Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 104

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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104. What’s Going to Burst, Bursts (4)
Once Ha-jin had regained his composure, the first place he headed was the Shower Room.
Though Ha-jin’s body remained in the same state as when he’d bathed and fallen asleep yesterday, what Ha-jin actually experienced was different.
“….”
He washed thoroughly and changed into fresh clothes. With the thought that he’d regress again anyway, he mechanically restored the daily routines he’d neglected—even forcing down the breakfast he’d been skipping because he couldn’t be bothered to eat. By the time he finished, the clock had already crept toward 11 in the morning.
‘Ah, now….’
The day, repeated countless times before, unfolded identically today. Because Ha-jin hadn’t yet made any different choice to alter this day.
‘So there’s still… about an hour left.’
Yoo Gun, whom Si-woo and Ha-jin had locked in his room together to clear his head, always packed his bags and left the Dormitory around that time when his insistence on quitting went unheeded. It was lunchtime then, so the trainees and staff would be away from their posts.
What could he do for an hour?
Would that hour even come?
What if someone did something that changed how things unfolded?
And then he regressed again?
Once a thought began, it spawned another, and like a chain biting its own tail, those spiraling anxieties seized control of Ha-jin’s mind. Those coiled serpentine thoughts now felt like shackles, wrapping around his body and squeezing him tight.
Right then, he didn’t know why that particular phrase came to mind.
-My grandmother used to say it. When you’re so caught up in your thoughts that you’re scared, just don’t think about it.
But who had said that? And more importantly—was it even possible not to think?
Ha-jin was someone who had to think endlessly. He was someone who lived by understanding everything, worrying over it, and remembering it. That’s why this situation was unbearably difficult. There was simply too much he had to remember.
‘When… when did I stop thinking?’
Ha-jin thought again.
Then, from among the countless days that had repeated endlessly, the moments when he’d most easily cast aside his wandering thoughts came back to him.
Ha-jin rose from his seat and headed somewhere.
“….”
He arrived at a Practice Room on the 5th Floor.
【!Knock before entering! (※Especially Do-ha※)】
【♥Overflowing with love—Candy Crush Team Practice Room♥】
A sheet of paper covered in incongruously cute handwriting was plastered on the door. Ha-jin knocked on the Practice Room door.
Three loud raps: knock, knock, knock.
Then he heard someone rushing from inside.
“Who is… huh? Ha-jin hyung?”
“Ha-ru.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me something funny. Your hyung’s feeling down.”
Ha-jin had suddenly knocked on the Practice Room door and asked for something funny, and Ha-ru blinked his round eyes in confusion. What’s this about? Tae-hyun, who came out after him, approached the two.
“Ha-jin hyung is asking us to make him laugh!”
“What? …Sigh. I can guess what happened. Come in, at least.”
Tae-hyun, who’d already heard roughly what was going on from Eun-chan and Yoo Gun, ushered Ha-jin into the Practice Room. Inside, practice was in full swing, and the trainees on the same team as Tae-hyun and Ha-ru greeted Ha-jin.
“Hey guys, let’s show Ha-jin hyung our Stage performance. That’s cool, right?”
“Oh, really? Ha-jin hyung’s kind of scary though.”
“Huh? Is Ha-jin scary?”
“No way! What if Ha-jin hyung is a spy?”
Just as I’d anticipated, the members of Room 2 that Tae-hyun had assembled were all loud and energetic. I was pulled along by Tae-hyun’s hand and seated with my back against the practice room mirror. As the cool sensation touched my skin—refreshing, almost cold—I felt oddly alive.
The stage that the Candy Crush Team had prepared was quite entertaining and adorable. Whether they wanted to emphasize that their average age was the youngest among all the teams, lovely and refreshing energy burst forth from every section.
‘Our team’s stage is fun too.’
Watching them, I recalled the stage we had prepared.
The choreography that Won-ho had completed with Yoo Gun’s help looked impressive even to me.
