The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 105

“I should have just eaten it.”

“Why are you so fickle?”

“I can still see that steak dancing before my eyes!”

As usual, I was organizing Chae Ha-ru’s in-ear cables for him.

Chae Ha-ru clutched his stomach while radiating eyes full of regret.

Earlier he’d said it was too precious to eat.

Now he seemed to have succumbed to hunger.

I deflated Chae Ha-ru’s appetite with some light verbal sparring.

“If you’d eaten all that anyway, you would’ve been too full to move properly. And if you pour greasy stuff into an empty stomach, you’ll just feel worse.”

“You’re right…”

“Now that it’s come to this, just sweat it out on stage and eat your lunchbox when you get back.”

“I’ll endure thinking about that steak!”

While passing through the waiting room corridor with Chae Ha-ru after finishing organizing his cables, we heard loud cheers coming from outside.

The source was none other than Kang Seon-woo.

“The structure here is really fascinating. You can see everything from our corridor down to the floor!”

“Ah, that’s why the fans are all looking up here.”

“You wave once too.”

Led by Kang Seon-woo, I was half-forced to wave my hand, successfully producing cheers from 200 people.

Pre-recording starts at 10:30 AM, but MILLENNIUM must have been waiting for a long time before that.

Their legs must be aching, but seeing our faces seemed to make that kind of pain disappear completely.

‘For their sake too, I have to finish today without any mistakes.’

We’ve practiced enough.

I just hope the guys don’t get nervous during the actual performance.

“CENTIX, please come up on stage!”

This is definitely the main station.

Of course we’d get good set designs at other broadcasters’ music shows too, but there was a reason KNet had earned the nickname “sons born from the heart.”

The entire floor was made of LEDs, perfectly recreating the lake that appeared in our music video.

The shattered crystals and mirror fragments were identical to what we’d seen in the music video set, as if they’d been transported directly.

The LED setup wasn’t just on the floor but connected all the way to the back of the stage.

So no matter which direction you turned your head, you could see the blue Milky Way.

The members also seemed pleased with the set composition and immediately threw comments to MILLENNIUM.

“Everyone, how’s our set? Pretty cool, right!”

“Yesssss!”

“It looks really cramped up front there, are you okay? I hope you won’t push each other too much from behind.”

“It’s fine, Seon-woooo!”

Really, every single comment was followed by tremendous responses.

Since the standby signal from the staff on the side hadn’t dropped yet, we had a short mini fan meeting with the fans who had waited for so long.

“We got the lunchboxes!”

“But they were too precious to eat, so we left them in the waiting room and came up.”

“Nooo!”

“No way, you should have eaten them!”

“Eat everything and post a photo of the empty lunchbox containers!”

MILLENNIUM seemed to find us unreliable, so they only seemed satisfied after getting a promise that we’d take photos of empty lunchbox containers and post them.

Next, the topic that came up was our official account posts.

“If we post too many selfies, won’t you get tired of them—”

“Never!”

“Post 100 a day!”

“Ahaha, that’s the best news I’ve heard today, isn’t it guys? What do you think, brother, should we take more photos in the waiting room today?”

“You turn on the camera and come over by yourself when I’m just sitting still anyway.”

Seong-hwi casually delivered spine-chilling words to me.

I didn’t mind if MILLENNIUM was happy.

But the subject was an uncontrollable maniac, which was scary.

Because I didn’t know what he might do the moment I gave him complete authority.

We also conveyed messages like “Make sure to eat something delicious when you get home,” “We’ll try our best to send private messages every day,” and “Please cheer loudly for today’s fan chant,” ending our communication.

Originally, this kind of communication time wouldn’t be this long, but since this was our first music show, I thought the production team gave us special consideration.

Thanks to that, we were able to boost the morale of 200 people and successfully shake off some of our nervousness too.

When the standby signal dropped, we each moved to our positions.

I stood alone in the center of the stage, looking forward.

Then I made eye contact with a fan who was covering her mouth with a slogan bearing my name.

‘I’m making a lot of eye contact today.’

Even on the way to work this morning, I’d made eye contact with quite a few people. Even on stage, there seemed to be many MILLENNIUM stealing glances at me.

I grinned and gave a short wave.

It was only about 3 seconds, but the fan holding the Ryu Si-hwan slogan let out a short scream as if she’d briefly visited heaven.

When all the lights went out, the noisy set became quiet.

A melodic piano melody played over the deep house beat.

The moment I moved my fingers in the motion of playing the keyboard, tremendous fan chants burst from the front.

“Let’s go together CENTIX!”

It was definitely the same fan chant from the debut show stage, but this was the first time hearing it from such close distance.

Originally, I shouldn’t smile easily during the intro, so I tried to lower my rising lip corners.

‘I’m so happy.’

Being on stage is enjoyable, singing is enjoyable, and hearing people’s cheers is enjoyable.

My heart is always beating.

But in this moment, I could feel that I was truly alive and breathing.

* * *

By the time the pre-recording of Music K Showdown was finishing up, the relatively quiet community became active again.

Because they were waiting for vivid reviews from the blessed 200 people.

—So when are the hot reviews coming up? The pre-recording should be over by now

—Did everyone who went to the live recording die from heart attacks? Lmao

—Can’t someone at least spoil the outfits? I beg

—Wow, I’ve never seen people beg so single-heartedly before

└You must be quite new? You didn’t see us begging for the kids’ teasers and concept photos from the label?

└I only became a fan after seeing the music video hehe

└I smell a cute newbie sniff sniff

Just when everyone was going crazy showing obsessive dedication to CENTIX, who had become fans relatively late.

