Debut or Die - Chapter 7

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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 7
The advanced vocal trainer was judge Moody.
She had given me generous scores in my first evaluation, and she threw kind words in all directions to the other participants as well. Perhaps because of that, her training sessions tended to be encouraging and supportive.
Of course, that didn’t mean there were no situations where she got frustrated.
“Won-gil, that’s not it… sigh.”
“….”
On the fifth day, the participant who kept missing the same beat hung his head low.
It seemed more like he was trying to hide irritation rather than self-reproach, but it didn’t really matter either way.
What mattered was that even this kind coach was finding it hard to conceal his exasperation at how frequently mistakes were happening.
And there was a culprit for this.
“Moon-dae, would you give this a try?”
“Yes.”
As I stepped forward at the trainer’s direction, the electronic piano began playing the accompaniment. I smoothly handled the pre-chorus section in time with the backing track.
“Drawing the future like a shooting star~”
As the trainer nodded at my clean tone and precise rhythm, the struggling participant nervously shifted his feet.
That’s right. The problem was that I had sung this theme song far too well from the very beginning.
There was no helping the difference in starting point between someone who already knew this song and someone who didn’t.
Especially since I had heard the finished version rather than just a demo. I could perform it just fine based on what I remembered.
Moreover, my voice happened to fit this song perfectly. The trainer seemed pleased with how I sang it—the delivery felt natural and well-timed.
And now, watching Moody look equally pleased, some of the other participants were muttering among themselves.
“…He’s really good.”
“Right?”
In an advanced class where standards were already high, having a participant who embodied those expectations and came from a non-entertainment background must have felt utterly demoralizing to the others.
Especially for a participant whose only strength was vocals.
From what I confirmed in the first evaluation, there were only two participants with A-rank vocals this season. And both had C-rank or lower dancing. Everyone else, including me, had fairly comparable abilities.
And that participant currently struggling—Choi Won-gil—was one of those two A-rank vocalists.
The funny part was that the middle schooler who tried to size me up before filming was this very person. Though he was actually a high school freshman, not a middle schooler.
Anyway, at an age when self-importance was inflated, hearing this from the trainer for days now was understandable frustration.
Especially while being compared to someone he had dismissed the moment we met.
“That’s it!”
The moment I finished the pre-chorus section, the trainer tapped the keyboard with satisfaction, as if a weight had lifted. Despite the cheerful sound of the strike, Choi Won-gil still didn’t lift his head.
“Won-gil, do you understand how to sing this part?”
“….”
Based on his abilities, he shouldn’t be making mistakes this frequently. After I cleared the full song on the first day, he kept picking fights with me, and it seems his mental state has completely collapsed.
Let me think… it probably started something like this on the first day.
-Wow, your singing got praised again, hyung. You should hurry up and improve your dancing from beginner level!
-It feels a bit amateurish, so it’s pure and seems to fit this song well for you.
He had thrown out subtly irritating remarks like that. The nuance was clever enough that if the other person got angry too hastily, they’d be treated as the unreasonable one instead.
Plus, all of it was said after the microphone was off.
But apparently, he couldn’t hold back his frustration at this level, so eventually….
—you’re really fortunate. I’m envious. That’s the most important factor in the entertainment industry, after all. It would’ve been nice if we could dance our way through with luck too. Still, fighting!
—It’s true that luck favors the hardworking. Most people here are desperate, risking everything. But you got such great feedback even though you just happened to participate.
It had reached this level of hostility.
Now they were openly picking fights, and I was starting to find it awkward to just ignore them. But I couldn’t pretend not to know things either, so there was nothing I could do about it.
You wouldn’t understand, but my life depends on this too….
“Stay calm. Don’t be so nervous. Let’s try again.”
“…Yes.”
Choi Won-gil forced himself to start the song again. And he made another mistake.
Too bad.
That day too, I received praise from the trainer until vocal class ended, while several other participants, including Choi Won-gil, shot me sharp glances.
This atmosphere of gauging hierarchy was exhausting after so long, but not unwelcome. If I were truly incompetent, there wouldn’t even be this kind of obstruction.
And with both classes remaining in this state, training achievements accumulated steadily until the final day of training arrived.
On the morning of the final day, the advanced vocal class participants recorded the audio track.
Since it would be mixed into group vocals anyway and individual names wouldn’t be credited, it didn’t hold much significance.
Instead, I’d focus on the afternoon.
It was time for the long-awaited grade evaluation.

