A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 183
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Regression Guide for Idols Who Lost Their Initial Intentions Episode 183
“Our five brothers have gathered together after such a long time. How long has it been since we’ve all been together like this?”
“Ten minutes, probably.”
“No meta commentary! It’s been ten years since we’ve all gathered like this! Eden Hyung left home ten years ago.”
Ryu Jaehee hurriedly covered for the thoughtless words I had blurted out.
“It seems like Eden Hyung, our third eldest brother, has lost all his memories from the past ten years due to the painful agony of bone-deep failure. I can tell because he shortened ten years to ten minutes.”
Kim Dobin pretended to wipe away tears.
“I remember you borrowing 5 million won from me ten years ago.”
“It doesn’t seem like this hyung lost just ten years of memories? Looks like he lost even more?”
“No. It wasn’t lost, it was manipulated. Actually, Eden Hyung wasn’t making music but was dragged to some mysterious laboratory and—”
“Hey, don’t add more to the setting here. It’s already too much as it is.”
“But we’ve all gathered after ten years, so what are we doing today?”
“It’s Chuseok, so we should perform ancestral rites.”
Gyeon Hajun read the words written in the script. Though calling it a script was generous—it was just a list of things to do during filming.
“But we all have different ancestors.”
“That’s meta commentary.”
Kim Dobin pointed out Seo Yehyeon’s sharp observation.
“No, but still, ancestral rites are ceremonies held on holidays for our ancestors, so isn’t it a bit strange to set up a ritual table without ancestors to honor?”
“Then let’s set up an ancestral table for CEO Kim Nodam, who’s like a father to our agency LnL…”
“Why would you set up a ritual table for a living CEO? This guy’s saying something that’ll cause big trouble.”
I cut off Kim Dobin’s nonsense at an appropriate point. Gyeon Hajun came up with a clear solution.
“Let’s just set it up first, and each of us can bow to our own ancestors. That should work.”
“Wow, we’re brothers but we each have separate ancestors.”
“Here’s the list of ancestral rite dishes we need to make today.”
Gyeon Hajun smoothly slid a paper with the food list toward the center.
-Rice
-Meat pancakes
-Meatballs
-Pollack pancakes
-Meat skewers
-Seasoned bracken
-Seasoned bellflower root
-Soup
-Steamed pomfret
Ryu Jaehee, who had been looking at the food list with a fed-up expression, let out a deep sigh. It was a sigh that came from the heart, not acting.
Come to think of it, didn’t he say before that he hated ritual food?
Seo Yehyeon, who was scanning the food list beside him, narrowed his eyes and asked.
“No fried food? For an ancestral table?”
At those words, everyone turned to look at Seo Yehyeon. Receiving all the attention, Seo Yehyeon blinked in confusion.
“Why would fried food go on a ritual table? We put pancakes on it.”
“Fried food doesn’t go on ritual tables? I always fried food on holidays and memorial days.”
“Wow, this is really news to me.”
Ryu Jaehee, who had been frantically searching something on his phone, held up the screen to show us.
“Ah, they do put fried food in Gyeongnam? Right, Yehyeon Hyung’s hometown is Gyeongnam.”
“Another meta comment came out.”
“That’s right, we do put fried food! But is it only the Gyeongnam area that does that? Do you guys really not put fried food?”
After the whole fried food commotion passed.
I sprawled out on the sofa, watching the youngest line return to acting mode and faithfully continue their banter according to their concepts.
The unemployed bum concept is nice.
“Doby, go get me a cool glass of water.”
“Test? Test? Ahhh! The nightmare of failing tests…!”
Kim Dobin had been handling the word “si” just fine until now, but when I asked him to bring water, he was faithfully maintaining his concept of freaking out at just hearing the “si” sound. I couldn’t say anything since it was a setting I wrote.
Ryu Jaehee, wearing an apron and holding a spatula in one hand, stood in front of me and forcibly pulled me up from the sofa.
“Hyung, stop lying around and come help make pancakes.”
“No way. An unemployed bum who failed at music doesn’t know how to do that stuff.”
“Your concept is unemployed bum, not neighborhood fool, you know?”
Even when I shook my head, Ryu Jaehee showed no mercy. Forcibly wearing an apron, I stared blankly at the pancake ingredients placed in front of me.
The labor-intensive meatballs and meat skewers were Seo Yehyeon and Gyeon Hajun’s responsibility, while the relatively less labor-intensive meat pancakes and pollack pancakes were mine and Ryu Jaehee’s.
Kim Dobin was diligently seasoning vegetables beside us.
“But youngest, you can’t cook. Wouldn’t it be better to have Doby make the pancakes and you season the vegetables?”
“I’m really confident with pancakes.”
As if to prove his words, while I made two pancakes, Ryu Jaehee easily made five.
His technique of thoroughly coating both sides of the meat with pancake mix, dipping it once in beaten egg, then placing it on the pan was truly that of a professional.
“Wow, how can you be bad at cooking but good at making pancakes?”
“I’ve been doing it since I was little, to the point of being sick of it.”
Ryu Jaehee chuckled seeing me peek at my pancakes every ten seconds to check if the egg was cooked.
“Hyung, you look like you’ve never done this before.”
“Yeah, I really never have. My paternal grandmother hates the smell of oil in the house, so my paternal family buys all the ritual food, and my maternal family is Christian so they don’t hold ancestral rites.”
“I’m jealous. I used to hate performing ancestral rites so much that I begged my parents to let me go to church.”
