Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 458

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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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458. BUILD UP (4)
My only friend had made a proposal (command) I absolutely couldn’t refuse.
At this moment, as the leader of a rookie idol group with excellent potential for growth, what would be the correct response?
Option 1. Accept.
Option 2. Refuse.
“So, you’ve run away?”
“…It’s not running away.”
Option 3. Run away.
Seo Tae-hyun, dressed in plain black slacks and a relaxed-fit white dress shirt instead of his usual flashy, ornate idol-style clothing, let out a sigh as he looked down at me.
Between his rolled-up sleeves, his crossed arms revealed forearms that were visibly taut with tension.
Though he appeared gaunt at first glance—the kind of lean frame that seemed devoid of muscle—Seo Tae-hyun was undoubtedly the most dedicated to self-care among our members. The painstaking effort he’d invested to achieve that ‘slender yet elegantly sculpted physique that looks stunning in clothes’ had never betrayed him.
And the fact that Seo Tae-hyun, who normally wouldn’t even rest his chin on his hand for fear of disrupting his body’s balance, was now clenching his fists so tightly that veins were bulging across those meticulously maintained forearms….
“Do-ha hyung asked you to write a song, and you got so scared you wouldn’t go to the studio or come back to the dorm, and now you’re suddenly barging into someone else’s filming set? How is that not running away? How could that possibly not be running away~? Huh? Then what is this~? Is it evacuation, perhaps?”
“It’s a schedule. What’s strange about an idol coming to a filming set? You told me to come anyway.”
“That’s strange~? I’m pretty sure I invited our reliable leader hyung to the finals~? Not a mid-check two weeks before the finals~? You, who should be busy preparing for year-end right now, why did you personally come all the way out to this remote province with a coffee truck we never even asked for? Huh? Is your love for the members this great, our leader~?”
…That’s definitely proof he’s furious right now.
I made the right call coming to the filming set.
With so many people watching, even the great Seo Tae-hyun wouldn’t dare raise his voice.
I confirmed my judgment was sound and offered the most pitiful expression I could muster, smiling harmlessly. They say you can’t spit at a smiling face, and I trusted that our kind Tae-hyun wouldn’t unleash a barrage of curses on me.
“Wipe that pathetic smile off your face right now.”
“I’m sorry.”
He cursed at me. My apologies.
Seo Tae-hyun was indeed formidable. And this situation, with that formidable Seo Tae-hyun gritting his teeth and glaring at me, was even more so.
Just then, a group of staff members passing behind us greeted us warmly.
“Tae-hyun! Ha-jin! We’ll enjoy the coffee and snacks! Thank you so much~”
“Thank you! We’ll enjoy them~”
“Our homeroom teacher’s connections are the best! Kairos is the best!!”
“Haha, thank you. Everyone, please enjoy!”
Seo Tae-hyun, who had been glaring at me as if ready to kill me just moments ago, had instantly switched on his Cherry Boy smile and beamed brightly.
Starting with those staff members, greetings flew our way from various directions, and then a group of a dozen or so teenagers in athletic wear that looked like they belonged in a high school drama lined up and bowed to us at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
“Teacher, thank you!”
“We’ll enjoy the meal!”
“From now on, I’m going to listen to Kairos songs all the time!”
“Me! I’m already listening, teacher!”
“Senior, you’re seriously so cool…!”
“Hey! Who just said ‘seriously so cool’? I told you not to use slang!?”
“…Oh no.”
One student, who had gotten excited and blurted out the casual remark without thinking, quickly clamped his mouth shut at the staff member’s sharp rebuke.
Everyone burst into laughter at the amusing situation. Even Seo Tae-hyun, who had been sitting in front of me ready to scold me at any moment, couldn’t help but let out an incredulous chuckle.
Behind that Seo Tae-hyun, a banner hanging from the massive truck I’d hastily prepared to come to this filming set today fluttered in the wind.
【The Teacher Shoots! Kairos Supports the Bright Future of These Brilliant Young Men♡】
【-A Fellow Teacher’s Dream-】
This place was a large training facility located on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
I was currently at the filming studio for Boyhood 2, where Seo Tae-hyun was serving as MC.
