Save a Failed Idol's Life

What if it bites or scratches again? Everyone looked worriedly at Aeongi and Naru, switching their gazes back and forth. At that moment,

“Pant, pant, King-! Pant, pant, pant, pant.”

Pposili, who had been quiet, suddenly circled around Naru’s feet, spinning round and round.

“Uh…”

Pposili weighed more than 10kg. Although he was much lighter than a human, he was enough to knock over Naru, who was skinny and barely 170cm tall.

“Ouch…!”

Naru lost his balance and landed on his butt, while Aeongi, startled by the commotion, scampered back into the room.

“Huh…”

Seon-woo, who was watching from the closest distance, was too shocked to react. Pposili had jumped towards Naru with his whole body, like a diving athlete. Then he rubbed his torso against him vigorously.

“Ah! Stop, don’t lick me, I said stop! Aah! What, what are you doing…!”

Why is he acting like this all of a sudden? I wondered as I pulled Pposili away from Naru. Then, Aeongi, who had been hiding behind the door and watching, came back into the living room.

“I’m sorry. He’s not usually like this. I’ll hold him back.”

As his main caretaker, I quickly apologized and helped Naru get up. I noticed that Naru’s body was covered with dog hair.

“Ugh… My clothes are ruined.”

Naru seemed to like cats, but not so much dogs. He grumbled with a dissatisfied expression. At that moment, Aeongi approached Naru.

“…”

“Wow…”

The kitten, who had been sniffing my face for a while from about 30cm away, seemed to notice a change in my scent and cautiously approached me.

“Try offering the snack again.”

I snapped out of my trance at Yi-jun’s advice and picked up the snack that I had dropped and held it out to the kitten again.

Soon, the kitten, who had been coming closer with a careful expression, tentatively stuck out its tongue.

Lick-.

The tiny furball’s claw-sized tongue flicked a few times and then, as if reassured by the familiar taste, it came closer to climb onto my lap.

“Ahh, you’re getting closer!”

“Don’t make too much noise and slowly try offering the treat towards your body.”

“Yes…!”

With Seong-won’s advice, Naru’s eyes sparkled as he cautiously extended the treat.

Although Aeongi seemed a bit suspicious, the familiar scent made him relax his guard, and he leaned back, placing the soft jelly on Naru’s leg.

It was only then that I understood why Pposili suddenly attacked.

“Could it be that he’s trying to cover his own scent?”

At first, Aeongi was very cautious due to the strong unfamiliar scent emanating from Naru. But now, he seemed more comfortable, focusing only on eating.

As Aeongi finished eating the treat, a short system message popped up.

[※ ‘Shim Naru’s’ ‘tension’ has been relieved.]

What… Wasn’t this kind of system message supposed to appear only when there’s a certain level of interaction with the other party? I looked at Naru with a puzzled expression, and there sat the nineteen-year-old, eyes sparkling with excitement like an ordinary young cat.

[※ ‘Shim Naru’ likes this place.]

What the… Rather than liking it, just go back to your accommodation quickly.

I quickly poured cold water on the situation that suddenly became warm and cozy.

“Okay, you’ve had your snacks, and it looks like the filming crew has all left in their cars, so go in and rest.”

“Ah, yes, yes.”

Only then did Hwijin snap out of it and realize that they were guests, and got up from his seat.

“Let’s grab our coats and go quickly.”

Just then, the manager in charge of Floss arrived at the parking lot, and Hwijin checked his phone message and hurried home.

“Well… thanks to you, we finished filming well today and we owe you a lot in many ways.”

As soon as the filming ended, his polite tone returned, reminding us that we were nothing more than business acquaintances.

“Yes. Hwijin and Naru, you both worked hard. I’ll see you next time at the Bobbyam filming site.”

“Ah… yes. There’s only a week left. You must be busy with practice, thank you for making time for us.”

Hwijin smiled with a bitter face. Was the atmosphere inside Floss still not good these days?

I wanted to ask him once, but I decided it wasn’t something to bring up when everyone was already ready to leave and gathered.

I nodded silently and opened the door for them.

‘I wonder if it’s okay to wish them good results at the music finale awards.’

I suddenly thought of the upcoming year-end awards, but unfortunately, the timing was not good.

“Then I’ll go in. Th, thank you!”

Naru also pursed his lips and thanked me with a short and curt thank you, and bowed his head, leaving me with nothing to say but a faint smile and a wave of my hand.

Bang, finally, the long filming that seemed to last for a night and two days was over, and Hwijin and Naru opened the door and left.

“Ugh~.”

“We did it~.”

“I’m hungry…”

“Phew…”

We all sighed with relief, and each of us chose a comfortable spot on the sofa and collapsed.

We filmed from morning until 8 p.m., so it was enough to get sick of it. I was also in a state where I didn’t want to lift a finger.

“You all worked hard. Now rest until tomorrow. Dinner is… let’s eat in 30 minutes. Just rest for a while.”

We had a pre-rehearsal for the third mission tomorrow, but resting was the priority for now.

Hopefully, it ended well, and it wasn’t a program that had to worry about being edited badly.

I hoped that they would edit it interestingly and get a good response.

“Gurgle gurgle… ooh… gurgle…”

Seeing Aeongi snuggled up in Seong-won’s arms, Yi-jun silently snatched Pposili, who was at my feet, and hugged him tightly.

