Save a Failed Idol's Life

I arrived at the shooting site in a much lighter outfit than last time.

Today was a day without any stage shooting, so I didn’t need to wear thick makeup or excessive hair styling that would be pierced by the lights.

The members, who had also only done simple skin correction and hair tidying, looked more natural than usual.

We waited in the waiting room in a more relaxed manner than usual, until it was time to be scattered to our respective meeting rooms by the staff in charge of each unit.

“I’ll take good care of Seon-woo.”

Just before we parted ways with the members. Kyunghwa said with a solemn expression, as if he was taking the youngest to a shelter like an eldest son.

“Don’t feel too pressured. Just do what you can.”

He might collapse again from too much responsibility and stomach problems. Kyunghwa was the most reliable among these members, but I was worried because he didn’t seem to be strong enough to ignore what others said.

“You too. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

Kyunghwa kept looking at me as if he was worried about me too.

“I’m not pushing myself. So don’t worry and do your best in your own place.”

As Kyunghwa and I hesitated for a moment, Yi-jun intervened without any chance to be moved.

“What about me? Don’t you worry about me?”

And at the same time, Kyunghwa and I pinched one of Yi-jun’s ears each and pulled them.

“Please don’t cause any trouble at someone else’s place.”

“I got it, don’t worry, dad.”

Yi-jun complained, but no one listened to him. That’s how we all said goodbye to each other, while Seong-won was silent the whole time.

‘This guy, if you look closely, he’s subtly hinting that he wants me to take care of him too.’

If I was his age, I would have snapped at him and told him to just say he wanted me to take care of him instead of beating around the bush!

But I was much older and I had enough affection and patience to tolerate his hidden tantrums.

‘It would have been impossible if it was like when we first met.’

Snicker, I lightly laughed and patted Seong-won’s head cheerfully.

“Good luck. I know you’ll do well, but still.”

Then Seong-won nodded slowly, as if he liked it.

“Yeah, you too, hyung.”

He’s worrying about me too. It was a needless worry, but I didn’t feel too bad.

“See you later, everyone.”

Today’s schedule was to have a concept meeting in the morning, a group lunch, and then start working on the arrangement or choreography in the afternoon.

It was better to direct it internally among the group members, but we could also ask for external help or hire staff if needed.

I wondered how many teams would get external help, and I casually guessed as I headed to the meeting room.

As I walked down the hallway, filled with various thoughts, a sudden worry that I hadn’t thought of before caught me.

It was the first time I was separated from the members and alone among the kids in their late teens and early twenties.

‘Oh… What if I make a mistake?’

I started to feel a little nervous as I thought about getting along with the young guys I didn’t even know.

It was hard when I first met our kids too. I hope I don’t have to drag these brats along this time.

‘They are all human beings, old enough to communicate with words. Don’t be prejudiced before you even start.’

I reassured myself that not everyone would have an excessively huge ego from achieving success at such a young age like Shim Naru. My mind felt a little more at ease.

‘Don’t be too nervous.’

I took a short breath and opened the door….

“Huh?”

The neat white/gray-toned conference room was empty.

When I opened the door and didn’t go in, but turned around and looked back, the staff kindly explained to me.

“Dance Group A, you are Ise’s first day at work, right? If you wait inside, the others will be here soon.”

What are you talking about? It was five minutes before the meeting started. There were five group members, but I was the only one who arrived on time. Does that make sense?

I doubted my eyes at the unbelievable diligence and asked.

“Do they all usually come right on time?”

Then the staff hesitated to answer as if it was awkward.

“I don’t really know that….”

“Okay, I got it.”

Somehow I felt like I was scolding the wrong person, so I quietly pulled out a chair and sat down.

Are they all trying to come on time? I tried to shake off the anxiety and took out a notebook from the desk.

I was wondering whether to bring a laptop or not, but I just brought a laptop in my bag and a notebook separately.

I only took out the notebook for now, because I was afraid it would look like I was too eager to prepare.

As I waited blankly for about five minutes, two people from the same team came in at the exact time of the meeting.

“Hello~.”

“Hello.”

I politely got up from my seat and greeted Group Member A and Group Member B. They were members from AtoX.

They were both quite calm compared to the idols I had interacted with before. Maybe it was because they were in a mixed group setting, they might be shy.

“Are the others….”

One of the two guys, the shorter one, AtoX(A) for short, asked me cautiously.

I answered a little nervously.

“They haven’t arrived yet….”

“Ah….”

The group that hadn’t arrived yet was Vesper. I had hoped that they would have more solid skills than AtoX.

But their attitude of not keeping up with the meeting time matched their bad team image, and I didn’t have a good feeling from the start.

“Shall we wait a little until the Vesper members arrive?”

It was only the three of us, so it felt weird to start something, so I asked, thinking they would come in 10 minutes anyway, and AtoX A and B nodded their heads.

