Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 345

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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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345. ADMIRATION AND SALVATION (4)
To reiterate: none of this had been part of Ju Eun-chan’s plan.
‘I just wanted to grab a hot bar on the way back, that’s all.’
Despite his rather composed exterior—which led many to misunderstand him—Ju Eun-chan was, in reality, a curious king of cats ranked high among Kairos’s troublemakers. Whenever the members’ capacity for chaos was being discussed among Destiny, there was almost a textbook opening line they always led with.
-In the beginning… there was Seo Ju-dan.
Unlike Kang Ha-jin, who managed to handle his seemingly reckless incidents with some semblance of control, Ju Eun-chan operated on a different wavelength.
Dan Ha-ru, who acted on instinct before thinking (pre-adolescence), and Ju Eun-chan, who appeared quiet but was governed by curiosity and competitive spirit, both fell into the category of those who came to their senses only after causing trouble.
One would think such repeated incidents might teach a lesson, but unfortunately, the older brothers he lived with now always cleaned up after him while saying that children naturally went through phases like this, reinforcing his bad habits. (Kang Ha-jin, naturally, blamed it all on Lee Yu-gun and shirked parental responsibility.)
Anyway, for these reasons―.
“This is bad….”
Back to the present.
Ju Eun-chan had gotten lost.
To summarize how the incident unfolded:
-I’m going to the restroom. Just wait here and don’t go anywhere. We’ll go together.
Circumstance 1. Dan Ha-ru and Ju Eun-chan still had an awkward relationship after the fan sign event. Ju Eun-chan had taken offense at how Dan Ha-ru spoke to him with such cold indifference, as if treating him like an annoying younger sibling.
-No, I’m not a kid. I’ll go first.
Circumstance 2. In a fit of pique, Ju Eun-chan declared to Dan Ha-ru that he would leave first. He half-hoped his older brother might show some concern, saying something like “I’m still worried about you,” but instead, Ha-ru simply turned away with a displeased expression and said, “Fine then, do as you like.”
Circumstance 3.
“Where is this place?”
He had gotten lost.
Ju Eun-chan was only now beginning to acknowledge that he was hopelessly directionally challenged.
To be more precise, in crowded places, there were too many things vying for his attention, making it difficult for him to navigate unfamiliar routes. Society might define this as being directionally challenged, but that wasn’t the important issue right now!
“My phone… oh, I left it behind.”
He always left his phone with the managers before filming began. He considered sending a rescue request through the microphone to the audio director, but then he remembered he had stepped away just before putting on the mic.
He could remember what the opening location looked like, but like the other members, Eun-chan hadn’t visited the amusement park often, so he had no idea how to get back there.
‘So what do I do now?’
Should he stop people and ask for directions?
Even as he pondered this, the biggest problem was happening in real time: Eun-chan was continuously walking.
That’s right. Ju Eun-chan was walking.
He was walking without even knowing where he was supposed to go. Despite the basic rule that a lost child should wait in place for an adult, he kept walking.
It was the innocent attitude created by a life where someone had always come to find him before he ever had to wait.
‘Ha-ru… he must be worried. Or maybe he won’t be?’
Eun-chan wasn’t just walking; he was thinking as he walked.
Whether he had inherited it from Tae-hyun or not, his love of contemplation meant his greatest recent preoccupation was still Dan Ha-ru. He had confidently declared he could go alone, and now he was curious about Ha-ru’s reaction upon discovering he was gone.
Would he be worried? Or would he think it pathetic?
Just as he was thinking that he didn’t need Ha-ru to worry but hoped he wouldn’t look down on him, someone grabbed his shoulder with urgent, ragged breathing.
“…!”
And Eun-chan was startled.
It wasn’t merely a fright from the sudden presence—his heart raced and his vision blurred as if he were facing a mortal threat. The moment he felt an unfamiliar sensation on his shoulder, his breathing seized, and everything around him felt as though it were attacking him.
However, since it was only a fleeting instant, Eun-chan, whose awareness of such things was somewhat dull, simply dismissed the feeling as mere surprise.
There was another reason he hadn’t dwelled deeper on the sensation he’d felt.
“…What?”
“You said you could go alone!”
The person gripping him was Ha-ru, tears threatening to spill down his sweat-drenched face as he shouted. Even the honorific he’d been consistently using had vanished. Recalling how Tae-hyun and Yoo Gun spoke to Ha-jin, this was the expression used when someone wanted to display their anger at its maximum intensity.
“You scared me…!”
