Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 403

403. Next to Me, Please

Regardless of whether people liked his song or not, Rapsus remained seated in front of the easel.

He held a freshly sharpened, unused pencil in his hand, staring blankly at the empty paper, unmoving.

The same was true when he heard a knock from behind.

“I was thinking of holding a free autograph session, though it’s a bit early.”

As the person spoke and entered, Rapsus finally put the pencil down on his lap and turned his head slightly.

The person who came in was Woo Yeon-woo. Or rather, the Demon King wearing Woo Yeon-woo’s skin.

However, since Rapsus had first encountered Woo Yeon-woo in that state, he found the Demon King persona of Woo Yeon-woo more natural.

Rapsus found the Woo Yeon-woo persona unfamiliar and difficult to deal with when he first saw it. Woo Yeon-woo, without the Demon King, seemed somewhat ordinary.

“A free autograph session?”

The Demon King shrugged as if he didn’t know either, then glanced behind him. Following his gaze, Oh Wan, Woo Yeon-woo’s road manager demon, entered.

“I’ll explain it to you.”

Oh Wan, who even brought a chair and sat next to the easel, began to explain with a very friendly smile.

At first glance, it sounded like concern about his future as a singer, but after listening, the main point was clear.

“Meeting people face-to-face makes it easier to addict them, so work face-to-face?”

“That’s right.”

Oh Wan spread his palms as if asking, ‘How is it?’ Rapsus rolled the pencil on his finger.

“I don’t really care.”

“Yes.”

“…….”

“If you don’t like it, please tell me your opinion, Black Priest.”

At the mention of Black Priest, Rapsus’s expression hardened, and Oh Wan slapped his lips as if he had misspoke.

Rapsus suppressed the urge to slap those lips together and spoke in a dry voice.

“You’re saying it’s better to have an autograph session when the fire is a little weaker. It hasn’t been many days since the song came out, and the buzz hasn’t died down yet. So why are you doing an autograph session now?”

“Because there’s no time.”

“What time?”

Oh Wan smiled subtly at Rapsus’s question. He couldn’t answer, ‘The time you have to live.’

* * *

Rembrary was satisfied to see himself take first place for the last time and fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning and checked the rankings again, he was still in first place.

That meant more people had listened to my song. Rembrary admired his own greatness and went to the kitchen in a good mood.

But no matter how much he looked in the refrigerator’s fresh food compartment, he couldn’t find the Seondo peaches [peaches of immortality from the underworld] that Sajae had sent in abundance yesterday.

“My Seondo?”

Panicked, he searched the refrigerator as well, but it was the same. Rembrary searched all the other drawers and rushed to ask Believer #305, who was yawning and entering through the front door wearing an apron.

“Have you seen my Seondo? My Seondo?”

“Seondo?”

“Peaches!”

Believer #305 smiled as if he understood and said nonchalantly.

“We all ate them together yesterday. They were delicious.”

“!”

Rembrary stared at Believer #305 in shock. They ate them all yesterday?

Noticing his expression, Believer #305 stammered in embarrassment.

“Ah, you told us to eat as much as we wanted before you went in. You said to eat them all since you were only giving us one plate.”

Still, when Rembrary couldn’t hide his dismayed expression, Believer #305 became even more flustered.

“I’m sorry. When you asked if we wanted dessert last night, we said we were busy and didn’t want any…….”

“I didn’t know you’d be eating Seondo peaches for dessert!”

Believer #305 was even more flustered at Rembrary’s sorrowful cry. He wished someone would come out and help him. Perhaps hearing Rembrary’s voice, the family members who had enjoyed the peaches together yesterday were all holed up in their rooms and had no intention of coming out.

Even the two children, quick to sense the situation, didn’t budge from their rooms, and Believer #305 was covered in cold sweat. He felt like he would have to bear Rembrary’s anger alone.

Of course, Rembrary wouldn’t do anything violent like hitting someone or telling them to leave the house just because he was angry, but being stared at with those eyes like a god forcibly pushed out of the clouds made his conscience prickle.

“That’s…… I’m sorry. If you tell me where they sell them, I’ll buy some…….”

“They sell them in the underworld.”

“……Are you telling me to die…….”

To tell him to go die for eating some peaches. Believer #305, who didn’t know that the Seondo peaches weren’t a product name but actual Seondo peaches from the underworld, stared at Rembrary in shock.

Rembrary pressed his lips tightly together, glared at him resentfully, then shook his head and walked out of the front door dejectedly.

He was upset, but since he had told them to eat them, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. But unable to shake his gloomy mood, Rembrary went to a nearby playground and kicked a monster that came out of the sewer with his shoe to vent his anger.

“Go away! Go away! Go away!”

Why did it feel like he was bullying the monster while hitting it? The neighborhood people watched him, whispering, but Rembrary didn’t stop his divine punishment until the monster fainted.

Finally, when the monster fainted, Rembrary sat weakly on the swing, thought of the peaches, and then took out his phone and accessed a music site.

He thought seeing his high ranking would ease his rough heart a little.

But halfway through, he changed his mind and turned on SNS [Social Networking Service]. He went to Sajae’s SNS to demand more peaches from him.

But as soon as he opened SNS, news from Kkokko’s SNS, which he had favorited, immediately popped up.

Even the content that he would be holding a free autograph session.

‘This won’t do.’

