A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 482

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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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Regression Manual for Idols Who Lost Their Original Intent Episode 482

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“After Navy’s juniors’ self-content was released, Aunt called me. She said reservation inquiry calls were coming in at a level that could set the phone on fire. Aunt asked if the kids who came to film were really that famous.”

Kim Dobin chattered away in an excited voice, having found something to talk about as soon as he returned from his family home to the dormitory.

I personally unwrapped the packaging of a salad that had to be finished by today and placed it in front of Kim Dobin as I asked.

“So what did you say?”

“I said they’re famous and we’re famous too, so the synergy effect really exploded.”

It was a model answer that was hard to believe came from Kim Dobin.

Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since Kim Dobin gave the kind of Kim Dobin-like answer that was stuck in my preconceptions. Half of me felt proud that the kid had finally matured, and half felt a bittersweet feeling I couldn’t explain.

Is this the heart of a parent watching their child mature? Of course, I didn’t raise Kim Dobin.

Ryu Jaehee also naturally sat in front of Kim Dobin and unwrapped a salad package as he asked.

“But didn’t you say the guesthouse was closing?”

“They’re still running the restaurant. So reservations are exploding right now. They said thank you and told me to definitely bring the members again later.”

It seemed like going back to that guesthouse would be far off until the aftereffects of those hellish 3 days disappeared, but I didn’t bother saying it. Someday the aftereffects would fade and we’d go eat chicken soup and spicy chicken stew again.

The three of us cleanly finished the last salads remaining in the refrigerator and headed to the concert hall.

Thinking of Seo Yehyeon who would be happy that all the salads were gone made me feel proud. Though two-thirds of those salads were safely stored in my family home’s refrigerator.

“Hyung, which of these bouquets is better?”

“Buy whichever you like.”

“Come on, hyung has much better aesthetic sense. A pretty bouquet would be better anyway.”

“Then the left one. The color combination is cleaner.”

Since I preferred concerts like orchestras over musicals or operas, it had been quite a while since I’d watched a musical.

Perhaps because it went through adaptation and the text was implemented before my eyes in the form of theater, even though it was a story I knew well, it offered a completely different freshness.

Thanks to that, I could watch all the way to the curtain call without feeling bored.

After the performance ended, while Ryu Jaehee was happily chatting with an actor acquaintance in the performers’ waiting room, I brought the shopping bag with the bouquet from the storage area and handed it to Ryu Jaehee.

“Okay, taking the photo. One, two.”

Taking two-shots for SNS and group photos with acquaintances was also my job. I tried to leave the photography to Kim Dobin because it was annoying, but he insisted on having me do it, saying the quality difference was like heaven and earth.

The actor who performed in this musical seemed to be quite good at networking, as I could see quite a few people who had spent their TK trainee days together with Ryu Jaehee.

There was also an idol member who debuted through ‘Select My Idol’, the TK trainee survival show. I was quite familiar with him since I’d seen him exchange friendly greetings with Ryu Jaehee when their activities overlapped. I had also enjoyed watching SMI.

The musical actor friend, who was carefully putting the bouquets he’d been holding in both hands into shopping bags, cautiously brought up a topic to Ryu Jaehee.

“Hey, Jaehee. Did you hear about that? It seems like Lee Jeyoung is trying to act too. I heard Lee Jeyoung joined my acquaintance’s agency. That place is an acting agency.”

“Oh, really? From the time he lied without batting an eye when cornering Kim Jiwoon and me in front of Manager-nim, I knew that bastard had talent for acting. But instead of living quietly, does he have no conscience?”

Ryu Jaehee spat out cynicism. The musical actor friend patted Ryu Jaehee’s shoulder comfortingly.

“Still, back then, during SMI, when you exposed them, everyone felt satisfied and refreshed, calling it karma. Of course, you were the one who suffered the most damage, getting framed for assault and kicked out of TK.”

“Really, Lee Jeyoung seemed like he might fall since his ranking was borderline, but I almost debuted in the same group as Kim Jiwoon. Ugh, I almost spent 7 years plus alpha with that trash.”

The TK boy group member shuddered and rubbed his arms vigorously.

Well, at least Ryu Jaehee left TK and met us. These guys almost debuted in the same group as the bastards who tormented them for years.

“I prayed every night for them to fail, but how fortunate it was when your exposure combined with the plagiarism incident in the team mission, damn…”

“Come to think of it, what’s Kim Jiwoon doing these days? I thought that bastard Kim Jiwoon would come back first.”

“I don’t know, I’m not interested. I hope he never crawls out for the rest of his life. I still can’t forget being personally attacked by that bastard in front of other trainees.”

The TK boy group member ground his teeth so hard that I, a complete stranger, worried about his dental health, showing how much he wanted to forget those memories.

“If that bastard and Lee Jeyoung show their faces on TV, I’ll bump up Jaehee’s exposé post and even translate it into English to post. Now that Jaehee’s successful, they’re more fucked. They’ll be globally fucked.”

