Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 158

< Why Are You Staring >

“What a weirdo.”

Lee Il-baek, with a waffle in his mouth, muttered as he got into his van.

To be honest, even if he had picked a fight, he wouldn’t have said much. Why did he feel so uneasy? Was it just prejudice formed from hearing so many strange stories?

It might be because Maeng Woo-shin, whom he had met after appearing in the same drama, often told him that avoiding Woo Yeon-woo was the best policy.

Lee Il-baek frowned and placed the empty waffle wrapper next to him. The sticky, honey-covered paper stuck to the seat, but Lee Il-baek didn’t pay attention, staring intently at the script next to the wrapper. The script was covered with underlines and emotional cues he had written down after asking the director.

It was the result of blaming himself for being swept away on Woo Yeon-woo’s cameo test day. Originally, he had no intention of taking his acting lightly, but Lee Il-baek had gritted his teeth and made a resolution that night. He couldn’t afford to be overshadowed by Woo Yeon-woo’s cameo role, which was as insignificant as a piece of paper.

A chase scene meant that Woo Yeon-woo and he would be in the same shot or appear on screen alternately. If even one out of a hundred people said that Woo Yeon-woo had overwhelmed him in that scene, Lee Il-baek knew he wouldn’t be able to bear hearing such words.

-I hope you have a lot of guts, senior.

Lee Il-baek gradually erased Rembrandt’s last words from his mind.

***

Rembrandt watched Jung-seo act, cheered him on, and monitored Lee Il-baek to make sure he wasn’t harassing Jung-seo. He also thoroughly examined the apartment that served as the backdrop for the incident.

He had initially come to scout the space for acting, but as Sa Gam-jae’s warning came to mind, his head gradually filled with thoughts about the shadow.

Would that shadow really appear this time too? If it was just acting and going inside again, what was the purpose of this shadow? Did this shadow also want to become a famous idol here and use that influence to proselytize to believers?

‘I’ll find out once I try it.’

Rather, the shadow seemed more intent on concealing their current state than the ‘real Woo Yeon-woo.’ He was worried about the shadow’s purpose, but he was less concerned about the shadow messing up the movie.

As he did so, his thoughts naturally shifted to the real Woo Yeon-woo, and he remembered the email that Woo Yeon-woo had sent him.

While Gam-jae and Jong-woo were talking amongst themselves, Rembrandt took out his phone and went back into the email app.

Rembrandt clicked on the first link and carefully examined the dense text that he hadn’t had time to read yesterday.

It was an explanation of the possession phenomenon. The speaker argued that while possession was not usually considered a pleasant experience, it could actually be beneficial if used properly.

Below that, he clicked on the link that said ‘Demon Summoning,’ which led to a strange magic circle. Rembrandt thought it was probably fake.

If this were a real demon summoning method, Nakru, who hated supernatural phenomena, would never have allowed it to circulate on the internet.

The link under ‘Escape from a Pseudo Religion’ was the same. It just said to strengthen your mind and seek help from the police, move and change your phone, ask for help from friends or family, and if your heart still wavered, seek help from a non-pseudo religion. There was nothing of substance.

The case studies of ‘real demons’ were also vague…

‘He investigated, but it didn’t work.’

Was the best thing he found the name LavRoom?

‘Still, if he was investigating like this for months before his disappearance, he must have been consistently interested.’

Meanwhile, in front of him, the actors were showing various reactions, such as feeling uneasy, tense, fighting, being wary, and having fun about being suddenly trapped in a normal living space.

Watching Jung-seo standing there calmly, just like his real personality, Rembrandt waved his hand to encourage him.

***

As Jung-seo’s filming seemed likely to be prolonged, Jong-woo said that he would stay at the filming location and told Sa Gam-jae and Rembrandt to go back first.

There was no point in staying there, so it would be better to go back to the office and receive training in preparation for the new song.

That made sense, as Rembrandt’s immediate priority was the albums he was preparing.

Rembrandt was appearing as a cameo, but he was a character with minimal screen time, at least in the later part.

Depending on the situation, which could change, Rembrandt would be filming around mid-December if the filming continued smoothly. There was no need for him to be at the filming location every day until then. He could come and see the atmosphere of the filming location from time to time when things were relaxed, and the atmosphere of the later part would be more helpful to Rembrandt anyway than the atmosphere of the first part.

“I’m worried about whether Jung-seo will be able to hold out on his own.”

“Jong-woo is with him, isn’t he?”

“He’s diligent and hardworking, but he’s not the kind of person who is very reliable.”

“…That’s true.”

“I should help him a little from the side.”

‘Is he saying that sincerely?’ While Sa Gam-jae was seriously contemplating and turning the steering wheel, Rembrandt, who was sitting in the passenger seat, took out his phone and turned on the internet to find out more about Lee Il-baek.

But the real-time search terms on the first screen included ‘aspiring celebrity’ and ‘aspiring celebrity knife.’

What was this? Curious, he clicked on it and saw a news flash that an aspiring celebrity had stabbed an employee of their agency with a knife inside the company.

“Oh my.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone killed someone.”

“Is that a once or twice thing?”

“Isn’t that once or twice too painful?”

The news flash was just two short lines, but later a detailed article came out with the title [Exclusive].

The content itself was not much different, but it provided more specific details about the events leading up to the incident.

Originally, the trainee and the employee had a bad relationship. The reason for the bad relationship was unknown, but they were bad, and the employee ridiculed the trainee’s long-standing status as a trainee whenever they fought.

