Not A Regressor - Chapter 364

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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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I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 364
Interlude – The End of a Vacation
Kwon O-jin’s eyes glistened as if he’d discovered an oasis in the desert, but he soon let out a dry cough and shook his head.
“No, I mean… even if that’s the case, we’re on vacation. We can’t just stay cooped up at home.”
Hadn’t he sworn just minutes ago that he wouldn’t disappoint Ha-eun?
He couldn’t ruin their precious vacation together just because he was tired.
“Come on, you fool. Your face is completely twisted up. What’s the point of going anywhere?”
Ha-eun giggled and gently stroked Kwon O-jin’s head.
Ha-eun, who had moved close to his side, rested her head against his shoulder.
“Besides, I like just lounging around at home like this the best.”
Going somewhere nice together or eating delicious food was wonderful, of course.
But there was a certain charm to simply sitting idly on the couch without doing anything, leisurely wasting away the hours.
“I guess you could call it a staycation? Something like that, anyway.”
“This is a house, not a hotel.”
“Well, compared to the place we used to live, isn’t this basically a hotel?”
“I… suppose you have a point.”
Recalling the moldy studio apartment that wasn’t even fifty square meters, Kwon O-jin let out a rueful laugh.
It felt like so much time had passed that the memories themselves were fading.
Yet just a few years ago, he and Ha-eun had lived together in that cramped little room.
…
Those days of desperately struggling to care for Ha-eun, who had lost one eye and a leg.
Comparing then to now, he could truly appreciate how much his life had changed.
“O-jin.”
“Hmm?”
“…Are you happy right now?”
Her voice trembled with a hint of anxiety.
Kwon O-jin gently pulled Ha-eun’s waist closer as she rested her head on his shoulder and nodded.
“Yeah.”
More than anything.
Infinitely so.
So much that every night he worried he might be caught in some endless dream.
He was happy.
“Really?”
At his unhesitating answer, a bright smile bloomed across Ha-eun’s face.
With a soft rustle.
Ha-eun lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up.
She pressed her hands firmly against Kwon O-jin’s chest as he sat on the couch, spreading his legs apart on either side.
“Move back a bit, will you?”
“What are you doing?”
“Since we’re resting at home anyway, I’m going to get the best seat in the house.”
Before Ha-eun could even ask what “premium seating” meant, she swiftly nestled her back between Kwon O-jin’s legs.
Sitting with Ha-eun cradled against his chest, Kwon O-jin gazed at the back of her head filling his entire field of vision and furrowed his brows.
“This is incredibly uncomfortable.”
“I’m comfortable, so it’s fine.”
“No, this only looks right when I’m taller or you’re shorter. What is this?”
Kwon O-jin’s height was just slightly above the average adult male, whereas Ha-eun possessed a stature taller than most models.
When wearing heels, her eye level was even higher than his.
With Ha-eun’s considerable height wedged between his legs and using his back as a support, the position had become extraordinarily awkward and unnatural.
“Now, just rest your hands on my waist.”
Ha-eun wrapped Kwon O-jin’s arm around her waist like fastening a seatbelt, then leaned back against him with an expression of perfect contentment.
“Mmm, so soft and comfortable.”
While Ha-eun murmured in a drowsy voice as if soaking in a hot spring, Kwon O-jin’s face was brushed by her reddish-brown hair, and he found himself in the most uncomfortable moment imaginable.
“Ahem.”
Yet despite the obstructed view, the sensation of Ha-eun’s back pressing against his chest and the warmth of her skin transmitted through his arm around her waist was unmistakable.
Especially since Ha-eun wore dolphin pants and a crop top—such revealing clothing that the sensation of their skin contact was transmitted vividly.
“Huh? So it’s not just soft and squishy, is it?”
“Be quiet.”
How could he maintain composure in such a state?
Kwon O-jin furrowed his brows and tickled Ha-eun’s ribs.
“Kyaaah! S-stop it, you bastard!”
Ha-eun thrashed about, and he could vividly feel her legs flailing.
“Ha… ha… you jerk…”
Ha-eun exhaled roughly, tears glistening in her eyes, then smacked Kwon O-jin’s thigh sharply.
“How dare you touch your older sister so brazenly?”
“You started it first.”
“Still!”
Their bickering continued for only a moment longer.
Once her excitement faded, Ha-eun pulled his arm back around her waist and smiled brightly.
“Being like this feels nice too.”
“Yeah.”
A warmth that felt like it might melt away spread through me.
Ha-eun gently placed her hand over Kwon O-jin’s arm around her waist and opened her mouth.
“…O-jin.”
“Hm?”
Ha-eun hesitated for a moment, her lips moving uncertainly, before speaking carefully.
“This time… what memories did you lose?”
A heavy silence descended.
Ha-eun’s eyes, trembling with anxiety, fixed on Kwon O-jin.
Kwon O-jin gently grasped her trembling hand and bit his lip firmly.
“I don’t know.”
“…You don’t remember?”
“Nope.”
Memories carved away by Heukcheon left no sense of discord, making it difficult to discern which ones had vanished on their own.
“You remember that we’re dating, right?”
“Of course I do.”
If I’d forgotten that, I wouldn’t have committed to this insane arrangement of splitting my vacation into thirds to spend each day with a different lover.
Ha-eun nodded and continued.
“The place where your sister got her eyes fixed?”
“Yongsan Auction House.”
