Chapter 105

Hajin decided to be honest.

"I'm… not usually like this, you know."

"……"

"Normally I'm good with words. I can talk people around — that's kind of my thing. Not much doesn't go the way I want."

Which was why, at first, he'd figured Yugeon would be easy too.

Coax him a bit, nudge him a little, soothe him just enough — it'd all be fine.

But Hajin's approach had failed at every single turn, and what those failed moments added up to was sitting right in front of him.

"But this time, no matter how I turn it over, I don't know. What I have to do to get on stage with you. No — honestly. I even started asking myself why I was going this hard to be on stage with you at all."

At some point, Taehyun had asked him the same thing.

Why are you going this far? We're not even that close, we don't really know each other — why go this far?

What had he said back then?

No — before that. Why had he actually been going this far?

'Just let it all go and regress — why not? Maybe next time there's an even better chance.'

Because of the quest?

Because he had to stop the regression?

Because he had to recruit a comrade and dig up a clue about the Selected Regressor?

—You actually think that?

—If it weren't for the regression, you wouldn't care whether Yugeon quit?

No — because building a stage together, this whole thing, was too good to give up.

Across every run he'd ever lived, the 'today' Kang Hajin — the human — had wanted most was this one, right now.

A single stage, built with talented, driven people pouring the hottest part of their youth into it.

He didn't want to lose it.

He didn't want to let it go.

And what Hajin wanted, desperately, was for Yugeon to feel the same way.

"I'd hate to waste it. Our stage."

"……"

"The stage we built together — it doesn't mean anything without you on it."

Hajin shut his mouth on that line. It was the first honest thing he'd offered, and the last desperate thing he'd say.

The two of them didn't speak for a long while. Yugeon looked like he was thinking hard, opened his mouth as if to say something, then hesitated, over and over.

At the end of that long silence, Yugeon's answer came back.

"…wow, when you put it that way, I've got nothing to say back to that."

"……"

"Obviously it's a waste. Honestly, practicing was fun. Fun enough that I quit my part-time work."

Hajin lifted his head. Out of the countless attempts he'd made, this was the first time he'd heard anything close to a yes. Yugeon looked at Hajin with a faint smile.

"But…. right now I can't really picture myself doing that stage."

"……"

"There's a live audience coming in this time, right. And I keep thinking — what are they gonna think when they see me, is anyone in there someone who cursed me and my family out…. Since it's not really my spot anyway, getting too attached is just gonna hurt more, is what I started thinking…. So yeah. That's why I'm just calling it here."

"……"

"Still — hearing that from you, hyung, feels good. Feels like I really was on a team with you for a bit."

"…of course you were on the team. What — should I ship you off to Seo Taehyun's team, then?"

"Hahaha! Ah, hell no. I still can't handle that kind of thing, it's too sappy."

Yugeon rose from his seat with a smile that looked like something had lifted off him.

"Thanks for the meal, hyung. …buy me another one sometime."

Leaving Hajin sitting there staring after him, Yugeon picked up the suitcase he'd parked beside him and walked out of the restaurant. Hajin could only watch his back go.

Yugeon left.

But Hajin didn't regress.

---

Yugeon walked out of the dorm, but no official dropout article went up. That was thanks to Suho, who — once Hajin filled him in — got in touch with Yugeon and made one last push.

Nothing like it had happened before.

—If you leave the company right now, there's no way we can protect you and your family. Even if you're going to quit — I'd like you to hold off, just until things quiet down a little.

Suho added that Yugeon should go home first, rest with the family that must've been shaken up, and think more carefully about withdrawing from the show or leaving the agency. Thankfully, Yugeon said okay.

"I told him to think it over, but you all know the schedule doesn't really give us that kind of room, right? Which is why I think your call carries the most weight here."

The production team, Ji Suho, and the Blue Flare team all gathered for an emergency meeting. If Yugeon dropped out at this point, Blue Flare would have to redo everything from the pre-recorded VCR to the stage direction.

"What's Yugeon saying?"

"That he needs more time to think. His younger siblings seem pretty rattled. Some jerk apparently dug up their personal info, right down to the home address. The company's taking separate measures on that end."

"S-so if we say we want to wait for Yugeon — you'd be willing to wait?"

The ones answering Wonho's question were PD Kwon Myeongeun and Writer Ko Sehwa.

"Three days. Three days is the most we can give. If Yugeon-ssi really does decide to drop out, the notice to the studio audience has to go out again too. Your filming has to be redone, everything's tight — beyond that we can't stretch it."

"Of course, that's three days on our end — Blue Flare also has to prepare a five-person version of the stage, so… you're all about to be twice as busy from here on out."

Let Yugeon go, or wait a little longer.

And if they waited and Yugeon didn't come back, those three days would be pure sunk cost.

Nobody was quick to speak. Hajin — his own answer already settled — was just waiting on his teammates.

The first to speak was Doha.

"In that case, I'd like to wait."

He said it like it was the obvious call. Doha added an explanation, level as ever.

"If Yugeon doesn't come back there's nothing to be done, but the second he does, our team's ready enough that we could take the stage tomorrow. I don't want to preemptively shut down a shot at hitting a hundred percent."

Wonho raised his hand right after in agreement.

"Me too. I want to wait too."

"You too, Wonho?"

"…I worked out this choreo with him. There's a lot in there only he can pull off — a lot of things I only got to finish because he was there. If Yugeon's okay with it, I want to finish this stage with him. No matter what."

