I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

“Gasp!”

Breath burst from my lungs. My lungs hurt as though they were being torn apart, like someone who had barely managed to surface after being underwater.

“I’m alive……”

At least I was alive. First, I needed to call 911…

“Wait.”

My hand stopped.

It was gone.

The rain, the car, everything.

There was nothing but endless darkness in every direction. It was as though I had been trapped somewhere.

“What is this…”

I hurriedly pinched my cheek.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

It was a dream!

Of course it was. It had been a truly horrible nightmare. Once I woke up, it would all be over. That terrible accident would never have happened; I-yul would be perfectly fine, and I would return to my ordinary life.

“Whatever it is, I’m never going to that damn event again.”

But even after a long time passed, nothing changed.

“……Am I really dead?”

Well, considering the severity of that accident, it would have been stranger if I had survived.

So this is what the afterlife looks like.

“Ha, if you’re going to take me, then hurry up and take me. Heaven or hell, I don’t care…”

The moment I muttered that to myself…

Pop!

With a loud sound, everything suddenly became bright.

“Argh!”

A blindingly intense light, followed by a completely random sound effect.

Ta-da-da-daa!

“……Huh?”

[Congratulations!]

Congratulations for what?

[The deceased who was selected after 100 years, 392849384…….]

The unidentified status window began endlessly reciting numbers. The farther it went, the more pitiful it sounded, as though it were panting for breath.

“What?”

Then an animation made with crude drawings began playing on the status window.

Apparently, Yama, the King of Hell, spun a roulette wheel containing the names of the dead, and the deceased who was selected received a “Deceased’s Wish Ticket,” which allowed them to make one wish.

[You are an exceptionally lucky deceased! The Deceased’s Wish Ticket is normally awarded once every 100 years. However, due to inappropriate use by the previous winner, the wish ticket was revoked, and you have become the new lucky winner!]

‘A wish I made to win the lottery actually came true like this?’

But what did it mean by “inappropriate use”?

[The chosen deceased, Yoo Seong-woo, may make exactly one wish.]

Well, it didn’t matter.

What mattered was that I had been given an unbelievable opportunity.

“C-can I make a wish concerning my life?”

[Of course! There are no limits to the wishes granted by the King of Hell!]

“By any chance, did Kang I-yul die too?”

Please… Please tell me he didn’t.

[The two people who died in the accident were Yoo Seong-woo and Kang I-yul. Joo-han, Choi Un-jo, and Han Sang-yoon are in critical condition, but they are not dead yet!]

“…What?”

For a moment, my mind went blank.

“Go Jae-seong, that son of a bitch, is the only one who’s fine?”

They really do say that people who get cursed at live longer.

I should’ve cursed that bastard a little less.

“Can you turn back time?”

The status window, apparently realizing what I intended, asked me in return.

[Are you trying to make it so this never happened in the first place?]

“Yes. If I just don’t go to the event, then everything will be fine, right?”

[Even if you turn back time, unless the “fundamental cause” disappears, the future will repeat itself.]

“The fundamental cause…”

Sadly, I didn’t need to think long.

Why had IMPACTOR taken that last-minute local event?

There was only one answer.

“……Because they’re a failed group.”

Then that meant the accident in which Kang I-yul and I died would somehow repeat itself as long as the premise remained that “IMPACTOR is a failed group,” right?

I remembered the self-deprecating SNS posts from fans asking whether being a failed idol group was really such a crime that they deserved to die.

Of course, there had been plenty of factors that made them fail. Bad planning, styling, song quality.

But the core issue was clear. It was Go Jae-seong’s scandals.

The aftermath of his clumsy explanations and painfully slow responses had swallowed the entire group whole.

But did the other four members, who had suffered like hell because of that bastard, have to become entangled in a fate where they would “die”?

“That’s too unfair.”

At some point, my fists had begun trembling.

Once the wave of anger passed, only the cold reality remained.

Slowly, I came up with an answer.

