"…What is this?"
Everything around me was frozen, like time itself had stopped.
My body was fixed midair, half-suspended just before I could tumble down the stairs.
Not only that—Kim Min-gi's face, the moment he shoved me, was locked in place as if taxidermied, utterly unmoving.
…"Life at a crossroads"?
I stared blankly at the window floating in front of me. The translucent pane—straight out of a game system—showed the image of a giant lottery-draw machine, the kind you'd see in a Lo**o drawing. Beneath the caption sat a single button, practically begging to be pressed.
A button gleaming in flashing gold.
As if bewitched, I pressed it.
And—
"...!"
The round, marble-like balls inside the huge drawing machine began to whirl and mix.
Soon, one was drawn out. It burst into light and unfurled before my eyes.
『Guaranteed Lucky Roulette: 1 Use』
Turn your misfortune into fortune!
Use it now and seize the fate you want!
Use?
YES◀ / NO
"…Use."
I didn't really understand what was happening, but the word slipped out of me. And at the same time, the frozen world began to move again.
Kim Min-gi's stiff expression resumed, my body hanging in midair started to fall—and then—
The change registered fast.
"…Huh?"
"...!"
Because the scene in front of me flipped in an instant.
When I came to, the body that should have been pitching headfirst down the stairs had been shoved toward the wall. And in the spot where I'd been—
"Uaaagh!"
Thud-thump!
—Kim Min-gi tumbled down the stairs instead.
"I heard Min-gi hyung messed up his leg and needs a cast for two months?"
"He was saying he'd go on Design Your Idol—looks totally screwed now."
"Won't he miss the month-end evaluation too?"
I kept stretching while the other trainees whispered. They kept sneaking glances at me like they wanted me to add something, but I refused to even look their way.
Because I knew if I said the wrong thing at a time like this, I'd become the gossip too. And since I was the last one with injured Kim Min-gi, I had to be even more careful with my words.
…Two months, huh.
Exactly the same diagnosis I'd been given before I came back.
I clicked my tongue, looking at my leg—perfectly fine, not even a sprain or a hairline crack. Whatever trick this was, the accident that should have happened to me had moved to Kim Min-gi.
If nothing else changes, he won't be able to join the month-end evaluation, and there's a good chance he'll get booted just like I was back then.
The miserable fate that should have been mine had shifted onto him.
"…Status window."
At my whisper, a translucent pane popped up before my eyes.
『 Won Yu-ha』
Specialty (Singing): B-
Specialty (Dance): C
Charm (Looks): B+
Charm (Aura): B
Talent (Expression): C
Talent (Focus): C-
Stamina (Body): D-
Stamina (Mind): D-
Luck: 30 points
Base Trait: Regression
I realized I could call up a "status window" after Min-gi fell down the stairs. While I'd called an ambulance to take the unconscious bastard to the hospital and was waiting for help, an "Achievement" notification had floated up.
『Achievement Complete!』
You avoided misfortune and seized the fate that was originally yours.
Reward: Title acquired
Luck +20 added
Status window now available
Stats can be upgraded
Lucky Roulette opened
※ You can check the title's effects in the status window.
The explanation and stats were very game-system-like. Just as the achievement window described, when I awkwardly muttered "status window," the system pane appeared.
I stared at the window quantifying "Won Yu-ha" with mixed feelings. The more I looked, the more tangled my thoughts became.
…Let's sort this out again.
First of all, I should be dead.
I fell into the river; if nothing special had happened, I probably died. I considered whether I might be unconscious and dreaming.
But everything is far too vivid for that.
When had my life started to go off the rails?
When I was abandoned the moment I was born? When the adoption that was supposed to happen fell through and I was left at the orphanage? When I finally did get adopted, only for the family to blow apart?
It was hard to pick just one when, objectively, they were all the kind of stories that make you think, "Ah, a tragic backstory." But if I had to choose—
—"Mom, Dad! Aaagh…!"
—it would be when even my adoptive parents passed away.
They were good people. By twelve, they say your brain's already "too grown," and you slip down the adoption list; even so, they adopted me and did everything they could to raise me well.
After my adoptive father's once-prosperous business went under—honestly, since I wasn't their biological child, they could have treated me like a burden.
