers.
"What about an earring, exactly?"
At the brusque retort, Maeng Woo-shin's eyebrow climbed.
Daeju had said that Woo Yeon-woo might recognize the earring.
But Woo Yeon-woo looked as though he couldn't identify it at all.
Well, of course. There's no way Woo Yeon-woo would be acquainted with Daeju-nim. Maeng Woo-shin thought this to himself and extended his hand.
"If you don't recognize it, fine. Hand it over."
"I don't recognize it, you say?"
Only then did Rembrary's brow crease deeply, and he leaned in to study the shape of the earring — because Maeng Woo-shin's words had sounded suspiciously like he had hoped Rembrary would know it.
Rembrary examined the earring resting in his palm.
It was not star-shaped. A bluish gem sat at its center, ringed by a pattern like flowing blue lines.
A common design. If he went to the temple, who knew how many hundreds of necklaces bore motifs exactly like…
'Hmm?'
Belatedly, Rembrary's eyes went wide.
He arched an eyebrow and studied the shape of the earring Maeng Woo-shin had handed him, once, then again, then again.
At last his eyes flew open even wider in sheer shock.
He couldn't help it. He had seen this emblem before. No — he had seen it countless times. In his original world.
In a world crowded with gods, every faith in the land where Rembrary had lived carried its own distinctive symbol. This emblem was the symbol of the Temple of Redrin.
Granted, it was an extremely common design, and even after crossing into this world Rembrary had glimpsed the pattern here and there.
But what Maeng Woo-shin had said — that line about if you don't recognize it, fine — snagged in his mind.
Rembrary raised his head.
Maeng Woo-shin, for his part, wore an expression of open bewilderment at Rembrary's reaction.
"Who told you to give me this?"
"…You're not pretending to recognize it just to mess with me, are you?"
"Who handed this to you and told you to show it to me?"
Maeng Woo-shin answered with a sour face.
"Daeju."
"Daeju…"
"He says if you look at it and still refuse to meet him, he'll leave you be. If you say you'll meet, he'll grant you the meeting. Ah — and the earring goes back to me."
When Rembrary held it out, Maeng Woo-shin took the earring, wrapped it back up in the handkerchief, and slipped it into his pocket.
Rembrary watched the whole thing in a daze, then spoke.
"And where might one meet this Daeju?"
"When are you free?"
Suppose this Daeju was a priest connected to Lady Redrin — what, then, was he to do?
No — even if he had nothing to do with Redrin, what if he bore even the slightest connection to Rembrary's original world? What then?
Rembrary was wandering over in a fog of confusion when Jongwoo hustled him along, urging him to get ready.
"You went to grab pizza — why are you only back now!"
Rembrary hastily changed into his priest's robe and sat for a quick round of makeup.
But his attention kept drifting back to the man Maeng Woo-shin had named — Daeju.
In the middle of all this, his phone rang yet again. It was Woo Sung-woo.
"Please take the call for me and tell him I'm filming."
Jongwoo, well aware that Woo Sung-woo had his suspicions about Rembrary, grumbled under his breath as he answered in his stead.
"Yes, hello."
But a short while later, Jongwoo — who had been repeating yes, yes, yes — went rigid, then held the phone back out to Rembrary.
"I don't think this is a call I'm supposed to be taking."
Is he calling to insist yet again that I am not his brother?
One tiresome thing after another, all descending at once — it was enough to drive a man mad. Rembrary heaved a sigh, accepted the phone, and raised it to his ear.
"What is it this time."
— Why has your way of talking suddenly gone back to normal?
"That's the public version."
— Refreshingly honest of you.
"So what do you want? Are you calling to tell me again that I'm not your brother?"
The makeup artist, dabbing fine strokes across Rembrary's face, froze mid-motion. She mouthed silently to Jongwoo, Should I come back later?
And at that very moment, a remark born of pure astonishment burst out of Rembrary's mouth.
"We're both adopted?"
The makeup artist's pupils wavered — needlessly on edge, thinking she had no business being here. The information she had just overheard was, to her, excruciating TMI.
In the end she tucked the brush back into her kit and scrambled for an excuse.
"Ah — the, um, the bathroom. It's a bit urgent. Excuse me just a moment—"