Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut! Chapter 92

Chapter 92 – Bomb? (3)

It was true that Kang Hajin got a lot of screen time in the controversial Episode 2.

Because, in reality—

he really had done almost everything.

Kang Hadi @kang_HD
Who’s the bastard that made my baby wolf cry?

(screencap of Hajin crying from the Episode 2 preview)

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∥

Kang Hadi @kang_HD
Guys, it was a sunbae

Disperse

(clip of Hajin crying in the live broadcast after Seo Tae-il’s question)

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Ingya ???? @inging02
He’s kind of cuteㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ should I casually check him out?

Funny Idol Clip Archive @IDOLOL
He doesn’t know happiness

(clip of Hajin covering his face after messing up the lyrics in front of Lia)

Rossy Day @rossy_1017
Doesn’t it really look like Hajin winked at Doha here??

What is this, what is this—you two are on opposing teams, guys...

(clip of Hajin winking somewhere)
(full-shot screencap of Doha sitting in the direction Hajin winked toward)

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Besides that, clips were spreading in real time of the cocky little comments he’d deliberately tossed back at Seo Tae-il, and of the sharp way he evaluated Team A’s stage.

Then, once the final result aired and Team B was shown winning, the momentum only got stronger.

It was exactly the kind of thing survival-show fans went crazy for:

the rebellion of the underdogs.

Clichés worked for a reason.

[Today’s dopamine-insane boy group survival show]

(summary of the Miro Maze broadcast)

— Huh? But Kang Hajin lost his individual battle? Who was his opponent?
└ Someone who dropped out, so they didn’t show him on broadcast
— For the team battle, A vs. B feels like a matter of preference, but for the individual battle Kang Hajin totally wins. I went and watched the performance vid
— That trainee who dropped out supposedly went absolutely crazy on the actual stage? Then how did Hajin beat him?

And that was exactly when the problem post went up.

Right after the episode ended—

while interest in Miro Maze and Kang Hajin was still blazing hot.

[But Miro is obviously pushing Kang Hajin too much, right??ㅋㅋㅋ]

I don’t know about anything else, but you can’t deny this...

Yesterday, while watching, I was like wow, they’re literally just using all the Team B kids as props for Kang Hajin...

Honestly I kind of felt bad for the fans of the other Team B trainees

This wasn’t the first time a post like that had gone up.

Usually, though, most of them got treated as trolling and disappeared soon enough.

But this time was different.

— Honestly up until Episode 1 I was like, eh... but after watching Episode 2, hmmㅋㅋㅋ...
— It was practically like they were advertising that they’re gonna make him leader. But agency survival shows are always like that
└ Exactlyㅇㅇ weren’t we all already watching while knowing that? The debut lineup’s already setㅎ
— Most of it, whatever, but the scene at the end where he asks if Park Jaeyoung is okay did feel kind of unnecessary??? Like wow, they really want to protect his image

Someone had started leaving agreeing comments.

And once those kinds of replies started multiplying, people who had only seen the controversy posts themselves began spreading misinformation based on them.

[Omg guys, is this real? Subject: Miro Maze]

(screenshot of a troll post dragging Kang Hajin)

I just saw this and I’m so shocked...ㅠ

Did they really cut all the other kids’ parts just to push Kang Hajin???

— Yeah, in the live broadcast Hajin did all of it, but in the performance video those were other people’s parts
└ Don’t talk out of your ass. If you didn’t watch the broadcast, stay out of the discussion
— What kind of bullshit is this now
— The trainee who originally had that part got sick and dropped out right before recording, so Hajin did it instead;;; stop spreading rumors
└ (OP) So that means Kang Hajin really did all of it in the end?? There were so many other trainees too, though omg
└ No, among Team B, Hajin was the most capable one, so the Team B kids themselves asked hyung to do itㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠ please stop with the forced dragging
└ ??? This is a bit... I’m another Team B trainee’s fan and this annoys meㅋㅋㅋㅋ Hajin literally said himself that he had fewer parts so the others yielded to him, so why are we suddenly talking about skill?ㅎ
— Guys it’s obviously bait, please just stop feeding it

Replies and nested replies piled up, and more spin-off posts followed.

