Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 574

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

574. Even in the Worst Timeline, There’s Work to Be Done (4)
I didn’t need to search far—Seo Tae-hyun was exactly where he always was.
Beneath the sprawling shade of a massive tree planted at the edge of the wide yard, sitting on that wooden platform that reminded me of an old rural cottage.
“….”
What’s this?
Even though he’d clearly seen me, Seo Tae-hyun turned his head away without acknowledging me. Across his averted face, I could faintly make out the marks of his quarrel with Lee Yu-gun.
I called out to Seo Tae-hyun while tapping my neck and shoulders with the air conditioner remote.
“Hey, Cafe Employee.”
“….”
“Hey, Pension Owner?”
“….”
“There, old colleague of mine.”
“….”
So now he’s ignoring people’s calls? This guy’s really something.
Watching Seo Tae-hyun stubbornly ignore me was starting to get under my skin. Feeling provoked, I crossed my arms and cleared my throat. Then, with the clearest enunciation and the loudest volume I could muster, I called out to Seo Tae-hyun once more.
Let’s see if you ignore this one too.
“Hey, washed-up Cherry Boy!”
“This bastard really…!”
Just as expected, an infuriated Seo Che-ri shot up from her seat and came rushing toward me.
Yeah, I saw that coming, but she’s still terrifying.
I instinctively raised my guard and tried to backpedal, but Seo Tae-hyun was faster. Despite being shorter than me, he twisted my collar and grabbed hold of me, his eyes blazing with barely concealed emotion as he shouted in an angry voice.
“Why? What! What are you trying to do! What exactly are you two trying to do with me right now?”
“I never asked you to do anything.”
“Then why are you acting like this? When did we ever get so close that you’d suddenly show up like this…!”
What on earth had Lee Yu-gun done to upset him like this?
Regardless, my immediate priority was to cool down Seo Tae-hyun’s heated temper. I deliberately maintained a composed demeanor and thrust the air conditioner remote I was holding directly in front of his face.
“…?”
“The air conditioner. You said to come find you if it doesn’t work, right? We need to grill meat, but it’s so hot I feel like I’m dying.”
“…Ah. Oh, sorry.”
Confirming the remote in my hand, Seo Tae-hyun finally made an “oh no” expression and habitually bit his lower lip. I’d nagged him so much in the original timeline to stop doing that.
I wanted to say something, but since he’d declared he wasn’t going to be an idol anymore, I had no excuse to lecture him about it, so I let it go.
Besides, a cracked lip or two wasn’t what mattered right now.
“Ah…. It won’t turn on at all. Hold on, I’ll go inside and swap it out for another one.”
After fiddling with the remote several times, he turned away with a troubled expression. It looked like he was heading into the Convenience Store and Management Office in the back to try to fix something.
‘He can’t even properly notice that the remote’s batteries are in backwards, and he’s talking about managing a pension….’
How does someone like that manage to notice when fans change their makeup, extend their eyelashes, change their nail shape, or cut their bangs?
How does he remember all those personal anecdotes and school stories casually mentioned in fan letters?
His life skills are this terrible, yet on stage, how does he manage to catch every single detail without missing a thing?
It’s just―.
“Here, this remote is the same kind, so you can use this one too. Take this and use it, and you don’t need to come back to return it separately—just leave it in the Dormitory….”
“Seo Tae-hyun.”
“…?”
What could possibly drive someone to such a point?
How many failures and disappointments must one endure?
For someone like you to make the decision to live here, suffocating in silence.
Not that you won’t be an idol, but that you can’t seem to be one anymore.
-I’m thinking of quitting this work now.
-I don’t know.
-I guess my abilities only go this far.
I understood that sentiment all too well.
I watched Seo Tae-hyun hand me the new remote, and without hesitation, I opened my mouth.
“Do you need a job?”
“What?”
“Do you need a job? Someone I know is looking for a trainee manager.”
At my suggestion, a ripple of emotion crossed Seo Tae-hyun’s face once more.
I deliberately met his gaze directly and continued speaking in a measured tone.
“I don’t know what Lee Yu-gun told you, but it’s true that I’m gathering the Group Members to resume activities with Kairos. I came here specifically to convince you too.”
“….”
“But seeing how you are now, I don’t think being an idol will work out. Still, wouldn’t your original line of work suit you better than the Pension job? If you’re okay with it, I can make the connection for you.”
I kept my tone as cold and detached as possible.
So that everything I said and did from this moment on wouldn’t feel like worthless pity or sympathy.
So that a fledgling bird whose wings had already been broken by too many obstacles wouldn’t startle and flee.
“Why…?”
After a long silence, Seo Tae-hyun slowly opened his mouth.
A deeply sunken, husky voice flowed between his cracked lips.
