Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 276

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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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276. A Method to Resolve a Headache
Lee Do-ha remained composed.
“Just because we’re not performing that song doesn’t mean we stop being juniors to our seniors.”
Was that even worth calling pure devotion?
If so, Lee Do-ha was the grand prize winner of the “Most Devoted Fan (Otaku Division)” award. I couldn’t even guess what prize he’d receive.
“Ugh, forget it, forget it. Okay, so what now? What do we do? What should we perform?”
Today too, I was sprawled across a massive bear plushie that took up considerable space in Lee Do-ha’s studio, swinging my legs back and forth. As dust seemed to scatter, Lee Do-ha—who rarely frowned (this bastard?)—waved a hand fan a few times before resting his chin and answering indifferently.
“Why not just do what we’ve always done? We did plenty of cover stages during Miro Maze anyway.”
“Well… I guess that’s true.”
But if I said I felt like we were losing, it would actually feel like losing, so I just kept my mouth shut.
Lee Do-ha didn’t press me for an answer, instead picking up the birthday promotion materials I’d left on the table.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, marketing ideas for what to do on my birthday. …Man, seriously, what are we doing? All the good songs for year-end arrangements have been claimed by other groups. I naturally assumed Upia’s seniors would take theirs, so I didn’t even think about backup plans…”
I grumbled while displaying the candidate song list Ji Su-ho had sent me on my phone, but my mind remained blank.
With no appealing options, there were no ideas; without ideas, there was no interest; without interest, I didn’t want to think. Eventually, after tossing my phone carelessly to the end of the sofa, Lee Do-ha—who had been carefully reviewing the birthday promotion materials—asked me with genuine curiosity.
“Ha-jin.”
“What.”
“You’re not actually worried right now, are you?”
“…What kind of brilliant observation is this?”
Can’t you see I’m so anxious I can’t even look at my phone?
Just thinking about comparison posts between idols who did cover stages popping up on community forums was already giving me a throbbing headache…
Yet Lee Do-ha simply tilted his head with that same expressionless, dry face.
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Understand what.”
“We’re the ones performing on stage anyway, not the original artists.”
“…”
“Doesn’t it not really matter? Whatever song we do.”
Ha. This guy really is something else in every way.
I have no idea where that unwavering confidence comes from. Is it because he used to be an athlete?
‘That amazing attitude of his—like he wouldn’t even mind if we performed some cheesy pop song from a highway rest stop…’
I both envied Lee Do-ha for that, and somehow today it was comforting, so I quickly shook off my gloomy feelings and sat up abruptly.
“Right. Whatever we pick has to be better than highway rest stop pop.”
“Highway… what?”
“Anyway, I need to clear my head and do something else first.”
“That topic change seems awfully abrupt…”
Ignoring Lee Do-ha’s bewildered voice, I picked up the phone I’d thrown aside earlier. Lee Do-ha watched me with slight unease as I recovered, taking a biscuit from the snack box I’d brought and chewing it while observing with interest what I was about to do.
“You know that saying—when someone’s head is splitting with pain, just bang your shin or something like that.”
“I’ve never heard that.”
“Well, there’s some saying like that. You know why that works?”
“Why does it work?”
“If you kick your own shin, your shin hurts so much you forget about the headache.”
“…So your head and shin don’t just hurt twice as much?”
“Is that really what matters right now?”
Brushing aside Lee Do-ha’s trivial objection, I immediately searched for someone to kick my shin and made a call. The dial tone barely finished before my shin-kicking specialist picked up.
-Yeah? What?
“Executive Director.”
-Mm.
“I’ve decided on my birthday gift.”
-…Out of nowhere? What is it?
At my mention of the Executive Director, Lee Do-ha crunched biscuits instead of popcorn, intuitively grasping the situation with intrigue. I gave him some fan service by raising one eyebrow, then boldly demanded my birthday gift from Ji Su-ho.