This is why people should live kindly. Fortunately, since I’ve lived so kindly, there’s no one who grinds their teeth at me like that.

Let’s consider Cha Yeonho a natural occurrence. Even he has had his venom reduced lately and grinds his teeth less.

We gradually finished our greetings and left the performers’ waiting room, said farewell among friends, and headed to the parking lot.

The topic of conversation among the three men naturally shifted to reviews of today’s performance of 【Faust】.

“In the end, making a contract with the devil was his own will, right? But even though he eventually said the forbidden words, he was forgiven and went to heaven, which doesn’t make sense. God seems to favor Faust too much.”

“He found a loophole in the contract. The timing when he said the forbidden sentence wasn’t really because he wanted to continue enjoying that time. It was because of the joy of gaining enlightenment.”

“Anyway, he did say the forbidden keyword. So is the theme that the loudest person wins if they argue?”

I tried to correct Kim Dobin’s cynical interpretation, but Kim Dobin’s thoughts were flowing toward an even more cynical interpretation.

The angel’s voice did have louder sound than the devil’s, but this kind of interpretation is a bit…

“Hmm, the devil’s temptation isn’t given equally to everyone, but is somewhat random? Like a natural disaster. So maybe the theme is ‘humans who fall to temptation should also be given a chance to escape’?”

Ryu Jaehee, who came up with a fairly deep interpretation, playfully poked Kim Dobin’s cheek with his finger and added jokingly.

“Just like how hyung, who fell to temptation and gained cheek fat, should be given a chance to escape Yehyeon hyung’s anger and lose weight?”

“Did I gain that much weight?”

Kim Dobin’s trembling eyes as he asked in a shaky voice fully revealed his anxious feelings.

“He loses weight quickly with just a little exercise. A few days of concert practice and a few days of intense gym work, and even Yehyeon hyung won’t be able to say anything.”

“Right, hyung. So in front of Yehyeon hyung, pull your hoodie strings as tight as possible to hide those chubby cheeks. Until hyung loses weight again.”

I bet on Seo Yehyeon’s calorie obsession that Kim Dobin’s carelessness will eventually get him caught by Seo Yehyeon before that.

“I thought from the beginning that it was a bet the devil couldn’t win. The condition for not falling was not settling for the present and not giving up on the future. Isn’t it really an easy condition as long as you don’t fall into a rut?”

My perspective was quite different from Kim Dobin’s.

“Even if a person has all the wealth and honor, if they have several goals they want to achieve, they’ll continue living a future-oriented life toward those goals.”

If I just set ten life goals, I could easily live future-oriented until the end of my lifespan.

Just looking at myself right now, even after finishing the condition of the Return to Original Intent Project – making 30 million fans happy – I have several goals I want to achieve.

But Kim Dobin countered my words with another novel hypothesis.

“What if you’re trapped in an infinite loop? If that time period keeps repeating, wouldn’t you give up on the future at some point?”

“How do you even think of such things?”

I was about to scold him to counter with realistic thinking, but then I remembered our house’s extremely evil system that imposed infinite loops as penalties, so I shut my mouth. Hmm, that is my reality.

“I saw similar content in a manga I enjoyed reading. A week keeps repeating. Whatever achievement you make within that week gets reset. So the protagonist goes crazy. He tries to end the loop somehow, but to end the loop, the protagonist’s best friend, who realized the world was looping along with the protagonist, has to be trapped in that loop alone. Only then can the protagonist escape and end the loop.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting.”

I casually responded to Kim Dobin’s excited rambling, perhaps because his specialty area came up. I’d seen him do this so many times that I was used to it by now.

But according to an article I found while searching, he’s supposedly a fashion otaku, so how much of an otaku is a real otaku?

Unlike me, who listened to Kim Dobin’s words with one ear and let them out the other, Ryu Jaehee seemed interested in the manga content Kim Dobin laid out.

“So that friend doesn’t exist in the world after the loop ends?”

“He exists, but the memories of experiencing the loop with the protagonist are trapped in the loop forever. But in that manga, they consider memory to be what forms a person’s identity. So later the protagonist…”

I calculated the parking fee while Kim Dobin’s excited chatter continued behind me.

“But what role did your friend play? I definitely saw it but can’t remember.”

“Gretchen’s brother.”

“Ah, right.”

We continued talking about the play content for a while longer, and when we returned to the dormitory, Seo Yehyeon, who had arrived first, was looking in the refrigerator.

Kim Dobin, who had taken off his hoodie, quickly put the hood back on and pulled the hood strings tight before Seo Yehyeon turned to look at us.

“You finished all the salads? You guys finally came to your senses!”

Seeing Seo Yehyeon smile brightly and rejoice over something so trivial, Ryu Jaehee and I exchanged glances.

The real whereabouts of the salads that didn’t go into our stomachs would be something Seo Yehyeon could never know for the rest of his life, unless Ryu Jaehee or I spilled the beans.

Sometimes white lies are necessary.

Hmm, that’s right.

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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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