The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 63

The collaboration between composer Kang Hae-soo, who wanted to surpass 〈ISL 1〉, and choreographer Shin Jae-hoon, notorious for his ruthlessness, went without saying.

Even though my basic physical stamina had grown to overwhelming levels, performing this stage live put tremendous pressure on my lungs.

Still, I maintained my composure and savored the voices of the fans screaming loud enough to bring down the filming location.

That thrill continued even as I descended the stairs and entered backstage.

“Bleh!”

“Ha-woon? Hey, are you okay?”

“Hah, hah, it was so hard that I’m dry heaving, bleh!”

The rest of the guys seemed to have lost their grip on the mental threads they’d been barely holding onto, and as soon as we got backstage, they were throwing up and collapsing in chaos.

I managed to take care of each team member who looked utterly exhausted and somehow succeeded in returning to the waiting room.

“First, drink water while taking slow deep breaths. Don’t drink too much at once, just little by little.”

“I think I’ll live……”

Yu Ha-woon, who had looked the worst, finally regained some energy after drinking the entire 500mL bottle of water.

Despite his haggard appearance, his eyes sparkled brightly.

“I still heard the cheers clearly! The fans’ voices were so loud and it was really great!”

“Ah, I wanted to hear encore calls too. You guys heard them and came down during the second stage, right?”

Kang Seon-woo, who had thrown off his leather jacket, let out a wistful sigh while hugging the air conditioner tightly.

Seong-hwi, who had been checking his completely washed-off makeup in the mirror, grinned at him.

“The audience probably didn’t even have time to shout encore, they were too busy screaming. That means our stage reached them with deep appeal, so I’m satisfied with this.”

“That’s probably right. Man, somehow we made it to the end and came down!”

Our appearance, completely drained of all energy, clearly showed that we had poured our heart and soul out on stage.

I smiled quietly while looking at the cameras that had faithfully followed us into the waiting room.

‘We’ll definitely get thoroughly squeezed for the preview.’

Since everything was already filmed anyway, I should properly finish until the end.

“Hey guys.”

Following my voice, six faces turned in the same direction all at once.

I slowly moved my gaze and made eye contact with each one of them.

The moment I saw Ma Si-hyeok, who was drenched in sweat, some indescribable tickling emotion seemed to settle in my heart.

“The previous competitions were naturally difficult too, but thank you all for really working hard and running toward today’s stage. Everyone worked so hard, truly.”

These words probably would have come out naturally even if the cameras weren’t rolling.

The composer’s masterpiece pursuing perfection.

The choreographer’s dance wanting to show the public something beyond that.

And the variables that erupted from external forces beyond our reach.

Since these were team members who had endured the most difficult times together, I found myself delivering such embarrassing lines without realizing it.

Kang Seon-woo, who had been listening to my words in a daze, eventually laughed heartily and patted my back.

“Wow, our demonic leader Ryu Si-hwan is even giving such sentiments! I was so surprised for a moment I thought I heard wrong, man. You were capable of saying things like this too!”

“Would you shut up instead of breaking the warm atmosphere?”

“Right, right, you should look at me with that contemptuous expression like usual for me to recognize the Ryu Si-hwan I know!”

I can’t figure out what version of me this crazy guy actually wants.

Inspired by Kang Seon-woo’s behavior, the other younger guys also rushed toward us one by one.

“We really worked so hard!”

“We all did so well!”

“Ah, ah, it’s finally over.”

“Wahhh!”

And Ma Si-hyeok, who walked over step by step at the very end, simply sniffled without saying anything.

When we all stared at him, he shrugged his broad shoulders and expressed his gratitude in a small voice.

“……Thank you so much.”

The lack of any adjectives or modifiers made it feel more genuine and sincere.

While the 〈Winning Shot〉 team members were hugging each other and savoring the end of the third team battle, Ma Si-hyeok suddenly shouted my name loudly.

“Oh, and Brother Si-hwan!”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Don’t you have something to say to me?”

“I don’t really know?”

That’s a lie.

I knew exactly why Ma Si-hyeok was looking at me with flushed cheeks that didn’t suit his build, as if he was frustrated.

“The second verse bridge part choreography, you know. Where you tap each member and pass by.”

“Yeah.”

“During practice, you never did the choreography where you grab my collar. But you grabbed it too hard and even ripped my button off!”

“Oh, did I?”

“I worked so hard not to make a flustered expression!”

Looking at Ma Si-hyeok, whose entire face had turned bright red, made me want to burst out laughing.

But since this was something I had caused myself, I tried hard to suppress my laughter.

‘Fortunately, it worked well unlike my worries.’

After the false school violence revelation, Ma Si-hyeok’s fallen self-esteem was a very critical situation for us.

While pouring countless hours into practice to make his body remember every movement was a temporary solution, it ultimately wasn’t a way to solve the fundamental problem.

Eventually, I needed to make Ma Si-hyeok realize on stage that the public knew his strengths this well, so he wouldn’t have stray thoughts anymore.

I had decided to choose a somewhat extreme method.

“Could I take a look at today’s outfit in advance?”

After rehearsal ended and we had some time left, I secretly went down to the costume room away from the other guys and loosened the buttons on the shirt Ma Si-hyeok would wear.

So that if I pulled hard, they would fall off immediately.

This strategy received tremendous returns on site as I had hoped.

‘I deliberately ripped it when the camera director came close to give us a close-up, so we definitely drew attention. And I could clearly hear people screaming at that moment.’

