Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 316

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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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316. Project Youth Sniper (1)
“Sigh….”
Seo Tae-hyun, pressing his temples with the hand not gripping the baseball bat, glared at me and Dan Ha-ru with eyes wide open like an axe blade.
Seeing him draw in a sharp breath, it was clear an absolutely terrifying outburst was coming, so I desperately covered Dan Ha-ru’s ears with my hands. And at that very moment, Seo Tae-hyun shot to his feet and thrust that menacing baseball bat right in front of our faces, bellowing with a resounding crash.
“Do you have any idea how many inquiry calls the Pension is getting!? Just today alone, your mother called in shock because every single guest keeps talking about nothing but the Snack Bar food!”
“I’m… I’m so sorry….”
“You said it wouldn’t get found out! You said you were confident it wouldn’t! I begged you to just stay at the Dormitory and quietly help with work, and then what!? You set up a stall—!? You boosted sales!?”
“Even if I had fifteen mouths, I’d have nothing to say….”
But wait, isn’t it good if sales go up?
…That capitalist part of me—the one that thought like a Cafe Employee—was immediately seized by the collar by my realistic adult self and crumpled into the depths of my unconscious. Because it was obvious that unless I and Dan Ha-ru were actually getting hired as permanent Snack Bar employees, this kind of short-term fame wouldn’t help anyone.
Seo Tae-hyun, held back by Lee Do-ha and Lee Yu-gun who had rushed to stop him, continued shouting at the top of his lungs.
“My name and address are linked on Triwiki!!!!!!”
…Hmm. Did this get bigger than expected…?
To the point of being permanently archived on Triwiki—that useless but entertaining repository of all the world’s trivia.
Seo Tae-hyun, his anger index skyrocketing, shook off Lee Do-ha and Lee Yu-gun, who were each a head and a half taller than him. That wasn’t enough—he even shoved both of them over onto the sofa! (Guys twice his size at that…!)
The expressions on those two large fellows’ faces as they stared up at Seo Tae-hyun in bewilderment, clearly not understanding what had just happened, were absolutely priceless.
“Same thing here! You were supposed to just serve and come back, and then what!? A con artist? A karaoke contest? Busking—!? You were having the time of your lives!?”
“We… we made a mistake.”
“We’re… we’re sorry.”
Under that onslaught, even Lee Do-ha and Lee Yu-gun admitted their wrongdoing with terrified expressions.
Then Seo Tae-hyun’s head suddenly whipped toward the kitchen, where Jeong Si-u, who had been quietly brewing barley tea alone and trying to sneak to his room, met his gaze and flinched in alarm, quickly hiding his cup behind his back.
Seo Tae-hyun, already having lost his grip on reason, uttered something in a sinister voice, low and ominous.
“You’re not standing there…?”
“….”
Ju Eun-chan.
I needed Eun-chan.
Every single second, the absence of the sixth member who could mediate Seo Tae-hyun’s rampage felt particularly acute….
* * *
Seo Tae-hyun’s anger only subsided after another ten minutes or so of venting his furious filibuster.
Though Seo Tae-hyun hadn’t explicitly told us to, the five of us—including me—had somehow ended up kneeling in the Living Room at some point, quietly listening to his lecture. Perhaps sensing our genuine remorse in that posture, Seo Tae-hyun exhaled sharply and briefly.
Over the past year of being scolded by him, I’d learned that when he breathed like that, it meant he’d vented all his anger. Yu-gun and I simultaneously poked Dan Ha-ru, who was sitting between us, in the ribs.
Then Dan Ha-ru, who understood Seo Tae-hyun as well as we did, cautiously glanced around and looked up at him with an incredibly pitiful expression.
“Hyung….”
“….”
“My legs are really hurting though….”
The second thing I’d learned from being scolded by Seo Tae-hyun was that he was particularly soft on his younger members. Perhaps because he’d grown up as an only child, he had a tender side that made him endlessly lenient toward those he considered younger and weaker than himself.
Never mind that Dan Ha-ru was actually taller than Seo Tae-hyun, far stronger (very much so), and had lived far longer anyway.
“Ugh, I just wanted to help you out, hyung….”
“….”
“If I kneel like this for too long, my growth plates will close and I won’t grow any taller, ugh….”
“….”
“Still, I don’t regret going all the way to Gangwon Province to see you, hyung.”