“Just set up one cafe for me, hyung.”
“….”
The biscuit Lee Do-ha was holding dropped pathetically to the studio floor with a soft thud.
Hmm, good. Judging by his reaction, I’d kicked the right shin.
After a moment of silence, Ji Su-ho finally understood what I’d said about three seconds later and let out a shriek.
-What the hell!?
…Ah, did I accidentally kick Ji Su-ho’s shin instead of my own?
Either way, I was satisfied that I’d succeeded in pulling off such a groundbreaking distraction—enough to make me forget about my headache for a while.
* * *
Ha-jin’s birthday, the first since debut, held considerable significance for Destiny as well.
For weeks already, advertisements, cafes, and events celebrating Ha-jin’s birthday had been launching their SNS promotions one by one.
靑春不敗
@chungchun_1130
｡･:*:･ﾟ★
HAPPY B-DAY HAJIN
｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
靑 春 不 敗
“May your youth never fade”
Kang Ha-jin Birthday Cafe EVENT
~coming soon!~
WingsOut
@wingsout
11/30 Kang Ha-jin Birthday Escape Cafe
Wings Out ; Escape Cafe
*Reservation Opening Alert*
htttps://buray.kr/…
Kang Ha-di
kang_HD
20XX Kang Ha-jin Birthday Cafe Information Thread
Continuously updating!
“Wow, it’s still pretty packed. And he hasn’t even been debuted that long….”
Professor Task, Ha-jin’s fan master who was collecting information about newly opened birthday cafes on Bluebird, let out a small exclamation of admiration.
She had also considered running a birthday cafe using the photo data she’d collected, but had given up early on after realizing the anticipated costs would be utterly unmanageable for a college student.
‘It’s not just hundreds of thousands of won—when you add up the cafe rental, decorations, and everything else, it’s easily several hundred thousand….’
Instead, Professor Task had granted free permission to all the cafes requesting to use her photos. Moreover, she herself planned to release previously unreleased high-resolution cuts on Ha-jin’s birthday, photos she’d been holding back until now.
Moving her mouse cursor, Professor Task contentedly examined Ha-jin’s radio commute photos that she’d been retouching until just moments ago, then let out a small, wistful sigh.
Honestly, if she’d put this much effort and care into her school assignments, she would’ve gotten an A+ and probably even received love calls from professors about graduate school. Thank goodness she’d taken a leave of absence….
-Your precious bias buys you meals and coffee—I’m not saying don’t do that at all. This is the most important time in your life right now, and it frustrates me watching you constantly waste your precious time and energy on pointless things. That’s why, honey.
Her mother’s voice, disapproving of how she spent time and money on fan activities as a fan master, played on automatic repeat in her mind.
‘But Mom. Our professor isn’t Ha-jin….’
If my professor were Kang Ha-jin, I would’ve attended every single class and gone straight into the graduate research lab.
This was a problem for science majors. They should’ve accelerated human cloning technology and distributed one Ha-jin per household…. Then world peace and national stability and global development would’ve already been….
Muttering nonsense, Professor Task scrolled through her timeline when a new birthday cafe promotional post appeared.
Pride Of You
@itsonlyforyouD
Celebrating Kairos Kang Ha-jin’s 20th birthday,
we invite you to the birthday cafe ‘Pride Of You’.
We invite Destiny.
Reservation link▼
htttps://carry.kr…/
“What is this? Why is it so simple…?”
0 followers. 0 following. Not even a single share or like yet.
No separate account promotion post, not a single hashtag, and there wasn’t even an explanation of which cafe it was or how it would be run.
“Is this a scam?”
There were occasional cases where cafes accepted reservations this way to secure operating costs, but still. Asking people to make reservations while showing this little sincerity felt like home shopping covering products with cloth and telling you to just order already.
Yet Professor Task’s mouse continued hovering around the reservation link, all because of a single poster image attached with it.
“Where was this photo released?”
