The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 149

“Hey, did anyone see this meme?”

“What is it, what is it?”

“Show me too, brother.”

“I’m curious too.”

Rave Entertainment’s spacious practice room was filled with humidity.

Since we had wolfed down breakfast like there was no tomorrow early in the morning and hadn’t left the practice room for almost 4 hours now.

It seemed like a habit that had unknowingly settled into my body since filming 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉. Once you start practicing, it’s important not to lose focus until you get satisfactory results.

I was somewhat surprised that the other guys didn’t show any particular resistance to this kind of forced march, but well. Thanks to that, all the preparation processes are proceeding smoothly.

……It’s going so smoothly it’s problematic.

Kang Seon-woo, who had briefly retrieved his phone connected to the Bluetooth speaker, wiped his sweat with a towel and laughed.

Curious about what kind of meme could make him react like that, the younger members flocked around him like sparrows.

‘When he acts like that, there are only two situations possible.’

When Kang Seon-woo transforms into a mask of comedy with his unadorned energy, it’s simple.

First, when he sees a fan’s post that humorously captures him.

And second, when some weird meme related to Ryu Si-hwan gets uploaded.

The moment I narrowed my eyes and drank water, Yu Ha-woon, who saw Kang Seon-woo’s phone, even clapped his hands and made a fuss.

“Wow, brother, post this in the group chat! I totally want to save it!”

“Isn’t it too cute? I discovered this last night while stalking fans’ SNS before going to sleep and immediately downloaded it.”

“I want to save it too, brother.”

“Me too!”

I had an ominous feeling.

Sure enough, when I clicked on the message that appeared at the top of the phone and entered, a photo with my face blown up to banner size greeted me.

[Our desert fox gradually approaching final evolution form]

It was a meme that skillfully composited my face from the trailer onto a desert fox photo frequently seen on the internet.

Perhaps because my new hairstyle emitted a color very similar to the desert fox’s fur, there was no sense of incongruity at all.

‘……I figured people would make a lot of composites like this.’

When the agency was planning this album, they said they had image transformation in mind for us.

Of course, not a drastically large-scale transformation, but within appropriate limits.

Among them, the most radical idea was my bleaching, as I was chosen as the ‘member we most want to see with dyed hair rather than black hair.’

Honestly, I thought going all the way to blonde would be too much, so we agreed on ash brown.

As a result, I unintentionally ended up on the same level as one of my nicknames, desert fox.

Eventually, Seong-hwi even clicked his tongue and spouted creepy words.

“I shouldn’t make this my profile picture, right?”

“You, the moment you do that, I’ll upload one too.”

“Which one?”

“One of you getting trained.”

“Ahaha, I don’t mind. You’re talking about that dinosaur meme, aren’t you. I actually like that one so it won’t have much impact on me, brother.”

The deal exchange I tried to bring up was defeated miserably.

Since saying anything more here would obviously result in my loss, I’ll just drink water.

Still, it was really delightful that creative works like this were coming out.

It was proof that fans also liked the concept points we deliberately aimed for.

Since an implicit break time had arrived, I decided to look at the comeback trailer reactions.

‘Actually, I looked at most of them last night.’

I mentally admired the bulletin boards that had quickly been decorated with new concept posts in the span of a dozen hours.

It felt like a moment where I could feel the reward for staking everything on the comeback process despite knowing it would be tough.

―Everyone, here’s a collection of our kids’ face close-up shots from this trailer (6-split photo)

└Put this on the main page right now

└The visual chemistry is seriously insane, really wow……

└These are kids chosen by our hands, we can always be proud

―I don’t know whose head Ma Si-hyeok’s gray hair came out of, but anyway thank you thank you thank you thank you

└From what I see, the CENTIX kids probably secretly look at communities lol When we always go ‘wolf pup wolf pup,’ didn’t he really dye it gray like a wolf

└Realistically it makes godly sense, but eh, no way…

└Wolf pup―>gray dyeing is too hasty fortune-telling, but someone at Rave is definitely doing public opinion monitoring 100% lol If not, there’s no way things would work out so perfectly the way we want

└Then Go Hyeong-seok from the shadow world, get out of our Hyeong-seok brother’s body right now!!

