A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 348

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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 348

After having a fistfight like this, the usual essential course would be to sit on plastic chairs at an outdoor table near a convenience store, drinking canned beer while having a heart-to-heart conversation, but unfortunately, Hajun and I couldn’t do that.

If sasaengs lurking nearby or passersby heard our sincere conversation, rumors of Rev’s discord would immediately spread.

So the place we chose was the practice room – not a bar, not an outdoor table at a convenience store, not my studio.

Isn’t it the perfect place to recall past memories?

Although the current company building’s practice room wasn’t the place filled with those difficult memories from before debut and early debut days that we had struggled through, at least it shared the common denominator of being a practice room.

During the car ride to the agency building, heavy silence filled the interior. The only noise was the clinking sound of soju bottles we’d swept up from the mart bumping against each other inside the plastic bag.

‘Damn, should I have just drunk at the dorm living room instead?’

But having a serious conversation in the dorm living room would be awkward too, with the members obviously closing their doors and perking up their ears.

Thanks to Hajun’s reaction when he first suggested going drinking, I thought our relationship wouldn’t become awkward over just exchanging a few punches, but being alone together was damn awkward.

I drove while desperately suppressing the urge to floor the accelerator.

We finally arrived at Rev’s practice room in the agency building. When I turned on the lights, the dark practice room was illuminated.

We sat side by side with quite a few soju bottles between us, keeping some distance while leaning our backs against the mirror. The floor was cool without the heater on.

Unable to overcome the awkwardness, I had grabbed whatever soju I could find, but I didn’t realize I’d bought this much.

Hajun’s cheek that I hit had the swelling considerably reduced thanks to the ice pack that Seo Yehyeon frantically pressed against it, but the inside of my mouth that split from Hajun’s punch still throbbed when I pressed it with my tongue.

I was about to touch the wound at the corner of my mouth, then belatedly remembered I’d applied ointment and lowered my hand that had been hovering near my mouth.

Seo Yehyeon worried so much about Hajun who had just been rolling around and even personally applied an ice pack for him, but to me who had a split mouth corner and even bled, that leader bastard only nagged saying it was typical behavior. How bad must it have been for that clueless Kim Dobin to bring me ointment?

Did Seo Yehyeon inherit the spirit of favoring Hajun? I’m so upset I could die.

Noticing my hand hovering near my mouth, Hajun broke the awkward silence first with a calm question.

“Does it still hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt… wait, are you confessing that you hit me hard on purpose? Hey, I at least held back my strength when I smacked you, thinking of you.”

“That was?”

At my grumbling words, Hajun asked back with a dubious expression. If I had hit you with full power, would you be sitting here drinking and talking with me like this? You’d be at the hospital getting implant quotes.

“Are the pharmacies closed? Should I go buy some medicine for inside the mouth from a nearby pharmacy?”

“It’s fine. I can disinfect it.”

I opened a bottle of soju and chugged it straight from the bottle. When the startled Hajun looked at me, I waved my hand saying it was alcohol disinfection, and Hajun retorted asking if I was disinfecting my esophagus and stomach too.

Since I’d only bought soju and forgot to get paper cups or snacks, Hajun eventually sighed deeply and also drank soju straight from the bottle.

“But is there a particular reason for the practice room?”

Hajun’s expression had been strange ever since I mentioned the practice room, and he seemed inwardly curious about the reason since it was an unexpected place for drinking.

“It’s the optimal place for reminiscing about memories. Why, don’t you like it? Should we change to my studio?”

“No, that’s not it. When you were acting strange for those five days, you didn’t come back until dawn then either, and it turned out you were in the practice room. So I wondered if your hideout had changed from your studio to the practice room.”

“Oh, I did that?”

Was that the time? When thirty-year-old me briefly came and received some mental regression or whatever as a penalty? When Kim Dobin was going crazy about demon Eden and parallel worlds?

While opening my second bottle of soju, I unconsciously rubbed the tattoo on the inside of my arm.

I could feel that Hajun inwardly wanted to hear about what happened then, but I had no intention of telling him. Not only did I have no memory of those five days, but since Hajun wasn’t asking directly, there was no reason for me to volunteer the information.

“So… let’s first figure out where things went wrong. Starting with today’s events first.”

I tapped the practice room floor with my finger while subtly changing the subject. It was also the main point.

“I thought that since Eden was so obviously showing his displeasure every time you encountered KICKS, naturally Jung Iseo was also included in that ‘displeasure.'”

Leaning against the mirror and staring into space, Hajun let out a hollow laugh.

“When you think about it, Jung Iseo is also the culprit who made us debut at LnL. I never imagined you wouldn’t care about that at all.”

Yeah, I’m a hothead, a bastard who deserves to die. Should I bang my head against something as a sign of repentance?

“Well, thanks to that, you met the current members. Even though early Seo Yehyeon and Kim Dobin were pretty hopeless, compared to those guys who would gossip behind your back the moment things got set up, they’re better, aren’t they?”

