Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 204

204. Why Doesn’t Anyone Believe Me?

The atmosphere grew strange after Rembrary finished speaking. Everyone looked bewildered, unsure how to react to what they’d just heard.

What kind of reaction should you have when you ask someone if they can see ghosts and they cheerfully answers ‘Yes’?

Especially since the host who asked the question wasn’t a seasoned MC [Master of Ceremonies]. He was just a senior artist who debuted only two years before Wild Animal, and he had no experience as a main MC. It was a question born out of a desire to do well and be funny, so it was difficult to handle. In the end, the host panicked and stammered before asking again.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Originally, Rembrary had intended to hide his identity because of Nakru. Even without Nakru, he would have kept his abilities secret to protect himself, especially since his paladins weren’t here.

But now that things had turned out this way, he thought it would be better to just reveal how amazing he was! He wasn’t going to reveal his full power, but he was planning to reveal that he was special to some extent.

“If you say ‘yes’ here, what am I supposed to do?”

However, the host seemed to take it as a joke. He seemed flustered for a moment, but soon chuckled, grabbed the microphone, and asked the audience for their agreement.

“Right?”

He was so flustered that he just threw out the question without even waiting for an answer and quickly shouted.

“Wow, I see. Well then, everyone, please give a round of applause to Yuli and Woo Yeonwoo for their hard work!”

After that, Rembrary was ushered off the stage without being able to say anything more, even though he had answered with considerable resolve.

On the way down the hallway to the waiting room, Yuli asked, worried.

“What you said earlier was a joke, right?”

She sounded like she really hoped it was a joke.

Rembrary hesitated to answer, remembering how scared Yuli had been when they went into the haunted house before.

He had decided to reveal the truth, but it wasn’t right to tell scary stories to someone who was easily frightened.

In the end, Rembrary avoided answering and vaguely brushed it off.

“How do you think our dance performance went?”

* * *

“Wow, people are saying you and Yuli should do a duet.”

“They’re saying you couldn’t show more than this here?”

“Yuli’s fans are saying you held her back and she didn’t dance as well as usual, and your fans are saying Yuli held you back and you didn’t dance as well as usual.”

“So the conclusion is that everyone thinks we both sucked.”

When Rembrary returned to the waiting room and asked the members how their dance performance was, the members summarized the opinions of the people, combining the dance-related comments interspersed among the comments about Rembrary’s ‘seeing ghosts’.

Rembrary frowned.

“I don’t know how well they expect me to dance. Isn’t this good enough?”

“Absolutely not, Yeonwoo hyung [older brother/male friend]. We’re a dance group; there’s no such thing as ‘good enough’.”

“Still, it’s only this much because you said you could see ghosts or whatever. If you hadn’t, you would have been criticized even more for not dancing well.”

Anyway, after the performance of the Wild Animal main group was over, the members returned to the dorm exhausted.

On the way back to the dorm, the members were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Hyegyeol thought it would have been better to dance better, and Keshi was angry that people were pairing Yuli and Rembrary together.

Taein wondered if Rembrary’s remarks would help the group, and Jungseo read the script.

The two managers were in completely opposite states. Sajangjae wasn’t thinking about anything, while Jongwoo was more confused than anyone else.

He had no idea how to resolve this situation or what kind of incidents this statement would cause. He couldn’t understand how the members could be so carefree.

If there was any saving grace, it was that Rembrary’s ‘yes’ statement on stage was so confident that people didn’t believe him…

Jongwoo was tempted to ask Rembrary, ‘Is it real? Do you really see those things?’ but in the end, he didn’t ask any questions about it. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if it was real, and he would be really angry if it was fake.

In the meantime, the car finally arrived at the dorm, and the members got out of the car and got into the elevator.

Rembrary thought Jongwoo would definitely nag him, so he looked at Jongwoo before getting into the elevator, but for some reason, there was no nagging.

After waiting for about 5 seconds, Rembrary bowed and pressed the elevator close button, as Jongwoo didn’t seem like he was going to say anything more.

Later, after returning to the dorm and taking a shower, Woosungwoo sent him a text message.

[Is it okay for you to talk about that on TV?]

[How was it?]

[Doesn’t your manager say anything?]

[He didn’t like it.]

To be exact, he seemed to be in a state of confusion.

[How’s the reaction over there?]

[Whether you have eyes for that. Is it okay to reveal it so publicly?]

‘So they can’t think beyond that either…’

While Woosungwoo was hesitating, Rembrary hung up the phone.

* * *

The next day.

The agency began to receive a flood of interview requests. It seemed that the unexpected words uttered by a current idol at an awards ceremony had properly piqued people’s interest.

In addition, Rembrary also began to receive more than twice as many personal messages on social media as usual.

Some were from fans, but others weren’t. Some expressed a sense of kinship, saying that they could also see ghosts, some asked for help, saying that they didn’t know what to do because they could see ghosts, and some cursed him, calling him an attention seeker for pretending to see ghosts.

