Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 36

36. The High Priest Isn’t Sexy

A sexy dance? Seriously? A *sexy* dance?

Rembrary’s jaw dropped.

Having performed on numerous music shows, he’d seen his share of idols doing sexy dances.

Images of those dazzling moves flashed through his mind.

“Wouldn’t that be… difficult? I mean, wouldn’t the difficulty level be higher?”

Of course, the difficulty was just an excuse. What flustered Rembrary wasn’t the challenge, but the concept of a sexy dance itself.

As a priest who had always kept his distance from women, the idea of sexually appealing to someone was deeply unsettling.

The dance instructor shook his head.

“I’m not talking about twerking or anything. Just a light hand sweep here, a little sway there, that’s all.”

“S-sweep my body? With… what?”

“What else would you sweep it with? Your hands, obviously. You planning on using a broom?”

“!”

“Then, you’ll dance briefly with a female dancer in the latter half.”

The dance instructor nodded, seemingly pleased with his plan.

“If we get a good dancer who can draw attention, you just maintain your expression, take her hand, and touch her lightly with a suggestive vibe. That way, you’ll blend right in.”

“Touch…”

Rembrary was practically in a daze.

Touching a female dancer with a suggestive vibe? As a priest, that was completely out of the question.

“Can’t I do it with a male dancer?”

“What?”

The dance instructor stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Are you that insecure?”

“Isn’t my image supposed to be noble and refined?”

“Who says? No, it’s not.”

“……”

The dance instructor, speaking firmly, turned to Jongwoo. “Jongwoo, can you pull up ‘Password’ from King Rage’s first album?”

“Ah, that one! You’re going to use that?”

“The moves aren’t too flashy, so it’ll be better than the others.”

‘Better than the others…’ Rembrary clicked his tongue inwardly, but kept his mouth shut, acknowledging the realistic assessment.

Jongwoo nodded, rummaged through his phone, and soon the music started playing.

“Watch.”

The dance instructor began to dance, and Rembrary felt his mental fortitude crumbling with every line of the lyrics.

“It’s a song about giving your lover the password to your place and inviting them over anytime, right? So, don’t look nervous, be relaxed—relaxed and laid-back sexy. Got it?”

“No, that’s not sexy at all! You’re supposed to be lonely at night, but why do you have such a solemn face! It looks like you’re going to come in, pray together, and leave!”

“Are you going to stroke your neck with your hand? It’s not stretching, it’s *stroking*!”

Only after the dance instructor shouted ‘That’s not it!’ several times did he grudgingly give a rating of ‘slightly better.’

When the dance finally ended, Rembrary staggered over and slammed his head against the mirror.

As the dance instructor had said, the dance itself wasn’t difficult, but his mental state as a priest was definitely faltering.

‘If I had done this when I was a novice priest, I would have been excommunicated.’

However, Eunseon seemed to like the image and captured it with her camera.

“This is great! Surprisingly, your innocent side will seem cute, I think? A twist charm! Something like that!”

Kesh’s lesson followed, and then the cameramen left.

Rembrary drank the water Jungseo handed him, flapping his sweat-soaked shirt.

Even if divine power restored his body, it didn’t dry his shirt, which felt unpleasant.

As he was doing that, Jongwoo, who had briefly left after being called by CEO Im, returned with a lunchbox and announced, “Good news!”

Good news? Curious, Rembrary looked up as Jongwoo placed the lunchbox in the center of the members and said,

“Two of the new songs we requested are ready. I told them to get them to us as soon as possible, so I guess they put in some effort.”

The members’ faces lit up at the mention of new songs.

“How is it? How is it?”

Hye-gyeol asked, jumping up and down, and Jongwoo gave a thumbs up.

“I only listened to the beginning, but it was really good.”

“Oh!”

“One of them was already recorded for another singer, but it was canceled at the last minute due to their circumstances. They rearranged it. But, wow… comparing it to the original, it’s like two hundred times better. The other one was completely newly made this time.”

Jongwoo roughly opened the lunchbox bag with one hand while connecting his phone to the audio with the other.

“Listen while you eat. I have something else to tell you after that.”

While Jongwoo was connecting the music, the members laid out the lunchboxes on the floor.

But the flavors were all different.

Rembrary tried to take the mushroom salad, but as soon as he reached for it, Kesh subtly snatched it away.

Before he could even look at her in surprise, Jungseo snatched that lunchbox away this time.

“Hey!”

Kesh, unaware of what she had done, protested loudly, but Jungseo calmly handed the lunchbox back to Rembrary.

“Here.”

As Rembrary naturally received the lunchbox, the members, including Jongwoo, who was about to play the music, looked at them with expressions that said, ‘What’s going on?’

Hye-gyeol, who had been asking about this all day yesterday, couldn’t help but ask again.

“Seriously, what’s up with you two? Jungseo, did Yeonwoo threaten you or something? Yeonwoo, do you have something on Jungseo?”

Rembrary thought Jungseo would ignore her again as before, but Jungseo calmly replied.

“I decided to become a Yeonwoo follower.”

“What?”

“Follower number 3.”

When Rembrary corrected him with “Follower number 23,” Jungseo retorted bluntly.

“I’m being pushed back to number 23 even though we’re colleagues?”

“It’s first-come, first-served.”

Jongwoo, with an expression that said, ‘What *are* these guys?’ played the music for now.

“Listen.”

Rembrary removed the transparent plastic lid of the lunchbox and took out chopsticks.