The poster displayed several photos of Ha-jin smiling comfortably, with their backgrounds removed and natural light correction applied generously, arranged with sophistication. Since almost all the outfits looked familiar, it seemed like someone else doing fan master activities had designed it using unreleased cuts.
Just the fact that it was an unseen photo—and an exceptionally well-taken one at that—designed in a non-amateur way raised her favorability and trust slightly.
And the cafe name was ‘Pride Of You’ at that….
There were far too many carefully crafted details for this to be something a non-fan created to scam people.
“Let me just make a reservation anyway, why not.”
Keeping in mind the possibility it could be some strange scam, she didn’t share it particularly, but after brief deliberation, Professor Task clicked the link. Contrary to her worries, the screen connected to a standard reservation site.
At the very top of the screen, supplementary explanations about this secretive birthday cafe were listed in succession.
~* INVITATION *~
We invite you to a secret party
celebrating Kairos Kang Ha-jin’s birthday.
All content at the cafe will be conducted
in strict confidentiality,
and
The exact location of the cafe and participation details will be provided individually upon reservation confirmation.
Once your reservation is confirmed, we will provide individual guidance.
(Not a scam X Not a sketchy pyramid scheme X Please trust us, it’s a legitimate birthday cafe O)
….
In a landscape where escape rooms, flower shops, and maze games had already proliferated, a secret party was hardly a novel concept. Beneath the description lay a brief location note—somewhere near Hongdae Entrance in Seoul—followed by available time slots and reservation checkboxes.
‘It’s reservation-based but there’s no deposit required…. Well, they said there’s nothing suspicious about it….’
While Professor Task deliberated for a moment, one of the morning slots had already been marked with gray strikethrough. What had been only my eyes seeing it moments ago seemed to have spread to others in these brief minutes.
Human nature is truly fickle—when I alone knew about it, I felt no particular greed, but the moment others showed interest, I found myself restless with desire.
Eventually, Professor Task tapped the mouse decisively, selected one of the morning time slots, and filled in the information fields. After entering an email address and clicking confirm, a waiting window appeared indicating the reservation was being processed.
“Alright, that’s done…. Now I need to map out which places to visit that day in advance. Oh, and I should start placing orders for the merchandise to give away soon….”
With the resolve to pack every remaining day of my leave with Kairos activities, I opened my diary and began meticulously writing out plans and supplies needed for the “Kang Ha-jin Birthday Cafe Tour.”
Even if this version of myself was, as Mother had said, mere escapism—happiness used as a blindfold to avoid a suffocating reality—I could not deny that these moments were the most joyful and thrilling times of my life.
‘If I’m going to run away anyway, I might as well travel the entire world.’
They say you become like those you love.
In terms of extreme drive alone, this fan matched that idol perfectly.
* * *
Meanwhile.
Kang Ha-jin—that idol of unparalleled talent for causing trouble, who demolished a stable to fix it, summoned the CEO complaining of staff shortages, kicked his own shin to forget a headache, and now demanded a cafe startup as a birthday gift—was twenty years old and (soon to be) celebrating his birthday.
“Hey, are you mocking the recipe? Do you think measurements are a joke? Is baking child’s play?”
“And you—a guy who can’t even drink coffee—what exactly are you planning to do as a barista?”
“Hyung! Hyung! Brownies! I want brownies! The brownies are burning! Ahhh!”
“…You’re not planning to burn down the dormitory with birthday candles, are you, Ha-jin?”
“Why don’t you hire people right now? There’s a reason people pay labor costs to employ professionals, hyung.”
“I warned you.”
On the verge of bleeding from his ears due to the members’ relentless nagging, he was currently—
“Ugh, I’ll handle it all myself! If you’re not going to help, then stay out of it! It’s my birthday cafe, so why are you all saying something about it!”
He was currently….
experiencing firsthand the difficulties of opening a cafe.
Damn it. I never knew being an idol would be the easiest part….

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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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