Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 192 Everyone’s Way (2)

[>Kuk Ho-young]

[- He’s so unlucky.]

[>Han Dae-yong]

[- There’s no way an individual trainee can make it to debut. He’s not even getting attention for his visuals, so there’s no need to bother with him. Just ignore him.]

[>Jung Min-sung]

[- He’s the easiest one among the A-rankers. His rank is just a fluke from Superface. I wonder if Enclip will take him if he drops.]

[- If it weren’t for him, I could have been A-rank. How annoying.]

I knew I wouldn’t hear only good things in this competitive system, but I didn’t expect such blunt and harsh opinions.

‘What did I do, what did I do?’

The member who left a four-letter word of resentment was a C-rank trainee. All I did was help him with his posture at a certain section, as the choreographer requested, because he was lacking in intensity.

I didn’t interfere with his practice, I actually helped him.

And he kept thanking me and expressing his gratitude! I felt wronged, but I couldn’t say anything and had to swallow it.

Did the other trainees think of me like that too? I randomly opened some results and they were all miserable.

It was only the second day, but my impression was already that of an unlucky guy.

I felt conflicted between thinking that it was possible and protesting that it wasn’t fair.

I might not know what a black-haired beast thinks, even if I know the water under the bridge.

I was not in a good mood after seeing the gloomy results. I knew it would be hard to hear only good things, but it was another thing to actually experience it.

I wanted to know how Naru and the other Floss members were doing, but I didn’t have much chance to interact with them.

The only time I could was when the A-rankers gathered to practice, but I felt like a pickle among them.

‘They were so close to each other that I had no room to join them.’

I wasn’t invisible, but they didn’t bother to talk to me unless they really needed to.

They seemed to have decided who they would get along with from the start, and they didn’t even look at anyone else. There was a distance between them and me that made it hard to act friendly.

‘If I force myself in without any tact, it might not be impossible…’

But then I would probably get more comments like ‘He’s an individual trainee who thinks he can debut by acting friendly with the big trainees.’ on the card of hidden thoughts.

I could see it clearly without even checking.

Even though I was A-rank, I was excluded from the A-rankers, unlike Naru, who was always at the center of the group.

‘Well, of course, the camera has been following him around since the shooting.’

Many trainees from famous agencies, regardless of their rank, flocked around Naru to show off their relationship with him. The Floss debut members who received high ranks were treated similarly.

‘He’s acting like that because his ego is inflated by that…’

I clicked my tongue lightly as I remembered Naru, who was crying and whining like a nine-year-old when he was nineteen.

I thought it might be possible if he was treated like that for a year or two, but then again.

‘Doesn’t he know that’s not right?’

I felt a surge of discontent, like a fire in a barrel.

In the end, we were all pushed into a huge game of eyeing each other, aiming for the goal of debut.

There was no one to blame, but the system itself was absurdly unreasonable.

I had a feeling what Yu-geon meant by saying that.

He probably meant that the guys who didn’t bother to reveal their true feelings were talking behind my back.

“Yeah.”

After hearing some unsolicited advice from Yu-geon, I flopped back onto the seat.

“I appreciate your help anyway, so don’t be too upset.”

Yu-geon’s voice sounded lighter than yesterday as he comforted me.

He gave me poison and then medicine. Of course, he wasn’t the only one who gave me poison. I glanced at Joo Hyun’s sleeping spot and then turned my head to bury my face in the pillow.

The more I thought about it, the more troubled I felt. I needed to sleep as soon as possible.

As expected, I lost consciousness completely when the first rooster crowed and everything went dark.

The dramatic incident happened on the day of the opening stage filming.

The 100 cast members were divided into three groups of 33 each and placed on the left, center, and right stages.

The remaining one person went to the front solo stage, where he directed the other 99 trainees as if he was their leader. It was a privilege for the trainee who ranked first.

‘Was it Park Sung Hyun?’

His final debut rank was seventh.

His popularity within Floss was in the lower-middle range… as far as I remembered.

‘He signed a pre-contract that guaranteed him the opening center.’

Only the fact that he signed it was revealed, but not the details.

On the surface, he claimed that he earned his grade and rank with his skills, but in reality, he used a contract to get ahead. The whole entertainment industry would be in an uproar if they knew the truth.

There were some trainees who were dissatisfied with their assigned positions, and some who were satisfied. But there were also some who suddenly had their positions changed.

“Choi Sung Chan, Jeong I Woong, please move to the left stage now.”

The trainees who were moved to a much more cornered spot than their original ones protested, but it was no use.

When I listened carefully, I heard that six lower-ranked trainees had given up their appearances and dropped out.

The ranks that were dropped were 89th, 93rd, 95th, 97th, 99th, and 100th.

As the lower ranks fell one after another, the empty spots had to be filled by other trainees in a balanced way.

‘I was worried if it was okay to put them on stage as they were in such a serious condition.’

