Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 7 Someone’s Dream (1)

I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off, so I flipped my phone over and started looking around the corner of the house again.

I realized that I had to wear proper ‘young’ clothes to go out, not pajamas.

‘What kind of clothes did Cheon Ise wear?’

I walked over to the closet and opened the door wide.

They were not the familiar clothes that always greeted me consistently.

Instead of suits, pajamas, and sportswear, there were flashy clothes that kids these days wore.

‘…’

I closed the door again.

And after taking a deep breath, I shook off the feeling of wanting to ignore it and opened the closet again.

‘This is really unbearable.’

But I had to do it anyway.

I had been wearing the same design of shirts or cotton pants in different colors.

I had never cultivated a sense of fashion.

‘I can’t just wear anything and go out… I’m an idol after all…’

I picked up my phone again to search for idol-like outfits.

And then I clicked on an app that looked like a browser.

I entered a search term after a lot of thinking.

The keyboard was unfamiliar, so I had to sweat a lot by writing and erasing repeatedly.

[Search > Cheon Ise Fashion]

The search results were dismal.

There was a reason why Cheon Ise had given up on his life and decided to commit suicide.

‘He was active for five years, but how unknown was he that there was so little data?’

There were only weird accounts and news photos that looked like foreigners.

Most of them were about stage costumes.

There was nothing to refer to for everyday clothes.

In the end, I changed the search term.

[Search > Male Idol Casual Clothes]

Hundreds of thousands of idol-era data poured out.

I picked out something that looked similar to what was in the closet and stood in front of the mirror.

Huh…

It was still an unrealistically handsome face.

It was a shame that others would have a hard time fixing it.

It was a face that I had to see and live with a lot, but it was too handsome.

He had long, slanted eyes, thick eyebrows, and a neat appearance that gave him a strong impression of a handsome man.

‘Well, for a face with such an impression… his mental strength was too weak.’

I couldn’t open my eyes straight because I wasn’t used to seeing him.

‘But I have to adapt. This is ‘my’ face now.’

I finally made up my mind and lifted my head. But it was still embarrassing.

How could he be so handsome and not succeed as an entertainer?

I felt stupid as I looked at myself in the mirror, sweating and shivering.

I decided to find out some basic information about Cheon Ise while I was searching.

I changed the search term and pressed the search button while combining the clothes in my head.

[Search> Cheon Ise]

[Cheon Ise (singer)

Group: Climax (main dancer)

Agency: Wiplanet Entertainment

…]

Other than that, what…

There were only a few trashy articles and showcase photos that seemed to have gone viral by third-rate entertainment newspapers.

There were hardly any people mentioning him in the analysis results that showed the real-time buzz.

A few middle school or high school students?

[Real-time search results ]

[Anonymous: Anyone know the fan sign cut of Climax last year?]

[ㄴAnonymous: If you enter the lottery, it’s 100% confirmed. Last time they picked 200 people, but only 80 came.]

Fan sign… cut…? I didn’t know what that meant. But I understood that only 80 people applied for an event that drew 200 people.

In other words, Cheon Ise was a failure that couldn’t be saved by capital.

‘Kid… If he couldn’t succeed as an idol to this extent, wouldn’t it be better to put him in a movie as a supporting role?’

I clicked my tongue without any soul and searched a little more about Climax.

The dance group Climax, which debuted five years ago when Cheon Ise was nineteen, belonged to a planning company run by an old friend of the chairman of Cheon Soo Group.

[Debut single center: Cheon Ise]

[Second digital single center: Cheon Ise]

[Third digital single center: Cheon Ise]

[First regular album center: Cheon Ise]

[Fourth digital single center: Cheon Ise]

I didn’t know how important the center position was, since I didn’t know much about idols.

But the videos, pictorials, and press releases that came out were all centered around Cheon Ise.

I thought I could tell at a glance why Climax became a failure without searching a few times.

‘This was totally a group of Cheon Ise, by Cheon Ise, and for Cheon Ise.’

It was too much, considering that it was a company under the Cheon Soo Group’s capital.

Does it make sense to ruin a group by pushing the chairman’s son?

I could guess that favoring one person openly would not help the team activity, even if I was an outsider.

And yet, the reason they hadn’t disbanded yet was purely because of the capital of Cheon Soo Group. Ironically.

‘Sigh… What should I do with this?’

I called the system after a lot of trouble.

“System, come out. System.”

[I’m listening. What can I do for you?]

Wang-!

Pposili wagged his tail happily as if he was glad I called him.

‘Are you Siri…’

I asked calmly.

“Does Cheon Ise’s wish have to be to succeed as an idol only?”

Then the status window shook with a buzz without any text.

Pposili also suddenly looked very anxious and spun around in place.

“What? Why are you doing this?”

[We are sending some adjustment time. Please wait a moment.]

I felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding and moved away from the status window.

My tearful attempt was sadly wasted as the status window followed me closely.

“What is adjustment?”