The Desties had tried to ignore it and not engage—

but the situation was heating up fast enough that it was getting harder and harder to keep ignoring.

After confirming that several controversy posts had climbed into the popular section at the top of the board, Kang Hajin put down his phone and thought:

The hype bubble’s kicking in.

Out of all those people,

how many had actually watched Miro Maze live and were real fans voting for the trainees?

I’d bet Han Seongwoo’s wrist it’s less than 20%.

My own wrist was too valuable to wager.

Sure, some of them could be fans of other trainees who wanted to keep me in check.

But Miro Maze wasn’t some broadcaster-run random-group deathmatch.

It was an agency survival show—

meaning, in the end, everyone still had to eat from the same pot.

And debut wasn’t even decided by viewer votes alone, so did people really need to try this hard to drag me down?

“Well, I expected at least this much, so whatever.”

This level of trolling over screentime hogging?

I had already braced myself for that from the moment I squeezed tears out in front of Seo Tae-il.

That was why I’d deliberately let Han Seongwoo take my votes in the first place.

If I slipped once at this level, those people wouldn’t be able to keep biting forever.

If I dropped all the way down to Feather rank, even better.

Because with how things were going, I was almost definitely going to place first in the second mission too and get another insanely favorable edit.

Park Jaeyoung’s fans seem a little upset that I took all of Park Jaeyoung’s parts...

But once the second mission aired, that would calm down soon enough too.

I’d deliberately stuffed him full of parts this time so he could finally show as much as he wanted after barely getting any spotlight in the first mission.

Honestly, I felt like the focus in the second mission was going to shift more toward Seo Taehyun than me anyway.

Once that calculation clicked into place, my mind eased a little.

At the start, someone was always going to get hit first anyway.

Better me than having the Seon-gwija get caught up and trigger a regression for no reason.

Thirteen—whom I’d expected back soon—was still missing after Sports Day.

The skills seemed to still be intact, but if the risk of regression suddenly went up, there was no way to know. So for now, caution was necessary.

And in that sense, the fact that Lee Yugeon—currently the strongest Seon-gwija candidate—had already once been turned into troll bait was a major risk factor.

That bastard isn’t actually thinking he can just regress if things get annoying, right?

Luckily, since everyone who had gathered at Joo Eunchan’s place last time had been Team A members, I’d been able to hear the situation from a wider range of perspectives.

“Lee Yugeon’s always been like that since he first joined the company. Siwoo hyung didn’t really care before, but when he acted like that even on a survival show where debut’s on the line, that’s when he got mad. He hates it when people cause trouble for others.”

That was Lee Doha’s take—

the one who was close with Jung Siwoo and had also been with Yugeon during the second mission.

“But I don’t know if I’d call Lee Yugeon totally delinquent. He was the one who learned the choreography fastest and taught it to me too. Honestly, he helped me a lot. I think he’s just naturally kind of lighthearted.”

That was Kim Wonho’s evaluation—

who had practically become a Lee Yugeon fanatic after getting so much help from him, from the battle round all the way to choosing the second mission song.

“I only joined recently, so I don’t really know!”

“Yeah, okay. Keep eating your pizza.”

That was just Dan Haru.

“I heard from Taehyun hyung that he never does extra weekend practice and hasn’t been taking private lessons lately either. But back then Siwoo hyung was a little sensitive too. Because Han Seongwoo hyung kept whining to him about how anxious he was.”

That was Joo Eunchan’s opinion—

having suffered through Team A’s practice because of Han Seongwoo.

In any case, everyone agreed on one point:

Lee Yugeon’s usual attitude was insincere.

And he really didn’t seem like he had any intention of debuting.

For now, let’s move on the assumption that Lee Yugeon is the Seon-gwija.

