The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 42

I had a feeling it would be like this.

When I watched through the broadcast, it was the same.

When Ma Si-hyeok told me about Team 10 in real-time, it was exactly the same.

Seong-hwi’s only goal is winning.

For some unknown reason, he believes that by any means necessary, creating a successful stage and climbing to high places is the only right path.

‘That’s why he deliberately pointed me out openly.’

He must have also figured out that I’m the only one with a solid main vocal position in 〈ISL 2〉.

He’d know well that while other positions might be replaceable, the main vocal is irreplaceable.

Having seen many teams fall apart due to lacking vocal abilities in the last battle round.

Seong-hwi’s intention was probably to create a truly ‘stage that cannot fail’ by placing two trainees who had reached the top ranks as the core.

I looked into Seong-hwi’s eyes and spoke slowly.

“I’m grateful that you recommended me so directly like this, but don’t you think we should at least hear other people’s opinions a little?”

“Ah, should I have done that? I’m sorry, I was a bit hasty because I wanted to quickly complete the basic composition and move on to the next process. Then, is there anyone who wants the center, main vocal, or leader position?”

Seong-hwi, who had stepped back for once, asked in a bright voice.

The other team members stared blankly at the tablet PC where the lyrics and choreography video were being replayed.

No one was readily stepping forward.

“If there are no other opinions, may I carefully return to my initial proposal?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fine.”

“It does seem like it would be difficult anyway……”

“Yes, then I’ll start by putting on the stickers.”

With a brazen attitude, Seong-hwi handed me the L sticker and microphone sticker.

As expected, he’s no ordinary person.

‘So the moment he realized the song’s difficulty was extremely high, he immediately took control and made it so other opinions wouldn’t easily come out, then stamped the final confirmation. Was that it? What a cunning guy.’

We’d gotten over the big hurdle of main position distribution, but the real ordeal was starting now.

I placed the tablet PC on my lap and asked everyone.

“Now we need to talk about arrangement. I asked briefly earlier, but is there anyone who knows even a little about arrangement? Or anyone who has ideas about what direction we should reassemble this song in?”

This time too, the silence wasn’t broken.

Everyone was just staring at the screen with blank expressions.

When I glanced sideways, I caught a glimpse of Seong-hwi’s face sending me a faint smile.

An expression that seemed to say ‘See, I was right?’

“Um…… I had one thought while watching the video.”

“Oh, Sang-hun. Go ahead.”

Ha Sang-hun, a participant who had ranked 16th in the first ranking announcement, carefully opened his mouth.

“I was wondering if it’s okay to completely change Fournine’s atmosphere. Somehow, shouldn’t we arrange it without damaging the original song as much as possible…… But it also seems difficult for us to handle a pure concept, so I can’t get a grasp on it.”

“I totally understand that feeling.”

As I emphasized in the group battle round, if you get stuck with a song that’s too famous, you can get severely compared to the original.

While hearing things like you didn’t capture the original’s essence, your singing was much worse, and your dancing was weird.

However, if a situation comes where it’s completely difficult to apply the original song’s atmosphere, the story changes slightly.

“If our song had been a male idol song, completely changing the atmosphere might have been a bad choice. But as you know, this is a female idol song, right? People listening will also feel that change is inevitable, so I think we don’t need to worry much about that part.”

“Ah.”

“That said, rather than completely removing the original song’s emotion, I think it’s better to go in a direction that preserves it in key point parts. For example, switching to a bright tone like Fournine sang for a few measures in the chorus part. I think the primary goal should be to naturally arrange it so we can showcase our charm while allowing people to remember that this was originally Fournine’s song.”

When I finished speaking, Seong-hwi clapped briefly.

“Wow, as expected, my eye wasn’t wrong. I think bringing Brother Si-hwan was truly a godsend.”

“I only talked about it, I haven’t actually done anything special yet?”

“Just the fact that everyone is listening carefully to what you say seems to prove it.”

Even as he said that, there seemed to be a slightly envious light in Seong-hwi’s eyes.

“We’ll have a lot of work to do. First, the most important arrangement work…… I’ve taken composition classes before, so I can handle it to some degree. What about Brother Si-hwan?”

“I can do it too.”

“Good. Then you and I will handle the overall arrangement. Next, we need to learn the choreography and modify it to fit our body types, and I’ll take charge of this part too. I’ve watched a lot of Fournine’s videos, so I’m already somewhat familiar with it.”

