Debut or Die! — Chapter 182
Asking Seon Ahyeon for help with something related to the stage was already a proven method.
Even back during the <Idol Inc.> grade evaluation, when we’d barely known each other by face, he’d lit up and taught me enthusiastically.
But this conversation went a little differently than I expected.
“N-No!”
“…?”
The moment I explained the situation, Seon Ahyeon changed his stance.
‘Don’t tell me this guy finally awakened to a sense of competition.’
I stared at him, slightly dumbfounded. He shrank back a little, but stubbornly continued.
“Y-You’re hurt, and doing something like that would be dangerous…….”
Oh, that was what this was about.
“It’s fine. I’m not saying I’m going to start practicing immediately. I’m planning to do it once I’ve recovered enough.”
I already had a foundation from working out before, so I planned to focus on planning and memorization first, then begin actual practical training in earnest with around two weeks left.
It wasn’t like I was some drama character who got shot and started sprinting around again in the next episode. Of course I’d already planned to take care of my body.
But even after I added that detailed explanation, Seon Ahyeon still didn’t look convinced.
“E-Even so, I think it’ll put more strain on your joints than you expect…… C-Can’t you just… not do it?”
“Hmm…….”
“Y-You already! Sing really well, so you don’t need to do something like that too…….”
At this rate, he looked ready to start sweating buckets.
‘…He’s sensitive about injuries.’
I’d assumed it was simply because he had majored in dance, but there was something more desperate about it than that.
“Hmm.”
Anyway, it didn’t look like I would get the answer I wanted this way, so maybe I should change my wording a little.
“Yeah. I think you’re right.”
“…! R-Really?”
“Yeah. I should restrain myself for my body’s sake.”
Seon Ahyeon’s face immediately brightened.
I casually added something after that.
“Then I’ll only use the apparatus for a little while…. Right, just in case, can I ask you what posture would be safest?”
“Y-Yeah!”
Done.
Seon Ahyeon nodded in agreement. I pulled up a video on my smartphone and showed it to him.
“I mean this part here, where you release the tension…….”
It was a classic same-thing-different-wording trick.
If you thought about it properly, I was basically saying I’d do exactly what I’d originally planned. But knowing this guy’s personality, I’d figured he would be won over by the implication that I’d “accepted what he said.”
I picked up several practical tips from Seon Ahyeon and even got him to promise he’d demonstrate them for me in the practice room.
“Thanks.”
“F-For what!”
And it wasn’t until Seon Ahyeon arrived at the enormous practice hall we had rented for the concert that he realized something was strange.
Apparently, the company had finally started moving efficiently, because they had already rented the apparatus.
“Uh, um…….”
Seon Ahyeon’s face became completely covered in question marks, but the situation was already settled.
“This, um, weren’t you not going to…?”
“You said you’d teach me.”
“B-But…….”
I shrugged.
“Well… if you don’t want to, you can stop. The instructor’s here, so I can just ask them slowly.”
“…! N-No! I’ll teach you!”
“Thanks.”
And just like that, I got to see Seon Ahyeon’s demonstration too.
He must have tried it before, because he handled it smoothly even without advice from the instructor.
And it looked different.
‘…There really is a difference.’
I needed to learn that.
“Ooh!”
Aside from Cha Eugene barging in halfway through, excitedly insisting that he wanted to try too, and nearly smashing his face headfirst into the floor, everything proceeded smoothly.
A few of the members did quietly ask me about it, though.
“Moondae, did you get checked by the doctor? They really said it’s okay for you to do this?”
“Ah, it’s fine.”
I immediately nodded at Ryu Chungwoo’s subtle question.
“We agreed I’d try it after I recover, as long as I stay within a range that doesn’t strain anything.”
“…Okay. But don’t push yourself.”
It really was fine. Not only had all my schedules been cleared, but my recovery speed was definitely faster than normal.
‘Is it thanks to Bacchus 500?’
Maybe because fatigue accumulated more slowly, I was getting some kind of correction to my recovery as well.
I folded my arms and looked over the apparatus Cha Eugene had just climbed down from, grinning.
‘Yeah, the picture should work.’
Now it finally felt like I was doing something.
I was in a pretty good mood.
I found myself looking forward to the concert.
“This is… a celebration for our success.”
“Ah, I love it! Cheers!!”
Park Moondae’s fansite master drank beer with her graduate-student friend.
‘Aaaah!!’
It felt exhilarating.
