Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 299

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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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299. Nightmare (3)
Only I can stop myself.
And only I can truly understand myself.
That was my conclusion.
“I happened to have a spare body lying around, so I borrowed it for a bit.”
The body of this primary personality Dan Ha-ru standing before me now was Thirteen’s humanized form.
Since the humanization process hadn’t fully completed, it was only a half-finished body—the shell borrowed the appearance of a twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru, and it was merely a temporary vessel for the primary personality.
I’d had to pour every accumulated point into this, and once the system reached its limits, we’d merge back into one body anyway….
But at least, it seemed I could create enough time for the primary personality Dan Ha-ru and the Regressor personality Dan Ha-ru to have a conversation with each other.
“How is it, Ha-ru?”
….
“I’m a madman in love who rewound time five thousand times for you and remade the world.”
The seventeen-year-old—no, now that the year had changed, eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru in a twenty-six-year-old body and the twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru in an eighteen-year-old body stood facing each other in silence for a long while.
The eighteen-year-old seemed overwhelmed by the sudden revelation of his birth secret, while the twenty-six-year-old seemed at a loss before his own reflection.
[Will this be alright?]
Before executing all the plans.
When Thirteen heard my plan to face the Regressor Dan Ha-ru and the primary personality Dan Ha-ru against each other, he asked me that. Lending his body wasn’t difficult, but was he truly certain this was okay?
-At this point, what could possibly not be okay? We have to try something.
[The Regressor personality will struggle too, but…. The shock to the primary personality Dan Ha-ru will be considerable.]
-I know. The world will flip upside down overnight, so it won’t be easy at all.
The face of the twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru I was seeing after so long still felt somewhat unfamiliar to me.
The soft baby fat had vanished, and instead of the apricot-tinted flush, dark circles hung beneath his eyes, sharp and hollow. He’d grown taller, and instead of lustrous golden hair that had been carefully maintained, dull, dry, natural brown hair hung messily over his beautiful face.
-Still….
[…?]
-It’s still okay.
But those two eyes that gleamed like stars through it all—they were unmistakably the courageous, loving Dan Ha-ru I knew.
-Ha-ru will be okay.
-You can overcome this, Ha-ru.
Because you now know the warmth of spring that only arrives after winter passes.
-I believe in you, Ha-ru.
The primary personality Dan Ha-ru, who wore an adult’s form yet still possessed a boy’s gaze, spoke first to the other Dan Ha-ru wearing the same face.
“…Hello.”
….
“It was you. That voice.”
A bright, tender smile bloomed like a petal across the lips of the Dan Ha-ru with the twenty-six-year-old face.
That familiar smile spreading across the unfamiliar face was so pure and radiant that I could finally release a sigh of relief.
* * *
“It was always strange.”
The eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru sitting on the sofa began speaking in an unusually calm voice.
“I knew something was off, but I didn’t understand how it was off.”
Sometimes my memories differ from my brothers’, or I experience déjà vu as if I’ve lived through similar situations before, or I know things I’ve never been told, or I’m already familiar with how to use things I’m learning for the first time….
The things I continued to ramble about seemed to be events that occurred when my base personality, Dan Ha-ru, unconsciously recognized the regression.
Whether the clarity came from separating from the regressor personality and becoming more acutely aware of the discrepancy, or whether some kind of awakening effect occurred in my base personality Dan Ha-ru, I couldn’t say for certain—but what was clear was that my base personality Dan Ha-ru was now accepting the current situation with full understanding.
It occurred to me that perhaps Dan Ha-ru had been sensing something all along during this time. I was somewhat surprised at how quickly he accepted everything, faster than I expected, but looking back, the Dan Ha-ru I knew had always been that way.
When everyone else panicked, startled, and afraid, he alone was the one who always pondered what to do, accepted the situation, and strived to look toward an optimistic future with composure.
‘He probably could have become this resilient from the start. If only someone had helped him a little.’
