Debut or Die - Chapter 42

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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 42
Big Sae-jin offered a bitter smile.
“My Agency is Happy Friend, after all.”
“Ah.”
In that moment, the aspiring idols grasped the situation immediately.
And I, a former data broker, caught on as well.
‘That place is famous for being unable to respond quickly to controversies.’
Now that I thought about it, despite this mess unfolding, the Agency hadn’t contacted him.
More than an hour had passed since the post went up, and now every social media platform was in chaos. If it were an Agency with resources and quick reflexes, they would have already discreetly reached out to Big Sae-jin by now.
“Well… at least they’re good at releasing albums, which is why I joined. Haha.”
Big Sae-jin laughed formally a few times, then pushed himself up from the bed.
“S-so, what if we asked a friend to post it instead? Y-you have plenty of friends anyway.”
“Hmm… According to our rules, official internet activity is prohibited during filming, so I could ask some people I know. If I send them the photo and ask them to post it, there are definitely some who’d jump at the chance.”
“…”
‘Maybe I should just leave it alone.’
I was on the verge of regretting how much I’d already meddled. But since I’d already opened my mouth, I decided to see it through and offered my advice.
“If you reach out directly, that leaves a record too. Better to tell the Production Team and have them post it officially.”
I was diplomatically hinting, ‘It seems like the culprit might be among your acquaintances, so be careful.’ Big Sae-jin nodded immediately, catching my meaning.
“That would be better. Let me see…”
Big Sae-jin opened the notes app on his smartphone, then glanced at the rest of the team still huddled together and smiled wryly.
“You must all be exhausted. Thank you for your concern. I’ll work on this quietly by myself. Everyone should get some sleep now.”
“Hey, we can’t just leave you alone in a situation like this and go to sleep ourselves.”
At Gold 1’s concern, Big Sae-jin responded seriously.
“If we all can’t sleep, won’t we face absolute hell tomorrow…?”
“…”
There really was a horrifying amount of work to do tomorrow.
It was an incredibly persuasive argument.
In the end, all the remaining team members returned to their own beds with exhausted expressions.
I lay down in my bed and fell asleep as well.
Unfortunately, I woke up again in the early morning. My throat was parched.
‘I talked way too much before bed.’
As I quietly got up and headed toward the sink, Big Sae-jin, who had been sitting at the table looking at his smartphone, reacted.
“Oh. Park Moon-dae, you’re not asleep?”
“My throat’s dry.”
“I see.”
Judging by the fact that he still wasn’t asleep, Big Sae-jin hadn’t finished working on the statement yet. Or perhaps he was still scrolling through internet opinions.
Neither was a particularly good sign.
“Did you finish writing it?”
“Well… I did write it.”
Big Sae-jin stared down at his smartphone with a conflicted expression, then continued after a brief pause.
“I figured if I posted it myself, people would just find something else to complain about.”
“Like what?”
“Well, first they’d say communicating on social media during filming is special treatment. Then if my statement is firm, they’d say ‘I didn’t know he had that kind of personality,’ and if it’s too sympathetic, they’d say ‘He’s guilty and that’s why he’s acting like this.’ That kind of thing.”
It was a plausible scenario.
“So I thought I’d try posting it as an anonymous acquaintance instead. Want to take a look?”
Big Sae-jin handed me his smartphone.
========================
[I’m a friend of Big Sae-jin’s.]
: The photos in the accusation post uploaded today are fabricated. I have the original photo among my collection.
(Original photo) (Fabricated photo)
The second photo was created by cropping the first one.
========================
….
“….”
“What do you think?”
What was I supposed to do with this?
If this were a normal school assignment, it would be a solid explanation. All the necessary points were covered, and the structure was clear and easy to follow.
The problem was that it wasn’t suited for an anonymous Internet forum at all.
I found myself glancing back at the bed waiting for me.
But if I told him to post this, there was a dangerously high chance that everything I’d done tonight would be wasted by midnight.
‘Ugh….’
Sleep could wait until tomorrow.
“…This won’t work.”
“What?”
“I’m saying it won’t work.”
I reluctantly retrieved my own smartphone.
So I’m the one doing this after all, dammit.

