I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed Chapter 16

Chapter 16

 

That was why.

With those words alone, everything became clear.

SP, Spotlight Point.

Points created by gathering people’s attention.

And attention never lasts forever.

“Ha…”

[S: SP remains for a maximum of seven days from the time it is generated.]

[S: Depending on the type of attention, it may disappear more quickly.]

“A week?”

I felt utterly deflated.

Only a week. No matter how desperately I attracted people’s attention, it lasted only that long. In a world where a name that covered every news feed yesterday could disappear without a trace after a few days.

It was a system that reflected the ecology of the entertainment industry with almost cruel accuracy.

“Even so.”

Until now, whenever SP accumulated, I had immediately spent it. I had flipped the hourglass over and over again, until I even passed out.

I had never even thought about saving it.

That was why I hadn’t known. No, I hadn’t thought about it.

That even attention had an expiration date.

I let out a hollow laugh.

‘What the hell is King of Hell actually doing?’

At this point, it wasn’t an addiction to the roulette game.

It was an addiction to the entertainment industry.

“You could’ve told me a little earlier, you know?”

I tossed the words out casually, but the Status Window remained silent. Normally, it would have thrown out some kind of remark, but today it was strangely quiet.

That silence irritated me even more. I plopped down against the bed.

The plan I had prepared had completely gone awry.

“My head hurts.”

It wasn’t the end of the world. Even the midterm evaluation, which I had prepared for without an item, hadn’t received bad reviews.

The problem was the real thing.

I was a producer and an idol fan, but I had never been an idol.

I had been someone who watched from below the stage, not someone who stood on it.

“This is driving me crazy…”

When I closed my eyes, the stage came to mind.

Nix had staked everything on this survival show. Literally, they had pulled together every last bit of capital they could scrape up from here and there.

That was probably why, just as I had felt before my regression, the scale of the stages had been absurdly huge from Round 1.

Fill that enormous stage alone?

“……”

Even imagining it made it hard to breathe. No matter how thick-skinned someone was, there was no way they wouldn’t get nervous.

That was why I had planned to use an item. So that even if I made a mistake, only my strengths would remain in the judges’ memories.

‘What if I make a mistake?’

‘What if I get nervous and mess up?’

‘What if I even go off-key?’

One worry led to another.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, I remembered something from long ago.

My biological older sister, Yoo Seong-ah.

That human, a dancer and famous choreographer, had been unusual ever since she was young. School festivals, talent shows, local events. She never passed up anywhere that could be called a stage.

And she always dragged me along by the wrist, too.

‘She really was a lunatic from the moment she sprouted.’

It was the same that day.

I was only in third grade at the time. It was the school festival, with the entire student body watching. I struggled and kicked because I didn’t want to go onstage, while Yoo Seong-ah dragged me up there anyway.

The result was disastrous. The moment the lights came on, I burst into tears.

The kids all stared, and the teacher panicked.

“Hey, even though you were crying, you followed all the moves!”

I didn’t want to admit it, but it was true.

That brainwashing education was terrifying… I faithfully performed the choreography even while tears and snot streamed down my face.

‘I must’ve been through hell if I still haven’t forgotten it.’

And what was even funnier was…

“Hey, I was the one who worked my ass off without missing a single choreographic move, but you were the one who got more attention, weren’t you?”

That was right.

Fourth-grader Yoo Seong-ah tore up the stage like a fish in water. But the person who became the topic of conversation among the audience was me.

On top of that, the video my teacher uploaded to WeTube even became fairly popular.

A boy who was diligently following the choreography despite bawling his eyes out, standing beside an elementary school girl who suspiciously danced extremely well.

People actually focused more on me.

 

↳ Oh my, the baby cries well and dances well too

 ↳↳ Shouldn’t it say he doesn’t cry and dances well? LOL

↳ He must’ve been forced to go onstage by following his noona LOL

↳ The girl is obviously overwhelmingly better at dancing, so why do my eyes keep going to the boy next to her? LOL

↳ That little boy’s devilish star quality is insane

 

A few years later, when Yoo Seong-ah became famous and that video became a hot topic again, the reactions were exactly the same.

