Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 416

—————

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

—————

416. If You Cannot Escape, Then Enjoy It (2)
“Facing this reverse viral incident this time, I’ve come to understand something for certain.”
Ji Su-ho began speaking calmly about why he had come to think this way.
“I think I’ve forgotten for far too long what it feels like to face a threat I didn’t see coming.”
“But that’s… everyone’s like that, isn’t it? Really, knowing something in advance is the strange part―.”
“Right, exactly.”
To my belated attempt at interjection, Ji Su-ho merely nodded, his expression still resolute.
“I don’t understand well anymore who I was before I had this ability, how I dealt with things, or how I judged and perceived people―. I’m not sure now.”
“….”
“And I’m not sure what I can actually do now that this ability is gone….”
“….”
“I’m not even confident whether I, without this ability, am worthy of holding this position.”
“That’s―.”
I wanted to refute something to Ji Su-ho, who was beginning to disparage himself endlessly, but I couldn’t find the words easily.
In truth, Ji Su-ho only began to truly shine as a manager after his awakening through contact with Dan Ha-ru, and in the timeline without me, he had been pushed out by the Former Executive Director in political maneuvering, ended up working at a struggling small company, and ultimately met his end in a traffic accident, losing his sight.
“…Still, that’s not it.”
But that didn’t mean I had nothing to say.
“You recognized it, didn’t you?”
At the very least, I could never evaluate Ji Su-ho as incompetent or powerless.
“It wasn’t red, and it wasn’t blue. Even though you didn’t know what that white light was that you’d never seen before, you bet on me.”
“….”
“Regression, awakening, the System―. You believed in me even when I was spouting nonsense that made no sense, and you held me up. That has nothing to do with your ability as Executive Director.”
“….”
“So I can’t agree that you’re nothing without that ability.”
I could understand the helplessness Ji Su-ho felt about himself. I’d felt it too.
But I couldn’t stand by and watch him deny everything he’d built and crumble.
Taking a brief rest when exhausted allows you to rise again once recovered, but if you erase your starting point, you’ll simply lose your way.
“I need you, Executive Director.”
Even to my words spoken with sincerity, Ji Su-ho offered no response.
He slowly put his glasses back on, which he’d set down earlier, and soon spoke.
“Ha-jin.”
“….”
“I want to be a good manager to you and the kids before anything else―before being a good senior or mentor. That’s my job.”
I know.
That’s why Dan Ha-ru chose him.
“Kairos can establish itself stably if we continue like this. Once we successfully finish the concert next year, we’ll be able to do much more after that. The CEO also has great expectations for you all.”
“Then we can just keep doing various things together here. The CEO is backing us anyway.”
“No. That’s precisely why I need to step back.”
“….”
“I don’t want to be someone called the Management Headquarters Director who just watches the profits and takes the spoils while relying on the artists’ individual capabilities.”
Ji Su-ho shook his head with absolute conviction, his words cutting through the air like a blade.
“As long as you’re there, Kairos will thrive. With members like that, you won’t crumble as easily as you used to. That’s precisely why I deliberately assigned Kwon Wook to your group.”
“…So what you’re saying is, Kang Ha-jin should finally get off the bus and stop freeloading, right?”
“I’ve benefited greatly from you over the years. You’re the first entertainer since Tae-il who handles everything so independently.”
Ji Su-ho laughed with relief as if I’d stated the obvious, shrugging his shoulders.
It was irritating that he could laugh so comfortably while I was in turmoil, but I understood what he was getting at.
Now that the cheat code of Awakening had vanished, Kairos was certainly not the ideal testing ground for refining my own abilities.
A group composed of two Regressors, three Awakened individuals, one genius idol who thrived without any Awakening whatsoever, and one crown prince of self-management—such a combination wasn’t exactly common.
I reluctantly nodded in acceptance.
“…Fine then.”
“You understand?”
