Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 331

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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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331. Our Child Has Changed (2)
A surprise hidden camera special—at least three months in the making—finally premiered.
The target of the surprise? The entire nation.
The stars were me, Dan Ha-ru, Lee Do-ha, and Lee Yu-gun.
The title: “Baby Rabbit Warrior’s Adolescence.”
The script went something like this.
Eighteen-year-old Dan Ha-ru had entered that tumultuous phase of youth (not a curse).
From his trainee days until now, grueling and intense schedules had left him no time to examine his inner self. Through a series of events that began with this vacation, he found himself agonizing over the emptiness and transience of life, and….
Now, as he prepared an album about youth itself, he was embarking on genuine self-reflection. That was the story.
—…You think Jeong Si-u and Seo Tae-hyun will believe that?
—That’s why we need to lay the groundwork well… I mean, plant the seeds properly.
—How are we going to do that?
—Listen.
Being meticulous, we didn’t forget to add details to this either.
All this time, Dan Ha-ru appeared bright and unremarkable on the surface, but in reality, he’d been secretly consulting with his roommate Lee Yu-gun about his worries every night.
Seeing his concerns and thoughts grow increasingly deeper, Lee Yu-gun brought him to us today so we could all discuss it together. That was the story.
—For now, we’ll do our best to cover for you, but your role is important too, Dan Ha-ru. If there’s too big a gap between you now and how you were before, everyone will find it strange.
—Got it.
—No casual speech. You never used casual speech with us.
—…Can’t we just say the setting is that you started today?
—No.
—…Sigh.
—Also, no smoking.
—….
—Drinking? Absolutely not. Swearing? Go ahead and try, I dare you. I’ll make sure you live as Dan Ha-ru for the rest of your life.
It was ironic that threatening to make him live in his own body forever actually worked as a threat, but it did the job.
Just to be safe, before we left the studio, we put Dan Ha-ru through several rehearsals under the guise of a pre-check.
Dan Ha-ru reluctantly went along with it the first few times, but when Lee Do-ha asked a grounded question like “What side dish were you and Tae-hyun arguing about three days ago at the dinner table over how to prepare it?”—his eyes went wide again.
Still, he had more patience than I expected.
For the record, the answer was braised anchovies.
—Alright, let’s head in then. We’ve got school during the day anyway, and once the comeback hits, everyone will be swamped. If we play it right, we might just slip through naturally.
—…I have to go to school too?
—Of course. If you’re upset, blame your past self for regressing to your teens.
—….
Dan Ha-ru made an odd expression at the mention of having to go to school, but I pretended not to notice and flatly insisted he had to. It was company policy anyway—we had to ensure he got his high school diploma.
In any case, we left the studio with our resolve firmly in place. As for me, I suppose it was a bit unfortunate for Lee Do-ha and Lee Yu-gun, who’d suddenly found themselves saddled with roles they never asked for….
But thanks to what happened at the villa last time, both of them seemed to have accepted the situation fairly quickly, which was a blessing in disguise. After all, I had two other people besides myself to handle this absurd situation with.
‘I should probably get Lee Yu-gun and Jeong Si-u to recruit colleagues soon….’
It had been quite some time since I learned about the criteria for recruiting colleagues, yet I still saw no sign of either of them recruiting anyone.
‘What exactly is this “response rate” anyway? Haven’t we gotten closer by now?’
As I pondered these questions, Lee Do-ha, who had finished all the rehearsals, was the first among us to rise from his seat.
“Alright, let’s head back to the Dormitory.”
“Back to the Dormitory? Already?”
“We have a schedule meeting this evening. The pickup location is the Dormitory. Ha-jin and I need to change clothes too.”
At Lee Do-ha’s words, Dan Ha-ru rose from his seat without much resistance. Thus we left Lee Do-ha’s chaotic Studio.
As we passed through the Company Corridor, Lee Yu-gun, who kept glancing back at Dan Ha-ru with an uneasy expression, approached me and whispered worriedly.
“Is it really okay to take him to the Dormitory like this? I’m still anxious about it.”
“What else would you have me do—lock him in the Studio and keep him confined?”
“What if he runs into someone at the Company?”
“It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. Everyone’s busy at this hour. And even if he does run into someone, what’s the harm? It’s something we’ll have to face eventually anyway. Maybe it’s better to get it over with quickly….”
“Oh! It’s Little Tae-il!”
…No, damn it.
