Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut! Chapter 72

Chapter 72. Guess Who? (3)

While Ji Suho sat there in shock—like someone had just smacked the back of his head with a baseball bat—

Kang Hajin looked completely calm.

Suho, hit by an inexplicable sense of betrayal, stuttered three separate times.

“S-So, um… then that… uh, so… was that… a l-lie?”

“No. It’s real. I really did come back.”

Even though Suho stuttered three times, Hajin answered simply.

Smiling, even.

Suho’s lips parted as he tried to find something to say through the feeling of being thoroughly messed with, but Hajin only shrugged and continued.

“Still, whether it’s true and whether you believe it are two different things.”

Suho—who’d been about to snap Are you messing with me right now?—shut his mouth again.

Hajin wore his usual relaxed smile… but at the very end of it, there was a loneliness Suho couldn’t name.

That smile was what finally pulled Suho back to his senses. He shot back, almost accusingly.

“Then why tell me, if you didn’t even know whether I’d believe you? What if I thought you were insane?”

“Team Leader, you’ve got a lot of questions today.”

“Like I said—I need to know. What kind of person the artist I’m responsible for actually is.”

Suho was curious about Hajin.

At first, Hajin was just a “recruitment” meant to keep the director in check.

Then after learning each other’s secrets, Suho had thought, Great. We’re stuck on the same boat now.

But after watching Hajin’s stages several times, a small dream formed in Suho’s chest—one that only a manager could have.

“I mean, that’s what managers are. No matter what happens, you’re supposed to be on your artist’s side.”

A dream of seeing this person shine on a bigger stage.

“I believe everything you say, Kang Hajin.”

Suho gave a rare, genuinely comfortable smile.

To chase that dream, he needed one thing first: complete trust from Kang Hajin.

Hajin still stared at him without speaking. Suho continued in a calm voice.

“I’m saying I’m on your side. So if there’s something you want to say, you can say it anytime.”

“……”

“Honestly… it’s kind of a relief. Having someone who knows my secret.”

Suho laughed lightly, trying to keep it casual.

“When I first started seeing light coming off people’s bodies, I was terrified.”

“……”

“This is a secret, but early on I even went to counseling, and I went to the hospital a few times. They kept telling me nothing was wrong, but… I seriously thought I’d lost my mind.”

“…Yeah. I know that feeling.”

Hajin let out a quiet snort-laugh and nodded.

“I thought I was dying and seeing my life flash before my eyes.”

“The first time you came back? Yeah… I can imagine.”

“I was lying in bed one moment, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in a high school exam room. I thought I was dreaming.”

Like he was replaying the memory, Hajin fell into thought.

Suho waited.

Only after a few minutes passed did Hajin—who’d been tapping the table with his fingers out of habit—finally speak again.

“…I was twenty-nine.”

“Huh?”

“When I regressed for the first time. I was a twenty-nine-year-old unemployed guy, and when I opened my eyes, I was seventeen.”

And once he started, Hajin’s story flowed—not too fast, not too slow.

How he’d lived through four regressions, and how, on his fifth life, he ended up here.

Sometimes he spoke briefly, sometimes seriously, but he told Suho his life.

None of it was easy to believe—yet Suho could believe it. If anything, he felt slightly relieved. Like his own unreal ability finally had at least some explanation.

“Then the person you said you have to find… it’s him?”

“Yes. The guy who made me live four extra lives… and made you start seeing weird colors on people.”

“And that person is someone among our trainees right now….”

“So if anything suspicious happens, please share it with me. I’m really not interested in living a sixth life.”

Hajin shuddered dramatically, like the thought alone made him sick. Suho nodded, understanding.

He still had questions about “regression,” but even if he heard more today, he obviously wouldn’t understand it all anyway.

“Thank you for telling me.”

Suho said it honestly, after hearing everything. It felt like he could finally see Kang Hajin a little more clearly.

And why Hajin seemed to live with this invisible line drawn around everything.

Because one day, it could all become ‘like it never happened’ again.

He’d always thought reliving the past would be an incredible opportunity, but… maybe it wasn’t purely a blessing.

As Suho was thinking that, Hajin poured water into his empty cup and spoke again.

“…I’m grateful too.”

“For what?”

“For saying you’re on my side.”

Ah. That smile again.

The one with that unexplainable loneliness hanging off it.

“Talking with you just now made me realize… maybe I’ve been lonely.”

“…….”

“I lost everything. My friends, my dream… the life I lived until then, memories—stuff like that.”

“…….”

“If you asked me whether I want to go back to being twenty-nine… I don’t know. But when I think that all those years are stuck with me alone forever… sometimes it just feels… unfairly sad.”

Because his mental-care system was still working, when Hajin thought about his past life, it felt like recalling something from a faraway past.

But that didn’t mean those memories became nothing.

“It was a life full of mistakes and regrets… but I guess even that kind of life had things I missed.”

The day his whole family traveled together for the first time.
Friends he met in college.
Movies and songs that comforted him on hard days.
Little episodes and messes from working at a company.

All of it existed only inside Hajin.