“Yes…!”

And then silence flowed in the conference room with me, those two, and four cameramen.

Sometimes the two guys would look at their phones and chuckle lightly, or I would hear the sound of their nails tapping on the screen, but there was no conversation.

‘Ah….’

I got the wrong end of the stick, I had a feeling that this time it wouldn’t be easy either, and I pressed my forehead with the back of my hand.

It was 30 minutes after the Vesper members arrived.

“Sorry~. The traffic was really bad on the way here, so we took a picture of the parking lot. Hey, let me show you.”

“Okay, okay, just a second. Do you want to see it? It was a hell of a parking lot. It was epic.”

The picture they showed me with exaggeration was just a normal traffic jam. It was not worth making a fuss about their ‘epic’ experience.

“Alright, let’s start the meeting quickly.”

AtoX A and B looked quite stiff, as if they didn’t expect to waste 30 minutes like this.

Of course, they didn’t arrive very early either.

I didn’t want to waste more time arguing with these kids with flower heads.

I wanted to finish the concept meeting as soon as possible and start the reference search and planning.

“Do you have any genres that you are confident in?”

I asked if they had any genres that they wanted to lead and pull the other team members with, but they all remained silent and looked at each other blankly.

“Don’t you have any special skills?”

I asked with frustration, and the Vesper A with mint-colored hair answered with a bright smile.

“Um… I’ve been doing broadcast dance since I was a trainee, so I don’t know much… But they say my dance line is pretty clean.”

That’s not a genre! I felt my blood pressure rising and replied.

“We’re all main dancers or at least confident in dance in this team, so there’s no one who doesn’t have a clean dance line…” f𝐫eewe𝚋nove𝗹.𝗰o𝚖

“Oh… Really?”

Then AtoX B added another shocking remark.

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t originally in charge of dance, so I don’t know much about genres or anything like that.”

Then AtoX A joined in without hesitation.

“Oh, me too. Our group doesn’t have a main dancer…”

I managed to keep my expression and asked.

“Then am I the only one who is in the main dancer position in this group?”

Then Vesper A finally raised his hand as if he found his chance.

“Oh, I’m the main dancer!”

I hoped that this guy would have some special genre like b-boying or something, and looked at Vesper A.

“Oh, do you have any genre that you are good at?”

Unfortunately, this guy also did his best to crush my expectations.

“Um… But the only genres I can think of are K-pop and maybe hip-hop… But can I call this hip-hop? Anyway, I didn’t learn it in detail from anyone

… Yeah, that’s how it feels…”

What are you talking about? I could roughly understand what he meant, but the longer he spoke, the weirder his speech was.

What should I do? This was the end of showing off their skills as dancers. The only way left was to push with the concept.

“Ah…”

I sighed briefly and summarized the situation.

“I was confident in tricking, but… I had a big car accident earlier this year…”

Before I could finish my sentence, Vesper B cut me off.

“Accident? Where did you get hurt?”

“Ah, yes.”

I said calmly what I was going to say.

“I had a major back surgery, so it’s hard for me to participate in this mission. So I was wondering if you have any confident concept or direction that I can follow…”

“Ah…”

There’s no one. I guess I have to do it myself. I calmed my mind as I looked at the distant mountain.

“That was fun~.”

Only Yi-jun had a bright expression when we gathered in the minivan after finishing all the schedules until the afternoon practice.

“What’s wrong with you guys? Did something bad happen?”

Yi-jun looked around at the faces of the members who were getting on the van one by one and asked.

“It’s nothing. Just a bit tired.”

Seong-won always had no change in his expression, so that was understandable. But the other two were not. Kyunghwa looked like a plant that hadn’t been watered for a month and Seon-woo…

“…”

He had wounded eyes like a puppy abandoned in the rain.

“What the hell happened?”

Did the other teams also have crappy members? I rubbed my forehead as I recalled the nightmare-like afternoon practice.

‘Oh, but I have a personal schedule tomorrow that I can’t cancel, so I don’t think I can come.’

‘But I can come.’

‘Wait a minute. Does that mean we don’t have a single day this week when all five of us can get together?’

‘Uh… is that so?’

What do you mean, is that so? It’s not like we have a bunch of members who can cover for each other if one of them doesn’t fit in,

I was speechless at their attitude of making excuses and skipping practice first, when we only had the concept and the point choreography set up.

‘But we’re lucky to have Ise hyung. He was so meticulous and found everything we needed when we decided on the concept.’

‘What’s your MBTI, hyung? J, right?’

They kept nagging and trying to avoid anything that seemed difficult, and kept talking nonsense.

‘Sigh…’

Was our team the only one like this? I waited for Kyunghwa to open his mouth as I pressed my temples.

Some possible ways to continue the conversation are: