I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed Chapter 36

Chapter 36

 

Even though it had been almost two months since we last saw each other, there was no particularly touching reunion between us siblings.

“So.”

Yoo Seong-ah crossed her arms and looked down at me.

“You’re asking me to teach you how to dance, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“……”

The silence didn’t last long.

“PWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

Yoo Seong-ah rolled right off the sofa.

“Wow, this is freaking hilarious! I never thought I’d live to see the day. What, you really can’t do it?”

“……Yeah.”

“I knew it! How the hell are you supposed to do that with your body?!”

……This woman had absolutely no mercy, even toward her own younger sibling whom she hadn’t seen in a long time.

“I… can memorize the movements somehow.”

“But?”

“I don’t have any basic skills.”

“Oh-”

Yoo Seong-ah’s eyes sparkled. It was a very dangerous sign.

“Ha, I’m a really busy person, you know.”

Of course, I knew that. Even if I hated admitting it, it was a fact that Yoo Seong-ah was currently the most sought-after choreographer.

“Do something cute for me for the first time in a while.”

“Ah, Noona-”

That was right. Yoo Seong-ah had never been the type to refuse a request.

“Yeah, I’m your older sister.”

Instead, she just never did anything for free.

“No, I’m going to be an adult soon.”

“Oh- And what am I supposed to do about that?”

And she charged an exorbitant price, too.

‘If this isn’t tyranny, then what is?’

“If you don’t like it, forget it. Nothing in this world comes for free, you know?”

“No, Your Highness. I’ll do it.”

Human dignity tended to crumble surprisingly easily in front of someone like her.

“You should’ve agreed from the start. Come on, do that thing you used to do.”

“Ah, that’s a bit-”

“Tut, tut. Your expression isn’t looking very nice.”

I hurriedly changed my expression.

“…Should I sing along, too?”

“Hey, you seem to have developed some sense after becoming a trainee! Of course.”

And so, in the end, I, a person with the mind of a twenty-nine-year-old, was hopping around in the middle of the practice room.

 

♪ I love you-u-u

♪ When I see you, my heart trembles

♪ No no no no~

 

The thing Yoo Seong-ah was talking about was none other than Judy’s NO, a song once known as the nation’s aegyo song.

Even though I hadn’t danced to it in almost ten years before my regression, my body instinctively started moving the moment I heard the song.

‘This is how terrifying brainwashing is.’

“Good! Hey, your dancing has improved a little, too!”

Yoo Seong-ah clapped her hands, clearly enjoying herself.

“Fine. My beloved little brother is begging me like this, so of course his big sister should help him.”

“Thank you!”

“Thank you……?”

“Th-Thank you.”

Only then did she smile with satisfaction.

“Okay. You said two weeks, right? Let’s completely destroy your fundamentals over the next two weeks.”

And that was how I crawled into Yoo Seong-ah’s tiger’s den of my own free will.

Two hours later.

“Again!!”

Four hours later.

“What the hell is wrong with your body?”

Would you believe me if I told you I had been stuck on a single wave movement for four hours?

On the first day, I tried my best not to use the hourglass or the editing function. I genuinely needed these movements to become ingrained in my body so that I could use them later, even without relying on anything else.

But that was my arrogance.

“Are you a person or a squid?”

Yoo Seong-ah grabbed my arm and shook it back and forth.

“Isn’t calling me a squid a bit too much?”

“Hey, you’re my little brother, but honestly, I’m starting to wonder if you rigged your way into the debut lineup.”

‘This woman… Is she secretly working as one of my haters?’

“That’s it for today.”

“Already? What a shame-”

I barely managed to suppress the twitching corners of my mouth.

“We’ll work on the wave more tomorrow, and then we’re moving on to basic footwork.”

“……?”

“Surely you weren’t planning to stop practicing here with those skills of yours?”

The basic-skills hell began all over again. My legs were gradually starting to tremble.

‘Why isn’t Yoo Seong-ah getting tired?’

After about ten hours, the sweat pouring down like rain was no longer the problem. I no longer had any reason or emotions left. I felt like I had become a machine that only danced.

I had reached the point where my feet moved on their own, even when I was standing still, as if I were wearing the red shoes.

‘It’s only been one day, and I’m supposed to do this for two weeks?’

My vision spun. But Yoo Seong-ah’s lion-like roar continued to ring in my ears.

“Get up!!”

I didn’t want to generate any items during practice. But if I could have had my way, I would have created a clock that traveled to the future and simply jumped two weeks ahead.

At that moment, as I lay sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath, the status window sparkled in front of my eyes.

[S: Items are not meant to be used for cutting corners!]

‘Thanks for letting me know!’

