Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 537

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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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537. Eye of the Typhoon (4)
When you encounter a problem in life that money cannot solve, first check whether you simply lack enough money to solve it.
Kang Ha-jin was not someone who particularly agreed with this sentiment.
While it was true that money made the world’s problems lighter and more convenient, he believed there were values in this world far more important than that.
“….”
“….”
But right here.
Standing directly before him was this era’s Scrooge—someone who firmly believed (and for whom it was actually true) that only money could solve every single problem he possessed.
“Sigh….”
“Will the ground cave in from that? If you’re going to sigh, at least do it properly with your diaphragm.”
“Why am I even doing this here…?”
Lee Yu-gun, who had followed Kang Ha-jin into the restaurant lured by the promise of five hundred thousand won untaxed and clean, belatedly wore an expression full of self-reproach as he splashed water on his face. His eyes, which looked particularly hollow today, were laden with melancholy, yet his hands moved with practiced professionalism as they set out the dishes and water glasses with practiced efficiency.
Ha-jin, who had already finished ordering on his own, made a flower-pot pose with both hands and grinned.
“Why? It was too much money to refuse.”
“…Ha.”
At Ha-jin’s cheerful yet pointed remark, Yu-gun despaired once more.
In the original timeline, if he’d received such a proposal, he would have boasted of a brotherhood as unbreakable as with Jeong Si-u, the world’s greatest inspector, but now that he was experiencing some reality shock, it seemed the kid had indeed stabilized his life considerably in the meantime.
‘Then why is this the worst timeline for him?’
Of course, when Ha-jin had checked the timelines of the group members before, Yu-gun’s life was proceeding reasonably well without any major upheavals. The reason he had chosen Yu-gun rather than Si-woo as the person to entrust his cleanup to when he didn’t wake up alongside Do-ha at the Namhae Villa was precisely because of this.
‘Well… maybe the criteria for “worst” differs for each person?’
This guy, and likewise Do-ha and Seo Tae-il.
Ha-jin’s puzzlement at people who called their situations “worst” yet lived reasonably well didn’t last long. The food he’d ordered arrived sooner than expected.
Yu-gun, who had been displeased since entering the restaurant, raised an eyebrow when he saw the food that arrived.
“So you’re paying me five hundred thousand won and hiring me just to eat pork and rice? That’s it?”
“What, do you want me to take you to some Western restaurant and cut into a steak? Where else can you find a menu this fitting for two reasonably close guys to eat together?”
“…You said we need to take photos. Who’s going to take them? You directly?”
“Oh, photos. Right. Wait a moment.”
At Yu-gun’s jab, Ha-jin hastily pulled out his phone as if he’d almost made a grave mistake. When he opened the camera app and switched to selfie mode, the rectangular frame soon captured both Ha-jin’s and Yu-gun’s faces.
His own face was stretched at the edges while Yu-gun’s face was backlit, looking not just dark but like a spirit photograph, yet Kang Ha-jin smiled broadly as if he didn’t care at all and made a V-sign with his hand.
“Okay. Cheese.”
“…You’re saying ridiculous things. You’re actually going to take it like that, aren’t you?”
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“…Hand over the phone right now.”
Aside from his poor attitude, Lee Yu-gun—this era’s professional worker who needed to do his job properly once he’d accepted payment—couldn’t bear to watch any longer and snatched the phone from Kang Ha-jin’s hands.
“Just rest your hand on your chin and sit naturally. …No, not that flower-pot pose. Just one hand, like this.”
“Like this?”
“Smiling too much looks weird, so just a gentle smile. Stay like that. …One, two, three.”
Then, with the skill he’d once used to take over five thousand photos for his younger sister’s Instagram, he quickly adjusted the camera settings. After that, he directed Ha-jin’s pose and expression completely before beginning to take selfies with a naturally flawless smile himself.
True to form—even in the original timeline, he was Kairos’s second-ranked selfie master, the one who would pull out legendary selfies no matter what for the photocards that fans spent the most money on, earning him the nickname “the filial son who came to steal my bank account”—his skill was evident.
“Wow, what? You take photos really well? You should’ve taken them like this back then.”
“…Didn’t you usually avoid taking selfies? Why has your skill gone backwards?”
“Well, after quitting the idol life and taking photos of other people instead, I guess my sense for it got all twisted. Honestly, if you’re not an idol, when would you ever take that many selfies of yourself?”
So spoke Kairos’s selfie ranking number one—the same person who, in this timeline, had been called by fans a “shameless liar who couldn’t photograph others to save his life but the moment he took a selfie, he’d flaunt his heavenly visuals like some authority on undisclosed beauty, an emperor, a tyrant, a deceiver.”
Unaware that Ha-jin had deliberately guided him to pick up his phone, Yoo Gun shook his head and reached for his chopsticks. Having missed so many meals while working, it felt like an eternity since he’d had a proper Korean set meal like this.
“Rice is just rice, right? Should I eat?”
Ha-jin disliked what he disliked, but rice was rice. Yoo Gun scooped up a generous spoonful of steaming white rice with his spoon.
He piled braised pork belly with its savory gochujang seasoning generously on top, added a clove of garlic and some sauce on the side—and at that moment, he thought that if he could get a meal like this and earn five million won, he could probably do this another two or three times.