Rembrary frowned and tapped his phone with his thumb like a bird’s beak while pushing the swing with his feet.

He didn’t know exactly what Kkokko’s song did yet. But considering the unusual addiction symptoms and the fact that the Demon King was behind those symptoms, it wouldn’t be a good phenomenon at all. He had to stop it somehow.

He blocked the song with a song, but if the opponent puts dark divine power in person, would it be as effective as the divine power in the music?

‘I have to block it. On the spot.’

* * *

“Wow, that Rembrary is no joke,” Hye-gyeol muttered as he came out of the bathroom, and the Wild Animal members and Jong-woo, who were sitting around the table, turned their heads at the same time.

“Look at this. No, I’ll just tell you. You know Rapsus is going to have an autograph session, right?”

At Hye-gyeol’s excited voice, Keshie indifferently started eating again. It was because Rapsus’s name was mentioned.

Under Woo Yeon-woo’s leadership, all of LLL Entertainment’s systems were currently running with Rapsus as the focus. In Keshie’s eyes, it was no different from a rolling stone suddenly starting to shine on its own, so he didn’t like it very much.

He even hated the fact that CEO Lim admired Rapsus’s song as soon as he heard it, saying, ‘It’s similar to Yeon-woo’s heyday!’

“What does the autograph session have to do with Rembrary?”

On the other hand, Jong-woo asked with some tension, knowing that Rembrary was strangely intertwined with them in many ways.

A few weeks ago, after Woo Yeon-woo went to the lab to save Rembrary, Woo Yeon-woo’s condition became a bit strange.

He would mutter to himself and shake his head, or suddenly act properly as if he had become a different person, and then bring in a young man named Rapsus with a highly addictive voice.

He would sometimes look at Rembrary’s SNS with a troubled expression, so Jong-woo was convinced that ‘I don’t know what happened in the lab, but he hates Rembrary even more now.’

Well, if you were forced to be mobilized to save someone you hate while living a normal life, anyone’s hatred would only deepen.

Anyway, in that situation, he was very nervous when Rembrary’s name was suddenly mentioned during the meal.

“What does it have to do with it?”

Hye-gyeol laughed to himself as if Jong-woo’s question was very funny, then clapped his hands on the table and grabbed his stomach.

“Ah, just say it straight!”

When Keshie, who thought the sight was distracting, shouted, Hye-gyeol finally straightened his back and shouted.

“That Rembrary is having an autograph session too!”

“Wow.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Keshie clicked his tongue, and Jungseo naturally looked at Woo Yeon-woo. Jong-woo was no different.

But Hye-gyeol shook his head as if this wasn’t even a problem and continued.

“Do you know what’s even more crazy? The location.”

As Hye-gyeol grabbed his stomach and laughed again, Jong-woo, feeling frustrated, snatched his phone and checked the post he was looking at. Before long, Jong-woo’s eyes widened as well.

“Why, hyung? What about the location? Is it nearby?”

When Jungseo asked, Jong-woo stammered, handed the phone back to Hye-gyeol, and clicked his tongue.

“Nearby? Nearby is a mild level.”

“?”

“The location says ‘Next to Rapsus’.”

Keshie, who had started eating again as if he wasn’t interested, swallowed his food in surprise and coughed because the chili powder got stuck in his esophagus.

No way. Is there such a crazy person? No matter how crazy he is, that’s really ridiculous. Keshie looked at Jong-woo with tears in his eyes.

But Jong-woo didn’t have a joking face. He was looking at Woo Yeon-woo with concern.

Keshie also looked at Woo Yeon-woo. As Jungseo and Hye-gyeol also looked at him in succession, Woo Yeon-woo, who was eating curry with a spoon as small as a fingernail, felt their gaze, raised his head, and frowned.

“Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Did you hear?”

“I heard. So what.”

“No…… Rapsus left LLL, but you introduced him and helped him debut.”

Jong-woo said carefully, watching Woo Yeon-woo’s reaction. This was a fact that everyone working at LLL knew.

For this reason, although it was superficially ‘Rapsus VS Rembrary’, among those who knew this fact, this discord was also regarded as an extension of ‘Woo Yeon-woo VS Rembrary’.

The Woo Yeon-woo they knew was someone who would swing a sandbag and go wild as soon as he heard this fact.

“Should I bring you a sandbag?”

Hye-gyeol even asked worriedly, but Woo Yeon-woo chuckled and got up from his seat, saying nonchalantly.

“Everyone knows Rembrary is crazy. Rembrary is just being Rembrary, what’s so surprising? I guess he wants to compete.”

The group made similar expressions at the words that sounded even generous compared to Woo Yeon-woo’s usual self.

“You’re not angry?”

Jungseo, unable to stand it, even asked directly, but Woo Yeon-woo just answered “Uh” and went into the room.

The group looked at each other and shook their heads.

“I think he’s just too shocked to react like that?”

“Is Yeon-woo hyung swinging a pillow in his room? Should we move the monitor?”

“We should hang a sandbag.”

But Woo Yeon-woo, who came into the room, really wasn’t angry. He wasn’t angry, but in a state of confusion.

Because of the story that Woo Sung-woo told him after he came to his senses.

‘Seeing this, he seems the same as usual. ……That crazy guy saved hyung [older brother/close male friend]. Even though I attacked the god he followed so much.’