Debut or Die - Chapter 38

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

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A Fatal Illness if I Don’t Debut – Episode 38
“For now… I’d like to go with ‘I Like Waiting.'”
“…!!”
Sun Ah-hyun visibly stiffened.
His expression made it clear he hadn’t expected me to agree with his song choice even in the slightest.
“Really… truly?”
“Yeah.”
‘I Like Waiting’ was genuinely a good song, and the fact that it was from five years ago earned bonus points.
The song Kim Rae-bin had mentioned, ‘Soul,’ was from the year before last.
‘I thought about it during the first team competition too, but VTIC’s latest track feels too risky.’
Kim Rae-bin looked confident, but there was no need to take unnecessary risks.
Still, I couldn’t completely ignore Kim Rae-bin’s opinion since he’d be leading the arrangement.
To leverage his specialty, the Maestro skill, I needed to throw him keywords that matched his preferences.
While Sun Ah-hyun’s face radiated pure joy, Kim Rae-bin looked slightly dejected—he must have expected his opinion to be rejected.
“But since ‘self-produced’ is this team competition’s theme, we can’t just use the original as-is.”
“Ah….”
“So I’d like a bold arrangement. Personally, I thought the ‘Oriental style’ that Rae-bin suggested earlier looked really promising.”
“That’s,”
Kim Rae-bin fell silent in thought for a moment, then his face brightened immediately.
“Definitely, the lyrics would work naturally too…. If we choose the instruments carefully, we could create a really interesting arrangement. If we modify the choreography to match the arrangement, we could pull off a very impressive stage performance.”
“That’s a relief.”
With that, I moved past Kim Rae-bin.
So that left Big Sae-jin and Gold 1.
I turned my head and scanned both of them.
The moment our eyes met, Big Sae-jin grinned with an unbothered expression.
“So what about arranging it as a sexy Oriental style?”
“…!”
“I mean, even if we go Oriental, we still need to decide what mood to use within that. Might as well make it impactful with sexy, right?”
He wasn’t wrong.
‘So that’s what he was planning all along….’
Among all the opinions that had come up, there wasn’t a single one that couldn’t incorporate the ‘sexy concept,’ so he probably would’ve woven it in no matter how I answered.
‘He’s got a real talent for making it funny and hard to refuse.’
Sure enough, Gold 1 let out a playful sigh.
“You’re really something else, man, seriously….”
He basically meant ‘go ahead.’ The other two had already given their approval based on their expressions.
“Haha, me?”
Big Sae-jin shrugged his shoulders. With this, all four members’ opinions had been reflected in the song choice.
‘Since it’s come to this, I might as well bring the last one along too.’
Few viewers disliked a warm, democratic team atmosphere. I calmly opened my mouth again.
“Then should we add the rabbit too?”
“Huh?”
Gold 1 waved his hand dismissively.
“Oh, what I said? Never mind. I was just throwing it out there.”
“No, I think it would suit really well.”
“…A rabbit?”
“Yes. You know, the rabbit from our country’s old folktales.”
The other team members seemed to be recalling stories of their own.
“The pear tree, the tale of Byeoljubu?”