Since the system was still under maintenance, it looked like things like companion recruitment and viewing past timelines weren’t working.

So for now, the priority was simple:

Don’t let anything happen that would make Lee Yugeon miserable enough to want to regress out of frustration.

“In that case, maybe the best move is to get put on the third mission with him and keep an eye on him directly…”

Tomorrow was already the day they’d announce the third mission and the new ranks.

If I wanted to stop Lee Yugeon from pulling something sudden, the safest option was to keep him close enough to watch.

The problem was that this third mission was also incredibly important to me.

Even if Shouting to You takes first place, there’s no way they’ll just overlook the fact that I’m the reason the mid-check turned into emergency mode.

Once Episodes 3 and 4 aired, there would only be more people trying to drag me down.

If I wanted those trolls to shut up, I needed to put on a stage so undeniably good that everyone would have to admit it.

That way, even my fans would have something solid to defend me with.

At the very least, I wanted the people supporting me to be able to feel proud of the trainee they were rooting for.

And since there was a high chance I’d end up leader again this time too, I needed to create a stage that had both strong teamwork and strong quality…

By the time my thoughts reached that point, my head was starting to hurt.

“Ugh, whatever. I’ll think about it tomorrow after seeing the results. Seriously, am I allowed to be living this hard? Meanwhile that Seon-gwija bastard probably has it easy. How is this fair?”

When Thirteen came back, I was definitely going to squeeze something out of that little bastard.

At this point, enough was enough.

“Mom, the world keeps setting me up…”

It was one of those nights when I missed my mother.

And then the very next day, Kang Hajin thought:

The entire universe is setting me up.

There was no other explanation for this.

Thirteen had vanished, saying it was going to “check the system,” but clearly it had instead been stuffing my timeline full of extra suffering. Otherwise, this couldn’t possibly be happening.

Plans? What’s the point of making plans? Nothing ever goes according to plan anyway.

Once again, I carved my life philosophy deep into my bones:

Sometimes the only answer was to smash into reality first and deal with it later.

Just then, it seemed the practice-room cameras had finished being set up, because an assistant director stepped forward and called out loudly for everyone’s attention.

“Alright~ let me just do a quick headcount.”

“Yes.”

“Jung Siwoo, Kang Hajin, Lee Doha, Kim Wonho, Lee Yugeon… and Joo Eunchan. All six of you are here, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Great. We’ll start filming now, and PD-nim will be here shortly to go through the script, so please wait just a bit.”

I was screwed.

A high-quality stage with good teamwork?

Forget that.

We’d be lucky if nobody grabbed anyone else by the collar before we even got on stage.

I couldn’t grab the Seon-gwija by the collar, but somehow other people kept ending up in situations where they might grab each other’s collars instead.

And if you asked who on earth was insane enough to make a team like this—

astonishingly, the answer was:

everyone.

Pressing a hand to my forehead, I looked back on the mission-announcement recording from earlier.

“These are the new Wings ranks, reflecting the votes Desties have cast up through the first broadcast.”

‽

〜〚WINGS OF MIRO MAZE〛〜

Seo Taehyun
Jung Siwoo
Joo Eunchan

Dan Haru
Kim Wonho
Gong Seok
Jayden

‽

That much I expected.

Dropping to Feather rank had actually been welcome news.

I’d even congratulated Kim Wonho—who had probably risen in Wings rank thanks to escaping the maze and his pairing narrative with Lee Yugeon—by handing over my own Wings badge.

“Before we reveal the theme of the third mission, we’ll begin with team selection first.”

“There are currently three rooms prepared outside.”

“One by one, you will each choose one of those three rooms and enter it.”

“The choices will not be revealed to one another, and once a room reaches capacity, no more people may enter.”

Up to that point, it still hadn’t seemed too bad.

It was a common enough random-grouping method.

The real problem came next.

“However, the capacity of each room will be decided by the highest-ranked trainee inside that room.”

Right.

That was exactly the reason this utterly nightmarish combination had come into existence.