The Gates Opened on the First Day of Debut - Chapter 70

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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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The Gate Burst Open on My Debut Day (70)
“Korean is so difficult.”
“What…?”
“I just want to speak English too. It’s so frustrating for me as well — having to speak Korean all the time. But I can’t just do that, you know? I have to debut in Korea.”
English suddenly poured from Han Theo’s lips, which had been stammering in Korean just moments before.
Startled, I raised my hand to stop Han Theo mid-sentence.
“Wait, hold on… just wait a moment.”
Let me understand what’s happening here.
I began recalling Han Theo’s previously incomprehensible behaviors one by one.
Han Theo always wore a subtle smile at the corners of her mouth.
“Because my Korean isn’t that great. When I don’t understand something, she told me to just keep smiling no matter what.”
Even when we prepared the Stage together, she rarely complained.
“I had no choice since I couldn’t understand. What if I said something wrong and people figured out my Korean isn’t that good?”
Han Theo, who had been speaking with her brow furrowed in distress, suddenly startled.
“Ah….”
“What?”
“You understood what I said?”
“Huh?”
Why did she suddenly switch to Korean after speaking English so fluently?
Han Theo covered her mouth with a serious expression, like someone who had made a fatal mistake.
“You’re good at English?”
“Well… it’s not like I’m totally bad at it.”
English, like Japanese, was an essential skill for any Idol.
Still, Han Theo spoke so eloquently in English, but her Korean suddenly became so terse.
Her tone changed too.
As I stared at her with curious eyes, Han Theo grew restless and glanced nervously at me.
“What?”
“I promised… to speak Korean.”
“Do you really need to do that?”
In the EX-Grade K-POP Idol program, there were quite a few foreign trainees besides Han Theo who struggled with Korean.
Okada alone had suffered from not being able to speak Korean.
“…I’m told I look ugly when I speak English.”
“What?”
Han Theo looks ugly?
I couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.
How could I possibly look in any way that would warrant calling Han Theo ugly?
“Who said that?”
“My older sister….”
Ah.
Well, if it’s her older sister, that’s possible.
I immediately understood.
“When it’s just the two of us, it’s fine to talk in English. I’ll keep it between us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Ah, no… I still want to speak Korean. Um… that is, prac, prac….”
“Practice?”
“Yeah. I need to practice.”
Well, if that’s what Han Theo wants, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“So you wanted to get to know me, get to know…?”
“You wanted to get closer to me?”
“Yeah.”
Han Theo exhaled a long sigh of relief and nodded.
He seemed satisfied conversing in Korean, but honestly, I felt a bit frustrated.
“Can’t I just say the difficult parts in English?”
“Oh, yeah? I understand. But I’ll try to speak Korean as much as possible.”
Han Theo’s expression brightened.
I suddenly realized why I’d been unable to read Han Theo’s expressions until now.
‘Was he nervous about his inability to speak Korean being exposed?’
It seemed Han Theo’s judgment might have been correct.
Until now, Han Theo had maintained the image of an inscrutable, shadowy conglomerate heir.
But the moment he started speaking English, unexpected sides of him emerged… honestly, he was a character with rather divisive charm.
“But you wanted to get closer to me? Why?”
“You’re good at it.”
“At what?”
“Japanese.”
Han Theo spoke in short, clipped sentences again.
I inferred the omitted context and interpreted the hidden meaning.
“Wait… you thought I’d be good at English too because I’m good at Japanese?”
“Yeah.”
Han Theo nodded.
This conversation wasn’t some standardized test reading comprehension problem.
‘Ah, then could it be that too…?’
Suddenly, Han Theo’s meaningful words from this round came flooding back.
‘I want to get closer to the other trainees going forward.’
The words he’d said while looking at me when giving his center position impressions after the theme song evaluation.
‘I wish you were the center, Kim Chowol.’
The words he’d said when selecting the center in the third main quest.
‘Do you remember?’
‘Remember what?’
‘The center position impressions….’
‘Your thoughts on being center?’
‘That… after the Hunt the Stage evaluation.’
The fact that he’d called me aside and brought up what I’d said during the center interview again.
‘You did all that just because you wanted to get close to me?’
I stared at him with wide eyes in shock, and Han Theo awkwardly averted his gaze before adding, “When I get nervous, I can’t speak.”
“When I get nervous, I can’t speak.”
So the way he kept cutting off his sentences and speaking in short fragments every time we talked was all because he couldn’t speak Korean.
“Huh….”
All the worries and concerns that had been plaguing me until now crumbled to dust in an instant.
Han Theo is impressive, if nothing else.
This fatal weakness never once slipped out during all my dozens of regressions.
‘If I’d known this earlier… wouldn’t I have been able to reach first place faster?’
A dark thought crossed my mind for a moment.
But I quickly shook my head and dismissed it.
‘No matter how much I want to debut, I won’t resort to such shameful tactics of dragging others down out of malice.’
Besides, it’s all in the past anyway.
“I’m sorry.”
Han Theo bowed his head deeply as he spoke.
“Sorry for what?”
“I said something weird.”
“Something weird? Oh….”
I was a beat slow in understanding what Han Theo meant.
‘Are we friends?’
‘Are you and I close enough to say things like that?’
At first, I’d interpreted Han Theo’s words as ‘don’t worry about it, we’re not even that close.’
But now that I understood the full situation, I could interpret it differently.
