Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 387

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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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387. Idol Weight Class Clash (6)
So what were the results?
-Kang Ha-jin! Recording first place in Group A with an impressive time of 7.79 seconds!
-As expected from an athlete, there’s definitely something different about him. That start was incredibly fast, wasn’t it?
-He seems like an athlete with excellent instantaneous acceleration. His balance while running is superb. We’re looking forward to his performance in the finals.
“And that’s how it went.”
I confidently claimed first place in my group, threw a celebratory gesture at the camera, and returned to where my teammates were waiting. Then, forced to smile brightly for the cameras while applauding, my teammates began revealing their true thoughts through ventriloquism.
“How did that even—! …Ugh, this bastard…! (How did this even happen, you punk…!)”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t expect much anyway.”
“I’m proud of you, hyung.”
“So we’re going straight to the finals?”
“Don’t go saying you were just coasting through…”
“Wait, so you really were on the track team?”
Yeah, pretty standard praise. I appreciated it all.
Of course, I had no room to complain since I’d confidently declared before leaving that I’d definitely be eliminated in the preliminaries and coming back.
Seo Tae-hyun, the screen-time monster who had been most concerned about my participation in the Idol Athletic Games due to my injury, now accepted the situation with a resigned sigh and crossed his arms.
“Since we’ve made it to the finals anyway, we need to take the gold medal now. This is about our group’s reputation. You understand? Win that gold medal and secure us the right to choose our song’s background music.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I gave a casual nod and headed back to the waiting area with my teammates.
Or rather, I tried to. If only those B-liver bastards hadn’t passed right next to me.
“Senior Seok-hyun.”
“…?”
The Green Apple Villain, who had apparently run fast enough to come in second in his group but narrowly missed advancing to the finals, responded to my call. He seemed uncomfortable about losing to me, his expression still looking like he’d been chewing sand, but since everyone had just finished running and was catching their breath, it wasn’t particularly noticeable.
Ignoring the B-liver members staring at me with confusion and Seo Tae-hyun beside me with an expression that screamed ‘Is this guy crazy again?’, I opened my mouth with an extremely bright, utterly radiant smile.
“You’re quite ambitious.”
“…?”
“Your appetite for screen time is quite substantial, I’d say.”
Even the miserable Idol Athletic Games filming environment had its advantages.
The cameras weren’t always pointed at me, and without a microphone, I didn’t need to worry about personal audio.
“I’ll take your advice with a grain of salt.”
“…”
And the surroundings were chaotic and bustling enough that if I just maintained this radiant expression, there wouldn’t be anything controversial for fans’ direct camera footage to capture.
Finally, I flashed a smile that could only be expressed as ‘^♡^’ in emoticon form and clenched my fist tightly.
“Best of luck~”
If there were no cameras, I would’ve flipped him off right then and there, you bastard.
Thoroughly mocking the Green Apple Villain, whose expression management completely fell apart for a moment, and his two teammates, I headed without hesitation toward the waiting area where the other game-show groups were gathered with my teammates.
* * *
The preliminaries progressed quickly.
Six groups competed with six members each, and while Phase and Lanion were eliminated, Storm Header and Winter Tail hadn’t competed yet.
I could see Dan Ha-ru and Ju Eun-chan standing further ahead to cheer for Storm Header’s youngest member Hui-an, who was at the starting line. Seeing other groups’ youngest members gathered beside them, it seemed that the omelette rice alliance from earlier had gotten quite close in a short amount of time.
“Wow, Ha-jin, you’re really fast, aren’t you?”
Park Tae-ha from Winter Tail approached me with an easy-going comment as I stood at the back of the group, my speech and movements forcibly sealed to conserve stamina for the finals coming up in a bit.
He naturally sat down beside me and handed me a chocolate bar from his hand—apparently he’d just come back from the catering booth. Since my energy was about to crash, I gratefully accepted it.
I wondered why he kept coming over here, leaving his own group behind, when he seemed to care about those rumors of discord. But looking closer, I could see his group was already scattered throughout the area, mixing well with our members and other game teams.
‘…Tsk, I shouldn’t have listened to that strange talk earlier.’
As a mere second-year rookie, I had absolutely no intention of doing something like ‘ranking by tier’—the kind of thing middle school delinquents would do. But once I’d heard it, my thoughts kept drifting in that direction, which irritated me slightly.
I quickly shook off the distracting thoughts and unwrapped the chocolate bar before answering casually.
“I’m not exactly a senior, you know.”