Do-ha and Yoo Gun’s rap was beginning to find its rhythm, and Yoo Gun’s instinctive, raw gestures served as a good textbook for trainees who still found sexiness awkward. Most of all, Yoo Gun—wearing a choker and radiating intense energy from center stage—looked cool.
“….”
While I was thinking, the Candy Crush Team’s song ended.
Breathing steadily, the chick-like kids stared at me with eyes that held both anticipation and fear. Did we do well? We did okay, right? Along with that sense of accomplishment, they seemed worried about the sharp, incisive feedback I’d been known to give since Team B.
I took in each trainee’s expression one by one before standing up.
“Ha-jin hyung! How was it?”
Ha-ru asked with sparkling eyes, as if wagging a tail he didn’t have.
My lips curved into a pretty arc as they rose.
“You did well. You’ll take first place, yeah.”
“…!”
“Wow. Thank you!”
“…if only it wasn’t our team.”
“…!!!”
Ah, hyung!
At Jae-young’s resentful tone, I returned to my usual playful expression and raised my neatly groomed eyebrows.
“If you’re jealous, show off your abs too~.”
“How are we supposed to show abs with our concept!”
“Wow, you’re showing abs? That’s cheating! That’s a foul!”
“So you really were a spy! You only watched our stage and left—that’s cowardly!”
I lightly ignored their noisy responses and left the practice room without saying goodbye. Walking slowly toward the dormitory area again, I realized it was about time.
I headed toward the emergency stairwell with familiar steps.
The sound of a suitcase being dragged echoed.
Last time, that sound made my eyes flip, and I lunged at Yoo Gun, tumbling down the stairs. Since I hadn’t regressed immediately, I had to spend several hours with a fractured leg bone.
Of course, that was all in the past now.
“Leaving already?”
“…Yeah.”
Yoo Gun, who had been trying to sneak down the stairs with his suitcase, startled at my voice and stepped backward. The suitcase nearly tumbled down the stairs from his grip, but I deftly caught its handle and set it upright.
“…I’m sorry to the hyungs. I’ll spend my whole life feeling sorry.”
I hadn’t said anything yet, but Yoo Gun apologized first.
Only now did I see it.
Throughout all these repetitions, Yoo Gun’s first words were always “I’m sorry.”
…I only saw it now.
“Yoo Gun.”
“…?”
“Have a meal with your older brother before you go.”
So Ha-jin decided to make a choice that might change today.
* * *
“….”
“….”
Yoo Gun didn’t find this silence awkward. Rather, the situation itself felt strange.
Just the two of us? Eating? And braised pork belly rice at that?
“What, you don’t like braised pork?”
“Oh, no. I’m not picky about food.”
“Eat up. You’ll need the energy to drag that suitcase all the way home.”
Ha-jin gestured with his chin toward the suitcase beside Yoo Gun.
What’s this? Is he testing me?
Yet despite that, Ha-jin’s expression remained remarkably composed. He layered lettuce, perilla leaves, and pickled radish with practiced ease, wrapping a generous bundle and popping it into his mouth in one go—his technique was impressive. He ate with such obvious relish that even Yoo Gun, who’d lost his appetite entirely since episode 3 aired, found his stomach growling just watching him.
‘…Well, he’s buying me dinner. Only an idiot would refuse.’
Unable to resist Ha-jin’s assault of wraps, Yoo Gun naturally picked up his chopsticks and followed suit. He tried to grab just the meat without vegetables and shove it straight into his mouth, but in a blink, a perilla leaf had covered the meat. By the time he realized what happened, he’d already eaten meat wrapped in perilla leaf.
“…?”
“Wrap it properly and eat it, man. That’s how your digestion works better.”
“Are you worried about my stomach right now?”
“You take digestive medicine every day. Your digestion’s always off.”
For someone casually spooning miso soup, his tone suggested he’d been genuinely observing Yoo Gun all along.
Yoo Gun stared at Ha-jin with an expression that screamed ‘What’s with this guy?’, and Ha-jin, who’d just bitten into a cucumber dipped in sauce with a satisfying crunch, let out a soft laugh.