I kicked at the air. Just as Yoo Seong-ah’s gaze turned toward me through the mirror, I muttered:

“…My leg’s gone numb.”

“Are you done resting? Now get up.”

Just as people say that the basics are always the hardest, fundamentals were absolutely nothing to take lightly. At this point, I would have found it easier to dance the Signal choreography a hundred times.

It was the moment I painfully confronted just how superficially I had been dancing all this time.

Whenever that happened, I recalled Song In-hyuk’s evaluation.

“You may not realize it right now, but once you debut, you’ll have even less time to learn something new. At that point, whether Seong-woo will be able to keep up…… Honestly, I’m not sure.”

Idols needed to be strong performers. And the most visual aspect of a performance would inevitably be dancing.

I had barely managed to maintain sixth place, but if my dancing skills remained stagnant until the next round, I would be eliminated immediately.

“Ugh…”

I grabbed my dying legs and barely managed to stand up.

And one week later, I eventually cried.

“Waaah…”

……I really did.

“Huh?”

Yoo Seong-ah, who had been counting the beats, looked surprised.

“Are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

“But you are?”

“I said I’m not!”

“Wahahahahahahaha!!”

Then she started laughing like a crazy person.

“Wow, this is amazing. It’s been so long since I last saw you cry!”

“……”

‘Isn’t this woman actually a psychopath?’

Once the tears started flowing, they didn’t stop easily. I had always been like this since I was young. That was why I used to dance on stage while bawling my eyes out.

“Can I record this?”

“I’ll kill you.”

“This is how you treat your older sister-”

After laughing for a long while, Yoo Seong-ah casually tossed me a towel.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Are you done crying?”

“……”

“If you’re going to quit, quit now.”

For the first time, all traces of playfulness had disappeared from her voice.

“Do you really think I can’t support just one younger brother?”

“……”

“What were you thinking, doing something this reckless…?”

For a moment, my throat tightened.

“I want to be good at this, too…”

“What are you supposed to do when your body won’t do what you want?!”

My true feelings spilled out.

“Noona doesn’t know anything.”

And they came out far more pitifully than I had expected.

The moment I heard myself say it, I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’

Yoo Seong-ah approached me. At the very least, I was about to get a smack on the back.

“It’s not that, Noona.”

It felt as though a black aura was rising behind her.

“Noona, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I wasn’t in my right mind for a moment-”

Thwack

Her hand rose above my head.

“Huh?”

Could it be? Was she going to comfort me?

Clench.

“AAAAAAAGH!!”

I felt as though my entire head of hair was being ripped out.

“You need mental training before you need dance training.”

“Ah, it hurts!”

“You can’t even endure that, and you want to become an idol?”

“AAAAAAAGH!!”

That day, I realized something.

“If you’re going to throw away the studies you were doing well in just to become an idol, then you’d better do it properly!”

Yoo Seong-ah was not a tsundere.

“What? Noona doesn’t know? What the hell is wrong with you!”

She was simply a tyrant.

“A brat who’s only practiced for a few weeks thinks he can come at me?”

And not just any tyrant.

“Do you think dancing is a joke? Huh? Is it a joke?”

A tyrant who was crazy about dancing.

The sinner must come forth- No, the sinner must undergo mental training.

Yoo Seong-ah’s mental training continued for quite some time afterward, squeezing every last tear and drop of snot out of me. Even for someone like me, who was nineteen years old but had the mental age of twenty-nine, it was brutal.

Whenever I hesitated even slightly during practice, the finger stick inevitably poked at my body.

‘Where the hell did she even get something like that?’

“Now, we’ll continue after watching Episode 2.”

I couldn’t believe it. Had it really already been a week since I entered this closed-door training?

Time in this practice room was clearly moving more than twice as fast.

“Hey, but who was the one who collapsed?”

“Check the broadcast.”

Silence followed. Strange. This wasn’t the time for things to be quiet…

Sure enough, Yoo Seong-ah was looking down at me, the corners of her mouth raised while her eyes remained completely devoid of laughter.

“Your speech is getting too casual?”

A chill ran down my spine.

“…No, ma’am. Due to the confidentiality clause, I’m afraid it’s a little difficult to provide that information. I absolutely had no intention of talking back to you, Your Highness.”

“Good.”

Having gotten used to the time I spent without Yoo Seong-ah, my brain must have malfunctioned for a moment. From now on, I needed to stay sharp.

 

***

 

Boys Code uploaded new teasers to its official account every day so that the buzz from Episode 1 would continue into Episode 2.

Behind-the-scenes photos and videos of the trainees were released, drawing in more fans.

“Sujin,” who had newly become a fan through Episode 1, ended her brief period of denial and created a new social media account.

 

[Orthodontic @orthodontia 2 minutes ago]

> My orthodontic braces boy, because of you, I looked up how to spell “orthodontia” in English for the first time in my life. I love you.

