I’m Debuting With The Bias I Killed - Chapter 39
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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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Episode 39
The moment I opened the dormitory door, every trainee gathered in the common room fell still at once.
“Huh?”
“What the—”
Choi Soo-hyuk was the first to cry out.
“Yu Seong-woo?”
Eyes flooded toward me in an instant. I froze halfway through unlacing my shoes.
“What is this reaction?”
“Didn’t you quit?”
“Right?”
“What’s going on here?”
Strange. The atmosphere felt like a missing person had just been found alive.
“Everyone thought you’d dropped out.”
“I figured you went to get cosmetic surgery.”
“What?”
And what was this absurd theory?
Ji Dong-seok shot up from his seat and strode toward me, fixing his gaze on my face with an intensity that made me want to look away.
“…….”
“……..”
“What.”
“What exactly did you have done?”
“Done? What are you talking about?”
The absurdity of it made me laugh.
Then.
“See? See!”
Choi Soo-hyuk jumped in with an excited voice.
“I told you! He had surgery!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then explain it!”
“Explain what?”
“You didn’t show up to practice for two weeks.”
“Didn’t come back to the dorm either.”
“Didn’t say a word in the group chat.”
“Then suddenly you’re here and your face has changed!”
“Exactly. You look completely different—at this point it’s gotta be surgery, right?”
A trial opened up on the spot.
The defendant: me. The charge: looking different.
“We all thought you’d quit.”
Han Sang-yoon finally spoke up.
“Where have you been all this time?”
“I went to my family’s place.”
“……And where were you practicing?”
‘Ah…….’
Now their reaction made more sense to me.
Starting from Part 2, audience viewing and public voting would begin, so the past two weeks had been a buffer period to align the timing gap between the upcoming filming and broadcast schedules.
So while they called it free time, it was really prep time for the next round. Since everyone here was a Nix trainee, naturally they’d all stayed in the dorm and trained through it.
‘Everyone but me.’
I’d vanished suddenly, changed during my absence, and when asked why, I hadn’t given a straight answer.
It was reasonable to misunderstand.
“Really, what were you doing all that time?”
I paused for a moment to think, then laughed it off.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“What?”
“It’s a bit complicated—”
The matter of my sister was something I needed to think through more. Between all the brainwashing she’d done, I had a feeling that if I even brought her up, Yu Seong-ah would materialize out of nowhere and strangle me.
That’s when it happened.
“Hey!”
Choi Soo-hyuk suddenly shouted.
“What? Why?”
“You took off your braces?”
‘What? Was that what it was all about?’
Well, these guys had only ever seen me with braces, so it made sense they’d be shocked.
“Wow, that’s insane.”
“No wonder something looked different.”
“And you’ve lost weight too, haven’t you?”
“Your skin’s seriously glowing—”
On top of that, the brutal training had melted the fat clean off my frame, and with Seong-a’s fussing—facials, massages, the works—I was in peak condition.
‘The reaction was worth it.’
“Wow, Seong-u really came prepared for this.”
Two weeks of transformation project: a resounding success from every angle.
* * *
The moment I opened the practice room door, the familiar throb of music and the slap of footsteps on the floor poured out simultaneously.
“Wow…….”
Finally escaping Seong-a’s practice studio. The feelings swelled up fresh all over again.
That’s when it happened.
Our eyes met across the mirror.
“……Seong-u?”
Damn, Yul-a. You’ve gotten even better-looking these past two weeks.
Whether it was the relief of being back in the debut group or what, the hollows in his cheeks had filled out a little.
‘I think all my cheek fat migrated over there…….’
“It’s been a while.”
“Yeah. Where did you go? I haven’t seen you around for a bit.”
His voice was calm, but his expression screamed curiosity.
“Just doing some solo training—”
“Ah.”
He gave a short answer and turned his head away. But just before he turned, his gaze brushed across me one more time. Exactly one beat.
I’d only ever seen that at fan-sign events, and now I was seeing it here.
‘That bastard, can’t hide that he’s glad to see me.’
A laugh slipped out. After surviving that hellish training, it felt good to reap the reward.
