Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 373

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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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373. Finding My Runaway Younger Sibling (7)
In the basement recording studio of Miro, where recording was in full swing.
Kang Ha-won, sitting upright in the center of the sofa with perfect posture, found himself thinking.
‘Wow, these are celebrities.’
He’d caught glimpses of his older brother’s group members at the final company dinner, and seen them so often on AiTube that they’d become provisional meal companions, but seeing Seo Tae-il and Nam Da-down from Upia—people he’d watched on TV and various media since childhood—right before his eyes was genuinely surreal.
And besides….
“….”
“Wow…. His face is really small. His proportions are really good. He looks exactly like Ha-jin. But the vibe is completely different. It’s so fascinating.”
“Really? If you didn’t mention they were brothers, you probably wouldn’t notice, right? But those eyes and mouth corners seem genetic. What’s his name? Ha-won?”
“Yeah, Kang Ha-won. But wait, so is he a student right now? If he’s the same age as Tae-hyun, he’d be in college. Oh! Before that, he’s that friend who appeared in the Miro Maze final VCR, right? Yeah, that’s it. He was there back then too.”
“Does the younger sibling sing well too? His face looks like he might have some talent. I caught a bit of him talking earlier, and his voice tone is pretty decent…. He’s not interested in the idol industry, right? If he were, Ha-jin would’ve brought him in and debuted him by now.”
…These celebrities were now staring at him intently while openly discussing him loud enough for him to hear everything.
If they were going to do this, he wished they’d at least talk to him directly, but that wasn’t happening. The two of them maintained an appropriate distance from Ha-won while endlessly speculating about him.
As Ha-won watched the two of them slip into a guessing game about his college major, he thought to himself.
‘…Should I bite my tongue and pass out? Wait, would I die if I bit too hard?’
Just like his older brother Ha-jin, who’d once contemplated hitting himself in the back of the head with a frying pan to escape the awkwardness of being in the same room as Lee Do-ha, Ha-won too—despite appearing to be a different type—was ultimately a product of the same bloodline, possessing similarly extreme thought patterns.
But he couldn’t afford to collapse bleeding profusely on his first visit to his brother’s company.
‘That would be the talk of the town for ages.’
For Ha-won, the attention and interest of others was far more threatening than the excessive bleeding from biting his tongue.
Ultimately, choosing the latter in the balance game of ‘bite tongue and become a bleeding patient VS have a normal conversation and disappear normally,’ Ha-won voluntarily opened his mouth like a model citizen.
“…You can ask if you’re curious about something.”
Then, the two hyenas—who had just transitioned from the college major guessing game (where no one knew the answer anyway) to a birthday guessing game (where again, no one knew the answer)—firmly shook their heads.
“No, we can’t. Your nephew specifically warned us not to talk to you when he went into the recording booth. He had this scary look in his eyes.”
“Yeah, yeah. The moment we started talking to you, he looked ready to abandon the recording and storm out, remember?”
“We’ll just mind our own business and do what we need to do. We’re just having a quiet conversation among ourselves.”
Except that quiet conversation was exactly what was bothering him.
Ha-won, habitually touching his earlobe, glanced at his brother’s figure visible on the monitor in the recording booth before continuing.
“…He’s just worried about me. I’m shy around strangers. If I seem fine, it’ll be okay, so you really can ask.”
“Should we then?”
“It’s really okay?”
“Yes.”
At that, the pupils of the two hyenas gleamed as if they’d swallowed stars. The larger hyena, Seo Tae-il, was the first to reveal his true intentions with an excited voice.
“Then would you sing a song for us?”
“…Pardon?”
“No, I’m just really curious if singing talent is genetic too. Your speaking tone sounds lower than Ha-jin’s, but for some reason I’m getting this strong feeling that your vocal technique might be pretty good….”
“Senior. Please, stop.”
Seo Tae-hyun, sitting a little distance from Ha-won and quietly organizing the lyrics sheet, gently rebuked Tae-il.
Not only cutting off a senior’s words, but even reproaching him?
Under normal circumstances, this would be unthinkable for Seo Tae-hyun, but as an introvert who understood better than anyone how draining these energy drink humans’ conversational runaway trains could be, he couldn’t let it slide.
But the real runaway locomotive hadn’t even left the station yet.
“So your younger sibling’s name is Ha-won? Ha-won, really? What’s his major in college? Wait, is he even in college? These days there are so many different career paths. What brings you by today? Came to see your brother? You must be close with your nephew, right? You have to be, right? I barely see my brother twice a year. Have you eaten? Should I order something delicious for you?”
“No, well, that….”
