How to Avoid Debut

༺ How To Avoid Debut – 11 ༻

 

  “Team leader, teach me this!” 

 

  Gaon, who had been diligently working, raised his hand in frustration and called out to me. I dragged my weary body up and explained the choreography once more that I’d painstakingly taught before. 

 

  Our team continued with the practice, and the body I’d resolved to just get by with was stuck in the practice room, being used to teach the team members the dance till the very end. 

 

  Eventually, when I left the practice room bent over with fatigue, it was already the pitch-dark early hours of the morning. After looking at the dark sky that lacked even moonlight, I prepared to call a cab to go home. 

 

  “Do you want to call a taxi?”

 

  Just as I was looking for the phone number, Jigu approached me. His face was heated, drenched in sweat. 

 

  “Do you want me to call one for you too?” 

 

  “No, I’ve already called one.” 

 

  “That’s quick, considering you just finished. We have to be back here tomorrow, won’t you be tired?” 

 

  I asked out of courtesy, to which he responded by silently nodding his head. 

 

  “We have school the day after tomorrow, too.” 

 

  “If practice runs late, I can skip school for a day. Senior, please take care on your way home. You worked hard today.” 

 

  Just when I thought Jigu would be waiting for his taxi here with me, he turned around as soon as he finished his greetings. 

 

  Did he call the taxi to another building? It wasn’t long before a taxi stopped in front of me. I crammed myself in, told the driver my destination, and then collapsed back onto the seat, holding my mobile in my hand. 

 

  ‘So, it’s okay for you to come back?’ 

 

  What happened? Curiosity arose. Maybe I should look into what happened between them at the same agency. If nothing comes up, I’ll assume it’s a personal matter and neatly forget about it. 

 

  After spending a while searching the internet, there was no specific story about the two of them that came up. 

 

  I had seen a few claims about them fighting and breaking up, but most of them were shot down as false with remarks discouraging the spread of rumors. 

 

  On the other hand, there was a lot about me. I couldn’t fathom how appalled I was by the deluge of posts. I found everything from being called the 30-second rich guy to the nickname ‘the guy who spilled coffee on the producer’, and promptly shut down the internet. 

 

  “Are you cold? Should I turn on the heater?” 

 

  “No.” 

 

  With heat practically radiating from my face, did I really need a heater? I held my face with my hands that were already warm from handling my phone for so long and clenched my hair. Isn’t this really dangerous? 

 

  “Sigh….” 

 

  “…Are you sure you’re not cold?” 

 

  The driver, who had been driving for a while, kept asking me if I was cold, whether he himself was cold or not. As he seemed to want to turn on the heater, I told him to do so and buried myself back into the seat, lost in deep thought. 

 

* * ** * *

 

  I walked out of the house, roughly running a brush through my closed hair. For the next three days, I’d only be incessantly practicing, but with it being a team mission, fewer members would be caught on camera. 

 

  In that sense, my behavior yesterday was a bit reckless. How noticeable must it have been when I stayed beside the kids and meddled? I had countless moments of reflection until I got off the bus. If I wanted to be eliminated, I should have behaved more recklessly. It seemed better to be dropped due to poor attitude than to continue on the path to debut as is. 

 

  “Hello.” 

 

  “Did you come?” 

 

  I was the only one who arrived as it was still early. Everyone must have been tired as they probably left in the early hours of the morning after yesterday’s practice. As I was about to enter through the yellow door I had become tired of seeing yesterday, I turned around and looked at the filming team right in front of me. The producer’s complexion was not so good. 

 

  The editing team must have had a really hard time trying to cut all shots of my face, but instead of them, the producer was getting scolded. I felt pity for him and went outside the set for a while to find the vending machine in the corridor. For a beverage that would relieve fatigue, I saw Jetty and coffee, and without any hesitation, chose Jetty. When tired, sweet things were better than caffeine. 

 

  “Producer, please have this.” 

 

  “Eh?” 

 

  Worried that if another participant saw us, they might misunderstand it as bribing, I sneakily glanced towards the door while handing the Jetty to the producer. As the cold can was shaken a few times in front of his eyes, the producer, who had been zoning out, suddenly perked up, his scruffy bearded chin wobbling. 

 

  “Ah, thank you.” 

 

  Dark circles under his eyes reaching down to his cheekbones. The producer’s face froze as he held the can, realizing what the beverage was. 

