Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Chapter 176:

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we had a late lunch and then one by one, we retreated to our rooms and closed the doors. We were exhausted.

Seon-woo often went back to his hometown to visit his family on holidays, so he seemed to be hesitating a bit today.

‘But since our schedule was suddenly cancelled, it would be better to stay at the hotel and wait.’

Seon-woo must have thought the same, because he didn’t say anything and quietly brought his tablet to the bed and placed it on a stand.

“What are you doing?”

I asked him, curious why he took out his tablet without a word. Seon-woo answered with a rather excited expression.

“I’m going to watch a movie I’ve been wanting to see for a long time…! Do you want to watch it with me?”

What was it?.. I wasn’t really interested in movies. I was more bothered by the Floss issue.

“No, thanks. You can turn up the volume if you want. If it’s uncomfortable, you can go out and watch it on TV.”

“Suit yourself.”

I cheerfully waved my hand to refuse and picked up my phone to check the entertainment talk board.

[Title: Floss is on fire right now, but where is Kang Yu-geon and what is he doing?]

[Body]

I’m not trying to be sarcastic, I’m really curious.

Where is he and what is he doing?

He said he was taking a break for health reasons, but did he really just retire and run away?

[- He was actually the first one to detect the escape route and take the lead]

[ㄴ That’s rightㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[ㄴ Now who’s the loserㅎㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ?]

[- Nothing has been officially revealed yet, but you’re already eager to bash and judgeㅋㅋ You’ll cry tears of blood when the investigation is over and the lawsuit comes]

[ㄴ Isn’t the group going to disband before the lawsuitㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[ㄴ Realistically, it’s either sue for defamation and get buried or quietly disappear]

[ㄴ This is a duck after]

The board was still noisy, so Kang Yu-geon must be still in hiding. The agency had posted a notice that they were looking into Chanhyung’s issue.

[- I’ll keep my mouth shut and wait until the official announcement comes out.

#Stay_with_myCHAN]

[- We support you. Be with the people who cheer and trust you. Honey, wear warm clothes! We’re with you. You eat well. #Stay_with_myCHAN]

[- Chanhyung, we believe that you’ll overcome this. It must be hard, but don’t think negatively and let’s hang in there a little more for the day we’ll meet again #Stay_with_myCHAN]

[- Stay with ㅇㅈㄹ is hilarious, the video is out and you’re still shielding, what kind of mentality is that? #Stay_with_myCHAN]

[ㄴ I’m sorry, but do you have to come here and swear like that just to support? If you’re uncomfortable, just ignore it.]

[ㄴ You have to support the person you want to support to ignoreㅋㅋㅋㅋ Funny, go and crack some knuckles]

There were still quite a few fans who said they would wait for an explanation, but SNS was a festival of memes using Chanhyung’s photo cards and goods as firecrackers.

[- Hey you X-bastard, you’re a real piece of X-shit (picture)]

A fan who spread out over a hundred photo cards and blew a whistle received over 10,000 shares.

[- #Chanhyung_get_out_fast #RTevent I’m holding a RT event to wish for Oh Chanhyung’s (feat. Floss nuclear punch) withdrawal. Anyone can participate OK I’ll do the draw when the withdrawal notice comes out #No_more_troublemaker_Chan_NO]

As I searched for Oh Chan-hyung’s name, I saw countless posts demanding his withdrawal.

‘This is… honestly, it’s almost impossible to keep going like this.’

It was the right thing to do to quit for the sake of the remaining members. The problem now was…

[- But is it really solved by Floss dropping one member? Isn’t there some talk of manipulation going on right now? There was a teaser post at dawn, and it seems like something else is going to explode soon.]

[- Is that also Floss? Manipulation?]

[ㄴ Nothing has been confirmed yet, please delete your post]

[- Where did you hear that Floss is manipulating?]

The contents of the pre-contract had not been leaked yet, but even the first page was already stirring up all kinds of rumors.

I had a feeling that something was fishy about how they favored only certain members.

‘If this goes on…’

From the company’s perspective, it was profitable to force the schedule until the end of the contract.

The dates were announced but the tickets were not on sale yet, but they had planned a nationwide tour for early next year, before disbanding.

They must have already arranged the venues and the staff. The ticketing itself was so scarce that the scalpers were charging up to ten million won, so they probably didn’t care if there were any cancellations.

‘…’

But that was only a decision that could be made when they saw people as means rather than ends.

If they continued to work with the suspicion of manipulation hanging over them, the internet would never calm down.

How many people could ignore the thousands, tens of thousands of criticisms that poured in every day and go on stage as if nothing happened?

Even if they pretended to be calm on the outside, their minds would rot first.

Humans are not that strong. Unless something was broken or damaged, they couldn’t endure it and the problem would inevitably erupt.

Even if there was nothing problematic, the image of the manipulation scandal was already attached.

If they cared about the members’ health…

‘It’s better to disband here.’

I felt bitter. It was easy to say that as someone else’s problem, but if it was my own, I wouldn’t be able to say that disbanding was the most reasonable thing to do in this situation.

How was Hwijin doing? Naru didn’t seem to be in good shape either.

