I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed – Chapter 74

Author: Cireng

Chapter 74

After the competition was completely over, the trainees naturally waited to film the announcement of the results. However, what the production staff said was different from what they had expected.

“We’ll reveal the voting results in a later filming session. Everyone, please head back to the dorms.”

Murmurs erupted here and there.

“What?”

“Ugh, I was tired, so this actually works out.”

I-yul looked secretly disappointed. Well, I felt the same way.

The atmosphere at the venue had been incredible. With a response like this, it was worth getting our hopes up. So I wanted to check the results while the heat from the stage was still fresh, but…

“Let’s go too.”

Han Sang-yoon gestured toward I-yul and me.

“Yes.”

That was when it happened.

“Trainees who were on the Hunter team during Round 4, please wait here for a moment.”

I stopped walking.

‘No way.’

I immediately took out my phone.

“As expected…”

Seori had finally drawn her sword.

Because we had been so busy preparing for the competition that there hadn’t even been time to look at our phones, I was only now able to figure out what was happening.

[Reporting the theft of choreography by a Boys Code trainee.]

The post had gone up right before the on-site evaluation began. Only then did everything fall into place.

Go Jae-seong’s eyes were more swollen than usual. The reason only the three members of the Blackout team had been rehearsing separately right before the stage.

‘I thought it was just because they didn’t get along.’

They had known that the exposé had dropped.

If he had ruined the stage, I would have at least suspected something. But instead, Go Jae-seong had delivered the most polished performance he had shown so far.

Even during my time as Impactor before the regression, I don’t think I had ever performed with that much desperation. It made me wonder again why the hell that guy had regressed in the first place.

‘Did he come back from the dead too?’

“Hyung, why do you think they’re making us stay?”

Song Woo-joo asked in an anxious voice. Choi Un-jo followed behind me, yawning as though his soul were about to leave his body. He still looked completely unaware of what was going on.

‘They controlled it better than I thought.’

The other trainees would probably only find out about this in the car on the way back to the dorms.

When we arrived in front of the conference room following the production staff, Go Jae-seong, who had arrived first, was calmer than I expected.

No, he was pretending to be calm. The fingertips of his interlaced hands had gone white.

“The other trainees, please wait for a moment. Trainee Yoo Seong-woo, you go in first.”

“Yes.”

‘They’re going to check everyone one by one.’

I had expected that, once something happened, they would interrogate those of us who had been on the same team first. But they were being more thorough than I expected, checking us one by one to prevent us from watching each other’s reactions.

When I opened the conference room door, the atmosphere had settled into a heavy silence. Several laptops were turned on, and printed materials were scattered messily across the table.

It was an atmosphere where they were trying to put out the immediate fire but had no clear answer.

‘Seori probably won’t answer their calls either.’

PD Seon let out a sigh and spoke.

“Trainee Yoo Seong-woo.”

“Yes.”

“Please tell us only what happened exactly as it did. We need to know the facts accurately so we can respond as well.”

“Understood.”

As expected, he went straight to the point.

“How was the Round 4 choreography created?”

“Jae-seong made it.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

The PD studied my expression before asking again.

“You never heard anything about him getting help from someone else or referencing existing choreography?”

I pretended to search my memory for a moment before shaking my head.

“No. Nothing.”

The room fell silent for a moment. Finally, the PD spoke.

“An exposé has been posted accusing trainee Go Jae-seong of plagiarizing choreography.”

“What?”

When I asked in surprise, the production staff exchanged glances.

“See? The other kids didn’t know anything either.”

“Didn’t you notice anything strange while learning the choreography?”

I waved my hand.

“No. I’m…… you know how I am when it comes to dancing.”

“Ah.”

PD Seon let out a short sigh.

“That’s true.”

When I smiled awkwardly, the production staff quickly nodded as well.

Well, back then, I had only just graduated from being a complete klutz and reached the level of actually dancing like a human being.

“Did Jae-seong really… plagiarize it?”

I put on the expression I had simulated in my head countless times. I looked at the PD with a face that seemed too shocked to even find the words.

