Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 276 Side Story 07. So We Can Be Together

“Let’s go quickly. It’ll be tasteless if it gets cold.”

As I snapped my fingers to tell him to fasten his seat belt, Hwijin obediently set up the camera and clipped the buckle.

“You’re pretty reliable most of the time, but sometimes you’re too lax.”

As I tapped the steering wheel with my fingertips and started the car, Hwijin smiled with a melancholic face.

“It’s fine to give autographs to the fans as much as they want. But the schedule and safety are the most important things, and if we sign at a random place, it’s like I’m vouching for the taste. What if it’s bad and people curse us?”

As I nagged him with various complaints, he laughed out loud, ha ha.

“‘This time’ ‘the taste’ was good. Did you see the kitchen there? You can’t expect hygiene in the countryside, but… it’s an unknown thing, you know. Next time it might be bad.”

“Don’t worry too much. It’ll be fine.”

He’s so calm in strange places. I lightly clicked my tongue and looked outside the window, and the scenery was endlessly peaceful.

“I waited and thought it would be fine when you collapsed, so what.”

Ugh. I didn’t want to bring up that unpleasant topic, so I pretended to focus on driving and avoided it.

“Every matter is so shaky and precarious… when time passes and I look back, it’ll be something I didn’t have to worry about so much.”

I nodded quietly at Hwijin’s rather old-fashioned remark.

“I don’t know that while it’s happening. I can’t be sure what will happen in the future, so I’m shaken and anxious…”

But still, all I can do is try my best to live in the present.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Honestly, I can’t agree with the saying that life is more fun because of that. I have no choice but to try to enjoy the present.”

As soon as I finished speaking, ha ha, Hwijin laughed out loud.

“You sound just like I expected.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is a compliment.”

I shrugged my shoulders and soon parked the car in the area marked as a parking lot.

“Woo~. Why are you so late! You only gave us work, and stopped by some weird place and ate by yourselves, right?”

I had nothing to say to Yi-jun’s criticism. It wasn’t really our fault, but it was true that we were late because we ate somewhere else.

“That’s not it. We bought snacks too, so let’s eat quickly and do it.”

Hwijin smiled brightly and spoke, and Yi-jun obediently sat down and prepared the table as Hwijin told him.

How unfair is that? The one who made us arrive late didn’t hear anything and I was the only one scolded.

I was annoyed, but it would only look suspicious if I made more excuses here.

As I quietly sat down and ate the snack with useless chatter, Seon-woo’s hand sneaked towards the fried food.

“No fried food for you.”

As I stopped Seon-woo firmly, he looked at Hwijin with disappointed eyes.

“I can’t help it either… It’s the boss, you know, the CEO.”

Then Seon-woo gave up on the fried food and obediently ate the blood sausage. Naru, who deliberately put the shrimp fried food in his mouth as if to show off to Seon-woo, was really annoying. Ř

“You’ll grow sideways if you eat more.”

And at that moment, Yu-geon took advantage of the gap and snatched the shrimp fried food that Naru had pulled in front of him and put it in his mouth.

“Hey, what!”

“I’m fine because I exercise a lot. You don’t move your body, so you have to be careful with what you eat.”

Even if you only look at the weight, Yu-geon’s side would be much heavier. But Naru was so skinny without any muscles, so there was nothing wrong with Yu-geon’s words.

“Ah, how mean! I’ll grow too, you know? What will you do when I’m bigger than you?”

How can that be possible? Even if he grew 10cm at once, it would be impossible to be bigger than Yu-geon.

“Hmm…”

“Why are you all avoiding my eyes?”

Why do you think so? I shook my shoulders and turned my head, trying to hold back my laughter. Then, snap, the flash went off and the main PD waved his hand at us.

“I thought this angle was perfect for taking a picture, so I took one.”

The main PD’s hand held a small Polaroid camera. Wasn’t it too small to fit all eight of us?

As soon as the developed picture came out, I saw that all eight of us were somehow squeezed into the screen.

It’s really a skill to take a picture like this. Is that why he’s a PD? As I was thinking about useless things, Yi-jun said something absurd.

“This looks like our jacket photo.”

“Huh?”

As everyone looked at the picture in Yi-jun’s words, it was true that the composition was similar to the jacket photo we took at the Property set.

“Oh, it really does.”

There was a difference between wearing stylish suits that the stylists prepared and wearing casual work clothes with rice cakes and blood sausages in front of us.

As we all passed the picture around and emptied the plates, Naru suddenly asked.

“By the way, when is our next activity after Offbeat?”

Maybe it wouldn’t be bad to release another single by the end of the year, I said as I chewed and swallowed a piece of sundae.

“Do you think we can do one more single by the end of the year?”

“What, are you going to spend the rest of the time leisurely doing events and shows?”

“That’s not bad either.”

Everyone was chatting as they ate, and it was peaceful. Usually, when it was this quiet, someone would cause trouble.

As I was clearing away the dishes, Naru screamed again.

“Ahh, go away. Ahh, I hate it~!”

