Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 69

< 69. Can You See Her? >

As their eyes met, Rembrary sped up, closing the distance to Jongwoo.

“Hey, why are you following me!”

“It is my nature to instinctively reach out with my hands and feet to those who are sick and suffering.”

“Are you going to hit me?”

“I just want to take a look.”

Sagamjae said he was dead, but that guy is suspicious, so it’s hard to believe him.

Rembrary intended to see the dead man with his own eyes.

If the external wounds weren’t too severe, he was willing to discreetly heal him.

“Wow, so you’re going to watch someone die? Are you brothers with Sagamjae?”

“We are all brothers.”

“Count me out!”

Jongwoo said firmly, but he didn’t stop running.

“Indeed. Jongwoo, if you were brothers with me and Gamjae, people would wonder if you were the result of exclusive maternal inheritance or paternal inheritance.”

Jongwoo wanted to punch Rembrary just three times, but he kept running anyway.

“Jongwoo, aren’t you proud that I even know terms like maternal and paternal inheritance?”

“Shut that mouth of yours!”

Panting, Jongwoo stopped silently and took out his phone because he had found the person he was looking for.

He called 119 [South Korea’s emergency telephone number, like 911 in the US], bent down, and checked the pulse of the collapsed person’s neck with his fingers.

– Yes, what’s the matter?

“There’s someone dead here.”

– Where is the location?

“It’s behind XX Studio…”

While Jongwoo was explaining the location, Rembrary half-closed his eyes next to the deceased and prayed for him.

He was talking about becoming a spirit or something. This time, Sagamjae was right. This person was already dead.

Jongwoo looked at Rembrary praying like he was crazy, but he just thought it was his personal religion and explained the location to the paramedics in as much detail as possible.

“Yes. Yes. No, I don’t know him. Yes. No, I’m not sure if he collapsed alone or was attacked… Yes.”

Then Jongwoo’s pupils grew so large that they covered his entire eyes.

Rembrary, who seemed to be praying quietly, suddenly raised his hand as if he was about to strike the dead man and quickly brought it down.

“Don’t touch the body!”

Jongwoo hurriedly grabbed Rembrary’s arm and clung to it.

– Yes? Is someone attacking? Should we send 112 [South Korea’s police emergency number] together?

“No, it’s not that-”

“Jongwoo. Let go of my hand.”

“I said don’t touch the body!”

– I’ll send 112!

“No, it’s not that, ah, come on! Can’t you take the strength out of your hand?”

– Is it a dangerous situation?

“No, but can’t you hang up the phone?”

Jongwoo was flustered by the voices coming from both sides.

Rembrary shook his hand a few times to shake Jongwoo off, but when he didn’t let go, he sighed and took the strength out of his hand.

“This is a disaster. Jongwoo, you ruined it.”

What Rembrary was trying to do with the body wasn’t exactly trying to hit the body.

During the prayer, Rembrary discovered an evil spirit attached to his shadow slowly approaching the dead man. The way it was slowly crawling as if it shouldn’t be caught was clearly full of ulterior motives.

So he quickly tried to shake off the evil spirit, but Jongwoo clung to him and stopped him, and in the end, the shadow touched the body.

Rembrary repeatedly said, “It’s your fault, Jongwoo,” and lowered his hand.

“Ruined what,”

Just in time, Jongwoo, who had hung up with the paramedics, was about to get angry at Rembrary when he screamed and fell backward.

The corpse, which he had clearly confirmed had no pulse, was opening its eyes wide.

“U-um, hello?”

Jongwoo was surprised and called out to the dead man, no, the man who he thought was dead but had come back to life.

Before Jongwoo could get an answer, he stepped back.

The man who he thought was dead rolled his eyes and looked at him.

Jongwoo felt a chill down his spine and swallowed hard.

What should I do? He looks a little scary right now, but is it just because of the situation? But don’t his eyes look really strange?

While Jongwoo was wavering between fear and reason.

Rembrary slapped his palm against the wide-eyed man’s eyes and scolded him.

“You rascal!”

“Hey, hey!”

Jongwoo, who had lost all fear at the sight, grabbed Rembrary again in shock.

But Jongwoo screamed again in horror and let go of Rembrary.

As soon as he grabbed Rembrary, the man who had woken up from the dead suddenly stood up and started rushing forward.

“Uh oh? He’s running!”

Jongwoo shouted in horror, and Rembrary slipped out of Jongwoo’s hand and quickly ran after the dead man.

“Hey? Why are you, ah, really!”

Jongwoo cursed and ran after Rembrary in a daze. An urgent siren was heard in the distance.

As they continued to run, the phone rang again.

“Hello?”

– Please confirm the location again. I came to the place you mentioned, but no one is there?

It seemed to be the 119 paramedic he had called earlier.

“Ah, I’m sorry. The corpse earlier, suddenly that corpse, no, the person who was a corpse woke up and is running!”

– Yes?

“I’m following him right now, I’ll call you again when I confirm the location, hello? No, I’m not kidding!”

* * *

Jungseo frowned at the sound of the siren coming from not far away.

He checked the clock on the wall of the waiting room and then his cell phone clock.

It was almost time for the 1st place announcement, so they had to go on stage. He was worried that Rembrary, who had chased after Jongwoo, hadn’t come, let alone Jongwoo.

“Damn it, what should we do? I think we’ll have to go out by ourselves?”

Hyegeol asked anxiously.

“That guy always gets into an accident as soon as he seems to be doing okay.”

Keshie clicked his tongue.