“Ha……”

Seeing the exhausted look on the PD’s face, I added,

“We really thought he was amazing while we were practicing……”

I lowered both the corners of my mouth and the corners of my eyes.

“But we never thought something like this would happen……”

To prepare for the exposé, I had praised Go Jae-seong’s genius in every interview during Round 4. I had repeatedly emphasized that he had never received help from anyone else, and even said that I felt sorry that Go Jae-seong had done everything himself.

That was why, whenever the other trainees tried to participate in the choreography, I had told them to trust Jae-seong and step back.

‘They won’t even dream of trying the drowning-together strategy now.’

It was time to move on to the next step.

“Then, we should apologize to Ms. Seori, right……?”

“Trainee Jae-seong should obviously apologize.”

“Ah. I meant the other team members and me.”

The expressions of the production staff simultaneously hardened. Even the PD looked at me in surprise.

“Jae-seong made the choreography, but in the end, we performed onstage using that choreography too.”

“……”

At this point, someone would surely say something in an annoyed voice.

“Sure, apologizing is fine.”

‘As expected.’

One of the production staff who had been silently listening folded his arms with a displeased expression. Then he added curtly,

“But that choreographer isn’t answering our calls.”

Exactly this.

I nearly laughed to myself.

‘Of course she isn’t.’

Someone who had spent weeks agonizing over writing just one statement wasn’t going to casually pick up a call from a broadcasting station.

From the moment I decided to set this whole thing up, Seori’s personality had been the most important factor.

She was cautious, timid, and highly avoidant, so I expected it to take a long time before she made the exposé, and even longer for her to respond to the production team.

“She’s still young, so she doesn’t really know much.”

It was far too clearly spoken to be a mere mutter.

‘There we go.’

I got exactly the reaction I wanted.

“Or……”

I carefully asked while gauging their reactions.

“Should I try contacting my sister?”

“Your sister?”

Only then did PD Seon’s gaze change.

“That’s right. Yoo Seong-ah was your sister, Yuzu, right?”

“Yes.”

I asked the production staff member who had been sneering,

“Wouldn’t it be a little different if the choreographer herself talked to her?”

“……”

“If you’re okay with it, I’ll try contacting her.”

“That would be a huge help to us. Ah, but would you be okay with it?”

The PD seemed to remember me from the previous dating-rumor incident with Yoo Seongah. The way I had sweated buckets while practically prostrating myself and begging for forgiveness.

Instead of immediately nodding, I deliberately trailed off.

“As you saw before, my sister isn’t really fond of things like this……”

The effect was immediate. PD Seon’s expression became even more desperate.

“Still, please ask her just this once. We’ll keep trying to contact her too.”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“Ah, then what happens to Jae-seong?”

“First, he needs to apologize.”

The PD let out a deep sigh.

“After that, we’ll have to see how the choreographer responds.”

‘So they’re not going to kick him off.’

It was definitely different from the Hwang Geon-hee situation.

‘I expected one incident wouldn’t be enough.’

Coldly speaking, unlike a crime, choreography plagiarism was an ambiguous enough wrongdoing that immediately kicking someone off the show was difficult. So they must have chosen to quickly release a statement and wait to see how the situation developed.

If so, it was time to bring out the next plan I had prepared.

“Can you contact your sister right away?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The production staff followed the blueprint I had drawn up without much trouble. I had even created a justification for connecting Seori and Yoo Seong-ah.

“Then, can I leave now?”

The PD readily nodded. And apparently there was no longer any need to hear from the other trainees, because we were simply told to head straight back to the dorms.

Song Woo-joo, who had been dozing off while leaning against Choi Un-jo’s shoulder, struggled to sit up.

“What did you talk about?”

Instead of answering, I showed him my phone screen.

“……Wow.”

Song Woojoo’s face twisted violently as he read the exposé.

“Hyung, I told you back then too.”

His voice was filled with indignation.

“How could he make choreography that fast?”

Song Woo-joo closed his mouth for a moment before muttering a low curse.

“Fucking…”

Then he spotted the production staff nearby and hurriedly cleared his throat.

“Ah, sorry.”