Kim Dobin, who was chewing on a bracken stem while supposedly tasting for seasoning, shouted.
“You two over there! No meta commentary!”
“Please edit this out.”
I said dryly while making scissor motions with my hand.
Ryu Jaehee, who quickly finished making the meat and pollack pancakes, disappeared from in front of me, saying he was going to help with the meatballs and meat skewers.
Once we finished making all the most labor-intensive pancakes, everything after that was smooth sailing.
“Wait, for ancestral tables, do you peel both the top and bottom of fruits, or just the top?”
“Just the top. And place them in odd numbers.”
“When placing food on the table, isn’t there something like red east white west?”
“Red east white west, jujube chestnut pear persimmon, fish east meat west. Red fruits go east, white fruits go west. We can pass on jujube chestnut pear persimmon since we don’t have chestnuts and jujubes, but fish east meat west—fish goes east, meat goes west. And row 1 is rice and soup, row 2 is pancakes, row 3 is vegetables, row 4 is fruits.”
“Can’t we just place them roughly…?”
“Ryu Jae, but which way is east?”
“The direction where hyung is standing now.”
Ryu Jaehee was practically an automated response system for ancestral rites. There was no need to search the internet.
While we were busy setting the table, chicken and pizza entered the hanok studio.
“What? Who ordered chicken and pizza?”
“I ordered them. After hearing what the youngest said, I thought our ancestors might want to eat special food too.”
“Wow, Doby’s ancestors are living it up today.”
“It’s getting hard to even point out meta commentary now…”
Kim Dobin tried to put the pizza and chicken on the ancestral table but gave up immediately when he saw there was no space.
We bowed in front of the somehow completed ancestral table.
Sounds of suppressed laughter could be heard from all directions, as if everyone found this situation absurd—setting up an ancestral table on a day that wasn’t even Chuseok and gathering to bow to our respective ancestors.
After roughly finishing the bowing, we all sat around the ancestral table.
“Today has another meaning besides Chuseok.”
Seo Yehyeon, who sat at the head of the table as the only eldest son responsible for his family, spoke with a serious expression.
At that signal from Seo Yehyeon, I exchanged glances with Gyeon Hajun and put my hand in my pocket.
Kim Dobin quietly got up, saying he was going to the bathroom, and headed toward the sofa. More precisely, toward the box hidden under the sofa with outerwear.
“That’s right, it’s the birthday of Yuje, the youngest member of Rev, my favorite idol!”
That’s right, today was also Ryu Jaehee’s birthday.
Ryu Jaehee covered his mouth as fireworks exploded on both sides and a cake was thrust in front of him. They had successfully fooled the quick-witted youngest member with a surprise camera.
“Wait, so Yuje’s birthday is on Chuseok?”
“Hey hey, change the setting to say we’re celebrating his lunar calendar birthday. This is going to air during Chuseok.”
“Ugh, please refrain from meta commentary!”
Anyway, since the setting here was that we weren’t idols, we had no choice but to go with the concept of celebrating idol group Rev’s Yuje’s birthday rather than youngest member Ryu Jaehee’s birthday.
“Happy birthday! Happy birthday! Happy birthday to our beloved Yuje!”
Ryu Jaehee blew out the candles with a whoosh and wiped his teary eyes with his sleeve as he spoke.
“Wow, I really never imagined this. Having my, no, Yuje’s birthday party here. I thought we’d only do something like having a late-night snack?”
“Hey, youngest, are you a Yuje fan too? Why are you crying with emotion when we’re having Yuje’s birthday party?”
“But honestly, there was also the fact that I couldn’t predict it because we didn’t make seaweed soup but made clear soup instead. If the soup had been seaweed soup, I would have caught on right away.”
“That’s why I prepared this in case you’d be disappointed. Instead of seaweed soup, it’s cold cucumber soup with seaweed.”
Gyeon Hajun slid a bowl of cold cucumber soup in front of Ryu Jaehee.
The seasoned vegetables and rice cakes were cleared away completely, and chicken and pizza appeared on the table.
Ryu Jaehee, looking at the ritual table that had somehow transformed into a birthday table, gave his honest impression.
“Receiving a ritual table as a birthday table, this feels really strange.”
“Meta commentary.”
We all started eating together. Ryu Jaehee didn’t touch a single piece of the jeon we had worked so hard to make and only picked at the chicken and pizza.
Since I knew he detested ritual food, it was awkward to tell him not to be picky and eat everything.
After finishing our satisfying meal, dishwashing time arrived.
Seo Yehyeon, who lost at rock paper scissors, almost got stuck with all the dishwashing alone, but he slipped away like an eel using the setting.
Thanks to that, Kim Dobin and I were the dishwashing winners.
Next on the script was holiday games.
“When it comes to holidays, it’s got to be yut game, obviously.”
“Hey, who plays yut game when they gather for holidays these days?”
I scoffed dismissively and stood up abruptly to lay out what’s called a hwatu blanket. Seo Yehyeon urgently called out to me.
“Hey, wait! Yoon Eden, wait! Even if you’re being too faithful to the concept, gambling is a bit…”
“No, wait. Hyung, this will get censored and cut from our broadcast. There’s no way Go and Stop can appear on TV.”
“Who said anything about playing Go-Stop?”
I pulled out trump cards and spread them out with a flourish.
“Isn’t this gambling too?”
“Of course there are countless gambling games you can play with these trump cards. But One Card isn’t gambling.”
I shuffled the trump cards with flashy hand movements and smiled at the camera.
“Our complies with broadcast standards.”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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