* * *
3:30 AM.
Most people were already asleep, but it was the time when only the hardcore Internet users were still awake, exchanging trivial gossip.
Big Sae-jin’s school violence controversy had already swept through and faded into occasional chatter—the perfect timing for it to resurface.
Then, a post appeared on an anonymous idol-related website.
========================
[Wait, I think I found a photo of Big Sae-jin.]
: (Composite photo) Isn’t this the original? (Original photo)
========================
Attached to the post was a group photo of Big Sae-jin alongside other students whose faces were roughly blacked out.
It was a casual post made from a common ISP address, but the comments from early morning users exploded instantly once they verified the content.
-Seriously?
-What is this?
-Where did this come from?
-This looks legit though;;;
-Time for a pilgrimage?
-Did they crop this from somewhere?
-How did you find this?
└Found it while digging through a friend’s close friends list—Big Sae-jin was in their past posts
└Isn’t this stalker behavior;;?
└Oh please, you’d all do the same if you had the chance
Haha, hitting them with facts.
“And this bastard covered up his half-baked face, is he scared of being reported? lol”
With feedback from the original poster, the comment atmosphere ignited further, and soon someone who’d seen the post created an exact comparison shot.
-Cropped it and it’s identical (photo)
└Ugh
That’s creepy/scary.
└Insane
– LOL I wonder if it was really synthetic. What are you doing that makes you laugh? Why did you make a main product like this?
-Wow, I thought Big Sae-jin was finished, but they were actually orchestrating this the whole time
Lol that’s crazy
└Time to pull out all the stops now gg
The comments multiplied faster and faster.
Even shortly after, someone discovered that the original photo was taken during Big Sae-jin’s student council president campaign.
-Found a similar promotional photo on Cheongsol High School’s website. Looks like it’s from the election campaign? (link)
└Wow, so it really was just jealousy
I could tell things were going to be messy from the moment they started talking about elections in the original post lol
└Wow, whoever fabricated this must have been gritting their teeth
I got caught just now and I’m grinding my teeth so hard running away, I think they’re gonna fall out lol
By this point, screenshots of the post began circulating across SNS and various online communities.
[Justice Served Through Mystery.jpg (feat. Big Sae-jin School Violence? No.)]
[Big Sae-jin School Violence Photo Manipulated.]
[Someone Found Big Sae-jin’s Original Photo]
Just like when the first post went up, comments multiplied in an instant.
The post seemed more credible because it carried the nuance of having been discovered by chance. Public opinion quickly shifted to ridicule the school violence accusation.
Big Sae-jin’s fans, who hadn’t been able to sleep, eagerly joined in posting screenshots.
They aggressively commented and drove away anyone spouting nonsense like “the photo is fake but the content might be true.”
Thus, the information that the accusation post was fabricated rapidly dominated Internet opinion.
It all happened before the end of the morning commute on that very day.

