Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 123

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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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123. The Reason for Action (10)
Park Jae-young had never witnessed such a contradictory situation in his life.
“What on earth happened? Why did you do this? Who did you fight with? Did you win?”
“No, Mom. It’s not that…”
“I bragged so much about how beautifully I raised one hand, and now look at these scratches, these scratches! I told you so many times, please, *please* stop being so careless. What is this right now? Are you okay? Does it hurt? It looks like it hurts. I hope it doesn’t leave a scar… If you’re going to be an idol, how can you manage your body like this?”
“Mom, my younger sibling is here too, so please calm down…”
“The one who whined about being hurt to your younger sibling is saying that!?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Are you not going to take proper care of your body!?”
“…I will take care of it.”
The sight of Ha-jin, whose frame towered well over 180 centimeters, being scolded by his mother—who appeared nearly two hand-spans shorter than him—was quite a rare spectacle.
Actually, first of all.
Kang Ha-jin? Getting scolded? Verbally? Not moving an inch?
‘I got scolded by Si-woo before, but I’ve never seen him shrink like this.’
Ha-jin’s mother had a refreshingly straightforward and open impression, like any ordinary woman you’d see in the neighborhood, but her eyes were remarkably large and round.
‘Ha-jin’s eyes don’t have double eyelids and are sharp. Did he take after Father?’
Jae-young sat awkwardly in the corner, watching the reunion between mother and son unfold.
The more he watched, the more fascinating and entertaining it became.
“Mom, if you’re going to do this, just hit me instead.”
“Why would I hit my precious child?”
“…What, why are you suddenly making me emotional?”
“You like it when Mom worries about you, don’t you? But seeing your palms like this breaks my heart.”
“…Our mom shouldn’t be upset. Oh my, Kang Ha-jin was wrong. I was wrong.”
Huh? The atmosphere suddenly became warm again.
Jae-young hadn’t known Ha-jin for long, but he’d never seen him smile so comfortably and lean into someone like that. And only then did Jae-young find what Ha-jin had in common with his mother.
“…Ugh. Slipping past with aegyo, huh.”
‘The smile is identical!’
Young-in’s reluctant smile was exactly the same as Ha-jin’s.
That refreshing, radiant smile of Ha-jin’s was unmistakably inherited from his mother!
As if he’d discovered something remarkable, Jae-young felt a quiet satisfaction as he observed Ha-jin and Young-in.
“But is it okay to be hugging like this in front of your younger sibling?”
“What’s the problem? While I’m here, I should hug him too. He’s our team’s youngest, One.”
“One? Is there a Two as well? Who’s Two? Ha-ru?”
“Yeah. He’s still filming. Park Jae-young, come here. This is our mom. Say hello.”
“…Yes? Oh, hello. I’m Park Jae-young.”
Jae-young greeted Ha-jin’s mother hesitantly. Young-in received his greeting with a warm smile, offering praise about how lovely his singing voice was.
“But Mom, how did you even get here?”
“I came to bring your school uniform. But Team Leader Soo-ho asked if you’d be watching your stage performance, so I took the opportunity to look around the Broadcasting Station.”
“You watched our stage? Were you there during the pre-recording earlier?”
“Yes. You did well, my son?”
“Well then. Whose son are you?”
“Wow, that high note at the end was absolutely stunning. You did great, you worked hard. Mom is so proud of you.”
Young-in tidied Ha-jin’s hair and patted his back approvingly.
After praising the Stage performance for a while longer, Young-in checked the time and picked up her bag.
“Mom needs to get going now that I’ve seen you.”
“Already?”
“Of course I should go. What would I do here? You have your work, and I have mine.”
“Where did you park? Let me walk you out. You can’t take the elevator without an access card.”
…So he’s really close with his mother.
As the firstborn at home, Jae-young lacked playfulness, so watching Ha-jin converse so naturally with his mother felt unfamiliar yet quintessentially Ha-jin. When Ha-jin’s eyes met his as he was about to escort his mother out, Jae-young simply flopped onto the sofa and closed his eyes.
“I have a headache, so I’m going to rest here. I won’t move an inch until the manager arrives.”
“…Sure, whatever. I’ll be back soon. Get some rest.”
“Jae-young, you worked hard! Fighting!”
Jae-young cracked open his eyes slightly as he heard Ha-jin and Young-in leaving the Waiting Room.
The moment he confirmed they were completely gone, Jae-young frantically grabbed his phone and opened the messenger.
[Miro Maknae Chat V_V (5)]
【Dae-bak I just saw Ha-jin’s mom!】
【She smiles exactly like hyung!!!!】
【Shocking!! Hyung becomes a total gentle lamb in front of his mom!!!!】
He had to spread this juicy gossip to everyone right away!
* * *
“Huh? Ha-jin, why are you over there?”
“Oh, Team Leader.”
After escorting his mother outside the Broadcasting Station and heading back to the Waiting Room, Ha-jin ran into Seo Tae-hyun.
When Ha-jin mentioned he’d just been seeing his mother off, Seo Tae-hyun looked at him with a warm expression.
“You’re exactly like your mother, you know.”
“I hear that a lot.”
“Your mother is really a wonderful person.”
“I hear that often too.”
At Ha-jin’s expression, which seemed more proud hearing his mother praised than being praised himself, Seo Tae-hyun clicked his tongue in mock exasperation.
Still, he’d expected that after so long apart, she’d at least share a meal with her son. The fact that she left so coolly suggested that Ha-jin’s mother was no ordinary person either.
