Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut!

Chapter 104. Things Will Explode (4)

The first place Hajin headed to after pulling himself together was the shower room.

Although Hajin’s body was in the exact same state as it had been when he had fallen asleep after washing up the night before, what the ‘actual’ Hajin felt was different.

“……”

He washed himself clean and changed into fresh clothes. Even though he knew he would regress again anyway, he went through the motions of his ‘original’ daily routine, which he hadn’t paid much attention to. After forcing himself to eat breakfast, something he had been skipping because he didn’t have the mental capacity for it, it was already approaching 11 AM.

‘Ah, now….’

The day that had been repeated countless times flowed the same way today as well. It was because Hajin hadn’t made any different choices that would change this day.

‘Then I still have… about an hour left.’

When Siwoo and I teamed up to force Yugeon to take a break, he would always pack his bags and leave the dorm around this time if his intention to quit didn’t work. That was because it was lunchtime, and the trainees and staff would be away.

What should I do for an hour?

Will that hour even come?

What if something happens and the day flows differently?

What if I end up regressing again?

Once the thoughts began, they kept multiplying, occupying Hajin’s mind like links in a chain. The thoughts, coiled like a snake, wrapped around and squeezed Hajin’s body like a shackle.

At that moment, for some reason, a certain phrase came to mind.

-My grandmother used to say that when you have too many thoughts and you’re scared, just stop thinking.

But who said that? More importantly, is it even possible to stop thinking?

Hajin was someone who had to think endlessly. He was someone who lived by understanding, contemplating, and recalling everything. That’s why the current situation was unbearably difficult. There were just too many things that he had to think about.

‘When… When did I stop thinking?’

Hajin started thinking again.

Then, he recalled the moments from countless repeated days when he was most able to clear his mind of distracting thoughts.

Hajin got up and headed somewhere.

“……”

He arrived at a practice room on the fifth floor.

<♥ Candy Crush Team Practice Room Full of Love ♥>

There was a paper with cutesy handwriting densely covering the door. Hajin knocked on the practice room door.

Three loud knocks, knock, knock, knock.

Soon, he heard someone running from inside.

“Who is i… Oh? Hajin hyung?”

“Haru.”

“Yes?”

“Tell me something funny. Hyung is feeling down.”

At Hajin’s sudden request after knocking on the practice room door, Haru blinked with his big round eyes. Who is this? Taehyun, who had followed Haru out, approached the two.

“Hajin hyung suddenly wants us to make him laugh!”

“What? …Sigh. I can guess without even seeing. Come in, first.”

Knowing the rough circumstances from what Eunchan and Yugeon had told him, Taehyun let Hajin into the practice room. Inside, it seemed that practice was in full swing, as the trainees in the same team as Taehyun and Haru greeted Hajin.

“Guys, let’s show Hajin hyung our stage. It’s okay, right?”

“Oh, really? Hajin hyung is scary though.”

“Really? Is Hajin scary?”

“No way! What if Hajin hyung is a spy!”

As Hajin expected, the members of the team that Taehyun had put together for Room 2 were all loud and lively. Hajin was led by Taehyun to sit down with his back to the practice room mirror. The coolness, almost to the point of being cold, against his body somehow made him feel alive.

The stage that the Candy Crush team prepared was quite fun and cute. It seemed like they wanted to emphasize that their team had the youngest average age among the teams, as there was an abundance of adorable and refreshing energy throughout the performance.

‘Our team’s stage is fun too.’

While watching, Hajin thought about the stage his team had prepared.

The choreography that Wonho completed with Yugeon’s help was impressive, even to Hajin.

Doha and Yugeon’s rap was gradually getting in sync, and Yugeon’s instinctive and wild gestures were a good example for the trainees, who still found the concept of “sexy” awkward. Above all, Yugeon, who exuded intense energy from the center while wearing a choker, looked cool.

“……”

While he was lost in thought, the Candy Crush team’s song ended.

Panting, the chick-like kids looked at Hajin with eyes filled with a mix of anticipation and fear. They seemed proud, hoping for validation, yet also worried about receiving Hajin’s sharp feedback, which they had experienced since Team B.

After capturing each trainee’s expression, Hajin stood up.

“Hajin hyung! What did you think?”

Haru, his eyes twinkling like a puppy wagging its tail, asked.

The corners of Hajin’s mouth curved up in a beautiful smile.

“You did well. You’ll come in first place, guys.”

“……!”

“Wow. Thank you!”

“…If only it wasn’t our team.”

“……!!!”

Ah, hyung!

At Jaeyoung’s voice, filled with resentment, Hajin reverted to his usual playful self, lifting his neatly groomed eyebrows with a mischievous expression.

“If you’re jealous, you guys should show off your abs too~.”

“How can we show our abs with our concept!”

“Wow, do they really show their abs? This is cheating! Unfair!”

“See, I told you he was a spy! It’s not fair to just watch our stage and leave!”

Ignoring the noisy reactions, Hajin left the practice room without even saying goodbye. As he walked slowly back toward the dorms, it was almost time.

Hajin headed for the emergency stairs with familiar steps.

Creak, the sound of a rolling suitcase could be heard.

Last time, upon hearing that sound, Hajin had rushed at Yugeon and ended up falling down the stairs. Since he didn’t immediately regress, Hajin had to endure several hours with a fractured leg bone.

Of course, that was all in the past now.

“Leaving already?”

“…Ah.”

Yugeon, who had been secretly trying to sneak down the stairs with his suitcase, was startled by Hajin’s voice and took a step back. In the process, the suitcase slipped from his hand and nearly tumbled down the stairs, but Hajin skillfully caught the handle and set it upright.

“…I’m sorry to you guys. I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life.”

