I Was Trying To Debut My Baby, But I Ended Up Debuting Instead

Chapter 1

An unspecified training camp in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.

Despite the late hour, the sound of footsteps, perfectly in sync, could be heard seeping out of the practice room.

“Seven, eight, thump!”

A vigorous counting voice.

“Good job. Don’t forget to keep the angles right.”

“Yes!”

About a dozen trainees, standing in front of a woman who seemed to be their teacher, answered enthusiastically with shining eyes.

“It looks like you just need to fine-tune the timing of the turns. Everything else looks good overall.”

“Thank you!”

“Yeonwoo, you’re the class president, right? You’ve worked hard, training everyone. From what I see today, you should keep progressing.”

“Thank you, haah.”

The trainee, who had received the compliment, bowed deeply while panting heavily.

At that moment, a drop of sweat fell onto the practice room floor. It was a trace of the effort and dedication put in.

In the midst of these youths shedding sweat for their dreams, there was a trainee in the far corner with vacant, lifeless eyes.

Although her eyes were unfocused and hollow, her movements were in sync with the other trainees.

“But Hyesung.”

“Yes?”

Startled by the teacher’s call, the trainee with the vacant eyes responded quickly.

“You’re not sick, are you? Your expression has been….”

“Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t get enough sleep. I’ve been practicing….”

Whether she had indeed been up all night, her lips quivered powerlessly as she answered.

“Really? No wonder you’ve improved a lot. But don’t push yourself too hard. You look really pale.”

“Yes.”

“Alright then, I’ll be going. Let’s do just as well during the recording, okay?”

“Yes! Thank you for your hard work! Thank you!”

As soon as the teacher left the practice room, the trainees, who had been standing in a disciplined manner, gathered in one place and started chatting excitedly with joyful voices. They seemed quite elated from the praise.

While everyone was celebrating and congratulating each other, the trainee called Hyesung collapsed onto her spot as if she had run out of energy.

And she muttered to herself.

‘Why am I going through this hell trying to become an idol when it’s not even in my fate….’

Why was a trainee with such a mindset here?

The story went back to a few days ago.

* * *

“Gyahhhh!!!”

A woman in a disheveled state screamed as she fell flat on the floor, her cry echoing through the room.

“What kind of nonsense is this!!!”

She threw the chicken leg she was holding and yelled at her smartphone screen.

“What is this? Huh? What? Huh?!”

Even though the screen couldn’t respond, the woman, whose name was Yoon Hyesung, kept shouting. She was 27 years old, an ordinary young adult.

“What is this!”

Hyesung glared at the screen as if she was ready to fight it.

“No, no, no. No, it’s not.”

Having just screamed in anger, she now shook her head vigorously, chanting “No” like a rap, denying something.

[Supernova Season 5 Eliminated Contestants Update]

20**.**.**｜Views: 42,890

Na Yeonwoo

Returned as a trainee,

and recently left the company.

Not sure if she was fired.

She also opened a personal SNS account.

(Picture) (Link)

It’s a private account, but the profile picture is definitely Na Yeonwoo.

My friend followed her and got accepted…

.

.

.

(167 comments)

– Hul, Na Yeonwoo? She hasn’t debuted yet? The company must be incompetent… She’s better off leaving.

– It’s sad she became an ordinary person just one rank away from debutingㅠㅠ Honestly, she’s the prettiest too…

└Still, she’s only 20, so another company will pick her up soon.

└She should just live as a vlogger on WeTube. Her skills didn’t seem that outstanding.

└└But she wants to be an idol, so saying that is a bit…

This post on a major online community’s entertainment board was the reason for Hyesung’s outburst.

The content was about the current status of contestants who had been eliminated from an audition program that ended a year and a half ago. Upon seeing the words ‘Na Yeonwoo’ and ‘left the company,’ Hyesung’s eyes turned.

Na Yeonwoo was the one Hyesung wanted to nurture with all her wealth, her precious (not real) daughter, her current favorite.

“Why did Yeonwoo leave the company? She was so close to debut. It must be a rumor, a fabrication….”

With trembling fingers, Hyesung checked the SNS linked in the post.

“♡Damn… It’s really Yeonwoo.”

Muttering a cute curse, Hyesung slumped to the floor. It felt like her heart had dropped to her feet.

“Why….”

Feeling desolate, Hyesung returned to the post and scrolled roughly. The refreshed screen didn’t have any particularly bad comments, but at that moment, nothing seemed right to Hyesung.

“People who know nothing should stop commenting. It’s annoying….”

Upset, Hyesung quickly moved her fingers to check the reactions on the SNS frequented by idol fans.

Recently, she had been busy and hadn’t been able to log in properly for about fifteen days. She wondered if everyone already knew. She scrolled down, thinking she might at least vent about the company with her friends.

But seeing the timeline, which was different from what she expected, made her feel even worse.

“Everyone promised to be lifelong fans of Yeonwoo….”

Understandably, her timeline was filled with photos of other idols, not shared pictures of Na Yeonwoo. It had been quite a while since Na Yeonwoo’s photos were shared.

“…I guess I’m really the only one left.”

It had been over a year since the program ended. The devoted fans who once stood by to criticize the agency and wail in agony were gone. They couldn’t endure the long period of inactivity and fell away.