"We have to take responsibility for our Yu-ha to the very end."
But their love never changed.
Which made their deaths hurt all the more.
Cause of death: a car accident. One summer when I was nineteen, they were on their way to pick me up after practice when a dump truck hit them, and their lives ended.
Left alone, I wandered for a while. At the time, I was a fourth-year trainee; I'd even dropped out of high school to focus on training for debut.
But after my parents' deaths, pulling myself together wasn't easy. I couldn't sleep or eat. Depression set in, and of course my condition tanked.
Just then—when I'd slipped out of the debut lineup and was steadily breaking down—the company gave me one last chance.
"Yu-ha, try going on this."
Design Your Idol. A survival program from the country's top music broadcaster, made exclusively for agency trainees.
These days lots of survival shows use similar concepts, but back then the idea of trainees from different agencies signing a short-term contract and promoting as a single group felt fresh.
Because of that, some companies backed out, seeing it as a risky gamble; but mid- and small-sized agencies hungry for exposure and clout jumped in.
Among them, the only major to raise its hand was my agency, KRM, which drew public attention from the planning stages.
KRM didn't need the broadcast exposure, but it decided to send trainees to mend fences with A-Net, the production company behind Design Your Idol—the two had been locked in a long-running cold war.
The CEO needed to do A-Net a favor; thanks to that, I was given a spot on Design Your Idol.
Among trainees who hadn't made the debut team, many were desperate enough to cling to pant legs for a chance on that show. Once a debut team was set, there might not be another chance for years.
I don't remember how I felt when I got the offer. I wasn't in any state to judge whether it was a good opportunity or a bad one I'd have to shoulder the risk for.
I did know this much: once you're out of the debut lineup, this is the only road left. So there was nothing to do but accept.
Except—
"Yu-ha, give it to me. Let me have it."
That's when Kim Min-gi, who'd been cut from the debut lineup along with me, pleaded.
"You know, right? If I don't debut this time, it's over for me. I mean, I don't know if going on this will lead to a debut. But I want to at least grab the chance. You know how desperate I am."
I had just turned twenty; Min-gi was about to turn twenty-four. For a trainee, that's basically the end of the line.
"I'm sorry, hyung. I can't give it up."
But I was just as desperate.
If I didn't debut, I was nothing. I no longer had a family to go back to, and I had no dream if I wasn't an idol. This was all I had.
"Selfish bastard."
I turned at Min-gi's voice. Because we were in the same boat, because I understood that feeling better than anyone, a faint guilt prickled at me. But I couldn't let this chance slip.
Then—
"Aaagh!"
—he refused to give up. On the stairs, he shoved my back and sent me tumbling.
I rolled once down the flight and hit the ground, and then blacked out. When I opened my eyes, my leg was broken.
With two months in a cast, I obviously couldn't take part in the survival program that was about to start.
"What happened? How did you fall down the stairs?"
"..."
Manager Kwon, who handled the trainees at the time, asked me, but I couldn't answer. The place where Min-gi and I had been talking was the stair landing trainees used to sneak food—no CCTV. Naturally, there was no evidence.
Min-gi said he'd been comforting me and I'd missed my footing and fallen. He even squeezed out tears, saying he felt guilty for not catching me.
If I'd told the company, "Min-gi did it," would anything have changed?
The higher-ups and the trainees were already under Min-gi's sway. An accusation with no proof would be useless.
More than anything, I no longer had the stamina. The moment I realized the survival show was out of reach, I decided to give up on everything.
So I never told the full story of what happened, and the bastard went on Design Your Idol in my place with no pushback at all.
And to put it in one word—he blew up.
Design Your Idol was a smash. Like the scattered shards of a certain orb from a famous anime, idol fans, previously split into countless pieces, left their home bases and fell for Dear-Idol. With each episode, the fandom only grew.
In the end, Dear-Idol became an unprecedented hit and birthed an idol group that broke records from debut.
Kim Min-gi was one of them.
Around that time, I… debuted with LIGHTNING.
We debuted in the same year, but the gap between Dear-Idol alumni and other rookie groups was beyond heaven and earth. No group could compete with them, and LIGHTNING wasn't even in the same league to begin with.
