Debut or Die - Chapter 150

—————

This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

—————

A Fatal Illness if I Don’t Debut – Episode 150
========================
[Identity of 【My Singer】 May’s Groom Revealed]
: Testa’s Park Moon-dae
Appeared dressed identically to the hologram
(Screenshot)
========================
-Insane
-I doubted my own eyes watching that
Lol in this world
-Park Moon-dae was right, you bastards.
‘As expected, it’s trending live.’
I glanced at the flood of comments for a moment, then gave up trying to escape and turned my attention back to the Television.
On the Television in the Dormitory Living Room before me, the identity reveal of “May’s Groom” was currently airing.
[Park Moon-dae from Testa??]
[A surprise appearance by the nation’s favorite idol….]
[Audience and judges in shock]
I couldn’t bear to watch those captions and editing, so I turned on my smartphone.
If I were alone, I’d just watch casually, but the problem was that right now… we were watching as a group.
“Hey, it’s fine Moon-dae, that was cool…!”
“That was an impressive production!”
“Wow Moon-dae~ you planned this out? You even prepared the outfit? Nice~”
Big Sae-jin poked my shoulder repeatedly. Even as he did, another caption appeared beneath Park Moon-dae’s words on the Television.
[Please introduce yourself!]
[Yes. Hello everyone. I’m Park Moon-dae, the main vocalist of the group Testa.]
[May’s rosy smile… melting hearts]
“Rosy…!”
“Wow the captions really….”
Those around me couldn’t hold back any longer and started suppressing laughter with their heads down.
When an exaggerated montage of Testa’s activities briefly appeared on screen, it seemed embarrassing enough that my head refused to lift back up.
‘What’s the point of monitoring this.’
I’d suspected this outcome from the moment we decided to watch together, but I was increasingly tempted to go watch alone in my Room.
Fortunately, the segment soon moved on to the winner announcement.
[On 【My Singer】, the greatest singer character is….]
[Park Moon-dae’s “May’s Groom”!]
Flower petals scattered across the screen.
“WOOOOW!”
“Of course he won with a performance like that!”
Bae Sae-jin shouted excitedly.
“…?”
What’s he doing?
Bae Sae-jin cleared his throat and quickly turned his head away the moment our eyes met.
I recalled how he’d told me last week with an unusually stern expression that he’d “enjoyed Winter Night.”
‘So he does have a taste for such dramatic vocal techniques.’
I thought he was watching some kind of competition.
Sure enough, MC was making quite a fuss on screen as well.
[Ah~ Park Moon-dae, could you share your thoughts?]
[Well… while performing “May’s Groom,” it was incredibly enjoyable. Just that alone was a meaningful experience, but… I was truly happy to have people who enjoyed it. …Thank you so much.]
That was the truth.
I’d started with my mind blank, and the results turned out better than expected, so… I was somewhat surprised.
‘I was lucky.’
I couldn’t keep expecting such fortunate turns, but it was still a fresh experience.
“Moon-dae hyung, that ‘May’s Groom’ hologram has a very similar build to you—did you originally plan this public performance?”
“Weren’t the flower decorations uncomfortable?”
…I barely managed to answer honestly.
“…Yeah, I planned it, and of course it was uncomfortable.”
“As expected!”
“Discomfort isn’t good!”
It was somewhat burdensome, but I had to accept this much. They’d endured my poor condition for nearly a month without making it obvious.
“Seeing this makes me want to start the new album activities soon~”
“Y-yeah, right.”
As the guys stimulated by the monitoring chattered on, my screen time was nearly finished.
[Unfortunately… our “Ribbon Whole Chicken” is the runner-up!]
‘That was the Gold 1 group member.’
While the runner-up chicken from back then was being interviewed. Ryu Chung-woo asked.
“So Moon-dae, you’re coming back next time too?”
“Yes. I’ll be appearing from the semi-finals the week after next.”
“Nice. Congratulations. Um… then, wait a moment.”
Ryu Chung-woo smiled and stood up. Immediately, the two youngest jumped up following him.
“…?”
It looked unnatural no matter how you looked at it.
‘…Oh no.’
The three who’d disappeared into the Kitchen reappeared in an instant.
Cha Yu-jin was holding a cake in his hands.
[【Congratulations】 Testa 1st Anniversary 【Celebration】]
[Well done! Awesome!]
“…!”
Of course.
…Actually, today is June 18th. It’s Testa’s first anniversary of debut.
‘Though there’s less than an hour left now.’
It was already 11:20 PM.
The anniversary content had been filmed long ago due to editing time and uploaded at midnight the previous day, so I’d momentarily forgotten about it.
“We did release the video at midnight, but… I thought it would be nice if we did something together as well.”
Ryu Chung-woo smiled and ruffled the hair of the two youngest members.
“I prepared a few things with these guys.”
“I love cake!”
“We discussed and decided on the message written at the top together.”
It was exactly the kind of message these three would come up with.
But the message wasn’t really the important part.
‘…Did they wait until my monitoring ended?’
This was… touching, I suppose.
Just as I was feeling that strange sentiment, Big Sae-jin interjected.
“Wait, wait! Let’s take a photo first~ Park Moon-dae!”
….
Why was he casually holding out his phone like that?
“Come on, Park Moon-dae takes great photos~ What? Don’t you have confidence in selfies? Is that it?”
“Hand it over.”
“Ooh~”
I obliged.
I snatched the phone from Big Sae-jin’s hand and switched it to selfie mode.
I stretched my arm out fully, adjusting the frame so that all seven of us and the cake were visible on the screen.
“Taking the photo.”
“Okay~”
Click, click, click. I naturally took several shots in quick succession.
And shortly after.
“Alright, let’s eat the cake!”
“…Is it actually safe to eat this? There’s food coloring on top…”
“It’s delicious!”
“Cha Yu-jin! Let the hyungs eat first!”
….
Bae Sae-jin gave up and shoved cake into his mouth.
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘…It actually tastes pretty good.’
For a design cake, it was really quite decent.
And so, thirty minutes before June 18th ended, we quietly chewed through our cake and marked the passing of one year.
“You all worked hard this past year. Let’s continue to do well together.”
“Of course~ Let’s keep going until we win an award~”
“We’re not even in an active period, so eat up.”
“Yes, yes…!”
That simplicity wasn’t bad at all.

