Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 289

—————

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

—————

289. Unexpected Comfort
“Ha-won, I’m heading out. Make sure you eat something, okay?”
“Sure. Have a good trip. I’ll call if I’m going to be late.”
“Understood.”
Ha-won watched as his mother, Young-in, left the house. She’d recently taken up part-time work at a friend’s shop to help with living expenses. While Father’s job had stabilized and the household finances were gradually improving, it seemed to take far more time and effort than expected to pull their finances back from the red to zero.
‘I should be doing something too….’
His parents and older brother were all working so hard, yet Ha-won sometimes felt as though he alone was frozen somewhere in this cramped apartment.
By nature, he had no desire to go out or travel anywhere. The thought of working part-time terrified him—having to deal with strangers in unfamiliar places left him breathless. He’d gone to several interviews, but perhaps due to his introverted nature, few places had called him back.
‘But honestly… I just want to rest.’
Since childhood, Ha-won had done nothing but draw.
What had begun as a simple joy in art had gradually transformed into something called “entrance exams”—a test with success and failure.
His high school had been assigned far from home, so for years he’d woken before dawn and returned late at night. Through it all, Ha-won had grown weary, and the thought of this cycle continuing indefinitely made him feel suffocated.
‘I don’t even know what to draw anymore….’
He no longer knew what he wanted to draw, and he’d lost all confidence that people would want his art. Yet when he tried to consider other paths, he felt only lost and unmotivated. Nothing sparked his interest.
‘My brother found his path and is doing well….’
In truth, these were worries far too heavy for a nineteen-year-old, but after more than a decade devoted to drawing, they weighed on Ha-won with considerable burden and pressure.
Yet he couldn’t openly share these feelings with his parents.
—Don’t worry about money or family circumstances. Do what you want to do. Your mother and I will support your dreams however we can.
Ha-won knew better than anyone how much support and encouragement his parents—whose own talents had been stifled by lack of family support—had given him and his brother.
Moreover, now that his brother had successfully debuted as an idol, his parents took pride in that success as if it were their own….
—Ha-won, don’t you want to try challenging yourself? There are so many competitions and media outlets these days.
…and they clearly hoped he would also fully realize his abilities and achieve something like his brother.
He understood it wasn’t pressure for results, but genuine regret about his untapped talent. Still, he couldn’t help but feel suffocated.
“…Ah, what should I eat?”
Ha-won, who had been lost in thought in the silent apartment, shook off those feelings and stood up. After carefully examining the refrigerator, he soon prepared a plate of pasta, a salad drizzled with balsamic dressing, a bowl of cream soup with mushrooms, and garlic bread toasted with minced garlic paste.
“I think the bread was in the freezer somewhere….”
After retrieving the frozen bread and baking the garlic bread, Ha-won sat at the table. The family tradition of never eating carelessly, even alone, came entirely from his mother’s skilled cooking.
With orange juice poured generously into a pretty glass, Ha-won habitually opened his phone and accessed AiTube before eating. Since his brother’s debut, he’d been eating alone more often, so finding videos to watch while eating had become part of his meal routine.
“What’s there to watch? Everything’s on break for the year-end….”
Ha-won quickly scanned thumbnails and scrolled rapidly. Most of his usual shows seemed to be on hiatus or hadn’t uploaded new episodes yet.
When he scrolled back to the top of the timeline and refreshed, a rather shocking thumbnail caught his eye.
“…?”
The spoon Ha-won had been holding to eat cream soup dropped back into the bowl.
Ignoring the cream soup that dribbled uselessly from the spoon, Ha-won slowly rubbed his eyes with his other hand and looked at the screen again.
【[20XX QBS Music Festival: New Road] Kairos – More More (Original: Chungwol Girls)】
The thumbnail of what appeared to be a year-end stage clip was drenched in pink lighting and soft filters that absolutely, completely, utterly didn’t suit his brother or his group at all.
And there was his brother wearing some ridiculous white fuzzy beret, poking his own cheek with his finger!
“…?”
After three seconds of failing to process the situation, Ha-won hurled his phone across the table as if it were an insect and screamed.
“Aaaahhh! What is this!?”
It’s a demon. A demon, I tell you.
That thing was a demon.
There’s no way my brother would be wearing a pink ribbon around his neck and acting so cutesy otherwise….
‘…right?’
Ha-won, who had been startled for a moment, paused to reconsider his thoughts.
Then again, he was the type of lunatic who would suddenly break into dance and lisp whenever he was in a good mood, so something like that might just be his usual antics….
“No. I might have just misread it.”
