I’d always thought that at my age, pulling an all-nighter was impossible unless I had a fuck-ton of work.

But I was wrong.

Humans can do anything once there’s a fire at their feet. Thanks to that, I greeted the morning with my eyes wide open.

It was already suffocating enough that my memories had been erased; with my mouth sealed on top of that, it felt like my hands and feet were tied.

‘The biggest problem is that I don’t know exactly where “direct information” starts and ends.’

Subjective phrasing like that was dangerous. It was basically like digging traps all over the place and praying something would fall into one of them.

I dragged myself out of bed, lamenting a future that didn’t look hopeful.

Even if I’d been forced to sign that security pledge, I still had to work.

That was the fate of a corporate worker.

“Did I really fall asleep working overtime just to end up like this.......”

I muttered to myself without thinking, and Choi Jeho and Lee Cheonghyeon looked at me with really uneasy expressions.

Leaving the two of them alone, I stepped out of the room. Right on time, Jeong Seongbin was coming out into the living room.

Our eyes met, and Jeong Seongbin walked over and asked.

“Did you not sleep well yesterday?”

“A little.”

He hesitated for a moment, then leaned in and whispered quietly in my ear.

“Hyung.”

“Why?”

“Did you stay up because you were looking at the future?”

“What?”

When I turned back in horror, his face was full of mischief.

The way he was struggling to hold back his laughter only made me feel more humiliated.

I told him to just go ahead and laugh, and Jeong Seongbin didn’t hold back.

You happy?

Seeing you laugh makes me happy too. Just try saying you’re quitting being a trainee someday.

“Iwol, I said I needed to talk to you for a second, right?”

As soon as we arrived at UA, the manager called me over. It was thanks to the meeting request I’d put in yesterday.

I only had one thing to discuss: smartphone use.

As someone who only owned a 2G phone, the only times I could get information from the outside world were when I secretly went to the PC bang at dawn or when I took turns using a spare phone at the dorm.

When I used the spare phone, I always kept an incognito window open, but my heart pounded at the thought that at any moment someone might yell, “Who searched ‘I see something weird in front of my eyes’ on their phone?”

So I’d tried to get at least a budget phone under my own name, but unfortunately UA didn’t allow trainees to use cell phones.

I guess they only let me slide for a month because I had a 2G phone. Anyway, this company had pointless little bits of mercy in weird places.

But what I wanted wasn’t confiscation of phones or permission to use a 2G phone; it was permission to use a smartphone.

My memories had been erased and I’d been dropped into the past, so I at least needed to secure access to information.

As expected, the manager’s reaction to my request was far from positive.

“That’s not possible. The other kids also agreed not to keep personal phones until debut.”

“Yes, I know.”

More than that, UA, you didn’t let them use phones for a year even after debut.

How can you just gloss over such an important issue like that?

My hostility was boiling over, but the manager stayed firm.

“It’s not because we mean anything bad by it, it’s because the company needs to manage you guys, so I hope you can understand at least that much.”

I did think it was excessively old-fashioned, but I kept quiet for now.

It wasn’t like anyone would believe me if I said, “SPARK has never caused trouble with their phones” here.

“You might not know this very well since you haven’t been preparing to be an idol for long, but even a single post you accidentally upload can come back as a huge problem later. The company’s trying to prevent that.”

“Yes. Even so, Manager, could you at least listen to why I need a phone once and consider it?”

I expressed that I respected the company’s policy and would accept whatever result came out of it, while humbly asking only for the right to speak.

As long as you make it clear that the final say belongs to the company, anyone who isn’t a jerk like Department Head Nam will usually say, “All right, let’s talk about it at /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ least.”

Fortunately, the manager was even kinder than that and gave me time.

“I don’t remember if I told you when I joined, but I’m not on good terms with my parents, so I’m living independently.”

“Yeah, I heard from the management team.”

That made things faster.

Compared to the other trainees, I fell on the harsher end of the spectrum: my caregiver had moved house without a word and cut off contact.

Trainees needed money for things outside the parts the company paid for. At the very least, to buy shoes or medicine or whatever.

“I thought I’d need a smartphone to manage my living expenses or look for a part-time job, so I wanted to ask ahead of time. Would it be hard to check it just once a day?”

My practice schedule was far too tight for me to go to an ATM every single day just to check my card or account balance. The manager agreed about that.

“You’re going to work a part-time job too?”

“If I can find something that fits around practice hours. Ah, of course, I was thinking about it only after I’d firmly mastered the basics.”

I strongly emphasized that I had no plans to fool around for the time being in order to reassure the manager.

But his worries still didn’t end.

“The kids said you’re always the last one out every day. You think you’ve got the stamina for this?”

“Stamina’s the only thing I’ve got going for me. I’ll be fine.”

Honestly, I was convinced Hanpyeong Industries had hired me for my stamina, and I had zero doubt about it. That’s how they managed to work me without rest like that.

While I was lost in my thoughts, the manager hesitated for a moment, then spoke.

“If it’s just once a day, I’ll talk it over. It might not work out, so don’t get your hopes up too much, okay? And talk to me first before you start any part-time job.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“All right. Practice hard!”