“Wow, just as expected~”
That’s when an irritating voice came from behind.
“Disappeared for two weeks and came back all fixed up, huh?”
I turned to see the traffic-light-headed duo standing there.
Of course, Go Jae-seong was standing behind them.
With Jang Hyun-jun gone, their color combination had simplified from red-yellow-green to just red-green.
“What’d you do to your face to make it half a different person?”
“Works wonders—”
They were making their voices deliberately louder, making sure everyone heard.
‘I knew those bastards would pull something like this, and here they are.’
The starting point of an absurd rumor was approaching.
I stared at the two of them quietly. Then I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Had some work done.”
Both of them froze for a moment.
“I—”
I smiled easily and flashed my teeth.
“Got my braces off just yesterday.”
I tapped my teeth lightly with my finger.
“And I’m getting plastic surgery rumors over just this.”
I absently worked my jaw with my hand.
“Man…… I seriously—”
I shook my head side to side.
“What am I supposed to do with these looks, for real.”
There was never any reason to take guys like that seriously anyway. Nonsense deserved nonsense in return.
The traffic-light duo’s expressions began to sour.
“Hmm—”
But I didn’t stop there.
“……But what about you two.”
I tilted my head slightly and ran my eyes up and down over them both.
“What?”
“No braces to take off—”
I pointed at the two of them, then swept my hand across my face a couple of times.
“I think your face is already maxed out?”
I exaggerated a shrug for effect.
“Such a shame—”
The trainees who’d been holding back their laughter began to snicker one by one.
The two of them said nothing and just fumed, while I let out a soft laugh and looked away.
‘This isn’t even kids’ stuff…….’
For someone who’d been clawed and torn by Yoo Seong-ah, this barely registered as a tickle.
They actually thought they could scratch me with just this.
‘Too bad, but you two got the timing wrong.’
* * *
“Now, listen. You know you can’t slack on lessons just because of the survival show, right?”
“Yes!”
The trainer looked around at the trainees like he was taking attendance, then turned to me.
“Sung-woo didn’t show up to a single class for two weeks—you think you can keep up?”
Every trainee’s eyes locked onto me at once.
“Yes, I’ll do my best to keep up!”
The response drew skeptical looks from all around.
Naturally.
The trainee everyone worried about when it came to dancing—that was my label.
Even missing a single lesson made it hard to catch up with the material, and I’d vanished for a whole two weeks.
By any measure, I was set up to flounder.
“Alright, we’ll start with this move. One, two—”
The trainer demonstrated, and I mirrored the movement.
And I realized something right away.
‘This is actually doable?’
If this had been before, I would’ve just struggled to keep up. But that wasn’t the case now.
The fundamentals Yoo Seong-ah drilled into me obsessively. The waves and steps, the bounces, upper and lower body control. Every move lived and breathed within them.
‘So that’s why fundamentals matter.’
I thought of Yool-yeo, who’d tried to teach me the basics even in our tight practice time.
‘Such a thoughtful one.’
“Now, go ahead and continue from what I just showed you, each of you.”
“Yes!”
‘I’m confident in my memory, at least.’
Memorization had never been the real problem anyway. I was someone who could learn steps by heart but couldn’t make my body express them.
The music started again.
“One, two—three, four—”
My body moved naturally. My limbs followed the sequence my mind remembered.
One movement, then the next.
And then.
“Huh?”
Someone let out a small sound.
I lifted my head and saw a trainee in the front row watching me—with the expression of someone who’d just seen something strange.
“What?”
The trainee next to her started looking at me too. Before long, both of them had stopped dancing entirely and were just staring in my direction.
‘What’s going on?’
Just then.
“Sung-woo!”
My name was suddenly called out.
‘Oh.’
I guess I still had a ways to go. I turned nervously to the trainer.
But—
“No, no. Keep going.”
He’d moved to stand right beside me.
“That’s it! Pop once there, then right—”
‘He’s being so gentle…….’
To someone who’d grown used to Yoo Seong-ah’s training, this was nothing but the voice of a kind-hearted angel.
“Five, six, seven, eight!”
‘Wow, counting out every single number like that.’