I felt uneasy when I saw the participants who had run away after hearing me say that I would try to help them as much as I could. They said I was unlucky, arrogant, and hypocritical.

I couldn’t blame them.

Yu-geon was called the miracle of the lower ranks who debuted from the 80th rank, but in reality, he had the skills that didn’t match the 80th rank. He was relegated to that side.

If they were in the same F grade, they must have felt it painfully in the practice group they were grouped together. They must have thought that this was what real talent meant, when they saw him.

If someone who was so good couldn’t catch the eyes of the producers and got the 80th rank, what was I doing here, struggling? Was this a meaningful thing to do? It was natural to feel like quitting.

‘There are 94 trainees left.’

They had to stick together like snakes in a jar until the final nine were left. The situation was repeated. I had to do this for another week or more. In the midst of this, the monitoring began.

“Wow… I see you there.”

“Hey, I’m there too.”

They gathered by their grades and checked the filming screen. The proportion of the first to 34th ranks was 60-70%. The rest were barely caught on the screen as they passed by.

‘This way… the lower ranks would feel like they wasted a week learning the choreography.’

The expressions of the D and F group trainees were not good, just like the others.

‘Let’s just go to sleep.’

I closed my eyes tightly and tossed and turned for a while, when I heard a small voice from between the walls.

“Sleeping?”

It was Yu-geon.

“Trying to.”

I answered in a voice as small as an ant, and Yu-geon let out a faint laugh.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. I can’t sleep.”

Then, after a brief pause, wondering what he wanted to say, the conversation continued.

“…Are you aspiring to be an actor?”

I tilted my head at his sudden, out-of-the-blue question.

“What?”

What a misunderstanding. I was bewildered and retorted, and Yu-geon started to explain, flustered.

“No. You got a good grade, a high rank, and the judges seemed to like you a lot. But you don’t seem very eager to debut.”

It was a fair point. I thought I did my best, but did it show? I felt a pang of embarrassment and asked back.

“Me?”

But that’s not true. I was stuck as an assistant instructor today, helping the C, D, and F grades who had lost their sense of direction, and I was on fire.

Doesn’t that count as ‘eagerness’? I wondered why he thought that way.

“Yeah.”

“In what sense?”

Then, Yu-geon peeked out of the bed frame as if to check the surroundings. He gestured with his hand in the dark, as if to tell me to bring my ear closer.

How annoying. I moved my body and leaned my head toward the first floor. He wasn’t even a kid, but he cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered in a very low voice that was hard for me to hear.

“You don’t sabotage.”

What’s the point of sabotaging? It’s all about the votes anyway. And the re-evaluation seemed to be easy to pass, unless something unusual happened.

I was more interested in finding out what happened to the Floss members, as long as it didn’t look suspicious.

“Sabotage?”

I whispered back in a very low voice, just like Yu-geon, and he nodded.

“Survival is an individual competition. There’s no benefit to helping others, but you’re nosy and don’t socialize.”

Oh. I think I had a rough idea of what Yu-geon was saying.

If the other participants’ basic attitude was to use each other or hope that others would rank lower than them.

I was the type who did my own thing quietly and helped others if I could, even if they didn’t seem to be much help to me.

“I’m not thinking of being an actor or anything else. It’s just my personality.”

I’ve always been like that. I toned down my nosiness a bit when I ran a company. But I couldn’t say I had little nosiness when I operated a children’s foundation at the cost of billions of won in losses every year.

If helping others was not a big burden for me, and there was no risk involved, I could help someone solve their problem more easily.

There was no reason not to step up. I had lived like that all my life, and it was the same even after I became a thousand-year-old.

But here, it was considered a ‘stupid’ thing to do, and I was confused.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing. But you should be careful.”

Only Yu-geon looked at the screen expressionlessly, as if he had expected it.

It was time to disband after finishing the monitoring in such a chaotic atmosphere, but Juhyeon didn’t come over to pretend to know me like before.

‘What’s going on?’

I wondered and looked in the direction where the F-rank had been, but I couldn’t see Juhyeon’s figure.

I could see through his feelings, and he wasn’t someone I wanted to get close to, but I was still concerned.

And shortly after, when I went up to the dormitory without much thought, Juhyeon was packing his bags with a flushed face.

“What are you looking at? Do you think I’m a joke too?”

What the hell was this sudden outburst? I asked calmly, hiding my confusion. Juhyeon’s eyes were stained, showing that he had cried a lot before I came up.

“I didn’t say you were a joke. What are you talking about…?”

“Pathetic bastard.”

Juhyeon pushed me away with his luggage and left the dormitory. He ran into Hwijin and Yu-geon duo who were about to come in, and I heard them exclaim and panic, but Juhyeon didn’t care at all and just left.

“What’s wrong? Did you two fight?”

Hwijin and Yu-geon’s eyes turned to me at the same time.

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