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

Chapter 11

[Increase your choreography proficiency! Register choreography in ‘Master of Dance’ and fill the proficiency by more than 1%.]

[Reward upon success: 1 chance on the Lucky Roulette]

‘A chance, not a guaranteed reward? It sounds like a trash reward… But Master of Dance… What is that, you punk? It sounds suspiciously similar to that drum-beating game.’

[Check ‘Jukebox’ and ‘Master of Dance’.]

‘Jukebox? What’s with this naming sense? It feels like it’s from someone older than me.’

[Check ‘Jukebox’ and ‘Master of Dance’.]

‘Ah, yes, yes. Jukebox.’

[Jukebox]

[Registered Song List: 1]

[Do you want to check?]

[Yes / No]

‘Yes.’

[Registered Song List]

[Love is… Lilac Scent (Proficiency: 67%)]

“Huh? I had something like this?”

“Unnie, what’s wrong? Do you need help with something?”

Na Yeonwoo, who was practicing choreography a bit farther away, reacted as Hyesung unknowingly voiced her thoughts aloud.

“Oh? No, just continue what you’re doing. I’ll tell you after you’re done.”

“…Okay.”

Na Yeonwoo tilted her head in confusion and then focused back on her task.

Pretending to watch the choreography video on her tablet, Hyesung opened the window again.

‘Master of Dance.’

[Master of Dance]

[Registered Choreography List: (-)]

‘As expected.’

It seemed like choreography was automatically registered when performed on stage, but otherwise, songs or choreography had to be registered manually.

[Do you want to register choreography?]

[Yes / No]

‘Yes… But how do I register it?’

[Registering choreography…]

[Syncing with the user’s brain…]

[Progress… 12%… 28%…]

‘What, what is this? It’s directly connecting to my brain?’

From the registration method, it seemed that choreography couldn’t be registered without knowing it.

Hyesung felt uneasy about the brain-linking method, but since she had memorized the choreography for this song, she wasn’t worried about failing the registration.

[…100%. Registration successful!]

[Choreography has been registered.]

[Chance! (Proficiency: 0%)]

‘So, how do I increase this proficiency now?’

The status window sometimes acted like a broken AI speaker, not responding, and it was currently getting on Hyesung’s nerves.

‘This jerk only pops out when it wants to. Damn, really f-ing annoying. #@&!@#….’

She spewed out a string of curses in her frustration due to the random trash traits and felt a bit better afterward.

‘…Anyway, so it means I just have to learn it physically.’

Hyesung clicked her tongue in disappointment at not finding any buff and stood up.

“I’ve memorized all the choreography too.”

“What?”

“Pardon?”

Na Yeonwoo and Lim Yae-in, startled by the unbelievable statement, turned their heads toward Hyesung with wide eyes.

“Well, I roughly memorized the moves.”

“Unnie did…?”

“Hyesung, are you a Mensa member or something?”

“No, but I just memorized it.”

“Unnie! Really?”

Na Yeonwoo looked at Hyesung with shining eyes, as if she found her impressive.

“But I only memorized it mentally, not physically, so it’s practically like a blank slate.”

Hyesung scratched her head awkwardly.

“Yeonwoo, let’s practice together. Can you help me out?”

Hyesung smiled broadly at Na Yeonwoo, or rather, at the status window floating next to her.

[Na Yeonwoo (18 years old / Female)]

Visual ★★★★

Vocal ★☆

Dance ★★☆↑

Star Quality ★★

The arrow next to Na Yeonwoo’s dance stat blinked and then leveled up. It seemed her stat had increased while learning the choreography in the practice room.

‘Now, Yeonwoo has the highest dance stat among us. If she works hard as the class F leader, she’ll gain narrative and improve her rank.’

“Everyone, gather around. Yeonwoo and Yae-in unnie have memorized the choreography and will teach us!”

At Hyesung’s shout, the 17 trainees scattered around gathered in one place.

“Oh, right! We also need to pick a class president, so one of you two should do it.”

“Yeah, we were told to choose a class president.”

“Didn’t Yeonwoo say her position was dance? She should do it!”

“Yae-in unnie is also a dancer.”

When Hyesung subtly hinted, the trainees started voicing their opinions.

“Yeonwoo, do you want to do it? You seem to pick up choreography faster than me.”

“Well… should I? Does anyone else want to?”

No one did. Na Yeonwoo ended up becoming the class president by default.

‘Heh heh. As planned. Now I just need to focus on my own bowl.’

Hyesung smiled slyly and felt a burning determination inside.

* * *

“Unnie, from there you have to go to Woniena.”

“What’s ‘Woniena’ again?”

“It’s the beat count I explained earlier…”

“Sorry…”

“Let’s try again.”

Led by the newly appointed class president Na Yeonwoo, class F had been tirelessly learning the choreography since yesterday. Although their accuracy was low, they were all trainees who had received training, so except for one or two, they roughly memorized the first verse.

But Hyesung was different. Even though she had memorized the choreography long ago, she still struggled.

“Unnie, you keep missing the beat. Even if your moves are wrong, focus on keeping the beat.”

“Sorry. I’m trying, but it’s not working as I want.”

Hyesung replied sheepishly, sweating profusely. She felt bad for taking up Na Yeonwoo’s practice time since everyone else had already started their individual practice.

“Yeonwoo, I’ll practice alone for now, so you should do your own practice. We have to do a live evaluation, so you need to practice singing too.”

“But…”

Yeonwoo’s expression seemed to say that her unnie was too much of a mess.

