Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Chapter 113:

“Let’s pretend to be friends for a while.”

As soon as I suggested that concisely, Yu-geon’s eyebrows twitched.

“What nonsense are you talking about…?”

Yu-geon snapped back nervously, throwing away even the slightest courtesy.

Good, that’s how it should be.

The more he acted like a brat, pouting and sulking, the easier it was for me to look down on him from a superior position.

“Think about it. Why do you think the fans are fighting? Out of boredom? No way. They think they have to get back the rights and benefits that were taken away from them by that bastard, instead of the idol they support. They think they’re fighting for their idol.”

That was my guess, too. But when I analyzed the several clashes I had with the Floss fandom, they all came down to the same argument.

‘My’ Floss was being infringed by ‘your’ Climax, who had the rightful rights, qualifications, and status that they deserved.

It was the same with the comeback schedule incident.

They assumed that Floss was harmed because of Climax, who was a senior in the industry, and they bombarded Climax with fierce attacks.

It was the same with the song, which is still controversial.

A rumor spread that Climax had stolen Floss’s song, and they claimed that ‘we have to protect Floss.’

And the recent friction was also of the same nature.

As Climax rose, the overzealous fandom acted as if Floss’s interests were being violated, and they kept causing trouble.

“So what we have to do is…”

Show them that we’re not enemies, and that we have no reason to fight like this, that we’re allies.

Even if we were enemies in reality, if we had any sense of the company, we wouldn’t have to fight for the same spot in the future.

We didn’t have enough manpower to begin with.

Shim Naru said he was sorry that our activities didn’t overlap, but that was impossible.

No matter how much they neglected Climax, it was impossible for an entertainment company of WePlanet’s size to have two groups active at the same time.

There might be some minor clashes elsewhere, but… the relationship we should aim for was a WIN-WIN model, not a WIN-LOSE model.

“So we have to show them that we don’t need to fight, that we’re allies. Got it?”

“Ha…”

Yu-geon glared at me for a long time, as if he didn’t believe me, and then closed his mouth. If he thought about it with his small and pretty head, it wouldn’t sound like a wrong suggestion.

It would be hard to persuade the whole members to act friendly, but if I could get Yu-geon to pretend to be friendly with us, it would help a little to ease the conflict.

“That’s all you have to say…”

I quickly reached out and grabbed Yu-geon’s right ear.

“Ah, ah…! What are you doing, ouch!”

Yu-geon lowered his head and closed his eyes tightly as I pulled his earlobe.

“Don’t act so immature and think about it.”

And I dragged Yu-geon to the room like that.

I used my desperate social skills to film a video as if I had met Yu-geon by chance, and I also captured him choosing bread with me at the bakery.

When the camera wasn’t on, Yu-geon’s expression changed to ‘Wow, this old fox-like person.’ but I didn’t care.

The ones who greeted us as we came up to the room with a bag of bread, pretending to be friendly…

‘…’

‘…’

They were Seong-won and Kyunghwa, who were sitting in the same pool with swimsuits on, looking at their phones in waterproof bags.

‘That was really… awkward. I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole.’

Yu-geon dropped the bag of bread with a thud, as if he couldn’t believe the scene.

‘We met Kang Yu-geon in the lobby on the first floor… and came up to say hello for a moment.’

Kyunghwa was furious, as if he was about to spit fire from his mouth.

“Wow, but it’s been a long time, Yu-geon. Are you here to rest today?”

Yi-jun, who was the most comfortable with Yu-geon among the five of us, put an egg tart in his mouth and asked.

“Yeah, we just finished our promotion period and got a week off. It was too complicated to go abroad, so I thought I’d come here for a week and relax. I didn’t expect to see you again like this.”

“Hmm, I see.”

Yi-jun nodded, and Yu-geon cautiously looked around and picked up a tart.

Does he really swallow the food in his mouth?

He had a remarkable nerve in many ways.

“Your promotion period was really long this time, right?”

Kyunghwa, who must have been on guard, opened his mouth a little.

“Yes, we did four weeks of promotion with the title song and the sub-song, and two weeks with the follow-up song. It was really long.”

“You must have worked hard. You seemed to be active in variety shows for over a month.”

Of course, that included the Star Discovery MC position where Seong-won won second place.

“It was hard. But thanks to the fans who support us, we’re doing well.”

Yu-geon skillfully answered and greeted Seon-woo again.

“You met Seon-woo before, right? How is it to be an MC? Is it okay?”

Seon-woo, who was holding a canele as if it was precious, was startled and answered.

“Ah, yes! I’m getting used to it now.”

