Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 114

< 114. A Member Has Disappeared >

“No. She said she was staying in the practice room to practice more.”

– Really? She’s not in the dorm? Oh, this is driving me crazy.

“Why? Isn’t she in the practice room?”

– She’s not there.

“Did you go there yourself? Hyung [older brother or male friend], does it remind you of something? Hye-gyeol turned off her phone and practiced before, too.”

– I went. I wouldn’t call you this late at night if I hadn’t gone.

“But she’s not there?”

– I thought she might have gone nearby to slack off, but that’s not it either.

“How long has it been since you lost contact?”

– Five hours.

“Hold on a second, Hyung.”

The members were all listening intently to Jung-seo’s call.

Even if they couldn’t hear Jong-woo’s voice, they could guess that Hye-gyeol had disappeared just from what Jung-seo was saying.

Jung-seo held up his phone, looked at the members, and asked, “Has anyone seen Hye-gyeol?” Everyone started saying the last place and time they saw Hye-gyeol.

The lounge, the hallway, the bathroom, a meeting place in the company… There were various locations, but surprisingly, no member had last met her in the practice room.

Besides Hye-gyeol, everyone else had returned to the dorm at the same time, so no member had met Hye-gyeol after coming to the dorm.

“She’s not a child. Isn’t it possible she just went out to clear her head?”

Rembrary asked cautiously, and Jong-woo, who somehow heard him, shouted over the phone.

– She’s not a child, that’s why I’m doing this! She’s old enough to know that she should contact us because we’d be worried!

Jong-woo continued to complain.

– I wouldn’t be this worried if just any kid disappeared.

But that sounded a bit meaningful.

“What’s the problem?”

Jung-seo asked Jong-woo while turning the phone to speaker mode.

Jong-woo’s dark voice filled the small living room.

– She left her shoes behind. I don’t know what she was wearing when she disappeared.

***

For celebrities, image was everything. Especially for idols [pop stars].

Therefore, the agency decided to wait for Hye-gyeol until morning, and if she didn’t show up, they would report her to the police. She was still at an age full of energy, so there was a possibility that she might have left because she was suddenly bored with the restrictive group life.

Instead, the staff decided to mobilize and search the neighborhood.

In the meantime, the members couldn’t sleep properly and waited anxiously for news.

Rembrary also secretly sent a text to Sa Gam-jae to ask.

[Gam-jae, Hye-gyeol disappeared. Do you know?]

[Yes]

[Can’t you find her with your ability?]

[Sad face]

[Does that mean you can’t find her?]

[Yes]

The answer was short. Rembrary couldn’t stand it and called Sa Gam-jae, who finally answered properly.

– I can only accurately locate people who are on the list. People on the verge of death. It’s better if I don’t know her location.

“Couldn’t you have written that in a text?”

– Too lazy.

Rembrary hung up the phone and worried. He would have worried less if Tae-in or Keshi had disappeared. Still, he wasn’t on bad terms with Hye-gyeol, so he was a bit worried.

[What are you doing, pig?]

A text came from Shin Jo-woon, but he didn’t feel like replying.

[What are you doing, pig?2]

[What are you doing, pig?3]

[Yeon-woo, what are you doing?]

Rembrary hated the buzzing of the text message vibrations, so he put his phone on the bed and burrowed into the blanket. The strange sound in that summer song bothered him.

‘Should I have told them…?’

***

The next day, Rembrary woke up, yawned, and got out of bed. It was only when he went to the bathroom that he remembered Hye-gyeol again.

Rembrary splashed some cold water on his face and came outside. He was curious if they had found Hye-gyeol, and if they had reported her to the police.

However, the other members were not visible, and the living room was quiet.

The only person in the living room was Jung-seo, who was squatting on the sofa.

But his expression was very serious and dark.

“What’s wrong? Is there something else?”

Rembrary was surprised and approached him. Jung-seo tried to hide his phone for a moment.

