Debut or Die

‘That guy did something like this?’

It was a little strange.

I knew that Keun Sejin was a guy who was quick to judge the situation and drive public opinion in his favor.

But was he the kind of person who would choose a unit by playing tricks on the cards?

Rather than taking the risk of being caught, he would have just taken it to his advantage as much as possible in the given situation.

‘I don’t think he would do that just because he wanted to avoid Bae Sejin.’

Hmm, it didn’t feel good.

However, it wasn’t a good circumstance to ask this.

There was no evidence, and to bring up such a story with cameras installed in the dorm would be a suicidal move.

And it was hard to say something even if it was true. It wouldn’t be a big problem if you sneaked a unit for a one-time concert.

There was a high probability that the atmosphere would be strained for no reason.

‘…Let’s skip it for now.’

I went to the bed in room 1, which was now my old room. Keun Sejin slowly came along as if he was looking around where his room would be.

“Oh, I’m going to use Moondae’s bed. Moondae, I will hand over my bed to you.”

“…Which one is it?”

“What, did you forget? It’s the far left~”

“Okay. I will avoid it.”

“Gosh, are you too shy to use it? It’s okay, Moondae. Don’t hesitate to use it~”

“…”

He was just the same as usual.

I shook my head, packed my things, and left room number one.

‘When another problem happens, maybe I can bring it up then.’

And the timing came a little faster than expected.

It was at the award ceremony just a few days later.

* * *

Excluding Korean Music Award, it was practically the last large award ceremony.

However, a few big singers didn’t attend. Probably because it overlapped with their tour schedules.

That meant VTIC didn’t come either.

‘…I don’t have to worry about the hammer.’

The moment I had that thought, I got a text message.

[VTIC Cheongryeo sunbae-nim: Looks like it’s almost the last one this time. Congratulations on the Rookie of the Year Award ^^]

“…”

I felt like I’d been hit by a mental hammer.

I replied with a short message and turned off my smartphone. Then pretending to know, Keun Sejin asked.

“Do you keep in touch with Cheongryeo sunbae-nim?”

“…Yeah.”

“Hmm~ All right, all right.”

Keun Sejin seemed to want to add something more but we arrived at the awards waiting room before he could do that.

A piece of paper was attached to the door of the waiting room.

[Gyrop/Testar]

This time, it was not a single waiting room.

‘Thanks to our results so far, we’ve been receiving a good waiting room for a rookie.’

I heard that in a situation where there was not enough waiting room, there were many cases where people just put in a dividing screen and waited there.

‘Having two groups in one room is actually a good situation.’

Hmm, so we were waiting together this time… with a boy idol group from a famous agency.

‘Are they seniors three or four years older?’

It was a predictable lineup.

Ryu Chungwoo lightly asked the members.

“Well, let’s greet them as we go in.”

“Yes!”

However, unlike other members who reacted normally, Keun Sejin right next to me was agitated.

“…!…Um.”

…Wait a minute.

‘Come to think of it, if you calculate the debut date of these guy’s agency…’

But before I had time to think about it further, the door was opened by the manager.

“Hello, sunbae-nim!”

“Ah~ Hello~”

There were trivial greetings coming and going, but soon Gyrop approached with an exaggerated smile.

“Ah~ Sejin!”

“How have you been?”

As expected, it turned out like this.

I supposed it was true that they were ‘that’ group who caused Keun Sejin’s short derailment before <Idol Inc.>.

Keun Sejin was weeded out right before his debut, the first debut group of his first agency.

“Wow~ Hello. Sunbae-nim~ Really, glad to see you!”

“Hey, what do you mean with sunbae-nim? Just call me hyung~”

“How can I do that?”

Keun Sejin laughed, shook hands with some of the guys, and bumped fists with them. They looked very close.

The other members… Their faces were saying ‘Keun Sejin is behaving like Keun Sejin’. Because he was such a sociable guy.

However, the atmosphere changed slightly after that.