I certainly didn’t mean for us to collide with someone this soon.
At the ear-splitting voice, my feet instinctively stopped. In the process, Lee Do-ha and Lee Yu-gun, who had been turning back to check if Dan Ha-ru was following properly, crashed into my back one after another. If Dan Ha-ru had collided too, I might have felt some satisfaction, but that irritating dark-furred rabbit warrior saw us piling into each other and quickly stepped back.
“Wow, you’ve got your juniors with you too!? That’s so lucky!”
“…Should we pretend we didn’t hear that and just slip away?”
“Could we really…?”
The voice was too loud to ignore, and the other party had more seniority to brush off. I concluded that escape was impossible in such a short time, so I bowed respectfully to the two tall figures standing in front of the vending machine in the Company Corridor.
“Hello, Hyung Nam Da-down.”
“Hey, what’s up? Where are you all headed? I heard you were making a comeback—you changed your hair color? Ha-ru looks just like a puppy with that brown covering. I wish I’d known we’d run into each other here; I would’ve brought some cookies. Got some really delicious ones from overseas. If you’re interested, let me know—I’ll send a few boxes to the Dormitory.”
…On one side was Nam Da-down from Upia, who had just received a single greeting but somehow managed to unleash an entire audio stream on his own, and
“…Hello, Senior.”
“Hey, long time no see. Congratulations on your comeback.”
It was Choi Yeon-woo, Endway’s strongest center, who despite what looked like it might have caused capillaries to burst in my eardrums, stood there calmly holding a canned coffee and apparently filming an advertisement by himself.
Once I greeted him first, the members behind me followed suit. In the process, when Dan Ha-ru tried to slack off appropriately, Lee Yu-gun sharply jabbed his side and grabbed the back of his head to make him bow—the whole thing was executed so naturally that I couldn’t help but admire it.
Choi Yeon-woo, flaunting his sculptural nose bridge, took a sip of his canned coffee and spoke first with an awkward smile.
“Please understand that Da-down Hyung talks a lot. He’s been overseas for several months, and now that he’s back, he’s so excited to chat in Korean.”
But that person speaks a hundred words in the local language even when abroad.
…I wanted to retort, but I held back. The response ‘Even if you stayed in Korea 365 days, you’d always be chattering away at that energy level’ also got swallowed down my throat.
For now, the priority was to escape these two people and get home quickly. I hastily put on my professional smile.
“Haha, it’s fine. We’re used to it now…. But Hyungs, we have a schedule, so we should get going….”
“Ha-ru, Ha-ru! You’ve gotta do this with cute Da-down Hyung!”
…Did this guy just refer to himself as ‘cute Da-down Hyung’?
But what was even more shocking than that outrageous nickname was Nam Da-down’s next action.
From the moment our eyes first met, he’d been wagging an invisible tail like a dog who’d run into a friend on a walk (how was that even possible?), and while I was talking with Choi Yeon-woo, he suddenly burst through two doors and charged straight at Dan Ha-ru who had been hiding between them…!
‘He pinned two tall men at 185cm with one hand while being only 175cm?’
I was shocked just watching, but the people who got shoved(?) seemed even more stunned. In the blink of an eye, the Lee brothers, pushed back, clung to the corridor wall and blinked stupidly, staring only at Nam Da-down.
That tiny Chihuahua-Maltese mix had finally subdued our household bears….
‘Ah, wait. This isn’t what’s important right now….’
I straightened out my wandering thoughts before they could drift to irrelevant matters. Nam Da-down still stood before Dan Ha-ru with a cheerful expression.
Nam Da-down’s innate masculine energy and madness (…) were so overwhelming that even the corrupted Ha-ru found himself looking up at Nam Da-down with a slightly diminished presence. This was striking, considering Ha-ru was microscopically taller than Nam Da-down.
“Come on!”
“…?”
“Hurry! We promised to do this when we met!”
Nam Da-down, who had been gazing at Ha-ru with bright eyes, suddenly threw both arms up in a triumphant gesture. When Ha-ru responded with a vacant stare and a slight frown, as if he had no idea what was happening, Nam Da-down immediately caught that subtle shift in expression and let out a disappointed groan.
“Don’t tell me you forgot? On that company dinner day, we promised each other over and over—we’d never forget and we’d definitely do this whenever we met? I even practiced this the whole time I was overseas, just thinking about seeing Ha-ru!”
