Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 247

It was an awkward time of the day. Lunch was over, but dinner was still hours away.

Someone must have missed their meal and was starving.

‘Two more hours until dinner…’

I glanced at the clock. It was a little past four. I just had to endure a bit longer. I heard a noise and looked in its direction, then turned away and picked up my laptop bag.

I couldn’t keep typing in the dormitory. I decided to head to the cafeteria. That’s when someone approached me out of the blue.

“Excuse me.”

What? What do they want from me? I raised my head in confusion, feeling tense.

Ugh. It was the high school student with a bad impression, who I didn’t want to get involved with even when he was the representative of Jo Young Food, Lim Hyun-seong. He narrowed his eyes and looked down at me.

After Cheon Ise quit his activities, his spot as an idol was quickly filled by another member.

Offbeat started their full-scale variety show tour, and YouTube, terrestrial, and cable channels all tried to book the hot topic of the foodie idol, but none of the programs got a confirmation of his appearance.

They all wondered what kind of deal he had made with someone, or if he had signed an exclusive contract with a certain program. There was a lot of talk, but nothing was confirmed.

Was he focusing on his salad business that had been a huge hit? Or was he planning his own dining show?

Many producers asked around if anyone had been contacted by him to work together, but of course, it was all in vain.

And then there was the sudden announcement of Cheon Ise’s hiatus. Some speculated that he was going to switch to the planning side completely.

‘Why is he hiding so much? I’m not going to leak anything to the reporters. So what’s his next activity after Cheon Ise? Why is he keeping it so secret?’

The same question was repeated by the people around him, making the ears of the Composition staff ache. They were also fed up with the recent situation.

What was he preparing that he had to hide it so much?

‘He has to do something to spoil it or leak it.’

If Cheon Ise was doing nothing and staying at his home, not answering any calls, who would believe that? He had been keeping in touch with the people he had worked with once, and never forgetting to greet them politely whenever he ran into them. He had a pretty good reputation lately.

How could he suddenly disappear so irresponsibly?

They would be amazed.

And they had a reason to be. When they thought of the things Cheon Ise had done recently, he seemed like a superhuman, not a normal twenty-five-year-old.

‘Did he burn out from overworking?’

As the employees who had been ignored by him, they could only hope that Cheon Ise would come back as he used to be before he reached the point of no return.

To be exact, as the leader who was also the main dancer, the main planner, and the businessman who could handle various roles as easily as breathing.

‘Come to think of it, he wasn’t very popular in the beginning of last year.’

Was that why? When they offered him a position of team leader or higher through headhunting, the CEO said he didn’t trust him and refused to work with him.

The staff who had met Cheon Ise for the first time when he joined Composition wondered what he had done to be labeled as someone they couldn’t work with.

Considering the current situation, maybe those people had some foresight.

The planning director who had suddenly taken over the role of the overall leader of the company was working overtime until his head exploded, and everyone sighed as they watched him.

This precarious situation was barely maintained.

Until a guest came unexpectedly, while they were taking a break and having a cup of coffee at a nearby cafe with all the office staff.

“Oh, Yu-geon. You’re here early?”

The road manager was supposed to pick him up from the Climax dormitory as planned. But Yu-geon came to the office earlier than the scheduled time.

“Ah, yes. I was just showing him around the office for a bit.”

What was going on? Next to Yu-geon, there was a tall and neat-looking male student with a bag slung over his shoulder.

Yu-geon was so handsome that no one could match him, even if they were idols. And the person next to him was not an idol yet, but he had a good face, so he didn’t look too plain, but rather well-balanced.

“Oh, are you a trainee? Which agency?”

The staff who had worked as a casting manager at their previous job showed interest, and the male student hid behind Yu-geon’s back, looking flustered.

“Uh…”

The male student hesitated for a moment, and Yu-geon answered first with his characteristic relaxed and confident smile.

“He’s not affiliated yet. He passed several auditions, but he hasn’t decided where to go yet. I brought him here to show him the office for a while.”

“Really? Wow, we’re also planning to make a new boy group, so we’ll be looking for trainees from here and there. Too bad. Have you been to Line Eight? They seem to like friendly people there.”

As the conversation started to get more specific, Yu-geon casually changed the topic and cut it off.

“He still has many options, so he’s thinking about various things. Well, I’ll go down and see him off, and meet up with the manager hyung.”

Everyone nodded without feeling any discomfort at Yu-geon’s natural transition.

“Okay. But next time, if you’re going to bring a trainee here, please let us know in advance. You know, there’s a security issue.”

“Haha, yes. I’ll be careful.”

As Yu-geon and the male student left the office, everyone was dreading the fact that they had to get back to their afternoon work.

