A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 86

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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 86

“It’s quite awkward since no one’s picking fights with us.”

“Hyung, were you actually enjoying the tension with KICKS?”

“I don’t know, maybe I was.”

Rev, who couldn’t even dream of pre-recordings during our My Universe activities and only got in as last-minute fillers, now had pre-recording schedules as a given.

Remembering that around this time before regression, we had fallen to the level of flop idols who couldn’t even set foot on terrestrial music shows, this was truly tremendous growth.

Befitting the upbeat song, the choreography was quite easy without a single intense part, but Seo Yehyeon seemed dissatisfied.

“Aren’t we going to get mocked again for bringing easy choreography?”

“I understand hyung’s desire to prove you’re no longer a dance hole. But intense choreography doesn’t suit this song. And hyung still has a long way to go before completing knife-sharp choreography without desperation.”

“What do you mean by desperation?”

“For example, a showdown with KICKS, or Hajun hyung’s Conqueror’s Haki.”

“But I can’t keep having showdowns with those KICKS guys every time to improve my skills.”

“That’s true.”

After all that master and disciple, teaching and learning, the relationship between Kim Dobin and Seo Yehyeon seemed to have grown quite close.

Thinking that my relationship improvement with Kim Dobin was still at 48% made me feel somewhat annoyed.

No matter how well I treated this guy, the relationship improvement never went up. So I just gave up and treated him the same way as before.

“Doby’s right. Instead, I’ll let you show off your improved skills to your heart’s content during the full album activities. Let’s go with intensely difficult knife-sharp choreography then.”

Anyway, if we brought another refreshing concept for the next song, public opinion would definitely start saying they were getting tired of it, so we had to change to a different concept.

“We can definitely get first place this time too, right?”

“I don’t know about that. The opponents we’re facing this time are pretty strong. Don’t think it’ll be an easy win like last time.”

Unfortunately, this activity period overlapped with a girl group that was strong in digital music.

Rev, who still couldn’t shake off their rookie image, versus a 3rd-year girl group with a solid fanbase.

According to my memory, the song they brought out had achieved a triple crown on music shows.

That meant they occupied first place on the three major terrestrial music shows for 3 weeks. It was probably the biggest hit song of the second quarter this year.

‘This activity will really be the stage to prove my abilities.’

Last activity was a song already verified before regression, plus it was an easy target with rivals KICKS bringing a worse song than ours, so the results had to be good.

It’s been a while since I felt this kind of thrill.

Feeling that sensation I used to have before regression when releasing songs into the world made my mood strange.

I had resolved to never fail and regress again, to reach the top tier stably by choosing only verified songs and periods without hit songs.

But here I was, just one activity later, bringing a new song and directly facing off against a past hit song, so how could I not feel strange?

I chuckled, remembering an old acquaintance’s assessment of me before regression: “If it wasn’t music, you would’ve been a gambler.”

Seeing myself act like this even when my life is on the line, that assessment doesn’t seem entirely wrong.

“Rev, time to move!”

At the staff’s call, I stopped my idle thoughts and got up. Since it’s the first week of comeback, let’s not worry about rankings today and just enjoy the stage.

* * *

“Wow, is this what a slump feels like…?”

During free schedule time, I muttered while lying face down on the studio desk.

Perhaps due to the pressure of having to create a song that surpasses this one, I couldn’t make any progress on my work.

I had produced enough B-side tracks for the full album that I could handle, and what remained were the title track candidates.

I couldn’t let the full album, which required so much time, capital, and effort, perform worse than the repackage album.

The performance of this repackage album was quite good.

Moreover, despite being a repackage, this album had initial sales of 80,2** copies, 20,000 higher than the previous album, and currently was occupying 1st to 3rd place on the music charts.

So maybe that’s why I was feeling even more pressure about the full album now.

Success and failure were no longer the issue. It was a matter of whether I could surpass the previous performance or not.

‘Was I always this cowardly?’

Since my brain wasn’t working anyway and no songs were coming out, I decided to use the random tickets that had gained expiration dates when the system upgraded.

[Would you like to use a Random Ticket? Yes/No]

When I tapped yes three times in a row, three status windows appeared in sequence.

[Item ‘USB from Someday’ has appeared!]

[Item ‘Lucid Dreaming’ has appeared!]

[Item ‘Potion of Truth’ has appeared!]

I opened three random tickets that had the newly added one-month expiration date with little time remaining.

The USB from Someday contained my pre-regression works similar to previous ones, and Lucid Dreaming was an item that helped me work in dreams while my body rested.

The Potion of Truth was literally an item that brought out deep inner truths.

The song on the USB was one that even won a digital music award before regression, but I didn’t want to use an old song as the title track for my first full album.

Consequently, none of the three items helped me overcome my slump.

Come to think of it, this is my first time experiencing a slump.

Was it because I felt less pressure before since I wasn’t the one performing those songs?

‘Should I ask G1 about methods to overcome a slump?’

That guy’s subtly firm, so he’d probably draw the line saying that’s something you need to overcome yourself.

G1 didn’t like it when people he hadn’t built deep relationships with talked about personal matters.

I couldn’t let this hard-earned connection break over something so trivial.

“Well, this too shall pass.”

I let out a deep sigh and buried my face in the studio desk again.