└What crazy talk are you spouting, we need to forcibly conscript Vatican priests to seal away the current Hyeong-seok

└Ah lol. The moment the seal gets released, our kids get stuffed into jewelry boxes

―Honestly, I never thought a trailer would come out, but I’m happy MILLENNIUM if you raised your hand when this ultra-high-quality capital-power-slathered Michelin came out like this

└222

└3333 LOL

└What do you mean trailer, I was only thinking a teaser would come out after February lol T_T

└You had given up on all dreams and hopes, teacher……

└Originally, when you lower expectations as much as possible and even a small hint comes, that joy gets doubled, but it wasn’t a small hint but a big truck came so I’m very flustered right now

―LOL everyone thinks the same thing. Our CENTIX visuals were beyond words from the beginning, but if you produce a trailer like this, how are we supposed to wait for the music video!!

└Someone who’s been a ghost here since QS dares to say a word: seriously these bastards seem to be playing a random dice game, if they keep rolling 1s they crash to rock bottom, but when it becomes a 6 party in reverse, they step on full throttle in ways no one expected

└Ha, I never thought I’d anticipate a music video this much, I’m drooling

As expected, MILLENNIUM’s eye for detail is accurate.

Rave, which earned enough profit to slap the three major agencies multiple times over with CENTIX’s debut album, came out with their knives properly sharpened this time.

There’s no way CEO Go Hyeong-seok, who has an amazing sense for the smell of money, would just let this opportunity pass.

He even made a promise to fully support our activities, saying that to make bigger money, you need to make corresponding investments.

Conversely, if the debut album had brought back disappointing results…… we would have nearly faced the despair arc of the story.

I gulped down the remaining water while recalling the conversation I had with Kang Seon-woo before.

‘Now I can’t just be enjoying everything. As we continue succeeding, fans’ expectations rising is unavoidable. If we can’t meet those heightened expectations, the bitter taste of failure will return even larger.’

As I saw through the communities, MILLENNIUM is currently hoping our comeback will be even more than the debut album.

It sounds easy when said in words, but the initial sales record of 730,000 copies that CENTIX set has created a wall that can’t be casually surpassed.

If we can’t show something that breaks consumers’ expectations and surpasses our limits as idols once again……

It might be a bit difficult.

“Alright, everyone rested for over 5 minutes, right? Time to get up now.”

“Ah, brother. It’s just past 7 minutes now, can’t we rest for 10 minutes?”

“We have to go out for lunch soon anyway, so let’s practice 〈Sketchbook〉 until then.”

“Really, aside from everything else, Ryu Si-hwan during practice sessions is the grim reaper himself.”

I smiled slyly at the members who automatically got up despite complaining.

Right, if we only make one-directional attacks, there would be limits to surpassing expectations.

But if we anticipated that and hid trump cards in advance, the story would be different.

Chae Ha-ru put on the black headband he’d been carrying around like a charm since some point and slapped his cheeks hard.

“It’s fun but also tough. We learned the title song choreography super quickly because the schedule overlapped with trailer filming and music video filming, but after finishing that, something else came up again―”

“I agree with Ha-ru. Honestly, the trainer looked really surprised when we memorized the new formations in just 3 days.”

Everyone nodded at Kang Seon-woo’s words.

The song selection and choreography work for 〈Find Me〉…… passed by like a storm that needed no lengthy explanation.

It felt like Rave Entertainment’s staff ground their bones and flesh into everything they poured out.

They continued constant revision work, researching better choreography and formations.

Matching that passion, we stayed up all night desperately trying to complete 〈Find Me〉.

As a result, all preparations except for major marketing tasks like music videos and physical albums were finished a whopping 2 weeks ahead of the scheduled completion.

