A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 363

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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 Original Intent Episode 363

“Hyung! You’re not dead, right? Why were you underwater for so long! You scared me!”

Kim Dobin, who had been making a fuss while pulling me up, quietly let go of my neck as soon as he made eye contact with me frowning due to my throbbing head.

I looked at Kim Dobin, who held about 35% of the blame for getting caught by Cha Yeonho, then lightly ruffled his hair and spoke reproachfully.

“I’m not dead yet, you punk.”

I had about 6 or 7 years left to live, they said. Though I don’t know why I died.

Coming out of the water, I caught the towel Seo Yehyeon threw at me mid-air and vigorously dried my hair. As my head cooled down, my thoughts became more organized than before.

I sat on the edge of the sunbed, tapping it with my fingers while recalling Cha Yeonho’s words.

The deal Cha Yeonho would propose was obvious. Just like before the regression, if KJ’s wrongdoings fell into my hands, he’d want me to bury them.

It seemed Cha Yeonho firmly believed I wanted to find the manipulated memories. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely uninterested.

If it was an accidental death, I could at least prepare for when, why, and how I’d die. If it was illness, I could get thorough health checkups.

But if Cha Yeonho found a way, couldn’t I find it too?

And before, the system had said if I wanted to find the manipulated memories, I should achieve the essential conditions.

Anyway, it meant a method existed. I had no intention of making an unfair deal with Cha Yeonho just to learn that one thing.

If he realized he couldn’t manipulate me with that, Cha Yeonho would try to make me withdraw by pinning some kind of disgrace on me.

‘Or bring down the whole group.’

If that happened, I’d regress to debut again anyway, so it wouldn’t end my or the members’ entertainment careers, but it was infuriating that things would go according to Cha Yeonho’s will.

However, what I needed to know was this.

From what Cha Yeonho said, it seemed he hadn’t regressed just once, but had he also been involved in those short regressions I experienced in the very beginning?

And was my withdrawal really Cha Yeonho’s regression condition? If not, what exactly was the precise regression condition?

This incident was my fault. My fault for underestimating and looking down on Cha Yeonho too much.

He looked so stupid with all his fumbling that I thought his intelligence was even lower than mine. I should have known he was better than me.

To think I had to start a battle of wits with someone who seemed quicker than me, trying to extract information without giving away my own. This was a fight in my most vulnerable area, when physical confrontation would be much easier for me.

This was Ryu Jaehee’s specialty, but I couldn’t tell Ryu Jaehee about such surreal, pie-in-the-sky stories, so…

As I sighed deeply enough to make the ground cave in, Gyeon Hajun, who handed me a drink, plopped down on the mat beside the sunbed and asked.

“Did you get some bad news from Korea?”

Bad news from Korea was steadily coming in, enough to make me regret using roaming.

For example, Hyeongjin nagging me about whether I went on vacation when the DTB concert was just days away, even though we didn’t have any duet songs together.

Or Jiwon hyung and Skoen hyung gently coaxing me to release a solo song to preview at the concert while we were at it.

Or Yongcheol hyung constantly grilling me to come up with five more ideas as he kept expanding his ambitions for the 【Graffiti-Masterpiece】 collaboration stage.

Or Gongchul and BQ9 sending 10-20 second beats asking “How about this?” or “How about that?” every time they made remix beats, saying let’s do a remix version of 【LOST part. 1】 that we sang with the team producers at the concert.

I had definitely handled all the major issues before leaving for Rev’s vacation, and even declared temporary closure while in Hawaii, but whether it was because the winner title was that significant, or because I was too competent, everyone kept looking for me.

“Yeah, but nothing urgent enough that I need to go back to Korea right away.”

Since there was no need to tell Gyeon Hajun about the situation with Cha Yeonho, I just gave an appropriate answer to the question he had asked.

Whether Cha Yeonho had truly lost his mind momentarily or spoke under thorough calculation with ulterior motives, he was mistaken if he thought I’d treat Gyeon Hajun awkwardly after hearing those words.

Looking at my funeral photo, the memories from before our estrangement must have been too painful, making him feel like he couldn’t stay any longer.

However, from Cha Yeonho’s words, I could infer that we never reconciled in the end.

Cha Yeonho criticized Gyeon Hajun, saying he had guarded KJ’s funeral hall for three whole days, but there’s no way Cha Yeonho would have cut ties with KJ. Don’t you understand the special circumstances? Huh?

Still, no matter how much he hated the sight of me, he could have at least offered a single chrysanthemum before leaving, damn it.

Now I lightly clicked my tongue and cursed at the past Gyeon Hajun who had been nothing more than regret or lingering attachment left behind in the pre-regression past that I no longer particularly missed, then cleanly cast him away.

Anyway, as long as I found out the cause of death, there was no way I would die at thirty, so Gyeon Hajun’s one-minute condolence visit was as good as nonexistent.

Besides, the current Gyeon Hajun didn’t seem like he would do a one-minute run to my funeral hall anyway.

“Hey, we don’t have many days left staying in Hawaii, so where should we go for dinner?”

“Somewhere with food that won’t make us gain weight.”

“How persistent.”

I shook my head at Seo Yehyeon, who had been consistently showing the same attitude from day one to day five of Hawaii.

“But hyung, have you been staring at your phone all day since coming to Hawaii? What exactly are you looking at so intently?”

From the airplane to arriving in Hawaii, Seo Yehyeon had been glued to his phone the whole time.

If he had been giggling while looking at his phone like Kim Dobin who showed similar patterns, I would have assumed he was watching some interesting subculture content, but Seo Yehyeon’s expression as he swiped through his phone screen was far too serious.

