Chapter 116

…the aftereffects when I wake up are a little scary, though.

He honestly couldn't figure out how, last time, he'd just endured a cracked shin. If even pain he hadn't experienced yet was already this scary in advance —

Face not exactly enthusiastic, Hajin softly murmured the entry keyword he'd settled on last time.

"I hate mint choco."

Even though he'd been shoveling down mint-choco ice cream just yesterday.

And even though he and Seo Taehyun had ended up in an all-out fight because Taehyun kept screaming that he'd rather die than sit at a table with a mint-choco-Parang.

And even though Eunchan, sighing and asking why on earth they had to fight over something like this, had just ordered two tubs of ice cream and settled it.

Yep. The saying — if money can't solve it, ask yourself if you have enough money — really does check out.

To think he'd already said, twice now, a sentence he'd expected never to say his entire life.

With that thought, Hajin drifted off to sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in that still-new but slowly familiarizing space.

The moment he stepped into the space he'd built himself, a small firework went off with a pang!

"Ah, geez, you scared me!"

Before he could recover from the surprise welcome, in the empty spot where the screen had descended last time, something unfurled from above with a whoosh. A huge banner with tightly-packed lettering, character by character.

label: System Error Recovery Notice Hello, this is Time Administrator 13. We would like to first extend our sincere apologies for the significant disruption the recent 'Fixed Regressor' System error has caused to your use of the System and to your daily life. Said error was discovered when Administrator 13, entranced by the Fixed Regressor's spectacular athletic performance on field day, took a brief moment aside to run routine System maintenance and review information regarding the Returner, at which point…

A drawn-out, wordy apology letter.

The summary version: I'm f-ing sorry and I made sure to bring proper compensation on my own, so please, just hear me out before you rip into me.

Wasn't planning on giving it any grief this time, though.

But if it was offering compensation on its own, no real reason to refuse. If anything, might as well squeeze more out of it.

Let's mess with it a little.

Hajin sank deep into the sofa, and with an expression full of disappointment — face rueful — dragged a large hand over his face.

"Haa…. Thirteen."

…………?

"You."

Eyes and vocal cords fully loaded with melodrama, Hajin — like the regret-arc male lead in a heavy angst fic — asked in a trembling voice.

"Are you okay?"

(…caught off guard by the Fixed Regressor's response, watching for now) ( O_O)

"They said it was a System problem, and I thought something had happened to you too…. That our last time might've been some crappy jokgu match — you have no idea how much I…!"

The acting — the swell of emotion, the tremble in the voice — was top-tier.

Made him think, even to himself, that maybe he should be doing acting instead of idol work.

"But you show up and it's straight to apology notes, compensation…. Ha, is that all we were to each other? The kind where the second we caught the Selected Regressor you'd yank my permissions without mercy, and I'd never see or hear you again? Something wrong with you, something wrong with me — it all just gets filed away as errors and compensation?"

Wait. Talking about this is actually starting to piss me off a bit?

He'd only started this to tease Thirteen since they hadn't seen each other in a while — but as he talked, he'd gotten weirdly into it.

Weren't we a fairly tight fate-bound team? Am I just an outsourced Selreg hunter to you, is that it?

Hajin — who'd hit the gas on a weirdly specific point — actually settled in and started airing every grievance properly.

"I'm serious — originally, right? — I was gonna welcome you the second you showed up, tell you you've had it rough, huh? — talk through all the hard stuff we each went through, openly, all of that. Fine, okay. If that's how you're gonna play it, I can go stiff too. Go on, tell me about your compensation. If I don't like it, I will — huh? — I'll file a proper complaint."

Somehow genuinely put out now, Hajin started grumbling. Went so far as to fold his arms and go stone-faced.

"……?"

By this point, Thirteen — who should have had some kind of comeback ready — was silent.

What. Did I take the joke too far?

"…hey, Thirteen. Say something. Why the scary silence."

But no answer came.