As I watched with such thoughts, eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru carefully continued speaking.
“Um…. And the strangest thing was that voice.”
“….”
“I thought it was kind of like the voice of my unconscious, you know? Like in those children’s movies where they have that kind of thing.”
“….”
“But then you said it wasn’t that, it was just ‘me’…. Um, well, I’m not sure. It feels good, but also kind of strange.”
Now that I think about it, is this the first time I’ve seen Dan Ha-ru speak casually?
While I stood a step away, deliberately giving the two Dan Ha-rus space to converse more comfortably with themselves, that thought suddenly struck me. Dan Ha-ru had been the youngest in Miro, and even after debuting, he’d spoken almost exclusively in formal speech to his older brothers.
‘His first conversation with someone his own age is with himself. How ironic.’
I recalled the image of Dan Ha-ru from the QBS year-end broadcast stage, devastated that he’d ultimately been unable to send a friend request to Storm Header’s youngest member due to time constraints.
As I resolved that once this was all over, I would definitely find our youngest a peer friend, this time the twenty-six-year-old regressor personality Dan Ha-ru spoke up.
“…Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Everything. This. All of it. That your background, memories, experiences—everything is fake. That you’ve been living in a fantasy I created. That I….”
“….”
“That I…. locked you in a perfect day and tried to disappear.”
The twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru speaking those words couldn’t bring himself to look at the eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru who wore his own face. It seemed he too understood how absurd everything he’d done was.
…Yet there was nothing he could do to undo it or abandon it.
The eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru answered the twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru.
“Um…. Honestly, I was really shocked at first. I still can’t quite believe it. It all feels like some crazy dream.”
“….”
“But when I was listening to you and Ha-jin hyung talking earlier, all these memories I didn’t know about started coming back to me. There are so many I can’t remember them all…. But there’s one thing I remember crystal clear.”
The eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru paused mid-sentence and took a deep breath. For a moment, between his wavering pupils, a hint of moisture gleamed.
“…The day the Orphanage Director passed away.”
“….”
“We were really struggling then, weren’t we? …Right?”
The voice of eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru trembled miserably as he spoke. The eyes that had maintained their composure throughout began to swell bright red, and beneath his pale jaw, his chin crumpled as he fought back tears.
Watching him, I felt tears threatening to spill from my own eyes, so I cleared my throat awkwardly and turned away. Behind my back, I could still hear eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru’s voice continuing through sniffles.
“I understand you.”
Eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru offered comfort to twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru.
In that voice, which deliberately tried to sound more cheerful, there was only pure sincerity.
“We didn’t have any choice. We couldn’t do anything but run away like that.”
“…Don’t.”
“The reason you first decided to regress was to save the Orphanage Director, right? But no matter how many times you tried, it didn’t work…. It kept not working…. You were trying to do it right, but you messed everything up. So we just ran away like this.”
“Stop….”
“But we’re suffering so much…. Because of us, because of us, I keep watching other people’s lives fall apart, and it hurts so much, scares me so much, that’s why…. That’s why you took all those memories from me. So I could live in ignorance and be happy.”
“Stop it!”
Twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru shot to his feet with a shout.
When I looked back at the two of them, eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru was already crying, tears streaming down his face without pause, while twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru stared down at him with eyes blazing red.
Prepared to escape the Unconscious Space at any moment should something go wrong, I simply watched the two of them. Eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru continued speaking.
“…I’m sorry.”
“….”
“I didn’t know any of this, and I was so happy by myself.”
“….”
“I thought I was such a lucky child, that growing up without any hardship was such good fortune.”
“Please don’t do this….”
“The truth is, you were suffering everything in my place, but I didn’t know that and just waited for tomorrow. You were trapped in all those yesterdays I abandoned, and I didn’t even know.”
Eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru carefully extended his hand toward twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru.
