Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: NicoleTempest

Chapter 272 Side Story 03. If You Want to Repay Me (3)

Seong-won looked pale. Maybe it was because he had already suffered a disadvantage from the roulette once on a public program. It was not his intention.

“Come on, Seong-won~ Don’t back out~ Our staff are doing their best to hold the roulette~! They can’t hold it for long!”

The filming location was in the middle of nowhere, so there was no decent place to set up the roulette. It looked very shabby.

A staff member wearing tights and sunglasses was struggling to hold the roulette. He caught Seong-won’s eye.

He grinned.

He gave Seong-won a thumbs-up over his sunglasses.

Everyone swallowed their laughter at the contrast between Seong-won, who was sweating profusely with nervousness, and the staff, who was relaxed and confident.

“Shh, be quiet. He might get offended and sulk if you do that.”

Yi-jun whispered to Seon-woo, who was the worst at holding back his laughter. Seong-won frowned as if he had heard everything.

“I can hear you, you know?”

“I didn’t say anything~.”

“Sigh…”

There was no way out. Seong-won sighed and took off his work gloves. He carefully spun the roulette with his bare hands.

It made a precarious sound every time it moved one space. Everyone’s eyes followed the roulette.

“Is that thing going to fall off while spinning?”

“It looks possible…”

While Nayoung and Kyunghwa murmured, the roulette stopped at a tiny area that barely covered 5% of the space.

“Wow…”

The area was so small that they couldn’t tell what was written on it.

“Isn’t that the best thing because it’s so small?”

Yi-jun squinted his eyes from afar and tried to read the text, but it had no effect. He only annoyed Seong-won.

“What are you doing, making me feel bad.”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

Seong-won, who was closest to the roulette, leaned in and almost touched his nose to the roulette to check the content. The staff pulled out something from his sleeve.

“A magnifying glass?”

“Yes-! Let’s check the result right away~.”

He looked at the space with the magnifying glass, which seemed to have been stored in an unpleasant place and had a faint warmth of the body. There were two large buckets and five small buckets drawn on it.

“Yes-! You need to harvest between 20 and 25kg for five people!

“What?”

The clams in the buckets they had now barely covered the bottom or not even that. If they converted it to weight… it would be about 200g.

It was understandable that they couldn’t catch much because it was like a tutorial stage.

But at this rate, they would barely get 2kg before the water came in. There was no way they could get 4~5kg per person.

“Isn’t 20kg too much?”

Is this even possible? I asked with a dumbfounded expression. The main PD smiled brightly.

“That’s why it’s entertainment~!”

…I had nothing to say to that. I guess I’ll have soy sauce rice for dinner. I wonder if I can afford some sesame oil and eggs with my own money.

I made a plan without any spirit and quietly picked up a hoe.

About an hour later. Everyone was dragging a bucket full of clams and looking at the ground.

“Hyung, how much is this?”

Seon-woo kept coming to me and asking me the weight. I looked at him with dull eyes and answered.

“I can only guess when the amount is small. I don’t know when it’s this much.”

That meant it was no use to ask me every time.

Seon-woo made a sound and his eyes quickly lost their spirit. It was obvious that he was thinking, ‘I must have annoyed hyung and he got angry.’

I couldn’t stop working because the situation was urgent, so I might have sounded a bit rude.

“I’m not angry, so give it to me.”

I ended up treating him like a elementary school kid and took his bucket.

It felt pretty heavy when I lifted it. It seemed to be definitely 2kg by now.

It was far from the required goal per person, but Seon-woo did a good job considering his slow hands.

‘I hope he’s doing well over there…’

I glanced over my shoulder at Yi-jun. He was excited to have a chance to use his strength and was running around like a mad giant dog.

And next to him, Kyunghwa was diligently digging through the mudflat that Yi-jun had torn apart and scooping up clams into two buckets.

It was like a retriever who jumped into the muddy water and splashed around, and a guardian who held the leash and whined.

Anyway, they seemed to be working efficiently, which was a relief.

“This should be 2kg. Go and dig some more.”

I couldn’t bring myself to pat his shoulder, so I just fidgeted with my gloved hand on his shoulder. Sunwoo nodded vigorously.

“Okay! I’ll do my best!”

He was the most admirable guy when he was cheerful.

The three of them seemed to be doing well. Where was Seong-won and what was he doing? As I looked around with a belated worry, an unexpected sight awaited me in the distance.

“…!?”

A seagull was furiously flapping its wings around Seong-won, who was wearing a straw hat, and pecking at the hat’s ornament with its beak.

“Ugh, go away…!”

Seong-won couldn’t bring himself to hit the animal, so he waved his hands to shoo it away, but he was no match for the winged beast.

“Ow!”

This time, the seagull targeted Seong-won’s shiny hair tie and started pecking at his ponytail.

Seong-won’s hair was messed up and he clutched his hat with both hands, trying hard to avoid the seagull.

But unfortunately, since it was a mudflat, he moved at a snail’s pace, as if he was in a slow-motion video.

“Ahh. Ah!”

The staff who were watching also realized the seriousness of the situation and ran towards Seong-won, but both sides were equally slow, so it was useless.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?”

Yi-jun and Kyunghwa also noticed something was wrong and looked at Seong-won.

“Hey!!”

As soon as he saw Seong-won being attacked by the seagull, Yi-jun was startled and shouted, running towards him. He was much faster than the others, as if he was running on dry land.

