Going on a Virtual Dating Show
Jong-woo felt his heart drop straight through the floor. He'd finally gone and caused a scene! He'd announced to the whole world that he was insane! His legs nearly buckled under the weight of everything that was about to happen, every disaster yet to unfold.
But the reporter just laughed, exaggeratedly waving her script around.
"Is this the upgraded version of your Sloth concept?"
Yeon-woo, flustered, shook his head.
Still, to a reporter meeting Woo Yeon-woo for the first time, nothing about it struck her as strange. Yeon-woo had always been famous for being a bit of a weirdo, after all.
Maeng Woo-shin, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that while Yeon-woo might be a weirdo, he was not the timid, cowering *kind* of weirdo — so he looked at him sideways, something clearly nagging at him.
At that exact moment, Rembrary stretched his hand out toward empty space and began imitating a sloth. "Ahh. Ahhhhh. Ahhh."
"Wow! Sloth possession!"
The reporter, clearly delighted, cackled and waved her script even harder.
Finished with his sloth impression, Rembrary was wearing his usual gentle, benevolent smile.
The faint voice begging for help was forgotten almost as soon as it came, and Jong-woo burst out laughing with the staff, praising how talented "our Yeon-woo" was, smooth over the atmosphere as he went.
But the moment the interview ended and they climbed into the car, the air between Rembrary and Jong-woo turned ice-cold.
Jong-woo pressed the ignition button and demanded anxiously, "First it was in the middle of a stage. Then in the middle of a phone call. Now in the middle of an interview. What exactly is it that switches your personality?"
"How would I know that?"
"You're the one who has to know! It's your job!"
"More shocking to me is that the child called me a sloth."
"That is literally the smallest, most trivial problem here!"
Rembrary leaned his head against the window and, just as Jong-woo said, tried to retrace exactly when the real Woo Yeon-woo had surfaced.
The first time was mid-performance, right before the switch — Rembrary had seen an evil spirit strangling Yeon-woo from within the shadows. After that, Yeon-woo had come outside, finished the stage, and begged Sa Gam-jae for help. That was the longest stretch Yeon-woo had taken over.
The second time was during the phone call. Rembrary had just heard the secret of his birth from Woo Sung-woo. He'd felt nothing in particular, but in that brief moment Yeon-woo had popped out, said a few words, and vanished.
The third time was during the interview…
'That one is the most puzzling of all.'
The first time, Yeon-woo's shadow had been cornered and desperate. The second, sure — he'd just heard something shocking. But why on earth had he surfaced the third time?
'Because not much time had passed since the second time he popped out?'
"The CEO's looking for a discreet, highly skilled doctor in that field, so don't worry. Whether your memory comes back or the switching-around stops, it'll all work out somehow."
Jong-woo and CEO Im were both wound tight with nerves, but fortunately, nobody who watched that day's interview thought Rembrary was acting strange.
Only CEO Im went around muttering "mystery concept… mystery concept…" in quiet agony.
Even so, he'd decided that looking like a fame-hungry eccentric beat having your split personality exposed to the world.
The one silver lining for CEO Im was that the response to Dear God just kept getting better and better.
And then, at last, Friday arrived.
Friday was a day with no filming scheduled — and it was also the day Rembrary had arranged to meet Maeng Woo-shin.
There had originally been two music shows that Friday, but both were pre-recording summer specials instead.
Rembrary woke up early, dressed in a perfectly ordinary pair of pants and a t-shirt, and pulled the black hat Jung-seo had packed for him down low over his face.
He'd already told Jong-woo about going out with Maeng Woo-shin, and gotten his permission.
"You're not going to fight him one-on-one, right?"
Jong-woo had nearly had a heart attack at the news that Rembrary of all people was hanging out with Maeng Woo-shin, but after being told *no* several times, he'd grudgingly given in.
The rumors circulating between Rembrary and Maeng Woo-shin ran to two extremes: that they hated each other's guts, and that the two of them had some strange, indefinable relationship.
Neither rumor was ideal, but Dear God was still weeks away from airing, and the chemistry between the two was getting a good response from the public.
So the hope was that if they went out together and got a few photos taken naturally, the image of "close senior-junior pair" would quietly bury the rumors.
But just as Rembrary slipped on his shoes and reached for the door—
The moment it opened, Sa Gam-jae's face appeared.
"You startled me."
Rembrary recoiled half a step, and Sa Gam-jae pointed silently toward the elevator.
"Jong-woo brought you in."
"I have an appointment with Maeng Woo-shin today."
"And yet, you've been brought in."
"Why have you summoned me all of a sudden?"
Rembrary asked as he stepped through the door of the CEO's office, where he'd been called without explanation.
He needed to meet Maeng Woo-shin as soon as possible and confirm whether the man called Daeju had any connection to the goddess Redrin — and it galled him to watch this golden hour slip away on nothing.
It was CEO Im who answered.
"Found one. A discreet, seriously skilled psychiatrist. He's a top expert in dissociative identity disorder especially. It'll all work out."
"What does my impotence have to do with any of this?"