It also served as a preemptive barrier by forcibly inserting a different situation into Ma Si-hyeok’s mind, which could easily be invaded by distracting thoughts.

As a result, Ma Si-hyeok didn’t make mistakes on stage and unknowingly left a strong impression on the fans.

I had caught both rabbits.

Now all that remained was watching how the other teams’ stages turned out.

Everyone seemed to think they had put on personally satisfying stages, as they looked at the waiting room TV with much more relaxed expressions.

I also carefully observed whether there were any competitive teams after hearing about this round’s voting method.

“This is definitely going to be our overwhelming victory, right? Don’t you all think so?”

“……”

Normally, we would have immediately denied Seong-hwi’s arrogant words.

But today, no one could bring up any words of objection.

‘The average is there, but there’s absolutely nothing that breaks through that limit.’

Originally, the assigned songs were random and the concepts might not have been what they wanted.

However, that was exactly what the third round meant.

When officially debuting as an idol, you can’t stubbornly insist on only concepts that suit your taste.

What the public wants, what the fandom wants, and what the era wants.

For idols, it’s absolutely essential to have the ability to flexibly handle trends and cover as many genres as possible.

Ultimately, if you can’t show something special in this kind of showcase concept round, the national managers’ expectations will naturally cool down.

I never wanted to drink kimchi soup by the bowl from the start.

But I felt confident enough to declare this stage.

“……We definitely did really well.”

“Right? You can tell just from the audience reaction.”

When I finally added strength to his opinion, Seong-hwi continued celebrating with an even broader grin.

However, Chae Ha-ru, who had returned to his usual default expression, pointed out one important issue.

“The most disappointing thing was our stage order. If we had gone first, we could have at least claimed the modifier of being the opening, but second place is really neither here nor there. What if we fade from the national managers’ memories as we go toward the end?”

This also made sense.

In 〈ISL 2〉, where every mini-game deciding order was purely luck-based, this stage order was also determined by random ladder climbing, and we had been unluckily selected for slot number 2.

I thought the probability was slim, but if 〈Winning Shot〉 really got buried by the later stages……

That would feel terrible in its own way.

At least the mood maker Kang Seon-woo ventilated the atmosphere by patting each other’s backs.

“Hey, if it were any other stage, that would naturally be the case, but we were completely different, right? We shot bullets bang bang into the audience’s heads so properly that we don’t need to worry about what song came after. Everyone, let’s not worry!”

Yeah, I hope that guy’s optimistic words become reality this time.

The last team decorating the ending with the EDM house rock genre also finished their stage smoothly.

While the audience cast their final votes and prepared to leave the filming location, we moved to the back of the KNet building under the staff’s collective guidance.

Originally, they had filmed consecutively from the competition to the results announcement in the main set, but they said they were moving locations due to the drastically reduced number of participants.

“It feels much darker somehow.”

“The air seems a bit chillier too……”

“Being so close to the stage like this makes me feel intimidated.”

While we were trying to adapt to the changed environment, MC Go Hyeon-ju appeared immediately.

“Welcome to all 35 trainees who came to this place by showing excellent stages. This third team battle, 〈Showcase〉 round. Everyone really worked so hard!”

All the trainees gave each other standing ovations at Go Hyeon-ju’s encouraging words.

But their expressions were completely colored with anxiety and tension.

“Today, we plan to reveal the results of the live voting immediately. The voting method this time was like this. You voted for the one team you thought did best, and the three trainees you thought did best among all trainees.”

MC Go Hyeon-ju briefly looked at the PD giving signals from the front, then took a short breath and threw a fastball.

“The identity of this third team battle benefit selected through that method is individual benefit of 100,000 votes given collectively to 3 people, and ‘group survival rights’ are given to the team that acquired the most votes.”

The filming location was engulfed in momentary silence at the thunderbolt news.

The 〈Winning Shot〉 team members, including myself, were the same.

“There have been many benefits so far, right? Sometimes one person monopolized tens of thousands of benefit votes, and sometimes they were divided by ranking. But never at any moment was there a benefit that definitively guaranteed survival rights to the next round.”

Who in this space wouldn’t know that?

This was truly insane news that went beyond being groundbreaking.

To put such a benefit not in the second or third round survival rights, but in the final round survival rights.

The 100,000 votes given to individual ranking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place felt like child’s play compared to such shocking news.

‘This is why KNet has been so quiet until now.’

“I’ll also reveal the number of participants who will advance to the final round to earn the honor of being in the debut evaluation group. Only 20 trainees can advance to the fourth round, the final round. Can you feel how tremendous this group benefit’s power is?”

“Doesn’t anyone not feel it?”

I quickly turned my head at Ha Sang-hun’s unusually trembling voice.

Even though Ha Sang-hun was usually calm—not as much as me or Chae Ha-ru, but he had almost never lost his composure.

However, right now his voice was shaking like an aspen tree.

‘Sang-hun’s last ranking was exactly 20th place.’

In other words, he must feel like he’s hanging on the edge of a cliff between survival and elimination.

I reconsidered the danger of the order I had thought about in the waiting room.

There wasn’t a single moment to let down my guard.

No matter how satisfying a stage we all created.

No matter how we produced the hottest on-site reaction.

If it doesn’t show up as concrete results, it’s all just useless stuff.

“Then I’ll announce the results of the fateful 〈Showcase〉 round now.”