“It’s tough, but I feel good dancing to this concept song after so long!”

“That’s true, even in 〈ISL 2〉 we mainly did intense and strong concepts rather than bright atmosphere.”

I nodded at Yu Ha-woon, who seemed to feel the reward of steadily continuing physical training.

The Bluetooth speaker was already playing 〈Sketchbook〉, which would handle this album’s sub-track.

The refreshing beauty and boyish image felt from the intro certainly had relative differences from the concepts we’d digested so far.

Although it wasn’t a double title track, since we mastered 〈Find Me〉 so quickly, there was talk about putting effort into creating choreography for the sub-track with this remaining time.

When it comes to comeback stages, it’s generally standard to show two songs mashed up rather than just one.

People will likely think that through the 〈Find Me〉 trailer, CENTIX will come out again equipped with dreamy and restrained group dance.

If we surprise-reveal a sub-track of equally high quality and receive good evaluations.

‘We’ll be able to thoroughly receive the reward for preparing weapons that exceed fans’ expected range.’

In that sense, we have no choice but to put solid fighting spirit into this.

“Let’s go from the intro to the first chorus three times. You guys completely messed up the choreography there at dawn today.”

“I already stuffed that back into Hwi’s head before sleeping, Brother Si-hwan.”

“If you really think about it, it’s because Ma Si-hyeok first taught us the choreography all backwards that I got it wrong too―”

“Be quiet.”

Seeing that everyone has the energy to chatter like this, it seems they still have stamina left to be worked harder.

I quietly went to where I’d placed my duffel bag and took out the items I’d prepared.

Seong-hwi let out an instantaneous sigh when he witnessed colorful jump ropes magnificently emerging.

“Ah, wait. We only do this at night, didn’t we?”

“Jump rope is good anytime. Today let’s specially try practicing vocals while jumping rope. It’ll be big trouble if we’re short of breath on stage.”

“If I faint in the practice room, Manager will send me to the hospital anyway, right, Brother Seon-woo?”

“Hahaha, I think I’ll be the first to collapse though?”

* * *

That afternoon, a familiar face greeted us as we returned to the dorms briefly after eating a late lunch.

“Hello, everyone! You probably heard the news in advance, but I’ll be troubling you again starting today!”

“Hello, PD!”

“It’s been a while!”

PD Jo Seung-soo, who had planned our first reality show 〈TIME WITH CENTIX〉.

Although it was a reality show that only aired 4 short episodes, it received such good reactions that we heard they were planning to include reality season 2 in this comeback promotion as well.

And today, CENTIX reality season 2, 〈Re:Meet with Centix〉, officially begins.

I looked at the camera army that had mercilessly occupied the area behind the sofa in an instant.

“During the first filming, honestly it felt overwhelming, but now I’m somewhat used to it.”

“Right! I missed that moving camera over there too, seeing it again makes me happy!”

Yu Ha-woon approached the moving camera installed next to the TV and played around to his heart’s content.

The camera that automatically rotates its lens left and right by detecting movement diligently followed his hands and face.

After waiting for the slight commotion to pass, PD Jo Seung-soo explained the overall concept of this reality show.

“Last time in reality season 1, you played a lot of games under the mission of collecting stones, right?”

“Yes!”

“Now fans have probably fallen for CENTIX’s charms to some degree, so this reality show will be able to show a friendlier side.”

“Yes!”

“We’re planning to neglect you as much as possible.”

“Yes?”

Everyone made stupid expressions at the sudden development, but PD Jo Seung-soo didn’t care and immediately moved on to the next topic.

“If fans want a friendly and upgraded CENTIX! Then shouldn’t we also create an appropriate environment?”

“I already have a bad feeling about this.”

Next to me, Kang Seon-woo trembled as if feeling chills.

“I thought it might be a bit boring to see the same faces every morning for months after debuting. So since we’re welcoming a comeback and starting reality season 2, we’ll be selecting new roommates!”