Even though Hajin hadn’t said anything yet, Yugeon apologized first.

Hajin only noticed this now.

During the many times they had repeated this, Yugeon’s first words were always, “I’m sorry.”

…That was something Hajin only noticed now.

“Yugeon.”

“……?”

“Before you leave, can you at least have a meal with me? Just one.”

So Hajin decided that today, he would try making a different choice.

* * *

“……”

“……”

Yugeon didn’t find the silence awkward. However, the situation was awkward.

Just me and this hyung? Having a meal? And it’s pork belly rice?

“Why? You don’t like pork belly?”

“Oh, no. I’m not picky.”

“Eat up. You’ll need the energy to drag that all the way home.”

Hajin gestured toward the suitcase next to Yugeon with his chin.

What’s this? Is he teasing me?

But despite that, Hajin’s expression remained calm. He skillfully wrapped a large leaf of lettuce, perilla leaf, and pickled radish into a wrap and popped it into his mouth in one go. The way he ate looked so delicious that even Yugeon, who had lost his appetite since the third episode, found himself getting hungry.

‘…Well, if someone offers you food, you’d be a fool not to eat it.’

Unable to resist Hajin’s wrap attack, Yugeon naturally followed suit and picked up his chopsticks. He didn’t like vegetables, so he just took a big piece of meat to put directly into his mouth, but before he knew it, a perilla leaf had been placed on top of the meat. By the time he realized, he had already eaten the meat with the perilla leaf on top.

“……?”

“Eat it as a wrap, man. It helps with digestion.”

“Are you really worried about my digestion?”

“You always take digestive pills. Because your digestion isn’t good.”

Hajin’s words, spoken casually while he ate his soybean paste stew, were delivered in a tone that implied he had been watching over Yugeon for some time.

‘What’s with this hyung?’ Yugeon looked at Hajin with a puzzled expression, but Hajin just smiled and bit into a crunchy cucumber dipped in ssamjang.

“Who do you think has been bringing patches and digestive pills to our practice room?”

“I thought it was the manager hyung…. Ah.”

The rookie development team employee who was in charge of Yugeon’s care and the Blue Flare team had been fired after the incident last time.

For now, another employee was temporarily taking care of both the Candy Crush team and the Blue Flare team, but only the fired employee knew that Yugeon occasionally asked for digestive pills.

“Then hyung was the one who brought them? Why?”

“Siwoo hyung told me to.”

“Huh?”

“Siwoo hyung knew

. That you occasionally take digestive pills and always spray patches before practice. He saw it during the Special Class and Team A missions.”

“……”

This was unexpected as well.

In Yugeon’s opinion, Jung Siwoo was the least likely to be interested in him among the team members. No, Yugeon knew very well that rumors about him also negatively affected Siwoo.

The fact that Siwoo knew his habits and even asked Hajin to take care of him was new to Yugeon.

“What kind of part-time jobs have you done?”

“Part-time jobs? All of a sudden?”

“I worked at a barbecue restaurant. Did you work at a barbecue place?”

“…Are you trying to outdo me in part-time jobs?”

The tension in Yugeon’s shoulders, which had been on high alert, wondering what Hajin would say to persuade him, suddenly relaxed.

What’s this? Did he really just want to have a final meal with me?

That thought made Yugeon feel both good and somewhat regretful. But since he didn’t have any answers to give to the suggestion to stay in the team, he found this kind of conversation more comfortable.

Once the conversation started flowing, it was smooth sailing.

Hajin had an exceptional ability to bring up a variety of topics that didn’t cause discomfort to the other person.

Moreover, Yugeon wasn’t someone who was particularly averse to talking to others. It was just that everyone was too scared of Yugeon’s impression to start a conversation.

“We’ve finished eating.”

“Yeah.”

“Eating it as a wrap makes it taste better, right?”

Hajin made sure that while Yugeon emptied two bowls of rice, he always added vegetables to the meat.

At that point, one would usually wrap their own meat, but Yugeon, in his own way, stubbornly only ate the meat, and that’s how it turned out.

‘Adding vegetables to encourage someone to eat wraps. That’s something only my little brothers would do when they were in elementary school.’

Thinking of his younger siblings (Yuho and Yurang), Yugeon’s movements slowed.

After having a hearty meal, temporarily forgetting his worries, and talking about ordinary things, the reality started to come into focus again.

‘If I quit the program… I’ll only get half of the appearance fee. I’ll have to leave the agency, so I won’t have living expenses either…. I should probably drop out of school, too? I shouldn’t have quit my convenience store job. Maybe I should contact the manager again―.’

As thoughts began to crowd in one by one, everything seemed bleak.

But now, it wasn’t easy to say that he wanted to stay.

He still had no desire to debut, and he was struggling with his current situation. He had no confidence that his attitude wouldn’t waver in the future.

‘In any case… It’s not like they need me. They’re just having a hard time figuring out what to do without me.’

He believed that the others were all talented enough to quickly fill the void he would leave. Right now, they were trying to hold onto him because the thought of filling that gap was overwhelming, but once they practiced with just five people, they would probably think it was for the best.

Hajin spoke up at the exact moment those thoughts began to take over and gnaw at Yugeon.

“Yugeon.”

Is he going to ask me not to quit again? Tell me to stop being irresponsible and go back to practice?

Even though Hajin had never said such things to him, Yugeon was somehow a little afraid of what Hajin might say.

“Won’t you regret it?”

“……?”

“If you really quit now, won’t you regret it? Our stage?”

“…….”

But contrary to his fears,

“I think it would be such a waste. Our stage.”

Hajin’s words and voice were warm and gentle.

Perhaps they were the most comforting words Yugeon needed to hear.