Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 32: An Unexpected Event

After finishing the live broadcast, we were all exhausted.

Thanks to cleaning the kitchen diligently during the show, we didn’t have anything else to tidy up.

“Ugh~. I was so nervous because it’s been a long time.”

Yi-jun stretched his long arms and legs and made a weird noise.

Normally, Seong-won would have spat out a sarcastic remark like ‘How can you be nervous with such a simple-minded intelligence?’ But he was too tired to say anything and kept his mouth shut.

“I had so much fun…! I got to communicate with the fans after a long time…”

He was the last person to say that, considering how he was at a loss for words when he faced the hateful comments before using the buff skill.

“Hey, you…”

“Forget it. It’s over and done with. You look fine, so that’s good.”

Seong-won tried to say something but was stopped by Kyunghwa. I felt the same way.

He didn’t need to know how much I worried about the side effects.

It was my responsibility to deal with them since I decided to take the risk. He could just take away the good memories and positive experiences.

But still… he was too hyper.

The others might think he ate something wrong.

‘As long as he’s satisfied, I guess.’

Everyone knew that the careless words thrown at Seon-woo were not meant for him alone.

Anyone could have been in his place. If Seon-woo didn’t have such a noticeable physique?

Seong-won’s lack of enthusiasm, Yi-jun’s lightness, Kyunghwa’s sense of direction, and my past (even though it was just a car accident) could have been exposed.

‘At least the mood changed quickly, so that’s a relief.’

Haters gonna hate. No matter what we do, some people will hate us.

Even the people who claim to like us will say hurtful things under the guise of ‘advice’ or ‘jokes’.

I was grateful that there were no more blatant and direct insults about our bodies.

‘No. Is this something to be grateful for?’

I felt a surge of anger, but it was already in the past. It was inevitable for a profession that lived on showmanship.

Even though it was inevitable, I didn’t want to accept it as normal. I backed up the chat log with a bitter taste in my mouth.

“At least we hit five thousand at the end.”

Kyunghwa captured the recorded broadcast screen and sighed in relief.

It was disappointing considering the increased followers and attention… but the climax was not the time to worry about that.

“How many viewers did we have the last time we did a live show?”

I should have asked earlier. I casually asked Kyunghwa, who detached his phone from the tripod and answered.

“About seven hundred and twenty, I think.”

We had improved a lot, considering that.

It was a pitiful number compared to other idols’ live shows that reached thirty thousand or even a hundred thousand.

We didn’t have any decent results, and we were on a downward trend. Failed idols.

It was impossible to say that we would see the light someday if we just worked hard like this.

‘You guys will make it someday. Even cheering for you feels sorry for your performance.’

People who have tasted real success can get up again after a few failures.

That’s how I was in my Lim Hyun-seong days.

But what about these guys?

They had endured this far without any real achievements. They suddenly seemed admirable to me.

‘Of course, to be honest, they’re cowards who stayed here because they had no confidence to do better elsewhere.’

But at the same time, they were gems that could shine brighter if they polished and refined themselves.

For the sake of my revenge, you guys have to cheer up. I smiled lightly and suggested it to the members.

“I’m going to order some delivery food. Anyone want something?”

Then their eyes lit up.

“You’re ordering food? Not making it yourself?”

Seon-woo was the first to look at me with a drooling expression.

You’re going to bore a hole in my face.

“I’m too tired to cook anything. And chicken or pizza is better to order than to make at home.”

“Then I want chicken!”

Seon-woo’s eyes sparkled like a puppy whining for a snack.

“You can only have oven-baked. Peel off the skin and eat the meat.”

“Okay!”

If you cut off all the greasy parts, it wouldn’t be much different from chicken breast.

I couldn’t understand why he was so excited, but I didn’t eat chicken, and he couldn’t eat it.

Of course, the desperation for chicken would be different.

“Think of today as a cheat day.”

It might be too strict to call it a cheat day.

I asked Kyunghwa to order two chickens, two large pizzas, and two pastas.

We stuffed our throats with junk food for a while, and then I took out the cookie dough that had been in the oven.

I didn’t know who put it in, and it looked like the person who made it didn’t have high expectations either. Some of them were even charred.

“Wow, this is really ruined.”

I finally scolded Yi-jun, who sounded strangely excited.

“What are you happy about? You’re going to eat this.”

“What? You’ll get sick if you eat this!”

I felt embarrassed as they filled their stomachs with pizza and chicken and made a fuss.

“That’s enough. I’m going to wash up and go to bed early. You guys clean up and go to sleep too. Seon-woo, stop eating.”

“Okay! I’ll go brush my teeth with you.”

Seon-woo, who had been gobbling up the chicken that Kyunghwa and I gave him, nodded his head as he filled his stomach with the leftover salad.