Rembrary paused, and Jung-seo showed a troubled expression and held out his phone.

Rembrary took it and saw that the real-time search rankings included Hye-gyeol Missing, Hye-gyeol Bullying, Wild Animal Bullying, and Woo Yeon-woo Bullying.

“What is this?”

“They couldn’t find Hye-gyeol, so the agency finally reported her missing to the police.”

“But there’s only one ‘missing’ in the search terms?”

Jung-seo hesitated with a troubled expression, and eventually took the phone back.

Then, he went to his bookmarked community and handed the phone back to Rembrary.

“Take a look yourself.”

***

– ㅅㅂ Woo Yeon-wooㅋㅋㅋ I thought he was nice even if he talked like shit, but his personality is trash tooㅋㅋㅋㅋ [ㅅㅂ is a Korean slang expression, similar to ‘f*ck’]

– I knew it from his impression

ㄴ ? That’s not true. What are you talking about?

ㄴ I thought I shouldn’t trust Woo Yeon-woo’s impression?

ㄴ Who keeps using Woo Yeon-woo? Why do they keep using him when he’s always causing trouble?

ㄴ You’ll understand if you see his face

ㄴ You’ll understand if you see his face222

ㄴ You’ll understand if you see his face333

ㄴ Is it that bad?

– Even if Woo Yeon-woo’s personality is trash, they have to use him if they see his face. There’s no other celebrity who can replace that face and atmosphere. I’m someone who never understood why broadcasting stations kept using Woo Yeon-woo, but I accidentally saw him at the Shin-i-si-yeo event and understood after seeing him in person. Ah… I understood.

– Is it that bad?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ You’ll understand when you see his face. Yeah, just show your face. That’s the only way you can contribute to this world… That’s the first thought that comes to mindㅋㅋㅋ He’s the ultimate best-looking. [ㅇㅇ is a Korean abbreviation for ‘yes’]

ㄴ Who’s better, Woo Yeon-woo or Maeng Woo-shin? Still, Maeng Woo-shin has the class of an actor, right?

ㄴ Neither of them can give birth

ㄴ Is Woo Yeon-woo’s face the problem now? I heard Woo Yeon-woo has been bullying the members because he thinks he’s too good. It’s ridiculous.

ㄴ His Majesty is looking for a doctor!

ㄴ This doctor is fake!

ㄴ Bring the real doctor!

ㄴ Yes~~~~~

ㄴ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋAre you crazy?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ [laughter]

ㄴ You’re crazyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ [laughter]

ㄴ You bastards, it’s a typo. Don’t you ever make typos? I know it’s not ‘어의 (eoui)’ [royal physician] but ‘어으 (eeu).’ Stop making fun of me.

ㄴ There’s another Woo Yeon-woo’s mouth hereㅠ [ㅠ represents a crying face]

ㄴ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋIf you shut up, you’d be halfway thereㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ [laughter]

– In the meantime, it’s subtly true that Woo Yeon-woo is acting like he’s too goodㅋㅋㅋ

***

Rembrary quickly scanned people’s reactions and handed the phone back to Jung-seo.

“Did you see it?”

“I saw it.”

“…Are you okay?”

“Everyone says I’m handsome.”

“Did you see it properly?”

“I saw it properly.”

Jung-seo swiped up the screen of the phone Rembrary handed him with his thumb. Then, he glanced at Rembrary’s face. But unlike his expectation that he would be upset, Rembrary was very calm.

It was a relief that he was calm… Jung-seo asked again, feeling awkward.

“Aren’t you upset?”

“Is it ‘어의 (eoui)’ or ‘어으 (eeu)’ that’s correct?”

“That’s what’s upsetting you?”

“I study hard, but it’s so frustrating when I come across words I don’t know no matter how much I study.”

“Ah, okay…”

“It reminds me of what happened a while ago. I posted a picture of myself on SNS and titled it with the compliments that the fans gave me. But the fans told me to just post the picture and title it with the date…”

“What did you post?”

