I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed Chapter 59

Chapter 59

 

Early in the morning, the rookie development team’s office at Nix Entertainment was thrown into a state of emergency.

“Did you verify whether it’s true?”

“It was uploaded at four in the morning, so…”

“This is driving me crazy, seriously.”

The team leader roughly ran a hand through his hair.

“Let’s bring the kid in and confirm it first.”

The sudden appearance of a staff member sent a wave of tension through the trainees.

Showing up at the practice room without any warning meant that it was by no means something trivial.

“What is it……?”

“None of us did anything wrong, right?”

“I-I didn’t.”

Anxious glances quickly passed between them. The staff member stopped directly in front of Hwang Geon-hee.

“Geon-hee, can you come with me for a moment?”

“M-Me?”

Hwang Geon-hee’s face instantly hardened.

“What’s going on?”

“We’ll talk when we get there.”

His footsteps following the staff member were noticeably heavy.

Just moments ago, he had been enthusiastically dancing to the choreography Go Jae-seong had created. But the face reflected in the mirror was pale as a ghost, like someone who had nowhere left to run.

“Holy shit, what’s going on?”

“Did Hwang Geon-hee do something wrong?”

“Could it be because of that?”

The practice room quickly filled with whispers.

The moment Hwang Geon-hee opened the conference room door, he knew.

Something had gone wrong.

The conference room was occupied not only by members of the rookie development team, but also the main PD and writer of Boys Code.

Every one of them wore a grim expression.

“Geon-hee, sit down first.”

“…Yes.”

“You remember when that exposé was posted a few weeks ago?”

The moment those words were spoken, all the color drained from his face.

During preparations for Round 4, an exposé had been posted on a community where Boys Code viewers gathered.

 

[Exposing the Past of a Boys Code Trainee]

> I used to train alongside trainee H, who is currently appearing on Boys Code. From the day H joined the agency, he encouraged the other trainees to ostracize me and dumped the cleaning of the practice room and dorm on me, saying, “That’s what trainees who joined later are supposed to do.” During practice, he would deliberately trip me or intentionally not tell me about changed choreography, continuously causing me both physical and psychological harm…

 

Based on the initial post and the hints about his former agency, Hwang Geon-hee was singled out as the most likely person involved.

However, at the time, Hwang Geon-hee insisted that he was innocent, claiming that a trainee jealous and envious of him had spread false rumors. The production staff had also maintained that they could not take action based solely on one unverified anonymous post.

More than anything, the fact that the post had been uploaded to a small board where only Boys Code viewers gathered had made them complacent.

But early this morning, a second exposé from the same person had exploded.

This time, it was on a large community known as “the exposé board.”

 

[Exposing the Past of a Boys Code Trainee]

[I’m reposting this somewhere everyone can see because there was no reaction when I posted it in a place where only viewers gathered.]

[I am going to expose the past of Hwang Geon-hee, a trainee currently appearing on the popular idol survival show Boys Code.]

 

This time, there wasn’t even an initial.

The exposer had directly written Hwang Geon-hee’s name.

The contents were also far more specific and severe than those in the first post.

They described how he had subtly ostracized the poster throughout their time living in the dorms, broken company property and pinned the blame on them, hidden their clothes and practice materials before evaluations and then laughed it off as though it had been an accident, and so on…

The exposer also added that they had eventually left the agency and stopped dreaming of becoming an idol altogether.

 

[If he had even pretended to apologize when the first exposé came out, I would never have made another exposé. But I received no contact whatsoever from the agency, the production staff, or Hwang Geon-hee. Hwang Geon-hee gained even more popularity after his last performance and rose all the way to seventh place.]

[Aren’t idols supposed to give people dreams and hope? Then how can someone who trampled on someone else’s dream become an idol?]

 

This time, the post even included messenger conversations and photographic evidence, leaving no room for excuses.

The post was already spreading uncontrollably.

 

↳ What the hell is Boys Code? Well, I guess a nobody program like that would have people like this on it, tsk tsk

↳ So if people like that debut, they put on a mask and pretend to be innocent in front of their fans, ugh;;

 ↳↳ Isn’t that the point?

 ↳↳ As expected, people who like guys like that aren’t exactly right in the head

↳ Wow, the way he subtly made someone look like an idiot and bullied them is seriously nasty;;

↳ Shouldn’t we boycott if that guy doesn’t leave the show?

 

Only a heavy silence filled the conference room.

“Haa…”

Hwang Geon-hee ultimately couldn’t raise his head. Honestly, he couldn’t even guess who it was. Even when he went through the faces of the people he had trained with one by one, there were simply too many candidates.

