A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 54

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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 54

The filming ended with each person showing the slip of paper they drew to the camera one by one.

As soon as the staff who collected the slips back withdrew from the cramped dormitory, I collapsed onto the sofa.

In contrast to Ryu Jaehee who was already getting excited saying he was dying of curiosity, and Gyeon Hajun who was pretending not to be expectant, the person whose name I ended up drawing was utterly indifferent.

Wow, this really takes all the fun out of picking a gift.

“So we keep who we picked secret until the music video shoot? How much time is left until the music video shoot…?”

“Our Doby is asking such an obvious question. For reference, it’s D-7 until the shooting day.”

“It’s tighter than I thought. Anyway, whoever picked me, please just give me money. Preferably two Shin Saimdang bills.”

As I was clicking my tongue at Kim Dobin who had collapsed after even specifying the exact amount, Ryu Jaehee raised his hand and suggested.

“Let’s set some rules. Don’t ask your target what they need. Don’t observe them too obviously either. Don’t let them find out what the gift is!”

“What if we order by delivery? You can roughly estimate from looking at the invoice.”

“Then no deliveries… we have to go buy it ourselves?”

“What about overseas orders? Do we have to go overseas to buy it?”

“What about sending the delivery to the agency address?”

“Wow, going all the way to the agency to pick up a delivery is really annoying. It’s not even a 10-minute walk from our dormitory now, but it’s annoying and bothersome to death. We already have a mountain of things to do, but having to go all the way to the agency for one delivery package is really a waste of time and annoying.”

“Okay, let’s just use our own discretion.”

Having successfully stopped Ryu Jaehee’s useless idea, I fell back into contemplation.

From what Seo Yehyeon said during filming, I could figure out what kind of gift would suit his taste…

‘Is it really okay to give an envelope of money as a gift…?’

For me, there’s nothing to worry about and it’s incredibly easy since I just need to withdraw money from an ATM.

I quickly thought through what would happen if I gave Seo Yehyeon an envelope of money, which is what he wanted, as a Christmas gift.

Since Seo Yehyeon had said those words, even if my intention got misinterpreted as ‘lack of sincerity,’ it would be quickly clarified, but the very fact that it would become controversial was tiresome, so I decided not to create any controversy at all.

While lying on the sofa, I searched the internet for gifts for men in their 20s and scrolled down.

Since the reality show provided 50,000 won in support, I should pick something around 100,000 to 200,000 won.

Showing too much frugality is also a shortcut to an unlikeable image, and there’s nothing really worth buying in the 50,000 won range.

Even though the recipient is Seo Yehyeon, if I’m going to give something, I should give something good.

I picked the two most reasonable options that roughly fit my budget and wrote them down in my phone’s memo app.

For someone who said gifts should contain the giver’s heart, it was a bit embarrassing that gift selection was finished in less than 10 minutes.

Right, the fact that I invested 10 minutes of time for that guy can also be seen as my own kind of sincerity.

“Doby, did you finish modifying the choreography for the special stage?”

“If you’re talking about , of course I finished it all. I perfectly modified it to a level where it won’t be awkward even when we perform it, so don’t worry about it.”

“What was the music file I recently gave you?”

“.”

“Then logically, what choreography would I be asking about?”

“….”

“Did you finish modifying the choreography?”

“I’m working hard on it right now.”

Doesn’t this guy know what’s more important right now? Between the collab stage with Adora and the song swap stage with KICKS, obviously it’s the latter, right?

Plus, our group also has the creator of new choreography and a mistake machine?

“We need to start practicing within two days, so finish it by then.”

“Hey, of course I’ll finish it by then.”

Kim Dobin nodded his head.

With that conversation over, since we had a photo shoot schedule tomorrow, everyone went into their rooms early and lay down on their beds.

Maybe because song production was finished and I didn’t have to stay in the studio until late evening anymore, lying on the dormitory room bed at this time felt strange.

“It’s almost the end of the year.”

Seo Yehyeon, with a face pack on, muttered.

“Award ceremonies… Sigh. I wonder if we can win at least one award. I saw that we lost the WAMA voting by a narrow margin.”

While doing today’s Weekly Quest in bulk, I kindly answered Seo Yehyeon’s dispirited words.

“WAMA has no influence anyway. The voting score is only 20% or 30% or something like that, and the judging criteria is whatever the organizers want. Even if we had won the voting, we might not have received it. Plus, the voting deadline was in the first week of our comeback.”

“Then why did you talk about it like it was so important?”

“To give some motivation to work hard? That was also the only voting that was open at the time.”

I replied while diligently typing with my fingers.

Phew, just one and a half more lines to complete the minimum requirement.

“Silver Disc and Naon Chart Music Awards are said to have some credibility, but are they voting now? Anyway, we’ll have to see the trends there to know.”

Even if we didn’t receive a rookie award, I had no intention of resetting. No, having to go through this hellish struggle again just because we couldn’t win one rookie award – no matter how I thought about it, that would be crazy.

It’s not like there are no groups that didn’t win rookie awards but won grand prizes, and if we don’t win the rookie award, it’s disappointing but we can work hard and win the grand prize.

If I keep resetting every time something fails, this becomes a habit, you know?

Of course, if the system gives a quest to win the rookie award with -99 initial intention points at stake, I plan to immediately spread photos of Choi Hyeonmin’s underage smoking on the internet to eliminate the competition.

But it’s too valuable to play this card here.

