Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 310

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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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310. For Spring to Come (2)
‘No matter how expensive or fine a place is, a hospital is still a hospital.’
I sat in a chair positioned along the hospital corridor, my gaze fixed on an expensive-looking painting hanging on the opposite wall.
Costly artwork adorned the hallway, security personnel were stationed throughout the entrance and passages, and with fewer patients occupying rooms, the atmosphere was serene and quiet—ideal for organizing one’s thoughts. Yet my heart remained heavy.
Regardless of its exterior, this place served as a reminder of what it truly was: a sanctuary for the afflicted.
The weight of that reality pressed down on me.
“…Want something to drink?”
A low voice asked with a hint of warmth.
I lifted my head to find Do-ha in a gray hoodie extending a cold canned beverage toward me. His other hand was laden with drinks—it seemed he’d grabbed refreshments for all the members.
Among the drinks he held, one item stood out with unmistakable presence: traditional sikhye. I let out an involuntary laugh.
“Since when does Si-woo drink sikhye? Not sujeonggwa?”
“I’m stressed and need a sugar boost.”
“…Stressed?”
“It’s a hospital.”
“….”
“Just being here is quite stimulating.”
“…You really….”
Struck by how matter-of-factly he spoke, I accepted the canned drink he offered. The cool, sweet ion beverage went down in one long gulp—half the can—and the cold temperature seemed to jolt every nerve cell in my body awake.
“…Aren’t you going in?”
Do-ha dropped down beside me, asking the question. Both our gazes turned simultaneously toward another hospital room door ahead. I stared quietly at the patient nameplate affixed beside it.
【Ji*ho】
Just like Ju Eun-chan was written as Ju*chan, this one’s anonymity seemed equally compromised. I drained the remaining half of my drink without answering. The empty can crumpled with a sharp crunch in my grip.
Do-ha spoke again.
“The surgery went well, and the test results show no abnormalities. He’s just in a state where he won’t wake up. The hospital says this can happen with some people, and they recommend waiting until tomorrow at least to see if there’s any change.”
“….”
“…It’s the same condition as yours, isn’t it? Executive Director.”
A state of sleep with no physical ailments—identical to when I’d entered the Unconscious Space.
At Do-ha’s words, I simply nodded quietly. Thirteen still hadn’t returned.
“…What are you thinking of doing now?”
Do-ha asked plainly.
Rather than address the unanswerable questions of why this happened or how it came to this, he asked about what I needed to consider moving forward.
I’ve truly found a good friend.
With that fresh realization, I answered.
“What else? We work. We make our comeback, we perform activities. …We push forward and live busily again.”
“….”
“They say crisis is opportunity, right? When all this negative attention is focused on us, we need to drop some incredible schedules to create narrative momentum and reassure our worried fans.”
Do-ha nodded quietly in agreement with my deliberately upbeat tone. He felt the same urgency to begin comeback preparations as soon as possible.
It was true that Eun-chan’s accident had thrown a wrench into our comeback timeline, but the hospital had indicated that after a few weeks of proper rest to prepare for any aftereffects, he should be able to resume activities without issue.
After lengthy discussions, the company and members decided to maintain the original comeback schedule while giving Eun-chan a month of rest. Above all, Eun-chan’s determination was unwavering, and neither the members nor the company could easily suggest postponement.
Everyone felt it: Kairos stood at the critical juncture, poised at the threshold of an unprecedented upward trajectory.
“Ha-jin.”
“Hmm?”
Do-ha opened his mouth to say something to Ha-jin, but the moment their eyes met, he found himself closing it without thinking. Ha-jin’s eyes were hollow with exhaustion—so drained in body and spirit that Do-ha could understand why he’d suddenly broken down crying in the hospital room earlier.
“…I was wondering if you had any other activities in mind. We’ve already canceled or postponed most of our original schedule anyway.”
So Do-ha changed course, abandoning what he’d originally meant to say in favor of a question Ha-jin could answer easily. At least when work came up, the kid perked up—maybe talking about it would help him breathe a little easier.
And just as Do-ha had anticipated, the moment work was mentioned, Ha-jin straightened his hunched shoulders and draped an arm across Do-ha’s shoulder.
“Hey, listen. What month is it right now?”
“March.”
“What comes to mind when you think of March?”