I’ll leave the future to the future Lim Hyun-seong. All I wanted was to give the present Lim Hyun-seong a break.

We brush our teeth side by side, took a quick shower in turn, and lay down on our beds.

When I turned off the light, I saw a stain on the ceiling wall that I hadn’t noticed before.

It was a star-shaped glow-in-the-dark sticker mark.

‘Was it left by the previous owner, or…’

Cheon Ise had never lived in this house from the beginning. Then it could have been left by the two members who left… or Jeong-hyeon, was it? That person.

‘Either way, it has nothing to do with me…’

Looking at the star that seemed to touch but not touch, I fell asleep feeling that my situation was not much different from now.

A goal that seemed within reach, but I didn’t know if it was a trap or a hope.

Would I be able to get my revenge if I succeeded as an idol? Or was I being played by the system?

I pushed away my worries for a moment, when I heard a woof! from somewhere.

‘Don’t doubt yourself!’

I laughed with a cracking smile, and Pposil barked again with a sound.

That’s right, I had no choice but to trust for now. I closed my eyes and calmed my breath, and Seon-woo came into the bedroom after washing up.

He tossed and turned for a while, bothering me while I pretended to be asleep.

‘Just sleep already!’

I was about to get up and scold him, but I decided to let it go, thinking he must have had a complicated day too.

Did he think of the moment he overcame the negative comments as a miracle?

Or did he gain courage to overcome them again in the future?

I wasn’t Seon-woo, so I would never know unless I asked him directly.

I forced myself to fall asleep, and soon I was asleep. It was the end of a long day.

***

After finishing the first live broadcast, we started to do things that were more ‘idol-like’. Cheon Ise got his first appearance offer.

It was only a short guest appearance for twenty minutes before the climax, but it was enough to make us happy.

‘It’s just a radio interview… I’ve done it several times when I was Lim Hyun-seong.’

I wasn’t unfamiliar with the broadcasting ecosystem, and it wasn’t my first time doing it, so I wasn’t too worried.

Until I heard who the host was.

“Yu-geon really liked you guys. He said he wanted to have you as guests no matter what.”

What? Was it him?

We were all excited about the group appearance schedule, but we deflated like popped balloons.

But still, we had something. I slapped my cheeks and came to my senses.

The storm of attention that felt like a dream on a summer night subsided, and the remaining number of followers was about 320,000.

‘It was up to 330,000 at one point…’

Was there not enough excitement? The unfollows and follows kept fighting, and it settled at 320,000.

Even if all these people were not our fans, they had the potential to become fans.

So let’s not be too happy or sad. I brushed my chest, thinking of the lukewarm response to the live show.

We had to keep showing them something to attract more fans.

What kind of charm we had, and what kind of achievement they could get by watching us.

‘That way… maybe the radio appearance would be a good promotion.’

It wasn’t the place I wanted, but I had to be grateful that they invited us.

“But what are we going to do there? We don’t even have a new song yet.”

Yi-jun yawned, tearing his mouth open, and asked with a dumb expression that looked like his brain was pure.

“Well, we’ll talk about the salad and cooking live show that made us famous. The clips from the live show were popular everywhere.”

I knew that too. I never imagined that it would spread again, since the viewers weren’t that many at the time.

The scenes where Yi-jun and Kyunghwa argued or Yi-jun made a bad dough were the talk of the town.

‘Now all we have to do is make the people who followed us out of curiosity into fans.’

The radio appearance was a week later. I had to come up with some ideas for what to do on the radio by then.

Finalizing the lyrics for the comeback single was of course something that had to be done at the same time.

I had to finish the arrangement and lyrics by this week. And I had to find a choreographer soon and outsource it.

It was hard to handle everything that I was ignorant of until now. I felt like I needed ten bodies.

It was supposed to be something that the company would take care of.

But since I said I would do it myself…

I had a pile of things to do on my own.

‘I can do it. I will do it.’

I repeated it like a spell, and after a few days of racking my brain, I succeeded in finalizing the lyrics three days before the radio appearance.

“Done!”

Both the members and I, after voting and revising countless times, came up with the best result.

‘This is as good as any professional lyricist.’

Maybe it was because I poured too much time and passion into it. I felt a confidence that I wasn’t sure if it was based on anything.

And then another hurdle came.

“Now that the lyrics are done…”

“We have to divide the parts.”

Seong-won cut in like a ghost. He never spoke first unless he was picking a fight, but he didn’t miss the timing.

It was obvious that the main vocal would get the most difficult and attention-grabbing part.

But the problem was me.

Son Seong-won or Na Seon-woo.

We hadn’t decided who to put in the center yet.