Debut or Die

“Are you okay with this?”

I could kill him... no, I don’t even have the strength to kill.

‘You motherfucker.’

I’m lying sprawled out in VTIC’s dedicated practice room at LeTi.

Seven hours.

One of those hours was spent running choreography drills with Cheongryeo.

‘Is he insane?’

With our comeback approaching, there shouldn’t have been time to drill one performance for seven straight hours.

The best part? It’s far from over today.

He pushed me to my absolute limit—only letting me gasp for breath before sending me right back to work, like some extreme personal trainer. It was art, in a sadistic way.

‘If he’d become an instructor, he’d be rolling in cash.’

Wait—no point saying that to a guy who’s already made a fortune.

‘Does his brain even work...’

I took a deep breath.

TeSTAR isn’t a group that shies away from intense practice volume. It just meant that hitting us with this sort of all-out time siege wasn’t unusual.

But forcing unfamiliar choreography into my muscle memory this fast was something else entirely.

I couldn’t help but remember learning those rigid dance lines in for the first time at that age.

I stared up at the ceiling, still lying flat on my back.

Odd fluorescent lights were glowing above me.

‘Hmm?’

I spoke without thinking.

“Did they remodel the lighting?”

“Hm?”

Cheongryeo, pausing the track, looked puzzled.

“Well, yeah. Three years ago.”

“Oh.”

That’s when it hit me.

This wasn’t the practice room I’d spent nearly a year in.

‘That place didn’t actually exist.’

It was the ceiling from the virtual world system built for the mixed VTIC–TeSTAR group we filmed when Ryu Geon woo and I debuted together.

‘My words just slipped out.’

It seemed Cheongryeo noticed, too.

“Does it feel like when you debuted with your junior? Maybe so. I remodeled it myself.”

He launched into a ridiculous explanation: that after building it several times, a standard spec naturally emerged.

I snorted.

“Does a practice room really need efficiency?”

“Absolutely.”

If he’d figured that out, he must be ancient water—utterly stale from experience.

I realized anew that in terms of know-how and information, nobody could match him.

Hmm, indeed.

‘I thought VTIC would dip a bit after their military hiatus.’

I needed to prepare even harder.

From rookie acts benchmarking us with money to VTIC still in peak form, TeSTAR was utterly sandwiched.

‘I can’t let my guard down just because they won an award.’

I swigged water and rapidly outlined ideas for my next album.

That was when Cheongryeo sat down beside me.

“Your learning curve’s solid.”

Naturally.

“If you can’t pick it up at this stage, you should quit.”

“Ha ha.”

That laugh wasn’t amusement. He’d probably had members who couldn’t keep up before.

‘He must’ve thought they were intolerable.’

Looking at his stats panel would show it.

He’d refined his natural talent all the way to its limit. He believed in his routine completely.

So anyone who fell behind that quota wasn’t even human to him.

‘...Hmm.’

Then I had a question for the only person I could ask.

‘Keun Sejin.’

[Yes?]

“......”

He replies at lightning speed.

I’d figured he might be slow if he was on duty, but not like this.

Anyway, after some small talk, I got to the point.

‘...About those potential stats in the status panel.’

[...?? Oh, my infinite potential trait? That wasn’t given by the system but my innate ability...?]

No, that wasn’t it.

[Huh?]

‘I mean the limit stats shown next to other people’s panels.’

The numbers in parentheses that mark someone’s cap.

They measure that person’s ceiling. The very reason they could earn a living in the arts—talent.

And I wanted to know this.

‘Is there no way to surpass those limit stats?’

“......”

Silence fell, then a timid popup appeared.

[Probably...?]

Followed by an explanation: “Actually, I just changed the system so you could see it...”

So it really was a system-calculated value.

‘Hmm.’

I frowned.

Then it happened.

[Survey Available!]

“...!”

Next to Keun Sejin’s chat popup, a status panel alert suddenly appeared.

‘What the hell.’

[Help: You can customize functions via feedback surveys.]

“......”

So... it jumped out to pitch itself when my stats were mentioned? Offering to tell me what it could do?

I stared at the glowing banner.

‘Would you fall for that?’

Would you click it? I closed the popup without hesitation.

‘You’re toast once they harvest those system shards from you.’

That was the right call.

Just as I nodded to myself internally.

“You’ve rested enough. Get up now.”

“......”

I’d only been lying there for five minutes, to be precise.

‘Ha.’

I swallowed a curse and hauled myself upright.

