Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 364

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

364. Jeju Island’s Blue Night (6)
After finishing our meal, we headed to the Cafe.
Despite running for an hour to digest the late-night snack, I scraped my breakfast bowl clean without leaving a single grain of rice. In truth, it wasn’t much compared to what I normally ate, but Ha-jin used the excuse of being too full to move and dragged me to the Cafe anyway.
It was about a 15-minute walk from the restaurant, and I briefly wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just head back to the Dormitory.
‘But then again… there’s nothing urgent on the schedule anyway.’
Besides, the scenery along the path to the Cafe was absolutely beautiful, so I followed Ha-jin without complaint.
“We’ll have… one iced Americano, one Hallabong ade, and ah, one Hwangji cheese cake too, and this strawberry croffle as well―.”
“Be honest. You dragged me here to eat everything you want while Tae-hyun’s not around, didn’t you?”
“Come on, we’ll burn it all off running back to the Dormitory in an hour~”
This place is supposedly the most famous—how could I not try it?
Ha-jin brushed off my question smoothly and headed to the second floor with the drinks and desserts in hand.
I nearly fainted at the outrageous prices for just coffee and cake, but the ocean view that unfolded before my eyes made me think it was all worth it. The beach and sky visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows were breathtaking.
“Hey, sit down.”
“Why?”
“I’ll take a picture of you.”
“A picture out of nowhere? I’m completely drenched in sweat and wearing sweats right now.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m taking it.”
“…What did you just say?”
“Just let me take a couple of shots as a memento, okay?”
After muttering something to himself, Ha-jin finally sat me down and thrust his phone at me. I casually struck a peace sign pose in response to his antics.
Even though it was just a simple peace sign, Ha-jin made a fuss about how cool it looked, calling me annoying—but I pretended not to hear.
“Okay, that one came out great. Got my A-cut. Now let’s eat.”
“Let me see it.”
“It came out fine even without looking. I’ll send it to you later.”
“I’ll take some of you too, so show me.”
“Oh, me?”
When I held out my hand, Ha-jin looked briefly surprised before readily handing over his phone. With all my experience from being dragged along to take photos for Tae-hyun at every schedule, I was quite skilled at photographing Ha-jin.
“Ugh, this feels a bit awkward….”
The problem was Kang Ha-jin.
When taking pictures of others, he’d coach me with meticulous detail, but the moment I pointed the camera at him, it was obvious even through the screen that he was at a loss, his gaze wandering aimlessly.
As I adjusted the phone to frame different angles, I spoke in an exasperated tone.
“How do you take selfies so well, but the moment someone tries to photograph you, you look like that?”
“That’s what you call a gap appeal, you punk.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. …Just stay still. Just turn your head to the side a bit.”
“Like this?”
“Are you stretching your spine right now? Just turn it a little, just a little.”
Eventually, with my direction, Ha-jin managed to capture a perfect A-cut with that Instagram aesthetic.
While Ha-jin stared at the photo in his gallery muttering things like “Is this… really me?”, I took a sip of my iced Americano. The ice had melted slightly, but the coffee tasted excellent.
“Hey, but I’m curious about something.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
“Why are you speaking formally to me? Didn’t we drop the formalities before?”
I scooped a large spoonful of cake into my mouth as I asked, and Yoo Gun couldn’t answer immediately. It was true that until we finished Miro Maze, he’d spoken casually with me just like Tae-hyun did.
How was he supposed to answer this?
After a moment of deliberation, Yoo Gun shrugged as if he didn’t know himself and opened his mouth.
“…I don’t know? I guess I suddenly wanted to keep some distance.”
“You spoke casually just fine before your debut, so why draw a line all of a sudden?”
“I probably thought back then that we’d only see each other briefly and wouldn’t meet again after that.”
“Geez, seriously. None of you guys are easy to deal with.”
“What, do you want me to drop it?”
“If I tell you to drop it, will you?”
“…Because I’m watching what you do.”