‘…Though honestly, they probably couldn’t have eaten together anyway.’
Seo Tae-hyun recalled the conversation he’d just had with the A-Countdown main PD. In any case, nothing in this industry ever went according to plan.
“Actually, I was going to ask you something. Good timing.”
“…? What is it?”
“Would you watch the live broadcast too? All the way through to the 1st place announcement ending.”
“Yes…? Why, all of a sudden?”
“…Well, Upia is apparently a 1st place contender today. We just found out. But the Upia kids are all on overseas location shoots right now. For concert VCR filming.”
…What were those brutally vicious top-tier first sons up to?
Ha-jin’s face filled with bewilderment.
* * *
A-Countdown’s request was straightforward.
-Look, we didn’t expect this song to even be in contention for first place either. But what can we do? It’s already there, right? If it doesn’t take first, no problem. But if it does? Well, technically we could just downplay it with some MC banter, but wouldn’t you know it—today of all days! Right now! Miro’s next-generation trainees just performed a special stage?
-But they’re not even officially debuted yet….
-Exactly! We’re not asking them to give an acceptance speech or perform an encore. Just have them accept the award on behalf of the winner, that’s all~ And honestly, if it doesn’t take first, they’ll just get their faces on camera for a moment anyway, right? It’s a great opportunity for rookies.
-But they’re still trainees, not even rookies yet….
-Looking at today’s schedule, the timing works perfectly. Everything before and after is pre-recorded, so they can go up and perform during the live broadcast later. These kids came all the way to a music show—shouldn’t they at least sing once in front of an audience? They were doing great with the live vocals too!
Perform during the live broadcast, then come up at the end—and if Yupia takes first place, just accept the trophy gracefully.
It wasn’t an unreasonable proposal in itself, but Ha-jin had multiple reasons for hesitating to accept it.
‘First, there’s the risk of making Idea—the group I just got on good terms with—resent us.’
Senior fandoms didn’t mind having junior groups celebrate a win ‘with’ them, but they absolutely hated when those juniors used accepting the award ‘on their behalf’ as a chance to raise their own profile.
Especially since the song nominated for first place was Yupia’s digital single “I’ll Be There,” released for their thirteenth anniversary.
It was a love song that whispered “I love Idea” non-stop for three minutes and thirty-one seconds straight.
Considering that Idea’s fanclub was founded on March 31st, jumping into this obsessive love affair would definitely get Ha-jin and everyone else absolutely torn apart.
And second.
“…The other nominee for first place is who, exactly?”
“…B-liver.”
Of all groups, the ones nominated alongside them were B-liver—the very group Ha-jin had desperately hoped never to cross paths with again!
“…How could you not know your own agency’s artist was in contention until today?”
“Well… Shin Tae-pal was originally the nominee, but he got arrested this morning out of nowhere…? They rushed to exclude him from consideration due to a social controversy issue.”
“Shin Tae-pal? Isn’t he that trot singer? What did he suddenly get arrested for?”
“Something about fraud, apparently. …But then, when they showed up with the warrant, he just happened to be using drugs. Now there’s a whole new investigation into the drug charges….”
“…That guy really does have quite the resume.”
“…Yeah, and then he tried to run to avoid arrest and crashed his car into a telephone pole. Now they’re adding a DUI charge too…?”
“He was high and drinking? It’s a miracle he’s still alive at all.”
“Last I heard, he’s lying in a hospital bed right now….”
….
The world had sacrificed one person to make Yupia win first place.
Of course it was absurd logic, but Ha-jin genuinely believed it. What kind of fortune did Yupia have to end up as a first-place nominee through such an utterly ridiculous chain of events?
‘Could it be Seo Tae-il, the regression culprit? This is actually a pretty reasonable suspicion.’
[System Alert: But Seo Tae-il hasn’t been significantly involved in any of the regression incidents so far…?]
‘Then what exactly are these Yupia people doing?’
[System Alert: What are they doing, you ask….]
[System Alert: They’re just first-tier senior idols who’ve maintained their position for thirteen years without a single member leaving….]
Yeah, I’m incredibly jealous.
“I think I need to give this some thought. The whole situation just doesn’t look very clean.”
“…So for now, I said I’d think about whether you guys should accept the award on their behalf. But performing during the live broadcast does seem to have some advantages.”
“The kids would probably be happy to perform in front of an audience…. Let me at least ask them about it.”
If the other nominee had been anyone but B-liver, I would’ve been more positive about this.
No matter how I thought about it, B-liver just rubbed me the wrong way. The whole image of putting Tae-hyun—who hasn’t even officially debuted yet—on stage with them as a proxy award recipient just didn’t sit right with me.
‘If B-liver’s kids end up taking first place, things get even messier.’
Still, I figured I should at least ask, so I opened the door.
Apparently they’d finished recording and returned—all the remaining trainees were gathered inside. And Dan Ha-ru, standing at the center of them, was fuming with an indignant expression, his voice sharp.
“Those guys are seriously cowards! They’re terrible!”
“No, Ha-ru. Just calm down for a moment… Anyway, it’s all in the past now…”
“How am I supposed to calm down! I saw how they treated your brother like that, just—just—like that! To our precious Tae-hyun!”
“…Ha-ru, you…”
“Hey, Seo Tae-hyun. If you suddenly get moved at this point, what exactly are you trying to do?”
Huh? Did Sparkle just snap again?
At the unusual exchange, a question mark floated above my head.

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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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