Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut! Chapter 82

Chapter 82. Bomb! (4)

[System Notification: ……. s(・｀ヘ´・ ;)ゞ]

“What.”

After Han Seongwoo’s final conversation with Joo Eunchan, I was watching him leave in total defeat from the second-floor railing when Shib-sam kept trying to get my attention like that.

I ignored him a few times because I couldn’t be bothered responding to every little thing, and now he’d escalated to flashing flower petals and aurora sparkle effects at me.

“Dressing it up doesn’t make it pretty.”

[System Notification: But what if it’s an unread red 1 that never goes away?]

What an evil little bastard.

“What. What are you even so upset about?”

[System Notification: (reaction: choking to death after eating sweet potato)]

“The votes disappearing?”

[System Notification: (reaction: nodding so hard his neck almost snaps) (˃̣̣̣̣̣̣︿˂̣̣̣̣̣̣)]

I’d been thinking this for a while, but lately this guy seemed way too emotionally invested in my idol survival challenge instead of finding the Regressor I’m actually supposed to be tracking down.

[System Notification: But still! This is so unfair!]

[System Notification: In the end they covered everything up and erased the votes! (ಠ‸ಠ )]

“You sound more wronged than I do.”

I let out a short laugh in disbelief, and he puffed out red steam at me as if this were no laughing matter.

Oh, really?

“Alright, alright, just don’t turn red. I’ve got trauma about you turning red.”

[System Notification: ……. (solemn)]

“And besides, you never know how things will turn out until you wait and see.”

[System Notification: ……?]

I looked for a moment at the revolving doors of the Miro building, through which Han Seongwoo had now completely disappeared.

When I turned my head, Joo Eunchan was coming up the stairs. He must have spotted me, because he approached with a slightly surprised look.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah. Finished talking? Come on, let’s go eat. The others already left.”

“…Ah.”

At the mention of food, Eunchan’s expression darkened a little.

He hesitated, lips parting slightly, then asked carefully,

“Hyung… would you go out and eat with me today? My treat.”

“Why? Today’s cafeteria menu is jjimdak.”

“I’ll buy you something better.”

I kind of wanted jjimdak. Did he hate it or something?

But judging by his expression, the point clearly wasn’t the menu. It was that he wanted to eat outside.

Well, no reason to turn him down if he’s offering to buy.

In the end, I gave in to that look and pulled out my phone. Then I called Seo Taehyun, who was probably waiting for me with Joo Eunchan.

“Hello?”

—Why aren’t you here yet? Haru’s three seconds away from fainting from hunger.
(Hyung… I think I’m seeing mirages…)

“Yeah, go ahead and eat first. I’m eating out with Eunchan today.”

—What? Suddenly? Weren’t you the one saying you had to eat the cafeteria jjimdak?

“Eunchan’s rich and says he’ll buy me something more expensive. Bye.”

—What? No, hyung, stop taking advantage of Eun-cha—

I hung up right there.

Taehyun’s last comment was a pretty major misunderstanding, but he wasn’t entirely wrong that I’d eaten plenty on Joo Eunchan’s dime already, so I didn’t feel the need to correct him.

“I’m picking the menu, okay?”

“Yes, hyung. Eat whatever you want.”

“Good. Let’s go, then.”

On a gloomy day like this, there was only one thing I wanted.

Eunchan fell into step behind me.

Eunchan stared blankly at the bubbling gamjatang.

As he watched the stew boil, listening to the rain outside, he felt some of the tension slowly leave his body.

“When it rains, you’ve gotta eat something hot like this. Helps you practice better too.”

“Hyung, sometimes you really do sound… kind of old.”

“Watch it, brat.”

Even if I had gone back in time, I wasn’t an old man.

The words rose to the tip of my tongue, but Hajin barely managed to hold them back. Hearing myself called old after effectively getting ten years younger was weirdly irritating.

“Just eat, you little lamb.”

Hajin ladled a generous helping of gamjatang into Eunchan’s bowl. Eunchan looked at it a bit awkwardly, then cautiously took a sip of the broth.

“……!”

“…What, have you never had gamjatang before?”

“I just never really had a reason to. But this is… really good.”

Apparently it suited his taste, because his spoon started moving faster.

What was this, some chaebol heir doing a “commoner experience”?

…Well. Actually, maybe that’s exactly what this was.

Then again, for an eighteen-year-old trainee living alone, it wasn’t that strange that he’d never had gamjatang before.

Hajin slid the dipping sauce over to him, pushed the kkakdugi dish closer, and started eating too.

“So.”

“…Yes?”

“Why didn’t you want to eat in the company cafeteria? Tell me. It’s noisy in here, so no one’s going to hear us.”

At that, Eunchan stopped mid-bite.

Either his feelings were written all over his face, or Hajin was just absurdly perceptive.

“……”

Eunchan glanced around.

Just as Hajin had said, the place was packed with office workers chatting over lunch. Their table was at the far edge of the restaurant, and not many people passed by.

The hot soup settled warmly in his stomach, and Eunchan finally spoke more honestly.

“I feel… really strange.”

“Because of Seongwoo hyung?”

“I thought maybe Seongwoo hyung had a reason to hate me. He got pushed out of the Special Class, he was older, so debut must’ve felt more urgent for him… and then people were saying I got in through connections. I thought maybe… maybe it made sense.”

And because Seongwoo had still acted kindly toward him despite the nepotism rumors, Eunchan had even wondered at times if Seongwoo was genuinely just a kind, understanding person. There were moments when he felt guilty—when he wondered if he was the bad one for feeling uncomfortable around him.