And that slump I had taken lightly…

‘Damn, I made the same mistake as Seo Yehyeon.’

[On-stage mistake detected.]

[Initial Intentions –7]

I quickly changed my foot direction, but my Initial Intentions had already been deducted. Seven points at that.

Since it was a status window I last saw in the 2nd cycle and hadn’t seen since, it hurt my pride even more.

I unconsciously tried to rub my eyes that had become dry from staying up all night for several days, then realized I was currently wearing makeup and lowered my hand.

This damn slump even gave me insomnia as a bonus.

I couldn’t even use the Lucid Dreaming item because I was afraid I’d just sit there blankly in dreams like in reality.

The fortunate thing was that I still had about a month and a half until the meeting about the full album title track and concept.

While monitoring the footage, I was briefly relieved that my mistake was safely hidden thanks to the camera focusing on the upper body.

“Eden, haven’t you been sleeping lately?”

As expected, Gyeon Hajun was the first to catch my condition.

Thanks to the system forcibly adding body management to my Weekly Quest, I had become a healthy person except for lack of sleep, so aside from some dark circles, I looked fine on the outside.

Even the dark circles were at a level that wouldn’t show if covered with makeup.

“No, I’m sleeping well.”

But it hurt my pride to say in front of all the other members that I had insomnia due to a slump, so I immediately denied it.

“Yehyeon hyung, has he been sleeping well in the room lately?”

Gyeon Hajun asked Seo Yehyeon, who was my roommate, but he couldn’t answer.

That was understandable since Seo Yehyeon strictly maintained his 7-hour sleep schedule, sleeping soundly and comfortably by himself regardless of whether I could sleep or not.

Seeing me rub my dry eyes as soon as I removed my makeup, Gyeon Hajun let out a deep sigh and said:

“You’re going to collapse again at this rate. What’s the point of just getting detailed health checkups at the university hospital when you’re creating illness yourself.”

And so I was banned from going to the studio for the day.

Of course, I could ignore it and go anyway, but I was quite tired of the repetitive days of sitting blankly in the studio and coming out with no results, so I obediently stayed at the dormitory.

Doing nothing was the same whether at the dormitory or studio.

The only difference was that without equipment in front of me, there was less pressure to do something?

Kim Dobin and Seo Yehyeon went to the practice room to practice dancing again, and Ryu Jaehee tagged along saying he wanted to watch those two, so only Hajun and I were left at the dormitory.

As I sat blankly on the sofa, Gyeon Hajun handed me a mug cup filled with chamomile tea and sat down next to me.

“You need to rely on others more. We’re a team, but you always try to carry everything alone.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, from One Chance until now, consistently.”

I guess I’ve been running frantically since then to avoid infinite regression.

Being this busy was better than the forced long break I had before regression. But still, I shouldn’t miss the failed idol days.

Taking a sip of chamomile tea, my hazy mind became a bit calmer.

“I can’t write songs. I think I’m in a slump.”

Since Gyeon Hajun wasn’t someone I needed to maintain pride with, I confessed honestly.

“I thought so… Is that why you have insomnia too?”

“Probably.”

When I nodded half-affirmatively, Gyeon Hajun gently patted my back.

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Even if one album fails, no one at Reve will resent you. And the CEO who spectacularly ruined didn’t feel pressured and didn’t die either.”

“Isn’t that too extreme? I was only imagining it performing slightly worse than this album. There’s no way my song would fail.”

“I’m relieved you haven’t fallen into the depression stage.”

With a much more relieved expression, Gyeon Hajun faced me and smiled refreshingly.

“If you really can’t do it, we can leave it to another producer. Oh, except for producers the CEO knows.”

I burst out laughing at Gyeon Hajun’s hurried addition.

“Of course. You want them to bring another song like My Universe for a full album?”

“The CEO would definitely do that and more.”

“I agree. If I really can’t do it, I’ll send an SOS to G1 Hyung-nim or something. He told me to contact him anytime I need a song.”

Before I knew it, the chamomile tea was showing the bottom.

Just talking about it didn’t suddenly inspire musical ideas or completely resolve my slump, but drowsiness did hit me hard.

As I was nodding off, Gyeon Hajun took the mug cup from my hand and pushed me into my room, saying I should sleep when sleep comes.

As soon as the door closed, I slowly closed my eyes and had a deep sleep for the first time in a while.

After sleeping refreshingly for the first time in days, I came out to the living room and immediately found Seo Yehyeon sleeping curled up on the sofa.

When I shook him awake, Seo Yehyeon pulled the blanket up to the top of his head.

“Why are you sleeping here when you have a room?”

“Hajun said you fell asleep for the first time in a while, so don’t go into the room and sleep in your own bed. He said he’d sleep on the sofa. So I just slept on the sofa.”

I was a bit moved by how both of them showed consideration by even giving up their sleeping spots just for my one good night’s sleep.

“Thank you.”

At my words of gratitude, Seo Yehyeon slightly lowered the blanket and opened his eyes narrowly to ask.

“Are you by any chance someone else’s soul possessing Yoon Eden’s body?”

He must have been influenced by hanging around with Kim Dobin.

I pushed aside the fact that I had similar thoughts just a few weeks ago.

Good thing I didn’t say it out loud back then. I would have looked like a real otaku.

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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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