“Why would you… for me? Since when were we ever that kind of people to each other?”
Seo Tae-hyun’s face was mixed with inexplicable wariness and anxiety.
I couldn’t blame him—if I were in his position, I’d think I was crazy too. A tyrant of a leader who’d complained about the members and spread discord rumors suddenly reappears after years, talking about reunion and job placement.
Especially since Seo Tae-hyun had already been burned by people multiple times before.
I deliberately put on an unbothered expression and shoved my hands into my pants pockets. The autumn wind was beginning to chill my body.
“Well, you know how it is—sometimes you regret certain relationships. Ones you’d want to fix even if you could turn back time.”
“….”
“I guess I just want to try being a proper leader now, that’s all.”
“After only two years of activity and the company collapsing, disbanding—what leader are you talking about….”
“Then just think of it as an older brother who wasn’t on good terms with you back then, pathetically clinging to make amends now.”
Not that I was your fan, or that I voted for you.
I didn’t say the kind of words that could once move Seo Tae-hyun’s heart.
To the current Seo Tae-hyun, such words would feel like nothing but meaningless motivation from a self-help book.
People crushed by repeated failures, their self-worth shattered, drowning in the suffocating weight of reality—they needed something more practical.
“Aren’t you getting close to military service age soon? You can’t keep putting it off forever.”
“….”
“Once you finish your Military service, you’ll be thirty before you know it. Even so, doesn’t having one line of experience versus none make a huge difference? The field is a bit different, but working as a Manager and handling related tasks would help a lot with running a Pension, wouldn’t it?”
That’s a lie.
An entertainment Manager isn’t some all-purpose administrator. There’s no way that soft-hearted cherry could transform into a competent career professional overnight just from working as a Manager for a few months.
Besides, plenty of people change careers and find new lives after thirty. Seo Tae-hyun already had a Pension to inherit anyway, so there was absolutely no reason for him to be desperate for a line on his Manager resume.
“Will you be okay? If you miss an opportunity like this?”
So what I was really touching on was the anxiety lurking in one corner of Seo Tae-hyun’s heart.
The unease of feeling left behind alone, the helplessness of knowing I could never catch up to those who’d surpassed me. The impatience of feeling like life would end with me becoming nothing at all.
When every moment I’d lived through felt utterly meaningless, and my heart filled only with regret—that was the despair I felt.
-Ah. Life is so damn pointless.
That day, whenever it was.
All those emotions I’d felt on that narrow bed.
“An opportunity, you say…?”
“Yeah, an opportunity.”
But now, having reached this point, I think.
Have we really spent our entire lives missing out on everything?
Is thirty really too late to start everything over again?
If everything ultimately ended in failure, was every step I took nothing but wasted effort?
“Think about it for a while. And if you decide, contact me. I’ll leave my number.”
At twenty-nine, I believed that.
That’s why I saw this life as a failure, and that’s why I saw regression as an opportunity.
That’s why going back to twenty-nine terrified me, and that’s why when I opened my eyes in this Timeline, I was devastated and afraid enough to die.
“Seo Tae-hyun.”
“…?”
But now, before my eyes.
Watching Seo Tae-hyun, who’d experienced the same despair as me, fade away endlessly.
I think again.
“…It’s nothing.”
“…What?”
“It’s nothing. This is all there is to it.”
Maybe we were just too afraid all along.
“Whether you fail as an Idol and become a PD or a Manager, or give up entirely and keep working as a Cafe Employee just to get by.”
“….”
“None of it matters. As long as you keep living.”
“….”
“Don’t be so scared. Everyone lives like this.”
In the end, all of this is just a process.
The answer I’d found after wandering for so long had reached me—Kang Ha-jin at twenty-nine, passing through Seo Tae-hyun at twenty-eight.
It felt like I was speaking to myself, so I had to suppress the strange emotions rising within me.
I couldn’t quite tell what expression Seo Tae-hyun was making as he stared blankly up at me.
I swallowed hard against the lump forming in my throat and offered Seo Tae-hyun a final farewell.
“…You’ve worked hard. All this time.”
“….”
“If you change your mind, reach out. I’m leaving.”
With those words, I turned my steps hastily toward the Dormitory. I hadn’t even thought to bring the new remote control Seo Tae-hyun had given me.
As I made my way back to the Barbecue Area where Lee Yu-gun was waiting, his facial swelling now subsided, my mind was consumed by a single thought.
‘…Not yet.’
We hadn’t lost anything yet.
Not our dreams, not our passion, not our youth.
And I would restore all of it, no matter what.
For the Group Members walking through the worst period of their lives, and for myself.
All of it.

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