"……"

"And…. part of why Yugeon got taken the wrong way — I'm in there too, aren't I. If me, Kangha-hyung, and Yugeon nail this stage together as a three-piece… those kinds of reactions might die down some too, right?"

You could tell Wonho had racked his brain to arrive at that answer. Just as the quiet in the room made him start to shrink a little, Eunchan nodded and raised his hand too.

"I want to wait too."

"…everyone. Think this through carefully. This isn't like waiting to go on a class trip with a friend you're close to."

Writer Ko said it flatly, but Eunchan's mind was made up.

"Even if Yugeon-hyung doesn't come, I've got the confidence to build a great stage."

"……"

"I just want to give him time. Hyung's going to need some too. Nobody can shrug off getting hurt. Whether it's your own fault or not."

Saying it, Eunchan looked at Hajin. Hajin — who'd been listening to his teammates in silence — felt the look and lifted his head.

"The last memory is always the one that sticks longest. I don't want Yugeon-hyung's last memory to be something like this. If he doesn't come back, I'll just take his rap part. The other hyungs can split all the vocal parts."

Eunchan's own 'last memory,' thankfully, hadn't been that bad. Before the clammy rain of running into Han Seongwoo came back to him, what surfaced first was the warm, hearty gamjatang he'd eaten with Hajin.

Eunchan wanted the same for Yugeon. It was a kindness he'd been taught by someone.

"…Hajin's already said he'd wait. I want to hear Siwoo's take too."

"Again — you are not obligated to say wait here. Siwoo-ssi, weigh it coldly and decide."

"That's right. Don't say yes just because you can't say no in this mood. Really think it through."

Suho and the production side hammered the point one more time at the last one left, Siwoo.

Of course, everyone in the room knew Siwoo — if the whole company said yes and his answer was no, he'd say no without flinching. But the pressure of the situation was another matter.

"……"

Everyone waited for Siwoo's answer.

And in that moment, Hajin was the only one who already knew what Siwoo was going to say.

"…so it's a unanimous vote from our team, then. Should we meet again in three days?"

Across every version of the loop, Siwoo had always stood beside Hajin and held onto Yugeon.

That one thing had never, ever changed.

'…ah.'

Hajin pressed his lip hard between his teeth.

Somehow, he felt like he might cry. He didn't know why.

---

Yugeon wasn't picking up his teammates' calls, so Suho took it on himself to pass along that they'd decided to wait three days. He said he had things to talk over with him about the current situation anyway, so he was going to head over in person, and Hajin nodded.

"…still not, right?"

"Right. Not yet."

"Good."

Ever since he'd learned Hajin had regressed countless times, Suho would sometimes ask still not, right? out of nowhere. Since Suho couldn't perceive regressions himself, he was probably just checking. Suho gave Hajin a pat on the shoulder.

"Let's wait it out, Hajin-ah. This stage of yours — I really want to see it too."

Leaving that behind, Suho headed out of the company to meet Yugeon. Hajin went back to the practice room. Whether Yugeon came back or not, they couldn't slack on prepping for the showcase.

Even if it was a future that would never arrive.

A day passed.

Yugeon didn't come.

But Hajin decided to be grateful just for the fact that a day had passed.

In earnest, clarification posts about Yugeon started going up online.

Some were from the company's PR team, but people who'd known Yugeon well were also writing good things about him.

Another day passed.

Social media lit up hot again.

Yugeon's younger sister, Yurang, had reactivated her account and posted directly.

handle: @u_luv_u name: Yurang [photo: a family photo of Yugeon, Yuho, Yurang, and grandpa together] Hi. I'm Lee Yurang, the younger sister of Lee Yugeon — trainee currently appearing on Ntv's Miro Maze. I couldn't hold my tongue any longer over the malicious rumors surrounding my brother and our family, so I'm writing this. I don't know my parents' faces. From as far back as I can remember, my family has been my grandpa, my older brother, me, and my twin younger brother. The four of us. That's it. My brother — the one supposedly out every night drinking and smoking with women on his arm? The brother who, the second school ended, would come pick me and my little brother up, spend the whole evening helping at Grandpa's shop, then head off to a late-night convenience-store shift, and after that clean the neighborhood bathhouse in the small hours — the same brother who'd come home so tired he could only crash? That same brother who loved dancing so much but couldn't afford a dance studio, so he took a shooting-videos gig at one, brought those videos home, and played them on loop every single day — that's the brother you all mean? …see more engagement: hearts 2,109

Every line of Yurang's post carried anger at the people who'd been tearing her brother down.

Once people got the real picture of Yugeon's circumstances, the mood flipped again, fast. And the second Miro's official 'legal action' notice went up, that flip picked up even more speed.

- this right here's why we said park it in neutral… all the ones spraying hate with zero thought back then, get out here and apologize where'd you all go - honestly I thought it was way too much. anyone could see it was a malicious cut-and-paste job, and using that to drag some 19-year-old kid like he's a criminal was seriously bizarre - the fabricated controversy post has over a thousand comments and check the view count on the clarification postㅋㅋㅋ

The posts that had been piling on Yugeon with hate, everyone getting their word in, dropped out of sight fast. The people who'd written those posts obviously still had to be occupying the same corner of the internet, but every comment under the clarification posts was people claiming they'd stayed neutral or that they'd been cheering for Yugeon from the start.

Yugeon still hadn't come back.

But Hajin was no longer shaken. He just waited quietly for tomorrow. Desperately.