“I can…… I can take his place.”

If Go Jae-seong, the member who had caused all those scandals, disappeared, the group wouldn’t fail.

If the group didn’t fail, that horrible accident wouldn’t happen either.

But once again, the status window saw straight through my thoughts.

[You cannot change a fate that has already been determined.]

A fate that had already been determined…

“So I can’t change IMPACTOR after they’ve already debuted. I have to go back to before their fate was determined.”

If that was the case, there was only one way.

“…The survival show!”

[One minute remaining.]

‘What is this, some kind of fansign?’

I refined the sentence in my head again and again.

I couldn’t make a mistake.

I only had one chance.

“Turn back time four years, and let me participate in the debut survival show ‘Boys Code’ together with Kang I-yul.”

If I couldn’t replace Go Jae-seong in the already-debuted IMPACTOR, then I would participate in the debut survival show from the beginning, push him out, and become a member of IMPACTOR myself.

An idol?

I had never dreamed of becoming one even once.

But I wanted this more desperately than anything.

Because both Kang I-yul’s life and my own were riding on this opportunity.

‘Right. Go Jae-seong debuted too. There’s no reason I can’t.’

“This time.”

If he happened to be celebrating the fact that he was the only one who had survived, I hoped he was enjoying it to his heart’s content.

It would be the last happiness he would ever get to enjoy.

“I’ll make my debut.”

To save Kang I-yul.

[The deceased Yoo Seong-woo’s wish, “Turn back time four years and let me participate in the debut survival show together with Kang I-yul,” will now be carried out.]

[Good luck!]

Along with the darkness that returned, my body began descending endlessly, with no bottom in sight.

 

***

 

“……Gasp!”

I sat up, gasping for breath.

Was this the afterlife again?

Smack!

“Ugh!”

My back hurt like it had been split open.

What was this?

This familiar palm strike on my back was definitely…

“You’re finally awake? You said you had to leave early!”

“…Noona?”

My one and only blood relative, Yoo Seong-ah.

“Yeah, I’m your noona. Who else would I be?”

I rubbed my eyes frantically in disbelief.

Even after closing and opening them again, everything remained the same.

“W-what year is it right now?”

“Seong-woo, you’re being especially ridiculous today. Aren’t you supposed to be one of the top students in the school?”

“…”

“Or is your entire school made up of ten students?”

“Noona, how old are you right now?”

“Can’t you count, either? I’m seven years older than you. I’m twenty-six.”

I had become seven years younger than the noona who had been only one year older than me.

I slowly turned my head and picked up my phone.

[July 6, 202X.]

It really was four years ago.

“…How old am I right now?”

Yoo Seong-ah looked at me as though I were hopeless.

“What’s wrong with you first thing in the morning? You’re really going to be late at this rate.”

Bang.

The door closed.

And the moment Yoo Seong-ah disappeared, the status window appeared as though it had been waiting for her to leave.

[S: In accordance with the wish of the deceased Yoo Seong-woo, time has been turned back four years.]

“You could’ve told me that before my noona hit me.”

[S: …We will now provide the basic information of Yoo Seong-woo.]

[S: To facilitate the fulfillment of your wish, a status window in the form of a game familiar to Yoo Seong-woo has been provided.]

Did it just ignore what I said?

 

[Name: Yoo Seong-woo]

Age: 19

Height: 178 cm

Weight: 65 kg

 

“Ha……”

I had suddenly become nineteen years old.

‘There’s no way a twenty-nine-year-old could participate in an idol survival show?’

For some reason, the King of Hell was realistic in the strangest ways.

“…If you were going to make me younger anyway, you could’ve made me even younger.”

It was exactly the borderline age for an idol debut.

It made no sense, but I had no choice but to accept the reality in front of me.

My back still stung from Yoo Seong-ah hitting me.

I cautiously walked over to the mirror.

The dark circles caused by years of late-night work were gone, as were my sunken cheeks.

Seeing the smooth, egg-like face staring back at me, I couldn’t help but smile.