“Sejin, uh, you don’t even look at my messages. I’m disappointed.”

“Ah, you know~ I’ve been so busy after my debut.”

“Right. Sejin, you’re busy right now. It’s a lot later than I thought! Lucky for you.”

‘Eh?’

These guys were being subtly sarcastic about Keun Sejin’s failure to debut.

Keun Sejin answered with a big smile.

“It’s great~ Sunbae-nims often talk to me, but I am sorry for the late reply! I’m busy with work, so the timing doesn’t match.”

It meant these assh*les were free because they didn’t have any schedule.

“…No, well, we didn’t message you that often right? I was just curious about how you were doing.”

“Huh? Isn’t it easy to know what I’ve been up to since I’ve been out here and there a lot lately? Please tell me how sunbae-nims have been doing too~ I’m curious about everything.”

“…”

Wow, because these guys’ activity was in a slump, he could turn things around without mentioning our grades like this.

No matter how you looked at it, it was a decisive victory for Keun Sejin.

And at this point, most of the members except Kim Raebin had their eyes rolling around as if they had grasped the situation.

The members of Gyrop were on the verge of decay.

“…Right. You’ll find our news this year even if you don’t want to know~”

“Is that so? I’m looking forward to it! Please look forward to our Testar as well.”

“…”

There was a pure weight class difference.

In the end, the Gyrop members forced themselves to smile and finished their greetings.

“Okay. Let’s work hard together.”

“Yes!”

The conversation seemed to end like that.

However, as if he couldn’t stand it, one of the Gyrop members who was standing in the back stepped in.

“But I only heard about Testar, though? I haven’t heard much about you.”

“…!”

Surprisingly, these trivial words seemed to hit Keun Sejin hard.

Keun Sejin was still smiling, but instead of making any counterarguments, he kept his mouth shut.

‘Huh?’

And here, Kim Raebin couldn’t stand it and raised his hand to speak.

By the way, it was not out of anger, but out of pure logical fallacy.

He didn’t get upset because he didn’t know the situation.

“…? Since Sejin hyung is a Testar member, isn’t the news about Testar also means news about hyung?”

“That’s right!”

Cha Eugene quickly agreed.

But Gyrop didn’t give up.

“No, I mean I only heard about the group and not about Lee Sejin~”

“…? Oh, we have never done individual activities other than group activities. You can think of Testar’s news as Sejin hyung-nim’s news.”

“…”

It might not have been Kim Raebin’s intention, but thanks to him, Gyrop’s words became unreasonable.

It was over.

‘Let’s clean it up.’

I interjected with a laugh.

“Yes. From now on, whenever you hear about Testar, you can think of Lee Sejin. Right?”

“You’re right!”

Contrary to Kim Raebin’s proud face, Gyrop’s expression was completely rotten.

“…Ah, yeah.”

Even if they were the seniors, these bastards didn’t have the guts to come to the awards ceremony and act rashly toward a group that had such a huge weight class difference, so the conversation ended like that.

However, Keun Sejin’s condition didn’t recover.

‘This guy is really strange.’

Looking at his smartphone for an hour without a word, Keun Sejin created a dirty feeling of incongruity.

…And connecting the situation just now with the unit card incident a few days ago, there was something suspicious.

‘…It would be ambiguous to leave it like this.’

Keun Sejin often held the microphone.

If he kept going like this, there might be a problem when he had to say the award speech later, so it was better to knock it off now.

“…I’ll go to the car for a minute.”

“Huh?”

“I left something behind.”

I got up from my seat and got the key from the manager.

“Do you want me to look for you?”

“It’s all right. I’ll be right back.”

Then I tapped Keun Sejin, who was sitting near the door.

“Hey, let’s go.”

“…Hn? What?”

“I think I need one more person to move it around. I have to take pictures.”

“…”

Keun Sejin looked me up and down without a word, then got up with a smile on his lips.