“I’m a geek.”

“…Why did you use that title?”

“The fans often say to me, ‘I feel like I’m going to die from geekiness’ when they watch my video diary. But when I looked it up, ‘사 (sa)’ means ‘to die.’ But how can I tell my fans to die? I want my fans to live a long, long time. So I took out the ‘사 (sa).’ But only I knew my good intentions…”

Jung-seo looked at Rembrary, who was seriously searching for ‘어의 (eoui)’ and ‘어으 (eeu),’ and didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not.

After Hye-gyeol’s missing person report was filed. Somehow, a rumor quickly spread online that Yeon-woo was leading the bullying of Hye-gyeol.

The basis for the rumor was cleverly captured moments of the members’ expressions and reactions.

Since Rembrary often said nonsense, the members often showed blank reactions after Rembrary spoke.

They especially captured those parts.

The decisive moment was when Yeon-woo poked Keshi’s eye with his finger while waiting for the announcement of the music show’s number one.

People were spreading ridiculous stories that Woo Yeon-woo had been harassing the members, and that’s why Hye-gyeol ran away. She tried to commit suicide. She deserted, and so on.

He was worried that he would be heartbroken by such rumors, but he showed it to him because he would find out anyway and it was something he had to deal with. But in reality, he was only concerned about the part where he was handsome.

He wondered if he was pretending to be strong, but there was no sign of pretense on Rembrary’s face.

‘It’s a relief that he’s not hurt…’

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. It’s okay if you’re okay. But it’s better to make a statement quickly.”

“What kind of statement?”

“The bullying rumor. Write it down.”

“?”

“Post it on SNS without the picture. ‘Our team’s youngest member, Hye-gyeol, has not been in contact. We hope she returns safely. If anyone knows about Hye-gyeol’s whereabouts, please contact us immediately.’ Like this.”

Rembrary slowly wrote it down and showed the screen to Jung-seo.

“Like this?”

[Our team’s youngest member, Hye-gyeol, has not been in contact. We hope she returns safely. If anyone knows about Hye-gyeol’s whereabouts, please contact us immediately. ^^]

“Erase the emoticon at the end.”

“This is a celebrity emoticon…”

“No. Erase it.”

“What about the crying face?”

“If you put a crying face when someone is missing, they’ll say you’re joking. Don’t put it.”

Because he trusted Jung-seo more than Maeng Woo-shin, Rembrary erased the celebrity emoticon and showed the text to Jung-seo as he said.

“Let’s post it like that.”

Jung-seo sighed and had him post the text as it was.

***

The SNS post that Jung-seo made him write was effective.

It was because he wrote the post as soon as the rumor spread, and because Rembrary’s image had improved recently.

Besides being criticized for his personality, he had also rescued many people, so everyone said that Rembrary wouldn’t have led the bullying.

“You have a mouth that you can’t handle. But you only play with that mouth by yourself, you don’t play with it with others.”

Around lunchtime, Jong-woo told Rembrary about the changes in real-time search rankings.

“I don’t know if I should be relieved that your image is like this or not.”

At Rembrary’s compliment, Jung-seo smiled faintly and said to Jong-woo.

“Jong-woo Hyung [older brother or male friend], regardless of the rumors or Hye-gyeol’s case, I think we need to catch the person who initially spread the word that Yeon-woo was bullying Hye-gyeol and that Hye-gyeol committed suicide.”

Jong-woo nodded.

“Yeah. The CEO said that too. Let’s quietly investigate and catch them as soon as Hye-gyeol comes back.”

Keshi bit her nails anxiously and interrupted while listening to the story.

“Hye-gyeol? Haven’t you found her yet? Have you contacted Hye-gyeol’s parents, Hyung?”

It was then. Rembrary’s phone vibrated slightly. When he checked his phone, he had received a text from Sa Gam-jae.

[Hye-gyeol has been found and is being taken away. But there’s a problem.]

< 114. A Member Has Disappeared > End