Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 173

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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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173. The Penalty (4)
-Did I… just close the door?
-Yeah.
“AHAHAHAHA!!!”
-Siri! Siri, can you hear me? Call Seo Tae-hyun for me. Siri! You better earn your keep, dammit!
-What if we just… broke the door down?
-…Can we open the window screen?
-Ha-jin. We’re on the sixth floor.
“Ahahaha! Hahahaha! Oh! This is hilarious! AHAHAHAHA!”
We were in the living room of Ju Eun-chan’s house.
The Seo Ju-dan trio was watching the recording of my and Lee Do-ha’s escape room disaster on the handheld camera, laughing their heads off.
“Stop laughing already…”
“Ow, my stomach hurts. I think my face is going to split from laughing.”
“Hyung, can we watch it one more time?”
“Should we connect it to the TV? We probably have a cable at our place.”
“Now you’re not even pretending to listen.”
Whether I grumbled in frustration or not, Seo Ju-dan, having gotten solid material, was relentlessly tormenting me and Lee Do-ha with the footage. I put Ju Eun-chan in a headlock with one hand as he tried to actually retrieve the cable to connect the handheld camera to the TV.
“Stop messing with us, you bastards. Don’t you see Lee Do-ha’s getting depressed?”
-“…Me?”
I pointed at Lee Do-ha, who was slouched at the end of the sofa, with my chin, and he responded with a confused tone. This guy had literally immortalized his own embarrassing moment with his own hands, yet he had the audacity to act unbothered!
‘I should’ve deleted that footage right away…’
But it was far too hilarious for AiTube content to delete.
‘Damn occupational hazard!’
Unable to delete the footage and frustrated at being caught by the Seo Ju-dan trio, I took it out on Ju Eun-chan by stretching his cheeks mercilessly.
Ju Eun-chan cried out in pain, and Dan Ha-ru, sitting on the sofa, clutched his own cheeks as if he’d developed PTSD and hid behind Seo Tae-hyun.
Dan Ha-ru wasn’t some Pavlovian dog—he suffered as if Eun-chan’s pain was his own pain.
“Oh.”
“…?”
“Jeong Si-u hyung sent this to me.”
“Si-u hyung did?”
Seo Tae-hyun, who had been laughing away while his two younger brothers suffered, reacted quickly to Lee Do-ha’s words. Lee Do-ha silently tapped his phone a few times and showed us the gift certificate he’d received. There were two pint-sized ice cream gift certificates that let you choose from three flavors.
“He said he was sorry he couldn’t come, and to eat and order some.”
“Whoa. But two pints?”
Wouldn’t it have been fine to just send one large size instead?
Lee Do-ha’s kind explanation followed our confusion.
“One is supposedly for Levo Shark and mint chocolate chip exclusively.”
At those words, everyone except Lee Do-ha looked at me.
“What. Why. I feel sorry for you guys who don’t understand the beauty of Levo Shark and mint chocolate chip.”
“I can try to understand mint chocolate chip, but… adding Levo Shark on top of that is seriously crossing the line.”
“Wait. I actually think Levo Shark is delicious! It tastes like sherbet.”
“But Ha-ru, you eat all thirty-one flavors deliciously.”
“Well… I suppose that’s true.”
“I don’t care what anyone eats, so please let go of me, Ha-jin.”
“No way. I’ve finally got the perfect position. My arm feels empty if I let go.”
“Ugh! You’re so heavy!”
With only five of us gathered, the living room was already a complete mess.
I held Eun-chan tightly as he struggled, saying I was too heavy, while leaning against him. Meanwhile, Tae-hyun had somehow attached himself to Do-ha’s side as they deliberated over ice cream flavors.
Beside the two of them, who were selecting ice cream flavors with the careful deliberation of a new employee choosing lunch on their first day, Ha-ru sat comfortably on the sofa and chuckled as he spoke.
“I really wish the other hyungs could’ve been here today too. It’s a shame.”
Whether he meant Yu-gun and Si-u, who couldn’t make it today, or all the eliminated Miro Maze trainees, I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was reassuring to see that Ha-ru was thoroughly enjoying himself today.
‘I should start thinking about how to draw out the Returner’s personality.’