I chuckled. He had been so indignant about it back then too, so apparently he had still been holding onto it.

“You were always saying preparation was important…”

Song Woo-joo let out a hollow sigh.

“We suddenly became people who performed with plagiarized choreography too.”

“Technically, yeah.”

“It’s ridiculous, seriously. The guy who caused the mess will clean it up himself, right?”

Even though he said it loudly enough for everyone to hear, Go Jae-seong remained silent. He simply followed behind the production staff without a word. He was probably racking his brain trying to figure out how to deal with this crisis right away.

‘Go ahead and rack your brain.’

His shallow excuses would eventually come back to bite him properly.

***

At a dance academy in Seoul. As usual, Yuzu’s class was packed with so many people that it was difficult to find an empty spot.

“One, two–stretch your arms out wide!”

“Uuugh……”

“Okay! We’ll take five minutes and then go again!”

Like toys whose batteries had been removed, the students collapsed all over the floor. Yoo Seong-ah chuckled and habitually picked up her phone.

“Ah, I didn’t post the closing announcement.”

As she scrolled through the mountain of notifications, a familiar name caught her eye.

[Underling]

“What’s with him again?”

[Underling: The person I consider the most respected and greatest senior in the world, and whom I love…….]

A long-winded message was visible in the preview.

“He got into trouble again.”

Her first instinct was suspicion. But Yoo Seong-ah’s expression changed after reading the entire message.

“Something like this happened?”

The content was simple. He was asking her to connect him with a choreographer named Seori.

Yoo Seongah read the final sentence again.

[Underling: We ended up performing with that choreography too. So I really want to meet her in person and properly apologize.]

“…At least his head is screwed on straight.”

If he had drawn a line and said it had nothing to do with him? She would have immediately grabbed a stick and run to the dorms.

[But you’re really putting your big sister to work, aren’t you?]

As soon as she sent the reply, ‘Typing…’ appeared and then disappeared.

After repeating several times.

[Underling: I’m seriously going to make it.]

[Underling: (emoji of someone crying, kneeling, and begging)]

Yoo Seong-ah let out a hollow laugh.

“I guess I’ll have to squeeze you dry to the very marrow.”

[I guess you’ll have to be even more successful than Nexity, huh?]

After sending the reply, she immediately began reading the attached exposé. Throughout the entire thing, she struggled to suppress the laughter escaping her.

“I thought it was weird that an amateur made choreography so quickly.”

On top of that, the fact that he had stolen the choreography of an unknown choreographer made it even more infuriating.

“Kids these days are seriously scary, aren’t they?”

Before contacting Seori, Yoo Seong-ah decided to find out what kind of person she was first.

“What? Why is there so little information about her?”

The search results were astonishingly sparse.

A YouTube account with only a few videos uploaded, and an SNS account created only recently, with roughly equal numbers of followers and following.

“How did he even find her?”

At this point, she was almost more impressed by Go Jae-seong.

“Hmm……”

As Yuzu watched Seori’s choreography in the video, her eyes became serious.

“She’s good.”

It was praise that did not easily come from her mouth.

For one thing, her fundamentals were solid. She lacked a little trendiness, but she clearly had her own color. Her choreography consisted of clean movements that wouldn’t become outdated with the latest trends.

What she liked most was the sincerity. Even in a simple-looking transitional move, there were traces of long consideration. Seori’s dancing itself showed how much time she must have spent thinking about every single movement.

It was unfortunate that her ability to promote herself was poor compared to her skill, but she was a hundred times better than cases where you couldn’t even tell whether someone was an influencer or a choreographer.

However…

“Her sensibility is a little much.”

Her feed was filled with sentimental images and quotes. Yoo Seongah quietly closed her eyes.

“She probably won’t be very easy to talk to…… But I’ll contact her anyway.”

She freely composed a DM.

[Hello, Ms. Seori. I’m Yuzu, a dancer and choreographer.]

Bzzzt

Just then, an alarm announcing the start of class rang.

“Ah, class.”

She hurriedly pressed the send button and ran back toward the students.

“All right, break time’s over!”

“Yes!”