While I kept falling—lower and lower—Kim Min-gi climbed—higher and higher.
As time passed, I stopped feeling hatred toward him. Emptiness, self-reproach, a touch of self-loathing took its place.
And only one fantasy swelled in my heart.
If I had been there.
If I had seized that chance. If I'd kept my head and dodged Min-gi's hand. If I hadn't fallen—if I had been the one to go on Design Your Idol…
"…What the hell?"
Nothing around me moved, as if it had been frozen solid.
My body was locked in place, half-suspended in the air just before I tumbled down the stairs.
Not only that—Kim Min-gi's expression as he pushed me was fixed without the slightest change, like a mounted specimen.
…"Life at a crossroads"?
I stared blankly at the window floating in front of me. The translucent, game-like pane showed a giant prize-draw machine—the kind you'd see at a Lo**o drawing—and beneath the caption sat a single button, practically begging to be pressed.
A button gleaming in flashing gold.
As if bewitched, I pressed it hard.
And—
"...!"
The round, marble-like balls inside the huge draw machine began to churn.
Soon, one was drawn and, shining with light, unfurled before my eyes.
『Guaranteed Lucky Roulette: 1 Use』
Turn your misfortune into fortune!
Use it now and seize the fate you want!
Use?
YES◀ / NO
"…Use."
I didn't know exactly what was happening, but the word slipped out of me. At the same time, the frozen world started returning to normal.
Kim Min-gi's stiff face moved again, and my body, which had been hanging in midair, seemed to drop toward the floor—
I caught the change quickly.
"…Huh?"
"...!"
Because the scene in front of me flipped in an instant.
When I came to, the body that should have been pitching headfirst down the stairs had been shoved toward the wall. And in the spot where I'd been—
"Aaagh!"
Thud-thump!
—Min-gi tumbled down the stairs instead.
"I heard Min-gi hyung hurt his leg and needs a cast for two months?"
"He kept saying he'd go on Design Your Idol—looks completely blown now."
"Won't he miss the month-end evaluation too?"
I kept stretching while the other trainees whispered. They glanced at me like they wanted me to add a word, but I refused to even look their way.
Because I knew if I tossed out the wrong comment at a time like this, I'd end up as gossip too. And since I was the last one with injured Kim Min-gi, I had to be even more careful with my words.
…Two months, huh.
Exactly the same diagnosis I'd been given before I came back.
I clicked my tongue, looking at my perfectly fine leg—no sprain, no hairline crack. Whatever this trick was, the accident that should have happened to me had shifted to Kim Min-gi.
If nothing changes, he won't be able to join the month-end evaluation, and there's a good chance he'll get booted the way I was.
The unlucky fate that should have been mine had moved to him.
"…Status window."
At my whisper, a translucent pane popped up.
『 Won Yu-ha』
Specialty (Singing): B-
Specialty (Dance): C
Charm (Looks): B+
Charm (Aura): B
Talent (Expression): C
Talent (Focus): C-
Stamina (Body): D-
Stamina (Mind): D-
Luck: 30 points
Base Trait: Regression
I realized I could call up a "status window" after Min-gi fell down the stairs. While I'd called an ambulance for the unconscious bastard and was waiting for help, an "Achievement" notification floated up.
『Achievement Complete!』
You avoided misfortune and seized the fate that was originally yours.
Reward: Title acquired
Luck +20 added
Status window now available
Stats can be upgraded
Lucky Roulette opened
※ You can check the title's effects in the status window.
The explanation and stats were very game-like. Just as the achievement window described, when I awkwardly muttered "status window," the system pane appeared.
I stared at the window quantifying "Won Yu-ha" with mixed feelings. The more I looked, the more tangled my thoughts became.
…Let's sort this out again.
First off, I should be dead.
I fell into the river; if nothing special happened, I probably died. I even considered whether I might be unconscious and dreaming.
But everything is far too vivid for that—the scenery around me, the feel at my fingertips, the smell of the practice room I can still sense even now, and even the dull ache lingering in my shoulder where Kim Min-gi shoved me hard. It's all too real to be a dream.
If so, how did I end up here, back in the past six years ago?
…Base state trait: Regression.
Just like the system window says, it must be because I "regressed."
