A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 41

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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 41

If that’s the case, then it’s quite a useful reward.

I hesitated while trying to open the cap of the water bottle.

If it were any other time, I would have downed it immediately, but right now there was one more sick person.

Faced with this choice, I stared down at the bottle, lost in thought.

Should I drink it myself to remove the damn time bomb the system planted and prevent the misfortune of dying before the average human life expectancy?

Or should I give it to the guy who caught the flu two days before our comeback and might not recover by tomorrow, ensuring our activities aren’t disrupted?

From a short-sighted perspective, the latter would be right, but thinking long-term, I should really consider my own body…

[This is a coughing up blood penalty that won’t harm your body!]

Just tell me outright to give it to Gyeon Hajun.

I clicked my tongue and carelessly tossed the water bottle onto the car seat.

When we arrived at the hospital where Gyeon Hajun was admitted, I stopped Kim Dobin from getting out of the car.

“You go back to the dormitory. Don’t catch it too for no reason.”

Before opening the door and getting out, Kim Dobin suddenly grabbed my arm.

There’s only one bottle of item potion, you know? If you catch the flu too and fall ill, it’ll be troublesome, so please don’t be stubborn and just go back to the dormitory.

When I frowned deeply, Kim Dobin immediately let go and politely held out a beverage box.

“No, that’s not it… I was telling you to take the beverage set…”

“Just leave it at the dormitory.”

Anyway, Gyeon Hajun would be discharged today, so one panacea potion or whatever was enough as a hospital visit gift.

“They say it’s not proper etiquette to visit someone empty-handed.”

“Yeah, I’ll be the rude one then.”

I replied indifferently, grabbed the panacea Sam-X water bottle, and opened the car door.

It was too bothersome to explain everything in detail, and even I thought the whole panacea thing lacked credibility, so I decided to just be the guy with terrible character.

I strode over to Gyeon Hajun, who was lying on an emergency room bed with an IV drip, and Seo Yehyeon, who was sitting beside him.

“Whoa, what? Are doppelgangers wandering around these days?”

Seo Yehyeon looked up at me in shock. I looked down at him with disdain and said,

“What are you talking about? Did you catch it from Kim Dobin?”

“I definitely heard about two hours ago that you were taken away in a 119 ambulance and hospitalized? Is it possible for a person to recover in just two hours?”

“Nothing was wrong, so I got IV fluids and just got discharged. Though I’m not completely recovered yet.”

Sleep deprivation can be fixed by sleeping well for about a day, and nutritional imbalance can be solved by eating proper meals.

“Then why did they call the ambulance in the first place?”

“Well, if someone suddenly vomited a whole bowl of blood, wouldn’t you call 119?”

“What kind of human are you to vomit a whole bowl of blood and then walk around fine after just two hours? Are you even human?”

I looked down at Gyeon Hajun, who had his eyes closed with his face flushed red from fever, then gestured toward Seo Yehyeon, who was still babbling nonsense.

“Manager Hyung is waiting downstairs right now. I’ll take care of him, so Hyung, you go back to the dormitory first.”

“Wait, is it okay for a patient to nurse another patient…?”

Well, it’s better than leaving it to someone who doesn’t even know how to wring out a towel.

But since I’m a human with learning ability, I swallowed those words for the sake of my initial intentions stat and nodded.

Seo Yehyeon left the emergency room while taking a call from Manager Hyung.

Gyeon Hajun slightly opened his eyes, spotted me as I plopped down on the chair beside his bed, and blinked slowly.

“…You were hospitalized.”

“I was. But I’m discharged now.”

“Why did you come? You should have left this to Yehyeon Hyung and gone back to the dormitory to rest.”

Hearing his voice, all hoarse and cracked from fever, made my head ache. When I lightly touched his forehead, it was burning hot.

Wow, I’m glad I didn’t drink that panacea potion or eternal life potion or whatever it was.

With his voice this shot before our comeback, how would he handle live performances?

“As if I’d trust that guy with this when I’m worried. What if you get worse? First, drink some water. Your voice is completely shot.”

I naturally held out the water bottle containing the liquid that might be a panacea or just plain water.

Gyeon Hajun took it without suspicion and, probably because his throat was dry, drank it all.

I watched his Adam’s apple bob with tense eyes, then asked eagerly as soon as he pulled the empty bottle from his lips.

“How is it? Do you feel a bit better?”

Gyeon Hajun looked at me blankly and shook his head briefly.

His expression said, ‘Why would you ask something like that after I just drank one bottle of water?’

When I felt his forehead with the back of my hand, it was still hot.

Wow, that system bastard scammed me? What? Panacea? Pan-a-ce-a? Making panacea-like sounds. Are you moonlighting as a medicine peddler now? Is that why you’re so busy that you ignore all my inquiries?

I’m the idiot for being completely fooled by that scammer medicine peddler. I’m the idiot. Ah, my precious Random Ticket!

‘Ah, this is ruined. What about our comeback?’

After falling into despair and clutching my head for 10 minutes.

“Mmm…? I think I feel a bit better…?”

His breathing, which had been rapid from fever, became a little calmer. His voice was still somewhat hoarse, but it was definitely better than before.

I stopped cursing at the system and awkwardly scratched the back of my head.

If there’s a cooldown time, you should tell me quickly.