 

  “… I’ll enjoy it.”“ 

 

  As expected, at the producer’s age, it should’ve been coffee. I slightly regretted my choice as I thought I should have gone with coffee. It seemed like my uncle hadn’t arrived yet either. 

 

  “You’ve been working hard, Producer.” 

 

  “It’s evidence that the program is going well. Although I’m considering removing the website’s forum, I’m grateful enough for your stepping in, so don’t worry about it too much.” 

 

  The producer’s face, while speaking angelically, looked anything but angelic. I should have insisted from the start to my uncle that I wouldn’t do it, but now I had gone too far. 

 

  “It would be perfect if I get eliminated after this stage.” 

 

  “If that happens, my way home would be quite dangerous…, has Seokho arrived?” 

 

  Halfway through his sentence, the producer abruptly turned his head and called out my uncle’s name in a trance-like voice. Whether he had just arrived for work or not, my uncle was also walking over with a Starbucks coffee in his hand, his complexion no different. Our uncle wasn’t the kind to drink such expensive things. He was someone who remained loyal to his principle of being a commoner who loved instant coffee. 

 

“You arrived early, Producer. Today it’s a café mocha.” 

 

  Ah, it was for the producer. My uncle, seeming familiar with the routine, naturally extended his hand to give the freshly bought coffee to the producer. But then he paused mid-air, perhaps noticing the Jetty still in the producer’s hand. 

 

  “Are you planning to have that today? Then I’ll drink this.” 

 

  “Your nephew here bought Jetty for you, thinking you’d have it.” 

 

  The Jetty can, painstakingly retrieved from the vending machine, undeservingly ended up in my uncle’s hands. My uncle, who had unexpectedly received the chance to drink Jetty early in the morning, looked at me with a bewildered expression as he took the can. 

 

  “Why… But why did you buy this all of a sudden?”  

 

  “I didn’t buy it for you, uncle. Just drink it.” 

 

  “Even though it wasn’t your intention, you look uncomfortable giving it to me. Ha ha. Go on in quickly.” 

 

  My uncle popped open the Jetty can and waved me away. I sneaked a glance at the clock, with approximately an hour and a half left before the other participants were due to arrive, and casually sat down on the floor. 

 

  “Uncle, I seem to be wandering around in front of the camera, don’t I?” 

 

  “Well, it would be nice if you could get more out of the way. Ah, right. Producer, did you see the spoiler that went up yesterday?” 

 

  My uncle grimaced as he coolly downed the Jetty. It seemed another spoiler had been posted by a staff member who frequently appeared on this kind of program. My uncle was visibly disillusioned, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand in a way that made it look like he’d just downed a shot of soju. 

 

  “I saw it. There’s no point in keeping quiet about it.” 

 

  “That’s what I’m saying. We put a ban on spoilers in the contract, but it’s not like we won’t get caught. It’s fortunate that you didn’t spoil anything.” 

 

  “There was a lot of talk about your nephew. He must have a fan.” 

 

  The producer laughed heartily, slapping his knee. 

 

  That darn earthen pot, the way home, insincere sincerity… Is it a crime to have a name like ‘Jung Sung’?  

 

   “Ha ha, hang in there.” 

 

  “It’s all because you brought in such a perfect substitute. We should have just dressed you up in a suit and sent you on.” 

 

  “There would have been chaos then. They would have said the wrong picture of the uncle went up.” 

 

  “Thanks to your nephew, we’ve got a hot topic and the life force to live for a lifetime. With this amount of cursing, we could easily live for five hundred years and still have some left over.”

 

  The producer, who initially was sucking on the straw, was now taking a shot from his cup, seemingly fed up. I could only imagine how much he was seething inside. 

 

  Eventually, feeling self-conscious, I rose from my spot and entered through the yellow door. Once inside, I leaned against the wall without even waiting for Boram, who was due to arrive early, and closed my eyes. From then on, I was planning to adopt a laid-back team leader concept. 

 

  But that mindset didn’t last long. I couldn’t refuse when the team members asked me to briefly show them this part. 

 

  At first, I chose a spot in a blind spot where the camera couldn’t catch me well and demonstrated from afar. But eventually, I got frustrated and left the blind spot. 