‘That guy was obviously getting 100% favoritism, so he must be in the worst situation right now.’

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. I remembered his appearance during the unit showdown. He cried with a single sound error, wasn’t that his pride?

Most of the problems of the kids who were obsessed with recognition and performance proof came from their parents.

It wasn’t that I learned or studied anything about counseling, but I was like that until I gave up.

It was an experience.

‘I quit as soon as I realized that I couldn’t get the same treatment as my brother.’

In the end, I realized relatively early that unless it was an effort for myself, it would only come back as a bigger wound.

Otherwise… I shouldn’t judge him too harshly, since he might have his own personal reasons.

Looking at his mental state, he seemed to be in a pretty big shock right now, but among the Floss members, there was no one who could help him…

‘Is there Hwijin…’

The problem was that Hwijin’s mental state was not very solid either, due to the stress that had accumulated during the Floss activities.

He might have panicked instead of taking care of himself. Was I underestimating Hwijin? I thought for a moment and sighed deeply.

“…?”

I must have raised my voice without realizing it, because Seon-woo took off his earphones and looked at me with a question.

“Hyung, do you have something on your mind?”

I didn’t want to bother him with my problems. I smiled lightly, pretending to be carefree and cute, and shook my head.

“No, I’m just a bit worried about Floss.”

Seon-woo nodded slowly, as if he understood.

“Will they be okay…? Hwijin and Naru… and Yu-geon too…”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. It was natural that I was more concerned about the members of Floss who had interacted with us than the others.

“There’s nothing we can do for them. We can only hope that they’ll get through this.”

It would only complicate things if we, another group, got involved.

I wanted to contact Hwijin, but…

‘He must have received dozens, hundreds of messages from people who claim to comfort him. He doesn’t need me to add to his troubles.’

It was better to turn a blind eye to the problems that I couldn’t solve for him.

I decided to go to sleep, but I ended up turning on Celebrity Talk again.

‘If I keep worrying like this, I should just stop watching it.’

The topics on the real-time ranking were more diverse than before, probably because the pre-contract issues were starting to surface. The problem was that Floss was the main subject of all of them.

They had the most fans, and they had been at the center of scandals and incidents in the idol scene throughout their career. It was not a surprising reaction.

[Title: Do you believe their explanation that there was no manipulation of the rankings? (+999)]

[Title: So where is Kang Yu-geon and what is he doing? (+431)]

[Title: Oh Chanhyung’s additional exposure re-uploaded (+602)]

[Title: Honestly, it was obvious from the amount of content (+127)]

Among them, one post caught my eye.

[Title: I’ll tell you how each member of Floss can survive (+999)]

What is this nonsense?

The real-time ranking was not that high, but the number of comments was exploding. I was curious and clicked on the title without thinking.

￣￣￣￣￣

[Content]

The true fans must know by now.

Floss is over.

This is a fact.

Don’t get angry and leave, just listen to me.

Floss is ruined, but not their individual skills. They can still make a living on their own. Honestly, Oh Chanhyung, who was the root of all the problems, has a solid core fanbase, so he won’t have any trouble surviving.

I’ll tell you how they can each make a comeback.

First, Lee Jinhyung.

As you know, Lee Jinhyung is very good at training. He’s not handsome enough to switch to acting, honestly.

His pronunciation is too slurred to be an actor, and he needs to keep sucking the honey of being an idol. He should jump ship from the sinking boat and debut as a solo.

Next is Damian. He’s in charge of foreign languages in Floss, as you would expect from a mixed-race.

He’s a sub-vocal and a sub-rapper, but he always has a faint presence that surprises me.

His face is decent, but he only sells well as a pair with Jun, who is also in charge of foreign languages. He’s always competing for the last place in popularity as a solo.

He had a little talent for language learning.

You saw it when we planned the Flos Academy, right? Not everyone can get 975 on TOEIC. It would be perfect if Jun took care of Japanese and Damian took care of English.

I’m not kidding. If we do live classes and upload online lectures, there will be tons of foreigners who want to buy the courses.

A language school where K-POP idols are the teachers?

Think about it. This is a really amazing idea.

(To be continued)

￣￣￣￣￣

What the hell are you saying…

I was so dumbfounded by the absurd claim that followed the sensational headline that I couldn’t believe what I read in the beginning.

‘What the hell…’

Then, at that moment, huh? This is… kind of good. A short sentence caught my attention in an instant.

While Climax was having a relatively peaceful morning, the Floss dorm was enduring a hellish moment in silence.

“What were you doing when Chanhyung left?”

The manager’s voice, which had been timid all along, as if he was afraid to offend his precious body, rang out in a way that was incomparable to usual.

“He said he was leaving, how could we stop him?”

“What? Don’t you know that we’ll all go down if you can’t stop him properly?”

If he could, Hwijin wanted to evaporate from this space as well. Naru was holed up in his room, not even drinking a glass of water.

The members kept snarling at each other, ‘It’s your fault that I’m ruined too.’

It was a tiger’s den everywhere. Hwijin sighed and touched his forehead at the hopeless situation.

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