But at Ha-ru’s next words, Eun-chan was startled all over again. Ha-ru wasn’t merely worried—he seemed to genuinely believe something terrible could have happened to him. Considering the accidents that had befallen him recently, perhaps that wasn’t unreasonable, but…
Eun-chan found Ha-ru’s overprotectiveness both comprehensible and incomprehensible at once. For now, he simply pulled his frightened younger sibling into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry. It’s my first time on this route, so… it was awkward to ask people around here for directions. You really scared me.”
It was Eun-chan who’d gotten lost, yet he found himself comforting Dan Ha-ru without understanding why. Ha-ru didn’t seem to be crying, just genuinely startled. No matter how awkwardly he held him or patted his back, Ha-ru’s trembling wouldn’t subside.
After a moment of thought, Eun-chan waved the yellow cat balloon he was holding in front of Ha-ru’s eyes.
“Ha-ru, look at this. I bought it because it looks like you. Isn’t it cute?”
“….”
“Or, do you want some cotton candy? I ate a lot on the way here, so there’s not much left, but…”
Eun-chan did his best to soothe his younger sibling. With Ha-ru alone, his perceptiveness sharpened, and he instinctively sensed that reconciliation might be possible right now.
It wasn’t a fight, so calling it reconciliation would be inaccurate, but what mattered was that Ha-ru was emotionally turbulent.
“…Seriously, you’re such an idiot? You get lost and then happily eat junk like this…”
Though his tone was sharp, Eun-chan didn’t perceive it as coldly as before. Ha-ru’s manner of speaking and demeanor had shifted a complete 180 degrees during his hospitalization, still somewhat strange and unsettling, but Eun-chan had experienced adolescence himself and could understand that much.
What mattered to Eun-chan was that Ha-ru no longer avoided him.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll definitely go with you.”
“So you’ll get lost again without me? Learn to find your way properly on your own.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Eun-chan smiled brightly. He could feel people around them beginning to recognize the two and gradually drawing closer. When Eun-chan stood alone in his school uniform, they’d been uncertain, but now that Ha-ru in a similar uniform was with him, they’d caught on.
Though confident he could protect himself, Eun-chan still preferred to avoid being surrounded. He entrusted his camera to Ha-ru’s hand and firmly grasped his other empty hand.
Just as his older brothers had done when he couldn’t calm his own frightened heart.
“Should we run? Do you know where we need to go?”
Dan Ha-ru, awkwardly holding the grasped hand, nodded. It was the first time he’d received a positive response instead of negative language, so Eun-chan broke into another boyish smile.
“Then let’s go!”
Without knowing where they were headed, Eun-chan ran forward recklessly.
The shadow of someone matching his pace just behind him felt more welcome than anything in the world.
* * *
The moment they returned, both received a thorough scolding.
“How long has it been since the incident?! Should I really assign security to follow you two everywhere except eating and using the restroom? Huh? Is that what you want?”
“I apologize…”
Kwon Wook scolded them both with unusual firmness. It was rare for him to raise his voice at the members, always treating them like an older brother or parent, so this was an uncommon sight.
Yet Eun-chan wasn’t hurt by it. He felt Kwon Wook’s consideration in deliberately bringing them to a place away from the staff to speak harshly, and he understood that Kwon Wook’s scolding came from concern for them.
“You two should apologize directly for the delayed filming. Your hyungs handled the aftermath while you were gone, so apologize to them too.”
“Yes.”
“Ha-ru, you too. I understand you’re worried about your hyung, but leave that to us. What if you both had gotten caught in a serious accident by disappearing like that? What then?”
“….”
Kwon Wook didn’t spare Ha-ru either. Though Dan Ha-ru, outwardly in rebellious adolescent mode, nodded in response to Kwon Wook’s words, his expression and gesture conveyed a clear message: ‘How can I trust you?’
Kwon Wook felt wronged at suddenly becoming a manager who wasn’t trusted, but considering recent events, he couldn’t deny it either. He simply sighed and waved them away.
“Be careful during filming, and Eun-chan had to remove the cast, but his palm hasn’t fully healed yet, so always be cautious. Understood?”
“Yes!”
“Go on. The directors are waiting.”
At Kwon Wook’s gesture, Eun-chan and Ha-ru returned to the filming studio. The moment they entered, they didn’t forget to bow apologetically to the various directors and staff members greeting them, one after another. Still, most of them were staff members they’d worked with since Miro Maze, and since they’d been seeing each other’s faces from debut until now, they all seemed to treat it as an amusing incident.
So much so that the Production Director in charge of Eun-chan among the directing team approached him as soon as he saw him and asked this.
“Eun-chan! The GoPro!”
“Yes?”
“Did you turn it on? Did you record? Please tell me you recorded…!”