And sometimes, that made him painfully lonely.

“So… maybe that’s why. Why I kept talking to you about my past life.”

“…….”

“I think I just wanted to say it out loud to someone. That I lived a life like that.”

Only then did Suho finally understand the reason behind Hajin’s quiet sadness.

Maybe he’d never be able to fully understand Hajin—not even if he lived his entire life.

Maybe no one in the world could completely understand that loneliness.

Except maybe that Regressor… but for a normal person, it’s impossible.

Still, as an adult who’d lived a bit longer, couldn’t he at least offer comfort?

Suho opened his mouth carefully.

“People are… kind of like that.”

“…Huh?”

“You only realize after you get burned badly once. Oh. This hurts. I shouldn’t touch this. And after that, even seeing something similar makes you flinch. Instinctively—because you don’t want to get hurt.”

Suho hadn’t relived the past like Hajin had, but he’d also been hurt by the world, and hurt by people.

He understood how someone who’s been wounded can start chewing themselves up from the inside—cutting themselves off.

“But even so… after enough time passes… there comes a moment, at least once. Where you think, Maybe this much is okay? Maybe I can endure this much warmth?”

“…….”

“And when that moment comes, you try. You really test it. Will it hurt if I hold on? Will it not? Oh… maybe this much is okay. Maybe I can handle it. That’s how you learn your limits.”

Hajin looked confused at Suho’s cloudy, floaty metaphor, but Suho didn’t stop.

“Everyone’s like that. Because we’re lonely, aren’t we? A world without warmth—what’s that even supposed to be?”

“…You’re not telling me to go burn my hand on a stove, right?”

“I’m saying don’t be so afraid of the hand someone reaches out to you.”

“…….”

“I don’t want you to look at every moment of living like it’s ice-cold. Kang Hajin, you’re a warm person. You’ve got passion, you like people, and… you like being on stage.”

Only then did Hajin seem to understand what Suho meant—his pupils trembled slightly.

Watching him, Suho offered the warmest comfort he could.

“Isn’t it better to love without regret, rather than turn away from everything because you’re scared it might disappear someday? You said you refuse a sixth life.”

“…….”

“And now you have someone you can talk to. If you want to talk about your past-life memories, tell me. But I also want you to remember this: even the life you’re living right now is still your life.”

“…….”

“If you really find that person and the regressions end… then these moments will become your memories too. Your experiences. Your past.”

This is advice from an older brother who cares about you.

With that, Suho stopped speaking.

Hajin sat quietly, turning Suho’s words over in his head.

Suho waited calmly.

Hajin probably hadn’t even realized he’d been deeply burned and hurting.

To recognize it, collect himself, and wash the wound in cold water… would take time.

Seo Tae-il has good instincts.

Suho remembered something Seo Tae-il had once said about Hajin.

—“He said he used to work at some company, right?”
—“Yeah. It was such a new company that it probably doesn’t exist anymore.”
—“…Did he get burned there? That kid.”
—“Why?”
—“He grew up too fast. For a twenty-year-old, he thinks way too much. At that age, there are things you’re allowed not to know yet.”

Without knowing anything about Hajin’s regressions, Seo Tae-il had still judged him like that.

Yeah… thirteen years in the industry isn’t something you can dismiss.

While Suho promised himself he should never casually bring up Hajin’s story in front of Seo Tae-il, Hajin seemed to finish organizing his thoughts.

The shadow on his face lifted a little. Seeing that, Suho felt relieved.

“Did that help at all?”

“…Yeah. A bit.”

“Good.”

Hajin nodded—and right on time, there was a knock at the door.

Suho told them to come in, and a server carefully entered, pushing a grand tray.

“I will serve your meal now.”

Food that looked—and smelled—excellent was placed onto the table, dish by dish. The Korean set-meal spread filled the table until it practically groaned.

Hajin’s earlier gloom vanished completely; his eyes lit up as he grabbed his chopsticks.

Watching that, Suho felt a tiny wave of existential emptiness.

“So… is it just my imagination, or do you look like all your trauma healed the moment you saw food?”

“Your imagination.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“My spirit has already been comforted by our deep conversation, and now you’re also filling my physical body with such delicious food—how could I not be overwhelmed with gratitude?”

Judging by how smoothly the words spilled out, this was the usual Hajin.

Suho shook his head, laughing like What am I supposed to do with you?

Seriously—there was no winning against that mouth.

“Be honest. In your past life, did you ever sell snake oil?”

“You want me to be truly honest? You won’t be able to handle it.”

“…You’re saying whatever you want because I can’t verify it, aren’t you?”

“But isn’t it lucky? If I sold it, at least that’s one thing. If I did it, idol debut would’ve been impossible.”

“…You actually sold it?”

“Do you think I would? I’ve only ever taken cold medicine. Stop it and eat.”

Seeing Suho look genuinely relieved, Hajin burst out laughing like it was ridiculous.

And from that laugh onward, the air between them became a little easier than before.

Since the regressions began, this was the first time Hajin truly opened the lock on his heart to someone.

………………. (◑_◑);;;;;;;;;]