Save a Failed Idol’s Life

#029. The weight of a crown the size of a rat’s tail (2) 

8:50.

Seeing the numbers flickering on the screen of my cell phone made me realize that I was going to appear in front of the public as a Cheon Yise for the first time.

“The last person to go to the bathroom should go.”

Kyunghwa looked around the members again, checking the timing of the camera shooting.

“What am I? Do you want me to call you “Father~” from now on?”

Yejun grumbled playfully, but Kyunghwa didn’t even listen.

“That’s right. It’s been almost five months since I turned it on, so we shouldn’t be relieved. Don’t say anything strange, just do what’s on the cue sheet.”

So they did a live broadcast, too? It felt a little surprising, even though it was a matter of course.

I wonder how many viewers are watching the Climax live broadcast at that time? 

I suddenly remembered the results of searching the Internet for failed idol live broadcasts and the number of failed idol live broadcast viewers. 

[Wasn’t there about 3,000 people in the failed idol live broadcast?] 

I didn’t know what the standard of failed idols they thought was—.

Considering that Climax had about 6,000 subscribers before, it was impossible for 3,000 to come in at a time.

Still, wouldn’t about 500 people… will come? I can’t ask the other members about this. That’s why I use the replay service out of curiosity.

‘It’s ambiguous.’

I looked at the cue sheet again, complaining to myself. 

I just have to do it like this. I divided 1 hour and 30 minutes into part 1 and part 2. Originally, I was going to split 2 hours into 1 hour, so it was a bit different from the plan, but—.

In the first part, I was going to make salad and cold pasta, and for dessert I was going to bake cookies using cookie dough. 

‘It’s fortunate this house managed to have an oven attached as a full option.’

It wasn’t easy to do cooking content without an oven. If there were a lot of tools, we would have done something together—.

The induction that I glanced at had only three burners.

Next time, when I started doing full-scale cooking content, I thought it would be better to rent a studio.

‘I’ll talk about it at the next opportunity.’

There will be opportunities. No, it had to be. Five minutes passed while I controlled my mind. I started looking after the children for the last time. 

Since they are all those guys who don’t know where they’re going, I thought I’d be relieved to see if they were okay.

Son Seongwon is expressionless as always. Yejun was looking at his cell phone with a face that wasn’t nervous. 

Kyunghwa let out a deep breath, as if he were trembling. He seemed to be a strong guy in the actual fight, so there was no need to worry. 

‘Now the problem is this guy.’

Sunwoo, who covered his body in the most loose clothes he had, was fiddling with his fingertips in the corner of the kitchen.

As the broadcast was approaching, he was worried, and his expression was rather pale. The reason was obvious.

“Na Sunwoo.”

When I called in a low voice, Sunwoo jumped up as if he had committed some crime.

“Huh? Y, yeah, Hyung…”

He seems uncertain, and his face is pale. I clicked my tongue lightly.

The guy whose rosy cheeks were his weapon was not the color of his face right now.

“Why were you so nervous?”

When I approached and asked as if I were interrogating him, Sunwoo started to step back. 

I didn’t mean to scare him. I wanted to give it a go, but it was already spilled water.

“I, I’m not nervous?!” 

Tuk.

Sunwoo’s voice cracked subtly. There’s nothing I can do for him since the live broadcast is starting soon. 

All I could do was comfort him with words.

“Are you worried about anything?”

“No. Certainly…” 

Sunwoo avoided my gaze and blurted out his words. What a bullshit. I pinched Sunwoo’s soft cheeks with enough strength to leave no fingerprints.

“It hurts!”

“Of course it hurts, doesn’t it? I pinched it to hurt.”

Sunwoo’s eyes filled with tears in an instant. 

“Just… This is the first time I’ve been in front of fans since I gained weight…” 

“Are you afraid that someone will curse at you for gaining weight?”

“….” 

Sunwoo stopped answering whether he was stabbed to the point and avoided my eyes.

It’s worth worrying about. In the meantime, all the members sang, ‘You just need to lose weight.’

He was afraid to stand in front of the camera without reaching his target weight yet.

“You’re dressed as carefully as you can anyway, and even though your face is a little chubby, it won’t come out that badly. I showed you how Kyunghwa was photographed earlier.”

Could it be because he placed Sunwoo far behind the other members?

The baby fat is a little—it seems too much, but it wasn’t a very noticeable impression.

“What if… someone makes fun of me as a pig in the chat room?”

Sunwoo mumbled for a while before finally answering. 

That’s a personal insult.

It was the fault of the person who went around poking others as they liked, saying that they had no more to look at.

‘Do you want to ask the manager to block it?’ I wanted to say that. But will our manager take care of that in real time?

‘Honestly, it’s hard to expect that far.’

I couldn’t say anything that I couldn’t take responsibility for.

“You, don’t read what comes up in the chat, but work hard on responding from the side.”

Or— isn’t it not bad to hold the character as a cute little pig?

A strategic idea popped into my head. However, if I told Sunwoo now, it would be like sticking a dagger in his chest.

‘Let’s talk about it later, when he’s recovered mentally. If I said it now, it would be like blowing it up even more.’

Sunwoo barely nodded at my encouragement.

“We’ve been doing well so far, so let’s do our best.” 

When I tapped Sunwoo on the shoulder, his posture seemed to have changed very slightly compared to a moment ago.

