Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 396

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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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396. How This Idol Maintains Discipline (3)
No matter how much they call it a “Series” Awards, the Hwangryong Awards was still the Hwangryong Awards. For rookie idols like us, the caliber difference was incomparable—we were far too junior to casually insert our business cards into a congratulatory stage performance.
The fact that we’d been invited to this grand venue at all had its reasons.
-And next, we have a special congratulatory stage performance that will make this moment even more memorable, isn’t that right?
-That’s correct. It should be especially meaningful for Nam Sa-ra, who just won the Female Entertainment Award.
The moment Nam Sa-ra’s name was mentioned—the female comedian who’d appeared on the revived “Gag Friends” and earned praise as the new blue chip of the comedy world—the audience seating and celebrity section erupted in uncontrollable enthusiasm. The large screen displayed a close-up of Nam Sa-ra’s animated reaction.
-The other fun element of “Gag Friends: This Rotten World,” right? That song that created the trending “Apocalypse Challenge”! The original artists of “Spring Doesn’t Come” have come to celebrate our Hwangryong Series Awards.
-Always surprising South Korea with fresh dramas woven into their songs and performances, these rising stars!
Good grief, what grandiose descriptions.
‘They really went out of their way to make the picture pretty so they wouldn’t catch flak for putting a second-year rookie idol on stage.’
The organizers had numerous reasons for specifically recruiting us.
Since it was a newly launched awards ceremony, they might have wanted to secure more teenage viewers by calling in popular idols,
or with so many distinguished performers already assembled, they might have wanted to ease the burden by using a rookie with lower appearance fees for the congratulatory stage. In fact, every other congratulatory stage team besides ours consisted of people with impressive careers and substantial compensation.
And right on cue, a comedian from a comedy show that used Kairos’s song—a second-year rookie with low appearance fees but rising popularity—won an award. If I were a PD, I’d have recruited Kairos too.
‘Well, that’s neither here nor there.’
Regardless, all we had to do was make proper use of the opportunity that came our way.
For the record, I had some expertise in stage direction like this. Not false bravado—genuine skill.
-Let’s see Kairos’s stage performance together.
Since actors and entertainers were gathered in the same space, the response and applause carried a slightly freer atmosphere than a typical film or drama awards ceremony.
The stage went dark.
Soon, violet lighting flooded the stage, and the melody of that song everyone knew echoed through the awards venue.
Everything, fall into ruin.
But the music that followed wasn’t the familiar instrumental track of “Spring Doesn’t Come”—it was a jazzy trumpet sound brimming with spy-thriller vibes.
And what appeared on stage next was…
“…Huh?”
Seven young men whose faces were completely concealed behind elegant masks.
* * *
“What is that?”
Park Jang-mi, a successful fan who’d come to the awards ceremony by chance while accompanying a friend who was into actor fandom, had suddenly encountered her group’s congratulatory stage performance. She’d been thrilled at the prospect of finally seeing the members’ new comeback hairstyle concept and their beauty in person with her own eyes, and she’d been eagerly anticipating capturing footage of their stage performance in awards ceremony camera quality. But now she was utterly bewildered.
‘Why are masks on those gorgeous faces!?’
Instead of the members’ faces appearing, expensive-looking masks filled the large screen!
‘They’re hiding national-treasure-level visuals that would be impressive enough to showcase as soft power, and they’re spending money to do it!?’
Even after watching the entire awards ceremony and seeing all sorts of actors and entertainers in person, she’d been filling herself with pride that our members didn’t fall short in terms of beauty and proportions. This stage was like a bolt from the blue.
No, no matter what they say
But regardless of her sighs, the performance on stage had begun in earnest. The melody flowing with the heavy trumpet sound was definitely not Kairos’s song.
Yet it wasn’t an unfamiliar song either.
“…Huh? This song….”
It was the main theme song of the spy-thriller series that had captivated the domestic drama scene in the latter half of last year.
It was a drama about an elderly agent living a quiet life after retirement who unexpectedly returns to active duty, and it had created a syndrome with excellent reviews for the seasoned actor’s skilled action performance in the lead role, and furthermore—.
A drama about an elderly retired agent who returns to the field by chance, which became a syndrome-creating drama that received excellent reviews for the seasoned action acting of the middle-aged actor who played the lead role, and also—.
No, no matter who I am
It was also a work nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Hwangryong Series Awards.
The moment the song’s identity was revealed, the quick-witted camera director and Main PD wore expressions of shock, their lenses immediately filling the massive display screens with the face of the middle-aged lead actor from the series. His juniors seated at the same table responded enthusiastically with delighted smiles.
Meanwhile, on stage, the masked performers continued their “performance” in sync with the BGM. It was a performance in the truest sense—because those “masks” on stage weren’t singing, nor were they dancing in the conventional sense.
Well, they were dancing, but it was something else entirely―.
The movements were closer to acting than dancing.
“Ah, that scene…?”
Though the mask concealed the face so thoroughly that even the eyes weren’t visible, Park Jang-mi easily recognized the masked figure in the tuxedo center stage as Kang Ha-jin from his physique alone, his silhouette, the fit of his clothes, and the lines of his movements.
Simultaneously, she realized that the other performers moving in harmony with him weren’t members of Kairos. What they were showcasing wasn’t merely choreography—it was a reconstructed performance of the drama’s most iconic action sequence.
“Damn it….”
Just as she’d deduced, the backdrop screen behind the stage played the actual scene from the drama. The seasoned action sequence of the middle-aged actor displayed on the screen overlapped seamlessly with Ha-jin’s refined choreography unfolding on stage.