“Ah, come on, relax! Who told you to kneel? Nobody asked you to, yet here you are on your knees. Just sit comfortably. What’s wrong with you guys, seriously….”
As expected.
Among our members, Seo Tae-hyun is definitely the one most susceptible to Dan Ha-ru’s “I’m just being honest” attacks.
The members exchanged glances and gradually eased their postures as Seo Tae-hyun feigned reluctance while letting his anger subside. After kneeling for so long, their legs had gone numb, and groans echoed throughout the living room as they shifted positions.
“I’ve seriously never had an experience like this before….”
Jeong Si-u, who had spent his entire life kneeling to others but had no memory of kneeling himself, seemed more emotionally wounded than physically. Between being kicked out of the room last time and now this, it appeared Seo Tae-hyun had complete control over him in every way.
‘Is this the route where you’re treating me this way for the first time?’
At this point, I was convinced that Seo Tae-hyun was the true power broker in our group.
As I pondered whether Eun-chan and I were merely being used as the public face and eldest member, respectively, Seo Tae-hyun—who had carefully leaned the baseball bat against the sofa—crossed his arms and opened his mouth.
“Don’t relax yet. I still have something to say.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seo Tae-hyun was definitely the hidden power. No question about it.
At those words alone, all the members straightened up and focused on him. His expression seemed to have softened, so what else could he possibly want to say? Just as I cautiously opened the system to gauge Seo Tae-hyun’s mood, uncertain of his intentions….
“…Thank you. For coming to pick me up.”
Seo Tae-hyun’s softened voice instantly transformed the atmosphere.
“Even though I came back having caused nothing but trouble, I’m grateful you helped with things at my house. And tell my mother and uncle I said thank you too. They said they had a good weekend because of you guys.”
“Why are you delivering such heartwarming thanks after making us kneel….”
“I never told you to kneel. You hyungs chose to do that yourselves. Look—Ha-ru’s sitting comfortably, isn’t he?”
Seo Tae-hyun shrugged mischievously. With the atmosphere fully cleared, the members who had been so tense gradually settled back into comfortable positions. Seo Tae-hyun smiled softly at us, then descended from the sofa and sat on the floor at our level, meeting our eyes.
As Dan Ha-ru quietly moved closer to Seo Tae-hyun’s side, I let out a small cough and asked him in an awkward voice.
“So, um…. What about the pension?”
“I posted a notice that the snack bar is doing a special sale and won’t be operating for now. Anyway, we’re only taking reservations for next month and won’t be operating for a while, so we’re just hoping people forget about it in the meantime.”
Our influence was enough to shut down a pension…?
My face filled with question marks at this unbelievable fact, and Seo Tae-hyun, catching my meaning, let out a small laugh and shook his head.
“No, it’s not because of you hyungs. We were already planning remodeling and repairs and looking for the right timing. Then when I took a break this time, the conversation came up seriously, so we decided to go ahead with it. It was decided before you hyungs arrived, so don’t think anything strange about it.”
“Ah, I see.”
I thought my cheese-grilled sweet potato had destroyed an entire pension….
I felt my heart settle with relief.
Glad it worked out well, I straightened my shoulders, which had been hunched up without my realizing it. Now that we were all gathered anyway, I had something to show them.
“Alright, everyone. Pay attention for a moment.”
“…?”
“So we’ll agree to exercise restraint regarding the incident in Gangwon Province going forward, and since we’re all here, I also have something to report.”
Because of my grandiose opening, the members’ eyes were filled with the words “What now?”
‘Hmm. This is a bit awkward…?’
My 51% F side reacted to their skeptical gaze.
But once they saw what I was about to show them, their expressions would change in an instant, so I forced my 49% T side to the surface and pulled out the tablet from the bag I’d set beside me, placing it on the living room table.
Then Lee Do-ha, the first to catch on to what I was about to reveal, leaned forward with sparkling eyes.
Then, Lee Do-ha, who was the first to catch on to what I was trying to show him, sparkled his eyes and leaned his body forward.
“Is it all finished?”
“Yep. Got the company’s approval too. We’ll show you guys, and if everything looks good, I’ll upload it tonight.”
“Oh! Is that the one? The project we talked about in Gangwon Province?”
“Yes.”
As I nodded, Dan Ha-ru and the other members approached the tablet with noticeably excited expressions.
I turned on the tablet and accessed the gallery, then clicked on ‘that project’ file I’d been working on ever since returning from Gangwon Province.