Taein got angry at Hyegeol for no reason.

“Stop cursing, it feels like my ears are rotting. It’s like a little kid has a rag in his mouth.”

“I’m not easy, you know?”

“What?”

Jungseo waved his hand to stop Hyegeol and Taein, who were about to fight again, checked the clock again, and finally came to a conclusion.

“I don’t think we can. We’ll have to go out by ourselves.”

Hyegeol asked, frightened.

“If Yeonwoo hyung [older brother or male friend] doesn’t come out, they’ll probably chew us out in a weird way. They’ll find fault for no reason.”

“If he doesn’t come out at all, they’ll chew us out even more. Let’s make an excuse that he was sick later and go out for now.”

Jungseo looked at Sagamjae and asked, “Will it be okay?”

Sagamjae was still an unreliable manager, but he asked out of courtesy since he was still the manager.

Sagamjae nodded, and the members left the waiting room and joined the idols who were lining up on the stage.

In the meantime, Sagamjae took out a very old-fashioned small cell phone, not the one he usually carried for external use, and pressed the number 1 button.

– Yes, hello.

It wasn’t long before the other person answered the phone.

The person who answered the phone was a woman with a very low and husky voice.

Sagamjae lowered his voice as well, even though he was alone in the waiting room.

“I’m in a situation where I can’t get out right now. Remember that fake saint we saw before? Find him now.”

– Hey, I’m really busy right now!

“Did a big accident happen or something?”

– A dead person who is totally my type has appeared! But he’s also showing unusual interest in me!

“…My death sentence is also showing interest in your neck.”

– You bastard! It’s all your fault that I’ve been single for 179 years! Why are you always bothering me when I’m busy?

“There’s no difference between 179 years and 180 years. Find the fake saint first.”

– Find him and what! What do you want me to do!

“Exactly. Just watch what he’s doing.”

After finishing the call, Sagamjae put the small cell phone in his pocket, held the external cell phone in his hand, and went out of the waiting room.

When he went to the front of the stage where the staff was standing, he saw the Wild Animal members standing in the second row of the stage.

The man and woman who were the MCs were joking back and forth, but the Wild Animal members behind them didn’t look good.

It couldn’t be helped.

Sagamjae didn’t see it, but Jungseo originally took the members to the back row and stood there. Since Yeonwoo wasn’t there, he intended to bury himself in the back row on purpose.

However, the FD [Floor Director], who didn’t want to put Wild Animal, which had recently risen to prominence, in the back seat, deliberately sent a staff member to bring the Wild Animal members to the front seat.

Since they had come all the way to the second row, the members couldn’t help but be embarrassed.

When the ranking was tallied and the 1st place was announced, they clapped as much as everyone else and bowed 90 degrees, but the members were worried that the antis [anti-fans] would notice that Yeonwoo was absent.

That concern came true.

About 15 minutes later, stories slowly started appearing on social media that Wooyeonwoo was absent when the 1st place was announced.

It wasn’t just the fans who knew the members’ schedules.

After confirming that Wooyeonwoo had no schedule after that, the enthusiastic antis whispered that Wooyeonwoo didn’t come out when the 1st place ranking was announced because he didn’t like that they weren’t in 1st place. Of course, it didn’t matter whether that was true or not.

They didn’t feel guilty either. Rather, they were proud of the fact that Wooyeonwoo was already arrogant before he had even properly risen to fame, and that they had caught that arrogant behavior early on.

Yeonwoo’s name suddenly appeared in the 1st place article comments and was criticized.

There was also incitement disguised as criticism that it hadn’t been long since the scandal had been buried, but it was already happening again.

Jungseo checked Yeonwoo’s name, which was slowly appearing on the Internet, and called Jongwoo again.

* * *

At that time.

Rembrary, who had succeeded in finding the revived corpse, put divine power into his palm and struck the corpse’s back.

As divine power entered, the dead man, who had been trying to run around recklessly, collapsed forward again.

Jongwoo, who had been running breathlessly, almost fainted when he saw that.

From Jongwoo’s point of view, it only looked like Rembrary had struck the person who had woken up from the dead again and made him fall.

“Hello? Yes, here, it’s near XX convenience store. Yes. It stopped here. No, it collapsed again.”

Jongwoo leaned against the wall and talked to the 119 paramedic again.

In the meantime, Rembrary checked if the fallen man was alive, and when he realized that he was still breathing, he attempted divine power healing.

He intended to heal him completely in the meantime since Jongwoo was busy talking on the phone.

However, the fallen man did not wake up. His body had already fully recovered when Rembrary struck his eyes with divine power earlier, so it wasn’t recovering any further.

‘But why isn’t he waking up?’

Rembrary recalled what Sagamjae had said and clicked his tongue.

He said he had safely become a spirit and gone somewhere.

His body had recovered first while his soul had left, and the departed soul had not yet returned. As a result, he must have been in an ambiguous state where his body was fine but he couldn’t wake up.

‘Still, seeing that he’s not dead, it seems like his soul is nearby…’

Rembrary left Jongwoo alone and ran off to find the soul again.

Fortunately, he was able to find the soul not far away this time.

Rembrary quickly ran towards it, but he couldn’t catch the soul.

A woman in a black suit had grabbed the soul’s nape one step ahead.

Rembrary recognized the woman’s face.

It was the woman who had stood with Sagamjae at the funeral.

The woman and Rembrary’s eyes met.

The woman raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. Her gaze seemed to say, ‘Are you chasing after the soul right now?’

< 69. Can You See Her? > End