A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 463

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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 463

The shock of completely giving up first place to us for the first time without even being able to compete back and forth on the music charts must be quite significant.

So they’re confusing KJ and me.

The only common points we have are our positions as team leader, main rapper, and producing member. But since theirs is a fake producing member who does plagiarism by switching name tags and patchwork copying of other people’s songs, I can’t really call the last one a common point.

“Oh, Senior Cha Yeonho? He didn’t particularly like me, but he confused you with me… Anyone can tell that sounds like a passive attack. Haven’t you resolved what you fought about in Hawaii yet?”

“No, there was something that warranted that in Hawaii. We resolved it long ago, long ago. Yeonho isn’t that petty of a guy.”

KJ’s face and words as he waved his hand and laughed seemed to contain not a single lie.

Unlike Cha Yeonho, whose eyes were always filled with hostility toward me, KJ, who had been directly attacked and dragged down by me before the regression, didn’t seem to harbor any particular animosity toward me, which felt strange.

By the way, what’s this about me being thirty-one years old?

‘He seems to think you died peacefully in old age, but you died at thirty.’

The closest age was thirty, which Cha Yeonho said was when I died. Anyway, if we count by Korean age, that would also be thirty. Maybe he was shocked after seeing Rev’s 10th anniversary concert without me.

“What exactly did Senior Cha Yeonho say that made you suspect I lied about my age on my profile?”

“He said it was thirty-one, not thirty, so I asked ‘Eden aged that much?’ But then suddenly he said he confused you with me again-“

Before KJ could finish speaking, the waiting room door swung open and someone pulled KJ inside.

And through the open door gap, Cha Yeonho walked out.

“I haven’t finished our conversation yet, Senior.”

When I spoke with my arms crossed and a crooked smile, Cha Yeonho bit his lip once and then poured out his words.

“I know what you still have to say. It’s about the song, right? Talk to me instead of Jeongjun. I’ll call you tonight, so text me your free schedule times.”

“Don’t set up a guardian at that age, let’s have a face-to-face conversation, okay? I’ve told you several times that knowing and covering for him isn’t the solution, haven’t I, Senior?”

Bang-!

The waiting room door closed with a loud sound. Kim Dobin poked me and whispered in a lowered voice.

“Hyung, Senior Cha Yeonho… isn’t he acting a bit strange? Like before in Hawaii too.”

To be branded as a weirdo even by Kim Dobin, tsk tsk.

I bought some light snacks from the hospital store without Seo Yehyeon noticing, returned to the waiting room, and successfully completed the challenge of eating secretly without Seo Yehyeon knowing.

“Rev, please get ready!”

At the staff’s guidance, the members got up from the sofa where they had been sitting.

After wearing only tight-fitting suits throughout [NOX] activities, wearing hoodies, sweatshirts, shirts, and t-shirts felt so comfortable.

“Alright, let’s show them what we’ve prepared!”

“Let’s do a fighting cheer after a long time! This is our first band concept.”

Four hands stacked neatly on top of Ryu Jaehee’s hand, which he extended first.

“One, two, Rev fighting!”

It was time to show our band stage, which we had practiced hard for several months, to the fans for the first time.

* * *

“Doby, I think you could nod your head a bit less. Maybe it’s because of the lighting, but it looked fine during practice, but here it looks a bit frantic.”

“Yehyeon Hyung, I think it would be better if you made the gesture bigger during the ‘enchanted by the pale blue color~’ part.”

“Youngest Member, pay attention to the beat. Even though there’s an inst track, you need to pay some attention to hand sync too.”

While watching the members seriously share feedback about today’s recorded music show stage, I picked up my vibrating phone and slipped into the room.

[✆Cha Yeonho]

Cha Yeonho called exactly at the time I had texted him. Before I could even open my mouth, Cha Yeonho spoke rapidly as if pouring out words.

-I heard everything from the composer whose name was listed jointly. The part that person wrote this time was a collaboration with you. I’ll put your name on it, so just let it slide this time.

That gentleman doesn’t seem to feel indebted this time, so his mouth is quite loose.

“That’s not all I prepared. If you have your memories intact, don’t you also know what else I prepared?”

-I know well. Give up on that too. You absolutely cannot expose that.

“Don’t try to persuade me, go persuade your leader to come to his senses, will you?”

-If he was going to change, he would have changed long ago. People don’t change easily. You know that too. No matter how many times I persuaded, threatened, and tried everything, he didn’t change. Since it’s become part of his identity, he can’t let it go.

Cha Yeonho spoke with a powerless hollow laugh. Of course, KJ’s circumstances weren’t my concern.

“Tell me logically why I shouldn’t expose it, stop that Jeongjun nonsense.”

-What will happen in 4 years starts from what you’re trying to expose this time. It’s a kind of butterfly effect, you could say. It’s not just Jeongjun who dies from that incident, you die too.