About three months after Na Yeonwoo failed to make the debut group, most of her friends became online ghosts and disappeared.

Some friends held on for a few more months but eventually switched to other idols while keeping their accounts. That’s why Hyesung’s timeline was now full of pictures of other idols.

“Stupid idiots, hiding her so tightly that they couldn’t keep the fans they gathered….”

The result was Hyesung being the only one left, talking to herself about when Yeonwoo would debut, with a few sympathy hearts occasionally thrown her way.

In fact, Hyesung had already felt a sense of emptiness even before learning about Na Yeonwoo’s resignation today. Previously, she at least had comrades to endure with, but it wasn’t easy to hold on alone through the endless wait and lack of updates.

“Is this your way of telling me to give up too, Yeonwoo? Why did you leave the company, what am I supposed to do….”

Frustrated, Hyesung returned to the community post, started to write a comment, then ended up deleting it and closing the window.

“…Love is… self-harm….”

As soon as Hyesung’s eyes started to sting, warm tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Boohoo!!!”

Slumped helplessly on the floor, Hyesung began to wail. It was embarrassing to cry over an idol at 27 years old, but there was no way to stop the tears once they started.

“Yeonwoo, huuung… snort, my baby, our daughter, boohoo… What should we do, this shitty world….”

Hyesung lay on the floor, crying for a long time. Just like the day Na Yeonwoo was eliminated.

* * *

Exactly a year and six months ago, Hyesung first saw Na Yeonwoo on the idol survival audition show *Supernova Project (shortened as Supernova) Season 5: Sailing to Dream*.

Supernova Season 5 was an audition to discover a new female idol group, following the same format as the previous four seasons.

Due to this, the general audience, feeling fatigued, responded negatively even before the broadcast, saying, “I’m tired of this,” “Stop making idols.”

Hyesung felt the same way. She watched the first episode with a disinterested attitude. She didn’t intentionally plan to watch it; it was just on.

At that time, Hyesung, watching the first episode with vacant eyes, experienced her eyes lighting up the moment Na Yeonwoo appeared.

“Gasp. She’s my type.”

She thought the girl looked decent, but hearing Na Yeonwoo’s voice made her ears perk up. Whether it was love at first sight or something else, the thought of wanting to see more of her performance filled Hyesung’s mind.

“This girl is good. Her voice is nice.”

And soon enough,

“The producers are ruining my baby’s confidence!!”

The time it took to get there was short.

‘There aren’t many idols left that I can call unnie… It’s natural that most idols these days are younger than me, but seven years is a bit much….’

At first, she tried to resist liking her. Knowing that Na Yeonwoo was seven years younger made her feel strangely reverent.

But, as it often happens, feelings are uncontrollable. By the time she realized it, she was already deeply immersed, almost drowning in her affection.

‘They say it’s over once you find everything they do adorable… This is bad. I think I might go crazy

because even her breathing is cute.’

They say love strikes suddenly. It wasn’t limited to romantic feelings. A favorite idol also seems to appear out of nowhere one day.

You just couldn’t help but like this girl, support her, listen to her voice, see her smiling face, and proudly shout her name everywhere.

‘What do I do, just looking at Yeonwoo’s photo overwhelms me. Ah… I shouldn’t like her more….’

Even liking idols has its timing. Ignoring your obvious feelings only leads to regret. You have to love fully when you can to feel refreshed in the end. Hyesung, with her extensive experience as an idol fan, knew this.

“I don’t care, I’m just going to like her.”

It was simple. Just like her. There was nothing grand about it. Just follow your heart. She already liked her. Actually, she felt joy that something fun had come into her dry daily life.

Someone who was a stranger until recently became her energy, her strength to endure, flooding into her life. This feeling, experienced after a long time, approached Hyesung with pleasantness.

Having acknowledged her sudden infatuation, Hyesung started calling Na Yeonwoo “my baby” by the third episode.

“I can’t live without Yeonwoo. I want to see my baby debut before I die.”

Seeing Na Yeonwoo in the preview for the fourth episode, she began to raise a ruckus, claiming she could foresee the future, and it was inevitable that she became overly immersed in the program.

Once Hyesung began her nurturing-style fan activity, paying for unnecessary services with all her family’s accounts to get voting rights was natural, and running a GIF account for promotional purposes, despite being busy preparing for jobs, was expected.

Apparently, Hyesung’s keen eye was right. Contrary to the clumsy image she had in the beginning, Na Yeonwoo performed impressively on stage as the show progressed, eventually making it to the finals.

Throughout the broadcast, Na Yeonwoo’s rank, which hovered in the danger zone, finally entered the debut zone right before the finals, and the exhilaration Hyesung felt was sky-high. The words Hyesung (username: nyangki_new) left became a meme.

KimTueng @basasacing

Just because it’s fried doesn’t mean it’s a fritter.

Only what’s in KimTueng’s mouth is a fritter.

NyangkiNew @myfairbunny

The center isn’t just the middle.

Where Na Yeonwoo stands is the center.

Shared 3,327 times Quoted 978 times Liked 2,823 times

But Na Yeonwoo ended up being eliminated by a narrow margin of just one rank.

It was a difference of just around 700 votes.