Sheepish now, Hajin scratched at his jaw and called Thirteen once more.

"Hey. It freaks me out when you don't answer, I'm telling you. Say something."

The nightmare of Retty resurfacing, tension and wariness instinctively crept up. In a space so quiet he could hear himself swallow, at last a welcome blue window appeared.

Typing... Typing...

Like the typing (…) indicator that pops up when someone's writing a text message, it appeared and disappeared several times.

Then some kind of brick appeared right in front of Hajin.

"Wh-what."

No, not a brick — it was —

if you're gonna go THERE i've got plenty to say myself mr kang hajin your body is actually okay, right, why are humans so bullheaded if you tumble down the stairs and crack your leg you go to the HOSPITAL who on earth lies in an emergency stairwell for 3 hours saying "eh i'll just regress anyway" what kind of lunatic does that if something happened to mr kang hajin over this selreg-catching business how do you think we time administrators would feel have you ever considered the time administrators' feelings no you haven't have you what a selfish person on top of everything else on field day we barely found a trace of the returner you have no idea how shaken i was even now just thinking about it makes cold sweat pour down my back and then on top of that if mr kang hajin loses his grip too how am i supposed to focus on work i ask you but okay at least this time we finally got a clue about the returner and got things resolved lucky for us but mr kang hajin if you pull one more of those "threatening someone with a knife" stunts you just try it i felt so genuinely sorry that i lugged in every kind of compensation i could scrounge together and now what you're SULKING if i hadn't brought them all in bundles you wouldn't have let me off the hook would you you brat...

...it was Thirteen's pent-up wail of grievance.

S-sorryyyyyy.

Hajin bit down on his lip. Uncrossed the legs he'd crossed and unfolded his arms.

Something about the moment felt like it demanded a posture of respect.

In the end, it was only after a long stretch of soothing Thirteen down that Kang Hajin could start a proper conversation.

And only after he'd made an actual promise that no matter what happened, he'd never again treat his own body like a broken ball-joint doll.

"Alright, well. Good to see you again either way."

Agreed! (ⓝuⓝ)-☆

Having wrapped up what had been, in its own way, a fairly intense reunion with Thirteen, Hajin sat up straight. There was a lot he needed to hear, and a lot he needed to say.

"First — let's leave the compensation talk for later. I want the situation explanation first."

Figured you'd say that, so I've already prepared it!

With a chorururuk mechanical whirr, the familiar PPT appeared.

label: Report on the Cause and Resolution of the Fixed Regressor System Error Presenter: Time Administrator 13 ※ Warning ※ This report contains numerous statements defaming and disparaging 'the Returner.' (Please be advised that the raw frustration and rage present at the time of writing will be transmitted without any filtering.)

…quite the title slide — plenty to unpack there.

But Hajin didn't push back. Instinct told him that today, poking Thirteen the wrong way would spell disaster.

With a click, the slide advanced to a section heading: 〈01. What is the Mental Care System?〉

Before the incident briefing, allow me to explain your current System structure, Mr. Kang Hajin. "Kang Hajin": you, in a normal timeline with no experience of regression. "Fixed Regressor": you across accumulated past timelines — the n-th regression round you. As you speculated last time, in our Time Administration records, you currently have two personas registered separately, Mr. Kang Hajin. There's the base profile — human 'Kang Hajin' — and Kang Hajin the 'Fixed Regressor,' who has experienced regressions across countless timelines. The Mental Care System's role is to help that 'Fixed Regressor' persona integrate smoothly into the 'base persona.'

Click. Scene change.

Scenes from Hajin's repeated past runs — when the Mental Care System had malfunctioned and he'd let go of the reins of reason — flashed by like a film reel.

As you've already experienced firsthand, there's tremendous risk in a human perceiving timelines. You know, don't you — what 'I'll just regress anyway' can lead to.

"…gah, I already said I won't do it anymore."