Because not long ago, they had successfully made it through the presale for TeSTAR’s second concert!
Both of them, even.
“This is the standing section, right? Do we have to stand the whole time?”
“No, no! They have chairs there! You can sit or stand depending on the mood.”
“Ah~ I see!”
Her graduate-student friend smiled brightly. She had managed to get a very good spot relatively near the front in one of the so-called “seated-standing” areas, where rows of temporary chairs had been lined up through the standing section.
‘She said it was barely possible to make time.’
Watching her with a trace of pity, Park Moondae’s fansite master glanced at her smartphone when it happened to buzz.
Brrr!
The instant she checked the contents, she clutched the phone.
“Huuuh, Moondae posted something!”
“No way!”
========================
Hello Loviewers
I’m Moondae (puppy emoji)
This is today’s dinner
I made it
(Photo) (Photo)
Chungwoo hyung took the pictures
Loviewers, please eat something delicious too
========================
The attached photo showed a surprisingly decent home-cooked meal, including spicy doenjang stew with hot green chilies and fried eggs.
There was even a picture of Park Moondae’s profile as he seriously photographed the table.
‘This is driving me insane. Seriously.’
The fansite master felt like hitting herself in the head.
Park Moondae was truly the best. But this was too much.
‘Rest!!’
They had cleared his schedules so he could rest, so why in the world was he sitting there cooking?
And once she looked at the pictures again, details that bothered her began jumping out one after another.
Her graduate-student friend murmured with a worried expression.
“He’s still wearing a brace on his wrist….”
“Looks like he has one around his waist too. You can see the shape through his clothes.”
It had already been a week since the news of his injury, but they couldn’t help still worrying about it.
The atmosphere around their drinks sank slightly.
“…Still, Moondae’s solo song isn’t one where he moves around violently, so the concert should be okay, right? He sang it standing still on <My Singer> too.”
“Right. He’ll probably sing sitting down.”
The two made the reasonable guess that if necessary, he could simply sit through the group choreography too.
‘He must be really disappointed.’
After watching him for more than a year of activities, Park Moondae seemed like the kind of person who had a great deal of ambition for the stage while pretending he didn’t.
The fansite master held back the urge to wail as she decided she should send him some red ginseng through the agency immediately.
“…Still, this concert seems like it’ll be even more fun than the first one! The venue’s bigger too!”
“Hmm, y-yeah. That’s true.”
The graduate student tried to lighten the mood, and the fansite master matched her energy, though she couldn’t completely shake off her uneasy feeling.
She had remembered the thing they had both been quietly ignoring in the excitement of successfully securing tickets.
‘Of all places, Gocheok Dome…….’
The previous concert had been held at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena with around 13,000 seats available, but this one would be at Gocheok Sky Dome, with 21,000 seats opened.
Of course, TeSTAR’s momentum was growing like crazy, so expanding the scale was the right choice from the agency’s perspective.
But from a fan’s perspective, Gocheok Dome wasn’t exactly appealing.
‘The view sucks.’
She wanted to scream at them to just extend the run at the Gymnastics Arena and hold concerts there for two weeks instead, but she knew that was impossible because of the tour.
‘Urgh.’
Unable to follow the entire tour perfectly due to personal circumstances, the fansite master downed her beer in one go.
‘I’ll probably just have to buy data a few times….’
The alcohol tasted sweet.
Then, with some effort, she brought up something positive.
“…And once the concert’s over, award season starts soon, right? Even if they go on tour, we’ll still see their faces a lot!”
“Ah! You’re right!”
Expectations were quite high for TeSTAR’s award-show performance this year.
‘And there’s a chance VTIC won’t attend.’
One of their members had become tangled up in a nasty social scandal involving a club, which had delayed the group’s comeback itself.
Because of that, VTIC had released only a prerelease track and then gone silent, leaving their fans seemingly beside themselves with anxiety.
After decisively cutting the controversial member loose, even their official SNS accounts had apparently gone quiet.
Supposedly, they had even stayed silent on a member’s birthday.
‘The birthday member was Cheongryeo, right?’
Whether he was someone who subtly took digs at her kid or whether the two were actually close, she couldn’t quite tell, but the most familiar member’s face briefly came to mind.
And then vanished almost immediately.
‘Whatever. They’re a top-tier group. They’ll handle themselves.’
In fact, even without the VTIC variable, TeSTAR’s momentum was unmistakable.
Park Moondae in particular had been rising even faster recently.
