Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 386

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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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386. Idol Weight Class Clash (5)
The opening ceremony was spectacular.
It seemed the production team had dumped every penny they’d saved on the set right here—fireworks from the start, drones soaring overhead, banners unfurling, they did absolutely everything they could.
The opening performance was even performed by Lim Chun-ho, a trot singer with thirty years of experience. He came out in a dazzling sequined tuxedo and belted out his signature song with infectious energy, and I genuinely wondered if the broadcasting station had lost their minds.
-Everyone together! Dance, let’s dance!!
With a performer of thirty years’ standing beckoning us to our feet, not a single idol in this gymnasium was senseless enough to stand rigidly and merely clap.
In the end, we had no choice but to follow his every gesture—moving left, spinning right, grabbing each other’s shoulders and dancing in a trance-like state. The broadcasting station couldn’t very well ask the maestro to perform just one song and leave, so he powered through three songs without pause.
-Thank you all~! Children’s strength competition~ Fighting!!
-Sir, teacher. It’s not a children’s strength competition, it’s an idol athletic competition….
-And viewers at home, have a prosperous new year~! Oh? A very prosperous new year!
-Sir, it’s not a New Year’s special, it’s a Chuseok special….
-This has been Lim Chun-ho!
There was definitely some seriously garbled information being conveyed, but it would all be edited out anyway, so it didn’t matter.
What mattered more was us—we did.
“Hyung, I’m seeing stars….”
“Hang in there, Chan. The first match hasn’t even started yet.”
After more than thirty minutes of a life-or-death game match, followed immediately by ten minutes of trot festivities, even Ju Eun-chan—who rarely tired—had called GG.
Considering how energetic he’d been even when he’d only managed four hours of sleep a night for over a week preparing for our year-end stage, this was extraordinary.
“Alright, let’s get our lines organized~ Everyone, please line up properly~”
The next order of business appeared to be the idol representative oath ceremony.
The assistant director and FD staff with intercoms clipped to their heads quickly wove between us, trying to straighten the lines that had become scattered by Lim Chun-ho’s overwhelming presence. Since wasting time on this was the biggest shame, I swiftly checked all directions and lined up the members.
“Hey, Tae-hyun. Move in more. Yeah, that’s good. Tell Yoo Gun in back to focus. If you lose concentration here, accidents happen fast… Oh, sorry.”
As I turned around to keep the members in line, I didn’t notice the person in front taking a step back to widen the gap, and I bumped into them slightly. I apologized out of habit, but the face looked familiar.
“…It’s fine.”
‘Oh no.’
It was Jung-hyuk, Lanion’s pink-haired member.
It seemed another team had been in front of us earlier, but after that dance chaos, the lines must have gotten mixed up and he’d ended up in front of us.
‘If Jung-hyuk is in front of me, then naturally….’
I subtly craned my neck to peek at the line ahead, and sure enough, Cha Min-seok—that unlucky bastard—was standing there expressionless, displaying his picture-perfect visuals as always. What made it even worse was that right beside our line were those doubly unlucky B-liver kids.
‘They said Stone Board was a single-plank bridge… Looks like I’m going to see all the faces I don’t want to see here, of all places.’
The only silver lining was that Seo Tae-hyun and Cha Min-seok didn’t seem particularly aware of each other. Well, I wasn’t sure about Min-seok, but Tae-hyun definitely seemed that way.
‘Still, it won’t hurt to be careful.’
I straightened up, thinking I should try to keep them from running into each other during the shoot, when I realized Jung-hyuk—who I thought had already turned around—was still looking at me. My pointless head movements and sideways glances at his members must have caught his attention.
“…Haha, I was just curious who was in the same line.”
“Ah, I see.”
I laughed awkwardly and gave a vague excuse, but Jung-hyuk, who’d been looking at me, answered curtly as if uninterested and quickly turned his head away.
But there was something odd about his attitude.
It wasn’t like Cha Min-seok, with whom I’d had several confrontations before—this guy and I didn’t have any particular grievance, yet he seemed to be treating me coldly for some reason.
‘…Is it just my imagination?’