As if he couldn't stand to even look at it, Thirteen quickly whisked away the photo of Hajin lying in the emergency stairwell with a cracked leg.

Never do that again! (口口十)

"…yep."

With a whew sigh effect (=3), Thirteen carried on.

Anyway — that's why, when things like this happen, we normally handle it by simply deleting the special persona. A human perceiving regression isn't good for the human themselves, and even if we delete it, the base persona remains intact, so there's little disturbance to the timeline. If the work of catching the Selected Regressor and the Returner had progressed just a little sooner, we were going to restore your timeline that way as well, Mr. Kang Hajin.

He'd heard this once before.

The bit about how they were originally going to find the Selreg, stop the regressions, and then wipe Hajin's memory.

So that's what that meant.

Fair enough. Once he'd forgotten his regression memories, he'd be exactly the twenty-year-old Kang Hajin he remembered being.

And given that human choices mostly flowed in similar directions anyway, it did seem like the right prescription.

But as you can see, this is where things ended up. We failed, and you're the one helping us out. So in this case… we needed a process, through the Mental Care System, to integrate things so your base persona could accept and digest everything that's happened up to this point. Even more so because you, Mr. Hajin — in the timeline where you'd perceived the regression — also had the mental debuff known as 'Drift and Wander mode.' That made the Mental Care System all the more critical. Suppose, by any chance, you'd been unable to accept the endless regressions and timeline crossings and had kept repeating choices to give up on life, as you did this time. And if that had been repeated countless times…. we might have wound up in a situation we could no longer intervene in.

Only now did Hajin understand why Thirteen had been so angry, so insistent that he take care of his body.

Sure, there was probably the affection from their history together too, but….

My mental state really had been in serious trouble. What kept me going was Mental Care propping me up and the fact that my personality's naturally pretty positive to begin with.

The Kang Hajin of twenty had been more stubborn than he was now, and brimming with confidence.

Even after giving up on being a trainee, he'd found a different dream, and it was around then that he was making new friends he'd stay close with for years. It was also around then that he'd more or less overcome the bullying trauma.

So it wasn't an exaggeration to say that Hajin, now, had held up this well thanks to '20-year-old Kang Hajin.'

Fair…. At twenty-nine, I really wasn't in my right mind.

Back then he'd had no drive for anything, no confidence he could pull anything off, no courage to face the world again. With no confidence in himself, he hadn't wanted to see anyone; and not seeing anyone, he'd only burrowed deeper into himself.

If he happened to meet someone and got a how've you been these days?, having no answer just made him more depressed.

Just a few years earlier, he'd been the person who always shone among people — and knowing that made the disconnect feel that much bigger.

Only now could Hajin properly understand and see the state he'd been in.

"Thanks. Without Mental Care, I probably would've been coffin-bound long ago."

…………. Not really the case.

He'd meant every word — but somehow Thirteen didn't seem happy about them at all. Then, unusually hesitant, the typing (…) indicator popped up several times again.

…I'm sorry. The truth is, you ending up like this — that's on us, Mr. Kang Hajin.

Soon, stiff white text he couldn't quite make sense of appeared over the blue window.

"What? What are you talking about all of a sudden."

At the very beginning — when we first realized your timeline had gotten entangled with the Selected Regressor's, Mr. Kang Hajin. We should have deleted the regressed persona right then and kept you from being pulled in. If we'd just done that… at the very least, you wouldn't have driven yourself this far, Mr. Hajin.

Wondering what that meant, Hajin didn't press for clarification and waited for Thirteen's next line.

For now, he wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say.

The first time we noticed your timeline was the day you took the college entrance exam, Mr. Hajin. At the branching point where you made a choice completely different from your original one, time energy similar to the Selected Regressor's was generated.

The 'original' Hajin had prepared to retake the year early and gotten into college through early admissions.

By contrast, in his first regression, he'd let go of any lingering wishes from the start and focused on getting in as a first-time test-taker without retaking the year — clearly a different choice from his previous life.