“I thought you were fast back when you jumped the fence and ran away during Touch High… but seeing you in person again, you’re seriously insanely fast. I thought our Yi-sae was pretty quick too, but he seemed a bit discouraged.”
“Is Yi-sae your representative for Winter Tail?”
“Yeah. Our Yi-sae’s fast. He’s basically our athletic member, you could say.”
Now that I thought about it, when he came and went to the fan seating area for the penalty earlier, his movements did seem pretty nimble.
I took a bite of the chocolate bar and glanced at the back of Shin Yi-sae’s head. Just then, Group D’s match ended. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Ha-ru’s ketchup guy had unfortunately failed to advance to the finals.
I watched the Group D winners doing their ceremony in front of the camera and answered absently.
“Just place first. Honestly, I wasn’t even planning to run that hard, but someone provoked me and I got annoyed….”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“No, I think I misheard. You weren’t planning to run hard? Why?”
It was something I’d said without much thought, but when Park Tae-ha pressed me on it, I suddenly couldn’t think of what to say. He looked genuinely surprised. His expression showed real curiosity about why I’d thought that way.
Against my will, my fingers tapped rhythmically on my thigh. It was a habit that appeared whenever my thoughts grew complicated.
“Well… no, it’s just, our comeback’s coming up soon, and if I got injured, it’d be a disaster… and this isn’t like they’re giving out awards for doing well. It’s just a guaranteed spot at next year’s Idol Athletic Games, that’s all….”
“….”
“Of course, it’s nice to do well, but, well, isn’t it? Honestly, the Idol Athletic Games filming is exhausting and brutal…. They don’t even pay appearance fees, but the injury risk is high, and they don’t take responsibility if you do get hurt…. Even after filming this hard, you barely get a few seconds on air, if that. The cost-benefit ratio is terrible.”
I knew that ‘Idol Athletic Games filming’ had a notorious reputation even among idols.
When I worked in entertainment, the filming idols hated most was the Idol Athletic Games, and before coming here, I’d heard a truckload of absurd incidents that happened at the Idol Athletic Games from Yupia.
So I hesitated slightly before speaking my honest feelings, assuming Park Tae-ha’s thoughts would naturally be similar to mine.
“Ah….”
But Park Tae-ha, who had maintained a cheerful smile throughout, didn’t smile at my answer at all.
No, there was a smile fixed on his lips as if bolted in place, but his wavering pupils revealed that he was thinking deeply about something. I felt like I’d made a mistake and couldn’t easily open my mouth.
“…So that’s how most people think about it.”
“….”
“I’m envious. For us, those few seconds are the most precious thing.”
The last words seemed to slip out almost without his own awareness—genuine feelings that had escaped before he could stop them.
And the moment I heard those words, I felt as if someone had struck my head hard.
‘Precious, so….’
Only then did I realize how arrogant and presumptuous my thoughts had been.
Just because I’d joined a good entertainment company, debuted through a well-funded survival program, received solid support, and fortunately gained considerable popularity—I had unconsciously forgotten something I should never have forgotten.
‘Gratitude.’
A chance to appear on national broadcast TV for three consecutive days during the golden holiday when families gather together.
A chance to introduce myself and my group for perhaps the first time to countless idol fans and viewers who didn’t know my name or face.
Even if it’s only a few minutes, or perhaps just a few seconds. An opportunity to showcase our group to the broadcasting station staff and production team.
Setting aside how grueling and difficult the Idol Athletic Games recording is, the mere fact that I’m here right now represents such an enormous opportunity. For someone, this twelve-hour recording session might have been a desperately longed-for chance.
And yet, having received such an opportunity, how arrogant were my words when I carelessly spouted, “Let’s just be modest, stay quiet, disappear like ghosts”? How different was my attitude truly from that Believer’s behavior just moments ago?
“….”
“…Ah, sorry. I’m sorry, no, I mean…. Ugh, I misspoke. I shouldn’t have said this to Ha-jin, but I just… without thinking. I’m really sorry. Just forget what I said. Sorry.”
As expected, Park Tae-ha seemed startled by his own words, rushing to apologize to me and scramble to take back what he’d said.
Whether his words were right or wrong aside, he apparently considered it a mistake to have said them to me at all—his flustered face was genuinely apologetic as he kept bowing.
“What’s with all the apologies? You’re embarrassing me.”
“No, I really did mess up just now. I’m sorry, truly.”
“It’s fine. What I said just now…. I was being spoiled, wasn’t I?”