‘It’s been a while since I worked on something, so it’s a bit rough around the edges….’
Still, considering our activity plans for this year, there’s nothing better than this to serve as our comeback signal.
With my heart trembling just as much as the members’ anticipation, I pressed the ‘play’ button on the first project that would become our new beginning.
* * *
That night.
The gift arrived to Destiny at the exact moment of midnight—the precise instant when today became yesterday.
– Ha-jin posted on the official fan cafe!
A new post written by Ha-jin appeared on Kairos’s official fan cafe.
While Kairos had always attempted to communicate with Destiny through various platforms, a post on the official fan cafe was quite rare these days.
Nowadays, with so many lighter and more accessible platforms like Aibus, PopPop, and Bluebird, the official fan cafe essentially served only as a communication channel for the Entertainment Agency—for audition applications, schedule announcements, and fan club notices.
– Wait, why is Ha-jin suddenly posting… This isn’t bad news, right?
Especially since Ha-jin’s first post on the official fan cafe had been an apology statement regarding the character controversy from before, the Destiny members who received the notification felt somewhat anxious.
Kang Ha-di, a named fan of Kang Ha-jin who currently worked as a lawyer and had previously led the fan club purification movement, was one of those people.
“What is it? What’s going on with our puppy? What happened? Why?”
Don’t tell me those crazy people are writing another story, trying to stir up drama about the pension part-time job? But I didn’t sense anything strange from any of the SNS or communities I was browsing just moments ago?
Even on private account timelines where only harsh words usually flew around, these days everyone seemed to have stuffed flowers in their heads and switched to pure fan mode. Among the veteran fans sharing in the fandom, there were even those who lamented, ‘It must be tough for the kids, but this is exactly when they need a comeback to reach career heights.’
Kang Ha-di retrieved the glasses she’d set aside and accessed the official fan cafe app. Ha-jin’s post was positioned at the very top since it had just been uploaded.
[[Ha-jin] Hello Destiny :]]
“No, the simple title makes it even scarier….”
Kang Ha-di steeled herself and carefully clicked on the post.
Then a fairly lengthy letter that Ha-jin had presumably poured effort into, sentence by sentence, loaded onto the screen.
Hello Destiny 🙂
Kairos’s leader, vice-leader, commander, captain, real power.
The new authority and future—Kang Ha-jin.
Contrary to her worries, the letter began with Ha-jin’s usual playful tone.
Kang Ha-di, who knew that even though Ha-jin always seemed to joke around, he could be more serious than anyone when it mattered, finally relaxed and slowly scrolled down. Ha-jin’s letter continued quite extensively below.
…
Many updates have come your way these past few days.
I thought you’d all be surprised and worried, so I’m here with this short letter to keep my promise to share news with you soon.
First, Eun-chan, whom you were most concerned about, is recovering well thanks to your support.
The doctor was so amazed at his recovery that he said if he continues at this pace, he could even attempt a triathlon—he’s truly eating well, sleeping well, and resting well, so you don’t need to worry too much.
(Though if you don’t worry at all, Eun-chan will feel sad, so please worry about once a day.)
From updates on Eun-chan’s recovery to expressing gratitude for the various awards we received during the end of last year.
Ha-jin conveyed the members’ well-being and feelings through calm, skillful writing. With his concise yet witty prose, Kang Ha-di forgot all about her earlier worries and carefully read through Ha-jin’s letter line by line.
…
I’ve done my best and run hard so far, but I know well that this is only the beginning.
Kairos will continue to soar toward Destiny as our destination, and I’d be grateful if you could enjoy this entire journey with us just as you have been.
“My boy…. He writes so well….”
Kang Ha-di marveled at Ha-jin’s eloquence, tears glistening in her eyes, when she realized the letter was nearing its end.
The moment she scrolled down without hesitation to see the final sentence, she discovered something at the very bottom of the post.
…
I thought you wouldn’t believe us if I only told you we’re doing well.
So, despite my lacking skills, I’ve brought a small gift as I promised last time.
I worked hard on it, so please look kindly upon it even if it’s imperfect.
See you soon.
-Ha-jin
【TO. DESTINY ‖ Our Spring, A Gift For You】
“…?”
A music video adorned with a thumbnail of Kairos members in casual clothes, smiling brightly at the camera beneath a cherry blossom tree in full bloom.
It was a music video that exuded the scent of spring.

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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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