When the choreography topic came up, Ma Si-hyeok shifted restlessly to my right.

I asked in a low voice.

“What? Do you have something to say?”

“I, I also know this choreography to some degree.”

“Then you should say you’ll help too.”

“It’s not really necessary…… for me to step forward too.”

“Hmm.”

Ma Si-hyeok still looked somewhat intimidated.

His dancing skills alone could definitely be called the absolute best among us.

It seems he can’t readily step forward because Seong-hwi already declared he’d handle the choreography.

“Brother Si-hwan and I will decide the overall song flow and style as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, please look at the lyrics and choreography and input them into your heads to some degree. Is that alright?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fine!”

I felt like I was facing a difficult situation, but Seong-hwi was grinning and grabbing my shoulder, seeming pleased about something.

“Doesn’t this seem like it’ll be really fun?”

Right, it’s better to laugh like a screw’s loose than to verbally destroy the kids, you bastard.

* * *

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Ahaha, this much is nothing.”

“You could take a break while working. You’ve been staring at that laptop for 5 hours straight now.”

“No, I’m going to finish up to here today and leave.”

Seong-hwi winked at me with bloodshot eyes.

I, who had been holding a guitar in the practice room, let out a deep sigh.

‘Excessive passion.’

Two days had passed since our team got hit with the tremendous song selection bomb.

The arrangement work itself had flowed more smoothly than expected.

What should 〈Back in the Time〉 sung by male idols be like?

Starting from this fundamental theme, ideas naturally flowed out.

At Seong-hwi’s suggestion to analyze the lyrics centrally, I reread the lyric sheet hundreds of times from the most intuitive perspective possible.

Content about separated lovers missing each other and saying the past was good.

I want to go back to those times again. Are you living well?

The lyrics were impressive with abstract expressions characteristic of old K-pop.

When I thought about a man conveying these words, the feeling I got was ‘it should be desperate.’

If you express this passionately, it would obviously fail.

If you use bouncy beats, it would clearly become a third-rate repetitive song.

Then what genre could convey desperation while also delivering the charm of male idols?

“I’m not really that tired. Every time I organize tracks, I think about Brother Si-hwan showing restrained sexiness.”

“That’s a weird fetish of yours.”

“Haha, even if it’s a weird fetish, if it provides motivation for arrangement, isn’t it okay?”

Future bass K-pop.

Combining dreamy sounds with trendy EDM beats to create restrained yet masculine charm.

Starting with quiet melodies like falling raindrops in the beginning, when reaching near the highlight, bass beats drop.

Since it felt like creating a dedicated seat for a dance break, Seong-hwi paid tremendous attention to this part.

I was also struggling to modify the high vocal range and distribute parts suitable for other team members’ vocal abilities.

“Brother Si-hwan, about the second verse chorus.”

“Yeah. Didn’t we say to switch to the original melody once there?”

“We changed it that way, but the vocal range naturally gets high again. I was wondering if you could sing it.”

“Play it for me.”

Reverse cymbals played through Seong-hwi’s laptop speakers.

After the sound of air being sucked in, the future bass melody transformed into piano keys.

A verse arranged as a piano version while perfectly preserving 〈Back in the Time〉’s original melody.

It was definitely high.

But it wasn’t at an impossible level.

I sang the chorus lyrics while adding guitar accompaniment on the spot.

Seong-hwi’s expression changed in real-time as my voice easily climbed up.

“……That’s cheating.”

“What is?”

“If you’re good at singing, shouldn’t you at least be bad at composing?”

While Seong-hwi was speaking, the practice room door opened and the rest of Team 5’s members entered.

They were all soaked with sweat, having apparently come from dance practice.

“We finished practicing up to before the dance break.”

“Good work.”

While Seong-hwi and I were working on arrangement, Ma Si-hyeok had volunteered to lead the dance practice.

Thanks to that, we could handle two tasks simultaneously.

Hearing that practice was finished, Seong-hwi put down his laptop and stood up.

“Then I’ll immediately start creating the dance break choreography. Brother Si-hwan, you can handle the remaining parts here, right?”

“Hey, Seong-hwi. I told you to rest a little while working.”

“I only sat and typed anyway, so there’s absolutely no problem with moving my body. It’s okay.”

