Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 224 Don’t Push Yourself Too Hard

“What the hell… What is this noise?”

Kyunghwa, who had just woken up from a deep sleep because of the music playing on the phone speaker, rubbed his eyes and came out to the living room.

He wondered what was going on so early in the morning, but he was shocked to see Yi-jun lying on the sofa as if he had collapsed.

“What’s wrong with him? Why is he like this?”

Kyunghwa quickly shook Yi-jun to wake him up and check his condition, but Yi-jun muttered in his sleep without opening his eyes.

“Umm… I’ll get up later, um… Just leave me alone…”

He wasn’t in pain. He had been working all night and was tense until he heard the OK sign, and then he fell asleep as soon as he relaxed.

“Don’t overdo it. Tsk. Just let him sleep for now. We still have time before we leave.”

Kyunghwa tried to lift Yi-jun and move him to the bed, but the muscular lump over 185cm didn’t budge.

Kyunghwa soon gave up and nodded as if he understood.

“You can sleep more if you’re sleepy. We’ll have breakfast and go out today.”

Kyunghwa, who heard my words, checked his phone and went into his room.

Then he opened the door again as if he was surprised by something he saw on the group chat.

“Oh, did you share your work last night and come in the morning?”

His expression was both surprised and pleased, as if he liked Yi-jun’s version a lot.

“Well, we’ll talk about it later, so just leave him alone for now.”

Kyunghwa looked down at Yi-jun with a strange mix of emotions on his face. What was the point of being jealous of a talent that could only be called a genius?

It didn’t change the innate skill to consume emotions and suffer. It was better to face what I could do than to be in pain over what I didn’t have.

Fortunately, Kyunghwa was not the type who was lacking or inferior, even though he didn’t have an outstanding talent, and he had a rational judgment.

“Are you jealous?”

I asked him as I prepared some salad leaves in advance, and Kyunghwa nodded quietly.

“Of course I am.”

Well. There was probably no one here who wouldn’t be jealous… No, Seong-won wouldn’t be.

He had no talent for making music, but he had a talent for singing that was worthy of a former idol, so he wouldn’t care about Yi-jun’s producing skills. I could imagine him saying ‘Why should I?’ if I asked him.

“People have different talents.”

I added as if to comfort him, and Kyunghwa nodded slowly.

“But I’m still jealous.”

“Don’t be too discouraged. You have your own strengths. And you did well on the audition.”

Kyunghwa raised his voice as if he wanted to stop talking about it.

“Don’t talk about that. I just decided to focus on the fact that it went well.”

After the chaos at the Sapporo airport, Kyunghwa got an audition right away and secured a role.

What I arranged for him was just an audition, not a role, so it was almost the same as him getting it with his own strength.

‘It’s a shame that he’s not the main male lead.’

You can’t have it all. It was a great achievement to get a role with a significant weight.

“Sub male lead? That’s almost like a lead, isn’t it?”

I asked him to confirm, and Kyunghwa nodded.

“Yeah. I’m glad it doesn’t seem like a minor role.”

The role Kyunghwa got was a supporting lead in a web drama based on a popular webtoon. It was a romantic comedy about the events that happen when a young male employee joins a lingerie company full of women, and Kyunghwa’s role was ‘Hee-won’, a high school student next door who had a crush on the female protagonist.

‘Isn’t it a bit weird to wear a school uniform at 24?’

Kyunghwa was embarrassed even after he got the role, but no one agreed with him.

‘There are people who play high school students even in their thirties, and you’re 25 and look young, so what’s the problem? Are you lying about your age?’

Thanks to Yi-jun, who cut him off before he dug deeper, Kyunghwa seemed to feel a bit relieved.

‘He still seems embarrassed though.’

“Do your best. You’re the only one in our group who can act.”

Then Kyunghwa waved his hand and denied it right away.

“That’s not true.”

“No, it’s true. Can you imagine Yi-jun acting?”

“Uh…”

Kyunghwa hesitated for a moment, then burst out laughing.

He probably remembered the last music video shoot.

“Pfft. No way.”

“What about Seong-won?”

“Ah… That’s definitely not.”

If I asked Seong-won to act, he would complain that he wanted to be a singer, not an actor.

“What about Seon-woo?”

“Ah…”

This time, Kyunghwa didn’t say anything and just nodded his head quietly.

“I’ll try my best.”

Seon-woo had the potential to be an actor, considering his face and proportions… But he was not only slow at memorizing lines, he was also terrible at Korean.

It would have been better for him to just make money from CFs, relying on his face alone, rather than trying to act and getting criticized for his poor performance.

‘It’s better not to try at all than to get hurt by being called a bad actor.’

He could manage his idol activities with the help of his fellow members and his own hard work.

But if he was dropped into a drama or movie set, where he had to work with more staff and in real time…

‘I don’t even want to imagine it.’

There are some things in the world that you can’t do, no matter how well your face suits them. I nodded and took off the apron that I had tied around my waist, after preparing breakfast and a salad lunchbox.