* * *
To make an excuse, it wasn’t exactly “running away” like Seo Tae-hyun had said.
Still, one of my members was taking on the MC role for this program, and I thought it would be nice to show my face and support Seo Tae-hyun if the opportunity arose. I was also curious about what Seo Tae-hyun had mentioned last time about a kid who was “on his mind.”
Of course, the fact that this decision came about so suddenly today was largely due to Lee Do-ha’s influence.
-Give it a try, Ha-jin.
-You can do it.
From that day on, Lee Do-ha had truly handed everything over to me, urging me to start composing.
Whenever I tried to brush it off and look for a decent congratulatory song instead, he’d somehow find out and come back with an intimidating attitude, insisting with the force of “If you don’t write a song, I won’t either.”
-Say something that makes sense! If you don’t work, how are we supposed to make our comeback?
-Then you write it.
-Hey!
-If you back off, I’m backing off too. Remember that.
Lee Do-ha, who was already bear-like, became an actual bear from that day on.
He completely stopped coming to the studio where he used to clock in at dawn, and on days without schedules, he’d wake up late, eat, go work out, and then return to the dormitory to sleep sprawled out.
-Huh? Do-ha hyung, you’re not sleeping at home today?
-No.
-Then where are you going?
-The practice room.
-…What?
-I want to go to the practice room with you and Yu-gun. Is that okay?
Then a few days later, his body was itching for activity, and after working out, he started commuting to the practice room where Lee Yu-gun and Ju Eun-chan were!
At first, Lee Yu-gun, Ju Eun-chan, and the choreography team were puzzled about why Lee Do-ha was showing up outside of group practice time, but exactly two days later, they brightened up, saying that having someone working on compositions right next to them made the performance composition progress much faster.
Thanks to Lee Do-ha’s extended stay in the practice room, it seemed that Lee Yu-gun’s one-on-one dance lessons, which had been put on hold for a while under the excuse of being busy since debut, had started up again.
-Ha-jin… could I possibly ask when Do-ha will come back to work? The planning team has a ton of materials we need to communicate about…
-…I’m sorry. Work with me instead. He’s on strike right now.
-Ha-jin! Do-ha really isn’t coming out? Really? I was putting things off because he said he’d add his lyric sketches, but how much longer am I supposed to wait? This is next month’s project, isn’t it?
-…I’ll… I’ll give it to you. I will. I saw what Do-ha had worked on back then, so I know what it is. Send me an email, noona.
-Ha-jin, at this point wouldn’t it be better to just write one congratulatory song yourself? Honestly, just thinking about the projects you’ve participated in so far, it’s the normal path for you to have an original composition by now.
-…Who composes by following a set path? Just tell me what’s urgent and I’ll cover it however I can.
While it was certainly desirable that Lee Do-ha had gained an opportunity to dramatically improve his lacking dance skills, his absence was like a bolt from the blue for the A&R team, who required his approval as the main composer and producer.
Every time I stepped out of the studio, people from all directions would rush me and ask about Lee Do-ha’s whereabouts, so much so that I couldn’t even go near the studio anymore and had to handle all business through email or calls instead.
The only silver lining was that I had finished and saved all urgent work exactly five minutes before Lee Do-ha declared his strike.
“So in the end, you did run away.”
“No, come on. I didn’t.”
“Then why haven’t you been back to the dormitory? Hyung, people are saying you’ve been eating and sleeping at the company these past few days, and the fans are spreading rumors about your independence.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it? What’s going on that your beloved hyung’s new bed hasn’t seen its owner’s shadow in days?”
At Seo Tae-hyun’s interrogation, I shook my head firmly to indicate an absolute denial.
Lee Do-ha’s resolute attitude, which I’d never witnessed before, was somewhat frightening, and his coercive suggestion to challenge myself in composition felt burdensome, but that didn’t mean I disliked him so much that I couldn’t bear to see his face at the dormitory.
No, actually I’d been seeing Lee Do-ha more frequently while at the company!
Because Lee Do-ha had recently switched from commuting to the studio near the company to using the practice room inside the company itself!