* * *
The lights came up on the Set.
“How has everyone been?”
“Oh, it’s been tough!”
“I was just… so tired I slept deeply.”
“From instructing so hard?”
“That’s right! Ah, there should be some reward for it today.”
The judges settled into their chairs, exchanging appropriate greetings with one another.
They’d already exchanged greetings in the Waiting Room that morning, but this was performative dialogue for the broadcast’s opening scene.
The Set they’d entered and sat in was arranged like a one-versus-many interview room.
It was a recycled Set from two seasons prior, and special effects had been prepared.
The judges, who’d been instructed beforehand to show as much reaction as possible, spoke with feigned innocence.
“This place is completely… like that, you know? Feels like we’re about to have a really important interview.”
“It is an important interview~ A grade interview!”
“Is this an interview to join Idol Corporation?”
Before the judges finished speaking, the desk in front of their chairs lit up.
“Wow!”
‘SHINE YOUR STAR’ flashed across the desk in ornate script.
As this season’s catchphrase revealed itself in grand fashion, the judges began applauding as they routinely did in other seasons.
But remarkably, the wall began to move.
“Huh?!”
“What is this!”
With the judges’ practiced reactions, the wall of the interview Set descended to the floor. As it disappeared, the entire Set opened up, revealing the full space.
Behind the judges turning their heads this way and that, the MC’s voice rang out crisp and clear.
“The newly revitalized Idol Corporation’s comeback! The first gateway is… a public evaluation!”
“Wow!”
What filled the space behind the judges was an outdoor amphitheater-style audience section. And the participants packed the front rows of that audience.
The contrast was stark—participants who had thought this was merely a temporary waiting area looked aghast, while the professional MC remained composed.
“Seventy-seven participants who trained the same song will now evaluate each other as audience members!”
In truth, participants had been able to watch each other’s performances during the first evaluation as well.
But none of them had expected to be openly placed as an audience to evaluate people who had trained the same song within the same timeframe—their faces hardened at the revelation.
Until last season, they had entered the Training Room alone to receive individual evaluations.
“Grade evaluations, in order of ranking, but~ in reverse!”
“…!”
“Chu Sung-gu, ranked 77th, please come to the Stage!”
The called participant stumbled toward the Stage as if half-dead. Sympathetic glances and whispers poured down, but Park Moon-dae kept his mouth shut.
Just as he’d seen with Sun Ah-hyun’s first ranking evaluation, sympathy could appear deceptively manipulated depending on editing.
This was a sense honed from his experience periodically searching idol communities to price filming data.
“Yes. Thank you for your effort.”
“…Thank you….”
Predictably, the 77th-ranked participant flubbed most of the first verse and completely botched the evaluation.
“….”
In the cold, anxious atmosphere, the next participant and the one after that also half-mangled their Stage performances.
After sending off five or six like that, even the judges couldn’t hide their discomfort from their faces.
It was a cruel and stark sequence arrangement.
But the production crew had nothing to lose.
‘If they can’t do it anyway, we might as well get sensational cuts to justify the appearance fee.’
They were being used as sacrificial pawns.
But there was another purpose to it as well.
To more clearly highlight those possessing the mental fortitude to push through a Stage performance even when their ranking was low and their morale was crumbling.
Or participants who had shown meaningful growth even within this short period.
There was also a calculation that participants with poor skills who happened to be notably handsome or had pre-existing recognition wouldn’t matter—since they weren’t drawing attention through skill.
Interestingly, there was a participant who satisfied both criteria.
“Lee Sae-jin, that must have been tough.”
“Well done!”
“H-huff, huff, huff…. Th-thank you.”
It was Lee Sae-jin, a former child actress. With her face flushed crimson and barely catching her breath, she had at least managed to follow the song all the way through without losing it.
It fell far short of what could be called a true ‘performance,’ and it was awkward.
But with similarly-ranked participants who had completely botched their Stage positioned before and after her, she looked relatively much better by comparison.
Park Moon-dae briefly harbored a suspicion.
‘Could that be the Lee Sae-jin who debuts?’
Of course, it was something he couldn’t be certain about, so he promptly concluded his thoughts by adding that participant to his watchlist.
‘Better keep my distance from someone like that.’
Then came the tedious middle tier evaluation segment.
The participants’ skills gradually improved, and occasionally there were standout performers.
But hearing the same song over forty times was far more exhausting than one might expect.
After the initial chaos had subsided, most participants had demonstrated their baseline abilities, so the judges had regained their composure—and begun to feel bored.
“Hmm….”
“Not bad.”
It was right when that boredom had reached its peak that Park Moon-dae’s turn arrived.
Sun Ah-hyun held up his fist toward Park Moon-dae, his pale face grave and resolute.
Having just finished his own evaluation, he had managed the song reasonably well.
“G-go… go for it.”
“…? Oh, yeah.”
Why was he suddenly being so friendly?
Park Moon-dae felt puzzled, but dutifully returned the encouragement. A victory of social awareness.
I trudged up onto the Stage, my head feeling strangely light with anticipation.
“Contestant 22, Park Moon-dae!”
“Yes.”
The judges wore expressions of indifference across the board.
‘He probably sings well but can’t dance.’
The Choreographer Judge, whose expectations had evaporated over these past few days of repetition, thought with a hint of irritation.
‘Getting tedious.’
“Beginning the grade evaluation.”
The familiar, dreary intro began to play.
I started with the first movement—a broad gesture, pulling my arms inward as I rotated my body.
“…?”
The Choreographer Judge was the first to sense something amiss.
‘The line is different…?’
Just two days ago, during the final one-on-one class, Park Moon-dae had possessed no real ‘dance line’ to speak of.
The sense of knowing where to tense and release, where to apply force and where to ease it.
If that distinction separated choreography from mere movement, then my movements had been mere movement.
It had definitely been that way….
‘Why… is he dancing well?’

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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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