“Geon-hee.”

The rookie development team leader called him in a low voice.

“Is what’s written here true?”

“…….”

“Answer me.”

Hwang Geon-hee’s lips trembled.

“Not all of it…”

At those words, the air in the conference room grew even colder.

“What do you mean, not all of it?”

“Some of it was exaggerated.”

“Then there are parts that are true?”

“It’s…”

Hwang Geon-hee couldn’t continue.

The main PD let out a deep sigh.

“There’s nothing we can do about this, either.”

He pointed toward the comments flooding the laptop screen.

“People are already saying they’ll boycott if we don’t remove you, that they’ll report it to the National Petition Center, and so on… It’s gotten too loud already.”

“If you’d just admitted it and apologized from the beginning, it wouldn’t have gotten this far!”

A rookie development team staff member finally lost his temper and raised his voice.

“What did you say back then? You said it was all lies!”

“I didn’t expect them to have evidence like this, either…”

“Is that what you have to say right now?”

Hwang Geon-hee flinched and shut his mouth.

“Should we post an apology first?”

“No. This isn’t something that will be solved by just apologizing.”

It was also a bolt from the blue for Nix, a newly established agency. Since Boys Code was an in-house survival show, they had planned to keep Hwang Geon-hee as talent for their next group even if he was eliminated.

But removing him from the show like this meant that Nix could no longer make use of Hwang Geon-hee either. For a new agency that desperately needed every available talent, it was a major loss.

“For now……we can’t avoid it, Geon-hee. You have to leave the show.”

The rookie development team leader sighed.

“I-I just want one–”

Hwang Geon-hee’s lips trembled.

“Can’t you give me just one chance?”

“What kind of chance are you asking for?”

“I’ll apologize. I’ll meet them in person and even get on my knees…”

“When the first post came out, why didn’t you apologize then?”

He couldn’t answer.

Because he never imagined things would become this serious.

Because he thought an anonymous post making accusations without evidence would quickly be buried.

His ranking had been rising, and his number of fans had been growing.

He had believed that if he just held out a little longer, nobody would be able to bring up what happened in the past.

“I……”

Hwang Geon-hee’s trembling lips moved several times. He couldn’t even think of what he should say.

All he could do was curse his past self for treating the first exposé as though it were nothing.

A short while later, when Hwang Geon-hee returned with swollen eyes, the atmosphere in the practice room froze cold.

“What happened? What’s going on…?”

“This looks serious.”

The staff member who followed behind him looked around the practice room.

“Those of you on the dance position team, can you come out for a moment?”

Go Jae-seong was the first to approach and support Hwang Geon-hee.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Hwang Geon-hee could only mumble through his tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Jae-seong.”

“What on earth happened?”

Go Jae-seong asked again, but Hwang Geon-hee ultimately couldn’t open his mouth.

As the dance position team members gathered one by one, the staff member spoke with a stiff expression.

“This may be sudden, but there’s something I need to tell you first.”

An uneasy silence descended.

“Trainee Hwang Geon-hee will be leaving Boys Code as of today.”

“What?”

“What??”

“L-Leaving?”

“No, what do you mean all of a sudden…”

“Why? Geon-hee, are you sick?”

Hwang Geon-hee ultimately couldn’t say anything. Han Sang-yoon calmly asked:

“W-We should know the reason, too. We only have two days left. No, we don’t even have two days anymore. And you’re saying he’s leaving…”

The writer standing beside them glanced at Hwang Geon-hee and gave a short answer.

“You can ask the person involved about that.”

It was a cold remark.

“We’re surprised, too, so let’s focus on preparing the stage. You said there isn’t much time.”

“No…”

In the end, Hwang Geon-hee headed to the dorm without explaining anything.

The dance position team, who eventually heard the entire explanation from the staff member, couldn’t speak for a while.

“Wow…”

“I’m so dumbfounded I don’t even know what to say…”

“No, but even so…”

“Then what do we do about our stage?”

“We’re looking for a way to make it work as much as possible. Nobody could have anticipated a situation like this.”

Hwang Geon-hee had been the trainee with the second-most parts after Joo-han. In particular, in the choreography he had created together with Go Jae-seong, he occupied the center for most of it.

And now they had to fill that position overnight.

Han Sang-yoon rubbed both hands over his face. There was no time to create new choreography, nor time to learn it again.

“Then… should we divide up his parts?”

Joo-han spoke first.

“No.”

Han Sang-yoon immediately shook his head.

“Then we’d have to change the entire formation. And we’d have to learn new choreography, too.”

A heavy silence descended.

Then Go Jae-seong cautiously raised his hand.

“I’ll do it.”

