Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 164

164. A Member Causes Trouble in an Unexpected Place

As the video stopped, Jongwoo scrolled down to check the comments below.

―Wow, this choreography is legendary ㄷㄷ

―It’s happeningㅠㅠ This is really it!

―Is this a breakout moment? As long as they don’t suddenly pick a bad song.

―Work, agency, please! Please!

―The song just needs to be better than averageㅜㅜㅜㅠ

―But won’t their ankles get destroyed with that choreo? It looks flashy, which is good, but it also looks dangerousㅠ I hope our Butters aren’t pushing themselves too hard…….

―If the stylists make them wear those long, dangling scarves while doing that danceㅜㅜㅜㅜ They’re really just stealing their salariesㅠㅠㅠ

Most of the comments were from fans of the idol group, but there seemed to be many people who had come to watch after hearing about it through word of mouth. Except for a few overly malicious comments, the reactions were good.

Jongwoo cursed under his breath and ruffled his hair wildly. Hyegyeol widened her eyes and asked Jongwoo.

“Hyung, what do we do? Did they steal our choreography?”

“Those bastards, seriously!”

As soon as he finished speaking, Keshi clenched his fist and was about to dash out in a split second, but Jungseo and Taein quickly reached out and grabbed him.

“Hey, what are you going to do!”

“Don’t do it! Don’t hit him! Relax your fist!”

Jongwoo and the staff joined in to stop him, and Keshi finally spread his palm wide open. Jongwoo instructed Keshi to press his palm against the floor and looked at the staff, asking.

“We need to talk to the choreographer first. Maybe they received it first.”

“Even if they received it first, it’s still a scam… Let’s contact them first.”

Jongwoo nodded and contacted the choreographer on his phone. While Jongwoo was giving the choreographer the link to the problematic video, Rembrary sat down on the floor and asked Jungseo.

“So, what happens now?”

Jungseo shook his head.

“I don’t know. If we received the choreography late, it’s the choreographer’s fault, but if we received it early…….”

“They change it?”

“They might not change it, though.”

“Why?”

“It’s already been revealed to the public. The fans know there’s a choreography issue, but if the public sees them not doing the dance that became a hot topic and we do it, they’ll think it’s weird.”

Jongwoo, who had gone out of the practice room with his phone, returned after almost an hour.

“What happened?”

Hyegyeol, who liked the choreography the most and memorized it the most diligently, quickly followed and asked.

“What did they say?”

“The choreographer said they never received a request from that side.”

“Then we should take it back!”

“No, they said they’ll look into it and call us back. They’re going to investigate the situation.”

Hyegyeol, feeling frustrated that there was nothing to investigate here, left the practice room. The staff went upstairs to report this to CEO Lim, and the members remained in the practice room, silently sulking.

‘What if we end up having to change the dance?’ Rembrary secretly hoped for this, but he put on a gentle and sad expression to match the mood.

However, the issue was not resolved even in the evening, so the members returned to the dorm first. The next day, around 2 PM, Jongwoo gathered the members and explained.

“It seems one of the dance team members the choreographer has leaked it.”

Hyegyeol quickly asked.

“So, since we bought it legitimately, it’s ours, right?”

Jongwoo’s expression darkened. It would be nice if he could say that easily, but the situation was more complicated.

“It’s not?”

Noticing the look on his face, Hyegyeol made a tearful face.

“The person who leaked it apparently sold it as if it was their own choreography. The idol team that bought the choreography didn’t know there was a problem and bought it.”

After that, Jongwoo continued to contact those people, the choreographer, and the leaker, and the staff held several meetings.

They had already agreed to return the money they had paid for the choreography, but opinions were divided on whether to modify the choreography, discard it, push forward with it, or make this issue public.

But in the end, they decided to scrap all the choreography and bury this issue.

“Ah! Why!”

Hyegyeol jumped up and down, disliking the decision. She liked the choreography, and she had worked hard to memorize it.

“I don’t like it either. It’s unfair.”

Jongwoo patted Hyegyeol’s back and sighed deeply.

“But what can we do? There’s nothing to gain by making it public.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve already become a hot topic with that choreography. They’ve been on the real-time search rankings several times. The choreography video has a lot of views, and there are many people who say they keep watching it as if they’re possessed.”

“Shibal…….”

“Yoo Hyegyeol. Language.”

“How can I not curse in this situation?”

“What can we do? Even if we perform it, their image is already perfectly matched with that choreography. We’ll only hear things like ‘Their version is better’ throughout our activities, right? Besides, they didn’t knowingly buy the choreography; they were tricked into buying it, so their fans and our antis [anti-fans] will take it out on us, saying, ‘How can you do that to the same victim?’ If they do that, our fans will fight with them instead of the leaker.”

The fault lies with the leaker, but the faceless culprit was easy to bury. There was a high probability that this would devolve into a fight between Wild Animal and that idol group, but there was nothing to gain from fans fighting each other.

Even people who aren’t deeply interested in idol matters would likely just wonder, ‘Doesn’t Wild Animal’s choreography look familiar?’ even if they revealed the full story and used the choreography.

Hyegyeol reluctantly agreed, but her expression was still dark. Taein lightly tapped Hyegyeol’s shoulder with his fist a few times.