“I’m telling you, I’ve been insanely busy…?”
So the reason I hadn’t been able to go to the dormitory these past few days wasn’t because of Lee Do-ha’s pressure—it was genuinely because I’d been swamped.
With Lee Do-ha, the main producer, stepping back, those tasks naturally fell to me, and the company was simply far more convenient for constant communication with the content team and A&R staff.
By the time I finished the work that needed to be done, it was already dawn, and unlike my former roommate Lee Do-ha, with whom I used to commute together, I felt sorry about waking up my current roommates Ha-ru and Seo Tae-hyun.
“Hmm…. Well, okay. I’ll trust you.”
“Trust me and all that—I’m serious. Why do you not trust your hyung so much?”
“Before you ask such questions, reflect on your past actions.”
“….”
Anyway, so the visit to the Boyhood 2 filming studio was essentially a change of pace.
It was similar to the time I’d cleared my head by opening my birthday cafe when I lost the chance to cover Upia’s songs to Lanion—that kind of concept.
I’d spent quite a bit bringing an expensive coffee truck along, but since the settlement would come in a few days, I figured I could handle this level of flex.
‘Though truthfully, I spent three days just agonizing over the quote before impulsively deciding at dawn.’
Even while wearing tens of millions of won worth of clothes through sponsorships and sometimes adorning myself with accessories worth hundreds of millions, my hands still trembled and my heart still raced whenever the monetary units got slightly larger.
It seemed like it would take a very long time before this small-minded consumer habit improved.
In any case, what was fortunate was that the Boyhood 2 production team welcomed my sudden proposal to bring a snack truck with open arms. Seo Tae-hyun, who had no idea about this until this morning, grumbled a bit about my evasive tendencies, but seemed to have no complaints about my actually showing up.
“…You’re not upset that I suddenly came, right?”
Still, just in case, I timidly asked Seo Tae-hyun while taking a long sip of the iced chocolate I’d prepared—which happened to taste remarkably delicious.
On the surface he seemed to be in a good mood, but since he was so meticulous about separating work and personal matters, I thought he might dislike me intruding into his domain.
“How could I be upset? The writers have been asking all season whether any members came to cheer us on. We almost ended up fueling rumors about Kairos discord and me being ostracized.”
“I did send a snack truck on the first filming day though. Was coming in person better?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I actively shut down that whole ‘special teacher’ thing earlier. People are already talking about me being an MC, and if the hyungs came out as mentors too, we’d just invite unnecessary criticism. This kind of surprise visit is perfect—just the right amount.”
Despite his casual tone, there was substance beneath his words.
Right. No matter how much Seo Tae-hyun had survival show experience and was born with an idol’s destiny, the rookie tag of merely two years post-debut was still a wall difficult to overcome.
Usually, survival show MCs were handled by more experienced seniors firmly established in the K-pop industry, so this unconventional casting drew even more attention.
“Why? Everyone’s been saying you’re the best homeroom teacher in history though?”
In that sense, it was purely Seo Tae-hyun’s skill that had reversed the unfavorable situation created by absurd PD-pick controversy from just one casting article.
His sharp evaluations and objective judging as someone who had dreamed of and prepared to be an idol for so long, combined with his warm advice and precise coaching as an experienced person who understood the participants’ hearts better than anyone, gave viewers increasingly compelling reason to accept the ‘youngest MC’ title with each broadcast.
At least, that’s what my research before coming to this filming studio had shown.
“I was curious, so I looked up your MC reactions.”
“…You have plenty of time. Why bother looking up stuff like that?”
“Monitoring a member’s individual activities as a leader is a perfectly natural daily task.”
“You certainly know how to talk.”
Seo Tae-hyun pretended it was nothing while breaking into a pleased smile, savoring an eclair filled with strawberry filling. He was the type who wouldn’t normally touch snacks, so the filming must have been draining his energy.
Watching Seo Tae-hyun even pull out his phone to take verification shots for SNS, I thought that taking time out of this busy schedule to clear my head had been quite a good decision.
“Hyung, let’s take a selfie. Look here.”
“Hey, I’m not even wearing makeup.”