“…Okay~”

It was clear that he was being sarcastic about something, but let’s skip that for now.

Then, without saying a word to this guy, I walked down the hallway and arrived at the car.

After checking that there was no one around, I got in the car and opened my mouth.

“…”

“Do you have any problem lately?”

“…Sigh.”

Keun Sejin looked up at the ceiling of the car and sighed. It seemed he had noticed my purpose for calling him out here.

“It’s nothing.”

“…Is that so? Then cool your head before going up. You looked uncomfortable in the waiting room.”

“…!”

I shrugged and searched for a neck pillow in the car.

I could just say that I was here to find this.

“I’ll make up an excuse, so come back before then.”

“…”

I grabbed the car door. Then, Keun Sejin let out a long sigh from behind me.

“…I’m sorry. This is a little hard.”

“Sounds like there’s a problem.”

“Problem… Is that how I should call it?”

Keun Sejin struggled to say anything, and the silence continued.

‘Should I just say it?’

I pondered for a moment before opening my mouth.

“Actually, I saw you choosing the unit cards. …You knew the card number 3 and avoided it.”

“……!”

“…Was it because if 3 people did it, the amount of footage would be less than with 2 people?”

Seeing how he was hit by comments like ‘It’s not you who are doing well, it’s the group~’ earlier, I wondered if he was sensitive to the decrease in his footage.

But Keun Sejin shook his head.

“…No.”

Then, while fiddling with his smartphone, he slowly continued his next words.

“I avoided it because it’s you and Bae Sejin hyung. It will be difficult to show the dance with that number of people.”

“…!”

“It’s obvious. We would have composed a vocal-oriented performance song centered on you… I would end up getting a dance break center. Even that would have to be arranged to match hyung, so the difficulty level would be easy.”

“…Maybe you could have tried to dance in the center.”

“Haha. Aigoo, Moondae. You would have taken such an adventure in a concert where fans spend their money.”

“…”

“And if the dance was arranged to suit me, the fans wouldn’t have liked it.”

“Why do you think so?”

“…You’re driving me crazy.”

Keon Sejin sighed a few times, then after hesitating several times, he held out his smartphone.

Searched under his own anti-search name… was the result of SNS.

– To be honest, it’s embarrassing to even call it a dance line, right? Ahyeonji is the one on top, Euggene is the centerㅋㅋㅋIt’s disgusting to see this Big Bird guy push the dance line so far away

– If Ahyeonji fixes his stuttering, we finally don’t have to see Big Bird, right? Phew. That’s a relief.

– To be honest, he’s good at dancing even at the international level. The dance line is meaningless. Big Bird, if you have a conscience, get out of there. He’s mixing with Ahyeonjiㅋㅋ

– Big Bird… the substitute position…? Is pretending to be a popular guy a position?ㅎㅎ

“…”

“Let’s not say that if you search like this, only cursing words come out. If it comes out collectively like this, it means that to some extent, it’s really the public opinion of the fans.”

Keun Sejin was calm.

I went further down on SNS and checked the overall flow again.

‘…Seon Ahyeon is impressive.’

The status of Seon Ahyeon’s ability had soared due to his impressive image in handling accidents with a backflip and overcoming his stuttering.

And among the same dance line, Cha Eugene was very popular and had great talent, so his center position was certain.

As a result, only Keun Sejin came out like this.

The fans who originally looked at Keun Sejin with disdain seemed to feel that point very strongly.

“Of course, it’s mostly the thoughts of people who hate me… Anyway, it’s true that I’m being pushed back in terms of positions.”

“…”

“What Is Ahyeon’s strong point? He’s good. He’s good for the group, too. But I can’t stand being like this.”

I slowly opened my mouth.

“…So Cha Eugene?”

“Yes.”

Keun Sejin put back his smartphone.

“I have to do better than Cha Eugene on the unit stage this time.”

“…”

“I’ll be able to make a one-on-one comparison. …I can’t see any other escape route, isn’t that right?”