 

  Ah, my uncle told me not to try too hard. In the end, I gave up everything and danced hard, then sat down exhausted on the floor. If the figure wandering around in the back, glowing red, gets caught, wouldn’t I get scolded again for trying so hard but not being picked? 

 

  “…Team leader, why are you lying there?” 

 

  Wanting to play the villain for a change, I lay down lengthwise in the middle of the practice room, and a chorus of “why are you doing that?” followed. Eventually, I got up quietly, sat with my back to the camera, and displayed my backside to the angle for a long time, when Jigu, who had been practicing for a while, walked over and helped me stand up by holding both my hands. 

 

  “If you’re tired, go outside and rest. The floor is cold.” 

 

  “Oh, well… I appreciate it, but I’m okay.” 

 

  Playing the villain was harder than I thought. I couldn’t suddenly start a fight with the team members who were working hard, nor could I make a fuss about not wanting to practice after doing well. 

 

  In the end, I missed the timing and just continued with the normal practice. After a few hours, the overall choreography framework was completed. The pace seemed particularly fast, perhaps because there were many top-tier students and none of them were unfamiliar with dancing. Jun had said earlier during the break that he had barely finished half when I dropped by the next room. 

 

  “Now that we’ve got the dance down to some extent, we need to move on to the song. We need to set the route for the song parts too…” 

 

  I had thought number 1 would be in the center a lot, but he was the main vocal. As soon as the discussion about song parts started, everyone seemed to become cautious. Naturally, they’d all want to take the long parts because they were ambitious. I casually raised my right hand, thinking it was only natural. 

 

  “I have a part that I want.” 

 

  “Ah. Where?” 

 

  Seongwon asked with a smile. Everyone seemed tense, so I pointed at number 3 with my finger, signaling them to relax.

 

  “This one. Sub-vocal 2.” 

 

  “Eh? This one? Here where the circle is drawn?” 

 

  Everyone seemed surprised, having expected me to choose number 1, and asked again. 

 

  “Yes, number 3.” 

 

  “This part has the least lines, senior.” 

 

  Despite my obvious interest, Jigu kindly explained, as if I might not understand. 

 

  “I’m not good at singing. It’s easier for me to have fewer parts.” 

 

  “But there aren’t many impactful dance parts here either. Wouldn’t it be better to change?” 

 

  “I really want to do number 3. 

 

  The kind team members, who kept recommending changes, couldn’t overcome my stubbornness and finally scribbled my name next to number 3. 

 

  After that, everything was perfect. Seongwon and Jigu, having less desire for parts than I thought, coolly offered to take sub-vocal 1 and 3 respectively. Having decided this, when it came time to select the main vocal, there was no one who could hit the high notes, so Jigu ended up being forcibly chosen as the main vocal. 

 

  Jigu’s singing ability, smoothly transitioning between falsetto and full voice, was certainly worthy of being the main vocal. If he debuted, his skills would be widely praised for being good. Gaon continuously praised Jigu’s singing ability, claiming he had recognized it from the first round. Jigu’s voice, quietly chanting the lyrics, naturally sweetened the atmosphere. 

 

  “Wow, the lyrics are nice. Can we start practicing the song right away?” 

 

  Everyone’s motivation was ignited. I had no particular interest in singing compared to dancing, so I decided to quietly practice like a person who doesn’t exist and went to a corner. 

 

  Sub-vocal 2 had only three sentences for its part, so it was a good role that I could easily manage even if I couldn’t sing. Moreover, those few parts didn’t have any particular high notes, so I just had to roughly match the pitch. 

 

  One round with the guide recording, one round with the MR, and one round acapella. The singing continued without pause, and just when my ears were about to go numb, the order to dismiss was given. 

 

  “You can go now for today.” 

 

  Contrary to yesterday, when their will was aflame, everyone prepared to go home quickly today. It seemed they had realized how tough it was to go home late at night. The situation was no different in the next room. The doors of various colors opened almost simultaneously, and people poured out. 

 

  Jigu, who politely said goodbye yesterday, was nowhere to be seen today, so I left first. I got into a taxi, which I seemed to take almost every day, and listened to the mission song flowing from my earphones. They said we’d be filming in two days. 

 

  But the more I listened to my part, the more I liked it. Mainly because it had absolutely no real impact. 

 

TL/N: Jung Sung means truth and sincerity in Korean

 

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