 

↳ Isn’t that Yoo Seong-ah? Didn’t her little brother become a dancer too? LOL

 ↳↳ Nope. The kid dances hard, but he’s strangely clumsy LOL

↳ Came back to watch it again after all these years… It’s so funny how the little boy next to her keeps getting better at dancing

↳ 02:17 He wipes away his tears and does the ending pose. It’s so cute that I come back to watch it every day LOL

 

I hadn’t understood it back then, but I think I understand it now.

People admire those who are perfect. But when someone is lacking yet hangs in there until the very end, people find themselves rooting for them.

And cheering leads to attention.

At that moment, something flashed through my mind.

“This is it.”

The item I had been trying to create.

[Perfume that makes only my strengths memorable]

The answer had already been there in that sentence.

If I wanted only my strengths to be remembered…

“There needs to be weaknesses.”

Light can only be seen because there is darkness, and perfection can only be revealed because there is imperfection.

Until now, I had only tried to hide those things.

So I wouldn’t make mistakes, so I could cover up my shortcomings as much as possible.

But that was a producer’s way of thinking.

The player standing onstage was different. Especially in a survival show.

Rather than someone who was perfect from the beginning, it was the person who kept drawing your eyes despite their shortcomings who survived.

People went wild over growth more than results.

‘There was no need to hide it in the first place.’

I recalled my midterm evaluation stage. It had been clean, and I had done well.

The only point had been the reversal. An unexpected trainee had performed an original song. The stage itself had been surprising enough.

But that strategy had worked because it was the first time.

If you took the element of surprise out of it, it had been a too-stable stage. Even more so when compared to the other contestants who danced, did flips, and went absolutely wild.

A story always beats flashy spectacle.

A protagonist who is perfect from the very beginning? You don’t grow attached to them. Isn’t the charm of a survival show watching a lacking newbie gradually improve?

If that was the case, then I had only one weapon.

‘Showing everything without hiding anything.’

I would go onstage exactly as I was, anxiety and all. Then I would gradually build myself up. Draw the audience in, and finally unleash everything at the climax. Create change within a single stage.

I wasn’t an idol.

I was someone who watched idols.

That was why I was even more confident. Because I knew exactly what kind of stages people went crazy for.

“…This’ll be fun.”

I’d probably produce a stage completely different from the other trainees. Because I was the ultimate low-level player, the authority on newbies, the king of rookies.

 

***

 

The day of filming.

The air inside the bus was heavy. Each person was warming up their voice in their seat or waving their arms and legs around while checking the choreography.

“Oh, Seong-woo. Over here.”

Han Sang-yoon waved his hand.

“Yes!”

As I made my way to my seat, eyes followed me. The reactions had definitely changed since the midterm evaluation.

It was a shame I wasn’t sitting next to I-yul, but I was still two seats away. A huge bag occupied the seat next to I-yul.

‘……He takes better care of his seat than he does of people.’

“Did you prepare a lot?”

“Yes. More or less.”

“Wow, why am I this nervous?”

Choi Un-jo poked his face out from the seat in front.

“Ooh, hyung. Are you getting soy sauce too?”

“Not soy sauce. Nervous.”

“Right. Nervous!”

Choi Un-jo grinned.

“What about you, Seong-woo?”

“A little?”

I pretended to be tough for no reason. In reality, I felt like I was going to throw up.

When I looked to the side, I-yul was lightly checking the choreography with his earphones in. Perhaps because he was finally free of the cast, even his hand gestures were on another level.

‘As expected.’

Since I had spent most of my preparation period in the studio, I had barely gotten to watch him practice this time.

Well, it wasn’t as though I needed to worry about Kang I-yul.

“You’ve arrived. Please get off–”

“Yes!”

We all piled out at a large studio somewhere in Seoul. Even from the outside, its scale was extraordinary.

“Whoa, amazing.”

“Wow, it’s really huge.”

The trainees’ mouths all fell open.

Mine did too.

‘They really poured money into this.’

No wonder they were later called a cost-effective group after debut.

“Everyone’s here, right? Please come this way for hair and makeup.”

Following the staff’s instructions, we arrived at the waiting room.