“I was just asking because I was worried I might be the only one who considers us friends. I didn’t mean anything else by it.”
Han Theo spoke with his shoulders drooping.
“Right. I don’t mind. But it’s a statement that could cause misunderstandings, so it’s better to be careful. If it gets caught the wrong way… you know, right? Watch out for cameras whether you’re asleep or awake.”
“Ah. Yeah.”
Han Theo’s reaction didn’t seem entirely convinced.
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
Does that guy realize we’re being filmed right now?
“Well… let’s head back and practice. They’ll be waiting for us.”
“Yeah.”
Han Theo nodded obediently and stuck close to my back.
What…?
Slightly bewildered, I furrowed my brow and looked at Han Theo, but he simply tilted his head as if asking what the problem was.
“What? Let’s go.”
“Oh… yeah. We should go.”
Urged on by Han Theo, I reluctantly took the lead.
What is this…?
I had no dating experience, yet I felt as though I’d suddenly become responsible for raising a child.
‘Oh right, I never got to ask about the parachute thing.’
It wasn’t urgent, so I’d ask about it later when the opportunity arose.
―Zzzzzt.
Just as I was about to head back to the Practice Room with Han Theo trailing behind me like a goldfish’s droppings.
An odd sound came from somewhere.
“Is something wrong?”
When I suddenly stopped in my tracks and glanced around nervously, Han Theo tilted his head and asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get back.”
Maybe it was just my imagination.
I could have sworn I heard a camera rolling from somewhere.
* * *
“Hmm….”
The Office lay dark and silent.
A single figure sat before a computer, its glow the only light piercing the darkness.
“Kim Chowol or Han Theo.”
That was the question.
The person hunched before the computer screen, wrestling with this dilemma for the past hour, was none other than Jang Hyuk-soo, the main PD of EX-Grade K-POP Idol.
On the screen played footage of Han Theo and Kim Chowol preparing for the third main Quest.
“PD?”
“Oh, you’re here?”
“It’s five in the morning. Why are you still here alone instead of going home?”
“Ah… has it really gotten that late? But you—didn’t you also not leave?”
“I went home and came back in.”
The Female PD blinked, dark circles shadowing her eyes as she answered.
Jang Hyuk-soo chuckled and gestured to her.
“Did you bring coffee?”
“Do you think I’m some kind of Vending Machine that dispenses coffee when you press a button? Well… I did bring some anyway.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Jang Hyuk-soo waved his hand dismissively in gratitude and sucked down his iced americano in one long gulp.
“Ahh, I feel a bit more alive now.”
“What kept you from leaving?”
“What else? Whether it should be Kim Chowol or Han Theo. I’ve been wrestling with that all night.”
“Didn’t you already decide on Kim Chowol?”
The Female PD tilted her head as she asked.
“Well, I did. But there’s still some lingering doubt. Both of them are a bit… ambiguous, you know?”
To understand what Jang Hyuk-soo meant, one would need to go back to the time when episodes 5 and 6 were being edited.
From his years of experience, Jang Hyuk-soo knew that in a Survival Audition Program, nothing generated better viewership than a rival dynamic.
When a rivalry is established, the program naturally generates more buzz.
‘I think A will take first place?’
‘You clueless idiot, obviously B takes first. Did you even watch the broadcast properly?’
‘What? When did you ever see me to call me clueless? The real clueless one is you.’
‘Objectively, A taking first place is the right call.’
‘What are you all talking about? First place isn’t A or B—it’s C lol’
However, creating a rivalry turned out to be far more difficult than expected.
There had to be at least two trainees with comparable buzz value.
And that buzz couldn’t be mediocre either—it had to be explosive enough to drive the entire program.
But no matter how many rival candidates were selected and pushed through the Female PD’s picks, most attempts failed to create the desired rivalry dynamic.
Jang Hyuk-soo decided he shouldn’t bother trying to manufacture a rivalry and should instead focus on pushing just one trainee.
So he pushed Han Theo, and Jang Hyuk-soo’s strategy proved effective.
‘But then Kim Chowol appeared.’
A trainee whose skills couldn’t hold a candle to Han Theo’s, yet whose buzz factor was overwhelmingly superior to anyone else’s.
Jang Hyuk-soo unfolded the narrative between Kim Chowol and Yoo Sung, observed the response for a bit, then completed the rivalry dynamic between Kim Chowol and Han Theo through episodes five and six.
“I made it favorable for Kim Chowol anyway.”
People loved an underdog.
There was no narrative quite as thrilling as watching Kim Chowol, who appeared so clearly inferior to Han Theo, overtake him.
The reason he chose Kim Chowol over Yoo Sung was also because of the underdog appeal.
“But I don’t have enough leverage to bring Han Theo down. People need a convincing problem or conflict to justify it….”
So he deliberately leaked some of the parachute hire story he’d been hiding, and even installed additional cameras to reduce blind spots.
But the bait wasn’t taking.
“Huh?”
The Female PD, who had been reviewing footage separately, suddenly jumped up from her seat.
“You startled me…. What’s going on?”
“Um, PD, I think you need to check this out.”
“What is it? I’ve already reviewed all the footage of just Kim Chowol and Han Theo.”
“No, not that.”
“What then?”
“Han Theo and Yoo Sung.”
Han Theo and Yoo Sung?
Jang Hyuk-soo tilted his head in confusion and stood up from his seat.

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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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