As the gunshot—the climax of this scene—rang out, Ha-jin, playing the protagonist, unhesitatingly hurled himself from the human tower the dancers had formed.
Immediately, the lighting shifted to crimson as the scene transitioned, and this time a traditional Korean instrumental melody flowed forth, blending haegeum and daegeum. It was the main OST of the historical romance drama that had been praised for turning the genre on its head in the first half of this year.
“What are they pulling out now…?”
From the opposite side of the stage where Ha-jin had fallen, a figure in a fusion-style modernized hanbok emerged, their long hair tied high and flowing, fanning themselves with a fan. Behind that mask, which wielded the fan as naturally as if born holding it, I kept catching glimpses of Cherry Boy’s shadow, which was deeply troubling.
Regardless, what mattered was the audience’s reaction.
Though Park Jang-mi’s seat in the audience section was quite distant from the stage and celebrity seating, she could feel it clearly.
Everyone in this venue was genuinely satisfied, their focus solely on Kairos’s stage, which paid such respect to the cast and the works themselves.
‘Sigh… our kids are going to trend again.’
For some time to come, the evaluation “celebratory stages should be like Kairos” would dominate SNS and online communities.
* * *
Kairos presented a total of five consecutive work homage performances.
Beginning with the espionage action sequence Ha-jin showcased and Tae-hyun’s protagonist entrance scene from the historical romance drama―
Si-woo and Do-ha performed the dramatic moment when the culprit was revealed in a mystery variety show,
Ha-ru and Eun-chan enacted the desperate battle against zombies from a survival variety show,
Yoo Gun expressed the final moments of the villain who had been more popular than the protagonist in a revenge drama.
In fact, Yoo Gun commanded the stage entirely alone, without backup dancers or special effects, and his expression was so nuanced that even through the mask, one could almost see his facial acting.
Moreover, all of these performances unfolded in just over three minutes. One could tell without examining further how meticulously structured and densely packed their performance concept was.
With Yoo Gun’s collapse as the finale, the stage filled with white noise as if a cable had been unplugged. Dense smog engulfed the darkened stage.
A silence as if all songs, films, dramas, and variety shows had vanished.
After that brief hush, a voice so refreshingly pure it was melancholic, yet unmistakably live to anyone’s ear, struck the stage once more.
A spring without you
A familiar lyric brought the name “Kairos” rushing back into everyone’s minds.
A spring where only you disappeared
Meaninglessly
As Ha-ru’s voice—so hauntingly beautiful it became even more poignant—filled the air, a spotlight fell upon the stage. Somehow they’d changed clothes; Kairos members in summer uniforms they’d never worn before stood in a line, still masked.
If it’s a world where I can never find you,
Soon, as an accompaniment as radiant as sunlight poured forth, the camera zoomed in on each member’s face in sequence.
And in this moment.
Kang Ha-jin was thinking.
-Wear masks? Are you insane, hyung?
When I suggested we perform the congratulatory stage wearing masks, Seo Tae-hyun and everyone else from the Company stared at me in astonishment.
They knew I had a track record of never failing with my concepts, but still. We’d managed to secure a slot at such a prestigious awards ceremony, and now I wanted to hide our faces? It was unconventional—perhaps too unconventional.
-I’m not saying we wear them the whole time. Just for the opening. Everyone already agreed to the parody of iconic scenes from the work, right? By wearing masks, we show respect—that the actors here are the real protagonists, not us.
-I understand that, but does it really require masks to convey that message? I think the performance itself already carries enough meaning.
-Well… it would certainly generate buzz. An idol group performing a congratulatory stage with their faces completely hidden… In a way, people might actually praise it as a touching gesture, don’t you think?
Even Jeong Si-u, who typically approved of anything that seemed entertaining, harbored doubts about this idea.
But I had no intention of backing down on this particular point.
My insistence on the masks wasn’t merely about adding deeper meaning to the performance as Si-u suggested, nor was it about garnering a single line of praise as the Company’s A&R department implied.
-Everyone’s misunderstanding something. I don’t actually want to wear masks for this.
-Then why are you so adamant about them?
In that moment, I persuaded the members with a mixture of slight frustration, absolute confidence, and the certainty that ‘this will work’.
-Why do you think people wear masks in the first place?
-…?
If that’s the case, then rather―
As the song reached its climax, all the members on stage simultaneously brought their hands up to their masks.
-To take them off.
-What?
-Masks are worn to be removed. Everything’s more dramatic when you’ve hidden it away and then reveal it.
And throughout the stage, they cast off those brilliant masks they’d been wearing.
A light sheen of sweat, hair tousled and disheveled, eyes slightly narrowed, brows furrowed, heads shaking roughly, and the gesture of throwing away the mask with a sense of relief―.
The members’ faces, finally freed from the expressionless masks, were captured by the high-definition cameras. Their slight smiles as they gazed out at the stage looked more cinematic than cinema itself.
And, just as I’d intended, the camera’s single shot turned toward Jeong Si-u, who removed his mask just slightly later than the others. The one who had recently boasted that sacred silver shine had now returned with hair as black as the night.
“Wow….”
With that merciless beauty—more actor-like than any actor—Si-u held the handheld microphone, his breathing slightly labored, and tilted his head gently to the side.
Along with that smile—the very ‘real beauty’ that I never stopped gushing over as the ‘divine smile’—Jeong Si-u opened his mouth with refreshing clarity.
Go,
perish.
It was truly a single second that would be remembered throughout idol history.

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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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