“But did you say hello to Tae-hyun and Do-ha? Oh, they’re your brother’s group members, so you must know them already, right? But the way you’re dressed today and everything—seriously, you’ve got this completely different vibe from Ha-jin, it’s insane. Did you happen to meet our CEO? Haven’t met yet? If you had, there’s no way he wouldn’t have given you his card with a face like that….”
“Da-down, stop. Stop. Enough.”
Nam Da-down had dragged his chair right up beside Ha-won, then practically tumbled onto the sofa next to him, unleashing a barrage of questions with a radiant smile. He wouldn’t even give Ha-won a chance to answer, just kept rambling until Tae-il, the leader, patted his back and told him to stop, shoving a snack into his mouth to finally silence him.
‘A dog…?’
Ha-won closed his mouth, holding back a comment he couldn’t quite voice. He’d been bombarded with questions, but he had no idea where to even start answering from.
It felt
tedious.
“Seniors.”
“Hm?”
“Right now, Ha-jin’s brother is glaring at you all through the recording booth monitor.”
“Oh my.”
“Yikes, we should run.”
It was Tae-hyun who came to Ha-won’s rescue this time.
Just as Tae-hyun said, inside the recording booth, Ha-jin’s eyes gleamed with a piercing triple-eyed stare as he looked intensely in their direction.
-Please don’t bother my Ha-won.
“Aw, when did we ever? You’re making us feel so hurt, nephew.”
“Let’s record, record. We need to work, work. Um, what. Where were we, anyway?”
Only after Ha-jin’s intervention made the two seniors finally turn their backs on him could Ha-won finally breathe easy.
‘Conversations with celebrities are exhausting. So that’s why they’re celebrities.’
In truth, it wasn’t because they were celebrities—he’d just met difficult people in general—but since Ha-won hadn’t met many celebrities yet and had few comparison samples, he simply accepted it as fact.
And then another celebrity approached and sat down beside Ha-won.
“…?”
“Sorry. The seniors seemed really curious when they heard you were Ha-jin’s younger sibling. They tend to enjoy meeting new people since they’re always around the same types. That’s just how they are.”
It was Seo Tae-hyun, a member of Ha-jin’s group who had now rescued me from those two hyenas’ barrage of questions twice.
‘Wow, this one’s a celebrity too.’
I’d actually first met Tae-hyun at the Miro Maze finals dinner, and we’d exchanged light introductions. But that was only brief, and Ha-jin had been there too, so this was the first time I was having a direct conversation with him one-on-one.
Tae-hyun, who’d spent his idol career meeting countless strangers like this, continued speaking once more.
“Ah, well…. Back then, we decided to drop formalities with each other, so I spoke casually, but…. You probably don’t remember, right? Did I come on too strong with the casual speech? Um…. Well….”
If Ha-won was the type who felt no need to speak when he didn’t know many people, then Tae-hyun was the type who became more talkative the more awkward he felt.
He’d heard a lot about Ha-won from Ha-jin on a regular basis, and having spent so long in the entertainment industry, he didn’t have many civilian friends, so he’d actually thought many times about wanting to get closer.
But now that they were actually trying to have a conversation like this, it felt incredibly awkward.
‘I should’ve dragged Lee Yu-gun along…!’
For a moment, he wished Lee Yu-gun were here to help carry the conversation forward.
Ha-won, who had been staring silently at Tae-hyun, answered in a calm voice.
“I remember.”
“Huh?”
“You said back then that we were the same age, so we should speak comfortably. I remember.”
“…Oh, really?”
At those words, Tae-hyun felt considerably better. The two seniors in the front seats had been pretending to work playfully, but now they were genuinely focused one hundred percent on the recording. Even amid the chaos, the area around that small sofa felt oddly quiet.
Tae-hyun racked his brain for the next conversation topic and managed to find one common point between the two of them.
“Oh, how’s your mother doing? I mean, um….”
“My mom?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, she’s doing well. She mentions you sometimes.”
“Me? Really? What does she say?”
“Just, stuff about the stage. That you’re doing well.”
At Ha-won’s matter-of-fact compliment, Tae-hyun broke into a bewildered but pleased smile. After that, Ha-won didn’t initiate conversation on his own, but he answered sincerely whenever Tae-hyun made the effort to ask something.
Tae-hyun, who usually suffered under the abnormal energy of the other members, was genuinely moved, unable to even gauge how long it had been since he’d had such a calm conversation.
“….”
Then suddenly, Ha-won closed his mouth and gazed silently at the scene inside the recording studio.
Ha-jin cracking jokes into the microphone in the recording booth, Tae-il and Nam Da-down naturally playing along while offering serious feedback, and the recording staff members responding enthusiastically to their banter. Ha-won watched all of this for a long while.
“…?”
And finally, his gaze settled on Tae-hyun.