Kyunghwa, who was sitting next to Yi-jun and playing the work repeatedly, suddenly asked me.

“Don’t you want to try something else? Like variety shows or acting?”

He must have been curious, since the other members were branching out into other activities besides being idols. I answered him right away.

“I don’t want to add more work and die from overwork.”

I was already at my limit, trying to prepare for the single and run the company at the same time.

“Ah, right, true.”

“Just hang in there a little longer. I’m working hard so we can get paid from the next activity.”

I had managed to sell the rights of ‘Holiday with Offbeat’, which was edited into eight episodes, to an OTT service company.

‘But it’s still a long way to go until we get paid.’

We had invested tens of billions of won in our activities, which had been wasted by Climax, so we were still far from breaking even.

Drink Me’s merchandise and music sales were not bad, and Seong-won’s music revenue from Star Discovery was quite decent.

But the main source of income for idol entertainment was concerts and events. The biggest amount we had earned so far was from Seong-won’s guest appearance at the Star Discovery concert. The reason why I used the past tense was…

‘Because we got a good deal for the rights this time.’

Climax’s profit and loss by activity, which had been negative for a long time, finally turned positive. I decided to take that as a sign of hope.

It was a good deal, considering that we didn’t have exclusivity.

‘It must have helped that there were three former Floss members in the cast.’

It was a good condition that we could premiere three weeks ahead of the partner site, and then upload it to the official YouTube account of Composition.

‘It’s just the beginning…’

We had announced the official activities of the eight members through an article. For the sake of communication with the three former Floss members, who were refraining from external variety shows for a while, we had also requested to open a Y-app channel exclusively for Offbeat.

‘Let me check the reactions before I wake up the rest of them.’

I had been too busy with stressful things lately, so I hadn’t checked my subscription account for a while. The last post I saw was from two weeks ago.

[- I’m so sad that Climax didn’t get any awards.]

[ㄴ They’re not rookies, and their performance wasn’t overwhelming enough to get a grand prize or a main prize, so I guess there’s nothing we can do.]

[- Are they not doing anything for the end-of-year stage?]

[ㄴ It seems like Seon-woo is doing it as an MC.]

[- The end-of-year W-Planet is like a photo album.]

Most of the comments expressed regret that they didn’t have any notable activities at the end of the year. There were no offers, but when we were about to get some offers for a collaboration with Floss, the Floss scandal broke out and everything went downhill.

‘Thanks to that, we had no time to spare.’

Of course, the music industry, which had no doubt that Floss would sweep most of the awards before they ended their activities, was also in chaos.

It was the most empty and chaotic end of the year in the history of the music industry.

‘So what’s the latest reaction?’

I cautiously scrolled down and refreshed the list. There were a lot of exciting records from the last Y-app broadcast.

[- I’m going crazyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ As soon as I turned on the Y-app, Yu-geon and Sebeoji were fighting.]

[ㄴ ??? Isn’t this Climax’s Y-app? Why is Yu-geon here??]

[ㄴ I don’t know, maybe they’re doing something together because they joined the label. Just watch it quicklyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[- Sebeoji getting scolded by another group member for naming the Y-app wrong (video)]

[ㄴ Is he a dad who gets scolded by his son for using the dryer wrongㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[- Before watching the Y-app today: I guess Yu-geon and Climax got along well~

After watching the Y-app: Why are you leaving me out and having fun by yourselves? If you’re going to play so happily, show us too.]

[- ShX… I’ve been thinking that their group activities were like business, but these bastards are proving it like this]

[ㄴ Tempo who supported 9 members is cryingㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Are you happy? Go away, fXck. Go ahead, I won’t cry. I’ll cry for you, yeah, I’ll cry. You quit and you look so happy, I’ll cry.]

[- Phew, I’m glad that Climax is not becoming 8 members, but I don’t know what they’re doing for their 8-member activities.]

It took me some time to figure out the overall reaction, since everyone had a different position.

The existing fans of Climax were opposed to the idea of the three former Floss members joining the label as Climax.

‘I expected that.’

Maybe it was because we had a lot of new fans during the last comeback, but they were relatively less hostile to the new members joining…

‘Fans who had been following Climax since before they became famous had a different perspective.’

For fans who had supported Climax since the days when they were so obscure that most people didn’t even know they existed, it was unthinkable for them to come out to the world.

The original Floss fans were diverse. Some still demanded a reunion of the nine members, while others followed their own favorites to different directions.

The individual fans of the three Floss members who joined Composition, a label under WPlanet, were mostly supportive of their solo activities. They considered their move to Composition as almost a demotion.

There were many negative opinions, but it seemed that they had changed their minds after seeing the YApp.

They were surprised to see the YApp where they looked like a close-knit family, rather than the awkward friendship act they had put on when they were in Floss.

‘Family…’

I briefly recalled the last YApp broadcast.