So what was I supposed to do? Why would he practice something like that all the way overseas?
I glanced at Yoo Gun to see if he knew anything, but he shook his head firmly, indicating he was just as clueless.
‘This is bad.’
Whatever this hyung practiced overseas, if I don’t play along properly here, he’ll cause trouble for at least three months…!
Responding to the alarm bells ringing in my head, my body moved on instinct. I needed to bring up a topic that would redirect Nam Da-down’s attention, no matter what….
“Hyung, Ha-ru isn’t feeling well today….”
“…I know.”
“…What?”
Did he just say he knows?
Caught off guard by the unexpected response, I lurched forward but came to an abrupt stop. I was losing my balance and stumbling awkwardly when Lee Do-ha, standing beside me, reflexively caught me. This guy has that kind of strength but didn’t use it to help stop Nam Da-down earlier.
Even as that thought crossed my mind, I kept my eyes fixed on Ha-ru and Nam Da-down. With the excited Nam Da-down in front of him, Ha-ru had erected his defenses as if facing the greatest adversary of his life, and I could see him biting his lower lip in an awkward manner, then releasing it.
‘Wow, he’s made a decision.’
I could see in real-time that he was steeling his resolve, though I had no idea what for.
Soon Ha-ru’s hands shot up toward the sky just like Nam Da-down’s. Four hands rose up in a grand, ceremonial manner, and then they collided in the air with a crisp sound.
“…?”
Clap, clap―!
The sound of their palms meeting was so sharp and rhythmic it could be mistaken for a drum hi-hat. Nam Da-down and Ha-ru started with a handclap, then moved to shoulder bumps, then stomped their feet together with some kind of battle cry, stepping in a dance-like rhythm.
As Nam Da-down’s routine continued, his excitement grew, while Ha-ru’s face progressively turned red from his neck to his ears—and that was the killer part.
“Da-down!”
“…Ha.”
“Brothers!”
So the reason he’d been excited enough to practice overseas before meeting Ha-ru was….
That mysterious hand sign… no, wait, body sign… no, dance… no, no….
‘How am I supposed to define that ritual?’
Nam Da-down ultimately linked his arms with the corrupted Ha-ru in an X shape and shouted the finishing chant. It was loud and flashy—exactly the kind of ritual that the cheerful, sparkling Ha-ru would have enthusiastically performed.
…But the body he was in now belonged to a corrupted rabbit warrior who’d only experienced the harsh winds of the world and had never done anything this soft and squishy before.
“…Brothers.”
Still, Ha-ru completed the chant to the end despite his reservations. By now, his entire face had turned crimson beyond just his neck and ears, and he seemed to be aware of it.
‘Of course. Even if that guy had lived fifteen thousand past lives, he probably never did something like this with anyone anywhere.’
In any case, his sincerity in cooperating so that Ha-ru’s transformation wouldn’t be suspected was unmistakable. Whether that was good or bad aside, it was certainly far better than his usual stubborn resistance.
After finishing the mysterious gesture, Nam Da-down smiled with satisfaction, flashing that signature buck-toothed grin that drove his fans wild, and suddenly pulled Ha-ru into an embrace.
“What! You remembered everything? I thought you’d forgotten—hyung almost felt sad~”
Ha-ru neither fully faced Nam Da-down nor fully leaned into the embrace, instead awkwardly accepting it. Nam Da-down patted his back a few times with the affection of someone hugging a beloved younger sibling, then mercifully released him after a short while.
Ha-ru’s ears were still burning bright red.
“Huh…?”
“…?”
I was already timing when to peel Ha-ru away from Nam Da-down and make my escape to the Dormitory, when something unsettling spilled from Nam Da-down’s mouth. He stared at Ha-ru’s face with the intensity of someone observing a test subject, then tilted his head with a puzzled expression.
“Ha-ru, something’s off about you today?”
“…!”
“You feel different from usual, somehow.”
Wow, this guy’s instincts are unnaturally sharp.
The atmosphere in the Hallway turned frigid in an instant. Well, nothing actually changed, but cold sweat was pouring down the backs of all us Kairos members, myself included.
‘Nam Da-down, you natural disaster of a human…!’
I’d definitely need to investigate Nam Da-down’s weaknesses.
I still didn’t have anything particularly useful to say, but I’d sell him out anyway. No question about it—I’d absolutely sell him out.
The Kairos-style nationwide fraud scheme already had a brutal road ahead from the very start.

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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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