Chapter 97

"You sure you're okay? Hyung, your face is way too pale right now."

Startled, Taehyun grabbed Hajin's shoulder and looked him over. Haru — who'd been about to drop off — had apparently woken at the sound too; he sat up slowly, watching the two of them with eyes full of worry.

"…just haven't been sleeping. Guess it's stress. I'm fine, really."

"How am I supposed to not worry. Someone who was perfectly fine a second ago was just about to pass out on me."

"Not passing out. I'm really okay — got a little dizzy for a second, that's it. I'm fine."

Whatever he was saying, Hajin was still riding out a pain that felt like something was drilling deep into some part of him.

Thank god the mood light was the only thing on — it was dark. If Taehyun or Haru had gotten a look at Hajin under bright light, they'd have insisted on waking the manager hyungs and hauling him to a hospital right that second.

But at this moment, what was on the system window floating in front of him was a bigger problem than the pain in his body.

"At least take some medicine. Where does it hurt?"

"…let me sleep on it, and if it still hurts when I wake up, I'll go to a hospital. Deal?"

"……"

"Come on, I'm not going to die. Get inside and sleep. It's late."

"What about you, hyung."

"Once you two go in I'll lie right here and sleep."

"……"

"For real. Promise."

Hajin threw the full weight of the acting chops he'd used to swindle plenty of people over the years into reassuring Taehyun and Haru. The two of them still watched Hajin's face with worry, but if only to let him rest sooner, they had no choice but to clear out.

The moment Taehyun ushered Haru into their room, Hajin stretched out on the couch and took another proper look at the system window in front of him.

title: S?n_le Q$es$SSt *3. Cömpleteplete t^he thir!d miss@ion s%uccessfulSSSly witwith Lㅣㅣee YuㅌgeYugeon * Sys@tem und@924der att!!!ack fㅐrom the Retㅍurner Pleaㅑㅑse be care!ffful ** rap@!id res@tore in@?1 progress On failure: — reg/(?ress?ion prob@!ability 10000000%%%%%% j@!umps

The first system window he'd seen in a while — it was like broken graphics, corrupted here and there in ugly ways. But thankfully, the important content was still legible even through the mangled text.

〈Complete the third mission successfully together with Lee Yugeon〉

〈System under attack by the Returner〉

〈Please be careful〉

〈Rapid restore in progress〉

And….

〈On failure — regression probability 100%〉

'Why? Why now, of all times?'

If he didn't finish the third stage successfully with Lee Yugeon, he'd regress. Period.

Reading that, Hajin felt his heart really pick up speed this time.

'Slow down. Think it through. That Retty bastard clearly said the Selreg regresses because they want to be happy.'

Unable to bear the enormous misfortune that had landed in their life, they'd enjoy only the happiness they could handle, then escape back through regression. That was the pattern of the Selected Regressor as Hajin understood it.

'Even right when I first walked into Miro the regression probability was 85%. And while I was clearing out CP Yoon and Han Seongwoo, no separate regression-probability warning came up.'

Meaning: the results Hajin was producing had been satisfying. So at this moment, for the third mission suddenly to be the price of stopping a regression—

'So if I fail the third mission, they get unhappy? Unhappy enough that at this point they'd want to throw it all in and go back? Why the hell? What's any of it got to do with them?'

Heat rising fast, Hajin drew a deep breath — as deep as he could — to keep himself steady.

'That Retty bastard might be pulling something again. Feels like the reason Thirteen can't come back right now is that Retty asshole too.'

Tomorrow I meet Lee Yugeon. And we talk.

Whether Lee Yugeon was the Selected Regressor or not — for the sake of this quest alone, he had to lock down every suspicion he had about Yugeon. Forcing his uneasy heart to settle, Hajin willed himself toward the sleep that clearly wasn't coming easy.

---

But the next morning, Hajin didn't get to meet Yugeon.

"He didn't come back?"

"No, and he's not picking up either…."

Lee Yugeon hadn't returned to the dorm since going out yesterday. By the look of it, sending Hajin the song-selection material had been his last contact.