Ha-won steeled himself and picked up his phone again. Before he knew it, his fingers had somehow tapped the screen, and the problematic stage video was already playing.
With a skeptical expression, Ha-won stretched his arm as far as possible, keeping the phone at a distance from his eyes as he watched the video with a hazy gaze.
KIROS!
“Whoa, that scared me. I almost watched it.”
Ha-won managed to endure the intro with Tae-hyun and Ha-ru grinning brightly, but the moment his brother appeared as the song started, he urgently paused the video and shut the phone.
He even took a moment to praise his own quick reflexes for nearly avoiding disaster. It seemed to be that cute-sexy girl group cover he’d mentioned before.
“….”
Maybe I should just….
Is it really so wrong to enjoy myself a bit before starting university?
Ha-won suddenly had that thought. His only brother was living so intensely, grinding his teeth with such fierce determination, so wouldn’t the world’s balance be better if I lived a little less seriously?
With that thought, Ha-won carefully picked up his phone again.
After all, it was the result of his brother’s hard work, so he figured he should at least give it a like.
“…? What is this now…?”
Still paused by his brother’s sly wink, Ha-won quickly scrolled past the stage video and, after liking it, discovered a related video below.
This one also had his brother’s group name in the title, and the view count was unusual.
【QBS Music Festival Kairos Ending Direct Cam Feat. Chaotic Karaoke Show】
580,000 views ‧ 17 hours ago
“….”
In the video’s thumbnail, what appeared to be his brother (though he wanted to deny it) was linked arm-in-arm with members who looked like Dan Ha-ru and Ju Eun-chan, headbanging like a madman.
He’d shaken his head so vigorously that the thumbnail was blurred, making it look like his head was tripled and overlapping.
“Ugh, I really don’t want to see this….”
But he was far too curious.
This moth-drawn-to-flame personality was clearly inherited from his brother, parents, and himself alike!
“Watch…? Don’t watch…? Watch…?”
Ha-won hesitated for a moment in front of his cooling soup and pasta, but eventually clicked on the video before long. At least his clothes looked normal this time, nothing like that weird furry outfit, so how embarrassing could it really be?
And the moment the video started playing, Ha-won was reminded anew of the fact that his brother was always a madman who exceeded his expectations.
“Ah, this song.”
Ha-won knew this song well.
It was a song their mother particularly loved, so he’d heard it often since childhood, and whenever the family went to a karaoke room, he and his brother would sing it together like a special talent show for their mother.
At first, there was nothing unusual. The members simply gathered and hummed along, and his brother occasionally seemed excited, whispering to other members beside him or mimicking high notes while holding the microphone.
The problem started when the song reached the chorus.
Since it was such an old song, the idol group members, who were overwhelmingly young, didn’t know the lyrics and melody, so they gradually began singing uncertainly.
In contrast, the unnecessarily grand band session kept building with the characteristic intensity of 1980s support songs, creating an extreme contrast effect with no end in sight.
The idols holding microphones around my brother were exchanging glances with each other, their lips moving awkwardly without sound—and then―,
Oh! Oh! Oh! Come on, youth! Blow, wind↗!
A tremendously loud and powerful singing voice suddenly rang out from somewhere!
Without even needing to check the fancam, Ha-won could tell it was his brother’s voice—the one who’d never held back, now belting out with all his might without a shred of restraint.
Hahahaha please Kang Ha-jin hahahaha
– Dude… Ha-jin, you need to pay on your way out… at this point you definitely owe money
– Now I understand why Kairos goes to their fourth round every company dinner without alcohol
Lol these kids seem to have all gone crazy together
The Upia SBN staff members who were here in front were buzzing around trying to figure out whose voice that was, it was so funny lol
– So at least we can confirm one thing for sure: Kairos doesn’t have a girlfriend there
– At this rate, isn’t it just a Kairos solo performance?
The comments section was in complete chaos.
Ha-won was genuinely terrified of just how far his one and only brother intended to flaunt his shamelessness. No matter how he thought about it, revealing to the world that he was the sibling of this lunatic seemed like nothing but trouble.
‘That wasn’t supposed to air live….’
Fortunately, the VCR featuring Ha-won that aired right after the live broadcast at Ha-jin’s request was never uploaded to AiTube, and it had been edited out of the rerun as well. Still, Ha-won couldn’t help but make a solemn vow.
‘I absolutely cannot tell anyone that I’m Kang Ha-jin’s sibling. I must never let anyone find out.’
With that firm resolve, Ha-won contentedly twirled his pasta and popped a forkful into his mouth.
A quiet and comfortable life was the best.
A life where I could enjoy peaceful solitude in our house was the best.
Living earnestly in this world seemed to require nothing more than my parents and my brother in this home.

—————

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

—————