Chapter 60: Wanna Be Your Star

[Yes, Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2 has only the final live broadcast left.

We wanted to give you a gift: a group song filled with the memories of the three months spent with the program, like the photos you saw in the video earlier.]

At Moon Gi-hoon’s words, the participants let out shouts filled with surprise and joy.

When a caption appeared saying that all the photos of the participants in the video were actually taken by Won Ju-ha and Moon Gi-hoon themselves, someone even let out a tearful voice, saying they were moved.

[We’ve been watching you all for a long time, so we’ve prepared parts that will suit each of you perfectly.

I hope you’ll think of it as your own song and sing it.]

[That’s right.

There’s no one in this world who can sing this song as well as you can.]

[Yes, then the final group song for Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2 that we’ve prepared, ‘Wanna be your star’!

We’ll play it for you now.]

With Won Ju-ha’s final words, the screen changed.

Behind the image of all the Please Take Care of My Idol participants standing in a pyramid formation, greeting and saying “Please take care of us” from the first filming, the song composed by the two vocal trainers began to flow with Moon Gi-hoon’s voice.

As a nicely edited video of the participants’ appearances on the show played along with the song, it was like a music video containing everyone’s memories, and some participants started crying softly.

“I’ll be your star.”

With the final lyrics, the screen changed to show the pyramid-shaped chairs, all empty, and then gradually faded to black.

Soon, someone’s quiet sniffles echoed through the now silent hall.

Son Chae-i, who had watched the video with them, turned and smiled deeply.

“The final song for the Please Take Care of My Idol Season 2 Final Live Broadcast is ‘Wanna be your star’, prepared for you by your vocal trainers, Ju-ha ssam and Gi-hoon ssam.”

At the same time Son Chae-i finished speaking, a staff member handed another stack of papers to Yoon Jae-hee.

This time, it was just a single sheet, so it was passed quickly.

Looking at the lyric sheet he received, instead of the usual positions like Main Vocal, Sub-Vocal, Rapper, the names of the twenty participants were written, divided among the parts.

“As Ju-ha ssam mentioned in the video, she said she divided the parts while thinking of each and every one of your voices.”

Listening to Son Chae-i’s added words, he looked down at the lyric sheet.

His name appeared on two parts total.

‘[Sim Jae-seo] Wanna be your star / To you who always watched over me’

The intro of the first verse, and

‘[Sim Jae-seo] I’ll be with you anytime / On our brightest days’

The start of the bridge.

‘Having Jae-seo do the intro was a really good choice.

The focus really increases at the beginning.’

He recalled the praise Won Ju-ha had once given him and let out a low laugh.

Come to think of it, he remembered her always looking favorably upon him from the very first recording.

He felt grateful to Won Ju-ha.

“I hope this song becomes a gift to all of you.”

…Truly, it was the ultimate, the final gift.

***

“‘Time Killer’ team!

Everyone gather!”

Turning his head at the voice booming through the hallway, he saw Kim Jae-ho standing with his back to the practice room door.

Going around behind Kim Jae-ho and opening the practice room door, he saw familiar faces.

“Oh, Sim Jae-seo!”

“Jae-seo.”

“Jae-seo hyung, you’re here?”

When did I become this popular….

Shrugging off the thought, he approached the participants sitting in a circle.

Plopping down next to Lee Chan-seo, who was sitting closest to the door, a palm was suddenly extended in front of him.

“Want an energy bar?”

He gratefully took the energy bar from Lee Chan-seo’s hand and tore open the wrapper.

“Hey, you two are funny.”

Sitting side by side with Lee Chan-seo, chewing on their energy bars, Kim Woo-hyun across from them pointed at them and snickered.

“I’d only heard rumors, but you two really do eat well.”

Lee Ha-jin, sitting next to Kim Woo-hyun, also looked at them with curiosity and added.

It was only a few tens of minutes past mealtime, so it was understandable they’d say that.

“Why are you eating an energy bar when you haven’t even used any energy yet?”

“Because we’re about to use energy now.”

At Kim Woo-hyun’s joking remark, Lee Chan-seo tilted his head with an expression that said he didn’t understand and answered.

Lee Chan-seo’s answer sparked a completely useless debate about whether you should eat an energy bar before or after exercise.