Sometimes he would mutter something while looking at the screen.

“What do you mean what. I’m studying.”

Seo Yehyeon replied curtly.

“What kind of studying? Don’t tell me rap studying…? Are you really going on DTB 5? I’m not affiliated with a label so I couldn’t even get a producer offer for next season. You can’t give me a free pass, hyung.”

“What nonsense are you talking about! Why would I go on that show!”

Seo Yehyeon screamed in horror. Seeing the sincerity filling his face, it seemed DTB 5 appearance wasn’t it.

“Youngest! Bring Doby out!”

“Yes!”

I got up while watching Ryu Jaehee drag out Kim Dobin, who was splashing around in the seawater like a fish in water.

Should I ask Kim Dobin to recommend a web novel with two smart regressors and try reading it?

* * *

After Yoon Eden left with a scornful laugh telling him to wake up from his dream, Cha Yeonho gritted his teeth and buried his face in his palms in the hotel room left alone.

He had been stupid.

His heart was too impatient, so the moment he saw Yoon Eden’s face, the words asking him to quit automatically came out. If he had known a little earlier, he would have somehow tried to salvage the situation, but now it was too late to handle it alone.

Kwon Jeongjun didn’t know that it would be the trigger to drag himself and Altair into the abyss. So he would have chosen to hide it rather than confess to him.

He had no choice but to somehow persuade Yoon Eden who would light the fuse and set it off, or make him quit so that he could regress.

Since he had finally found that person who was like a fuse, that incident, after erasing and erasing and erasing, regression might be a cleaner way to handle things.

“Ha, talking like it’s been 60 years. It’s so absurd.”

Cha Yeonho let out an irritated sneer, recalling Yoon Eden’s legendary misunderstanding and nonsense that was like pouring cold water on his head.

Had he gone to confirm with his own eyes whether he was really dead, or had he gone to mock him saying that after trampling on others while pretending to be such a righteous crusader, he had finally died too? Perhaps because too much time had passed, he couldn’t remember.

Cha Yeonho deliberately swallowed the story of how Gyeon Hajun had left the funeral hall back then in front of Yoon Eden.

It would be great if he misunderstood and distanced himself like back then. Such resentments would pile up and accumulate, making it perfect for him to jump out of Rev on his own feet just like he had done until now.

Since it was hard to suppress his pleasant laughter at seeing that sight, he had also left the funeral hall right after, so whether Gyeon Hajun came back again or didn’t come for all three days wasn’t his concern.

Until he saw that farce, he had thought he envied Gyeon Hajun. Him, who had so coldly cut off his friend.

“Still, I’m the bigger fool.”

Cha Yeonho muttered cynically and self-deprecatingly.

‘I should also look into how to end the regression. Would it be enough if Yoon Eden just doesn’t quit the team? What if death is also part of that condition along with quitting?’

The first regression that was the only one to deviate from the formula of one month after quitting. He had to dig into that. And also when the cycle that Yoon Eden remembered was.

He paused mid-motion as he was about to let out a habitual sigh.

Meeting someone for the first time who he could openly confess this regression fact to without being treated like a lunatic made his heart feel surprisingly light, as if the weight that had always pressed down on him like a rock had been lifted.

Even the members he truly cherished and relied on didn’t believe him and looked at him like he had mental problems.

If only his opponent wasn’t Yoon Eden, he would have grabbed him and poured out all the resentment he had been holding back for so long.

“What a fucking shitty act…”

The lowered danger level. The world that had regained its original colors. Thanks to that, he could clearly see the face of that damn bastard who was shamelessly deceiving him with such pathetic schemes.

That’s why even though he had found Reve’s regressor, Cha Yeonho wasn’t happy at all.

* * *

Although we were staying at the same hotel on the same floor, except for encountering Altair members in the elevator, we didn’t run into Altair even by chance during our vacation.

So I wondered if I had been dreaming. Meeting Cha Yeonho, and Cha Yeonho finding out that I was a regressor – maybe it was all just a pipe dream.

But even when I tried to escape reality like that, the text message Cha Yeonho had sent me remained as clear evidence, so I couldn’t even do that.

We encountered the Altair members again the day before we were supposed to leave for Korea.

The Altair members were all dragging their suitcases toward the elevator, apparently returning to Korea a day earlier than us.

We exchanged awkward greetings and I glanced over Cha Yeonho and KJ. The two were standing far apart, apparently still in a cold war.

“Want me to give you some advice?”

Breaking the silence, Cha Yeonho spoke up. I looked at him with slightly furrowed brows, wondering what kind of cryptic nonsense he was going to spout now, and Cha Yeonho continued.

“You’d better get plane tickets for today somehow and leave Hawaii.”

“Huh? We still have one more day left though?”

At Kim Dobin’s response, already overflowing with reluctance to leave, Cha Yeonho shrugged and stepped into the arrived elevator first with his characteristic smile.

After all the Altair members boarded the elevator and it departed, Kim Dobin grabbed onto me desperately.

“Hyung, you’re not going to fall for words like that, right?”

At that earnest question that matched the desperation in his eyes, I ruffled Kim Dobin’s hair roughly and replied.

“Getting plane tickets on the same day would be a headache.”

No matter how simple-minded I am, do you think I’d fall for your schemes, Cha Yeonho? I was already keeping in mind that you’re trying to bring down me and my whole group. If you thought you could cause a physical crash, you’re mistaken. But wait, was there an aviation accident around this time…?

Right, the fact that there was no aviation accident could also be memory manipulation!

[N]

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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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