Should I use the Returner tracking clue I obtained after completing the Quest upon debut?
While I was lost in such thoughts, Eun-chan slipped out of my loosened grip, tidied his hair, and quickly escaped to the sofa where Ha-ru was sitting. After pulling a cushion into his embrace, Eun-chan exhaled sharply and spoke.
“Si-u hyung is on a trip anyway, so he can’t come… I hope Yu-gun hyung can make it even if he’s late. Should we contact him and ask?”
At Eun-chan’s suggestion, Ha-ru’s eyes lit up as he nodded enthusiastically. Then Eun-chan, after much deliberation, poked Tae-hyun, who had just finished ordering ice cream in the perfect combination.
“Huh? Eun-chan, what is it?”
“Hyung, could you please call Yu-gun hyung just once?”
“Lee Yu-gun?”
“Yes. To ask if he might be able to come even if he’s late… I’ve never called Yu-gun hyung before, so I don’t think he’d answer my calls.”
Eun-chan spoke in a slightly embarrassed tone while scratching his neck.
Just like Si-u and Eun-chan—everyone still seemed awkward around Yu-gun. This was simply the karmic retribution of Yu-gun’s past behavior of isolating himself, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
‘Come to think of it, Yu-gun was the first to skip that dinner gathering too, wasn’t he?’
Even at the wild celebration after the finals, Yu-gun had eaten just a quick meal and disappeared with his family.
He said it was because of his grandfather, but considering how many times Yu-gun’s grandfather had urged him to stay and have more fun…
It seemed that both Yu-gun and I still found each other awkward and uncomfortable.
‘And he’s not coming today either. If this keeps happening when we’re supposed to work as one team going forward, it’ll be problematic.’
Not entirely unaware of his circumstances, I was hoping he’d at least come late today. But when Eun-chan made his request, Tae-hyun shrugged and shook his head instead of taking out his phone.
“…He’s probably going to be busy the whole vacation. Let’s leave him alone today.”
“Is that so? That’s too bad….”
“Anyway, we’re a team that’ll have to see each other every day whether we like it or not. Let’s just have more fun among ourselves today.”
Huh?
‘Why is he acting like that again?’
A faint shadow flickered across Tae-hyun’s face as he spoke about Yu-gun.
For a moment, I wondered if something had happened between them too… but they were so close, and Tae-hyun’s expression quickly returned to normal, so I set aside my suspicion.
‘If he’s still like that after the vacation ends, I’ll probe him then.’
While I was organizing my thoughts, Eun-chan and Ha-ru were already fired up again, discussing whether to call Si-u if Yu-gun didn’t work out. Yet somehow, everyone seemed reluctant to call Si-u directly, so the ‘video call with Si-u’ mission naturally fell to Do-ha.
“I’m not really comfortable with a video call either….”
Do-ha was slightly flustered by the sudden mission, but he couldn’t resist Seo Ju-dan’s earnest gaze and eventually made a video call to Si-u. Fortunately, after just a few rings, Si-u’s face appeared on Do-ha’s phone.
And the moment Si-u’s face appeared, Ha-ru blurted out blankly.
“Wow. He’s really handsome.”
-Yeah. I hear that a lot.
“Oh! Hyung. Hello.”
“Si-woo Hyung! Hello!”
“Hyung, I’ve missed you~”
He’d suddenly initiated a video call, and the moment he picked up, we were gushing about how handsome he was—which should’ve caught him off guard, but this was Jeong Si-u we were talking about. He responded with an easy smile, and Dan Ha-ru flinched in surprise, bowing his head quickly. Then Ju Eun-chan and Seo Tae-hyun took turns waving and greeting him in succession.
What was I doing, you ask?
‘This is the kind of content the fans love.’
Once again, my occupational habit kicked in—I’d swiftly grabbed the handheld camera and was filming the guys mid-video call with Jeong Si-u.
Lee Do-ha stood rigidly holding his phone like a tripod, and the Seo Ju-dan trio huddled around him—it looked less like cicadas swarming an old tree and more like tiny baby animals clustering around a massive bear.
‘This looks like something out of a fairy tale.’
Or maybe… Winnie the Pooh?
As I tilted my head, wrestling with that nagging sense of familiarity, Jeong Si-u continued conversing quite graciously with the members.