A savior descended from heaven.

[Review hastily written while organizing stuff at the station]

I always had bad luck with public broadcasts T_T I never got to go even once during ISL2… So I applied this time thinking it wouldn’t work out again, but amazingly I succeeded!

It’s been a while since I had to leave at dawn so I was half-asleep, but I printed out my music purchase history, album order confirmation, fan club certificate and arrived in Mapo-gu… I was half-dead from being so tired but amazingly!! At this time!! The kids!! Came to work!!

(photo) (photo) (photo)

Si-hyeok is so tall and handsome lol. When fans asked him to throw hearts, he made finger hearts that didn’t match his build, it was so cute

Hwi is really elegantly handsome. This shows on camera but real life is even better. Just the best.

Ha-woon is listed as 174cm on his ISL2 profile so I thought he’d be small~ but no matter how I look at it, he’s definitely not 174. Needs to redo his profile lmao. He looked more mature than I expected but still had that baby-like image

Chae Ha-ru… sigh, my ultimate bias Ha-ru, what manga did you tear through to get here? Tell me that manga so I can go in there too. Hwi is really handsome too but my bias goggles + his otherworldly aura were unbeatable

Seon-woo LOL. From his entrance he was like “I’m that Kang Seon-woo!” He greeted everyone so warmly! Ah! I unfortunately didn’t get any, but he shared chocolate that members brought with us T_T. The angel himself, fan service was the best

Si-hwan came last but as expected of the #1 pick, people’s cheers were no joke lol. All the kids are handsome but they all felt different. Hwan-father had a slightly noble aura showing from behind?? Anyway, somehow I felt like I should bow my head respectfully LOL. He made eye contact and greeted everyone individually as he passed

We had quite a long communication session before the stage started. The most memorable thing was them saying they couldn’t eat the lunchboxes we sent because they were too precious lol. Then someone in the row in front of me got extremely angry and told them to definitely eat everything and post proof photos, so the CENTIX kids frantically nodded lmao. It was cute

The stage was beyond words! Everyone’s probably seen the Chronic music video and debut show video so I’ll skip that. The outfits are… exactly what you all hope for hehe. Light spoiler ends here

One-line summary:

1. The kids’ real-life visuals didn’t disappoint as always

2. Stage completion was a given

3. Fan service was good even at this early hour!

I’ll definitely apply for public broadcasts again when I have time next time hehe

—Ah now that the review is up I’m so envious and annoyed and my stomach hurts and I’m excited and all kinds of emotions are crossing

—Forget everything else, the commute fan service is too enviable. Crazy

—Not only close-up fancams but even getting chocolate, insane

—Are there any fans here who got Seon-woo’s chocolate?

└Cautiously raising my finger

└Wow really?? So jealous

└Hehe I’m too exhausted right now so I’ll write a review after sleeping

The news that CENTIX performed well on stage was now taken for granted.

Today’s hot topic was the ultra-close fan service they could receive and the fact that despite being rookies, they skillfully handled pre-recording talk.

While the tasty pre-recording review was circulating nicely and MILLENNIUM was happy about it.

—Hey guys, official account notification

Everyone’s attention turned to the CENTIX photos posted simultaneously on Stargram and Bluebird.

[official.CENTIX: Energy fully charged with the lunchboxes MILLENNIUM sent!]

MILLENNIUM T_T Thank you so much for the thoughtful lunchboxes! We were able to eat deliciously after recording finished! You guys are really the best fans, always fresh and thrilling to see! (p.s. We really ate every bit of our lunchboxes without leaving anything, does this count as keeping our promise?)

#CENTIX #CENTIX

The post was none other than CENTIX’s lunchbox proof shot.

If they were typical idols, they would have shown off the contents while writing about being grateful.

But CENTIX faithfully kept the promise they made during pre-recording and proudly photographed their empty lunchbox containers.

—No LMAO. They really brought photos of empty containers

—For kids who said it was too precious to eat, they didn’t leave even a grain of rice and scraped everything out?

—Must have tasted good, what a relief

—Look how they’re only showing their faces above the table to avoid spoiling outfits before broadcast LOL. Why are they all so cute

└Feels like a meerkat family lol

—This photo was definitely taken by Ryu1Si-hwan lol. His tone shows through from being so blunt. You guys aren’t even masters and you have to prove you ate your lunchboxes? LOL. I can still clearly see him running inside like crazy after barely greeting people on the way in

└? What kind of random hate is this

└The kids all gave good fan service when they left, what are you talking about

└What fan service lol Just making eye contact with about 3 people and waving before running away, that’s good fan service? Since when did standards drop so low lol

└This is obviously bait guys, don’t pay attention

└Say this bullshit on your alt account heh. Don’t spout nonsense here

└Yep I already screenshotted Ryu1Si-hwan~

Most fans praised CENTIX’s appearance faithfully keeping the promise they made at the venue as cute.

But a very small number of people were inexplicably cursing and targeting specific members.

MILLENNIUM, who had endured all kinds of hate since ISL 2, thought ‘Here we go again with another attention-seeking troll’ and planned to ignore it as usual.

From the beginning, they judged that this kind of attention-seeker would naturally die down if you just didn’t respond.

However, the trolls were gleefully spewing curses even when IP blocks were applied, quickly finding new bypass routes.

Regular MILLENNIUM took measures by finding other topics and drowning out the trolls with firepower as always.

But as time passed, they started getting tired of the same repetitive content.

Fortunately, the broadcast time for Music K Showdown was quickly approaching.