* * *
While Park Moon-dae and the members peacefully shared cake, his fans were roaring in triumph.
Park Moon-dae’s fans were unleashing cries of victory.
-Ah, May’s Groom Park Moon-dae!! (So satisfying!)
-Thanks for the feeling of standing under a shower of soda waterfalls, my guy
-Phew, I thought I’d die from frustration, and finally I’m introducing my husband. Meet the groom, Park Moon-dae
└Ah, get in line. Your turn is still a ways off
hahahahahahahaha
As much as they’d held back and restrained themselves, the frustration now poured out madly across SNS and Online Community.
[‘May’s Groom’ and Park Moon-dae Movement Comparison]
[The Identity of ‘May’s Groom’ That Everyone Who Knew Already Figured Out.jpg]
[Creepy Singer I Made This Time’s Finals Stage]
After the fans had vented like this for a while, they finally began openly obsessing over Park Moon-dae’s new content.
-Park Moon-dae, you crazy bastard, how did you even think of that… You don’t know how to brake, you son of a gun!! That’s why I love you!!
-He put on the groom’s profile that when he meets the bride, her flower hairstyle becomes his ideal type, and then he just showed up out of nowhere. Is this real? What are you doing with this narrative?
└Isn’t this a proposal? It seems like a proposal. You need to go file for marriage
-I don’t know which is a flower and which is a face. Aren’t Park Moon-dae and bouquet synonymous?
-May’s Moon-dang-dang? This is it (A rural puppy with flowers)
-This is seriously giving me the feels… If you don’t get the feels listening to Park Moon-dae’s song, you’re not Korean
While the fans weren’t going quite as wild, ‘May’s Groom’ also left a deep impression among the regular viewers of 【Singer I Made】.
The stages from preliminaries to finals were all excellent, and the impact of the identity reveal combined with the structural completeness made it polished.
-It’s been a while since a fake singer took things this seriously. I’ve seen too many guys just doing neighborhood baseball mascot stuff and moving on
-A guy who sings like that is kind of wasted on being an idol. Shouldn’t he just keep doing dance songs?
Ugh, these days everyone starts as an idol, and once they build up their experience, they’ll go solo, you know.
-The finals stage didn’t have an original song, so if it’s self-composed, that’s insane
-Except for the weak preliminaries, he’s really a flawless champion. I don’t think there’s any disagreement
└He used the preliminaries to build character, which was a strategically excellent choice. Curious who directed him? If he did it himself, that’s seriously non-idol level.
Well, at least the vocal cords are his own, so that alone should be worth acknowledging, lol.
That’s right lol
Just as the regular viewers gave unanimous praise, general viewers also confirmed one thing, even if opinions on the character varied.
‘That guy really sings well.’
Winning overwhelmingly on a prime-time public broadcast music variety show with viewership around 10% had a subtle impact on public perception.
It first appeared in some comments on the YouTube video of ‘May’s Groom’ identity reveal.
========================
[A Stage of Romance and Thrills, ‘May’s Groom’! What’s the Surprising Identity? | 【Singer I Made】 | 202X0618]
========================
-The finals stage really gave me chills! Amazing!
-Truly a blessed youth of the nation… What a magnificent vocalist with an incredible voice! How does he sing so well.^^
– Prince Park Moon!　Let’s wait for the next stage~ㅠㅠ
His face was so bright and handsome. It seemed a beautiful voice dwelled within such a beautiful countenance.
Middle-aged and older viewers had become aware of Park Moon-dae.
Since Ajusa had been such a massive hit, they’d certainly seen Park Moon-dae’s face here and there, but few had actually listened to him sing with such focused attention.
Added to this were the reactions of those who’d fallen deeply in love with the character itself—”May’s Groom.”
Proposal—parting—courtship—obsession. The narrative had been flawless all the way through this stage.
Ever since last week, all sorts of fantasies won’t leave my head. My mind’s already produced a movie prequel for May’s Groom.
He never comes, and love rots away. (May’s Groom fan art)
It’s been a while since we had such a compelling non-human character… I didn’t know there was a fellow concept enthusiast among idols.
Haha, suddenly overwhelming intimacy!
I literally did the exact same thing as the hologram lol, and it seemed like I was genuinely confident about it
-I seriously can’t stop thinking about him taking off the bouquet head. I’m losing it.
“You too? Me too lolol Honestly, I liked 5 so much that I thought my fantasy would totally shatter when the actual person appeared, but surprisingly it was fine”
└Looks really are everything.
-I really hope Moon-dae shares more behind-the-scenes details about May’s Groom.
No matter how much Park Moon-dae had created the character and borrowed his own voice and movements, the character and Park Moon-dae could never be entirely identical.
Yet the affection spread rapidly nonetheless. There were simply too many points of commonality.
-I’m already so looking forward to next week’s performanceㅠㅠ
He’d delivered a stunning performance on a program watched by countless people, and his identity had just been revealed.
This was the moment when all the praise and attention directed at Park Moon-dae would reach its crescendo.
Of course, it didn’t end there.
Park Moon-dae solo would work out haha
It was provocation right on schedule.
By the way, it was about to get crushed.

—————

This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

—————