I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed – Chapter 7

Author: Cireng

Chapter 7

“Three days?”

“Holy…”

“And the person who receives the best evaluation during the midterm assessment held the day before filming…”

Kang Se-jun paused.

“…will become the center.”

The trainees, who had looked like they were about to drop dead, reacted to the word ‘center.’

“Lastly, the top five will be provided with additional items when filming the signal song.”

Before my regression, Kang I-yul had ranked sixth, falling short by just a hair.

‘Not this time.’

Because I was going to grab Kang I-yul by the collar and drag him up.

The top five before my regression had been Han Sang-yoon, Joo-han, Go Jae-seong, Choi Un-jo, and…

“Hey, move.”

They say speak of the tiger, and it will appear. It was Hwang Geon-hee, that bastard. He had gained a decent amount of popularity, but he would eventually leave the survival show midway through due to a controversy.

“Oh, isn’t this the latest model?”

The trainees marveled at the sponsored tablets. Of course, they could only be used for checking the choreography and advertising purposes.

“Damn, looks like you can’t install OTT apps.”

‘Oh, dear….’

Unfortunately, that trainee would be eliminated after earning the nickname ‘OTT Guy’ because of that remark. Maybe it was because I had watched too many survival shows, but I could see the ending just by looking at someone’s face.

‘I feel like a shaman who only knows half the job.’

Kang Se-jun left the practice room, but the cameras remained. The red lights on the cameras installed here and there continued blinking. Thanks to that, the trainees engaged in an intense battle of wits over who could claim the best spots.

‘If they get caught on camera with a rotten expression like that, they’re immediately done for.’

I scanned the camera positions through the mirror.

They were familiar.

Far too familiar.

Before my regression, I had watched Boys Code dozens, no, hundreds of times. Especially in the beginning, Kang I-yul had so little screen time that I would pause at every scene and search for traces of him.

After repeating that over and over, I had even memorized the camera positions. I had to check from every angle to find even the tiniest glimpse of Kang I-yul.

‘He disappeared from this angle, and around here he went out of frame.’

Those memories now overlapped perfectly with the practice room before me.

I walked toward the door.

A spot that looked like the worst possible corner.

But the real prime spot was right here.

‘It’s good for getting full shots.’

I naturally took my position and looked around the practice room.

“……Oh boy.”

A sigh escaped me involuntarily.

Kang I-yul was practicing in the most awkward position possible, squeezed in among the other trainees.

‘Why there of all places?’

How could I naturally bring him over?

Asking him to teach me the choreography would be the safest option.

There was just one problem…

‘I already know all of it.’

And I knew it perfectly.

Humans are the product of repetitive learning. If you watch your bias’s fancams hundreds of times, at some point the choreography naturally stays in your head.

But I hadn’t stopped there. That had been nothing more than my desperate struggle to promote IMPACTOR.

Once they began their decline, the company started pushing nostalgia for the survival show as a marketing strategy. While other idols were doing challenges with their current songs, IMPACTOR was doing a choreography challenge for a survival-show signal song that had ended more than a year ago.

Naturally, nobody paid any attention.

So eventually, I made an account.

Wearing a mask and uploading signal-song choreography challenges under a concept like ‘What happens if someone with two left feet dances to the Boys Code signal song?’

Every day.

At first, all I got were hate comments like, ‘They’ll do anything to get attention.’

I couldn’t exactly argue with them. Although what I wanted was for that attention to be directed at IMPACTOR, not me.

The early videos were truly movements that you couldn’t watch with your eyes open.

↳ Did a squid reincarnate?;;

↳ Wow, incredible four-limb malfunction

↳ Is this AI?

↳ It’s hard to be funny purely through physical ability, but you’ve got talent. Keep it up!

But my clown act was surprisingly effective at getting IMPACTOR’s name out there.

Videos that had initially received around ten comments began getting a hundred, then two hundred. The number of shares also increased exponentially.