“I’m being honest now, but even until we debuted with 【Come to My Universe】, I thought it was hopeless. I just couldn’t show it because I felt sorry for you. Hah, really, if it wasn’t for you, the next activities would have…”

Gyeon Hajun, unable to finish his words, downed the soju straight from the bottle.

“While we’re at it, I’m really curious so I’m asking, but how the hell did you end up at LnL? Honestly, I was amazed that you even found such a shitty small agency.”

I hope the system doesn’t misunderstand the pronunciation and deduct initial intention points since it’s not shitty and hell but good-so and good-na. Okay?

[Profanity detected.]

[Initial Intention -2]

The flexibility the system had installed went missing in just a few hours. Of course it did.

Gyeon Hajun hesitated for a moment, then downed more soju and borrowed the power of alcohol to spill the truth.

“…Through a relative’s introduction. The CEO and a relative on my father’s side knew each other. Since New Born was doing this to us, and there was no guarantee we could debut before it got too late if we started as trainees again somewhere else. In the midst of this, they promised to debut us within a year no matter what, so my parents were tempted.”

“Wow, so the early CEO was truly doing network management.”

This was the first time I’d heard this story, including before and after regression.

At the same time, I felt really sorry for Gyeon Hajun. Someone used connections to kick out a member from a major agency’s debut group and got slotted directly into that position, while someone else barely became LnL’s first trainee through connections at a shitty small agency.

“…That’s why I felt even more sorry toward you.”

I could understand the source of that excessive guilt Gyeon Hajun had toward me in our early debut days. It seems Gyeon Hajun thought he had unintentionally pulled a multi-level marketing scheme on me.

“I told you dozens of times. It was my choice.”

“I just, did that.”

Finishing his story like that, Gyeon Hajun also opened his second soju bottle. The soju bottle in my hand, which was also my second bottle, was gradually showing its bottom.

With my face flushed from the alcohol, I swept back my bangs and opened my mouth.

“I thought you were annoyed that I was gossiped about just like you because I showed that I was in a bad mood every time I saw those KICKS guys.”

“Didn’t I say that those guys are meaningless kids now…?”

Come to think of it, that seemed to be the case. But the reason I didn’t take those words seriously was…

“You were also blunt in how you treated Kwon Yunseong and Choi Hyeonmin. So I thought you were just saying that.”

Both Gyeon Hajun and I had completely misinterpreted each other. I clicked my tongue inwardly while blowing away the hair that had fallen on my nose bridge with a puff of breath.

“Kindness is also energy. I don’t want to waste energy on those guys.”

Gyeon Hajun, who slightly frowned, smiled bitterly. At his unexpected words, I quickly turned to look at Gyeon Hajun and let out a short exclamation.

“You seem a bit unfamiliar.”

I could clearly see Gyeon Hajun hesitate, so I added.

“It’s a compliment.”

The maturity of Gyeon Hajun that I had admired was peeled back a layer when Gyeon Hajun gritted his teeth and punched me in the face.

“Being honest like this clears up misunderstandings and it’s good.”

I reached out and patted Gyeon Hajun’s shoulder while chuckling.

“Parachute, for me, had more meaning as an internal whistleblower. I also thought it was probably adult circumstances. If I had known you came in knowing that, would I have given that bastard songs or would I have cursed him out?”

I said a word to Gyeon Hajun, who was looking at me with a complicated expression.

“Hey, you’re the only person who rates my perceptiveness that highly.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. Just looking at how Seo Yehyeon and Ryu Jaehee treat me, isn’t it obvious that my perceptiveness level starts at F? Only Gyeon Hajun thought it was A+.

“Still, thank you for telling me first what you were disappointed in me about.”

After experiencing Gyeon Hajun from before the regression, who ultimately cut me off without ever telling me, even though this Gyeon Hajun had made me look like a fool, the fact that he told me afterward made him seem admirable by comparison.

I downed the remaining soju in one gulp, set the empty bottle aside, then opened the third soju bottle and moved on to the next topic.

“During the DTB finals, what you said to me. What did that mean?”

“That you don’t know what you think of me?”

Gyeon Hajun must have remembered it too, as he answered immediately.

“So you really didn’t answer because you genuinely didn’t understand what the question meant…”

“You have to tell me for me to know. Jun, people don’t know unless you tell them.”

When I called him as usual, Gyeon Hajun showed signs of relief for some reason. He squinted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders as he corrected himself.

“Right, not ‘people’ – at least I don’t.”

I just told you. You’re the only person who overestimates my ability to read situations like that.

Gyeon Hajun let out a deep sigh and spoke slowly.

“You tried so hard not to burden me excessively. That actually made it feel like you weren’t completely comfortable with me. Did you really need to so desperately make me understand why I had to feature on that stage? Just one simple sentence would have been enough.”

Saying he didn’t know it would turn out so badly, Gyeon Hajun gulped down the soju he was holding. The voting results for the stage he featured on must have been quite shocking.

It would have been fine if we just enjoyed the performance, why worry about the results too? I won anyway.

“Ah, so that’s what bothered you. There won’t be any more situations like that from now on.”

Now that I knew the decisive reason for Gyeon Hajun and my falling out before the regression, the trial version of being Yoon Eden was finally over.

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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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