Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 147

< Finding the Culprit >

If the self-cam video had been released immediately, the fans would have gone wild, saying, ‘Wild Animal’s next album concept is cringey,’ but unfortunately, that day wasn’t the broadcast day for .

“I’m already afraid of the reaction…….”

“I think the kids will say they want to leave. Will we be okay?”

Some of the staff were very worried that the regular album concept was cringey, even though they release a special album once a month.

However, CEO Lim’s opinion seemed firm.

At this point, the A&R [Artists and Repertoire, the division of a record label responsible for talent scouting and artistic development] department team leader became curious.

What on earth happened during Chuseok [Korean harvest festival]?

What happened that made CEO Lim come up with such an enormous concept and plan?

“Team leader, try to stop him. I’m afraid he’ll want to tattoo a black dragon on his hand or something.”

“No, what kind of concept are you doing with cringey?”

“What if the kids’ image is ruined, huh? Huh?”

The staff kept pushing him, and eventually, the A&R department team leader brought up the story of Wild Animal’s next concept to CEO Lim the next evening when he went to discuss other agenda items.

“CEO, in my opinion, our society isn’t quite ready to accept the cringey concept yet.”

“What?”

“These days, even if you just upload emotional photos or short phrases, you’re treated like a joke. What if we go out with a cringey concept in the midst of all this and ruin the image we’ve built up so far?”

“…….”

“The special album has a solid concept with constellations and birthstones, so wouldn’t it be better to go with a safe concept for the regular album?”

“What’s a safe concept in your opinion?”

“I’m excited to go on a date with you, I fell in love with you at first sight, I think your affection for me is fading, let’s break up, I don’t want to break up—there are so many, right?”

CEO Lim clicked his tongue at the A&R department team leader’s words.

“We were possessed by the devil in the last album, and now we’re going to be cheerful and say, ‘Date, date, let’s date!’?”

“Well…….”

CEO Lim sighed.

“I know what you’re worried about, but the cringey concept I’m talking about is about excessive emotion.”

“Excessive emotion?”

“Why is it called cringey? It’s because people make fun of them for being so emotional. In other words, that period is the most emotionally explosive time in their lives.”

“Yes.”

“That’s it.”

“Yes?”

“Excessive emotion.”

“Yes?”

“We’re going to continue the story from track 1 of the album. In track 1, you fall in love and are thrilled to death; in track 2, you date and are so happy you go crazy; in track 3, you fall for someone else and lament that you’re trash; in track 4, you finally break up and act like a bad guy; and in track 5, you regret your choice and despair. We’re going to mix this up and express it with as much emotion as possible.”

“Ah…….”

The A&R department team leader opened his mouth and nodded.

“That’s good.”

In fact, he couldn’t tell if it was good or not, but he praised it as the best for now.

At least it was much better than the black dragon that he and his team members had been prepared for.

The part where he emphasizes ‘excessive emotion’ is a bit concerning, but anyway, it was okay to that extent.

“But isn’t it just a normal bad love story? I don’t really see what’s cringey about expressing emotions excessively…….”

“We’re going to make track 3 or 4 the title track.”

“!”

* * *

After the A&R department team leader left, CEO Lim immediately called Woo Yeon-woo.

At that time, Rembrandt was listening to Jong-woo’s story about Song Seo-young.

Song Seo-young is a top model, but she’s currently out of the country and not in Korea.

‘Then it’s hard to check on her while coming and going.’

Dae-ju asked him to sound out the three suspected culprits.

But if the other person was in another country, it was realistically difficult to sound them out.

He was already in a situation where it was hard to go out to a distant place alone, let alone another country.

“But why Song Seo-young?”

“There’s something going on.”

“What’s going on? Did she become a fan or something? Should I let you know when she comes back? I probably won’t have much chance to meet her even if she comes?”

“Would you? Then let me know.”

He would text Dae-ju to let him know that she was abroad, but Rembrandt asked Jong-woo to keep an eye on it anyway.

It was at this moment that CEO Lim’s secretary came to find Rembrandt.

“You didn’t cause an accident, did you?”

“I did not.”

Rembrandt wondered what was going on but followed the secretary to meet CEO Lim.

CEO Lim was sitting on the sofa in the CEO’s office with his legs crossed, deep in thought with a candy in his mouth, but when Rembrandt came, he took the candy out of his mouth and put it in the ashtray.

“Why did you call me?”

When Rembrandt sat down opposite him, the secretary left, and CEO Lim explained.

“I was wondering if I should tell Jong-woo to pass it on, but I don’t think there’s any need to pass it on through Jong-woo.”

There was something to pass on without going through Jong-woo…….

“Are you going to buy me pizza alone?”

“It’s not about food.”

“Then what is it?”

“The constellation concept I talked about at the meeting yesterday.”

“Yes, so what?”

“I’m going to start with you as the first starter.”

Rembrandt nodded indifferently.

In fact, they had been talking about it among the members in the dorm, wondering if this would happen.

The first start is important for this kind of concept. After all, there’s no one in Wild Animal who’s as popular as Rembrandt.

In addition, Rembrandt had achieved excellent sound source results several times in the song contest. It was enough to be a starting line.

“First of all, I’m going to take out the dance. Wae [likely refers to the group Wild Animal] is a group where dance and performance are important, so the title has always been performance-oriented, but this time, I’m going to focus entirely on you, take out the performance and dance, and compete with your voice alone.”

“Is that so.”

“The concept is Scorpio.”

Rembrandt recalled the threatening image of a scorpion and asked.

“I don’t mind, but what kind of song are you going to make with a scorpion?”