For the record, Yu Seong-ah had only counted to two because her throat hurt.
And on top of that—a training session without so much as a single kick or shout exchanged!
“One, two—okay!”
When the music ended, I was almost sorry it had stopped.
“Wow—”
The trainer blinked.
“Sung-woo, what are you?”
This time it was genuine shock. Murmurs rippled through the studio around us.
“What have you been doing these past two weeks? You’re a completely different person?”
“Thank you!”
“Today’s MVP is Sung-woo!”
It was the first time. I’d never made it through a dance training session without criticism.
But the real change was something else entirely.
Those sharp, cutting glances—’Can’t you see how you’re slowing us down?’—they were completely gone.
Instead, the eyes around me had shifted to something almost awed, as if they’d just witnessed an impossible miracle.
“If you’re getting this good at dancing too, the other trainees are going to be seriously nervous, huh?”
“…Yes.”
The reply came out flat.
“But seriously, where did you go and what have you been doing?”
“I went back to basics and practiced them from scratch!”
Answering cheerfully like that, I felt like I’d just enlisted all over again.
“Who did you learn from? I’d love to see that instructor’s face—”
I forced my mouth into a smile.
‘Please don’t say things like that….’
This trainer probably knew Yu Seong-ah too, at least by reputation. There was no way someone so famous in the industry could escape notice.
If even he didn’t know I was her younger sibling, what would happen if it came out….
‘I don’t even want to imagine it.’
“I’m really looking forward to this round. Keep working hard!”
“Thank you!”
I’d barely escaped the cage of compliments when a familiar announcement blared through the entire building.
[Hello, trainees. This is MC Kang Se-jun speaking! All trainees, please gather at the first-floor studio immediately. The trainee who arrives first will receive a small benefit!]
“What?”
“…Are they telling us to run again?”
Groans erupted from every corner.
The practice room emptied in seconds. The hallway filled with the thunder of footsteps. None of us knew what benefit awaited, but nobody wanted to lose it to the others.
I smiled to myself watching them go.
‘Here we go.’
The secret mission to form teams for the fourth round. It was an event that had generated quite a bit of buzz even before my return.
At the entrance to the first-floor studio, the earliest arrivals were gathered, gasping for breath.
“Huh?”
“…What is this?”
We’d been called to the studio, but a large notice was plastered across the studio entrance.
[No Entry]
“Isn’t this the studio?”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, they told us to come here and then….”
It was absurd. They’d made us run for our lives, only to greet us with a ‘No Entry’ sign.
The benefit for arriving first, according to Kang Se-jun, was small indeed. Just finding out the mission a bit earlier?
Then the broadcast switched on again.
[Throughout the Nyx Entertainment building, hints to a code that will unlock the studio door are hidden!]
“No way.”
“What, is this like a treasure hunt?”
‘A treasure hunt… something like that.’
But it wasn’t a simple treasure hunt. Soon enough, this building would be filled with the screams of trainees.
[All right, then. Let’s begin!]
Flicker—
The overhead lights shuddered for a moment.
And again it flickered.
The hallway went silent in an instant.
I quietly rolled up my sleeves and rotated my neck.
‘Time to get ready.’
Before the regression, this was the mission that had dominated real-time search results right after it aired.
And the reason countless trainees had cursed the production team.
Thud.
The light at the end of the corridor went out.
Thud.
Then the next one died.
Thud.
Then another.
As if someone were dragging darkness toward us, the corridor’s lights began to vanish one by one.
“…huh?”
Someone murmured in a trembling voice.
And then.
Thud.
The moment the last light went out.
“AHHHHHHH!!”
Screams erupted across the entire corridor.
I moved slowly through the chaos of panicked trainees.
Before the regression and now as well. The worst mission in the entire history of Boys Code.
The infamous horror special was beginning.
I Killed My Favorite and We Debut (Serialized)
Author | Usse
Publisher | Kim Juhyung
Publishing House | J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing | Han Jaehyuk
Address | 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Ace Techno Tower 8)
Email | [email protected]
Website | www.jayplemedia.com
© Usse 2026
This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in criminal and civil liability.
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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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