“Let’s meet again in an hour. We’ll practice together as a group later. If I really don’t get it, I’ll ask Yae-in unnie too.”

“Okay. But if you don’t understand something, you have to ask, alright?”

Na Yeonwoo reluctantly stepped away from Hyesung.

‘Ah, why isn’t this working.’

[Choreography Chance! (Proficiency 0.47%)]

She thought 1% would be quick, but after nearly 10 hours of practice since last night, she hadn’t even reached that.

‘It feels like I’d have to do this forever to reach 100%. Forever…’

About 20 minutes into her solo practice, the door to the practice room opened.

“Guys, how’s it going?”

It was the dance trainer, Kang Min Gook.

“Hello!”

“Okay, let’s see how far you’ve gotten.”

“We’ve learned up to the first verse…”

The trainees of class F ended their sentence without much confidence.

“Let’s see where you are. President, stand at the front.”

Na Yeonwoo nervously took the center spot at the front.

“Alright, start.”

After watching class F’s dance, Kang Min Gook sifted through the papers he brought with a subtle expression.

“Yeonwoo.”

“Yes.”

“And Yae-in and Min Kyung.”

“Yes.”

“You guys are too good to be in class F, but you made a lot of mistakes in the class evaluation. Right?”

“Yes…”

“To move up in the re-evaluation, what do you need to do?”

After giving a brief lecture, Kang Min Gook shifted his gaze to Hyesung.

“Hyesung, Yeongbin, and Rurika. Come forward.”

Feeling doomed, Hyesung stepped forward.

“You know why you’re being called, right? You three, show me.”

The three worst performers had been called out.

Hyesung, relieved that she wasn’t alone, focused and danced.

“Hyesung, it seems like you’re finally getting it together.”

‘Is this a compliment or an insult?’

It was somewhere between a compliment and a jab.

“Almost everything is wrong, but it’s a tiny bit better. Like you’re just starting to walk on two legs.”

‘So, was I crawling before?’

“Alright, let’s do it together. You three at the front.”

Kang Min Gook danced while closely monitoring the trainees’ movements through the mirror.

“No, Hyesung! Focus! Are you going to keep making the same mistake?”

“You’re slow! Stop being floppy with your arms!”

“Hit the moves sharply! Again!”

He spoke loudly and sternly to the Korean trainees, whereas,

“Rurika, let’s be more confident.”

“Angela, you did well, but make sure to finish the moves precisely.”

He spoke gently to the foreign trainees.

‘He’s only harsh on us.’

“If you make mistakes tomorrow, you’re done. Practice properly, got it?”

After an hour of choreography guidance, Kang Min Gook left the practice room with a final word.

‘I won’t mess up again just to avoid more scolding.’

Feeling a bit wronged, Hyesung dove back into practice.

* * *

“Huueeeng, Rurika can’t do it!”

A cry erupted from the corner of the practice room after a while.

“Yeonwoo-chan, help me~!”

Turning her head, Hyesung saw a trainee with her hair tied in pigtails running towards Na Yeonwoo, pretending to cry.

Fortunately, Na Yeonwoo, with her earphones in, hadn’t noticed yet.

“Hey, Rurika. Yeonwoo needs to practice individually too. She couldn’t because she was helping us earlier. Ask Yae-in unnie.”

Hyesung stopped Rurika.

“Rurika likes Yeonwoo-chan! I want Yeonwoo-chan to keep helping me!”

Huh? Is she crazy? Does she think Yeonwoo is her personal tutor? Hyesung chuckled at the absurdity.

“First, you should memorize the moves and then ask for help. You’re the only one who can’t even remember the introduction.”

“Hueeeng! Hyesung! That’s too mean! Rurika wants to memorize but can’t!”

“If you can’t memorize and go to Yeonwoo, will you magically memorize it?”

Hyesung held back the urge to call her a blockhead, swallowing her words due to the other trainees watching her.

“Anyway! Yeonwoo is busy now. You need to memorize the choreography first.”

“…Fine.”

Pouting, Rurika picked up her tablet.

Amamiya Rurika. Among the F-class trainees, she was definitely the top of the blockheads, surpassing even Hyesung.

‘Despite her being like that, I’m the one who got scolded.’

The unfairness of harsher treatment for Korean trainees had been a longstanding tradition since season 1.

Especially the lenient treatment of Japanese trainees who lagged far behind in skills made Hyesung, as a viewer, furious.

Season 5 had three Japanese trainees in total. The other two had spent a long time in Korea, were well-adapted, and didn’t particularly stand out in a bad way, but Rurika was different.

‘She’s tone-deaf, has no sense of rhythm, lacks willpower, and just whines. Who would vote for her?’

Surprisingly, quite a few people did. Moreover, Rurika’s fanbase was quite aggressive, practically cyberbullies.

The members were a group commonly referred to as ‘Japanophiles.’

They liked Rurika solely because she was Japanese. They didn’t particularly like the other Japanese trainees who had become too Koreanized.

They crazily hyped Rurika because they believed she embodied their ideal image of a Japanese girl. This was quite an insult to Rurika herself.

‘If it were any other trainee, I might understand, but Rurika was the core of the foreign trainee fanbase. Damn Japanophiles…’

Not all fans of Japanese trainees or members were part of this group. Only those who obsessively bashed Koreans and Korean trainees to elevate the Japanese were considered part of it.

Having been stung by them too much during her time with Lunestar, Hyesung wanted to avoid any further involvement with them.

‘I need to escape from class F quickly and avoid Rurika too.’