But we didn’t know how scary fans who had been wronged could be…

* * *

, which I had arranged, echoed through the practice room.

Since the main stage would be live anyway and didn’t need AR, it was a demo version with Gyeon Hajun’s guide plus my rap layered over the MR.

‘Should we have started practicing earlier?’

Watching Seo Yehyeon making body movements that I couldn’t tell were choreography or struggling, I fell into deep worry.

I’m amazed at my own foresight for asking the reality program staff, who wanted to install cameras in the practice room, to give us just one more week, anticipating this mess.

The moment that gets captured on camera, it becomes irreversible.

KICKS’ performance was characterized by intense and knife-sharp group choreography.

Kim Dobin’s modified choreography that preserved these characteristics was like a bolt from the blue for Seo Yehyeon, who had been performing Rev’s choreography that was basically coasting until now.

Come to think of it, I’m getting pissed off again? Someone gets to enjoy a good song and medium difficulty choreography.

Someone else has to painstakingly arrange a crappy song and drag along a guy with garbage dance skills to make him pull off high difficulty choreography.

Shouldn’t they either give us merits or give KICKS penalties?

I drank some water while watching Kim Dobin in the mirror as he corrected Seo Yehyeon’s posture one by one.

I was worried that if I left this to Gyeon Hajun from the start, he might collapse from high blood pressure, so I first told Kim Dobin to at least make him capable of the basic parts.

I asked Gyeon Hajun who had approached me.

“How is it? Do you think you can get that guy to follow along properly before we perform on the year-end music festival stage?”

“To be honest, I’m not confident, Eden.”

Gyeon Hajun answered after letting out a small sigh so it wouldn’t be heard.

“I’ll somehow manage to get him to follow the choreography, but knife-sharp choreography has to be synchronized with all the members. The question is whether he can keep up with that.”

“What else can we do? We have to make him learn the choreography as quickly as possible and keep drilling the group dance until it matches.”

“Well… can that hyung learn it quickly?”

Gyeon Hajun’s words contained not a trace of expectation.

“Even if it doesn’t work, we have to make it work. Unless you want to see us lose to KICKS.”

At the magic spell that changes Gyeon Hajun’s personality, his eyes that had been looking at Seo Yehyeon indifferently turned sharp.

“Right, I was being weak. This is a matter of pride that we have to succeed at no matter what.”

Ryu Jaehee, who had been listening to our conversation, had already quietly moved next to Kim Dobin and was helping Seo Yehyeon learn the choreography.

“No, hyung. That’s not it. Your left foot has to go out first there.”

Hearing Kim Dobin’s voice saying he was dying of frustration, I threw him some motivating words.

“Hyung, even KICKS’ Parachute can handle that choreography. Do you want to be worse than Parachute?”

“Isn’t this choreography harder than KICKS’ choreography?”

At Seo Yehyeon’s question, Kim Dobin, who had been listening from the side, made a very aggrieved expression and protested.

“Huh, what are you saying right now? I was worried Yehyeon hyung wouldn’t be able to follow along, so I carefully lowered the difficulty from the original without it being noticeable, but you just ignored my blood-like effort in one go?”

“No, I didn’t know-“

“Do you know how much bread and milk I offered to carefully selected tight-lipped friends at school, begging them to keep it secret, just to film this choreography video?”

“S-sorry…”

Seo Yehyeon, who ended up apologizing, started practicing again under Kim Dobin’s instruction.

“Oh, my package arrived.”

Seeing the text message notifying me of the completed delivery along with the missed calls, I let out a sigh of relief.

It seems the remaining Christmas gift I ordered online has finally arrived.

With only one day left until the music video shoot, this gift had been making me anxious since it showed no signs of coming.

Ryu Jaehee, who had handed water to Seo Yehyeon as he collapsed from exhaustion, spoke with a face full of anticipation and expectation.

“Come to think of it, tomorrow the gifts and partners will be revealed.”

“So we won’t have any gifts for Christmas? I had this dream of setting up that tree and placing gifts underneath it…”

“Doby, say something that makes sense. How are you going to install a tree in that cramped place? Do it after we move to a bigger dormitory.”

“Speaking of which, when are we moving?”

“I don’t know. Apparently he’s gotten into fortune-telling now and says we have to wait until next month to pick an auspicious day.”

Following his space obsession, now he’s obsessed with fortune-telling too. As I shook my head thinking about our hopeless CEO and all his antics, Ryu Jaehee asked slyly.

“Isn’t it because of you, Hyung?”

“Are you saying I influenced him with superstitions right now?”

“No, it’s just that when Hyung was setting our comeback date, you mentioned something about monthly fortune, so I thought maybe…”

Shit, is it really because of me?

When we finished practice and returned to the dormitory, there was a file that Manager Hyung had sent on my cell phone.

“The light stick design draft came out.”

As soon as I opened the file, I blinked at the sforzando symbol that appeared.

Oh, right. Come to think of it, there was something like this.

“What is this, a crowbar?”

“Wow, our agency is really amazing. Did they just bend both ends of a glow stick and present it as a light stick design?”

I recalled the light stick from the previous round.

They first released it as a crowbar, then changed it after fans cursed them out asking if they thought fans were suckers.

Even that design was quite… so I remember it being consistently picked for the top 3 worst light sticks.

I couldn’t let our fans wave around such a light stick again. I took out my notebook and suggested.

“Hey, let’s just design it ourselves. That would be better.”

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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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