* * *

It was well into the dark early morning when Gyeon Hajun’s fever completely subsided, and he completed the discharge procedures and returned to the dormitory.

Originally, it was a room shared by me, Gyeon Hajun, and Seo Yehyeon, but under the excuse of isolating the sick ones in case of contagion, I kicked Seo Yehyeon out to the room Kim Dobin and Ryu Jaehee used.

Thanks to that, we could comfortably use the (relatively) spacious room for the day in this damn semi-basement. Of course, the catch was that there were no sick people.

Gyeon Hajun was already asleep with his eyes closed, but I couldn’t fall asleep because that damn panacea kept floating before my eyes.

I felt like I’d die from the waste. If I had just drunk that, I wouldn’t have to worry about the coughing up blood penalty anymore, but why did I give it to Gyeon Hajun…! Well, it was a situation where I had to…

“What’s so precious about someone who abandoned me, sigh…”

When I sighed quietly, an unexpected response came back.

“Do you still resent me?”

“You scared me, weren’t you asleep?”

When I quickly turned to look, our eyes met – his half-open, drowsy gaze.

I told him to stop talking nonsense and just keep sleeping soundly, pulling the blanket up to his face myself.

“Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“When I left NewBorn… I ignored your calls.”

At that murmur, my hand stopped while I was pulling the blanket up to the top of Gyeon Hajun’s head.

I remembered what Gyeon Hajun had said before the regression, before he stopped talking to me anymore – that is, before he completely cut ties with me.

[I can’t hold onto you out of guilt anymore, really. I’ve done enough. You wouldn’t know, but.]

I didn’t understand what he meant back then, but hearing Gyeon Hajun’s words now, all the puzzle pieces fit together. I was so dumbfounded that I let out a hollow laugh.

I sat up and yanked the blanket away. Looking down at Gyeon Hajun with sharp eyes, I spoke each word with emphasis.

“Stop making a damn fuss on your own. I never once resented you for something like that. Don’t go making me out to be some petty bastard.”

[Profanity detected.]

[Initial Intentions -2]

I wish you’d go into OFF mode when I’m having a serious conversation. Don’t make me flinch from pain and ruin the mood.

“Don’t try to hold onto someone by force with guilt you carry alone over something like that. That’s deception.”

My mood quickly plummeted into the gutter. It had to.

Finding out that someone I thought was a friend had been holding onto me solely because of guilt over something I didn’t even care about.

And this from someone whose specialty was acting.

“Was everything you did until now – taking my side and looking out for me – all because of that pathetic guilt you were carrying alone?”

Gyeon Hajun chuckled at my barbed words.

“Who takes care of someone just out of guilt, Eden? It’s true that I feel sorry toward you, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t misinterpret our friendship too.”

Even hearing those words, I still couldn’t understand Gyeon Hajun.

“Why over something so trivial? What does NewBorn’s shitty behavior have to do with you needing to apologize to me?”

As I flopped back down to stare only at the ceiling, Gyeon Hajun answered in a calm tone beside me.

“I was just always sorry. It felt like you threw away a good opportunity to debut at NewBorn and ran away because of me… If only I hadn’t ignored your calls back then and just told you I was okay…”

The voice that had been maintaining composure gradually began to crumble.

“The moment I apologized to you, I’d have to admit that I ruined your future too. I was scared of that, so I couldn’t say those words…”

I remembered the past before regression when I truly walked the path of a failed idol.

Even though he must have been struggling too, he never showed it and took care of me like our mom as I gradually became quieter and more sensitive.

Gyeon Hajun, who desperately tried to mediate between the already broken relationship between Seo Yehyeon and me.

Back then, Gyeon Hajun’s guilt must have increasingly weighed him down as we fell apart. Enough for guilt and friendship to become reversed in priority.

In our relationship before regression, there were no complete victims. We were both perpetrators and victims to each other simultaneously.

Then now, when that incident was completely erased, when we hadn’t yet put each other in debt, wouldn’t this be the time to change our predetermined future?

I rubbed my face with dry hands and deliberately grumbled lightly.

“You still want to say that after seeing KICKS’ current state? Don’t be mistaken. I didn’t leave because of you. I just left because I could clearly see there was no hope there from the moment they planted Parachute in the debut group.”

“Oh come on… You said before that no one could sing your song’s guide vocal as well as you liked except me.”

“That reason was about 30% of it too.”

The tense atmosphere completely dissolved at my joke-like remark.

So did the misunderstandings we’d held toward each other and the emotions that had lingered at the bottom.

It finally felt like we’d undone the wrongly fastened first button and properly refastened it.

“Then in what context did you say I was ‘the guy who abandoned you’?”

“It’s nothing much, I had a dream that you’d cut ties with me in about 7 years.”

At that answer, Gyeon Hajun looked at me with slightly deflated eyes, then pulled the blanket over his head and mumbled.

“You had a nightmare. Must have been from comeback stress.”

“Well… it wasn’t completely a nightmare though. Probably… And thanks to it, we cleared up our misunderstanding. So that’s good enough.”

“Yeah, that’s true…”

Hearing his drowsy, slurred response, I too slowly closed my eyes.

Before my eyelids completely shut, blue dawn light faintly shone through the gap in the not-quite-closed blackout curtains.

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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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