The manager patted me on the back a couple of times and left. With that, the urgent things I needed to handle were more or less wrapped up.

I was a little worried that my sister might try to contact me and I wouldn’t be able to answer right away....... 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

But from her perspective, staying connected to a younger brother who still couldn’t even make his own living probably wasn’t all that appealing.

Separate from quietly looking into how she was doing on my end, I decided I shouldn’t go around advertising that I was here, so I chose to keep my mouth shut.

Feeling lighter, I headed toward the practice room, and from the opposite side I saw Park Juu walking over.

Maybe he’d done some really intense dance practice while I was gone, because he was drenched in sweat, filling his water bottle.

“......Where did you go?”

“I had a meeting with the manager.”

“......?”

“He said I’m such a shockingly hopeless stiff that they need a special countermeasure.”

At my words, Park Juu’s pupils trembled.

“Really......?”

“It’s half a joke and half the truth. Guess which part is the truth.”

“......That you’re a stiff dancer, hyung?”

“You’re right, but that kind of hurts my feelings.”

Once he realized I wasn’t getting cut, he let out the tiniest sigh of relief.

Don’t tell me he’s thinking thank god I’m not leaving?

If my guess was right, I should probably start practicing not getting sentimental about any of them, this kid or that kid.

Once they go out into society, there’ll be scammers of adults swarming around trying to strip them bare.

It felt a bit cold to just crack a joke and leave first, so I waited until he finished filling his bottle.

When it was half full, Park Juu, who had been silently getting water, asked.

“Have you...... decided on your song for the next evaluation?”

It hadn’t been that long since we’d had the end-of-month evaluation, and the next one was already waiting.

The way the tests piled up reminded me of pop quizzes from high school.

“I just narrowed down the list. I’ll pick one within this week.”

Then I suddenly remembered that he’d gotten a bit of criticism about his song choice. He must have his own worries too.

“When are you planning to start getting ready?”

“......I’m still thinking about it.”

Closing the cap on his bottle, he looked pretty weighed down.

Even if they were awkward for me to deal with, it still hurt a little to see a kid ten years younger than me so deflated.

So I pulled out just a little of the social skills Hanpyeong Industries had cultivated by feeding on my blood.

“I learned bass as a hobby. If you ever want to sing a band song someday, tell me. I’ll play for you.”

“Really......?”

Yeah. I learned it in a university club I can’t go back to anymore.

Right in front of me, Park Juu’s eyes lit up. He seemed pretty excited.

“......Cheonghyeon can play keyboard too.”

“Then you bring him.”

Even if I debuted and quit right away, I’d at least have the chance to play backup for him once.

After that, all the way until we reached the practice room, the talk of bands across the ages never stopped.

When I said we’d have more chances to talk about it soon, Park Juu nodded in agreement.

For some reason, his back looked a little happy as he opened the door and walked into the practice room.

Permission to use a phone came through a few days later.

It was primitive, in the sense that I had to ask the manager for a phone on the day I needed it and give it back an hour later, but it was more than enough.

As soon as the budget phone I’d ordered online arrived, I installed a stock app and checked to see whether my blood-and-sweat children were doing okay, then bookmarked a few job listings for remote part-time work.

Even after that, I had a little time left, so I searched some keywords on a portal that I could never show my housemates who took turns sharing the dorm’s spare phone.

‘Suddenly an idol.’

‘I woke up from sleep and I’m back in the past.’

‘I see letters in front of my eyes.’

At the same time, I desperately prayed this wasn’t some Korean version of The Truman Show.

If this was being broadcast nationwide, I’d probably lose the courage to ever step outside again.

For someone as average as I was to have become one of those life recyclers I’d never even heard of was something that shouldn’t be possible.

So I figured there had to be some similar case out there somewhere that I just didn’t know about and started searching.

“Huh?”

Something actually came up in the search results.

It was a link that led to something called a web novel.

On the platform I opened, there were countless tragic stories where people were forced to stamp their seals on contracts, from idols who went back to the past to idols who debuted by accident, idols who ended up inside games, and so on.

By the time I learned from multiple stories that this thing called hoebinghwan was an abbreviation of regression, possession, and reincarnation, I’d figured out that my situation fell under regression.

Usually, before they experienced hoebinghwan, they either got hit by someone called Truck Ajusshi in their original world or fell asleep while fervently consuming content.

Compared to them, with my regression from working overtime, everyone else’s plots were way more dramatic. I guess life really isn’t like a drama.

More than that, they didn’t even send a single regression truck and just rolled a person back nine years.

Wasn’t I the only one being run on extreme cost-efficiency here?

Because my phone time was limited, I only managed to read up to episode 25, the free portion of the novels.

Thanks to that, all I learned was the sad law that anyone trapped in the cycle of regression was inevitably forced to be an idol.

Of course, I did get something useful out of it too.

The most intuitive way to explain the members’ personalities in refined language.

‘#tragic, #schemer, #hiddenboss, #healing.......’

Keywords. That was it.