The Gates Opened on the First Day of Debut - Chapter 80

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

The Gate Burst Open on My Debut Day (80)
Hongdae Street, perpetually bustling with crowds.
A female student lifted her head with difficulty from the laptop she’d been burying her face in at a second-floor cafe.
“I’m dying.”
Across from her, a man in a pulled-down cap was gulping down an iced Americano.
“How much longer do you have?”
“I haven’t even finished the research yet. Still a long way to go. Damn it, I have midterms too, and suddenly they want me to write a thirty-page report….”
The female student sighed heavily, her distress evident.
The man stared blankly into empty space before responding.
“You still have to do it.”
“What? You seem pretty relaxed.”
“I’m already done.”
“What? You traitor…!”
“The table of contents.”
The man laughed hollowly and continued.
“I’ve finished the table of contents.”
“Ah… okay, okay. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
The man chuckled and turned his gaze to the laptop screen.
As he accessed the Portal Site, several news articles that normally wouldn’t catch his attention suddenly stood out.
“Famous Idol Survival Program… Parachute Trainee Suspicions… Entertainment Agency Still Has No Official Statement…?”
The man narrowed his eyes and slowly read through the headline and content of one particular article.
The female student, who had been frowning while typing on her laptop, suddenly looked up.
“What are you doing, slacking off?”
“Oh, no. I just saw an article.”
“You can slack off if you want. Just don’t read that article.”
“Why not?”
“It breaks my heart.”
The female student squeezed her eyes shut and slumped across the cafe table.
“Didn’t you say a few months ago that you’d started liking an idol?”
“Not anymore….”
The female student pouted and averted her gaze.
“Is the Parachute Trainee in this article the idol you used to like?”
“I said I don’t like them anymore?”
The female student grumbled irritably.
But the man, seized by a playful impulse, teased her while reading the article.
“From your reaction, it seems like you still like them?”
“Ugh….”
The female student, struck where it hurt, clamped her mouth shut.
“I searched it up and it came right up. It’s Han Theo, right?”
“Be quiet, will you?”
“But something seems off?”
The man searching for information about Han Theo tilted his head in confusion.
“What is?”
“So that idol you like? Han Theo? I’m reading he was incredibly popular.”
“So what?”
The woman answered curtly, assuming the man was teasing her again.
But by then, the man had already pulled up a video of Han Theo’s stage performance with a serious expression.
“The program pushed him hard, and it looks like he even got the center position for the theme song. So why did the parachute trainee allegations suddenly blow up now?”
“What?”
“I mean, he’s not some trainee lacking in looks or talent. No matter how I look at it, this doesn’t seem like a situation where parachute trainee allegations should have surfaced….”
As the man continued his explanation, the woman’s expression grew serious as well.
“In any case, the whole situation feels unnatural. Like someone behind the scenes is deliberately manipulating things.”
“I hadn’t thought that far….”
The woman stared at the laptop screen with a bewildered expression.
“But how do you know so much about this? Don’t tell me you used to be an idol fan….”
“An idol fan? I graduated from that in the military. Hey, stop wasting time with pointless talk and write your report. How else are you going to graduate this year?”
“Ugh! Damn it, I just want to spend my whole life chasing idols around….”
The woman tore at her hair and snapped back to reality.
The man let out a silent sigh of relief and refocused on his laptop.
‘That was close….’
He intended to take the secret that he’d been an idol fan until high school to his grave.
In truth, being an idol fan wasn’t really a hobby shameful enough to hide so desperately.
The problem was that the idol he’d liked was Nexus—a male idol group.
‘I wonder how Junwoo hyung is doing.’
His ultimate bias was Kim Junwoo, the eternal maknae of Nexus.
Though the youngest among the members, he was flawless in both vocals and dance, and his mature personality made him an older brother figure with much to learn from.
Lost in nostalgia, the man typed Kim Junwoo into the Portal Site search bar.
‘What? Junwoo hyung is an EX-rank judge? And he’s appearing on the program that Han Theo was on?’
Checking up on Kim Junwoo’s recent activities after so long was genuinely entertaining.
It absolutely wasn’t because he didn’t want to write the report and was procrastinating.
“Huh? Isn’t it awfully loud outside?”
“Loud? What noise?”
The woman, who had been frantically typing away at her laptop, lifted her head and looked around.
The man, who had also been diligently procrastinating, slowly raised his head as well.
“…to all you ordinary folks enjoying a pleasant weekend on Hongdae Street….”
A voice came from outside the cafe.
Though someone was speaking into a microphone and the volume was loud, there was annoying static mixed throughout.
Other customers who heard the sound began to murmur among themselves.
“What? Is there a performance? Should we check out the terrace?”
“Wow, no way! There are so many people here! Is a celebrity coming?”
The customers seated nearby rushed toward the terrace in a stampede.
The female fan and the male fan stared blankly at each other.
“Are you going to watch too?”
“Not me. I can’t stand crowds.”
“Really? I’m going to check it out.”