“We have one more awards ceremony left. Will it be okay?”

“Shouldn’t we exclude Yeonwoo this time?”

“I think we can just tell them in advance not to send the microphone to Yeonwoo’s side.”

LLL Entertainment employees went into an emergency meeting. They were worried that Rembrary would make another bombshell statement.

An idol who sees ghosts. The buzz is good right now, but if you’re not careful, you can easily be branded as a bluffer. Besides, he’s thinking of switching to acting after his idol activities are over, but his image might become fixed, which could interfere with his future acting career.

But for some reason, CEO Im stepped in and reassured the employees that it was okay for Rembrary to attend the awards ceremony.

“What else is he going to say here? Besides, if we exclude him now, everyone will think we’re blocking him, and Wild Animal fans will think even stranger things.”

“Then should we do an interview outright? Pick a few places that will write articles without being too sensational…”

“What are we going to say in the interview? Are we going to say that Yeonwoo really sees ghosts, or are we going to say that it’s a lie?”

“That’s… that’s true.”

In the end, while the employees couldn’t decide what to do, Rembrary spent his time practicing for the awards ceremony performance as before, and the team, where Rembrary was a regular, was thinking about how to use this declaration to help boost viewership as much as possible.

Shin Joowoon, who had been away on a business trip, heard the news late and clicked his tongue, saying that he was someone who really didn’t know where he was going to bounce [unpredictable].

On the other hand, Im Yoohan was too busy looking for ways to gain ‘eyes’ to think about the sensational incident.

Rembrary being able to see ghosts wasn’t surprising to Im Yoohan in the first place.

In the meantime, Im Yoohan heard a strange rumor.

“A group that grants wishes?”

“It’s like a cult, but it’s not an ordinary cult. It’s a cult that works.”

“Are you sure?”

“It seems to be helping little by little. There are a lot of celebrities who have joined here. You can’t know who’s who because they join anonymously.”

Im Yoohan looked at his colleague, who had given him the information, with a dubious expression. The colleague handed Im Yoohan a business card, his eyes sparkling.

“This.”

It was an ordinary-looking business card.

“That’s not very trustworthy.”

As Im Yoohan took the business card and muttered suspiciously, his colleague smiled and said nonchalantly.

“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. I’m just passing it on because you asked me to get information on that kind of thing. Rumor has it that Maeng Wooshin is a member here.”

“Maeng Wooshin?”

“Rumor. It’s just a rumor. I’m going.”

After his colleague left, Im Yoohan became serious with a business card in his hand. He’s not the kind of colleague to play jokes like this… Is it okay?

* * *

The members, who had woken up early again to attend the second awards ceremony stage, stopped by the shop, put on their costumes, and moved to the venue.

Perhaps because they had performed on stage once before, the members dozed off in the car with less tense faces than before.

Jongwoo stood in front of Rembrary and repeatedly pleaded with him.

“Let’s not talk about ghosts. Okay? Got it?”

“I won’t talk about it. I’ll show it with my actions.”

“No, what are you going to do? Don’t do that. Please!”

“I’m not going to act suddenly.”

“Then?”

“I meant that I won’t avoid it when I have to step up.”

“Let’s avoid it. Okay? Let’s avoid it, Yeonwoo. Okay?”

While Jongwoo repeatedly told Rembrary about a quiet and uneventful life in the entertainment industry.

The car had already arrived at its destination, and Rembrary went outside.

The fans, who had come out early in the morning to see their favorite celebrities, recognized Rembrary even if he wasn’t the celebrity they were cheering for, and whispered among themselves.

“He’s handsome.”

“His face is really the best.”

“But does he really see ghosts?”

“Isn’t he just saying that? He’s famous for being an attention seeker.”

Rembrary was unfazed, even though he could hear some of the voices.

However, in the hallway in front of the waiting room. While searching for the waiting room assigned to Wild Animal, Rembrary, who had been walking calmly, suddenly frowned and stopped.

It was because something strange had caught his eye.

‘Who is that?’

The demon that Hwanshin used to bring with him. A faceless demon with a leash.

The demon was standing blankly in the middle of the hallway, looking around, as if looking for something.

This time, he seemed to have concealed his appearance so that people couldn’t see him, and unlike before, no one recognized him.

Hwanshin, who was always with him, was nowhere to be seen.

‘Why is he here alone?’

As he was staring at him because it was strange, the demon found him and grinned, revealing his mouth. Then, he suddenly sped up and came right in front of Rembrary’s nose.

Rembrary stepped back.

In the blink of an eye, the demon’s teeth flashed past where he had been standing.

Rembrary glared at the demon, asking ‘What are you doing?’

“Ugh, what’s wrong?”

Hyegyeol, who couldn’t see anything, was standing behind him and was pushed by Rembrary, so she asked, annoyed.

The demon smiled at Rembrary and pointed somewhere with his finger.

Rembrary looked in the direction the demon was pointing and was startled.

‘That’s…?’

A crack. There was a subtle hairline crack in the air.