Limit stats or not—my dance stat was still B+.

Fine. I couldn’t whine at this stage.

‘Let’s grind as far as we can.’

Let’s do it.

That night.

TeSTAR’s new dorm door opened with a limp creak.

Biri–click.

A quiet voice spoke.

“...I’m back.”

Park Mundae stepped inside, hood up.

“Oh, Mundae...??”

“......”

Lee Sejin, grabbing ingredients from the fridge to greet him, froze.

Park Mundae simply said,

“I practiced.”

What kind of practice would leave him looking like that?

He was the one who’d stayed up all night studying, who pushed through and didn’t sleep while monitoring everything.

So seeing him hang limply like a wet rag was unfamiliar—and almost solemn...

‘Wait a second.’

Lee Sejin suddenly realized what Park Mundae had been doing.

“You were practicing Cheongryeo’s feature, right?”

“Mm.”

Who asks someone to feature and then treats them like an in-house trainee?

‘Does he not know any boundaries?’

Though Park Mundae’s opinion of Cheongryeo had softened after recent events, he was still from another group—someone to be wary of. That made Lee Sejin all the more displeased.

‘I should’ve protested more.’

He threw an arm around Park Mundae’s shoulder in mock cheer.

“Mundae, Mundae~ aren’t you doing someone else a huge favor? Why work yourself to death like this?”

It was then that Bae Sejin, luxuriating in solitary confinement in the other room, quietly emerged into the living room.

“...I agree.”

“...!”

Lee Sejin was stunned.

Of all people, Bae Sejin?

“You didn’t have to, yet you did.”

Bae Sejin spoke firmly.

He genuinely disliked VTIC’s Cheongryeo.

The early-debut ambush on Park Mundae had been the decisive factor, but it wasn’t the only one.

‘Something about him was off.’

Cheongryeo’s aura was like that.

Lee Sejin had rarely talked directly to him, but observing him was enough to feel it.

Moments where he seemed devoid of emotional context—like someone without empathy.

They reminded Lee Sejin of psychopaths he’d portrayed on screen.

And someone as perceptive and sensitive as he was would notice more keenly.

That impression hadn’t faded, even considering the help they’d received in the virtual world or during the collapse.

It was a gap created by endlessly restarting over a long time—something unavoidable until he understood that.

‘Hmm.’

Lee Sejin watched Bae Sejin’s stern face, then changed the mood again.

‘No matter how serious this gets, Mundae won’t listen if I lecture him.’

Keeping it light.

“Right. Save your strength for our album, Mundae~”

“Of course.”

That’s it!

Lee Sejin cheered inwardly as Park Mundae nodded.

But Park Mundae wasn’t done speaking.

“Do it properly.”

“......”

‘Then aren’t you... no different from Kim Rae bin, who stays up all night composing?’

Before he could scold his roommate Kim Rae bin, Lee Sejin had Bae Sejin at his side to lay into.

“So, I mean, don’t overdo it!”

“Yes. Well... I did practice up to the point where it doesn’t affect my health.”

Park Mundae answered evenly.

Then muttered under his breath,

“But that pisses me off even more.”

“......?”

“Nothing.”

He assessed his own tortured body in silence, then shrugged.

“And it does help. This style of choreography is new to me. And... there’s something I’ll get in return.”

“Get?”

“Yes. There’s something I want to take from this.”

Park Mundae nodded and gave a slight smile.

It was a surprisingly satisfied expression.

“Our own-content turned out pretty fun, but it’ll be a bit less mainstream than before.”

“Hm?”

He’d decided it catered more to a niche audience—even if Ryu Seorin styled it to make it sensational.

‘Deduction takes thought, so it’s hard for light viewing.’

But to tie it into the next album’s teaser, it needed symbolic, weighty elements—moving it further from mass appeal.

‘At least it balanced it with horror elements.’

Timing it in late summer to early fall made that possible.

So he said,

“We need to nail mainstream appeal on the next album.”

Capturing both national pride and mass appeal!

Park Mundae smiled.

He had the big picture in mind.

Though he ended up sneaking off to his room after a final jab of “Just rest already,” a few days passed.

Then, at last, TeSTAR’s own content was unveiled in all its splendor.

And the day of Cheongryeo’s first live performance shoot—with Park Mundae featuring—was approaching.

VTIC’s fan community, especially Cheongryeo’s, was buzzing with energy for his solo album promotions.

Cheongryeo had booked many broadcast appearances for promotion, so there was plenty of discussion.