“As long as you’re not planning to quit everything and move to the countryside to farm, I’m satisfied.”
“Ha ha, that’ll never happen. I’m a city person through and through.”
There existed in this world peculiar individuals whose sense of achievement became the very measure of their life’s value and joy.
I was one of them, as were Seo Tae-hyun and Seo Tae-il, and so was Ji Su-ho.
Knowing that managing wasn’t merely a job for earning money but rather approached self-actualization for Ji Su-ho, I had no grounds to stop him from pursuing new challenges to test his capabilities.
‘I would have done the same.’
The fact that Ji Su-ho would no longer dedicate himself exclusively to Kairos left me feeling somewhat adrift, but truthfully, I understood that he had become merely a spiritual pillar for our current Kairos. Holding onto someone of Ji Su-ho’s caliber just to manage my occasional mental breakdowns was undeniably a loss.
At least now, I had confirmed that Ji Su-ho wasn’t foolishly falling apart like I had at twenty-nine.
Being intelligent, he’d likely find his footing again once he recovered his former instincts.
“But why Endway? If you want to test your management skills, wouldn’t Upia or the newer groups be better choices?”
As my thoughts clarified and my mind sharpened, curiosity began to surface.
I knew Ji Su-ho held special affection for Endway’s members, having watched them since their debut, but it seemed odd that someone wanting to test himself would choose a five-year-old group riding the absolute peak of stability.
To replenish my rapidly depleting energy, I unwrapped one of the Dubai chocolates (From. Choi Yeon-woo) I’d set aside earlier and popped it into my mouth. At that same moment, Ji Su-ho spoke.
“…Ha-jin, what’s your last memory of Endway?”
“The last memory of Endway? Well… wasn’t it when Choi Yeon-woo and Park Woong formed a unit together and had massive success?”
As I fumbled through hazy memories from experiencing so many timelines directly and indirectly, Ji Su-ho laughed bitterly as if he’d expected exactly that.
“My last memory is… their disbandment.”
“…What?”
“While I was lying in the hospital after the accident, I could see the timelines I’d lived through like a dream—for the first and only time. Among them were memories from the day I had the accident.”
The “accident” Ji Su-ho spoke of referred to the traffic collision that had left him blind. And that accident had occurred only once in my first timeline, when I was twenty-nine and Dan Ha-ru was twenty-six.
“The reason I had that accident wasn’t just because a drunk driver swerved into my lane… but also because my reaction was delayed while I was taking a call.”
“Could that call have been…”
“It was Park Woong. He called me because Choi Yeon-woo wasn’t answering his phone.”
By that time, Ji Su-ho had long since left Miro, so why would Park Woong have called him about Choi Yeon-woo being unreachable?
As if understanding my impending question, Ji Su-ho continued immediately.
“Choi Yeon-woo was constantly pestering me about transferring to my company once his contract with Miro expired, or the two of us starting our own company together.”
“Ah…”
“Well, it all fell through because of what happened to me.”
Hazy information about Endway began surfacing in my mind once more, piece by piece.
Endway, Failed to Overcome the Seven-Year Curse… Contract Renewal Falls Through
“Officially, only their individual agencies changed, and the group contract was supposed to remain intact. But what Woong told me back then was essentially a disbandment. Luke went back to the United States, and Yeon-woo said he no longer has the will to do team activities.”
Only after hearing that did I fully understand why Su-ho had decided to take charge of Endway at this particular moment.
“Ha-jin, I… I’m thinking of preventing that disbandment.”
I could feel a determination close to resolve in Su-ho’s eyes.
That fierce and pure will he’d shown when he first came to me seeking a trainee contract still shone in Su-ho’s gaze.
“You know as well as I do—Endway is like my starting point. I can’t see anything else anymore, but at least I want to change the fate of those kids that I’ve only just come to know.”
“It won’t be easy… We don’t even know the exact reason for the disbandment yet.”
“That’s true. I’ll never know what happened to them while I was gone. But in this timeline, thanks to you, I’m still at Miro.”
Su-ho looked at me with eyes that seemed to say thank you.
