Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 501

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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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501. Who the Hell Just Regressed?
‘I want to undo my ruined life.’
Everyone has that thought at least once.
Time travel, once dismissed as merely a “common sci-fi trope,” has recently emerged under the name “regression” as a staple theme across web novels and various media—and perhaps this is precisely why. Everyone carries moments they wish they could take back, moments that haunt them throughout their lives.
That’s simply the nature of existence.
“….”
But what truly matters?
It remains, always, imagination.
IF, what if, perhaps.
An event with zero probability—something that will absolutely never happen in one’s life.
“This is….”
With the cool evening air came consciousness. Kang Ha-jin’s eyes opened. Somewhere along the way, the sun had set, and gray shadows now blanketed the entire room.
The ceiling of a room both familiar and foreign, a narrow, cramped bed, and beside the pillow, a phone emitting meaningless notifications.
“What is this…?”
No matter how intently I stared into the void, no brilliant blue system window materialized. My hair, lacking even a hint of that crimson glow, hung limp and dull black.
My body, made heavier by irregular living, and my face—dark and weathered, bearing no trace of youth.
I gazed at the dust-covered guitar resting in one corner with hollow eyes, then unconsciously clenched my fist. The Kairos friendship ring I’d worn constantly, never removing it except to bathe, had left no trace behind.
‘I want to undo my ruined life.’
Everything was astonishingly identical to ‘before.’
Realizing this was no dream, my eyes slowly surveyed the cramped room. In the darkness of approaching evening, I discovered one thing different from the ‘before’ I remembered.
“….”
Sensing something amiss, Ha-jin rose from the bed with deliberate slowness.
I moved toward the space filled with bookshelves and a desk that occupied one entire wall of the small room. On that small desk, which I’d had to share with Ha-won because the apartment was so cramped, lay countless hours of the journey my younger sibling and I had walked together.
Past the worn textbooks bearing the patina of years, foreign language problem sets, and all manner of certification study guides….
“…ah.”
My gaze fixed on one spot.
‘It’ appeared carelessly placed at first glance, yet upon closer inspection, not a speck of dust had settled on it.
Carefully maintained by someone as though it were precious, yet positioned so deep within the bookshelf that one wouldn’t even notice its existence without close examination.
Thinner than a book, yet thicker than a notebook.
I reached out and carefully withdrew one of ‘them.’ Despite its careful preservation, the inevitable marks of time clung to it in places. From how many times it had been opened, the first page naturally fell open without my even touching it differently.
【PS. See? I told you hyung would debut.】
It was an album.
Kairos’s debut album, bearing my own signature.
“Ha… ha….”
On a certain day of my relentless twenty-nine years.
Kang Ha-jin awoke.
Yet I couldn’t tell whether I had truly returned, or merely awakened from a long dream.
* * *
It was only much later that Ha-jin acknowledged his own ‘return.’
The phone that had always been flooded with messages from sasaeng fans and industry contacts now rang with no notifications whatsoever.
I wracked my brain until it felt like it would split, but the contact numbers of the members I managed to recall were either disconnected or belonged to strangers. No matter how hard I tried, the cyan system window that used to appear whenever I was bored and pester me never materialized.
We’re running,
Running Over the Moonlight
Everything felt like a daydream.
Listening to my debut song flowing from my phone, Ha-jin carefully drew my knees together.
Rain had begun falling outside the window at some point. The darkened sky felt just like my heart.
Holding a star, heading toward you
(Over and Over)
Ha-jin’s vacant eyes held no focus whatsoever.
I simply stared at the empty wall across from me.
Silently, quietly.
Don’t be afraid even if it grows dark for a moment
It Doesn’t Matter
The chorus melody of “Over the Night” flowed between Ha-jin’s parched lips.
I had vivid memories of practicing the same song dozens of times a day while preparing for the concert, yet for some reason, I kept having to stop singing because the lyrics kept slipping away from me.
My body responded automatically to the familiar song, but the lyrics themselves simply wouldn’t come to mind.
…Like someone singing a song they had belted out passionately ten years ago for the first time in ages.
“We’re just… this night….”
We’ll definitely overcome this night.
