Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 6

6. Trying to Take Pictures

Rembrary didn’t know he was a terrible dancer.

It was because he had never danced before.

Of course, no one expected a high priest to dance at the temple.

But this was not obvious to the dance instructor and the members.

“Woo Yeonwoo. Pa pa pa papapa. Pa pa pa papapa. Just move to the beat, right?”

“The right hand goes up, the left hand goes down, then cross… isn’t that right?”

“The movements are right. But the beat is completely different.”

“…I’ll try again.”

Rembrary was flustered and did the movements as he had learned.

But the dance instructor’s expression showed no sign of improvement.

“Yeonwoo, uh—you do the movements well? But what is this? We’re not doing gymnastics, are we? Shouldn’t you match the music and movements a bit more?”

“Isn’t the right hand up at ‘La la’ la’, and the left hand down at ‘La la la’ la’?”

“I mean, the movements themselves are right.”

The dance instructor covered his head with both hands and asked.

“What should I say about this? Yeonwoo, have you ever seen a puppet show?”

“I have.”

“Even if you control the puppets well, their movements are a bit different from humans. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“That’s exactly what you’re like. Like a wooden puppet.”

“!”

“You memorize the dance well… but it doesn’t look like you’re dancing.”

“Is it that bad?”

“If you don’t want to become a weird meme, let’s do it properly, huh?”

But even after practicing for hours, it was no use.

The dance instructor sighed several times.

It wasn’t like he could just scold him, because he memorized every movement he was taught perfectly.

He memorized it and danced it, but the problem was that it looked ridiculous.

Seeing this, Jongwoo put his hand on his forehead.

He was already getting criticized for his personality.

If he went on stage in that state, he would be criticized even more for not dancing properly.

He was already feeling hopeless.

There’s noise marketing that works, and noise that only causes backlash.

Being insincere was neither noise marketing nor anything else.

“Make Yeonwoo practice a lot when you get back to the dorm.”

Jongwoo listlessly encouraged the other members.

But the situation was no different the next day.

Yeonwoo’s dance was still creaky and ridiculous.

“Hey, you guys. Did you even make him practice?”

It was so terrible that Jongwoo took it out on the other members.

“Aside from practicing or anything, he memorized the dance right away.”

“He has to practice dancing smoothly himself; there’s nothing we can do.”

As a result, when they went in for vocal training,

Jongwoo had half given up.

He lost his rhythm while losing his memories; he just accepted it.

It didn’t seem like his skills would improve even if he practiced for a few days.

The vocal trainer had also been told about Yeonwoo’s condition in advance by the dance instructor and met Yeonwoo without any expectations.

“Okay, here it is. Can you read sheet music?”

“I can’t read sheet music, but I memorized the notes.”

“What about the lyrics?”

“I’ve memorized almost all of them.”

Still not quite trusting, the vocal trainer handed over the sheet music with the lyrics written on it.

“Sing it.”

However, the moment the song started,

The eyes of the listless vocal trainer began to sparkle.

Jongwoo, who was leaning against the wall in a half-abandoned state, also

“Huh?”

and widened his eyes.

The members who were betting among themselves on how bad Yeonwoo was also flinched.

Rembrary hummed and finished the song, then lowered the sheet music and was startled.

All six of them were looking at him with strange expressions.

“Why is that?”

When Rembrary asked, they were flustered and couldn’t even speak properly.

After a long time, the vocal trainer shouted, mixing in curses.

“Crazy, wow, this bastard, when did his singing skills improve so much?!”

Rembrary shrugged nonchalantly.

He had never danced, but he had sung hymns since he was an apprentice.

He sang hymns at least twice a day until he became a high priest and practiced even more on special days.

Even after becoming a high priest, he sang often.

Singing was a very good way to infuse and spread divine power evenly.

“I’m a pretty good singer.”

“Pretty good? You’re very good! Not just the singing, but your tone is the best!”

“Is that so.”

“You don’t have any technique, but your tone is so good that it looks cleaner. It’s like you’re saying, ‘I’m going to win with just my tone without any fancy techniques!'”

The vocal trainer clapped and praised him, then asked Jongwoo.

“Why are you wasting such a good voice? Shouldn’t we make Yeonwoo’s voice the main one for the next song?”

Jongwoo stopped clapping and nodded unconsciously.

Certainly.

It was a tone that could be expected for a solo.

With that kind of tone, he would definitely attract at least a niche audience.

However, Jongwoo was so impressed with the unexpected tone that he didn’t notice that the expressions of the main vocalist Keshi and the lead vocalist Taein had darkened.

* * *

“But can a person’s voice suddenly change like that?”

It was when they got into the moving vehicle that they called ‘car’ instead of ‘carriage’ and took their seats.

As soon as the door closed and the car started, Keshi muttered softly.

Rembrary took out his cell phone and was about to explore the internet when he glanced at Keshi.

The yellow-haired Keshi was resting his chin on the window with a sullen expression.

“If you can’t dance well when you used to dance well, you can sing well when you couldn’t sing well, you son of a bitch,” Hye Gyeol said on behalf of Rembrary, with her usual rough language.

Keshi didn’t answer with a sulky face.

Instead, this time, the lead vocalist Taein said coldly.

“You’re in charge of dancing, so you might be glad that Yeonwoo can’t dance, but we don’t need three vocalists over here.”

Again, Hye Gyeol retorted on behalf of Rembrary.

“The more members who can sing well, the better. We should ask them to do a vocal unit once.”