"Sanghyeok-hyung. You don't have anything like an emergency contact for Lee Yugeon? Family numbers, that kind of thing?"

"Uh, well…. I had one on file, but either it's outdated or it was entered wrong — comes up as an invalid number…."

The New Talent Development team staffer in charge of Lee Yugeon clearly didn't have a proper grip on the situation either — his eyes were darting around, dodging Hajin's. Even day-to-day, he was the type who couldn't be trusted to handle trainee management or send out notices on time; complaints about him had been circulating among the trainees for a while now.

'Gonna have to tell Ji Suho to clean house at the NTD team.'

Not knowing the emergency contact for a trainee under your care — how does that make sense? Looking at the staffer, who seemed even more flustered than Hajin himself, Hajin barely bit back the urge to raise his voice.

The anxiety that at this rate he might just regress with nothing he could do about it had turned his head into a total mess. Maybe the Mental Care System had also taken damage when the System got wrecked; he'd been having trouble thinking straight since a while ago. From the moment he woke up, all his memories and feelings from his past life had been bleeding together every which way.

"Hyung. We'll go look for Yugeon ourselves for now, so you please get in touch with the production team."

"Huh? C-contact them? Me?"

"…we were supposed to film practice content later, and Lee Yugeon isn't here right now. Are we filming without Lee Yugeon? You can't just air him going AWOL on us. Obviously you've got to postpone the shoot or something. You're the one in charge of Lee Yugeon."

"A-ah. Yeah, right, of course."

He knew the guy hadn't been at the company long and was still green, but Hajin right now wasn't calm enough to weigh those circumstances one by one.

Enduring what his body was doing had made his words come out a little sharp. The staffer — who'd been flustered pulling out his phone — seemed to belatedly take offense at that, and turned a wounded look on Hajin.

"But Hajin, hearing you say all that just now sits pretty badly with me. I'm an adult, and I'm staff here. Is that really how you should be talking to me right now?"

Green at the job, and even worse in attitude on top of it. The usual Hajin would have offered a passable apology and let it go, but not today. Today was not the time.

"Then hurry up and do the job you should be doing, hyung. Instead of standing around like this."

"Excuse me? Now that's genuinely rude of you."

"Hyung, you walked out yesterday before our filming had even wrapped and never came back, right. Which is why you had no idea Lee Yugeon left the company the second filming ended and never returned to the dorm. And I haven't said a word to you about any of that."

"……"

"Right now, I've got a lot I want to say and I'm holding it in."

The Hajin the staffer knew was only ever the Hajin who wore a pleasant smile and treated every staff member kindly.

So when that same Hajin — for the first time — stepped up to him with his face set hard and his voice sunk low, the staffer felt a pressure he'd never imagined and instinctively took a step back.

But — fortunately or unfortunately — Hajin didn't get to unload on the staffer any further. Because Siwoo, who'd caught wind of the situation and come running late, stepped between them and stopped him.

"Kang Hajin, calm down. What's with you?"

"……"

"Eunchan-ah, take him back to the room. Hajin's burning up. Feels like a fever, so get him back, get some medicine in him, and put him to bed. Quick."

"Y-yes!"

"Wonho, Doha — go ask the other guys if anyone's seen Lee Yugeon."

"Yep. Doha-hyung, let's go."

"And you lot out there, get to your practice rooms. Stop hovering trying to see what's going on with somebody else's team."

Siwoo cleaned up the situation in an instant. By rights, of course, that was what the staffer standing right there should have been doing. But the staffer stayed put, hadn't managed to get a word out, was just watching it all play out.

Watching Eunchan support Hajin out of the practice room, Siwoo turned his eyes to the staffer in front of him. He quickly composed the coldness that had briefly slipped into his gaze, then took hold of the staffer's shoulder and spoke in a kind voice.

"Hajin's been feeling a bit off since yesterday, and now Yugeon's gone missing today too, so I think he's just on edge. You understand, right?"

Not a tone that was asking for understanding — an order to understand. But the staffer, whose spirit had already been broken once, missed the subtle nuance. Reassured by Jung Siwoo's kind voice and warm manner, he just nodded hurriedly.