At Yoo Gun’s reluctant answer, I stared at him for a moment before letting out a soft laugh and turning my head away.
“Alright, let’s see how this goes.”
With that, the two of us fell into our own moments of silence for a while.
Yoo Gun gazed out at the beach beyond the window and quietly closed his eyes.
For the first time in a long while—or perhaps for the first time in his life—he was experiencing genuine leisure. Yoo Gun felt a fresh sense of gratitude that such a day could exist in his twenty years.
‘…The tigers would probably like this too.’
The simple yet sweet dessert was his younger brother Yoo-ho’s taste, and the cozy yet emotional interior seemed like something his younger sister Yoo-rang would love.
Thinking of them, Yoo Gun felt both grateful for this leisure and somehow apologetic. His family was still spending the same monotonous days in that cramped, dingy house, and here he was, living it up alone.
“Ugh—. I’m going crazy, absolutely crazy.”
The one who broke through that momentary melancholy was Ha-jin across from me, refreshingly chugging a Hallabong ade. After spotting something outside the window, Ha-jin tapped my arm repeatedly.
“Hey, Gun. Look at that. Isn’t it insane?”
“…?”
Following Ha-jin’s hand, I turned my gaze and saw a speedboat racing across the middle of the sea.
Or more precisely, a rainbow-colored, vibrant parachute attached to the boat, soaring above the water’s surface.
“That’s parasailing, parasailing. You know paragliding, right? The kind you do from mountains. That’s parasailing—paragliding over the sea. Man… doesn’t that look incredibly fun?”
The people hanging from the parachute flew close to the sea’s surface as the boat accelerated, then soared high enough to touch the sky, and sometimes flew so low that their legs dipped into the water.
Despite the considerable distance from the sea to the cafe, I could faintly hear the cheers of the people hanging there. The white wake that surged wherever the boat passed looked refreshing just to watch.
Yoo Gun, with an iced americano straw in his mouth, nodded half-heartedly.
“Yeah, it does look fun.”
“Good, then.”
“Good? What do you mean?”
He said parasailing looked fun, so why was he giving such an odd response? Feeling something off, I turned to look at Ha-jin, and he checked the time on his phone before grinning and speaking.
“Because that’s your future.”
“…What?”
“You’re going to ride that soon.”
Who’s riding what?
The question I couldn’t ask while swallowing my drink went down Yoo Gun’s throat along with the cold americano.
* * *
“Kang Ha-jin―!!!!!! You―!!!!!!!”
D―X you―!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The last shred of idol persona clinging to a tiny corner of Yoo Gun’s mind prevented him from finishing the curse, so it echoed thunderously only in his heart.
In truth, even if he’d discarded that idol persona entirely, he might not have been able to shout it to the end.
His parachute plummeted rapidly, his long legs cutting roughly through the seawater, and he was too overwhelmed by the violent spray of water to resist anything else.
“Woohoo~! This is amazing! Our Yoo Gun is so cool! Boss, can’t we go even higher?”
“Want me to go higher?”
“Yes. My younger sibling loves the thrill.”
“Hey, you―! Ahhhhhhhhh―!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Before Yoo Gun could even protest, the boat suddenly accelerated. With it, Lee Yu-gun’s body, dangling from the parachute tethered to the boat, lifted away from the seawater and shot steeply toward the sky.
Across the vast Jeju waters, Yoo Gun’s rare screams echoed.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Too fast, no, too high, no―! Ahhhhh!”
With the sky at his back and the deep blue sea beneath his feet, Yoo Gun wailed pitifully while gripping the safety harness with all his might.
So that’s why Ha-jin had woken him at dawn and fed him hearty soup and sweet dessert―it was all calculated.
“Yoo Gun, look here! Look here! Smile~!”
Shamefully leaving only Yoo Gun dangling while he remained safely on the boat, Kang Ha-jin thrust his phone camera toward him again. Lee Yu-gun screaming while suspended from a parachute―this was an asset with demand, whether he sold it to Seo Tae-hyun or handed it to Desty.