“Hmm. And your leg?”
“An elixir I received after fighting Deneb’s Apostles.”
Those memories from that day remained vivid in my mind, untouched by Heukcheon’s dark clouds.
“I see, so that’s how it is.”
Ha-eun sat with her legs crossed, chin resting on her hand, lost in thought.
After a moment, she snapped her fingers as if remembering something and asked.
“When you lost your memory before and regained it—what was the first thing you experienced again?”
“I remember.”
“Cavi.”
What the hell was “cavi” supposed to mean?
“Looks like you remember most things just fine.”
“Which is exactly why I can’t figure out what’s missing.”
A deep sigh escaped between my lips.
If I’d lost something as significant as when I’d forgotten being Ha-eun’s lover before, at least I’d feel the discord. But this—not knowing what was gone—was maddening.
‘What memory could it be…?’
Even tracing back through my earliest memories with Ha-eun, there was no gap significant enough to create a sense of discord.
Memories disappearing without even knowing which ones were lost.
That prospect filled me with a suffocating dread.
What if all my memories eventually vanished?
Without noticing the discord. Without realizing the gaps.
One by one.
Like sinking into a swamp.
The very existence of “Kwon O-jin” being erased—
“Hey, you bastard. Did you crap yourself or something? Why’s your face so serious?”
Ha-eun flicked her finger against my forehead as I sat there, lost in troubled thought.
Snap!
A sharp, stinging pain bloomed across my forehead with a crisp sound.
“…What are you doing?”
As I rubbed my forehead and glared at her, Ha-eun burst into giggles and shrugged.
“Well, from the way you’re talking, it doesn’t seem like anything weird’s going on, so it was probably just some unimportant memory. No need to be so serious about it, right?”
“That’s….”
“I’m telling you, I can’t even remember what I ate yesterday.”
“Isn’t that dementia?”
“Want to die?”
Ha-eun pinched my cheek and pulled it taut, her expression turning menacing.
A quiet chuckle escaped between my lips.
Her tone was rough, but in her own way, she was trying to comfort me.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve really forgotten all my old memories. Hey… where did we first meet back then?”
“Orphanage Rooftop.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right!”
Ha-eun clapped her hands and nodded.
As she recalled that distant memory, Ha-eun tilted her head and asked.
“But what did we talk about back then?”
“That was…”
I searched through my memories.
The memory of when I first met Ha-eun.
The shabby secret base the boy had built on the rooftop, and the memory of the girl who entered it.
-Let’s see… if it’s a secret base, you don’t just let anyone in, right?
-I won’t let you in even if Mom and Dad come. Never.
I couldn’t remember the girl’s face.
But I still vividly remembered what she said with that radiant smile.
-But Mom and Dad aren’t allowed, but older sister is, right?
Yes.
She had made such an unreasonable demand and stepped into my secret base.
-Hehe. Now that I’ve come in here, I have to call you older sister from now on, right?
I remember.
I recall it.
A memory that cannot be exchanged for anything else.
Shining brilliantly like a star in the night sky.
‘Thank goodness.’
The fact that the memory consumed by Heukcheon wasn’t the memory of when I first met her brought a smile to my face.
I turned to Ha-eun and opened my mouth one last time.
“I’m not sure either.”
Ha-eun doesn’t remember.
Or rather, precisely because Ha-eun doesn’t remember.
I wanted to keep the memory of when we first met buried solely within my own heart.
“See, you don’t remember well either.”
Ha-eun, who ultimately failed to recall the memory of our first meeting, swallowed a small sigh and patted my shoulder.
“What does it matter what old memories are? What’s important is now.”
“…Yeah.”
“It’s fine, so brighten up that face.”
Kwon O-jin nodded with a faint smile at Ha-eun’s words.
He tightened his embrace around her and buried his face in the nape of her neck.
‘Ah.’
I could feel her shoulders trembling faintly.
Though she was pretending it was nothing.
Acting as though it didn’t matter.
‘It couldn’t be otherwise.’
In truth, she must have known as well.
That the loss of past memories wasn’t something that could be brushed aside with a single word of reassurance.
Yet Ha-eun smiled brightly for my sake.
She knew that just as she was suffering, I would suffer too.
“…Noona.”
“Hm?”
I continued quietly.
“Thank you.”
“What? Thank me for what?”
“Just… everything.”
Simply being able to hold Ha-eun like this from behind.
Whatever happened to the memories swallowed by Heukcheon didn’t matter anymore.
“Mmm.”
Nestled in my embrace with her face flushed crimson, Ha-eun soon turned her body and settled onto my lap.
“This won’t do.”
“What won’t do?”
Kwon O-jin let out an awkward cough, turning his head away from Ha-eun’s face so close their noses nearly touched.
Maintaining composure had been difficult enough when holding her from behind, but sitting face-to-face like this made it far harder to endure.
Perched on my lap and gazing down at me, Ha-eun smiled mischievously and licked her lips like a predator that had caught its prey.
“I was going to let you rest properly today… but you’re wagging your tail at your noona, you naughty thing?”
“I’m not.”
Wagging my tail? What was she talking about?
“Hehe! Your mouth says no, but your body’s being honest!”
“Wait, hold on. Ack! My shirt’s tearing! It’s tearing, noona!”
Pitter-patter!
The sound of buttons scattering across the floor marked the end of the three-day vacation.

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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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