The female fan bolted from her seat and squeezed through the throng of people, claiming a spot right in front of the terrace.
“Hey, what about the report….”
Not that the male fan had any right to complain, given how distracted he’d been.
The male fan shook his head and returned to searching for updates on Kim Junwoo.
“Wow, amazing. Are those the ones? The Survival Program they’re doing right now?”
“Oh… that EX-rank Idol Survival thing?”
The male fan’s fingers froze over the laptop keyboard.
He kept his eyes on the screen but tilted his ear toward the murmuring conversations around him.
“They’re doing a guerrilla performance. Wow, look how many people showed up after hearing the news. This Survival Program really is the hottest topic among recent ones.”
“Wait, didn’t the MC just say it’s completely live? A full live performance?”
“Come on, these are trainees who haven’t even debuted yet. They’ll just lip-sync with AR backing tracks.”
Even active idols these days rarely performed live.
And outdoor stages had particularly poor equipment.
Unless they wanted the show to end early due to vocal controversy, they’d probably just use AR backing and focus on the choreography instead of the singing.
“We’ll start with the first performance!”
But the male fan quickly realized his assumption was wrong.
“Wow… did you hear that pitch crack?”
“They can barely sing. Why are they even holding a handheld mic?”
The spectators on the terrace began to snicker and jeer.
The mockery grew harsher, but the male fan couldn’t say anything.
‘Even for trainees… isn’t this just terrible?’
This wasn’t singing—it was noise pollution.
The expressions of the other seated customers deteriorated as well.
“K-POP standards have really dropped. These kids are idols? Their live singing is absolutely awful.”
“Ugh, this noise is unbearable. Should we move somewhere else? I can’t stand this.”
Some trainees were so nervous they stumbled over the lyrics, while others had their throats so tight they cracked on notes.
Listening to just the singing without watching the choreography made the evaluation more objective and harsh.
The first performance ended, then the second, and then the third….
The trainees’ skill levels were all fairly similar, but occasionally a pearl emerged from the mud.
“Wait, who was that? They sang really well!”
“And they’re handsome too. What’s their name?”
The spectators on the terrace looked excitedly around, trying to identify the trainee who had just sung the chorus.
The male fan’s ears perked up involuntarily.
“The name is… Yoo Sung, right? That’s a really unique name.”
“What was that dance just now? He dances really well.”
The man casually searched for Yoo Sung on his laptop.
With decent looks and skills, he seemed to be the second most popular trainee after Han Theo.
‘I’m not really sure.’
In truth, neither Han Theo, whom the woman liked, nor Yoo Sung now possessed the kind of charm that stirred his heart.
After all, an idol should possess that unmistakable masculine quality—the kind that never bows to any hardship or adversity.
‘His skills seem decent enough, but that’s just the baseline.’
The man shook his head lightly and closed the search window.
Today was exhausting.
The cafe was loud, his friend had abandoned him, and he’d stayed up all night yesterday and was tired.
There was no choice but to head home and rest.
“Hey, I’m heading home first….”
The moment the man walked toward the terrace to find the woman.
“Huic ergo parce, Deus. (God, have mercy on him.)”
A falsetto so captivating it took his breath away resonated through the air.
The man found himself stopping involuntarily.
“Pie Jesu Domine…. (Merciful Lord Jesus….)”
As someone sang along to what appeared to be a sampled Lacrimosa, the other members carefully layered their respective harmonies.
The rich sound, like a choir’s chorus, stirred the heart.
“Oh, what….”
He spotted the woman among the people who stood stunned, mouths agape.
The woman held her mouth shut, tears glistening in her eyes.
“…Dona eis requiem. Amen. (…Grant them eternal rest. Amen.)”
The members who had been lying on the ground rose to their feet with movements as natural as flowing water.
The intro ended and the stage began.
“Sand slips through the spaces between fingers. The word eternity lingers on the tongue before fading away.”
The people who had just been mockingly watching the trainee’s skills fell silent.
Those who had been standing their ground gradually drifted toward the terrace, peering in.
“Beneath the lowering sky, O Fortuna, was this too God’s will?”
Both the dance and vocals were on an entirely different level from any previous stage.
There were no gaps, no flaws.
Every member performed their role perfectly in their own position.
“That center trainee… isn’t that the Parachute Trainee?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
The person who recognized Han Theo’s face tapped their companion’s shoulder and spoke.
The companion, absorbed in the stage, nodded in agreement.
“Lacrimosa dies illa. Gold has sunk into the earth, and in the place where my name was engraved….”
The stage was coming to an end.
Han Theo, hugging his knees, stared into empty space with unfocused eyes.
“…A single nameless flower.”
Han Theo’s final words, muffled against his knees, stirred something ineffable—a tangle of emotions too complex for language to capture.
The person who had addressed the group swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry.
“Is he really a parachute trainee…?”
A crack of doubt had formed in the parachute trainee theory that Jang Hyuk-soo had so carefully constructed.

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