I blinked slowly, wondering what I had just heard. Cha Yeonho’s voice was still coming through the receiver.

-I don’t want to let Jeongjun die at twenty-nine again, and you wouldn’t want to die at thirty-one. So cooperate.

When I pointed out that in 4 years, he and KJ would be thirty, he replied that they died the day before their birthday so it was twenty-nine. Is there such a thing as age obsession?

Even when I searched for KJ’s birthday, it was December 31st.

And you, Cha Yeonho, do recognize that you’re thirty too. You said you confused me with him.

Look at him desperately shaving off even one year, probably trying to touch my sympathy by making it seem pitiful.

“Wait, is the age I died also thirty-one because my birthday hadn’t passed?”

-How would I know your birthday.

From his annoyed tone, it seems like it’s just thirty-one in Korean age.

Then wait, KJ died at thirty? I wondered why he was so desperate, but it was because of death? Then the ‘that kid’s funeral’ that Cha Yeonho mentioned before was…

The pre-regression timeline I remembered finally came back clearly.

I first learned about Altair’s genius producing member KJ’s secret when I was twenty-four.

It was still a time when I hadn’t achieved great success as a producer and was making modest progress. At that time, I was active in a composition community under the nickname ED.

Because I preferred the underground rapper ED, who had hyungs by his side and could easily handle more than his share in the crew, over the idol Yoon Eden, who had achieved nothing, contributed nothing to the group, and had cut off all the connections he had built with his own hands.

The nickname ED contained the longing for those days, the desire to return to that time.

I digressed for a moment, but anyway, in that community where amateurs far outnumbered professionals, I occasionally posted my practice works that would never be released to the world and exchanged feedback.

Among amateurs who had just started composing or were doing it as a hobby, I was practically a professional, but I didn’t particularly want to stand out.

Thanks to that, in that community I became more famous for occasionally providing simple legal consultation on copyright issues using my father’s connections rather than for my skills.

Then one day, I received an anonymous message.

The person said they had signed a contract with a major agency, but had plagiarized parts of practice songs I had posted in the community to compose a song, took just those parts and put them in their song, and had the copyright of that song confiscated.

They were confessing honestly because they were afraid that if I, who seemed to know the law well, discovered my practice work in that song and took legal action, things would get big.

At the same time, they couldn’t make it public because they had also plagiarized someone else’s song, so they lacked the qualification and were asking for my help.

The agency that anonymous composer contracted with was Shinwol Entertainment, Altair’s agency.

And a few months after receiving that message, I heard a familiar melody in Altair’s new song. In that new song released with KJ’s name on the lyrics and composition.

But tragically, I had immediately permanently deleted the practice works I posted in the community to prevent them from being used in my own work, so I had no evidence to prove this was plagiarism.

I mean, who would have known that someone would plagiarize practice works, then have those plagiarized songs stolen and released to the world like this?

As a producer who hadn’t achieved much, who had barely escaped being a failed idol but was only known as member 1 of Seo Yehyeon’s group, throwing the first punch at KJ and Shinwol Entertainment without evidence was like hitting a rock with an egg.

That anonymous composer was quite conscientious for a plagiarist. They apologized profusely and said they would help as much as possible if I needed any assistance with this matter.

Even though it was just practice work, I was furious about having my song stolen right before my eyes, so for 2 years I watched KJ’s work closely and steadily built up plagiarism evidence, while simultaneously contacting that anonymous composer to gather evidence of Shinwol Entertainment’s exploitation of ghost composers and lyricists.

And at the same time as exposing KJ’s plagiarism, I reported the ghost composer copyright exploitation case to a social exposé current affairs program. Since I had established myself quite well as a producer at twenty-six, that exposé didn’t get buried and spread far and wide.

Thus Altair fell from the peak with derogatory names like plagiarism group and theft group. Of course, as they say, even when the rich fall they last three generations, so they only dropped from tier 1 to about tier 2.5. The military hiatus and generational change also served as good excuses.

When I subtly hinted that I had more unexposed cases to get an apology for what happened 2 years ago, KJ came to me and instead of apologizing, grabbed my collar and desperately asked what he had done wrong, and Cha Yeonho, who acted just like his friend at first but soon grasped the situation and bowed his head with a hurt pride expression, begging me to stop on behalf of the mentally broken KJ.

This was all I remembered.

In my memory, KJ didn’t die. Of course. My current self only has memories up to August 8th at age 27. Plus a fragment of memory about cutting ties with Gyeon Hajun at 28.

Now that I knew that death was connected to me, I had to find my twenty-eight-year-old memories.

Listening to Cha Yeonho’s anxious breathing through the receiver, I suddenly had a question.

Why… why is the guy who said withdrawal would be a reset and tried so hard to make me withdraw suddenly revealing all his cards and asking for cooperation?

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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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