To Park Tae-ha, who still wore an awkward expression of regret, I deliberately put on a carefree face and shrugged. Park Tae-ha seemed to realize that if he apologized any further, the atmosphere would genuinely become strange, so he simply scratched his forehead and fell silent.
He soon awkwardly excused himself to cheer on his own team members competing in the E-group preliminary match.
“What? What were you talking about with Tae-ha?”
….”
As expected, Seo Tae-hyun, who had just returned from the catering area with Lee Yu-gun, sat down beside me and asked. Instead of answering, I simply swallowed the remaining portion of the chocolate bar Park Tae-ha had given me in one bite. My gaze naturally drifted toward the Winter Tail member standing at the starting blocks.
“Oh, Shin Yi-sae went out? What happened to Hui-an earlier?”
“…He unfortunately didn’t make it.”
“…? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Noticing my sudden drop in energy, Seo Tae-hyun poked my side and asked. At the same moment, the starting signal rang out, and the E-group competitors began sprinting in unison.
Perhaps because it was only 60 meters, the race was decided quickly. I watched intently, gritting my teeth, as the Winter Tail member crossed the finish line fastest.
“Waaahhh!!”
“Shin Yi-sae!!! Shin Yi-sae!!!!!”
“Yi-sae!!!!! You did great, you did great!!!!!”
The moment his first-place finish was confirmed, all the Winter Tail members sitting in the waiting area shot up like bullets.
The camera lenses that had been capturing other championship contenders and popular idols all turned in unison to film the Winter Tail members. The scoreboard also displayed Shin Yi-sae’s first-place finish and his celebrating teammates in large letters.
This scene would probably be broadcast without any editing. And perhaps this would be Winter Tail’s first and last prime-time moment at the Idol Athletic Games.
“Hey. What’s wrong with you?”
“…Nothing. I’m just nervous thinking about the finals.”
“What? You acted so unbothered, but now that the actual competition’s here, you’re getting nervous?”
“You said that if things came to this, it had to be gold. But seeing the competitors’ speeds…. Phew, they’re no joke, this. If this is how it is, everyone should just go to Tae-reung. Why are we even idols in the first place?”
“What are you saying? Your record’s the fastest among all the preliminaries right now. You go first, to Tae-reung.”
“Really go?”
“Absolutely not. Just go, seriously.”
Hiding my complicated feelings, I joked with Seo Tae-hyun as if nothing was wrong.
Whether Seo Tae-hyun didn’t notice my act or chose to pretend not to, either way, he followed my lead and played along.
‘…Desperate, huh.’
When did I start taking success and opportunity for granted?
To that question I posed to myself, I had no answer.
* * *
-And now, finally, the men’s 60-meter dash finals begin!
The final race began without me having reached a decision.
The women’s 60-meter dash championship went to a girl group that debuted four years ago and still remained nearly unknown to the public.
The moment the winner crossed the finish line, her group’s song blared through the speakers and a handful of fan banners appeared on the display screen. Unable to contain her joy, she let out a long, ecstatic scream. The camera lingered on her and her members for a considerable time.
“Wow, Ha-jin’s right in the next lane. I’m even more nervous now.”
“You were running incredibly fast earlier, hyung. You’re being too modest.”
“Phew, ah, but now that I’m here, I really want to win. Let’s not get hurt and do our best.”
“Yes. Safety is our top priority, hyung. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Fighting.”
“Ready―!”
I exchanged light encouragement with Shin Yi-sae, who was assigned to the adjacent lane, and soon at the signal, we all bent forward and placed our hands on the ground. I too assumed my position, my mind full of conflicting thoughts.
“Set―!!”
At the next signal, I lifted my hips while keeping my gaze fixed forward. My feet were firmly planted in the starting blocks, my body coiled and ready to explode forward at the slightest trigger.
My keen hearing proved invaluable in moments like this. I could catch and react to the starting signal far faster than anyone else.
“GO!!!”
Beeeep!
The starting signal for the final race rang out. My body reflexively launched forward. I could feel my leg muscles receiving proper elasticity as I pushed off the ground and sprinted ahead.
I instinctively knew that Shin Yi-sae and I were forming a formidable pair, overwhelmingly holding the lead, and that if I exerted just a little more effort, I could pull ahead of him by half a step.
In the span of barely seven seconds, I deliberated.
‘Should I win? …Or not.’
Or not….
Even as countless thoughts raced through my mind, my legs never stopped their relentless drive forward.
Without having made a final decision, we reached the finish line that would determine our fate.

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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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