“But then I found out Seongwoo hyung was the one who’d really gotten in through connections… and then all the other trainee hyungs changed their attitude overnight. It’s making me think too much.”

The same people who had excluded and mocked him until yesterday approached him today with sympathetic eyes, patting him on the shoulder and saying he must have suffered alone.

When he said he wasn’t a nepotism case, no one had believed him.

But the moment a different rumor started spreading, suddenly everyone said they’d always thought something felt off and took his side.

Eunchan couldn’t make sense of any of it.

“I haven’t changed… I don’t hate them, exactly, but it just feels weird. It’s uncomfortable seeing their faces. We still have to practice together.”

“……”

“I want to understand them, but I can’t, and it’s frustrating. I keep thinking… if it was going to be like this, then why did they treat me that way all this time? Why me?”

Hajin quietly watched Eunchan lower his head.

He thought for a moment about what to say.

What he finally offered was an old story—worn down by time.

“I’ve been through something like that too.”

“…What?”

“I got ostracized once. At my old agency.”

“…You?”

“Look at that face. Same expression Kim Wonho made.”

You really find it that hard to believe I got bullied?

When Hajin asked with an arched brow, Eunchan cautiously nodded.

“Well, in my case… hmm. How do I put it? Back then I was… a little more…”

As he tried to piece together blurred old memories, Hajin’s expression twisted just slightly.

“I think I was more selfish then. Not that I’m some perfectly selfless person now.”

“……”

“I talked harsher than I do now. And I always acted like I had to do everything alone.”

“…That’s hard to imagine.”

“Really? Because honestly, even I think I had a rotten personality back then. I’ve toned it down a lot since that happened.”

Hajin thought back to that day.

The first day he had ever truly been rejected by other people.

“One day I went to the practice room, and nobody was there. I thought maybe they were just late, so I waited. But no matter how long I waited, nobody came. They weren’t answering their phones either.”

Back then, I figured those assholes had ditched and were loafing around somewhere again.

Hajin scratched lightly under his eye at the memory, one scene that stayed vivid no matter how much time had blurred the rest.

“I went upstairs to talk to the manager, and then I heard their voices somewhere. So I followed the sound, and there they all were in a different practice room. Sweaty, music playing, already practicing.”

At first, he had just thought he hadn’t gotten the updated room assignment.

He was already getting annoyed that no one had told him, and he was about to demand an explanation when one of the trainees—someone his own age—slowly walked up to him.

“He told me they’d decided not to practice with me anymore. Then they all laughed.”

“……”

“When I asked why all of a sudden, they started listing every reason they didn’t like me. One by one.”

It had been a long time ago, but even now the memory left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Hajin took a sip of water to settle his stomach, then looked at Eunchan.

Eunchan was frowning deeply, like he were hearing about something that had happened to himself.

“That was the first time I realized it. Ah—I talk too harshly. I’m bad at being considerate. I’d been hurting people without even realizing it. I can’t keep doing that.”

That was when Hajin learned how terrifying exclusion really was. How painful it was just to breathe in a space where everyone hated you.

So after that day, he fought hard to become a better person. He tried to speak more kindly, to be more considerate, to make an effort to be with others instead of apart from them.

But even so—even if he had been clumsy, even if that experience had helped make him a better person—

“Chan.”

“…Yeah.”

“Even when you know the reason, it still hurts.”

“……”

“Even when you know some of it was your fault, it still hurts that much.”

Once that kind of fear settles in you, it doesn’t disappear easily.

“After that, whenever my friends talked about something I didn’t know, I’d get scared. For a while I even got into the habit of checking people’s expressions after I spoke.”

“……”

“There were times when just being called out by someone made my chest tighten and my heart race. I’d wonder if I’d done something wrong.”

Hadn’t he still dreamed about that day even recently, while living through life for the fourth time?

Thinking of all those nights, Hajin smiled bitterly.

“So it’s only natural that you feel wronged. That you’re hurt. How are you supposed to laugh and joke with them again overnight? Easy for me to say now, but it took me years to feel okay again.”

“…Really?”

“Of course. Hey, it was Shin Gyeongho and those guys, right? I know exactly what kind they are. Pathetic bastards. If they had any conscience, they’d at least apologize. Don’t bother with them until they do. Actually—should I make them apologize? Want me to get one out of them? Just say the word.”

Remembering what had happened when he was in Team B, Hajin got fired up all over again and bit hard into a piece of meat for emphasis.

But Eunchan just sat there, thinking.

Hajin didn’t press him further. He simply went back to eating.

The kid was smarter and stronger than he looked. This much would probably be enough for him to work through it.

“……”

After sitting quietly in thought for a while, Eunchan finally nodded. Just as Hajin expected, his face looked much lighter now.

Seeing that, Hajin smiled with quiet satisfaction and asked,

“Feeling a little better?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then let’s put the noodles in before the broth cooks down to nothing while we wait for you.”

At Hajin’s easy return to normal, Eunchan laughed.

It was the kind of laugh that looked genuinely comfortable—relieved, even.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“……”

“I really wanted to say that at least once.”

[System Alert: ‘Joo Eunchan’ reacts to you. (Reaction Rate: 86%)]

[‘Joo Eunchan’ can now be recruited.]

[Would you like to recruit him? (Y/N)]

Along with Eunchan’s thanks, the now-familiar companion recruitment window appeared in front of me.

But more than the fact that he’d just recruited a likely Regressor candidate, Hajin found himself more pleased that Eunchan trusted him this much.

“…Yeah. You’ve had it rough too.”

And just like that, Hajin gained his fifth companion.

And he was, quite honestly, pretty happy about it.