“You go around barefaced all the time anyway, so what’s with the sudden coyness? Come on, let me put a filter on it.”
“No, it’s fine. Just use the basic camera. Those filters make everything look too polished—my face doesn’t even look like me. I hate it.”
And Destiny hates it too.
Convinced by my reasoning, Seo Tae-hyun didn’t hesitate and launched the basic camera app.
Even though I’m famous for taking all sorts of selfies—heavy makeup, barefaced, you name it—today was genuinely rough, so I ended up putting the sunglasses back on that I’d left on the table.
“Alright, that last one came out really good.”
Seo Tae-hyun, who’d been striking various poses with coffee and snacks in hand and snapping multiple shots in succession, seemed satisfied with what he’d captured. He lowered his phone and opened the gallery to review.
I watched as he clicked on the photo he’d just taken and meticulously examined it at 5x zoom to make sure there were no problematic elements, then I picked up the coat I’d draped over the chair and stood up.
As I did, Seo Tae-hyun, who’d finished inspecting the top of the photo and was now focusing intently on the middle section and facial area, peeked up at me.
“…? What? Where are you going?”
“I’ve seen your face now, so I need to head back to Seoul. The filming should be starting soon anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
That’s what I should be asking you, Tae-hyun.
Unable to grasp his intent, I tilted my head in confusion, and Seo Tae-hyun, having finished his thorough inspection of the bottom of the photo, bookmarked it and continued speaking in a casual tone.
“You need to film too. You came all the way out here—why are you trying to sneak off?”
“…? Why would I film? What filming?”
“So you came all this way planning to leave without even watching the kids practice once? I already told our Main Writer that you’d be doing a mid-check evaluation with me today.”
“Huh…?”
What am I supposed to do?
“I… why would I… what qualification do I even have…?”
“What qualification? You’re a colleague homeroom teacher, so basically you’d be like a neighboring class homeroom teacher. What, do you want to play it cool? Then ask for something like ‘youngest student council president’ or whatever.”
“…No, no, no. No? No, Tae-hyun. You literally said earlier that we don’t have enough experience yet to be Special Mentors or whatever. You said it yourself. So what, what, why suddenly, why am I, what…?”
I’d come here to clear my head for a bit, and now I was suddenly facing the crisis of appearing on broadcast barefaced. My tongue kept getting twisted, and the sunglasses I’d pushed up kept sliding down.
I couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that I’d come to remove a mole only to end up getting one attached.
“Look.”
Meanwhile, our excellent homeroom teacher Seo Tae-hyun’s eyes were blazing with determination.
Those eyes held a certain will—he was absolutely going to bring this precision instructor to his precious class students.
“Having a Special Mentor show up all polished during the mission phase feels a bit tacky, but a senior coming to cheer on nervous juniors right before the finals? That’s a pretty fitting image, don’t you think? And you’re someone who’s created works that are considered legendary idol survival stages throughout history.”
“Me… me…? I couldn’t possibly be such a remarkable person…?”
And when Seo Tae-hyun had that look in his eyes, his will usually came to fruition.
One way or another.
“Kwon Wook already took his car and left. He won’t be back until filming’s done. This place is pretty remote—you can’t even catch a taxi here.”
“….”
“Stop talking and take off your coat. I brought a pouch, so we’ll cover the barefaced look with that. You don’t wear much makeup anyway. Once I finish eating this, we’ll head out together and get your mic on.”
“….”
“Oh, and by the way. Since this is a mid-check evaluation right before the finals, it’s a one-night, two-day shoot. You’re not staying at the dorm these days anyway, so a night out like this is fine, right? I’ve already told everyone you’ll be giving feedback tomorrow too, so keep that in mind. Since we’re doing this anyway, take a good look at the kids, yeah?”
“….”
As I stood there speechless, just blinking, Seo Tae-hyun flashed the most innocent and harmless smile in the world and spoke in a sweet voice.
“Kang Ha-jin, answer.”
“…whether or not.”
I had walked straight into the tiger’s den to escape the bear.
Accepting the karma of my own making, I quietly surrendered to my fate and removed my coat.

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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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