"..."
It's absurdly unrealistic.
I let out a small sigh. A failed-idol leader at death's door suddenly returning to six years in the past—what is this, some third-rate fantasy novel?
—"It's a cliché when the regression protagonist hogs all the wins."
The one who'd binged those webnovels was Kwon Hyuk-gyu from my group. During breaks, he'd always be snickering at webnovels on his phone.
Come to think of it, I remember him talking about the Big Three fantasy clichés.
Regression, Possession, Reincarnation… was it?
He also called them the protagonist's three great virtues. And if you were born with the regression trait, he said, you had to fix the mistakes of your past and seize your fate.
If I think along those lines, I seem to have gotten onto that regression route.
"…Hmmm."
Isn't this… a bit much?
I hummed under my breath. Things were taking a seriously weird turn.
Say—just for the sake of argument—that I really did regress like some fantasy novel protagonist.
Then does that mean some kind of fate is laid out for me too?
There's only one fate I failed to achieve at this point in time.
Design Your Idol. The program Min-gi pushed me off the stairs to take in my place. If there's a success that was "meant" for me, that's the only one.
And the moment I opened my eyes was the moment Min-gi tried to shove me—i.e., the instant my fate was stolen. If you add it all up, the purpose of my regression would be to appear on Dear-Idol.
But why would the "someone" who regressed me set this up? And what does my going on Dear-Idol do for whoever regressed me?
I didn't even know the identity of the entity that regressed me. So of course I had to think hard.
Am I really supposed to go on Dear-Idol and walk the idol path again?
The answer was simple.
…Am I out of my mind?
I let out a hollow laugh and stood up.
Yesterday I was too dazed to grasp the situation and just went home, but today I planned to tell the company I was quitting as a trainee.
Being an idol is not something a human should do.
That was the lesson I learned from five years of getting dragged around as the leader of a failed idol group.
Sure, there was a time when I burned with hope and dreams for the idol job. But the drive to chase that dream had all worn away.
Honestly, I worked my ass off.
There was something I'd overlooked when I was just dreaming: idols usually work in groups.
Group activities mean you have to keep going together with the members, and you can't help but influence each other. If one guy gets screwed, the rest get screwed too—and in practice, that's how I went down.
Then there's the agency. Competent agencies are truly rare.
Even the debut group from Dear-Idol belonged to a big company, but because that company's handling wasn't clear-cut, they kept running into big and small headaches. I heard the project group formed by Dear-Idol didn't even complete its full contract period and split early for that reason too.
And say I do what was originally slated and go on Dear-Idol. Is there any chance I'd do well there?
I already did group activities for five years. One way or another, I made the rounds on the idol scene. But even in the past, I didn't succeed.
What guarantee is there that I'd suddenly do well now?
If I stick my face out again half-baked and get half-known, it'll just get in the way of doing anything else later. In that case, it's cleaner to give up from the start and, while I'm still a little young, find something else.
I was grateful to be spared—and even made younger—but I had no reason to keep being an idol. I planned to use this chance to hard-reset my life.
I'd even sketched a rough plan. Work part-time while taking the GED, get a national scholarship, and graduate from a decent university. Then get a job right away and live a normal life. Never think about idols again.
"Manager."
"Oh, Yu-ha."
I opened the door to Manager Kwon's office and stood there. He greeted me with a bright face.
"What's up? Do you have something to say about Min-gi?"
"Ah, no. I came to talk about something else."
"What is it?"
I was just about to say I wanted to quit being a trainee, looking right at Manager Kwon—
Ding-dong!
"...!"
—when another system window popped up.
『Main Quest: Let's appear on Design Your Idol!』
Appear on Dear-Idol and lay the groundwork for a successful debut.
Success condition: Appear in Episode 1 of Dear-Idol
Success reward: Luck +10, +1 to a stat of your choice
※ However, if you voluntarily withdraw after appearing, a penalty twice as large will be imposed.
Failure penalty: Luck –30
Luck: 30
※ If Luck reaches 0, "Won Yu-ha" meets death.
"…I'll compete on Design Your Idol."
…Right. I forgot.
Come to think of it, that bastard Kwon Hyuk-gyu also said regression protagonists can't escape their allotted fate.