As he was picking up a mushroom with his still-unfamiliar chopstick skills, the music that Jongwoo played began.

The first song had a lot of mechanical sounds mixed in, but it gave a fun feeling rather than being unpleasant.

The second song, on the other hand, had almost no mechanical sounds and had a classic feel, with a rhythm that went back and forth between low and high notes, which was very impressive.

As the intro of another girl group’s song from another agency immediately followed after the song ended, Jongwoo hurriedly lowered the volume of his phone and asked.

“How is it?”

Jungseo said indifferently,

“It’s okay.”

Taeein also asked with a bright face,

“It’s not *just* okay, is it? I like the second song. Hyung [older brother/male friend], are we choosing one of the two?”

“We’re choosing two out of three, so we can choose both. But the last song hasn’t come out yet.”

This time, Hye-gyeol asked.

“Like you said before, is one the title track and the other Yeonwoo’s solo song?”

“Yeah.”

Jongwoo played the music one more time.

Rembrary was focused on eating when he was suddenly surprised.

Because the members who were listening while eating at first were now holding only forks or chopsticks, staring blankly.

As if they had forgotten to eat because they were focused on listening to the music.

Soon, Kesh quickly said.

“I pick number one as the title track. It’ll be funny if we dance to number two.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Taeein said this time,

“I think number two is better as the title track.”

Following that, the two began to argue over number one and number two.

Whether it was true that they didn’t get along well with each other, the atmosphere quickly turned sour.

“Stop it.”

Eventually, Jongwoo couldn’t stand it and stepped in to stop them.

The two immediately became quiet when Jongwoo intervened.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

“And hey, you, Kesh. I’m warning you in advance, really fix that habit of punching people.”

Jongwoo seemed to be planning to scold them all at once, starting with Kesh.

“But…”

“But what. I’m saying this sincerely. When you weren’t famous, it was buried because you weren’t famous, but you could really blow up if you keep doing that.”

“Ah, I got it. Stop it.”

“Not ‘stop it,’ but really. If you get caught punching someone again, the CEO said he’ll drop you, you brat.”

He was often strict, but Jongwoo’s expression was even colder now.

Kesh also seemed to know that it wasn’t just a normal scolding, and she shrunk back and replied, “I got it…”

Only then did Jongwoo continue speaking to the members as usual.

“Ah, and about the new songs. They sent the lyrics along with the songs, but there’s nothing that really stands out. CEO Im wants you guys to write lyrics to match the songs. He said it’ll be good for promotion if you guys wrote them yourselves, so if there’s a member who writes good lyrics, he’ll use those lyrics.”

“Wow!”

“Hyung. There are two songs and two concepts, so which concept should we write lyrics for which song?”

“Try writing with both the title track and Yeonwoo’s solo song in mind for each song. If you can’t do it, just say you can’t. Even if Yeonwoo sings the song you wrote as a solo song, you can still promote it as if you wrote the lyrics for the member.”

“Okay.”

“The CEO said he’s going to push properly this time, so when the new songs come out, he’s going to shoot a big music video and put us on variety shows.”

“So let’s do well, okay?” Jongwoo, who asked the members to make a resolution, patted Hye-gyeol’s back, who was sitting next to him, telling her to hurry up and finish eating.

* * *

The members, who returned to the agency, each grabbed A4 paper, earphones, and pencils and settled down in various places.

Since there were no individual rooms, two took seats at the dining table, two in the living room, and Jungseo went into the bedroom alone, saying he wanted to concentrate.

Rembrary sat side by side with Hye-gyeol on the sofa, put on his earphones, and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t used to the type of earphones that seemed to pour sound directly into his eardrums, but that made them all the more fascinating.

Besides, the music… he also liked the music.

When he first entered this body and listened to Wild Animal’s songs, he wondered what kind of bizarre songs they were.

Now, he had become somewhat accustomed to what kind of music was popular here.

‘One is my solo song…’

Rembrary thought, replaying only the second song. The concept was definitely ‘Devil’s Whisper.’

When he was in his original world, he had actually heard the sound of a devil whispering.

‘Can I just write that down as it is?’

Well, even if I write it down, no one would understand it.

Rembrary pondered for a while, then grabbed a pen and started writing on the paper…

Suddenly, Jungseo came out of the bedroom with a stiff face.

Rembrary thought he was going to bring him tomato juice again, but Jungseo strode over and handed the phone he was holding to Hye-gyeol.

“Take this.”

“Huh? Me?”

Hye-gyeol looked at the phone screen, bewildered.

“It’s Jongwoo hyung? Yes. Hello?”

Rembrary looked down at Hye-gyeol’s lap.

Hye-gyeol’s phone was neatly placed there.

But why would Jongwoo specifically ask Jungseo to have Hye-gyeol answer the phone?

Puzzled, he looked up, and Jungseo’s expression was even stiffer than before.

“What’s wrong?”

Sensing that it wasn’t good news, he asked, and Jungseo explained in a rigid voice.

“A strange post was uploaded.”

“A strange post?”

What kind of strange post could have made him like that?

After going on Sing Survival, bad posts about Rembrary were uploaded, and bad rumors about Wild Animal were also uploaded, but even then, this hadn’t happened.

It must be more than just a normal strange post?

Thinking that, Rembrary looked at Hye-gyeol.

Hye-gyeol’s expression, who had answered the phone without a care, was also quickly hardening.

“Someone wrote a post claiming that Hye-gyeol bullied them when she was a student.”