“What is it?”

“A bee?”

I looked at where Naru was, and a small honey bee was flying around, looking for strawberry flowers far away from Naru.

“Why are you freaking out over something so far away?”

As I said that, Seong-won’s face turned pale and he slowly backed away.

“What are you so scared of? You’re like a billion times bigger than it.”

“That might not be true.”

“Not true?”

Naru whimpered and hid behind Yu-geon, and another commotion broke out. I knew it was too quiet.

I snorted and finished harvesting the remaining lines, and the shooting was over.

That was how the day ended, with a little more than a month left until the regular album release.

“Please enter in order and don’t run or hurry. Please keep order and follow the instructions!”

Shutter sounds were ringing everywhere, and the excited fans’ conversations sounded like local broadcasts. This was the main hall for events at a large shopping mall.

“You don’t have to run, so please move slowly!”

There were 100 fans sitting in their seats, looking at us, and I felt tense on the stage.

“Is this our first time having a full-house fan signing?”

I asked cautiously, and Kyunghwa answered with a sour face.

“Be quiet. You don’t have to say that. Everyone knows that our fan signings always had empty seats.”

It made sense. I was not familiar with anything, since this was the first time we had a fan signing lottery for album buyers.

I roughly knew how to do it, since I saw a lot of videos on the internet, and I prepared myself by thinking about how to answer the expected questions.

‘But still… they all bought hundreds of copies to win, so I feel like I have to repay them somehow.’

When we started the meeting to decide the package for the album sales, I was amazed by the unexpected tricks.

Do we really have to sell so many physical albums? I wasn’t so clueless to ask that.

Climax was basically a group that was strong in digital music, but we hadn’t released a physical album in the meantime.

‘If our digital ranking is high, but our album sales are low, they’ll say we bought machines and ran macros.’

Not because I cared about what others said, but because I wanted the fans to keep cheering us on with pride.

Anyway, we had to increase the album sales, but I didn’t want the fans to buy a lot of useless stuff. After a long time of thinking, we came up with the idea of selling a ‘donation certificate’ in physical form.

‘A donation certificate?’

The marketing team members all tilted their heads at first, but soon nodded.

We changed the package form from a normal CD package or photobook to a flat certificate case. The paper package, which contained a flat and thin USB, photocards, and a donation certificate, was all made of recycled materials.

‘Why… did the price go up when we used recycled materials instead of normal ones? It’s a bit unfair…’

The neat and aesthetic album donated a certain percentage of the profit to children with malnutrition every time one was purchased.

Whether they bought 10 or 100, the small package that fit in two palms made some fans feel awkward, but it got a positive response from the bulk buyers.

‘Everyone who came here… bought at least hundreds of copies.’

I felt heavy with the unexpected sales.

‘I didn’t know it would sell that well.’

I couldn’t believe it when I saw the first day count over 100,000. Of course, it would have been nothing to Floss, who always had a million first week sales!

I doubted my eyes when I confirmed the unbelievable number of 412,000 for the final first week record.

The fans seemed to expect that we would have more career highs in the future.

We’re not nobodies anymore. I was worried about today with a fluttering and trembling heart, and I couldn’t sleep for a few days.

It wasn’t just about the money, but I didn’t want to disappoint the fans who sacrificed that much for us.

“Hyung, look over there.”

As I was caught up in my determination not to disappoint them, Yi-jun tapped my arm. I looked at where Yi-jun pointed, and a fan with a camera as big as his head was taking a picture of me.

“That person and the one over there by the entrance are taking pictures of you, so look at them.”

How do you know that? I was about to ask, but the face-to-face started right away, and I greeted them hastily.

“Hello!”

“Hello! Wow, you look even more handsome in real life, oppa.”

“Ah, thank you.”

What should I say now? I wanted to show you my best appearance, so I took good care of myself. As I was hesitating, the fan handed me a note with something scribbled on it.

[Q. What is the most important thing to Ise?]

I could answer this! I took the pen without hesitation and wrote.

[A. Rise^^]

It might seem like a revealing answer, but it was a broad question in many ways. To be precise, it was the people who supported me.

As I inherited someone else’s life, I had a duty to live up to their expectations. My life was not only mine. The company people, the members, and the fans, and even my family.

As I glanced around and met the fan’s eyes, they were so happy and excited for me. I moved on to the next one without a break and met all 100 of them. By the end, I couldn’t even remember what I had said. But the energy I received throughout the talk show remained vivid in my memory.

As the event was coming to a close, the leader asked me to say a final farewell. I gripped the microphone and opened my mouth.

“First of all, thank you so much for supporting and trusting us until today. We will work hard to not disappoint your expectations in the future. Let’s try to become better people together.”

“Wow, such a sermon from the principal~.”

The whole hall burst into laughter at Yi-jun’s playful remark, and the event ended.

‘This is not the end. I’ll have to do this countless times from now on.’

I hoped I could keep the same tension until then. I left the hall surrounded by guards and staff, feeling both heavy and light. The steps to becoming a better person had just begun.