"Haa, I mean, I know. Sorry I missed it because I was busy, but…. Yugeon acting on impulse isn't exactly new either — honestly I'm at a loss too."

Excuses all the way to the end. He'd even quietly nudged the blame onto the trainee he was supposed to be protecting. Jung Siwoo lifted the hand that had been patting the staffer's shoulder and stepped back a pace. He was on the quicker side when it came to sorting the trustworthy from the not.

"Right, I get you're busy. Ah, I'll be the one to contact the production team. You've probably got a lot of other things on your plate… go take care of your work."

"That'd really be a big help, thanks. I'll go check on some more Yugeon-related stuff too."

"Sure. Head in."

Give him an out and he takes it fast. 'Staff' or not, he was only two or three years older than Siwoo. Probably terrified that if word got up to the higher-ups he'd catch hell. Siwoo, exasperated, put in a call somewhere.

"Team Lead. Hi, it's Siwoo. Yeah, something's come up with our team, so I'm calling in a hurry."

The person on the other end was Team Lead Ji Suho — currently in charge of overseeing Miro Maze and the planning of the next male idol lineup.

No reason I should take responsibility for a mistake he can't cover for himself.

Siwoo's face went cold as he swept his hair back.

---

"Hyung, I said take the medicine already."

"I told you I don't have a fever."

"Take the medicine. You said you were sick in the middle of the night too."

"When did you even hear that."

Eunchan had disregarded Hajin's insistence that he was fine and stubbornly hauled him all the way back to the room, finally getting him onto the bed. Then, in the firmest possible manner, he thrust a fever reducer and a cup of water at him. The determination that Hajin was not taking a single step out of this room until he'd swallowed it was blazing.

"Siwoo-hyung said you were burning up earlier too. Hot to the touch, he said."

"…that wasn't that kind of hot. That was him telling me to cool down because I was so mad. I told you, I'm really fine."

Hajin's state had settled a lot on the walk back to the room. But Eunchan didn't look like he believed a word of it. After a long back-and-forth, Hajin was the one who ended up backing down.

"Okay. Fine, I'll take the medicine. I'll take it, and then I'm going out for one lap around the building."

"By yourself?"

"Just going to clear my head. If I feel bad I swear I'll come straight back and lie down."

"…for real?"

Only after reassuring Eunchan — who kept flashing him suspicious looks — several times over did Hajin manage to get out of the room.

"……"

Hajin could feel for himself that his own head was in a pretty tight corner right now. Regression 100%. The words wouldn't leave his mind. And on top of all that, Yugeon disappearing too.

'…he hasn't got sasaengs on him yet, right? If somebody starts a "heard from a friend" rumor somewhere, it really might not be recoverable.'

Hajin absolutely had to finish the third mission successfully with Yugeon. If the fact that Yugeon had gone AWOL got out on the internet, turning public opinion back around on him wasn't going to be easy.

'Have to find him before this blows up. That kid — his face stands out, and if someone spots him somewhere….'

That was when a hand landed firmly on Hajin's shoulder.

"Hyung!"

"……! Ah, Dan Haru."

Curly-headed Haru, a yellow hoodie that looked just like him pulled up over his head, was looking up at Hajin.

"Hyung, are you okay? You were sick yesterday."

"Huh? Ah, yeah. I'm fine. Where are you off to?"

"Um, uh… to buy Taehyun-hyung's ice cream. Hyung, want to come with me?"

Apparently Haru hadn't caught wind of the Yugeon business yet — he only brought up yesterday, worry all over his face. Then, bright as anything, he asked Hajin to join him on 'Operation Restore Seo Taehyun's Ice Cream.'

"The ice cream's, like, a limited edition or something, so I've got to go past the big intersection to find it. It's kind of far to go alone…."

"……"

"If you don't want to, I can go by myself…."

"…nah. Sure. Let's go."

Watching Haru shuffle backward hesitantly, Hajin nodded on impulse. A bit of walking would probably sort out his head and settle him down.

'In my current state, second I see that Lee Yugeon bastard's face I might grab him by the collar.'

…first thing, get some sanity back. Hajin clenched his jaw and drew a breath.