How much?
Over the past six months, new fansite masters had attached themselves to him in droves.
‘How many people switched over?!’
More than once, she had even witnessed fansite masters from other groups quietly switching over without a word at offline events.
And as luck would have it, one of those people had gotten a seat in the same section as her for this concert.
‘She runs a twin fansite for Big Sejin too!’
At the first concert, she’d apparently tested the waters by casually taking a few pictures of Big Sejin, then produced an insanely high-quality eye-contact shot during the <I Like Waiting> stage and uploaded it to an anonymous site, or so the rumor went.
But then she actually opened a fansite and started by releasing alternate cuts from that photo.
Including one where Park Moondae appeared together with him!
‘…I thought she’d only shoot Big Sejin. I didn’t expect her to run one for Moondae too.’
A subtle sense of rivalry set her heart on fire.
At this concert, she would absolutely capture a Park Moondae photo more incredible than that switched-over twin fansite master’s!
Ignoring the fact that she herself had switched over, the fansite master made a firm resolution.
“I’m seriously getting an unbelievable shot this time.”
“Ah~ That’d be awesome! Show me too!”
Her graduate-student friend answered cheerfully.
Then she ordered another beer.
“Okay, cheers!”
“Cheers!”
Thinking about the coming concert, the two clinked their glasses again with pounding hearts.
At that point, neither of them had the slightest idea that on the first day of the concert, they would end up screaming, wildly waving their lightsticks, and breaking one in the process.
Read only on MUGEX
And then came the rehearsal site on the day of TeSTAR’s concert.
“All right, move it over immediately!”
“Yes!”
All kinds of people were moving busily in preparation for the performance.
Among them were plenty of one-day temp staff who had been hired in a hurry to fill the manpower they needed immediately.
‘Fuck, this is brutal.’
One temp worker irritably dropped the load he was carrying.
He’d applied after seeing the seventy-thousand-won daily wage, but the endless labor had worn him down.
“…….”
The temp worker glanced around and discreetly pulled out his smartphone when no one seemed to be looking.
Then he posted an angry message on an anonymous site.
========================
[I’m staff at a boy-group concert. Not taking questions]
: You’d be better off loading and unloading trucks. They pay fucking minimum wage and make you do a shitton of work
There are already a fucking ton of fangirls outside, do these people seriously have nothing better to do tsk tsk
========================
‘That should get some attention, right?’
The post seemed interesting enough to attract a few comments.
They weren’t exactly friendly, though.
-lol this asshole has obviously never done loading work before
-Staff my ass, you’re obviously just a one-day temp
-lmaoooo then are they supposed to hire a temp and not make them work, dumbass
-Fangirls = spend money, OP = earns minimum wage
‘Fucking assholes…!’
The temp worker angrily shut off his smartphone screen.
“You there! What are you doing!”
“…! …Yes.”
At the sharp reprimand, he watched the other person’s mood and halfheartedly picked up the luggage again.
The other temporary workers bustling around nearby glanced at him, but he had already lost all motivation.
‘Should I just ditch the job?’
He was starting to look for a chance to bail when a sudden murmur rose from one side.
‘What now?’
He craned his neck to look and spotted some famous faces.
“…!”
TeSTAR had arrived for rehearsal.
They were moving quickly down the passage with staff members, bowing here and there as they went.
“Hello~”
“…!”
Lee Sejin happened to make eye contact with the temp worker and greeted him with an open, friendly expression.
He had a large, well-maintained physique and a handsome face.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay~”
Park Moondae lightly tapped Lee Sejin.
The two bowed a few more times, then hurried on.
“They’re all handsome.”
“Wow.”
“Kinda cool seeing them in person.”
The other temp workers beside him whispered excitedly, but the worker who had been considering ditching the job only felt worse.
‘Like what they do is so impressive.’
It was a sense of deprivation.
Someone around his own age had achieved something enormous, and he simply didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Still, his desire to ditch the job diminished a little.
‘Let’s see what they’re actually capable of.’
Whether it was personality or skill, how could guys who had blown up from a single program without even going through a period of obscurity possibly have no flaws?
These days, one verification post was enough to testify to all kinds of things.
‘Whatever. It’s anonymous. How would they ever catch me?’
The temp worker thought carelessly and sank into a pleasant but hardly wholesome fantasy.
And regardless of one individual’s daydreams, preparations for the concert were smoothly and efficiently completed through the expectations and hard work of countless people.