But in that instant, the next regression happened right after, and we were able to confirm your timeline was entangled with the Selected Regressor's. If we'd retrieved the Regressor persona then and there, there would've been no problem…. But we didn't.

He could feel Thirteen hesitating. The typing (…) indicator appeared a few more times.

…We thought — through you, a regression-aware Mr. Hajin — we might be able to get clues about the Selected Regressor. At the time, we were fighting tooth and nail to track down the Selected Regressor and the Returner, but our investigation wasn't showing the progress our efforts deserved. So — we came to the conclusion that if we watched another Regressor emitting time energy similar to the Selected Regressor's — you, Mr. Hajin — we might turn up something.

Just a little.

Get just a little clue and put things back the way they were. That had been the initial thinking.

The Time Administrators just hadn't known.

That the Selected Regressor would turn out to be such a fragile little sunfish.

I'm sorry. If we hadn't made the decision back then to use you to track down the Selected Regressor, Mr. Hajin… none of this would have happened.

Once again, Thirteen apologized.

Feeling almost as if he'd just stumbled onto some hidden-birth-parent reveal about himself, Hajin tapped his finger against the sofa, organizing his thoughts.

Once he had a decent handle on the situation, Hajin asked in a calm voice.

"So — did you get any clues?"

…I'm sorry to say it like this — but yes, we made significant progress. And in resolving this incident, we discovered even more. I'd like to share that content today as well. I've obtained all the permissions.

"Right…."

Nodding quietly at that, Hajin — voice graver this time — asked.

"Then — so — what happens after you catch the Selected Regressor? Do I just disappear back to normal? No — 'disappear' is a weird way to put it…. I mean, do my memories all just get erased?"

Being the only one to remember past timelines had been suffocatingly lonely, but that didn't mean he wanted every experience and memory he'd stacked up through the regressions to just get thrown out.

Various thoughts crossed Hajin's mind.

Part of him wanted to let twenty-year-old Kang Hajin fully live through what he was meant to live through.

The other part didn't want to just throw away everything twenty-nine-year-old Kang Hajin had experienced.

"After you find the Selected Regressor and stop the regressions — when the 'Fixed Regressor' persona of mine disappears…. the me at that point is 'twenty-year-old' Kang Hajin, right? Not the me right now. Won't the people around me find that weird, then?"

To that question, Thirteen answered calmly.

In your case, Mr. Hajin, the integration between the 'Fixed Regression' persona and the 'base persona' has already progressed considerably. The Drift and Wander mode that had been active in the past timelines has also been deactivated, thanks to your realizations in this life. So when everything is over, we intend to give you a choice, Mr. Hajin. SAVE OR DELETE Either live on as your 'base persona,' having absorbed a significant portion of the stats and experience gained through 'Fixed Regression,' Or fully integrate the 'Fixed Regression' persona into your 'base persona,' and live on as the Hajin you are now. We intend to follow your decision.

Hajin stared blankly at the choice window that had appeared before him.

This was something he'd need to think through calmly, going forward.

Nodding, Hajin gave a cool smile.

"Alright, then. That'll do as making up for it."

Are you truly okay with that…? You got dragged into this mess because of us….

"What can you do. When I was working at my company, if I couldn't find a good angle to edit from and the deadline was closing in, I felt like dying too."

Hajin shrugged and settled comfortably back into the sofa.

"And, well — if you'd used me and still gotten no clues, I'd be steaming — but that's not the case, right? I've had a lot of realizations living this life too…. gained a lot from it. Let's call it even."

…… o□□□□)˚·o You truly are a good person, Mr. Kang Hajin…!

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get on with the briefing. We've got a long road ahead."

Patting Thirteen — who was pouring out fountains of tear effects — a bit, Hajin nodded with a laugh.

At that, Thirteen — finally getting the tears under control — sniffled (must've done an update, since it now had audio support too), and click — moved on to the next slide.