“……”

I stared intently at Seong-hwi’s face, which clearly showed fatigue.

Seeing that guy with his eyes folded into half-moons, it was obvious he wouldn’t listen no matter what I said.

From a common sense perspective, we should sleep here and resume practice tomorrow morning.

No matter how much we need to endure forced marches while preparing for the stage, unless we’re robots, rest is absolutely essential.

‘This is something he can only realize himself.’

I wanted to forcibly drag Seong-hwi to the dorm, but if I did that, I might accidentally push some weird button on that crazy narcissist.

“Alright. But you have to take it easy.”

“I’ll finish creating it quickly and head in, so don’t worry.”

I checked the clock, which was already pointing to 3 AM.

“Let’s call it a day here. We have the interim evaluation in two days, so let’s sleep and practice as much as we can when we wake up. Okay?”

“Yes!”

“Good, everyone dismiss.”

Even as I left the practice room, an uneasy feeling settled in one corner of my chest.

First, there was something I needed to check.

I tapped the shoulder of Ma Si-hyeok, who looked extremely tired.

“Head in first. I’m going to get some fresh air before going.”

“Understood, Brother…… hurry up and come rest too……”

“Yeah.”

Sitting on a bench outside the building, I quietly called Cerberus.

“Cerberus. You were in the practice room the whole time, right?”

{Of course, Master. How could I sleep comfortably when you can’t sleep?}

“Perfect timing. You said before that it’s hard to smell when people are crowded together in one place.”

{That’s right?}

“Then when it was just me and Seong-hwi together today, it was fine, wasn’t it? I’m curious about what kind of smell that guy had.”

{I knew you’d be curious about that.}

Cerberus scratched his ear with his hind leg while seriously recalling his memories.

{I said before that he had an unpleasantly arrogant smell, right, Master? Back then I couldn’t smell him up close, so I couldn’t identify it accurately, but after smelling him today, it definitely wasn’t an ordinary feeling.}

“Not an ordinary feeling?”

{To put it simply, remember that human who was rude to you? What was his name, Park Bong-chang?}

“Park Chang-jung.”

{Anyway, with that type of human, you can clearly feel that their soul is rotten and that’s why they smell like that. But today’s Seong-hwi was different. It seems like there’s no problem with the soul itself, but there’s this feeling that something else is making him smell strange, like something weird is remaining in that human’s memories.}

I felt like I was listening to a riddle.

“Can’t you explain it a little more simply?”

{This is really hard to express in words, Master! It just seems like there’s no problem with the soul itself, but something that makes him smell strange is remaining in that human’s memories. That’s all I know.}

Cerberus slightly bowed his head as if this was his best effort.

I lightly scratched his ears while pondering.

I still didn’t know the exact meaning, but.

‘Seong-hwi is also hiding something.’

* * *

The next morning.

“I finished creating the dance break choreography.”

Seong-hwi, with dark circles extending down to under his eyes, smiled and told us.

I swallowed hard while looking around at the energy drink cans scattered throughout the practice room.

No matter how I looked at it, Seong-hwi seemed to have gotten no sleep at all last night.

“Five, six, seven, eight.”

As the practice session progressed, my prediction became certainty.

Seong-hwi, who always had overflowing power in his joints, looked noticeably exhausted.

Seeing him almost fall backward while demonstrating a front kick, I resolved inwardly.

This won’t do.

“Seong-hwi. You recorded all the choreography videos, right?”

“Huh? Ah, yes. I naturally recorded them.”

“Then give me your phone and go to your room to sleep first. If you collapse like this, it’ll be a disaster.”

“Haha, I know what you’re worried about. But it’s okay. I’ll just show you the demonstration up to here and then it’ll be over, so it’ll end quickly.”

“Listen to what I’m saying.”

“I’ll be done in 3 minutes, Brother Si-hwan. It’s really okay.”

After throwing those words at me, Seong-hwi showed us the complex leg kick sequence again.

But at that moment.

Seong-hwi’s left foot suddenly slipped on the floor and his center completely collapsed.

Crash!

“Ugh!”

“Huh, huh!”

“Hwi! Are you okay?”

“Seong-hwi!”

I rushed forward and grabbed the back of my neck seeing Seong-hwi’s ankle, which had swollen up instantly.

A major accident had occurred.