Unable to complete the final lyrics of “Over the Night”‘s chorus, Ha-jin eventually bit my lips and lowered my head.
-You’re not relaxing your mouth?
-If you get a scar on your lips, are you going to remove it one by one with Photoshop?
Words I had spoken at some point came to mind, but Ha-jin’s lips remained firmly sealed. My Adam’s apple bobbed, and thick veins stood out on my neck. Tears should have streamed down my rough cheeks, but Ha-jin didn’t cry.
“….”
It was such an unreal sensation that even tears wouldn’t come. Ha-jin slowly lifted my head.
Across the gray wall where not a single frame hung, my memories rewound like film rolling backward.
-From now on, we decided not to practice with you.
Following the discord at KD Entertainment, Ha-jin eventually quit as a trainee and enrolled in a Humanities High School near home. Though I still harbored lingering attachments to the entertainment industry, the wounds were too deep to return.
The enjoyable yet painful years of high school dragged on without meaning.
-Um….
-…?
Despite working hard for three years to get into a good university, closing the gap without proper private education proved impossible.
So when Ha-jin, having confirmed repeating my final year, went out for an interview at a junior college in Seoul just in case, someone approaching with a business card and speaking carefully could be said to have had remarkably perfect timing.
-Hello. I’m this kind of person.
“….”
Ha-jin, who had been staring blankly at the wall, slowly reached out and picked up an old business card that had been left in the drawer beside the bed.
After recognizing that I had “returned,” I frantically searched through the house and found this business card, which naturally bore a familiar name.
【Miro Ent. Artist Management Team 1 Team Leader Ji Su-ho】
I even called the number written below, but again, all I received was a response that it was a disconnected number.
Gripping the worn business card tightly in one hand, Ha-jin continued to recall my memories.
-So, starting today, I’ll be practicing with you all. His name is Kang Ha-jin. Take good care of him going forward. Ha-jin, introduce yourself.
-…Nice to meet you. I’m Kang Ha-jin.
An unexpected opportunity had arrived before the bleak reality of repeating my final year of high school.
Regarding human relationships and the dream of becoming an idol—I had already failed spectacularly once, so I had no intention of letting this chance slip away.
I poured every ounce of effort I could muster into dreaming of debut.
It was from this point that my memories began to diverge completely from that dream.
-Just do it right, will you? Nepotism, connections, whatever—what does it matter to you? Honestly, if we can just debut, shouldn’t we be clinging to that nepotism by the hair right now? Without any backing and with skills like this, how are we supposed to debut at all?
As I turned twenty, that vague age, my desperation gradually transformed into sensitivity. The twenty-year-old Kang Ha-jin, worn down but never properly refined, remained a “tyrant of the practice room.”
Though I tried to be careful about everything after experiencing the pain of peer relationships, suppressing my nature was only temporary. I wasn’t mature enough to gracefully accommodate and understand fellow trainees who merely spouted excuses, self-pity, and justifications. My temperament would flare up again and again.
-…Anyway, for those reasons, I’ve decided to leave Miro starting today. If any of you want to come with me, feel free to tell me anytime.
Unlike the dream, the still-immature and clumsy young man that Kang Ha-jin was hadn’t been of great help to Ji Su-ho. Ji Su-ho, who had scouted Ha-jin based merely on a glimpse of his mask on the street, hadn’t harbored great expectations for him either.
Unable to find the “one move” to defeat the Executive Director, Ji Su-ho lost the internal political battle and submitted his resignation. The rumor was that the Executive Director had originally tried to drive him out with a non-compete clause, but thanks to Seo Tae-il and the CEO stepping in, it was settled with just a resignation letter.
-Team Leader.
-Ah, Ha-jin. What is it?
-…Can I go with you, Team Leader?
Several trainees who had sensed that the path to debut at Miro had closed followed Ji Su-ho out. I was one of them.
Since my debut, I had a habit of butting heads with anyone I didn’t deem worthy of recognition, regardless of age or position, so I had fallen out of favor with the “power players” like the Executive Director and Han Sung-woo.
As long as I could debut, I was confident I could succeed in the entertainment industry, so I followed Ji Su-ho without much hesitation.
Though it was somewhat frightening to punch the clock again at a small, obscure office instead of the massive backing of Miro….
