Chapter 1: If Mangdol Returns Three Times

F*cking Failed Idol.

Those four words are the most fitting description for me.

This is the typical ending for a boy group debuted by an unknown small agency with six trainees who just filled their required years.

Even hearing the agency’s one-sided notice of the group’s disbandment didn’t make me feel unjustly wronged to the point of losing my mind.

I’d already used up all the sense of injustice I could muster long ago.

If you think about it, isn’t it a miracle that this failed group lasted this long?

Just look at the fact that now, in our sixth year, only two members, including me, remain.

One guy’s past as a school bully was revealed in our third year, causing him to flee to the military; after discharge, he came back obsessed with starting a business.

Another one left a year ago, making headlines with a fancy article about his premarital pregnancy and marriage to a non-celebrity fan.

As for the other two, one was such a club rat that anyone slightly knowledgeable about the entertainment industry knew about it.

The last one seemed sane, but just a few days ago, an article popped up about his arrest for hitting someone while driving drunk.

Unbelievable, I know, but four out of the six members really did vanish just like that.

The agency director let out a hollow laugh, and the handful of fans we had left lost interest and were busy mocking our group.

There was some sympathy, but most of it was drowned out by criticism.

Since we were failed idols from the start, even sensational issues were forgotten once people turned away.

I wasn’t resentful.

If it were me, I would’ve been dumbfounded too, wondering, ‘What kind of group are they to explode like firecrackers like that?’ and then just forget about it after saying something like that once.

“Hyeonoh.”

The moments I wasted my life, swept away by the smooth-talking casting manager of this tiny agency right after entering middle school, flashed before my eyes like a K-drama montage.

I was a trainee for six years, and the year I became an adult, I officially stepped into this jungle-like idol scene, leading kids younger than me.

Looking back, the colleagues I coddled, calling them good, pretty, let’s cheer up, we can do it, soothing and guiding them, were all ticking time bombs waiting to explode.

The only ones left were me and one member of the same age, Ji Cheonseong.

This isn’t some battle royale.

Being a survivor didn’t make me happy at all.

I couldn’t just space out, so I lifted my head at the sound of Ji Cheonseong calling my name.

“What.

Did you secretly cause trouble too?

We’re really beyond recovery now, so just spill it.”

Even I could hear the utter lack of will to live in my own voice.

No matter how much I was the oldest and the leader, I was still just twenty-six.

All that was left now was probably enlisting in the military after the group disbanded.

If Ji Cheonseong suggested enlisting together, I was willing to agree it was a good idea.

“I know words like these don’t mean much, but I feel sorry towards you….”

“What are you trying to say, beating around the bush like this.

What did you do?

Just say it now that we’ve disbanded.”

“No, just listen.”

“Listen to what.

Stop dragging it out and confess.

Did you date someone too?”

“Next time… go to Saesom.”

Saesom?

‘Is he crazy too?’

I stared at Ji Cheonseong’s serious face.

We debuted from a small agency and became f*cking failed idols, so what nonsense is this about Saesom?

Saesom was a major entertainment company that most people in Korea would recognize, reacting with, ‘Ah, Saesom?’ just by hearing the name.

Both he and I ended up crawling into this hole-in-the-wall agency because we couldn’t get into Saesom.

Now, hearing him talk about a ‘next time’ in the idol scene at the ripe age of twenty-six was absurd.

In the current idol world, you’re considered old even if you’re just over twenty.

‘Ah, you must be feeling distraught too.’

I was about to brush it off like that and retort, ‘What next time?’ but Ji Cheonseong didn’t stop talking nonsense.

“If there is a next time… no matter what, start at Saesom.”

“……”

“And then let’s debut together again.”

At that moment, thinking Ji Cheonseong had truly lost his mind, I nodded without realizing it.

‘This poor guy… at least he’s not suggesting we enlist together,’ I thought to myself.

I drank until I was wasted with my manager hyung.

Since the group disbanded, it was clear that the experience my manager hyung gained while taking care of us wouldn’t count as a great career achievement.

Still, without a single complaint, he filled my soju glass, saying, “Hyeonoh, you worked hard as the leader.”

I was so grateful that I even cried while drinking.

Other idols cry while giving acceptance speeches for winning number one on music shows or grand prizes at award ceremonies, but here I was, crying at a drinking session with my manager after the group disbanded.

Reality hit me hard.

“Hyung, what do I do with my life now?

It feels like my life is just unbelievably ruined.”

By the time I said this, I was properly drunk and genuinely sobbing.

If I had become a f*cking failed idol because I alone slacked off in practice or caused trouble, I wouldn’t have been this dumbfounded.

Hearing things like we were the cautionary tale of the idol world or spontaneously combusting failed idols because the agency and members screwed everything up made my blood boil.

All the hardships I endured as the group leader since I was just twenty had turned into nothing.

If I could laugh it off serenely like Buddha, I’d be the real lunatic.