I laughed so hard that my Adam’s apple became visible, then suddenly noticed something sparkling inside my mouth.

“Holy shit.”

I had forgotten one thing.

“I didn’t expect even this to be recreated.”

Nineteen-year-old me was in the middle of orthodontic treatment.

I was flustered, but idols with braces were surprisingly a marketable option.

“Okay. Not bad.”

The truly bad part was something else.

My flimsy body, without a single ounce of muscle.

“How hard did I work to build that body–”

Just thinking about how much I had spent on protein alone was enough to make me want to cry.

Putting my regret aside, I organized the situation I had been given.

 

1. I had returned four years into the past.
2. I alone was in the physical condition I had been in at nineteen.
3. Nix Entertainment’s in-house survival show would begin in one week.

 

Then, the first thing I needed to do right now was…

“Hey! Aren’t you going to work?”

Bang!

Yoo Seong-ah shouted at me through the open door.

“Work?”

Why would a high school student be going to work…

Yoo Seong-ah furrowed her brow. Apparently, that was the expression she made whenever I said something ridiculous.

“You’re not telling me that whole thing about getting street-cast was a lie, are you?”

At that moment, something flashed through my mind.

The employee who had approached me on the street a week ago and handed me a business card. And the words “Nix Entertainment” printed on it.

The contract, the practice room, the survival show. The forgotten memories came rushing back all at once.

“Holy shit.”

The King of Hell’s after-sales service was certainly thorough.

 

***

 

There was one good thing about IMPACTOR failing.

Nix Entertainment hadn’t moved during those four years.

The moment I pushed open the exact same glass doors as before my regression…

[Danger Level: 90% (▼2%)]

“It went down.”

It was the first time since returning that I had seen the number change.

The number that hadn’t budged even slightly had changed.

‘What determines this?’

Whatever it was, the very name “Danger Level” made me uneasy.

‘Why don’t you explain it?’

[S: Excessive information may cause a risk of panic.]

[S: Necessary information will be provided at the appropriate time.]

“…You sure know how to talk.”

In the end, it meant that it wasn’t going to tell me.

I swallowed my sigh and went inside.

Beneath the familiar Nix Entertainment logo, signed CDs from famous singers were densely displayed.

Song In-hyuk, a casting director who had cast all kinds of famous idols for major entertainment agencies, and Kwon Jae-hyuk, a visual director who had earned widespread praise for his incredible aesthetic sense.

As time went on, the company’s management became increasingly hopeless, so the two were more often called by the derogatory nickname “Injae” than by their actual names.

But before founding Nix, the two had been a famous duo regarded as talented figures in the idol industry.

So this was what the lobby looked like.

I briefly imagined the scenery that Kang I-yul must have seen every day on his way to work.

‘I actually came here.’

Following an employee’s directions, I headed toward the practice room.

The moment I opened the door, I scanned the people inside, but I couldn’t find the face I was looking for.

‘Why…… why isn’t Kang I-yul here?’

My heart sank.

Then…

“As I announced, there’s an important announcement today.”

Song In-hyuk entered the practice room.

“Starting next week, we’ll be holding an in-house survival show to select the debut members.”

The practice room began to buzz.

“A survival show?”

After looking around at the trainees, Song In-hyuk opened his mouth once again.

“And the entire process will be broadcast on CNET.”

This time, it wasn’t merely murmuring.

It was practically cheering.

“M-madness.”

“We’re going to be on TV!”

“Holy…….”

Everyone was excited, but I felt as though I were in a completely different world.

‘No, so where the hell is Kang I-yul–’

I was so anxious I felt like I was going crazy.

Then it happened.

Creeeak

The practice room door opened again.

“I’m sorry. I’m a little late.”

A familiar voice.

Just that one sentence was enough for my heart to react first.

The moment I turned my head, my eyes met those of the person standing in the doorway.

Kang I-yul.

Kang I-yul, alive and breathing.