↳ The way she suddenly says she loves him is freaking hilarious.

 ↳↳ He’s my new favorite and my husband.

 ↳↳ Here she goes again.

 

The trainee whose name and age were still unknown. The only information that could be confirmed was that he was at least nineteen, based on Kang I-yul calling him “hyung.”

“Not having any information makes me even more curious, you know?”

At last, Episode 2 began.

The trainees’ genuine reactions to the enormous set were shown in detail.

 

[Production Team: The size of the stage varies depending on your code. For Group C, the first verse will be performed with the lights turned off.]

[The trainee is in an uproar.]

[Code 18: Ha…… Honestly, it made me wonder why we even practiced if it was going to be like this.]

[Code 20: It was seriously cramped in there, you know? There wasn’t even enough space to stretch our arms properly, and then they cut the entire first verse… It was frustrating.]

 

“That must be infuriating.”

But Sujin’s eyes were searching only for the orthodontic braces trainee.

“Oh, there he is.”

[※Debut lineup Code trainees were given the benefit of being able to use one special item each.※]

 

“Did he come up with the idea for that scar makeup himself, too?”

 

[Orthodontic @orthodontia 1 minute ago]

> I love a man with good self-awareness. How did he know that the scar makeup would suit him so perfectly?

 

By the time Sujin had memorized the song after the repeated filming, the problematic scene was broadcast.

 

[As filming for the final ending fairy came to an end, a tremendous sound came from somewhere.]

[Crash-!]

[The trainees and production crew were startled.]

 

“Who collapsed?”

 

[Production Team: Code 4, Code 4. Are you okay??]

 

“……What??”

 

[The scene turned into chaos as an emergency unfolded.]

[Code 10: I was seriously startled! He suddenly went plop- and collapsed right in front of us.]

 

The message board, where people were watching Episode 2 together in real time, was also filled with discussions about Code 4.

 

[Ah, holy shit, orthodontic braces boy.]

> Are they adding the sickly trope, too?

↳ What are you talking about? They made them repeat it so many times that this was bound to happen.

↳ I don’t care. I’m going to enjoy my orthodontic braces friend as a sickly puppy, too.

↳ No, but how hard did he work to collapse like that?ㅠㅠㅠ

↳ That explains itㅠㅠ I was wondering why his face suddenly looked half its size during the signal song.

 

[Fortunately, Code 4 quickly regained stability after experiencing a temporary shock caused by exhaustion.]

[Code 4: I started feeling dizzy around the tenth take, but when I thought it was the last one, I relaxed and lost my tension…… But I’m fine now!]

 

“What the heck? Why does he sound so energetic……?”

 

[Wait, then.]

> So he sang with the veins in his neck bulging out during the signal song fancam and collapsed afterward?

↳ Holy crap, that’s true;;

↳ When I watched the fancam, I just thought he was exhausted, but he was practically on the verge of faintingㅠㅠㅠㅠ

↳ An idol needs to have this level of determination;;

↳ If he was in that condition, just standing upright was already impressive;; And he even danced under all those lights… He must have been singing to keep himself from losing consciousness.

↳ No wonder. When I watched the fancam, I wondered why he needed to sing with such a scrunched-up face when none of the sound would even be captured anyway.

 

“Whoa…”

Sujin thought back to Yuseong-woo in the video.

The slight wobble while dancing hadn’t been because his skills were lacking. And the fact that he had followed along with the song even while scrunching up his face was because he wanted it so desperately.

Once she understood all of that, every scene in the video appeared in a new light.

 

> [Honestly, isn’t he kind of underwhelming?]

Didn’t he collapse just to get attention? All the other kids were fine.

↳ What are you talking about? Then why was he hospitalized?

↳ What do you mean, fine? The other kids were also gagging and making a whole mess of themselves kekekek

↳ The competition is getting nasty already;;

↳ If that was acting, then he should become an actor instead of an idol.

 

Everyone didn’t have to feel the same way. But Sujin couldn’t stand seeing someone distort the truth like this.

“No, what the hell is wrong with them? How could that possibly be acting?”

Sujin pressed a hand to her forehead, recognizing the familiar feeling.

“Ah, I’m screwed.”

Her favorite was being attacked from all directions. And her burning sense of duty to protect that favorite.

This wasn’t simply becoming a fan.

Hadn’t someone once said that your ultimate bias was like raising a child, while your second favorite was like being in a pseudo-romantic relationship?

 

[Orthodontic @orthodontia 2 minutes ago]

> Make me an honorary firefighter for my orthodontic braces boy.

 

As he was subjected to attacks and unfair criticism from every direction, he finally approached Sujin and became her son.