“So who do you think kept leaving muscle rubs and digestive medicine in our practice room every day?”
“That was the manager hyung…. Oh.”
The Rookie Development Team Staff member who handled Yoo Gun’s care and managed the Blue Flare Team had been fired following the incident from before.
While a temporary replacement was now managing both the Candy Crush Team and the Blue Flare Team simultaneously, the fact that Yoo Gun ate and occasionally needed digestive medicine was something only that fired employee had known.
“So you’re saying you left it? Why?”
“Si-woo hyung told me to.”
“Huh?”
“Si-woo hyung noticed. He saw you taking digestive medicine sometimes and always using muscle rub before practice. He saw it during the Special Class and Team A missions.”
“….”
This was unexpected too.
From Yoo Gun’s perspective, Jeong Si-u seemed like the trainee on their team least interested in him. Or rather, he’d be grateful if Si-u didn’t dislike him. Yoo Gun was well aware that negative rumors had attached themselves to Si-u because of him.
The fact that Si-u had noticed his habits and even asked Ha-jin to look after him felt surreal to Yoo Gun.
“What kind of part-time jobs have you done?”
“Part-time jobs? Out of nowhere?”
“I worked at a meat restaurant before. Have you ever worked at one?”
“…Are you really trying to recruit me for a part-time job through a job app in this day and age?”
The tension in Yoo Gun’s shoulders, who had been bracing for whatever persuasion Ha-jin was about to deploy, suddenly melted away.
What’s this? Did he really just want to have one last meal with me?
It felt both good and somehow bittersweet. But since Yoo Gun had no response to the team’s invitation to stay, he found this kind of conversation far more comfortable.
Once the conversation found its footing, everything flowed naturally after that.
Ha-jin possessed a remarkable talent for drawing out diverse conversational topics within the bounds of what the other person could comfortably accept.
Besides, Yoo Gun wasn’t actually the type to dislike talking with others. It was simply that everyone had been intimidated by his impression and refrained from approaching him first.
“We’ve finished everything.”
“Indeed we have.”
“It tastes better when you wrap it in lettuce, doesn’t it?”
Ha-jin had managed to top every piece of meat with lettuce while Yoo Gun emptied two bowls of rice.
At that point, he should have been wrapping the meat himself, but Yoo Gun had developed his own stubborn streak, insisting on eating only the meat until it came to this.
‘Topping vegetables to make me wrap them in lettuce. That’s something the tigers used to do when they were in elementary school.’
Yoo Gun’s movements slowed as he thought of his younger siblings, Yoo-ho and Yoo-rang.
After eating a satisfying meal, momentarily forgetting the complications, and talking about everyday things, reality finally began to come into focus again.
‘If I quit the program… will I only get half the appearance fee? I’ll have to leave the agency too, so living expenses… Should I really drop out of school? I shouldn’t have quit the convenience store job. I need to contact the Store Manager again—.’
As thoughts crashed down one after another, his vision darkened.
But it wasn’t easy to turn back now either.
He still had no intention of debuting, reality was harsh, and he had no confidence that he wouldn’t show that attitude going forward.
‘Anyway, these hyungs… the problem is just my absence, not that they actually need me.’
He believed that since they were all exceptionally talented people, they could easily fill the gap left by someone like him. For now, they were desperately trying to fill that void and holding onto him, but once they actually practiced as five, they would probably think it worked out better.
It was precisely when such thoughts were blooming and threatening to consume Yoo Gun that Ha-jin opened his mouth.
“Yoo Gun.”
Was he going to tell him not to quit again? To say something irresponsible and go back to his position to practice?
In truth, Ha-jin had never actually said such things to him, yet Yoo Gun found himself somewhat afraid of what might come from Ha-jin’s lips.
“Won’t you regret it?”
“…?”
“If you really quit here, won’t you regret it? Our stage?”
“….”
But contrary to his worries,
“I’d really regret it. Our stage.”
Ha-jin’s words and voice were warm and tender.
Perhaps it was exactly the comfort Yoo Gun needed most.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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