Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 168

168. Dissing

Shin Jo-woon nonchalantly replied and hung up. But once the laughter burst out, it didn’t easily subside.

As Shin Jo-woon continued to shake his shoulders and laugh, his secretary behind him wore a puzzled expression.

“Is something the matter?”

“He’s just funny.”

Shin Jo-woon replied briefly and looked at his secretary.

“You heard it too, his rapping.”

He seemed to find it strange how the secretary could remain so composed and not laugh along.

“Yes, I heard it. But if you keep laughing, wouldn’t Woo Yeon-woo consider it rude?”

Shin Jo-woon replied indifferently.

“If that were the case, he wouldn’t have called in the first place.”

In any case, after the conversation, his laughter subsided somewhat.

Shin Jo-woon pondered for a moment and then sent a simple, conventional reply.

In truth, he had released Woo Sung-woo because of Woo Yeon-woo, but he had been uneasy about it ever since.

‘Did I really have to go this far?’ The thought kept recurring.

He appreciated Woo Yeon-woo and found him amusing, but that was all.

Moreover, even more than he liked Woo Yeon-woo, he truly hated Nakru [a criminal organization]. Very much.

Yet, he had let one of the Nakru go simply because he was friendly with Woo Yeon-woo.

It was an action he had chosen, but Shin Jo-woon felt gloomy with regret.

However, hearing him call first and act cute made him think that this much was acceptable.

The Nakru he released wasn’t the only one left in the world, after all.

Shin Jo-woon nodded to reassure himself and asked his secretary.

“The analysis? Is it done?”

The secretary replied.

“Yes. We’ve assigned people around Woo Sung-woo, and we’ve started tracking the phone numbers saved on Woo Sung-woo’s phone.”

Shin Jo-woon nodded with a cautious expression.

“Probably all the numbers saved in that system are those of people unrelated to Nakru. The call history will be clean too.”

But just because he didn’t expect anything didn’t mean he could skip the investigation.

“Let’s keep a close eye on who that lucky released dog candidate is meeting.”

* * *

The next day.

Rembrary went directly to Beta’s agency. It was to decide on a song together and practice the song and performance to be performed on stage.

As Rembrary entered, the employees of Beta’s agency looked at Rembrary and whispered.

‘It’s Woo Yeon-woo.’

‘He’s better looking than the rumors say. Does he really act and talk like that with that face?’

Some couldn’t just stare and even came out to watch.

Beta, who had come to the lobby to greet Rembrary, was dumbfounded to see this and chased the employees away, but it wasn’t very effective.

“It’s okay. I’m used to being in the spotlight.”

Only after Rembrary said this did Beta stop chasing people away and take Rembrary up to the practice room.

“Did you practice yesterday?”

“Of course. I did it right away.”

“Can everyone understand it?”

“Everyone understands it well.”

“Oh, really?”

Beta frowned. With an expression that said, ‘That can’t be.’

But she soon understood. If someone talks to Woo Yeon-woo often, they might already be used to Woo Yeon-woo’s pronunciation and understand him well.

“I’ll trust you and go with it since you say there’s no problem with pronunciation.”

“Yup!”

When Rembrary spoke with confidence in his own skills, Beta handed over the paper she was holding.

“Here, this.”

“What is it?”

“The song we’re going to do. You said yesterday that it would be better if I chose it.”

“Ah. That.”

The paper Beta handed over had yellow highlighter lines drawn all over it.

“That part is Yeon-woo’s lyrics. Since it has to suit both me and Yeon-woo, I chose a song with a wide vocal range and rap lyrics that are mostly repetitive.”

Rembrary didn’t really know anything about this, so he readily replied.

“Okay.”

“Since Yeon-woo doesn’t write the lyrics himself, focus on pronouncing them accurately and not forgetting them.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve never forgotten the lyrics, have you? I’ve watched a lot of videos of you rapping, and you never miss a single lyric.”

“Of course.”

“Ah, then I’ll tell you where to put emphasis to make it feel rhythmic when listening.”

For the next 40 minutes or so, Beta checked which parts of the lyrics to emphasize to make them stick in people’s ears.

But while explaining well, Beta suddenly flinched while explaining the latter half.

“What’s wrong?”

‘Did I explain something wrong? Do I have to explain it again from the beginning?’ As Rembrary wondered, Beta frowned and tapped the table with the back of her pen before blurting out.

“Have you ever seen this show before?”

“No.”

When Rembrary said confidently, Beta said worriedly.

“I just remembered. It’s not every episode, but sometimes the host, as a joke, makes the rappers… well, actually they’re vocalists, right? Anyway, they make the vocalists who have become rappers just for this stage do an impromptu freestyle diss rap.”

“What’s a diss?”

“Um… it’s finding flaws and putting them down. The other person’s flaws. Even if it’s not a flaw, you can claim it is.”

‘They make people do such rude things?’ Rembrary’s eyes widened.

“Sometimes the vote counting takes longer than expected, you know? I guess they do it to kill time then. There are audience members there too.”