I glared at the status window with a suspicious expression and crossed my arms.

[Adjustment complete. Now playing .]

“What?”

The surroundings turned black and white like when I bought the video TIP, and a faint BGM came from somewhere.

‘Why is the atmosphere like this?’

They deliberately created a sad atmosphere with a wrong piano sound that rang in my ears.

At the same time, a boy surrounded by friends appeared in front of my eyes.

“Ise, buy me some rice cake skewers.”

He was a little boy who had just passed one meter in height, maybe in the first grade of elementary school.

It was Cheon Ise in his very young days.

“I want a fish cake bar.”

One by one, the kids who looked his age told Cheon Ise what they wanted to eat. Young Cheon Ise shook his head with a puzzled expression.

“Oh, I have to go to the academy right away today! I don’t have time, ah, no!”

Cheon Ise, who stuttered timidly, barely refused. Then the biggest kid among his friends sneered and answered.

“If you don’t have time, just give us money and go.”

Another kid who looked shabby also chimed in.

“Yeah, you have a lot of money at home, can’t you buy your friends something to eat?”

It was obvious that it wasn’t the first time they did this.

I clicked my tongue and held back from giving them a punch each. It wasn’t an adult thing to do to hit a kid.

“No, no, I can’t! I have to go to the academy!”

Cheon Ise tried to escape from the crowd.

Ugh, the kids with yellowish hair blocked Cheon Ise’s way, who was especially small.

“I have to go, okay?”

The elementary schooler of average height was a human barricade.

But young Cheon Ise didn’t have the strength to push them away and get out.

Eventually, the attendant found Cheon Ise and the kids scattered, sending jeers.

“Are you okay, sir?”

Then young Cheon Ise started to cry, biting his lip as if he was hurt.

As I saw in the video last time, Pposili was guarding a corner.

He whined, as if to comfort young Cheon Ise, but it didn’t seem to reach him.

“They, they, ignore me because I’m small and not good at anything…”

The attendant sat in the back seat and stroked Cheon Ise’s head, whispering to calm him down.

“Oh… They’re bad friends. How about making your own talent so that your friends can’t ignore you? It would be nice to follow someone you think is cool.”

He probably didn’t even remember that he said that.

But it seemed to touch Cheon Ise’s heart.

Cheon Ise started to follow the dance singers on TV from that day on.

He was a little kid who hadn’t even turned ten, and he was dancing in a dazzling room with a music video on the monitor.

I felt weird.

“He worked hard at a young age… What was I doing when I was ten?”

When I was in elementary school, I lived in an old house with a toilet outside.

There was no computer, let alone a game console. The arcade in front of the neighborhood stationery store was the only entertainment.

There was no arcade in our neighborhood.

It was a place where people who couldn’t pay their debts ran away at night.

My mother passed away, and my father’s business went well, so the situation at home improved.

But then my father remarried and I had trouble with my family, so I couldn’t expect any support from home.

“Then I dropped out of high school and worked as a kitchen assistant…”

As a result, I went all the way down that road and succeeded, so I thought it was a blessing in disguise.

But I died like this, so what’s the blessing in disguise? It all ended in bloodless blood.

“Anyway, I’ll put aside my sad childhood.”

What does it matter to me that he’s into dancing…

Then I saw a middle school student Cheon Ise who looked like he had no brains for studying even though he was fully supported by his family.

He was sleeping after a private lesson that ended after 1 a.m.

He secretly turned on the dance video in his room when his parents were asleep and followed it.

Then he got caught by his father and had a big fight, and almost got his hair shaved.

“Is that so fun?”

Time flew by as I watched him calmly, and I saw a high school student, Cheon Ise.

“He must have gone to a good school.”

The uniform of a private high school that was said to be only for the rich elites in the news caught my eye.

Cheon Ise was performing a rough dance at an audition hall.

“His parents would want him to study hard at that time.”

Soon the personal attendant of Chairman Cheon came and took Cheon Ise away from the practice room of a planning company.

“How can this kid go to a company that’s rolling under that guy!”

“Then why don’t you debut me, dad! I got in with my own strength, why are you stopping me!?”

Did Chairman Cheon think it was better for his son to work under Cheon Soo Group than under someone else?

After that, he finally got his parents’ consent and joined the debut team.

But Cheon Ise’s troubles weren’t over.

The trainees blatantly shunned Cheon Ise, who was suddenly inserted into the team.

Cheon Ise, who used to nag his mom to do this and that, had some pride.

He clenched his teeth and swallowed his anger instead of telling his parents.

“He seemed to have lived in a flower garden…”

He had passion and pride, though.

Cheon Ise drastically reduced his sleeping time and practiced.

He improved day by day to the point where he could teach other trainees.

But as with other idol trainees, as time passed, the trainees who had become close to him in the shunning left the company.

Their place was replaced by new debut members.

And soon Cheon Ise’s face appeared, despairing at the dismal debut result.

A new hell began after his debut.