* * *
“He deleted it.”
Big Sae-jin muttered.
Once the photo manipulation was exposed and public opinion completely flipped, the person who’d written the accusation post silently deleted it and vanished.
It could have gotten messier if they’d kept digging, but it seemed they’d given up because the public sentiment had shifted so dramatically.
“…Thank goodness. Really.”
Big Sae-jin exhaled a deep sigh of relief and buried his head in the table. Now that the tension had broken, exhaustion seemed to be weighing him down.
“Thanks. I really… have no face to show.”
He had every reason to be grateful. If I’d uploaded the draft as-is, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.
‘Data Broker gets one win….’
I never dreamed I’d use the time I’d spent poking around checking price trends like this. I’d consider this hard work as settling that karmic debt.
“If I just hadn’t touched cigarettes in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.”
Big Sae-jin muttered in a voice tinged with self-loathing. He clearly knew it was a stupid thing to do.
“Why did you smoke?”
“…Ah, back then…. I got cut from the debut team. We even recorded the demo, but they put someone else in instead of me, and he debuted well, the album sold well.”
“…At ‘Happy Friend’?”
Haven’t they not produced a single male idol with decent results in nearly five years?
“No, somewhere else. …But they said they had no plans to launch another team for a while, so they connected me here.”
“I see.”
At this point, there were only one or two male idol groups that debuted three or four years ago and did well from their first album.
And both were from major agencies.
‘…Wouldn’t it have been better to hold out a bit longer?’
From age seventeen, five years later he’d be twenty-two. A decent age to debut as the senior member of a team. It would have been more rational to stick with a major agency rather than go to Happy Friend.
“…They promised so confidently back then that they’d launch a rookie by the end of this year, so I signed…. But they haven’t, and it’s already been four years. Haha.”
“….”
So that’s how it was.
You’re never supposed to trust verbal contracts, but a high school freshman whose mental state had been crushed probably didn’t have the capacity to worry about such things.
“As you can see, among the Happy Friend trainees who came on this show, there’s no one ready to debut right now. So I absolutely have to debut on this program….”
“….”
“That’s why I’m saying this—thanks again for stopping me from dropping out. Park Moon-dae.”
This was the first time I’d seen him be so blatantly candid about evaluating others and exposing his true feelings.
‘I suppose that counts as sincerity in his own way.’
“Yeah. Be grateful for it.”
“…What? Ha ha!”
Big Sae-jin laughed, then promptly buried his head back into the table. He wanted to laugh, but exhaustion weighed too heavily on him.
I found myself brooding uncomfortably.
‘…Have I let my guard down too much?’
I’d intended to keep my distance from this dangerous schemer, but somewhere along the way, things had blurred into something far too familiar.
‘Though looking at his track record so far, the odds seem low anyway.’
Big Sae-jin likely withdrew when the school violence scandal broke, which probably prevented him from debuting.
Even if he hadn’t withdrawn, reversing public opinion like I had wouldn’t have been easy for him, so debut would have been difficult regardless.
‘Hmm, but child actress Lee Sae-jin doesn’t seem to have strong debut prospects right now either.’
Still, Lee Sae-jin’s broadcast time and image could have been influenced by the variable known as Park Moon-dae, so she actually had more potential in that regard.
‘Anyway, this isn’t an urgent concern right now.’
I’d leave Schrödinger’s schemer locked in his box for now. What mattered immediately was the team stage two days away.
Beep beep beep beep beep!
“Ughhhh!!”
“Nngh….”
Right on cue with the morning alarm, my teammates stirred awake in their beds.
‘Another relentless day begins….’
Standing there with vacant eyes, Big Sae-jin spoke to me again. It seemed like a continuation of our earlier conversation.
“Seriously though…, I’ll buy you a meal when this is over. What do you want?”
“Beef.”
“…It doesn’t have to be domestic, right?”
“As long as it’s good.”
Exactly fifty hours remained until the team stage rehearsal.

* * *
The third team stage took place on a large Stage at one of the Sets belonging to Tnet’s flagship music program, MusicBomb.
It was meant to showcase impressive performances on the same Stage where senior idols actually stood, though in reality it seemed designed to capture good reaction shots.
“Just three days ago on this Stage! VTIC conducted their pre-recording!”
“Ohhhhh!!!”
The participants cheered at the MC’s words.
In truth, the stage setup was completely different, so beyond occupying the same physical space, there wasn’t much in common.
Yet the participants seemed thrilled simply by using the same space as top-tier idols.
I didn’t feel bad about it either.
‘VTIC… they’re decent guys, really.’
The high production cost made it worthwhile to film here.
“Just as the senior idols did, please showcase your full abilities!”
After the MC finished delivering the scripted lines and left, rehearsal preparations began in earnest.
“Everyone! We’re going in the exact same order as the broadcast!”
“Yes!”
The Stage quickly grew chaotic with instructions and music.
Our team still had some time before our turn, so the Moon Rabbit team gathered in a corner.
“Should we do a quick cheer? We’ve all worked so hard, so let’s show an amazing performance worthy of that effort.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Y-yes, let’s do it.”
My teammates nodded repeatedly with tense expressions, but it was clear that tension came not from anxiety, but from anticipation.
“Moon Rabbit team,”
The teammates thrust their hands together.
“Fighting!!”
The shout was almost militant.
‘Good grief.’
Even without a camera hovering nearby, it felt strange that I’d readily participated in this.
But it didn’t feel bad.
“Let’s go!”
The Stage was truly right in front of us.

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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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