“…Fine dust?”
“…Enrollment, man. Enrollment. School. Youth. Cherry blossoms. Our radiant, verdant spring days.”
Startled by Do-ha’s unromantic answer, Ha-jin let out a small laugh and nodded. Knowing this was a gesture to continue, Ha-jin clicked his tongue habitually and launched into his explanation with renewed energy.
“Right now, all our news is pretty gloomy overall. In times like that, we need to inject something bright and cheerful, don’t we?”
“Are you thinking of doing some cherry blossom festival event?”
“Something like that. Wherever cherry blossoms bloom and there are crowds, that’s a cherry blossom festival. What’s the big deal?”
“I have no idea what you’re trying to do.”
Despite Do-ha’s bewildered expression, Ha-jin merely shrugged mysteriously. Then he immediately stood up and tossed an empty drink can into the trash bin in the corner.
Ha-jin, displaying that distinctive refreshing smile that had been rare to see these past few days, turned back to face Do-ha and spoke.
“Well, we can adjust the schedule slowly when all the members are together anyway.”
“….”
“But we need to handle something more important first.”
“…?”
Toward Do-ha, who tilted his head slightly as if asking if there was something else left to do, Ha-jin slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and spoke brightly.
“Let’s go pick up Cherry, who’s run away from home.”
If we wait any longer, he’ll really sulk.
The playful expression on his face was unmistakably the Ha-jin of old. Do-ha exhaled a sigh of relief at the sight of him, and once again answered without hesitation by nodding his head.
* * *
“Tae-hyun, are you really sure? Why don’t you just ask Dad….”
“No, it’s fine. All the guests have already checked in, so I just need to watch the counter. Go on, you said you’re incredibly busy.”
“Then Mom and Uncle will be back really soon. Just keep an eye on things for a bit, okay? If anyone suspicious-looking shows up….”
“They won’t, they won’t. All those reporters already ran away anyway. Don’t worry and just go.”
Evening at the Gangwon Province Pension Town, where the mountains were verdant and the sea transparent.
Tae-hyun pushed his mother’s back—she still hadn’t properly put on her shoes in her worry for him—and pulled a white baseball cap down firmly over his head. Thanks to his small face, the cap alone concealed half of it.
“There, that works, right? Go on. Uncle Sung-ho’s place is in chaos from being short-staffed.”
“…Okay, I got it. I’ll be back soon?”
It had already been several days since they’d fled to the Gangwon Province hometown instead of Namhae, their original destination, because of the sudden rumors.
Thanks to tourists and travelers who’d come to Gangwon Province to experience spring a little early in March, Tae-hyun was spending his days busier than ever—sometimes even forgetting the reason he’d come here in the first place.
‘Don’t cherry blossom festivals usually start in the southern provinces? Gangwon Province should still be a bit cold.’
In any case, good business was beneficial for him, his parents, and his uncle.
Even now, his mother and uncle had gone out to help at the neighboring restaurant and pension owner’s place, who said they were swamped from some group that had come for a training retreat.
Tae-hyun’s mother seemed anxious about leaving her son alone at the desk—a boy who had fled here to escape the noise of troublesome matters—but….
Tae-hyun himself, the one directly involved, found this solitary time at the desk surprisingly peaceful.
‘…It’s quiet.’
With Mother and Uncle gone, and all the guests enjoying their evenings at their respective villas.
Tae-hyun grabbed a thick coat and stepped outside the shop. He locked the shop door, posted a sign asking visitors to contact him if needed since he’d be away briefly, and carefully brought along the Pension’s information phone.
On his bare feet, he wore slippers with the initials ‘TH’ scrawled messily in marker—a doodle Ha-ru had written to keep them separate from the other members’ slippers at the Dormitory.
“Ugh, it’s really cold.”
March in Gangwon Province was definitely still chilly. Especially at night.
Still, Tae-hyun didn’t bother buttoning his coat as he approached the wooden platform in the Pension’s yard. There, he lay flat on his back, using the distant voices of people and the sounds of mountains and sea as his backdrop.
Stars filled the sky. Brilliantly shining stars—tonight, there seemed to be an endless number of them.
“….”
Tae-hyun had always wanted to be a star.
Looking back now, it seemed he’d felt this way since he was very young.
“…So many stars out tonight.”