↳ What the hell, why did you suddenly develop something called a dance line? Disappointed, I’m unfollowing

↳ This is human victory;; Seriously, by day 50, it actually looks like dancing

↳ I watched the original, but who the hell choreographed this? I feel like I’m going to die dancing to it

↳ You had at least some basic skills to begin with;; The choreography itself is hellish, so being able to follow it that much means…

↳↳ That’s not true. I’ve been watching since day one, and you genuinely looked like you came from another planet^^;;

↳ D.E.F.I.N.I.T.E.L.Y. not good at dancing, but it’s impressive that you memorized the entire choreography

It must have been around 100 days later.

The day my video surpassed IMPACTOR’s music video in views, I quietly blew up the account.

I didn’t want to become known to I-yul because of something like this. And I didn’t want IMPACTOR to be mocked either.

Thanks to that incident, I had completely memorized the signal song’s choreography and lyrics. Of course, that didn’t mean I was good at dancing. My dancing wasn’t a matter of ‘dancing well’ but rather *‘memorizing well.’

‘And I can’t let anyone know that.’

Because right now, I was a trainee seeing that choreography for the first time today.

‘Should I pretend to practice a little more and then sing?’

‘Or should I just pretend I’m bad?’

Just as I was running the calculations in my head, a sharp voice rang out.

“Ah, seriously……!”

“Sorry, it’s because of the cast…”

“Then go practice somewhere else. It’s already so cramped I could die–”

“…….”

‘Look at the way that bastard talks.’

Without thinking twice, I walked straight toward Kang I-yul.

“Excuse me……”

I carefully tapped his shoulder, and Kang I-yul turned around with a startled expression.

“…Me?”

“Yeah. If it’s okay, could you help me out?”

He looked somewhat reluctant, but he gave a small nod.

‘I-yul, it’s too cramped a place for you to be.’

I’ll lead you to a bigger world.

***

When Kang I-yul and I stood side by side, one of the cameras subtly shifted its angle.

‘Okay, got one.’

It was a sign that the production crew had begun paying attention to this side.

It was understandable. The practice room had already become a battlefield. Under the pressure of three days, everyone was fighting their own individual battles.

Since it wasn’t a team competition to begin with, in a way, it was only natural.

But what gets captured on a broadcast isn’t individual people as much as relationships with a story behind them. So I planned to give Kang I-yul a teacher character.

‘Of course, it would also give me an excuse for why I’m getting better.’

“Am I supposed to extend my arm like this here?”

I deliberately moved my arm awkwardly.

Kang I-yul glanced at it and shook his head.

“No.”

His voice was still dry.

‘I really can’t get used to him speaking formally.’

“You turn it inward first, then extend it on the next beat.”

‘Wow, our I-yul… had something he wasn’t good at, too!’

I genuinely couldn’t understand a single thing he was saying. They say being good at something and being good at teaching it are two different things.

It felt like I was attending a major-required course taught by a professor back in college. A one-sided lecture that didn’t take the listener’s knowledge or level of understanding into consideration at all.

Maybe our kid was a genius, because he seemed genuinely puzzled as to why this move wasn’t working in the first place.

“Ah, like this~”

I roughly followed along, and I-yul’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly.

“That’s…… not it either.”

“Then like this?”

“No.”

He let out a short sigh, then stood directly in front of me and demonstrated.

“Turn here, extend, and–”

His explanation was still a mess, but his movements were precise.

I followed it one more time, ‘like someone learning it for the first time.’

“H-How do you do this?”

“This one is easy. If you connect it while thinking of linking the joints…”

Wow, this was so easy. Really, really easy, I-yul.

If it hadn’t been I-yul teaching me, I felt like a sarcastic remark would have slipped out at any moment. It was a movement difficult enough to make your arm fall off if you said it was easy twice.

To think I was reminded of the professor I hated most while looking at our I-yul. Life really was a series of unexpected events.

After that, it continued in the same way. I deliberately got one or two things wrong, and I-yul became frustrated.

And then this time…

“……Huh?”

I didn’t deliberately get it wrong.

Kang I-yul’s gaze wavered for a moment.

I laughed inwardly.

“…You just need to do it like that.”

Kang I-yul spoke in a low voice.

I shrugged.

“Maybe because my teacher is such a good teacher?”

This time, the silence lasted a little longer.

Just when things were starting to get awkward, I-yul answered as if letting the words slip out.

“……No.”

He denied it, but the end of his voice had softened slightly.

Just then, another camera came over.

‘Three.’

That was enough.