“Wha?? Wha-wha-what!?”

Someone suddenly screamed.

“What’s going on? What is it?”

Except for the employees who were on business trips or field work, there were only five people in the office. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the one who was screaming.

“Who gave this VPN account to me? I’ve never seen this ID before. When did it appear? I’ve downloaded almost all the files. Did we get hacked?”

“What are you talking about? Only the CEO and the manager have the authority to issue VPN accounts.”

The employee in charge of the computer system approached him as if he was talking nonsense, and then the scream doubled.

“Huh? Wait, what is this?”

“What’s wrong? Why are you all freaking out? Did we get crypto-hacked or something?”

They each checked their own PCs and then went to the seat of the employee who had the problem and looked at the screen.

“This…”

The first employee who discovered the anomaly opened his mouth cautiously and the computer specialist answered.

“It’s the CEO. Look at the files that were re-uploaded and the comments he left.”

They all looked at the screen as if they were bewitched and saw the comment format that they had been sick of seeing until a few weeks ago.

“What? Is it really the CEO? Did he come to work?”

Another employee who had casually finished his takeout americano was startled and sat down at his desk.

Then they each went to the web folder they were managing and checked the re-uploaded files and comments.

“Ah. Right. I was supposed to give this to Pureum PR.”

The employees who belatedly found their mistakes and missed parts sweated and reorganized their work according to the comments left by the CEO’s account.

“The security log shows that the CEO didn’t come. Is he working from home?”

One of the employees called the CEO and dialed Cheon Ise’s cell phone, but soon a message saying that he couldn’t answer the phone came out.

“He seems to be accessing and reading the files in real time. Why doesn’t he answer the phone?”

No one could have guessed that behind the small commotion, there was a handsome-looking male student who had left the office with a slight greeting.

“Huh?”

When the news that Cheon Ise had returned to work as the CEO spread, the Offbeat members, except for Yu-geon, were also surprised.

“What? Ise hyung is doing composition work at home?”

Yi-jun, who had received the news of Ise’s return from the manager, opened his eyes wide.

“What? He wasn’t answering the phone earlier.”

Kyunghwa frowned as if he was saying something absurd and looked at Yi-jun.

Today’s schedule was a family entertainment show titled ‘National Trouble Counseling Center’, where they invited ordinary viewers and introduced their stories.

If you listen to each story, anyone would think that this is not something that should be here, but something that should go to court.

It didn’t seem like a family entertainment show, but it was still a family (appearing) entertainment show because the troublemakers brought their families as witnesses.

As Yu-geon quietly buried the truth in his heart, Yi-jun retorted to Kyunghwa as if he was wronged.

“Look at the message the manager sent. He said he accessed the company’s web server with VPN and cleared up the backlog.”

“Did he contact you?”

“I don’t know about that.”

He contacts the company but not us? Kyunghwa scowled as if he was annoyed and Yi-jun quickly found Ise’s number in his phone book.

“Hold on. I’ll call him right now.”

Then, out of the blue, Kyunghwa uttered a similar sentence to what Yu-geon had heard a few hours ago.

“Memorize the numbers of the people you’re close to. It’s not like you’re never going to see them again.”

Yi-jun whined at Kyunghwa’s rebuke.

“I memorized your number. I also memorized the last digits of Ise hyung’s number.”

Then Kyunghwa quizzed him as if he was doing a simple word test.

“Seonwoo?”

“I memorized the first digits. He has a unique first digits.”

“Seongwon?”

“Uh… I didn’t feel the need to memorize it.”

“Hey.”

Close people. Cheon Ise, no. The person who introduced himself as Lim Hyun-seong, who was a ghost-like person whose identity he couldn’t know, did he think of him as a close person?

He laughed without knowing it, making a light wind sound. Yi-jun shouted at Yu-geon.

“I also memorized the last digits of Yu-geon hyung’s number.”

“Oh, I’m touched.”

In the neat waiting room with only three people, they killed time and called Ise again, but the phone was connected to the voicemail as if to say don’t expect too much.

“He’s not answering.”

“What is he thinking…”

“It seems like he’s not going to quit completely, since he’s still doing his job.”

Yu-geon hid a secret that he couldn’t tell the Climax members, and that would make him look crazy if he did. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well… he must have a plan. For now, we have no choice but to wait.”

Lim Hyun-seong explained that he was a being that would soon disappear. What would happen to the ‘real’ Cheon Ise after Lim Hyun-seong was gone? He had nothing but questions.

‘Maybe I should contact him.’

He told me to call him when the schedule was over. But he didn’t say I couldn’t do it during the break time. Yu-geon pursed his lips and grabbed his phone.