“I still have the chance to protect them, I think.”
What a cunning person.
Faced with a reason I could never refuse, I admitted defeat by flopping dramatically onto the table. The Dubai chocolate I was chewing crackled deliciously, which only made me more frustrated.
In that position, I lifted my head slightly and asked Su-ho with a rebellious glint in my eyes.
“Just asking on the off chance…”
“Yeah?”
“Want me to find out why they disbanded? I could probably figure it out with a few System threats, coughing up some blood, and a couple of messy scandals like this one.”
At my half-joking question, Su-ho raised and lowered his eyebrows with a scoff.
“You’re not seriously asking me if I’d allow that, are you?”
“…That’s why I said ‘on the off chance.'”
Since I’d already anticipated that firm refusal, I kicked the floor with my feet in mock frustration and sat back up. Su-ho, noticing my surrender, had already returned to his usual composed expression, looking almost relieved.
Still annoyed by his unshakeable composure, I propped my chin up in a deliberately insolent posture, crossed my legs, and spoke in a deliberately curt tone.
“If I don’t like the new manager, I’m going to cause all kinds of trouble. You’d better make sure they’re properly trained before sending them over.”
“Did you know Kwon Wook was a drill instructor at boot camp? I can’t vouch for everything else, but he knows how to train the younger ones well.”
“Suddenly—wait, the moment something goes wrong or a problem pops up, you’re always the first one I call. If I go through infinite regression again like last time and have a mental breakdown, you’d better fly out here immediately, whether it’s overseas or anywhere else.”
“Ha-ru seems fine these days, doesn’t he? If something comes up, just contact me. WiFi works pretty well overseas these days.”
“Just don’t forget to bring back souvenirs when you visit…”
“Even if I don’t, it looks like Yeon-woo buys them regularly. The Upia girls take care of you guys first too. Just ask your seniors to buy you things. I need to look after our juniors now.”
“Wow, that’s so unfair.”
This guy never loses an argument, not once.
Su-ho’s unwavering defense only made me more irritated as I grumbled, but then, as he was smiling contentedly, he seemed to remember the reverse viral incident he’d momentarily forgotten, and his expression hardened belatedly.
“Oh, and about this reverse viral incident… We’re already identifying which side is stoking the flames, but it’s not easy to touch. If things get messy, ignoring it might actually be the best response.”
“Huh? Ah, well… Never mind, never mind. I wasn’t really concerned about it from the start anyway. It’s not like I haven’t seen these leech tactics once or twice before…”
“Still, from the company’s perspective, we’re failing to properly contain the rumors. I’ll apologize on behalf of the company for this. I’m sorry.”
“I said it’s fine, didn’t I? What can you do against people who are determined to bite?”
It wasn’t something I’d been particularly concerned about anyway, and the fans who’d initially been attacking with “Who do you think you are to draw aggro from Ha-jin?” seemed to be quieting down now, so I was just going to let it go. But Su-ho sincerely apologized to me and bowed his head.
Being apologized to by someone for something I hadn’t taken seriously felt awkward, and I was bewildered as to why these people were apologizing at all…
“….”
My gaze shifted to the tablet screen in Su-ho’s arm. I caught a glimpse of the article headline about actor Kang Ha-jin—my namesake—announcing a breakup, and fell silent in thought.
Whether those people use my name or not doesn’t matter to me, but I suddenly realized that if this continues, it’s my fans and the company people who will suffer.
“Executive Director.”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re truly sorry, would you grant me one final request before you go?”
“Of course. What is it?”
Since things have come to this, why not indulge me with a little taste of something sweet?
“Find someone for me.”
“Someone?”
“Yes. Actually, not just one—many people.”
At my enigmatic smile, which suggested I was plotting something once again, an anxious question mark bloomed across Su-ho’s face, which had been laughing so comfortably just moments before.

—————

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

—————