It seemed that the trainee eventually exploded in anger… but the arrested trainee was said to have acted indifferently without any guilt.

“Ugh.”

Rembrandt shook his head and put his phone in his pocket.

***

Rembrandt felt sorry about this, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it.

First of all, it was an incident that occurred between strangers, and it would be strange for him to visit the scene of the incident uninvited in his current body, not as a high priest. Even if they were injured, it would be difficult to heal them because of the public’s attention, and the employee was said to have died, so he couldn’t even do that.

The car smoothly rolled into the underground parking lot of LLL Entertainment.

Rembrandt rested his arm on the windowsill and pondered, then asked Sa Gam-jae.

“Gam-jae.”

“Yes.”

“Were you the Grim Reaper who took the person who died this time?”

“That’s not me.”

“Was it Sa Jik-jae?”

“No. It’s a reaper whose name I don’t know.”

“I see…”

The topic ended there.

Sa Gam-jae found a suitable parking space and parked the car. Rembrandt waited quietly until the car came to a complete stop, then unbuckled his seatbelt and got out.

Rembrandt had nothing more to say about this topic, and he didn’t think it was something he should get involved in, so he waited for Sa Gam-jae to get out of the car and then entered the elevator, changing the subject again.

“Have you ever eaten a waffle?”

“Waffle? Of course.”

“You’ve eaten it!”

“Why are you suddenly talking about waffles?”

“I want to eat one.”

Rembrandt recalled the fluffy bread that Lee Il-baek had been munching on while picking a fight and sighed in disappointment. Even though Sa Gam-jae was a Grim Reaper, he was still a manager, so he probably wouldn’t allow him to eat whatever he wanted. Should he use the Jang Tae-ri and Shin Jo-woon chance again?

But even those two, who said they would buy him something with shrimp, hadn’t bought it for him yet. Especially Shin Jo-woon, who had even set a date for the promise but it was canceled.

‘I should have asked about it yesterday!’

But then, when the two of them got off on the third floor. Rembrandt was about to go to the practice room, and Sa Gam-jae was about to go to the lounge, but the secretary came and told him that CEO Lim had summoned Rembrandt. In the end, Sa Gam-jae went to the practice room, and Rembrandt got back on the elevator.

“What’s he calling me for?”

“It seemed like something bad happened.”

“Oh dear. What happened to someone?”

Suddenly, the secretary burst out laughing, and Rembrandt raised his eyebrows.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I’m sorry. Usually, people ask what happened, or ask if it’s their business, or something like that. You just naturally asked if it was someone else’s business.”

I see. People suspect it’s their business when something bad happens. Why is that? Rembrandt tilted his head, but remained silent for the time being.

Meanwhile, the elevator arrived at its destination and opened with a ding. Rembrandt, who often went to visit CEO Lim, went through the proper procedures this time and met CEO Lim.

“What’s going on? Someone said something bad happened?”

CEO Lim looks for cigarettes when his emotions get heightened in a bad way. But he’s trying to quit smoking, so he usually puts a candy in his mouth. But today, he didn’t have anything in his mouth. Something must have happened, but it didn’t seem like a serious matter to worry about.

“There’s a guy named Jang Ji-ho, you definitely don’t remember him, right?”

When Rembrandt shook his head, CEO Lim pointed to the sofa with a dark face and told him to come over.

“Is he someone I should know?”

“He was a trainee at our company before he moved. As a trainee at another company.”

“Is that so? But what about him?”

“As you know—no, you don’t know—but when you create a group, you don’t just gather kids who are about the same age. It was the first time I’d ever created one, but I created it with the most compatible combination I could. In the process, there were many kids who were put into and taken out of , and Ji-ho was someone I was debating whether to put in or not for the *maknae* [youngest member] position.”

Rembrandt nodded, but he still didn’t understand why CEO Lim was saying such things.

“But he said he killed someone.”

Rembrandt was startled and widened his eyes.

“Really? Oh my.”

“He got into a fight with an employee and that’s what happened. Didn’t you see the news on the way here? He’s the one who came out there.”

Rembrandt recalled the article about the trainee and the employee. He never imagined that the trainee was a trainee who had left from here…

“Then the reason you called me is that. As a former colleague…”

“That’s right. It’s the right thing to do as a person.”

“Don’t worry. I can get him to talk in an hour.”

CEO Lim’s eyebrows shot up in an instant as he nodded.

“What are you talking about?”

“Aren’t you saying to find out why he killed him, whether he really killed him?”

Rembrandt thumped his chest.

“I’m a professional. A professional.”

He was actually a professional. Didn’t he help with the Hye-gyeol case with this ability?

“No!”

But what came back was CEO Lim’s shout.

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m going to ask what happened, but that’s later. Let’s go pay our respects first.”

“Are they already holding the funeral?”

Surprised, he asked, since he had only seen the news on the way. CEO Lim explained that the incident had happened two days ago and the news had come out today.

There was nothing he couldn’t do, so Rembrandt put on the black suit that CEO Lim had prepared and headed to the funeral hall where the wake was being held with Tae-in and Hye-gyeol, who were other members left in the agency.

Whether the story about being former colleagues was true, Tae-in and Hye-gyeol’s expressions were very dark. It’s not good news that a friend has become a criminal.

But then, the car stopped and everyone was about to enter the wake together.

‘Oh dear.’

Rembrandt stopped as he was about to enter mindlessly following the members.

Near the funeral hall, demons of various colors were staring at Rembrandt, haphazardly concealing their appearances here and there, and there were at least thirty of them.

< Why Are You Staring > End