“I see you again?”

I immediately turned around at the familiar voice.

“Wow, on the way here, I was thinking I hoped Teacher would be here.”

“Really? Then I’ll have to do a good job today too…”

She asked with a smile.

“What kind of look should we go for today?”

“I’m thinking of going for something simple again, similar to my profile photos.”

For this stage, flashy styling would actually be a disadvantage. I had chosen the concept of a newbie’s growth in the first place.

“So I prepared this, too.”

“What is it?”

I pulled a glasses case out of my pocket.

“They don’t have a prescription?”

“No.”

Of course not.

Real glasses that cut your eyes in half were called “X-glasses” and were only used as mocking memes.

Of course, you could still look cute while wearing those kinds of glasses. But that was only after debut. In other words, they only became acceptable after people had already developed a certain level of rose-colored glasses for you.

“And please curl my hair just a little.”

“…Curl it?”

“Yes. Please fry it.”

She gave a little snort of laughter.

“You’re nineteen, right?”

“Yes!”

“Sometimes the way you talk sounds like you’re thirty-nine.”

I had just said to fry it because calling it a perm felt too grand.

“My noona is quite a bit older than me.”

“Ah…”

I sincerely hoped this conversation wouldn’t make it onto the broadcast, even by accident.

If Yoo Seong-ah saw it, she might play A Square Dream while saying, ‘Am I really that old? Anyone would think you and I were twelve years apart.’

Once again, the styling was perfect.

“How is it? Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

Lightly curled hair and chunky horn-rimmed glasses. Even the braces that showed slightly whenever I smiled. It was exactly the look I had wanted.

Jeans, a checkered shirt, and a guitar in my hands made me look like an absolute nerd.

“But are you sure this is okay?”

“What…?”

“Looking at the other guys, they’re all incredibly flashy.”

I looked around, and just as she had said, that was the case.

Heavy makeup was the bare minimum, and there was even one guy wearing a crop top and a choker.

‘How badly does everyone want to succeed…’

Unfortunately, it was a bad choice. All they got were hate comments asking if they were trying to attract attention with their clothes rather than their skills.

“The mission is about showing who ‘I’ am, right?”

I shrugged.

“For who I am right now, this is right.”

She nodded as though she understood.

“I like it.”

After finishing the styling, I headed straight to the filming set.

The positions were assigned according to code number. The lower the number, the closer they were to the cameras.

“We’ll begin filming–”

Clack!

The recording began with the sound of the slate.

The lights went dark, and grand background music began to play.

[The first boy group selection survival show from Nix Entertainment, Boys Code!]

Once again, Kang Se-jun’s outfit was anything but ordinary.

“Is he a pilot this time…?”

It was obvious that, while doing this program, he intended to come out wearing every uniform known to mankind.

‘It’s basically KidZania.’

But there was nothing to complain about, because this too was one of the show’s popular elements.

How could women not like him when he came out every week in a perfectly tailored uniform on that handsome face?

“Hello. I’m Kang Se-jun, the MC of Boys Code, here to find the boy who will open your heart.”

“Waaaa…….”

Cheers and lights erupted simultaneously.

“Today, we have prepared the boys’ first self-introduction stage, where they will knock on the hearts of our Codemakers.”

“Yes. Then shall we meet the stage of Code 20 first?”

Code 20.

Code 19.

Every time one of them stepped forward, the atmosphere gradually heated up. Some were so nervous that they missed the beat. Some stepped onto the stage with fierce, determined eyes. And every time another stage ended, my turn drew closer.

“Next, Code 8, please get ready.”

My fingertips grew cold.

I slowly clenched the hands resting on my knees.

My heart was pounding abnormally hard.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The sound of my heartbeat echoed all the way inside my ears.

‘Don’t get nervous, don’t get nervous…’

I had already run through the simulation countless times. The timing for going up with the guitar, the first stroke, where to direct my gaze, my breathing. I had thought through everything. And yet, my throat was bone-dry.

“Next is the stage of Code 7.”

I lifted my water bottle and took a sip.

At that moment.

The stage lights came on brightly.

It was blinding.

Now, there really wasn’t much time left.