“Wait, isn’t the rabbit and tortoise race story from our country?”
“That’s Aesop’s Fables.”
Among the murmuring team members, only Big Sae-jin smiled knowingly. Sharp instincts on that one.
“The Jade Rabbit?”
“The Jade Rabbit. That’s it.”
The rabbit from the ancient tale that makes rice cakes with a mortar on the moon. Also known as the Jade Rabbit.
It’s famous from a children’s song with lyrics about being beneath the cassia tree.
“…How in the world do you make that sexy?”
Gold 1 muttered in bewilderment, as if he’d imagined some Playboy magazine-style rabbit. It was destroying childhood innocence.
But Kim Rae-bin seemed to like this keyword, his eyes already sparkling as he corrected him. It was honestly convenient that I didn’t need to open my mouth.
“We don’t have to use it literally—we can just take the motif and reconstruct it. If we can capture the image of a mythical creature well, it’s an attractive concept.”
“Hmm, think so? Of course, it’d be nice if you used my input.”
Gold 1 nodded reluctantly. Big Sae-jin immediately summarized the situation.
“Mm~ I like it too! So should we decide on that as our direction?”
Several other teams had already chosen their songs and were notifying the Production Team.
Time-wise, it was about the right moment for our team to reach a conclusion on the song selection and move on to the details.
“For this stage, all in favor of reinterpreting ‘I Love the Waiting’ as a sexy Oriental concept with the Jade Rabbit motif, please raise your hands!”
Everyone’s hands went up immediately. Big Sae-jin, who raised his hand the moment I finished speaking, laughed.
“Wow, that was really democratic~ All our opinions got reflected. Let’s work hard!”
“Yes!”
“Woohoo~”
The discussion ended just as it had begun, with warm applause.
That’s when it happened.
“I said no!”
Someone from the team next to us shouted and stood up.
Their face happened to catch my eye. It was Lee Sae-jin.
“What?”
“Um….”
“Are they fighting?”
Participants around us whispered quietly.
But everyone was holding their tongues. Speaking unnecessarily was basically signaling that you wanted to be editing’s sacrificial lamb.
Even so, Lee Sae-jin was glaring at the participants across from her.
I could see Choi Won-gil’s stern expression and Cha Yu-jin’s deflated one.
But the standoff didn’t last long.
Lee Sae-jin got to her feet, gritted her teeth, and bolted from the Filming Studio.
“…!!”
“Wow. Those guys….”
Fortunately, Ryu Chung-woo quickly regained his composure and rushed after Lee Sae-jin.
“You all wait here for a moment. …Sae-jin? Lee Sae-jin!”
One of the cameramen hurriedly followed Ryu Chung-woo.
“….”
Man, that situation was really… tense.
The fact that even clear-headed Cha Yu-jin got caught up in it spoke volumes about the atmosphere.
“Sigh….”
Gold 1 let out a short sigh.
Kim Rae-bin’s face darkened as the trauma from the previous team match resurfaced.
But no one was tactless enough to approach that team to offer comfort or ask questions.
We were weeks into filming—there wasn’t a single participant left who couldn’t read the room.
‘Meddling is just fodder for broadcast.’
So our Rabbit Team quickly finished reporting our song selection to the Production Team and moved to the Training Room.
It was a wise decision.