The spotlight was desperately important to Tae-hyun.
His parents, always busy with the Pension, made one exception—they would clear their schedules and rush to his performances no matter what. After successfully finishing a show and eating marinated short ribs his parents bought him, listening to their praise and pride was young Tae-hyun’s greatest sense of accomplishment and joy.
-Tae-hyun. Mom and Dad don’t have much money or connections…. But we’ll make sure you can do whatever you want to do.
Tae-hyun’s mother constantly worried about her and her husband’s lack of education.
She lamented that if only Tae-hyun had been born in Seoul, he could have seized far more opportunities, and she searched for and researched audition information every single day.
Father always claimed he didn’t know much about this field and remained taciturn, but Tae-hyun knew well that he had been collecting and saving clippings of every activity article about him since childhood until now.
For the sake of such parents, Tae-hyun desperately wanted to shine.
He wanted to debut, succeed, and show them more stages.
He wanted to climb so high that his parents wouldn’t even have time to feel sorry toward him.
He simply wanted to sparkle brilliantly from that great height.
Suddenly, Tae-hyun recalled a community post he’d happened to see last night.
[Seo Tae-hyun was really that good?]
I got curious about what he was like during Boy’s Supremacy after seeing the controversy blow up, so I looked it up but honestly couldn’t tell much…
All the comments were so confident that Seo Tae-hyun would’ve stood out even without PD favoritism, so I’m curious how much he actually stood out…
They said he was the unshakeable #1 in Miro Maze, pushing out Kang Ha-jin and Jeong Si-u and stuff, so I was pretty surprised—I naturally thought Jeong Si-u would’ve been #1
– Honestly I’m not sure either, like I know he was good but to this extent? kind of vibe?
I think So-cheon’s rise had a lot to do with the fact that he was the youngest at the time and there was no one else among the kids who came out with him who could play a character like his. The organization’s name is Boy Heaven, but he was really the only one who actually seemed boyish.
The topic was controversial, but back then she didn’t rise to fame just based on skill—it was more because of that fresh smile as a one-trick pony. I remember Kang Hyuk and Jo Uk had more popularity.
– I was following Seo Tae-hyun in real-time… he did become famous for being cute, but ultimately he fell short in skill… though he did perform the stage cutely
– I also think the PD favoritism thing is a bit exaggerated, but I was surprised he ranked #1 in Tumi
– Huh? Seo Tae-hyun was seriously insane during Boy’s Supremacy though—did you guys actually watch it properly? Every time he appeared on screen, the comments section would explode in real-time
└ 222 Don’t you guys know the legendary mandu division screenshot??? You don’t???
└ 33333 Denying this…
└ I’m not denying it was crazy, but the reaction came more from cuteness and image rather than skill or anything like that—I’m not denying his popularity itself
└ Well, I don’t know that lol The reason Suchel became popular in the first place was because the cute girl performed well on stage, but what are you talking about?
Boy’s Supremacy, which everyone treated as a painful past, was actually Tae-hyun’s most precious memory.
Tae-hyun had shone through Boy Heaven, had been beautiful, and for a brief moment, had become a dream itself.
Yet now people were saying that Tae-hyun back then hadn’t actually shone so brightly after all.
Or perhaps he had shone, but they were denying that it represented the full extent of his abilities.
Whether that was their honest assessment or a judgment tinged with self-interest, Tae-hyun found himself asking the same question of himself now.
‘Did I really shine the way I thought I did?’
Tae-hyun’s entire field of vision was filled with the glittering stars of the night sky.
And then—
“Peekaboo.”
“…?”
Someone suddenly appeared above Tae-hyun’s night sky. As the startled Tae-hyun bolted upright, he could see the sudden visitor chuckling as if they’d anticipated exactly this reaction.
A man wearing a black mask and black-framed glasses, his natural black hair tousled by the wind, was none other than Ha-jin.
“What, what is it?”
“What do you mean ‘what’?”
To Tae-hyun’s question as he pressed a hand to his startled chest, Ha-jin pulled his mask down beneath his chin and replied, tucking his hands into his padded jacket pockets.
“Your leader hyung came running over because I was worried our team’s precious cherry might’ve had a mental breakdown.”
His face bore a warm, affectionate smile—different from when he’d first arrived at this place.

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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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