His burning determination to salvage even this as content was evident.
-Those people are the kind who have to capture on camera even the moment when filming becomes too difficult and they need to stop. You could say they’re people obsessed with broadcast value.
Eun-chan briefly recalled what Ha-jin had once said about the “broadcast station people’s” mindset. When he delivered the good news to the Production Director that the GoPro recording was indeed on, she grabbed both his hands as if she’d won the lottery and performed a prayer ceremony.
“Oh, Chan arrived?”
“Eun-chan and Ha-ru are here, so we can start soon.”
“Still, Ha-ru found Eun-chan well. That’s a relief.”
After greeting all the staff members, Eun-chan and Ha-ru headed to the bench where the older members had gathered. Si-woo, Do-ha, Yoo Gun, and Tae-hyun welcomed the two with bright faces. Eun-chan bowed his head sheepishly.
“I’m sorry for startling you. I was just following along as I saw, and before I knew it….”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. These things happen.”
“I’m used to it now, so it’s not even surprising anymore.”
“Just put a GPS tracker on Ju Eun-chan’s hand or back.”
But the older members showed a more lenient response than Eun-chan had expected. Even if you considered it as consideration for Eun-chan, who had recently experienced difficult events and received shocks, it seemed excessive. There wasn’t even any advice to be careful from now on or that this shouldn’t happen.
“We divided the teams and mapped out all the routes before you arrived. Since filming starts again in 10 minutes, you can collect invitations by going around with your teams. You and Ha-ru are on the same team as Ha-jin.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you. …But where is Ha-jin?”
“Over there.”
When Jeong Si-u pointed in that direction, Kang Ha-jin, also dressed in a school uniform, came toward them with his appearance neatly arranged. The moment Ha-jin saw the two of them, his expression became strange, and he grabbed both their shoulders with his arms as if embracing them.
“Ha ha, my little troublemakers. Did you get lost on the way here?”
“Why am I a troublemaker?”
“Because you keep making me herd sheep, that’s why.”
“Hyung, your speech is strange.”
“Ha ha ha, so Chan thinks Hyung’s speech is strange.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry…. I apologized to the other directors too.”
“No, it’s fine, it’s fine.”
This time, even Ha-jin laughed as if enlightened and repeatedly reassured Eun-chan that it was okay. At this point, even Ju Eun-chan, who had eaten rice with no sense of the situation and even had dessert afterward, felt something.
“Why are you like this, Hyung? You’re making me anxious….”
“Huh? No, no. It’s really fine. Well, you can get lost sometimes.”
Saying so, Ha-jin placed the paper pamphlet he was holding onto the table. It was the Dreamland map that Jeong Si-u had marked with red pen, filled with checkmarks for each ride. Eun-chan’s gaze naturally turned toward the map.
【Red – Si-woo, Tae-hyun】
【Blue – Do-ha, Yoo Gun】
【Black – Ha-jin, Eun-chan, Ha-ru】
【Must complete all corresponding missions and obtain the invitations!】
Passing over what appeared to be Tae-hyun’s cute, rounded handwriting, Eun-chan’s gaze shifted toward the amusement park map marked with missions and rewards. Three distinct routes branched out from their current location.
“…?”
Yet as Eun-chan and Ha-ru began tracing their assigned black line without much thought, their expressions gradually shifted into something peculiar. The attractions they were supposed to complete each bore stars—not the standard ten-point scale, but a staggering fifteen points. And it wasn’t just one. Multiple rides carried the same inflated rating.
“Hyung, what does this star rating mean…?”
“Ha ha, what’s the big deal about getting a little lost? I’m really fine with it.”
“Hyung…?”
“Sure, because you and Dan Ha-ru vanished as a pair, our team ended up shouldering every single hardcore mission! But I’m genuinely okay with it! Ha ha ha! Really, I’m fine, you guys!”
“….”
Only then did Eun-chan’s vision refocus on his hyungs’ expressions.
The older members he’d assumed were smiling benignly were simply basking in the thrill of victory. And Ha-jin’s face, which he’d taken for playfulness, bore an expression of near-transcendent resignation and acceptance.
His voice—caught somewhere between laughter and tears—echoed with a pitiful, trembling quality.
“Even though I got stuck with that insane mission where you bungee jump off Dreamland’s only bungee platform while solving a problem! Even though I have to ride the fastest, highest, longest roller coaster in Dreamland while singing an entire song…! Even though all of this is the price for you two abandoning me and disappearing! I’m really, truly fine! Paha ha ha!”
“….”
I’m… I’m so sorry….
Along with the sincere apologies left unspoken, Kairos’s journey through Dreamland truly began in earnest.

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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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