* * *
Rabbit Team returned to the Dormitory well past midnight.
Everyone looked like wilted bean sprouts.
“The bedroom feels so good….”
Big Sae-jin collapsed onto the bed with a dying groan.
He’d been knocked out trying to endure ten days of a schedule so insane it demanded arrangement revisions, choreography modifications, and stage concept planning all on our own.
“Man, I’ll just shower and….”
Sun Ah-hyun left those words hanging and didn’t get up from the bed.
“….”
Throughout the entire process of continuously recreating choreography to match the arrangement progress, I’d been in an extreme state of tension, and apparently my mental fortitude finally gave out.
Gold 1 shuffled off to another room muttering something about needing to eat something—probably planning to mooch some cup noodles off Gold 2, but whatever.
“…Would it be okay if I used the shower first….”
“Go ahead.”
Kim Rae-bin called out to Sun Ah-hyun a few times, and when there was no response, he asked my permission before heading into the Bathroom.
So I was the only one left with my wits about me in this room.
Why was I relatively fine, you ask?
Obviously, it was thanks to my status window. I recalled the new trait that had appeared at the bottom of my status window.
[Trait: Bacchus 500 (B)]
-A clear mind and a healthy body!
:All fatigue accumulation speed –50%
It was a trait I’d drawn as a reward from the next stage of the ‘Fame Achievement’ after the last team Stage was broadcast.
[Fame Ripens!]
500,000 people have remembered your existence!
: Hero Trait Draw ☜ Click!
To be honest, it didn’t feel real.
Half a million people?
How massive did the program have to be for over 500,000 people to remember a single participant? It was a staggering number even for a top-ranked contestant.
At this rate, it seemed like we’d breach a million soon—which was frankly unsettling.
‘A million people remembering me… no, remembering ‘Park Moon-dae’.’
At times like this, I was almost grateful this body wasn’t my own.
In any case, the Fame Achievement draw at the 500,000-person mark had been a jackpot. Of everything I’d obtained so far, it was the most useful in a survival environment.
My lung capacity hadn’t increased immediately, nor had my strength grown, but grueling, energy-draining days had definitely become more manageable.
‘Even after running this hard, I still have the mental clarity to organize my thoughts.’
I stood up from my seat and stretched briefly. Still, I was tired and lethargic.
‘Once Kim Rae-bin gets back, I should shower and sleep right away.’
Then, a sound came from the door.
Knock, knock.
“…?”
Gold 1? But he wouldn’t bother knocking if it were him.
‘If it were staff, they’d have already announced themselves.’
I had no idea who it could be.
Knock, knock, knock, knock!
But the knocking continued. However, my teammates inside were completely knocked out.
‘…This is annoying.’
I sighed and got up to open the door.
“…!”
Cha Yu-jin was standing outside.
That much was somewhat unexpected, but understandable—maybe he’d come to see Kim Rae-bin, who was from the same Agency.
The problem was that he was crying.
Cha Yu-jin was sniffling, tears and snot streaming down his face.
“….”
‘…Why is he crying here of all places?’
This was deeply awkward.
Fixed cameras were installed in the Dormitory Corridor and rooms. So if he came here crying, it would all be caught on film, but I had no idea how it would air.
More importantly, why did he crawl over here in the first place?
‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to Ryu Chung-woo?’
With Ryu Chung-woo’s personality, he would’ve already comforted him well. Why come to another team and create potential conflict?
‘Though he doesn’t seem like the type to think that way….’
I stood in a moment of silence, cycling through countless thoughts before finally speaking.
“…Did you come to see Kim Rae-bin?”
“Krhm, Hyun and Kim Rae-bin want to meet up,”
Cha Yu-jin answered with slurred pronunciation.
‘Why me?’
It didn’t seem like we’d built much of a rapport, but… well, he must have really enjoyed how the last team match went.
Either way, the results were good, and the process was probably fun enough (from Cha Yu-jin’s perspective) without much stress.
‘After tasting the hell of this team match, I guess he’s gotten nostalgic for it.’
In any case, if I turned him away now, it didn’t seem like the broadcast would edit whatever footage they got in a positive light.
I suppressed a sigh and answered.
“Come in. Rae-bin is washing up.”
“Yes…”
Cha Yu-jin continued sniffling as he entered the room.
The other team members on the bed were sleeping like the dead. I was confident that this level of noise wouldn’t wake them, so I didn’t bother lowering my voice.
I had him sit down at a nearby table first.
‘Should I give him something?’
I looked uneasily at Cha Yu-jin’s appearance, then pulled a few chocolate bars from my bag and handed them to him.
Maybe something sweet would help.
“Thank you…”
Cha Yu-jin accepted the chocolate bar with completely slurred speech and put it in his mouth.
“…”
Only the sound of him chewing chocolate filled the room. I grew uneasy.
‘Should I… damn it, ask him something?’
If I asked carelessly and ended up getting involved in another team’s affairs, nothing could be worse.
But if I stayed silent and let him and Kim Rae-bin talk, that was also a problem.
‘Kim Rae-bin isn’t exactly the most socially adept either.’
I had no idea if this situation might escalate into something. If the blame somehow came back to me for being in the middle, that would be troublesome.
In the end, I opened my mouth again, feeling like I was defusing a landmine.

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

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