Satisfied with the premium zoom capability of the latest phone he’d received as a birthday gift from fans, Ha-jin gave a thumbs up to the guide adjusting the parachute length.
“Make it as fun and thrilling as possible. My younger sibling flew here straight from work in Seoul just to try this.”
“Is that so? Since there aren’t many people today, I’ll make it longer for you.”
“Nice, thanks. Oh, I noticed there are lots of other water activities here. Do those need advance reservations?”
“No, after this ends, just go to the info desk and register right away. It’s off-season now, so there are plenty of openings.”
“Really? Oh, that’s great.”
“But your friend isn’t doing it? Why only your younger sibling?”
“Oh, I have a fear of heights. Just watching my younger sibling is enough for me to live vicariously.”
Of course, it was a lie.
Just weeks ago, Kang Ha-jin had enjoyed every bungee jump at Dream Land, and now he shamelessly waved it off before raising his phone again. Having already given up on pretending, as the parachute slowly descended toward the sea, his face was filled with nothing but satisfaction as he photographed Yoo Gun humbly accepting the approaching water.
The moment parasailing ended and Yoo Gun’s feet touched land again, he quickly approached Ha-jin, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him vigorously.
“You said just a simple workout―!? Just a simple workout―!?!”
“Hey, do you know how many calories ocean swimming burns? Look at this. My arm muscles, my leg muscles―they’re properly pumped. Everything I ate today is definitely digested.”
“You never said anything about doing this!!”
“Think about it carefully. What did I say this morning? Let’s exercise to reduce the puffiness from late-night snacks, and since we’ll have to wash anyway when we get back, we can just rinse off roughly. Where was I wrong?”
“Who interprets ‘we can just rinse off roughly’ as ‘we’ll be falling into seawater’…! Are you crazy, seriously!?”
“So. Did you hate it?”
“Ugh…!”
“You had fun though, honestly?”
Despite Yoo Gun’s indignant protests, Ha-jin didn’t bat an eye. But since it really had been fun, Yoo Gun―who had an unexpectedly honest side―couldn’t counter that and could only pull at his own hair.
Ha-jin patted Yoo Gun’s back, put on sunglasses he’d brought from who knows when, and spoke with shameless confidence.
“Come on. We don’t have time. If we’re going to do everything here and move on to the next activity, we need to hurry. And you, listen, huh? Don’t go calling your older brother by name carelessly―if someone recognizes us, we’re in trouble, you punk. We’re a pretty famous idol group, you know?”
“I really hate this….”
“Today, instead of working at the Water Park, let’s experience it as a guest. How about that?”
At Ha-jin’s words, delivered with an excited face as he nudged me, Yoo Gun eventually nodded with a helpless laugh.
“Ah, right. Let’s go, come on. Let’s ride everything, absolutely everything. But you have to come with me, no exceptions.”
“Obviously. Good mindset. Let’s go, Gun-i.”
“Why do you keep calling me that? It’s so creepy.”
“If we call each other by our real names here—Yu Gun, Ha-jin—and someone recognizes us, things get complicated, you know? Even if it’s creepy, just bear with it.”
Though barely an inch taller, Ha-jin was actually shorter than Yoo Gun, yet he draped his arm across Yoo Gun’s shoulder as if it were an armrest. Yoo Gun’s clothes were completely soaked, which meant Ha-jin would inevitably get wet too, but he acted as though he didn’t care in the slightest.
As they walked together toward the information desk, Ha-jin suddenly stopped mid-stride, as if remembering something, and spoke to Yoo Gun.
“Hey, that’s right. Gun-i.”
“…?”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“….”
“I must have done something really well.”
With a satisfied smile, Ha-jin resumed walking.
So that Yoo Gun, who had no idea where they were or where they needed to go, could find the way forward without hesitation.
Ha-jin never once let go of Yoo Gun’s shoulder until their journey that day came to an end.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————