The leader, Jeongseo, was looking at her cell phone and didn’t say anything, and Jongwoo was busy talking on the phone in the front seat.

Rembrary noticed that the atmosphere had become strange and glanced at the members.

He realized that Taein and Keshi, whose positions overlapped, were wary of him after hearing his song.

It wasn’t that they were very wary yet, but it seemed clear that they were stimulated.

Rembrary smiled bitterly and lowered his gaze to his cell phone.

When he was a priest in the original world, this kind of thing happened.

No, it was even more so because divine power was 100% determined only by God’s love.

No matter how well he followed the rules, prayed hard, and acted morally, if God favored the person next to him, that was the end.

Because of this situation, there was always an invisible war of nerves going on in the temple.

After becoming a high priest, that kind of thing disappeared completely, but before becoming a high priest, Rembrary was also subjected to a lot of checks.

‘This is all because I’m so great.’

Rembrary nodded, convinced by himself.

It was then.

Jongwoo, who had been on the phone the whole time, suddenly

“Yes!”

he shouted loudly.

Then he turned around in the front seat and called Rembrary.

“Yeonwoo! Woo Yeonwoo!”

When Rembrary put down his cell phone and looked at him, he shouted excitedly.

“Do you know the writer Song Daebaek? A photographer. Affiliated with House of JJ.”

“?”

“Well, you don’t even know your age, so there’s no way you’d know him. He’s a photographer who’s rising in popularity right now. He wants to take your picture for his website promotion!”

Rembrary searched for ‘photographer’ on the internet.

It was because he didn’t even understand what a photographer was, let alone Song Daebaek.

However, the members who immediately recognized Song Daebaek’s name let out short exclamations.

“Doesn’t that photographer have a lot of personal fans?”

“He’s very popular on Instagram.”

“That’s right.”

Rembrary searched for photographer, photo, shooting, etc., and then raised his head.

Jongwoo was looking at him as if he had stars in his eyes.

“Is this a good thing? That much?”

“Honestly, the amount [of money] isn’t that big. But he has a lot of personal fans, so it’s really good for raising awareness and recognition.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Besides, he wants to put it on his website for promotion, so if that photographer promotes himself with your picture, you might get contacted separately later after someone notices your picture. Like an advertising company or another photographer…”

Taein muttered that he was drinking the soup before the rice cake was even made [being overly optimistic].

Jongwoo cleared his throat and continued.

“He must have liked the Osola interview pictorial. He said that you have a clean, priestly expression despite your arrogant mouth? He really wants to take a picture of that.”

“…He has quite the eye.”

Jongwoo frowned at Rembrary’s admiration, taking it as showing off, and urged him.

“Woo Yeonwoo. You can’t show off until you become famous. Of course, you can’t do it even after you become famous.”

Rembrary nodded, and Taein sneered softly.

“It’s so easy to gain popularity.”

The leader, Jeongseo, shook her head silently at Taein, telling him not to do that.

Taein closed his mouth, and Jeongseo patted Rembrary on the back.

And after focusing only on vocal training and dance practice for two days,

On Wednesday, only Rembrary went with Jongwoo to the pure white building that Song Daebaek told them to come to.

Jongwoo explained that the place was a studio.

When they entered the building, there was a person who was so skinny that he looked like a thorn [very thin].

The person was holding a machine similar to the one the photographer of Osola had, but bigger.

Above the building, there were things that looked like umbrellas turned upside down, and pure white makeshift walls were set up.

Around them, men and women in comfortable clothes were walking around, cleaning up the tangled black lines on the floor.

“This way.”

Jongwoo pulled Rembrary and approached the skinny person, quickly handing over his business card and greeting him.

“I’m Lee Jongwoo, the Wild Animal manager at LLL Entertainment.”

The skinny person received the business card and muttered, groping around his buttocks.

“Ah, my business card. I don’t have one.”

“It’s okay.”

It seemed that the skinny person was Song Daebaek.

While Jongwoo was greeting Song Daebaek, Rembrary carefully examined the studio.

He had learned how to search the internet, but he was only at the level of entering words and looking up explanations.

He was at a loss, being in a place full of such large machines that he didn’t even know the names of.

Song Daebaek, who had finished greeting Jongwoo, looked at Rembrary and muttered.

“Woo Yeonwoo? He looks better in person.”

Only then did Rembrary realize that he hadn’t greeted Song Daebaek, but Song Daebaek didn’t seem to care.

Only Jongwoo was screaming silently belatedly.

Rembrary raised his eyebrows.

He was a photographer, but.

Song Daebaek was staring at his face so hard that it was burdensome.

Then, he finally smiled as if giving a score.

“It’s amazing that you haven’t become famous with this face for three years.”

Jongwoo carefully interjected.

“Um, Song, the writer-nim [term of respect]. I brought him in a no-makeup state as you said. But shouldn’t we prepare something before shooting?”

“Let’s take a picture in a no-makeup state first. If you take a picture in that state and check it, it’s easy to see what kind of makeup would be better.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Jongwoo hesitated and stepped back as Song Daebaek approached Rembrary, telling him to come this way to the white makeshift wall.

Rembrary followed him without knowing what to do next.

Jongwoo said that when taking pictures, you just have to stay still or do as you’re told.

It was difficult to understand the principle of photography with just those words.

Song Daebaek, who had placed Rembrary in front of the makeshift wall, nodded and stepped back, then raised the strange and large machine he had been holding to his eyes.

Then, he stared at Rembrary through the machine and asked dryly.

“How much exposure is possible?”

“What?”

“How much can you take off?”

“!”