After glancing at him briefly, Ha-won smiled faintly, and Tae-hyun spoke with curiosity in his voice.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Ha-won shook his head and pressed his fingertips against his earlobes repeatedly. He opened his mouth again after a brief pause.
“Just, it’s interesting. That’s all.”
“The recording studio? Oh, right. You don’t get to see something like this very often.”
“No, well. That’s true too, but….”
“…?”
“It’s just interesting seeing that you work with people like this. That’s what’s interesting.”
These people are my brother’s ‘colleagues.’
That’s what Ha-won thought.
My brother—who seems cheerful and carefree, but actually gets lonely easily, loves people so much, and loves working with people like these.
-Ha-won, hi.
-…What? Brother, why are you home? Didn’t you go to the company? Is today a day without practice?
-Ha-won.
-…?
-I quit being a trainee.
-….
-I just gave it up. I’m not going to do it anymore.
So now he works with people like these.
At that thought, my heart felt at ease. Ever since the idol debut, I’d felt a bit resentful that ‘work’ had taken my brother away from me, but now even that feeling melted away completely—replaced entirely by a sense of relief.
Soon the recording studio door beside him opened.
“Oh, Do-ha. Where did you go?”
“To get medicine.”
“Medicine?”
“Ha-jin’s still coughing, so I grabbed some medicine just in case.”
I turned around wondering if Ha-jin had finished recording, but it was Do-ha who stepped into the recording studio. When Tae-hyun asked where he’d been, Do-ha set the medicine bag he was holding down on the table.
Ha-won stared at the medicine bag quietly.
My older brother often caught summer colds that even dogs wouldn’t get, and whenever he did, he grieved more about lying alone at home than about the physical pain itself. Now he had a good colleague who would buy him medicine and worry about his health.
Confirming this fact, Ha-won rose from his seat with a relieved expression.
“Huh? Where are you going?”
“Yeah. I came up to Seoul for a prior engagement. I should get going.”
“Oh, wait. Then I’ll tell Ha-jin to step out of the booth for a moment.”
“No, no. He’s in the middle of work—leave him be. My brother will figure it out and leave on his own once the time comes.”
Ha-won stopped Tae-hyun from calling Ha-jin. He was working with such maturity for once; I didn’t want to interrupt and shatter that concentration.
Besides, I’d see my brother again anyway.
Instead of greeting Ha-jin, Ha-won made one final request to Tae-hyun.
“Please take good care of my brother.”
A participant in the survival program that my brother had loved so much he’d watched reruns religiously and even asked me to vote for him via text.
The star he’d admired was now standing beside him as a fellow member, as a colleague. Ha-won, who understood better than anyone what that meant to Ha-jin, spoke to Tae-hyun with sincerity.
“Even if he does something a bit immature sometimes, please understand. You’re always the one in the middle dealing with everything.”
“Huh? Oh, no. I’m not….”
“Thank you so much. I’ll be going then.”
“Yeah. Be careful.”
Ha-won bowed respectfully to Do-ha as well before carefully exiting the recording studio. If my brother found out, he’d definitely come running after me shouting “Younger Sibling!” so I moved as quickly as possible.
With a relieved pace, I hurried out through the recording studio door and was heading toward the elevator when—
“Ha-won!”
Someone called my name.
I thought my brother had chased after me, but it wasn’t his voice. When Ha-won turned around, Tae-hyun was approaching with his phone in one hand.
“Um, actually…”
“…?”
“Could you give me your number? I actually wanted to ask before, but never got the chance.”
“My number…?”
“Yeah. I don’t have many friends my age. …Oh, if you’re uncomfortable, you can refuse.”
Tae-hyun held out his phone to Ha-won.
I’d assumed a celebrity’s phone would be some extraordinarily special model, but Seo Tae-hyun was holding the exact same model Ha-won had just switched to.
Just some ordinary phone from a few years back—reasonably priced with solid features.
“….”
Though that wasn’t entirely the reason.
Ha-won didn’t deliberate for long and accepted the phone.
“Sure. But I don’t check messages very often.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m pretty busy too. I’ll reach out sometimes. I’d like to see the other members together later.”
“Hmm… that sounds like it’d be exhausting.”
“Haha, yeah, I get that. Sometimes it wears me out too.”
“I can tell. …I couldn’t do it. Absolutely not.”
“Ha ha!”
At Ha-won’s candid response, now that his initial shyness had worn away, Tae-hyun burst into genuine laughter for the first time that day.
“Then I’ll really get going.”
“Yeah, take care. See you again.”
“Sure.”
Ha-won stepped into the elevator with a final farewell. Then I found myself staring at the newly saved phone number in my phone for several minutes.
‘…Once I get home.’
I’d need to set up a new messenger account first.
For some reason, I had a feeling that even after returning home tonight, I wouldn’t collapse into exhausted sleep right away.

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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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