Yoo Gun, swallowing involuntarily without realizing it, hastily raised his spoon to meet the sudden hunger that had found him.
That was when it happened.
“…?”
A green object flew into his field of vision and landed with a soft thud right on top of his perfectly arranged spoonful. The moment Yoo Gun realized it was a perilla leaf that Ha-jin had placed there, genuine shock and alarm painted his face. Frozen in place, he looked at Ha-jin and spoke as if picking a fight.
“What are you doing?”
“Eat plenty, my little brother~”
“…Are you seriously insane?”
“Relax your expression. We’re being photographed right now from about 300 meters away with a telephoto lens.”
“…?”
“I told you earlier. The photos need to be taken, remember?”
Vegetables help with digestion too. Come on, eat up?
Watching Ha-jin grin in that disgustingly cheerful way, Yoo Gun was exasperated but held back.
Right, earning someone else’s money couldn’t possibly be easy.
If the price of five million after taxes was acting out this awkward-yet-affectionate brotherly bond with this troublesome older brother, then there was nothing he couldn’t do.
In the end, Yoo Gun stuffed the perilla leaf Ha-jin had placed on top into his mouth along with everything else, his cheeks bulging full as he looked at Ha-jin with displeasure.
Ha-jin himself hadn’t even touched his own rice yet, simply watching contentedly as Yoo Gun swallowed.
Yoo Gun, observing Ha-jin like that, spoke with a hint of sarcasm.
“You’ve picked up quite a bit of acting while we’ve been apart.”
“And you look much healthier than before? Are you managing to get by now that you’ve quit the idol life?”
“…Well, as you can see.”
Contrary to Eun-chan’s expectation that Yoo Gun wouldn’t want to exchange even a single word with Ha-jin, he wasn’t particularly aggressive in their conversation. He answered when asked, and occasionally even initiated exchanges like this one (though in a sarcastic tone).
Ha-jin paused to consider what this subtle shift in attitude might mean. No matter how substantial five million was, Yoo Gun—whose dependence on others approached zero from the start—wouldn’t have opened his heart to him over money alone. So then….
“…How is Grandfather doing? His knees? Is something wrong with his health?”
“He passed away last year. He lived longer than the hospital said he would, and he lived healthily before passing peacefully, so you don’t need to pretend to be sorry.”
“Ah, I see…. Your hair? Is that another one of Yoo-rang’s works?”
“Stop calling my younger sister so casually. Since when were we ever that close? And where did you hear that Yoo-rang does hair? From Ju Eun-chan?”
“Hey, I was still your leader back then, wasn’t I? Yoo-rang always liked doing hair even then, sorry about that.”
Even to the deliberately somewhat mischievous remark, Yoo Gun showed no particular reaction and simply continued eating.
Watching that lukewarm attitude—neither genuinely close to Ha-jin nor outright hostile enough to curse him out and kick him away—Ha-jin recalled something he’d once said to Thirteen when a dispute had arisen among the Miro trainees.
[System Alert: The System feels disillusioned by humanity’s weakness!]
[System Alert: Everyone is just so terrible!]
-Leave them be, they’re just kids.
If it wasn’t money, and it wasn’t forgiveness, then perhaps the answer was simply time.
Watching Yoo Gun contentedly eat the spiced beef in front of me, just as he had done so long ago, I found myself slipping into quite sentimental thoughts.
In the original timeline and here alike, Yoo Gun had done nothing but struggle to support his two younger siblings and his only grandfather in place of parents who had abandoned them.
The only difference between then and now was that the Yoo Gun of that time had been far too young to bear it all, whereas now he had grown, if only slightly.
‘Since he’s twenty-eight now… the Tigers must be around twenty-three by now.’
The Tigers, who were now older than the Yoo Gun I knew, were surely handling their own roles well enough in their own way.
I thought again that perhaps this timeline wasn’t truly the “worst” for Yoo Gun after all. And simultaneously, I felt a deep pity for the young Yoo Gun of the original timeline, who had to struggle endlessly and live through each day to protect his family.
“…”
“…? Why are you staring like that? It’s creepy.”
“…Just eat your meal, man.”
I, who had been mechanically dipping my spoon in and out of my rice bowl due to some inexplicable bitterness, finally set down my utensils. Suppressing a small cough to hide the lump forming in my throat, I threw out a random question toward Yoo Gun, who was watching me with a puzzled expression, desperate to change the subject.
“You must have been much more comfortable after quitting being an idol, right? I heard you even moved to a new place. Did you go on any trips? You wanted to go somewhere like Jeju Island, didn’t you?”
It was a question I’d thrown out casually, remembering how Yoo-ho, Yoo Gun’s younger brother, had wanted to travel to Jeju Island back then.
After all, Yoo Gun seemed to be earning money diligently here, and since he wasn’t an idol, it would have been far easier for him to find time and travel. So I thought he must have gone at least once.
“I haven’t been.”
But in the next moment.
At Yoo Gun’s casual reply, I finally understood why this was Yoo Gun’s “worst timeline.”
“What?”
“I’ve never been on a trip.”
“…Don’t you even want to go?”
“I’m too busy just scraping by to survive. How could I do something like that? You’re saying comfortable things without knowing what’s really going on.”
A timeline where even dreaming was a luxury.
Yoo Gun’s dull, lifeless eyes met mine with cold indifference.

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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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