Yu-geon chuckled lightly at Seon-woo’s awkward reaction.

“It would be good to practice being more flexible. You’ll have more chances to be number one in the future.”

Yu-geon’s insincere compliment continued.

After that, we chatted about various things, such as what we usually do during the break and what we liked the most among the bread we bought, and finally finished the bread party.

“Well, today we had an unexpected guest with us! We’ll send Yu-geon off and see you again tomorrow morning!”

We finished the filming with a proper closing remark and turned off the camera. The smile on everyone’s face disappeared in an instant.

“Okay then. Good job.”

Kyunghwa, who had a blatant stiff expression, headed to the entrance as if he was going to kick Yu-geon’s butt.

“Kyunghwa, wait a minute.”

I checked that the cameras around me were completely off and sighed lightly.

“I’m sorry for bringing a guest without consulting you in advance. I have something to talk to you about, so listen.”

Yu-geon, who seemed to be leaving on his own, crossed his arms and looked down at me.

“You guys must know, but there’s a situation where there’s a constant small and big conflict between Tempo and Rise. I was thinking that we should stop this meaningless conflict from our side.”

“Uh-huh…”

Yi-jun nodded reluctantly, as if admitting the truth. Seong-won also snorted lightly, but did not deny the fact.

“So I thought it would be better to show some friendship with the members who can cooperate with us at least.”

“Friendship?”

Kyunghwa asked, as if he did not understand.

“Well, if we act a bit friendly with each other, maybe we can get rid of the excuse that we are fighting for the idol I like.”

They all thought for a while, weighing the pros and cons, and then opened their mouths.

“Did all the members of Floss agree to that? Or just you, Yu-geon?”

Yu-geon finally intervened, as if it was his turn.

“Well, it’s just me for now. As you know, our team atmosphere is such that we are considerate of each other and respect each other’s opinions. Haha. I think it would be hard to get everyone’s consent.”

In other words, we are not close enough to persuade each other.

“Then, are you the only one who will cooperate with us from Floss?”

Kyunghwa asked with a much more rational expression than before.

“Yes, I guess so.”

And Yu-geon accepted Kyunghwa’s words.

What if Kyunghwa says we don’t need to do this? Unfortunately, we needed this kind of strategy.

We had no reason to clash with the top group that had a powerful fandom, while we were just rising as a new group.

“…”

What are you trying to say? Let’s get this over with! I sent a telepathy to Kyunghwa in my mind.

“Please try to persuade them more. At least two more. Since you all have a lot of personal fans, I think it would help to prevent fandom conflicts if there are at least three members who are friends.”

“What?”

I was surprised by the bold request that I did not expect. What are you talking about, Ryu Kyunghwa?

As I opened my eyes wide, Kyunghwa added calmly.

“It might be hard for us to participate in your content activities because of the difficulty of convincing our members. How about we collaborate officially on our content sometime?”

Of course… It was not a bad suggestion, if it was possible. But would Floss agree?

If we were to produce content, it would be perfect to bring in the manpower needed to repair the country house for the winter.

‘But still… The problem is whether they will agree.’

As I waited for Yu-geon’s reaction, he smiled brightly with a rather cold expression.

“Sounds good. I’ll try to convince them.”

That’s enough for now. I felt Yu-geon’s patience was reaching its limit and stepped in between him and Kyunghwa.

“Come on, let’s call it a day. I’ll take Yu-geon and come back, so get ready.”

I quickly pushed Yu-geon’s back and sent him out to the hallway. There was only one room on this floor, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone else.

“…”

As soon as the door closed, Yu-geon shook off my hand that was holding his arm.

“Ah.”

“Let go.”

“Yes.”

I obediently took Yu-geon to the elevator entrance.

And then I took a deep breath to bring up the topic that I had been worried about but couldn’t say.

I watched the elevator slowly ascend from the ground floor and sighed cautiously.

It wasn’t that I was trying to dig up his weakness on purpose.

The woman who had touched Yu-geon’s shoulder earlier… She looked at least 15 years older than me, no matter how I looked at her.

It couldn’t be some kind of inappropriate relationship, could it? I knew it was none of my business, but I couldn’t help being bothered.

I had also heard from others that popular male idols often received inappropriate offers from big shots, madams, or chaebol heiresses.

“By the way, if you ever get any weird or inappropriate requests…”

He glared at me as if I was crazy.

“What are you talking about? She’s the president of The Classic Entertainment.”

“Oh.”

I uttered a stupid exclamation and he closed the elevator door with an extremely disgusted expression.