I naturally added some details.

The signal-song choreography was devilishly complicated. Naturally, this was a point the production team had deliberately designed.

But I had memorized every single one of those details perfectly. After getting beaten to death in the comments so many times, I had no choice but to memorize them through sheer gritted teeth.

↳ 00:24 You didn’t extend your fingers properly here?;;

↳ 00:47 No matter how many dozens of times you dance it, you still miss the detail of turning your toes inward lol

↳↳ Why are you killing his spirit when he’s working hard;;

↳ 01:05 Wow….. I’ve memorized the part where you only turn half a rotation by now, but you’re still doing a full rotation;; This is seriously relentless

↳ 01:22 Yesterday, your left foot was definitely right and your right foot was wrong, but today you got the right foot right, so immediately the left foot was wrong lol. Is this a universe where both feet can never be right at the same timeㅠ

On the other hand, the better a trainee was naturally at dancing, the easier it was for them to miss those details. Since they could follow along after seeing it just once, they thought they had finished the whole thing and moved on to the next part.

That was why one of the program’s entertaining elements was watching promising trainees get torn apart once each in the early stages.

‘But I can’t let I-yul get hate.’

The angle of the fingers, the direction of the toes.

Whenever there was a point missing from a movement he was teaching me, I naturally added it and danced it correctly.

Kang I-yul, who had been watching closely, stopped moving his hand.

“…Wait a moment.”

And immediately picked up the tablet. He checked the video again.

“……Ah.”

A brief realization.

When he looked at me again, something in Kang I-yul’s eyes had changed slightly.

I asked as if I didn’t know anything.

“Why?”

“……It’s nothing.”

He said that, but his movements had already changed. They were a little more precise, matching the details.

I swallowed back a laugh.

This was enough.

***

Kang I-yul was uncomfortable with Yoo Seong-woo.

In fact, he had been that way from the moment he first saw him.

Street casting.

Just those words were enough to give him a rough idea.

Most people were overflowing with confidence at first, only to disappear after failing to last even a few days.

Naturally, he thought Yoo Seong-woo would be the same.

But he wasn’t.

He stayed in the practice room until the very end every day. Not just for a day or two, but continuously.

‘……What the hell.’

It irritated him.

Even when he tried not to pay attention, Yoo Seong-woo kept catching his eye.

On top of that, he had even heard that Yoo Seong-woo had cried while practicing, making him wonder what the hell kind of guy he was.

‘At least he seems to have some determination.’

That was all.

He had no intention of getting involved with him.

His own situation wasn’t leisurely enough for that.

“Excuse me…”

So even when he was asked for help earlier, he had intended to refuse. He didn’t even have enough time to practice himself, so where would he find the time to look after someone else?

Then, without thinking, he looked in the mirror.

Hair that swayed attractively even while soaked in sweat, a style that looked satisfying with nothing more than a natural sweep. The praise that had poured out at the shoot also came back to him naturally.

The person who had created that was the very same hyung standing over there.

“……Ha.”

He hated being indebted to people.

So he figured he would help him just this once and call it even.

…And immediately regretted it.

“Like this?”

“No.”

Wrong.

“Then, like this?”

Wrong again.

Making a simple movement difficult was a talent in itself.

“Have you ever…… learned how to dance?”

“No?”

Right.

If he had learned, those movements would have been an even bigger problem.

“Oh, I did it!”

He had the face of someone who had conquered the entire world just because he got one beat right.

‘Is this supposed to be funny?’

Honestly, it was frustrating.

What the hell had he been thinking when he came onto a survival show? Debuting wasn’t a joke. Still, since he had already agreed to help, it felt awkward to stop halfway.

“…I’ll try again.”

In the end, he continued practicing with him.

But the more he taught him, the stranger something felt.

Yoo Seong-woo was still bad at dancing. His joints still moved independently, and he still couldn’t understand an explanation in one go.

‘What?’

And yet, strangely enough, his movements kept becoming correct.

He would get it wrong exactly twice, then succeed on the third try.

The pattern was too consistent.

‘……Why am I going this far to help him?’

He should have been annoyed, yet gradually, he started becoming greedy.

He even noticed details in Yoo Seong-woo’s movements that he himself had missed.

“……Wait a moment.”