My manager hyung calmly picked up the tissue box from the table and handed it to me.

“Dude, don’t cry.

You’re still young.”

His intention was good, but it wasn’t comforting at all.

“You’ll be twenty-eight even after finishing military service.

So what if you can’t be an idol?

You dance well, so you can be a trainer.”

It wasn’t comforting, but he was right.

I pulled a tissue from the box and roughly wiped my face, which I no longer needed to meticulously manage.

‘Right, let’s be a trainer.’

If the agency had any conscience, they’d probably help set up a job connection.

Drunk, I staggered to my feet.

“Hyung, I’ll head out first and grab a taxi.”

The world was spinning, and my stomach churned.

Staying longer would only mean showing more pathetic behavior due to my unstoppable tears, so I pushed away my manager hyung’s hand trying to hold me back and went out to the roadside to catch a taxi.

‘Being a trainer isn’t bad.’

I repeated that sentence inwardly like a mantra.

‘Even if I’m ruined now, life isn’t over.’

‘Even if the group failed and I’m no longer an idol, people have to keep living.’

I rationalized endlessly in my hazy mind.

Teaching dance was something I had done to death since debut, dealing with certain members every comeback until I was sick of it.

It also meant I was confident I could teach patiently without getting angry once, no matter how much someone flopped around like a squid.

‘Yeah, a trainer. A trainer sounds good.’

I was still young and could definitely start ‘again’.

Right when I thought that, I was hit by a car.

My mind, not in its right state, had been thinking too much, and I failed to realize I had walked into the middle of the road.

My body flew up and then slammed back down onto the ground, the back of my head scraping against the asphalt, which instantly sobered me up.

As my consciousness faded, I cursed inwardly.

‘This will 100 percent be reported as a suicide.’

‘Ah, I’m really hitting the peak of being a f*cking failed idol.’

To die the moment I thought I had to live somehow.

My luck was rotten to the core.

‘Death after group disbandment? How can fate be this cruel?’

I tried to spew curses, but I was in too much pain and could only let out groans.

And then, complete darkness.

‘If there is a next time… no matter what, start at Saesom.’

The reason I recalled Ji Cheonseong’s words right before losing consciousness was that I had already used up my K-drama montage moment when I heard the news of the disbandment, leaving only that to remember.

‘Come to Saesom? How?’

‘Wasn’t Ji Cheonseong really crazy?’

Filled with such questions, I closed my eyes.

I didn’t want to be an idol from the beginning.

But when a casting manager approaches a fourteen-year-old whose ego hasn’t even fully formed, gives them a business card, and tempts them saying, “You’re handsome, come check out our agency,” a teenager without any grand future aspirations is bound to get swept away, wondering, ‘Maybe I am special?’

If, after entering the agency as a trainee, you find that dancing like crazy suits your aptitude, then becoming an A-list idol gets embedded in the malleable teenager’s mind as a future goal.

That’s why you work yourself to the bone, constantly get your hopes up, and ultimately, experience a major failure at an earlier age than most, before even turning thirty, adding to the early start in society.

Maybe God found such a life quite pitiful, or perhaps there was another reason, but I somehow stumbled into a new opportunity.

I was sure I’d been hit hard by a car and my head had scraped against the asphalt, but when I opened my eyes, my body was perfectly fine without a single fracture.

Moreover, unlike my mid-twenties body that relied on caffeine daily, I felt incredibly energetic without having had a single sip of coffee.

I reached a conclusion that any ordinary (former) idol living in the 21st century might think of.

‘Ah, f*ck.

Did I regress?’

‘Did I become some web novel protagonist?’

I hadn’t read web novels often, but I wasn’t so ignorant as to not know about this kind of regression trope.

Since my group was a f*cking failed idol group, the time I spent staring at my smartphone was longer than the time I spent dancing on stage anyway.

Maintaining my composure, I checked today’s date.

Actually, just seeing the model of the phone lying on the bedside table gave me a rough idea.

That model was something I used back in high school.

Wondering if this was just my imagination, I went to the bathroom and took a cold shower.

Taking an unaccustomed cold shower made my body shiver.

Anyway, this meant it wasn’t a dream.

It’s a bit embarrassing, but since I was in an unrealistic situation, I even tried saying words like “status window,” “message,” or “system window” out loud, hoping something would appear.

Unfortunately… there was nothing.

It meant only time had turned back eight years; nothing else had changed.

My mom, whose face was still young without the poodle perm yet, came in to wake me up, telling me to stop sleeping and go to the practice room.

She was startled to find her son spacing out.

To my mom asking if something was wrong, I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘Uh, Mom. I came back from 8 years in the future, and your son became a f*cking failed idol, so I couldn’t even be a filial son to you.’

So I just brushed it off, saying nothing happened.

I got dressed and headed towards the damn agency that debuted me as a f*cking failed idol.

I had a gut feeling.

This was a chance given by God to quit being an idol.

I absolutely have to quit.