"Not sexual dysfunction — multiple personalities! You and your two selves. Crazy-weirdo-you and original-Yeon-woo."
"Ah. That."
Having a specialist come won't exactly evict a soul that's already here. Rembrary glumly conceded this to himself, nodding along vaguely — then his eyes went round.
"You want me to receive treatment *now*?"
"Not now — tomorrow. I called you in today for something else."
CEO Im flicked his eyes at Jong-woo, signaling him to explain.
Jong-woo, who had been plastered into the corner of the room, scurried over.
"You got an offer for a virtual dating show."
"A virtual dating show?"
"Where you pretend to date someone. On camera."
Rembrary shot up out of his seat.
"Have I not told you! I have no interest in mating for reproductive purposes!"
"Don't say things that'll get us in trouble! Even if you were interested, shows don't go that far!"
"Then what do they do?"
"You know, just… act romantic. All cuddly and cutesy."
"Cuddle *what*, exactly?"
"The… the cute little couple's bickering, that thing couples do."
When Jong-woo failed spectacularly at explaining, CEO Im slipped in an example.
"You know that thing Cathy keeps doing at the camera."
Rembrary's face twisted as he pictured Cathy's overwhelming aegyo.
Jong-woo waved his hands quickly. "You won't have to go that far. Ugh, I don't know — maybe not cuddly exactly, but you just pretend to be dating someone. That's all."
Rembrary answered with iron finality.
"I refuse. Even as a pretense, I will not stoop to such conduct!"
"We already accepted."
"What did you say?"
Jong-woo averted his eyes, looking somewhat guilty.
"You said you'd go with the mystery concept! You said no more variety shows!"
"I *wasn't* going to. But the director in charge of this one is honestly the best, I'm telling you. Unlike PD Kim Moo-rok, he barely does any devil's editing — he actually protects your image like crazy."
As he talked, Jong-woo seemed to feel a bit wronged, and scrunched up his face in protest.
"And anyway, who was it that took a perfectly good mystery-concept image and dragged it back down to Sloth?"
"Not me! That was Woo Yeon-woo's doing!"
"You *are* Woo Yeon-woo!"
"I am… I am the Sloth!"
"That's what I'm saying!"
"Good lord," CEO Im muttered under his breath, pressing a hand to his forehead.
"Anyway, you're in. And honestly, the concept is pretty fun. The role you got especially — handled well, it could really polish your image."
"Two-timing? A two-timing dating concept?"
Rembrary leapt out of his seat at Jong-woo's explanation.
"Yeah, well, ordinary dating's already been done on a dozen programs. This one's supposedly showing 'the many faces of love.'"
Rembrary's jaw hung open in disbelief.
"Since when does two-timing count among the many faces of love? Isn't that just moral garbage? I don't court anyone myself, but even I know two-timing is wrong. I would sooner be flayed than two-time a soul — even in pretense!"
"Ah, relax. You're the one being two-timed, not doing it."
"!"
"I hear they're deliberately going with a bunch of offbeat concepts."
Rembrary's mouth opened and shut a few times before he managed to collect himself and demand,
"Are other teams appearing as well?"
"Several teams at once, each with a different concept. Let's see… oh, right. One team is doing a celebrity-dating-a-fan concept. The fan is an actual fan of that celebrity, recruited for real."
"That sounds entertaining, at least."
"One team is doing a rebound concept."
"A rebound?"
"You start dating one person while flirting with another."
"Is that not also two-timing?"
"Two-timing is when you have no intention of breaking up with either. A rebound means you're planning to cut one of them loose soon. That's basically the difference."
Rembrary's face crumpled.
"This is less a dating show than an adultery show."
"There's also a wealth-gap dating concept. Oh — this one's actually huge? CEO Kang is on it."
"Who is that?"
"The ridiculously handsome CEO. Apparently there's someone in the industry who likes him even more. Oh. Whoa. His partner is supposedly a self-made heiress? Who could that be?"
Jong-woo kept reading off the notes he'd scribbled down during the phone call.
"There's a contract-dating team too."
"What? Contract dating?"
"Yep. And a concept where you date a foreigner who can barely speak Korean."
Jong-woo counted on his fingers, one through four, then said,
"Six teams total."
Having finished the rundown, Jong-woo declared with pride,
"Yours is the tame one, right? Being two-timed beats doing the two-timing. Am I wrong?"
"So. Who is it that will be two-timing me?"
"Casting's still in progress."
Done explaining, Jong-woo gave a hollow laugh.
"No idea if you'll get flamed or get popular, but I bet you'll watch the first episode anyway just to find out."
They rushed into a car as soon as the briefing was over, but by the time they arrived, they were already twenty minutes past the appointed hour.
Maeng Woo-shin stood in front of the café with his arms crossed, sunglasses on, and the moment Rembrary stepped out of the car, he barely suppressed his irritation and drawled,
"Fine if you don't show up early to see your senior, but you don't get to show up *late*, do you?"
"Two-timing."
"What?"
"There is such a thing now."
Rembrary let out a long, weary sigh and demanded,
"So — where is this man, Daeju?"
— End of Chapter 91: Going on a Virtual Dating Show —