Since their bodies had been swapped, from my perspective it looked like the adult twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru was embracing the still-young eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru. Foolishly, I felt tears threatening to spill.
I knew all too well how precious a moment it was when one forgave and understood oneself.
“Don’t do this, stop….”
“Thank you, Ha-ru. I’ve been happy because of you all this time.”
“No, I told you to stop. Stop it, I told you to stop!”
“But…. If you and the others are suffering because of me…. If this happiness was gained by ruining your time and theirs…. I really don’t think I can bear that.”
“Stop this, Dan Ha-ru! Are you insane? Do you understand what you’re about to give up right now!?”
“Let’s stop now, Ha-ru….”
“….”
“Let’s stop now…. And try living again, Ha-ru. Yeah? I want to do that.”
Dan Ha-ru’s final words were almost a plea. Twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru, who had been struggling to break free from eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru, froze at those words.
For a moment. Just a moment.
Silence stretched out, broken only by someone’s quiet sobbing.
It was twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru’s self-deprecating voice that shattered that stillness.
“…Stop? Do you understand what that means?”
“….”
“It means becoming an orphan again. Going back to that time when you had nothing. Even if you’re abandoned by the world, hurt by people, even if someone like you dies, no one would care. You’d have to live that life again.”
“That was back then. It’s different now.”
“Is it? It’s not different, Ha-ru. Your hyungs in the group? Your countless fans? Fame and money? How long do you think those will last? In all the timelines we’ve lived through, we’ve never obtained that much love and affection from people, have we?”
Twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru gripped eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru and poured out his words in a trembling voice, barely restraining his anger.
“But every time, you ended up disappointed and failed. You suffered, you were afraid, and in the end you were hurt and fell.”
“….”
“Right now this life looks good. But in ten years? Twenty years? What if you get scammed and lose everything you have, what if your precious hyungs cause trouble and fight and the group falls apart? What if the Orphanage Director passes away again? What will you do then?”
“….”
“Rather than be left behind miserably and alone, what’s wrong with wanting to stay in a dream that’s fake but beautiful!”
A cry close to a scream filled the Unconscious Space.
I watched the two of them locked in their standoff, ready to wake at a moment’s notice, when I suddenly noticed something flowing from my nose. I wiped it away discreetly so Dan Ha-ru wouldn’t notice, and dark crimson blood smeared across my fingertips.
‘…I’m reaching my limit, it seems.’
Thirteen had promised to eliminate the penalty however he could, but the tasks I’d requested were so massive in scale that it appeared he’d failed to completely block the physical penalty.
If I made a wrong move, the damage could extend to Jeong Si-u, whom I’d put to sleep alongside him. It seemed the time had come to close the Unconscious Space soon. It also meant I didn’t have much time left to persuade the regressor Dan Ha-ru.
‘Should I step in now?’
I was deliberating for a moment while watching the two still locked in their standoff.
After hearing the cry of the twenty-six-year-old Dan Ha-ru, the eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru, who had been silent for quite some time, finally moved. With one arm, he roughly wiped away the tear stains on his face, and with a nose so red that even Rudolph would weep, he spoke with a sniffle.
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? Don’t be stubborn.”
“You’re the one being stubborn! Why am I alone?”
“…Then who else do you have besides me?”
“You’re here!”
….
“I have you, who cares for me more than anyone else in this world. So why am I alone? You… you, you idiot!”
If Dan Ha-ru had possessed a companion recruitment system, wouldn’t this very moment have been the historic instant when he welcomed himself as an ally?
‘…What a remarkable child.’
Watching our spirited little rabbit warrior finally save the world that was himself—a touching scene—I found myself forgetting even the urgent need to escape this place, simply observing in silence.
Until the system reached its limit, Thirteen’s form vanished, and only a single Dan Ha-ru remained in that space.
For a very, very long time….
Throughout that long time, I simply watched the moment when Dan Ha-ru finally came to love himself.

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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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