* * *

Even after returning to the dorm, the atmosphere was dark.

Rembrary fiddled with his selfie cam, then remembered Jongwoo’s warning, ‘Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely do not bring up this issue!’ and put the camera back in the drawer.

Jongwoo usually has the words ‘Don’t do this’ on his lips, but today, the word ‘absolutely’ was attached so many times, it was clear that something particularly serious had happened.

However, you might make a mistake if you write a diary. So, he decided to skip the video diary today.

‘Then what to do.’

Rembrary lay on the bed and rolled around, then uploaded a few photos to SNS [Social Networking Service] and watched the reactions of his followers before falling asleep.

The next morning, the atmosphere was still sluggish, but fortunately, it was better than yesterday. Hyegyeol also ate quietly, and Taein drank tea that was good for his throat with his usual sullen face.

Keshi was still half asleep and nodded off, and Rembrary rested one cheek on the table, spacing out. Jungseo muttered while holding a script, constantly checking and practicing what he had memorized.

Jongwoo sent a text saying, ‘You must be tired, so you can practice at home, or only those who want to come to the practice room can come,’ so after two hours, Rembrary was left alone in the house.

Rembrary lay back down on the sofa and closed his eyes to get some more sleep. He must have dozed off in that state. When he opened his eyes to the loud ringing of the bell, three hours had passed.

Still wanting to sleep a little more, Rembrary reached out, grabbed his phone, and held it to his ear.

“Received.”

―Ya, Yeonwoo-ya! Yeonwoo-ya!

The caller was Seonwoo Sil.

“Sunbae [senior colleague], why are you being so excited?”

Rembrary replied happily, as it had been a while since they had talked, and Seonwoo Sil asked from the other side of the receiver, “Are you okay?”

“What about me?”

Rembrary, who is always in good condition, asked back, and Seonwoo Sil asked, “You don’t know?”

“So, what is it?”

[Your member. Hyegyeol, was it?]”

“Yes. What about her?”

[Don’t you know what happened?]”

“Hyegyeol?”

Rembrary knew that Hyegyeol wasn’t there, but he just raised his head and scanned the room before saying.

“Hyegyeol went out.”

[Yeah. She went out. She’s out of her mind.]”

Seonwoo Sil clicked her tongue.

[Mentally, she’s next door, so I don’t know if she went out or not.]”

“Not your neighbor who likes dog play. The reason in your member’s head went out.”

Seonwoo Sil advised him to check Hyegyeol’s SNS if he didn’t know the situation yet and hung up.

She also told him to slip out and join the same agency if things got bigger.

After hanging up, Rembrary checked Hyegyeol’s SNS.

―I have to memorize everything again because of someone who took someone else’s choreography as it is^^

It was a post openly 저격하는 [targeting/calling out].

Fortunately, it was a 저격하는 [targeting/calling out] post, but the subject was ambiguous, so it was difficult to understand if you didn’t know the situation.

Unfortunately, the subject was ambiguous, but anyone who knew the situation would understand.

Rembrary heard Jongwoo shouting “으아아!” [Ahhh!] in front of his eyes and clicked his tongue.

‘That guy will have a hard time.’

He told her absolutely not to do it, but she did it. Of course, she didn’t specify a concrete culprit.

Still, after checking the SNS comments, the atmosphere was generally supportive. Rembrary felt relieved and folded his phone again, falling back into his nap.

* * *

[Pig. Want to come eat grilled meat?]”

In the evening, Shin Joowoon sent a text message. Rembrary really wanted to go, but he held back and promised to do it next time.

Shin Joowoon, who said there was no next time, decided on all the subsequent appointments and didn’t send any more texts.

‘He’s subtly petty.’

Rembrary grumbled inwardly while observing people’s reactions to this incident. As Jongwoo said, it seemed that even general portal search engines didn’t know that this had happened.

It briefly hit the real-time search rankings, but it didn’t become a hot topic, and this incident was hardly mentioned on most sites.

Moreover, the people who were interested were surprisingly positive, and many people were angry together.

Hyegyeol, who was caught by Jungseo and returned that night, still couldn’t unfold her sullen face, but when Rembrary showed her the comment section, she liked it, saying it was good.

“I didn’t reveal the name. Then it’s okay.”

However, the atmosphere changed again the next morning. Including the group that had caused the problem, several completely unrelated groups were dragged in and their names began to be mentioned.

Even those who had initially sided with Wild Animal changed their words when their favorite groups started to get involved, saying, ‘Why are you even bringing up such things? If you’re going to talk about who’s at fault, point them out specifically, or don’t say anything.’

I don’t know who dragged in the names of completely unrelated groups, but the situation flowed as Jongwoo had feared most.

In the end, CEO Lim stepped in and issued an apology, and the controversy quickly subsided, but Wild Animal, Jongwoo, CEO Lim, and the staff were very upset about this incident.

Hyegyeol played with her fingers a bit carelessly, but the other side was the one who caused the problem in the first place. It felt a bit unfair that things had turned out this way.

In the end, after thinking about it, CEO Lim called Jongwoo and instructed him.

“Jongwoo-ya. Find out the schedules of the groups involved with us this time.”