“Just throw away that hat! They’re attacking you because it’s similar to the shrimp X they often eat!”

As Seong-won met Yi-jun’s eyes with a sullen expression, his boots got sucked into the mud and stuck, as if they were nailed down.

Seong-won was even more flustered and started to whine, unable to move his feet.

“Stay still! I’ll get you out!”

Yi-jun, who arrived in no time, ripped off Seong-won’s hat and threw it aside.

And then…

“Ha!”

He grabbed Seong-won’s arm and pulled hard.

“…Huh?”

“Ugh.”

Swoosh. Seong-won’s foot came out of the boot and flew low, landing face-first in the mud, like a slapstick comedy.

Yi-jun, who fell backwards, and Seong-won, who was half-folded, looked at me and Kyunghwa, and we had a hunch.

“…We’re in trouble.”

“Oh no…”

The seagull, satisfied with its attack, flew away with the hat in its mouth, and Seong-won buried his face in the mudflat like a corpse.

Yi-jun’s face turned pale in real time.

“No, I… I was trying to help… No, really, I didn’t do it on purpose…!”

As Yi-jun tried to sneak away from Seong-won, Seong-won lifted his face from the mud with difficulty.

His appearance was… indescribable as a human.

He looked like a long-haired chihuahua or a pomeranian that had rolled around in the mud and was wriggling.

If I had seen this at night, I would have screamed and run away.

Of course, even in broad daylight, screaming was the first thing to do.

“Aaaaah, I didn’t do it on purpose, okay?”

Seong-won, who didn’t care about his appearance, boots, clothes, or the harvest anymore, chased after Yi-jun with frightening speed.

“You bastard… Don’t lie!”

Seong-won, whose face was unrecognizable, growled and pounced on Yi-jun, who ran across the mudflat in desperation.

And the main PD was happily capturing the scene with the camera.

“…PD, don’t you look too excited right now?”

I asked with a bored tone, and the main PD answered with a wide smile.

“That’s the fun of making a variety show~.”

And beyond that, Seong-won, who had finally caught Yi-jun, tried to slam him to the ground, but was pushed back by his strength and rolled around like children.

Seong-won, who couldn’t contain his anger, scooped up some mud with his hand and slapped it on Yi-jun’s face, and everyone sighed.

“Tonight’s dinner is soy sauce for sure.”

“Uh…”

Sunwoo’s stomach rumbled with a regretful sound.

With a mindset of doing our best, we barely cleaned up and tried to start clamming again, when raindrops fell on our heads.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Huh?”

“What? Is it raining?”

Kyunghwa spread his palm towards the sky, and sure enough, thick drops of water fell on his palm.

“Let’s get out of here quickly!”

As the rain poured down on our heads, the salt water started to seep into our eyes and Yejun and Seongwon screamed in pain.

The staff quickly brought some fresh water and poured it over us, but the two guys looked even more hideous with their faces covered in mud. They snorted at each other and grabbed each other’s collars, as if they were forming a triangle with me.

“You’re so strong, you’re so strong.”

If they had that much strength, they should have harvested more earlier. They just got in each other’s way and made a mess, but they didn’t mean to do that. I ignored their bickering and walked out of the mud, only to face a heavier rain.

“If we wait until the rain stops, the water will come in first, right?”

“Yes, I guess so. Hmm… this is not fair for the rules…”

If it hadn’t rained, we would have had another 30 minutes to work.

“Shall we weigh it for now?”

“Yep.”

Except for the two who headed straight to the shower room, the rest of the members dumped the contents of their buckets into the baskets. Seon-woo suddenly paused his hand.

“Why?”

“Uh, no, nothing…”

His expression told me he was hiding something.

“What did you mess up?”

“Huh? No? Nothing?”

He avoided my eyes, which made him look even more suspicious. This kid must have done something fishy.

When Seon-woo dumped his bucket, my doubt turned into certainty.

“Damn it.”

“Ah, ah…”

So, that’s what it was.

The clams that came out of Seon-woo’s bucket had a lot of mud stuck to them. He didn’t deliberately put the mud in, but he didn’t bother to peel it off either.

“I, I didn’t do it on purpose…! Yejun hyung said it would be okay…”

“Hey, why did you tell him that!”

“He’s our youngest, we have to treat him well.”

Seon-woo was so slow that Yejun had to nudge him a bit.

“Seon-woo-ssi…”

The main PD curled his lips and glared at Seon-woo like a mean uncle.

“Hey, do you want to wash it now…?”

Seon-woo fidgeted with his hands, not knowing what to do.

The PD opened his eyes wide for a moment, then shook his head with a smile.

“No, let’s just do it this way.”

Seon-woo’s face brightened up.

“Yes! Thank you!”

He’s so cute that I can’t resist. …Somehow, I felt that Seon-woo had become more skilled.

“So, how much did you get?”

I took off my gloves and flicked a pearl at Seon-woo’s trembling cheek. He stumbled back, his face smeared with mud.

“About 11kg in total.”

We might barely make it. It was a pity to give up, so I lingered.

“What about this… since it was stopped because of the weather, can’t we get some compensation?”

I tried to say something, but Kyunghwa chimed in.

“Our youngest is growing up, so he needs to eat well.”

The problem is that he’s not growing up, but sideways, so he needs to control himself a bit.

“Hmm~.”

The PD adjusted his glasses and started to think long and hard at our pleas.