‘Once we debut, we can change everything.’
Maybe we’ll be that very “small company miracle,” right?
Back then, I harbored such dreams.
-Hello, we’re Kairos!
The cash-strapped small company hastily gathered the trainees Ji Su-ho had brought and debuted them immediately to start earning money.
Jeong Si-u, Lee Do-ha, Seo Tae-hyun, Lee Yu-gun, Ju Eun-chan, Dan Ha-ru, and myself.
We had talent, decent visuals, diverse positions, and varied skills—there was no reason we shouldn’t succeed.
“….”
My gaze fixed on the phone screen carelessly tossed onto the edge of the bed.
The music video for our ambitious debut track “Over the Night” was already nearing its end.
Clumsy makeup, shoddy costumes, tacky visuals, and cheap CG—even now, nearly a decade later, that music video hadn’t even reached a hundred thousand views.
-Hey, Lee Yu-gun. Practice your live vocals, will you? Are we all trying to die together here, or what?
-What’s the point of practicing live if we’re never going to perform on stage anyway? You’re not paying our electricity and water bills, are you?
-What? You little bastard…. Hey, if you’re going to act like this, why did you debut in the first place? You should’ve just gone to work at a factory and done that part-time job you love so much, earning a paycheck. Then we wouldn’t be stressing each other out like this, right?
-Who wanted to do this in the first place? I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known being an idol was such a money-losing, time-consuming job!
-Hyungs, please stop fighting…. Please?
My members and I couldn’t accept the cruel reality that we had failed.
Especially as the leader, I lacked the capacity to understand each member’s personality and circumstances and offer them the advice and guidance they truly needed.
-If it weren’t for you guys, I wouldn’t have failed with such a pathetic group!
Unable to resolve his financial struggles, Yu-gun spent more and more time away, while Tae-hyun, the only one with any name recognition, was burning out running from event to event like a child breadwinner.
Do-ha, self-teaching production without proper equipment support, fell into a slump, while Eun-chan declared a hiatus from activities due to panic disorder and depression, shutting himself away in his room.
Ha-ru couldn’t bear the discord among his older brothers and fell asleep crying every single day, while Si-woo, who had never truly opened his heart to the group members from the start, had already expressed his intention to withdraw.
—…I’m sorry, guys.
—….
—This is all… my oversight, my lack of ability. I think it’s right to find you all a way to make a living, even now.
Ha-jin’s gaze drifted toward the albums scattered across the floor of the room.
Four albums and one digital single.
Kairos disbanded, leaving behind only a meager trace in the K-pop industry. It happened when Ha-jin was twenty-one.
“…It was just a dream.”
That was all—it had been nothing but a dream.
Ha-jin slowly reached out and picked up his old phone. After turning off the music video screen that had already finished playing and pressing the Tap button, the previously running applications appeared on the display.
Ha-jin clicked on the app he had used most recently.
The familiar web novel platform filled his vision—black text on a white background.
【…Joseph thought his regression was an opportunity. A blessing from heaven for himself, who had lived so diligently.】
All of this was nothing more than his own escapist delusion, a desperate fantasy to undo a ruined life.
“Ha ha, ha….”
A hollow laugh escaped from Ha-jin’s lips.
Once the laughter started, it became impossible to stop. Ha-jin began laughing like a madman, his right hand gripping the business card tensing with force, crumpling the worn card into an unsightly mess.
“Ha, haha! Ha ha, ah, really….”
He tossed the crumpled card carelessly beneath the bed, then wiped his dry eyes with his bare hands and lifted his head. The coldness of the floor felt unfamiliar.
“Just a dream?”
Ha-jin moved toward the window.
The familiar face of twenty-nine-year-old Kang Ha-jin reflected in the window pane. In his dark brown eyes, which had been wandering without focus, a peculiar light now gleamed—the same unsettling intensity as always.
Ha-jin, emanating an aura far colder than the air in this room, gazed up at the sky beyond the window and spoke in a cynical voice.
“What a joke.”
What kind of sick game is this?
In his murmuring voice, a madness bordering on murderous intent could be felt.
A madness bordering on murderous intent emanated from the muttering voice.

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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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