[※‘Oh Yi-jun’ feels stable.]

Is that so… good for him. I didn’t intend it, but Pposili’s materialization turned out to be surprisingly helpful.

‘Actually, I still don’t know what the materialization is for.’

It’s not a bother and it’s cute, so whatever. I shook my head and stopped thinking.

If we finish the pre-rehearsal tomorrow and the main recording of the third mission this weekend, the urgent stage will be over.

We were notified that we would be part of the music finale awards on the 29th, and we knew we had to do something, but we still didn’t know what our role was.

I looked into other cases and they said it was so tight that they only rehearsed twice, once before and once on the day, so it didn’t seem strange…

I didn’t have a clear plan of what to do, so I felt restless and uneasy.

‘I wonder if it’s because I have to go to an event where I don’t have much hope of winning an award.’

The nominees had already been announced, and the voting for the popularity awards was in progress.

And of course, the ranking of Climax was…

[6th – Climax]

We didn’t even make it to the top five. Of course, the groups that made it to the top five were all strong contenders, so being sixth was not bad at all…

[1st – Floss]

I couldn’t help but feel bitter when I saw Floss dominating the top spot with an overwhelming percentage.

Floss was going to disband next spring. This was their last chance to win an award, so their fans were gathering more fiercely than ever. I knew that too.

[- Vote every day for the Grand Prize, Popularity Award, and Best Album Award at the Music Finale! #Floss_Tempo_Trust_and_Run #MFVOTE]

[- The voting has been updated after midnight, so don’t forget to vote before you go to bed! #MFVOTE #Floss_Tempo_Trust_and_Run #Men_of_the_Year]

[- Don’t be complacent just because we passed the 50% mark for the Popularity Award, let’s widen the gap #Let’s_go #MFVOTE #The_Warmest_End_of_the_Year_for_Floss #Floss_Tempo_Trust_and_Run]

Seeing them cheering with such hashtags, I felt impressed and… worried that they were too heated. And honestly, I was jealous.

It must be reassuring and burdensome at the same time to have so many people supporting you.

Everyone was sure that Floss would sweep all the awards this year.

‘But we…’

We were in an awkward position. We were not rookies, but we didn’t have a huge hit either. If we were fresh rookies, we could have aimed for the Rookie Award with our decent activities, but we had debuted five years ago.

We were not even in our second or third year… We had been nobodies for so long, weren’t we just old rookies? It was a shameless level.

Where should we go then? We searched for a long time among the nominees for each category, and finally found one area where we were also nominated as candidates.

[Hot Trend Award]

It was a category that was created three years ago, and after looking at the past winners, I could summarize it in one word.

‘A consolation prize.’

It was not that they had no achievements, just like Climax now, but they were not outstanding either. It was an area where the mediocre candidates got the awards.

It seemed like a prize that was distributed among the agencies that were close to SBC, the broadcaster that hosted the music finale.

I knew that WePlanet was not on bad terms with SBC in the drama field, but… I was not sure if we could get it. It was an ambiguous situation.

The best thing to do now was to lower our expectations and give up our greed.

I bit my lips and opened the official SNS account of Floss on my phone. There were all kinds of news about awards and nominations.

‘Of course.’

They had three comebacks this year, including the regular album and the follow-up activities. They were determined to squeeze out as much as they could before the contract expired, so it was natural that the indicators were good. No, not natural…

Let me correct myself. It was not surprising, but it was amazing.

Usually, popular idols shorten their comeback activities and rather fill up their concert schedules.

But Floss had a two-year activity period, so they sent out broadcasts as broadcasts, concerts as concerts, and tried to catch six rabbits at once with variety shows and acting. They all seemed to have a screw loose somewhere.

But since they worked hard, they should be able to get the grand prize easily, so that was a relief.

Chanhyung, who had trouble with Yu-geon, was slowly returning to the activities and practice photos were uploaded, but I had no idea what he was doing or where he was.

‘If I check with the system…’

I shook my head right away. I knew myself too well. I wouldn’t be able to ignore it once I saw it.

I had no reason to care about him when I had to take care of my own future and timing.

‘No.’

The preview was supposed to be released at midnight today, so I just had to watch the reaction and see what to do next.

‘I have a quest, but I shouldn’t care too much about other groups’ business.’

I sprang up and decided to focus on feeding our kids first.

“Let’s eat!”

They all lifted their heads buried in the cushions and looked at me with my sudden and energetic declaration of meal.

“Already?”

“No. I’m going to do it now.”

Kyunghwa frowned as if he was hooked, but it didn’t matter. I used the energy I had just charged and headed to the kitchen with vigor.

That night at midnight. The Tempos, who only knew about Hwijin’s variety show appearance through a simple schedule announcement, were holding their phones and waiting for the preview to be uploaded.

‘He said he had a schedule with Climax today. Don’t tell me he’s going to be paired with Climax again?’

Some people were sure that it was Climax, but he didn’t believe it.

No, you should compete with your peers, why do you keep comparing yourself to the top group when you just did one activity a little better?

Just do your bundle sales quietly.

With half worry and half nervousness, he kept refreshing until a new video came up.

‘It’s here!’

The eyes that were staring at the screen without a soul came back to life.