“Hyung, hyung. What do you guys do for fun at team outings?”
-Well. Usually we drink, and then we drink some more, and then we drink… we drink.
“Huh. Hyung, you drank too?”
-No. I didn’t.
Jeong Si-u shook his head firmly, denying it, and Seo Tae-hyun quietly marveled at how impressive his self-management was as an idol, but then Si-u added something more.
-I told them if they wanted me to drink, they’d have to beat me at games first. They all dropped out after just a few rounds.
“….”
-So when things were getting boring, you guys called, and I stepped out for a bit. Maybe I should’ve just hung out with you all instead.
…Y-yeah.
At his casual remark, we all blinked and fell silent.
Well, like Seo Tae-hyun said, he definitely passed the idol standards in many ways….
I quietly hit the stop recording button and made a decision.
‘I should never talk back to that hyung.’
Mom, I’m scared of that hyung….
* * *
After finishing the call with Jeong Si-u and polishing off the ice cream that had arrived just in time, we got ready for bed.
Despite how much we’d teased him about his ice cream preferences, Seo Tae-hyun had carefully picked out one of the two cups in the flavor I liked—and only that flavor. Unlike Seo Tae-hyun, who despised mint chocolate, the rest of us, including Lee Do-ha, weren’t picky eaters, so we managed to satisfy our sweet cravings quite peacefully with the ice cream.
“Oh. Eun-chan Hyung. That old toothbrush I used to have is gone.”
“Oh, that one was too worn out, so I just threw it away. You didn’t bring a toothbrush?”
“No.”
“What do we do? I don’t have any spare toothbrushes at home either….”
Dan Ha-ru, who’d gone into the restroom to wash up, drew his eyebrows down in dismay. It was just one missing toothbrush, but he looked so forlorn—like a baby rabbit warrior who’d lost a precious pendant with cherished memories—that Ju Eun-chan, hearing this, got up anxiously as well.
“I didn’t bring a toothbrush either. Let’s go to the Convenience Store together and buy one, Ha-ru.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The Convenience Store’s right nearby. Let’s go grab one.”
Watching the two youngest make a fuss over a single toothbrush, I quietly shoved the toothbrush I was holding deep into my bag and stood up. I saw Ha-ru nod eagerly at my words.
Then Seo Tae-hyun, who’d just finished washing up with a towel draped over his head, overheard our conversation and chimed in.
“Hyung, you’re going to the Convenience Store now? Just in case, wear a mask.”
“It’s right around the corner, so what.”
“Thirty minutes ago, there was a sighting at the cafe in Kim Won-ho’s neighborhood, and yesterday there were photos of Pa-rang and Jae-young going to the Coin Karaoke together….”
“Dan Ha-ru, put on a hat. Pull your mask up carefully.”
“Yes!”
Mom, I’m scared of him too.
There was no way I could compete with Seo Tae-hyun, who rattled off the latest information like a machine. I quickly resigned myself to defeat and, while Dan Ha-ru put on his hoodie and mask, I pulled out the baseball cap I’d brought from home and pressed it onto my head.
If I wore a mask here too, it would actually look like I was being theatrical about it—”look, we’re celebrities.” So I compromised by pulling the training jersey I was already wearing up to my neck instead. (Just me, making peace with myself.)
“Let’s go.”
“Yes. But hyung, you really didn’t bring a toothbrush?”
“Ah… I don’t know. I thought I brought one, but when I looked, it wasn’t there.”
Dan Ha-ru nodded innocently at that, and as if the unexpected night walk excited him, he walked a step or two ahead of me, bouncing along. I kept my hands in my pockets and followed behind, watching to make sure he didn’t stumble.
Contrary to Seo Tae-hyun’s worries, the path to the Convenience Store was very quiet and still.
On that short stretch where not even an ant passed by, I began to wonder what I should say to draw out the personality of the Regressor from Dan Ha-ru.
‘Should I just go ahead and poke him directly? I actually know what you’re doing?’
Was now the right timing to extract clues about tracking the Regressor?
Just as I was about to open the system window while watching Dan Ha-ru enter the Convenience Store ahead of me with a jingling sound,
[That won’t work.]
Along with that tiresome red text,
the world flashed white.

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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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