“It’s a constellation. What is a star? It sparkles, right? I think your voice will easily land in the top 50 on the music charts, so assuming there will be music shows, I’m going to put a lot of effort into creating a sparkling and glamorous atmosphere from the music video itself.”

CEO Lim got up and took a thin album from his desk drawer and spread it out in front of Rembrandt.

“This is the concept art.”

The concept art depicted a man in a jet-black suit, wearing red jewel accessories with an Arabian traditional costume feel.

The combination of dark and static black and glamorous red accessories was surprisingly good to look at.

“I’d look really cool if I wore this. I can already hear the praises of the believers.”

“Not bad, right?”

“It would be perfect to wear this and preside over a ritual.”

“What?”

“But what kind of song should I sing to match this?”

CEO Lim, who had been smiling confidently, put the candy he had put down in the ashtray back in his mouth.

“Actually…… that’s the problem. It would be better if we went with the performance side, but I can’t get a feel for expressing this as a ballad.”

But if he made Rembrandt do a solo performance, it seemed like he was cutting off his strengths.

If he put in other members to save the performance, it was difficult to be sure of success.

“That’s why I called you. You have a lot of experience in surprising people with unexpected lyrics.”

“Is that so?”

“So think about it this time too. You can refine the rhyme later to match the song, so write some lyrics that match the concept art and Scorpio.”

* * *

Rembrandt searched for scorpions on his phone.

Of course, he already knew about scorpions. There were scorpions where he lived, too.

However, he just couldn’t guess what kind of song he would sing if he sang about scorpions, so he just searched for it.

“……I still don’t know.”

Rembrandt, who had returned to the practice room, sat cross-legged in front of the mirror and continued to scroll through scorpion photos.

How long had he been doing that?

Suddenly, he heard Hyegyeol’s voice saying, “Wow! Congratulations, hyung [older brother/male friend]!”

Rembrandt, who had been focusing on the scorpion, raised his head and saw Jeongseo standing expressionlessly, with Hyegyeol putting his arm around his shoulder and jumping up and down.

Jongwoo was smiling happily next to him, and Keshi was making fun of him, saying, “Ooh, finally, an actor is here.”

“What’s going on?”

When Rembrandt asked, Hyegyeol shouted even more excitedly.

“Yeonwoo hyung, Jeongseo hyung passed the audition!”

Surprised, he made eye contact with Jeongseo.

Jeongseo awkwardly raised the corners of his mouth and rubbed his neck for no reason.

Rembrandt put his cell phone down next to him and clapped his hands.

He thought he would pass, but he was very happy when he actually passed.

“It’s just the beginning, so don’t get too excited. And you need to practice your acting more. You know from Yeonwoo, people don’t really like it when idols act. Yeonwoo had almost no lines, so he somehow got away with his face, but you have a lot of lines, so you really have to do well, you know?”

“Okay, hyung.”

“You have the face of an actor, so you’ll do really well.”

“Okay.”

After giving Jeongseo nagging and comfort, Jongwoo took care of Hyegyeol, Keshi, and Taein this time.

From Jongwoo’s point of view, the most worrying people were Yeonwoo, who was working hard even though he had lost his memory, and Jeongseo, who was taking care of the members and taking care of trivial matters in the leader’s position.

But it wasn’t that he didn’t care about the other members. Rather, now that Jeongseo had passed the audition, he was worried about the other three members this time.

Specifically, Hyegyeol.

Keshi and Taein wanted to go into singing anyway, so they could change the situation through this regular album and the following special album activities.

But Hyegyeol dreamed of being an actor. Two members of the same group were building their acting careers first, so no matter how much he cheered them on and acted bright, he couldn’t have felt good inside.

“Hyegyeol, I’m still looking for synopses for roles that would suit you, so don’t worry.”

And 30 minutes later.

Rembrandt, who had been watching the situation quietly, carefully brought up the topic to Jongwoo when the atmosphere had calmed down.

“Jongwoo.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Who is Ki Seung-min?”

“Huh? A rapper. Why?”

Jongwoo’s expression, which had been answering casually, suddenly became serious.

“CEO Lim didn’t say anything about hiring him for a feature, did he?”

“No. We were just talking about lyrics.”

When Rembrandt answered immediately, looking puzzled, Jongwoo finally relaxed and let go of his shoulders.

Why is he being like this? Even more strangely, Rembrandt brought up the story of Ki Seung-min again.

“Jongwoo, can I meet that rapper Ki Seung-min?”

Ki Seung-min was one of the three people Dae-ju had pointed out as possibly stealing the brush.

One person didn’t seem to be the one. He couldn’t check on the other person, so now he had to check on the remaining Ki Seung-min.

However, Jongwoo’s expression became even more fierce than before, and he immediately refused.

“No way.”

“Why?”

“That person used to do drugs, so his public image is bad. I heard he’s turned over a new leaf these days, but if you hang out with him, it won’t help each other at all.”

His attitude was very firm.

That night, Rembrandt had no choice but to ask Seonwoo-sil for help.

Seonwoo-sil had a lot of experience in this field, so he thought he might be able to get help.

[Ki Seung-min? Oh, I know him.]

As expected, when Rembrandt asked Seonwoo-sil if he knew about Ki Seung-min, he immediately gave a pleasant answer.

“Are you close?”

[I’m not close, but I know his number. I’ve eaten with him a few times in a group. But why? Are you going to ask him for a feature or something?]

“I lost something.”

[Huh? What do you mean suddenly?]

“I received a report that Ki Seung-min took it.”

[Huh? Really?]

“Could you sound him out to see if he’s the culprit?”

[Oh, really? What did he take?]

“My emotions.”

[…….]

“Seonbae [senior/mentor]? Seonbae? Hello? Did you hang up?”

End