The team members all turned toward him at once.

“How?”

Go Jae-seong hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Actually, Geon-hee said he wasn’t confident about creating choreography… so I did almost all of it myself. That’s why I know all the choreography.”

“Really?”

A faint spark of life returned to the eyes of the team members who had looked completely defeated.

The PD immediately gestured to the staff after hearing that.

“Get more cameras on them.”

The atmosphere changed. The desperate team had gained at least a faint glimmer of hope.

“Yes. And Geon-hee and I have a lot of overlapping formations, so we don’t need to change the formations that much, either.”

“Holy shit, Jae-seong. How did you predict…”

“Predict?”

At the strangely cold gaze, Code 9 gave an awkward smile.

“No, I just meant it like that–”

“Even if it’s a joke, you shouldn’t say something like that.”

“Ah… Sorry.”

After a brief silence, Go Jae-seong smiled awkwardly.

“Sorry, this happened so suddenly that I got a little sensitive.”

“No, no. I spoke without thinking.”

Han Sang-yoon asked worriedly:

“Even so, wouldn’t it be hard to do everything by yourself?”

“That’s right, hyung. If we divide it up, one day would be enough.”

But Go Jae-seong shook his head.

“No, Joo-han’s the center. You have the most impactful role, so you don’t have the time to worry about other parts, too. And hyung, you need to do your own parts as well.”

“But still…”

“And I want to finish Geon-hee’s parts properly. After all, they’re the choreography… I created.”

Go Jae-seong stood up energetically, as if shaking off the gloomy atmosphere.

“We don’t have time to sit around like this, do we?”

“Jae-seong’s right. Let’s start practicing with the version where Jae-seong does Geon-hee’s choreography, too.”

“Yes!”

The five of them stood in front of the mirror again.

The cameras busily moved around, determined not to miss the team trying to overcome the crisis.

At that moment, Yoo Seong-woo, who happened to be passing by, unconsciously looked toward Go Jae-seong.

Go Jae-seong was smiling.

A smile far too relaxed for someone who had to remake the stage within two days.

 

***

 

When Hwang Geon-hee returned with his swollen face, Go Jae-seong tightly bit his lip.

So that he wouldn’t accidentally let his laughter escape.

The reason he had given Hwang Geon-hee especially impactful choreography, the reason he had given the center position to Joo-han, the reason he had kept Han Sang-yoon tied to Joo-han’s side.

It had all been groundwork for this very moment.

When he had first regressed, he had planned to put Hwang Geon-hee in Impactor’s debut lineup.

But Moonho. No, the variable known as Yoo Seong-woo had appeared, changing the entire game.

Hwang Geon-hee was now a card he could throw away.

“Jae-seong, I’m really sorry. Because of me…”

‘Why are you apologizing to me?’

If anything, he was so grateful he could die.

Hwang Geon-hee’s choreography had been taken from the future anyway.

“Apologize to the other team members, not me.”

“But you’re the one who looked out for me the most…”

“Do you think you won’t be able to be a trainee anymore?”

“Huh?”

“No.”

Go Jae-seong changed his expression.

“That must be really hard for you. Take some time to get your heart in order.”

“Thank you, seriously, Jae-seong. Where could you find another kid as kind as you…”

Go Jae-seong shook his head, while smiling inwardly.

‘Yeah, where could you find another kid as kind as me? I’m working my ass off like this to save a ruined group, aren’t I?’

The gazes of his team members looking at him as though he were their savior were thrilling, too.

“Trainee Jae-seong, we’ll grab a personal interview with you later!”

“W-We’re short on practice time…”

“Jae-seong, go do the interview and come back. It won’t take long.”

“Even so…”

Han Sang-yoon pushed him forward by the back.

“It won’t take long.”

“Yes, I’ll answer well enough to get an OK in one take!”

The sly answer made the production staff break into broad smiles.

The interview camera turned on.

“How were you able to immediately say that you would do it yourself in a crisis situation?”

Go Jae-seong answered shyly.

“Of course, it’s for the team. I really want to make sure our team comes in first.”

Praise came from all around.

“Jae-seong, you’re so innocent and kind. How are you going to survive as a celebrity like that?”

“It’s because the writer keeps teasing me~”

When he covered his face with a shy smile, the filming set was filled with a warm atmosphere.

After finishing the interview, Go Jae-seong immediately returned to the practice room.

“One, two. I come in here, right?”

The space Hwang Geon-hee had left behind was filled with astonishing naturalness.

Nearly twice as many parts, cameras naturally focusing on him. And team members relying on him. Everything was going according to his plan.

‘Finally.’

The game had finally begun to roll properly.