I glanced at the clock and it was 59 minutes. Now it was time to press the start broadcast button.

“Let’s start.” 

After looking back to see if Kyunghwa was all in place, he stood in front of the laptop connected to his cell phone and pressed the start button.

The standby mark at the top of the screen spun around and an eye shape appeared next to it.

It’s an interface I’ve never experienced before, but naturally, I felt that it was because of the number of users who access it.

Just as the roles were set in advance, Kyunghwa calmly started making an announcement. He was so nervous until the camera officially started rolling.

When the screen turned on, he had nothing but a shameless look on my face. 

‘I wonder if he’s still trembling inside.’

Even if it’s like this. Basically, people who tried hard couldn’t be disliked. He is also the type closest to the model student out of the four members, excluding Cheon Yise.

In a way, I would say that he is the most typical boy type.

‘What should I say about him… I have to make an effort here! Should I say that I can see clearly what he think?’

It was helpful for me, so there was nothing wrong with it. However, if I think from the point of view of a good adult, not as Lim Hyunseong, who dreams of revenge—.

‘There’s no need for a guy who’s only twenty-four to feel this heavy responsibility.’

I had no desire to offer consolation or encouragement. Originally, this relationship was someone else’s, not mine.

“Hello, Rise! We’re Climax, and it’s been a while since we last said hello.” 

Where did Rise come from?

Among the 5-act structure of beginning-development-crisis-peak-end, we are Climax (peak) and the fandom was named after the previous stage, Rise (crisis).

Why— I didn’t understand why it contained a philosophy that the general public would not be interested in and wouldn’t want to know much about.1

‘It’s a crisis if you interpret it…’

Where are the fans who want to be called a crisis? It was useless for me to complain, since it was already established.

“Everyone was worried because it’s been so long, right? We still have a lot of comeback schedules left, so we would appreciate it if you could keep your interest and support us.”

In the chat I glanced at, nothing came up other than a simple greeting.

I didn’t even write a separate line, but Kyunghwa led the progress with a smooth speech that didn’t have a single mistake. 

“That’s right, I think you must have been curious because we posted a bunch of delicious photos yesterday! Yejun will briefly introduce what kind of content we will have with Rise today!”

Yejun captivated viewers with his unique wide smile as soon as Kyunghwa passed his turn. 

In an instant, the chat started to grow. I couldn’t see it well, but I could see the chatting saying ‘Yejun-ah’ and being happy.

“O, oh? I should do it? I thought I could just eat it when I came here?”

While preparing everything in advance, Yejun casually joked.

“Just kidding. Today, we’re going to make salad and cold pasta that everyone was so curious about yesterday! I’m going to show you how to bake cookies using Yo Meal Kit.”

Sentences such as [You’re going to eat it eventually] [I’m already excited about the thought of eating it] rushed up quickly between the chatter that went up in slurp.

‘Well… I think this is a good response…’

I checked the number of viewers with high expectations when I heard that the failed idol, which I had seen at a glance on the Internet, had about 3,000 views.

[View : 910]

‘…Huh?’

The number was much lower than what was expected. No, no. We had 300,000 followers only yesterday.

Shouldn’t even 10% of them come in and watch it? 

I struggled to lift the corner of my mouth that was about to collapse in shock.

“Now then, today’s chef! Let me introduce you to Yise Hyung~. Wow~.” 

Yejun finished his turn before I realized it, clapped like a seal, and then turned the spotlight on me. 

I couldn’t stay still.

Even though it wasn’t what I expected, the eyes that saw it were the eyes that saw it.

Because of the Internet, even late-night home shopping with few people watching could be made fun of in an instant if something went wrong during a broadcast.

“Everyone is being so nice again. Hello, I’m Cheon Yise. I apologize for causing you concern for a long time due to health problems. Now, I am recovering well and preparing to return to you on a better stage!”

They say that they hide things like this from the outside. But sadly, Climax wasn’t well-managed enough to hide the schedule.

I showed the cue sheet to my manager Hyung first, and I got the same answer, “It would be nice if I could publicize it at least that way.” 

Despite the fact that my mind had hardened from disappointment, my tongue still moved freely.

‘Calm down, Lim Hyunseong. I’ve been through countless worse things than this in my life.’

I smiled and casually spoke to Sunwoo. 

“I’m into cooking these days, so I was helping Sunwoo’s diet. I was glad that it helped Sunwoo’s taste! I was very surprised because it seemed to have hit not only Sunwoo’s but also other people’s tastes.”

Sunwoo nodded as if he agreed. It was a loveliness that would automatically make fans smile.

“Hyung’s cooking is really good. Today, the recipe will be released so that Rise can easily follow it, so please follow it step by step!” 

Sunwoo’s bright smile led to a lot of positive comments. Looking at the number of viewers, it was still a low number even though the number of viewers surpassed 1,000. 

‘Popular idols are said to have up to 300,000 users at the same time…’

I didn’t expect such a response, but—thanks to Kang Yoogun, I was deeply looking forward to the skyrocketing interest, so I was left with quite a bit of regret.

If you’re going to promote it, you should come out at a time like this. I skimmed the chat one more time, complaining to the guy I’d never met face-to-face. 

At that time, a sentence that shouldn’t have caught my eye stood out.