But based on my experience, instincts like this were accurate ninety-nine times out of a hundred. I’d gotten pretty skilled at picking up on these things.
But if that were the case, I was curious about the reason. It wasn’t Cha Min-seok, and even if he’d heard it from Cha Min-seok, the one who would act tough wouldn’t be him—it would be me, wouldn’t it?
I mean, sure. Of course, he might be the type to keep a certain distance from strangers, and not everyone dreams of a world where everyone is kind to me. But didn’t I help him avoid messing up his lines during that last music broadcast?
“The―oath!”
“…hyung, what are you doing. It’s the oath, right hand.”
“Ah, yeah.”
Why me?
While I was momentarily distracted by this inexplicable hostility, Ju Eun-chan urgently tapped my shoulder from behind. Not wanting to waste the nagging I’d given Yoo Gun about focusing, I pushed aside my wandering thoughts and looked forward again.
“…Therefore, I swear! I do!”
Honestly, these guys are impossible to figure out.
An inexplicable unease lingered in the corner of my heart like residue.
* * *
The first event of the Idol Weight Class Clash was the men’s 60M dash preliminaries.
Our side desperately wanted to send out Seo Tae-hyun, but the production team flatly rejected it and directly designated the competing athletes. I wanted to protest that it didn’t matter what kind of variety show happened or who went out, but as rookie male idols facing a major broadcast special during a holiday, we had no say whatsoever.
And so, Kairos’s 60M dash competitor was, as everyone expected―.
-Ah, so this athlete is competing from Kairos. This one has athletic experience too, doesn’t he, Down?
-Yes, that’s right. Kang Ha-jin was a track and field club member back in elementary school, and with experience competing in regional competitions, he could be considered a veteran athlete.
It was me.
Yeah, there’s no way the broadcast people would just let go of that precious title of ‘track and field club member’….
“Wow, Ha-jin hyung, fighting.”
“Kang Ha-jin, win~”
“Dude, the track star is insane, track star~”
“Seriously, a track and field club member? How fast could he possibly be?”
“Don’t even think about coming back unless you get the gold medal~”
“…If you’re going to cheer, at least put your soul into it, you guys.”
Cheers devoid of even 1 gram of sincerity and expectation poured out from all directions. At first, I only heard my members’ voices, but gradually as others gathered, the voices of Game Pot members mixed in at a certain ratio, which was even more irritating.
Since my track and field days were ten years ago, there was no merit in it now, and I had no intention of running at full speed in case I tripped and got injured.
And the fact that my members, who knew all my thoughts, were reacting like that meant it was purely 100% to make fun of me.
“Wow, you’re pretty popular?”
“…?”
The filming director was waiting at the starting line to capture inserts, and the guy next to me suddenly started talking. Wondering what it was now, I turned my head, and again I saw a face I recognized but couldn’t remember, grinning at me.
“…Yeah, well. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s social skills—I’d be a gold medal contender.”
Who was he again?
While pondering, I still gave an answer. And while doing so, I naturally and quickly scanned downward at his name tag.
Once I confirmed the group name and name on the white bib number, I could identify the source of this irritating energy I’d felt from his voice alone.
【B-liver ‖ Seok-hyun】
Oh, it’s that guy.
The Green Apple Villain who laughed at Seo Tae-hyun and said ‘Tae-hyun is so fresh’.
One of the B-liver guys who got beaten twice on the day we appeared on the A-Countdown special stage with “Shout at You” from Miro Maze—once in the challenge against us, and once more when Upia swept first place.
It felt like just yesterday that he was dismissing and mocking us in the waiting room as trainees who hadn’t even debuted, but why is he suddenly talking to me first today? And his tone and expression didn’t seem to have good intentions.
“I felt it back then too, but you’re really good at being approachable, aren’t you? You like going around striking up conversations with people here and there.”
So now you’re dropping the formal speech entirely?
Still, he was my senior and older than me, so I let it slide easily enough. What mattered more was understanding why this guy was saying such things to me at this particular moment.
I answered with a bright smile, conscious of the people around us.