He had just eaten it because it was offered, without giving it much thought, so he quietly finished his energy bar, folded the wrapper, and put it in his pocket.

After chattering noisily about a single energy bar for a long time, the participants, once Ki Jae-young, the last to arrive at the practice room, took his seat, put on serious faces as if they hadn’t just been having such a ridiculous debate, and looked down at the part sheets.

“Then we just need to pick our leader and center, right?”

“Yes!”

The selection of leader and center, initiated by Kim Jae-ho, ended surprisingly quickly.

Kim Jae-ho, the oldest and the one who first took the lead in the meeting, was unanimously chosen as leader.

As for the center, since everyone thought it would either be Seo Jun-jae or Yeo Hyun-tae, they simply held a quick vote without any other suggestions, and Seo Jun-jae was decided.

“Alright, then we need to start practicing…

We have to practice two songs in total.”

After being called away by the production team for a moment after the leader was decided, Kim Jae-ho returned, unfolded a paper, and conveyed the training and recording schedule.

Thanks to the relatively longer camp period compared to before, all the schedules felt somewhat relaxed.

“They said there’s no training for the group song?”

“There’s no separate schedule, but I think they’ll check on us during team vocal training….”

At Ki Jae-young’s question, Kim Jae-ho looked over the paper with the schedules again and gave an answer.

“It might be good to practice together as a group at least once before recording.”

At Seo Jun-jae’s quiet comment, Kim Jae-ho nodded, saying he’d talk with Yoon Ji-heon, the leader of the ‘ALL Time’ team, and jotted something down on the paper.

“I’ll ask the teachers during the next vocal training session to look over the group song too.

Until then, let’s prepare on our own.

How does that sound?”

“Good!”

When everyone answered positively, Kim Jae-ho nodded back and began to set the practice plan for their team’s mission song, ‘Time Killer’.

“First, who can learn the choreography?”

At Kim Jae-ho’s question, 7 out of 10 people raised their hands.

Thinking about it, most of the surviving participants now were either A or B grade, so overall their skills were good.

Particularly, their team had a lot of participants with outstanding dance skills.

Well, considering the difficulty of the choreography video they’d seen earlier, it made sense.

…The biggest problem here might be me.

“If we all do it together, it’ll just be chaotic.

How about the two best, Jun-jae and Hyun-tae, learn it?”

As the others nodded in agreement, Seo Jun-jae and Yeo Hyun-tae answered with unassuming faces that they would.

“Then, let’s first get the choreography down, and then work on vocals concurrently?”

At Kim Jae-ho’s question, they agreed, saying yes.

After finishing the meeting, Kim Jae-ho left the practice room to talk with Yoon Ji-heon, while Seo Jun-jae and Yeo Hyun-tae started learning the choreography in one corner of the practice room.

The rest scattered to do individual practice.

Just as he was about to get up, thinking of going to the vocal practice room for a bit, he was suddenly pulled by his wrist, lost his balance, and fell backward.

Plopping down, he turned his head to find Park Seo-hu, who had come close and sat right next to him, gripping his wrist with a rather earnest expression.

“Uh, I’m going to the vocal practice room.

Want to come?”

Park Seo-hu silently nodded, jumped up first, and walked toward the practice room door.

Following him, they soon reached the vocal practice room.

They found an empty room and closed the door.

Suddenly, Park Seo-hu let out a yelp and started roughly ruffling his own hair.

Startled by the sudden eccentric behavior, Jae-seo grabbed his arms to stop him.

Seo-hu’s hands obediently came down, then shot out again, grabbing Jae-seo’s shoulder instead of his own hair.

“Sim Jae-seo, what do I do?”

…I had no idea what the problem was for him to act so strangely.

“I think I chose the wrong song….”

Looking down at Park Seo-hu, who was now vigorously shaking his shoulders, Jae-seo couldn’t hide his dumbfounded expression.

And for good reason….

“You chose it yourself, didn’t you?”

If his memory served, by the time Park Seo-hu had chosen his song and position, there were still quite a few empty spots for both songs.

Even if he had insisted on being the main vocal, he remembered the Main Vocal spot for ‘ALL Time’ was also still available at that time.