Beta sighed and said again.

“Anyway, if you end up rapping freestyle, try to slip in some English here and there. I think it’s better to do it only in Korean, but then your skills will be too obvious. You have to use tricks. It’s called a diss for fun, but if you do well there, you can subtly get a higher score from the audience.”

“Okay.”

Rembrary readily agreed. But at the following question, Beta stopped stretching her back and paused.

“But Beta, I can’t speak English at all, almost.”

Beta retorted with a ‘no way’ expression.

“You must have graduated from elementary, middle, and high school, right?”

“No, I didn’t graduate from elementary, middle, and high school.”

“Oh… did you drop out?”

“No.”

“You said you didn’t graduate?”

“I didn’t graduate from elementary, middle, and high school, but I did graduate from school.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Me.”

“You said you didn’t graduate?”

“I didn’t graduate from elementary, middle, and high school, but I did graduate from school.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about me.”

“Then which school did you graduate from?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, it’s not elementary, middle, or high school.”

“?”

Beta was bewildered and just blinked.

Rembrary was just as bewildered.

“Ah, whatever. Just do as much as you know.”

In the end, Beta, who didn’t understand Rembrary’s words at all, reluctantly compromised.

In her mind, she was thinking, ‘Wow, he really is weird.’

* * *

After two days of intense practice, it was finally the recording day for .

With the support of CEO Im, Rembrary was decked out more dazzlingly than usual.

The clothes were sponsored, so he wore those.

Later, when they went to the studio, half of the participants had already arrived, and half hadn’t.

As they were greeting each other, the rapper from Shea Butter and Queens looked this way and smiled meaningfully.

However, when Rembrary smiled back warmly, the two flinched and exchanged glances with each other.

Finally, the competition began.

Rembrary and Beta sang around the middle, and thanks to Rembrary’s voice, the reaction was quite good.

But it wasn’t as good as the rapper from Shea Butter and Queens.

It was hard to believe that they had switched positions to sing, as the two were skilled at singing in positions they didn’t usually do.

Everyone had expected it from Queens, but people were surprised by the Shea Butter member because they didn’t expect this much from him.

‘Should I have implanted some divine power in my voice too…’

After finishing the song, Rembrary looked dissatisfiedly at the Shea Butter rapper, who was coming down the back of the stage to thunderous applause.

‘No. Still, I did well not to mix in divine power.’

But it was when all the participating teams had finished singing and were on stage.

While waiting for the results to be tallied, the host suggested in a playful tone.

“We have some time left, how about the ‘today’ rappers dissing each other in three sentences?”

It was exactly as Beta had said.

Except that the condition of three sentences had been added.

Also, ‘diss rap’ and ‘diss’ were slightly different in spelling, so it was confusing whether they were supposed to rap or just diss.

In the midst of this, the first one chosen was Queens, who was on a team with Shea Butter.

After pointing to Queens, the host additionally informed them of the rules to be strictly observed.

“The person who is dissed must point to a participant other than the person who dissed them and diss them. You are absolutely forbidden from going back to the person who dissed you and dissing them again. Otherwise, the emotional fight could escalate.”

Queens nodded coolly, saying she understood.

Rembrary focused his attention to watch what Queens did.

He didn’t think Queens would come to him. Although Queens had become the partner of the Shea Butter rapper, Queens had a history of appearing on with him.

But as soon as the host told her to go, Queens immediately approached Rembrary.

Surprised, he saw Queens standing a few steps away and grinning.

Then she pointed at Rembrary with her hand.

“Wow!”

The host stirred up the atmosphere.

And Queens, without giving Rembrary a chance to react, started talking.

“You have no filter in your mouth. In fact, you have nothing in your head either. It’s lucky that people like the bimbo look, right?”

From among the audience, there were reactions of ‘Ooh, strong, strong.’

Queens smiled at Rembrary as if she was really sorry and quickly returned to her seat.

Beta was a little worried and looked at Rembrary.

Dissing the opponent wasn’t uncommon in this industry, but. Wouldn’t Rembrary be a little different? She was worried that he might be upset.

But Rembrary’s expression was fine. He was convinced that he had a lot in his head from the start, and that he couldn’t show it because this was a different world, so there was no room for him to be upset.

Anyway, since he had been nominated for a diss, he had to return it to someone.

Without needing to think, Rembrary went straight to the Shea Butter rapper.

Having been prepared, the Shea Butter rapper smiled as if nothing was wrong and looked at Rembrary.

The host threw out a risqué joke, saying, “Oh my, seeing these two standing like this reminds me of the controversy a few days ago?”

A few audience members snickered.

The Shea Butter rapper smiled coolly and showed an attitude that Rembrary could diss him as much as he wanted.

Rembrary smiled warmly as well and checked the name ‘Yang Teacher’ hanging in front of Shea Butter. It was strange, but it seemed to be his stage name.

Then Rembrary remembered Beta’s words. Mixing English into the diss rap would make it sound plausible.

Having thoroughly recalled the advice, Rembrary smoothly opened his mouth.