“Since I’ve been invited to such a gathering, it’s wonderful to get closer to more people. Thanks to you, I get to have this conversation with you, senior. It’s an honor.”
After I fed him some hollow flattery, the Green Apple Villain let out another smug chuckle and sneered. Then he glanced over to where the Game Pot members were still huddled together, now playing a finger game.
Endway was sitting separately among themselves, and since Phase was warming up with Kairos, only Storm Header and Winter Tail were with them.
“Well… you seem to build relationships so purely and genuinely. I’m envious, really.”
Anyone could tell he was being sarcastic. No way I’d believe that “envious” comment coming from him.
No matter how I looked at it, the remark was clearly backhanded, but since it was superficially harmless, I couldn’t openly show displeasure. I smiled once more and answered, trying to decipher his hidden meaning.
“Oh, Game Pot? We’re planning to play again during lunch later. Would you like to join us if you’re free, senior?”
“Pfft… Ah, Game Pot? No thanks. I’ve got a lot of events, so I’ll probably be busy with interviews.”
“Ah. Yes. Good luck.”
I smiled soullessly and clenched my fist, watching the Green Apple Villain’s expression stiffen subtly. Without paying him any mind, I turned my head to check how far the recording had progressed, when a barely audible voice reached my ears from behind, accompanied by a sigh.
“I wonder if he’s greedy for screen time or not greedy at all….”
It was clear.
That barb wasn’t aimed at me—it was directed at Storm Header and Winter Tail.
‘Back when Seo Tae-hyun hadn’t debuted yet, he ignored them diligently. Then suddenly he debuts and does well, and he starts mentioning them on SNS. I saw this coming from then….’
So he was going to divide people up like this?
In other words, translating what the Green Apple Villain was saying right now would be something like this:
‘You rookies gathered in a group and got some screen time with your weird antics? But the fact that you’re hanging out with Winter Tail and Storm Header, who don’t have much recognition and are low-tier, and even including newly debuted Phase, shows you’re pretty naive about social dynamics.’
There were several reasons why he suddenly started picking a fight with me.
Maybe it was because we swept them in buzz during the last comeback, and we took all the rookie awards, so he’d been looking at us with displeasure anyway.
Or maybe he was intoxicated with the sense of victory because their international fanbase surged during this promotion, upgrading their tier.
Or perhaps he’d tried to latch onto the increasingly successful Seo Tae-hyun, but when we showed no interest, seeing us suddenly bonding with second-tier idols annoyed him….
“Athletes, prepare to start. Get your feet on the starting blocks and take your positions.”
Well, yeah.
I could attach a hundred more reasons, and while Storm Header was someone we approached first, Winter Tail’s Park Tae-ha might have greeted us first, hoping for some trickle-down effect.
Thinking back to the last episode of Touch High!, Storm Header’s agency seemed unusually chaotic, so they might come asking for something more intimate based on this.
In the idol world where countless people rise and fall rapidly, camaraderie is always a poisoned chalice.
Who you associate with sometimes determines your ‘tier’ and can sway your reputation.
-And now, as I speak! The men’s 60-meter dash preliminaries, Group A, begins!
“Ready…!”
“One, two, three! Ha-jin hyung, fighting!”
“Come on, first place, first place!”
“Show us what being a senior means, hyung!”
“Hyung, we expect a performance worthy of the Worldtales name!”
Still though.
Where the hell did these bastards learn to spout such shameless nonsense right to people’s faces?
Do these punks need to go to the military, get their heads shaved, and crawl around like dogs three times before basic manners get installed in their skulls?
“GO!”
Crack!
The sharp report of the starting pistol rang out crisply, signaling the beginning of the race.
And after traversing four timelines plus more, the powerful imprints of my past carved into my body responded with perfect precision to my will.
Back in elementary school track and field, my coach had drilled into me that my finishing strength was more than sufficient—I just needed to master my starts. This was the moment that training bore fruit.
“Waaaaagh! Kang Ha-jin is insanely fast!!!!!!!”
What? I can’t tell if you’re greedy for more screen time or not.
No matter what happens, I’m going to devour every last bit of your share today, you green rookie.

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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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