Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut!

Chapter 327. Youth’s End (2)

How fragile human memory is.

The video began with Dan Haru.

His voice, calm and subdued—perhaps unfamiliar to some Destis—narrated over the sound of a pencil scratching on paper.

The scene opened with the silhouette of a school against a red sunset. The empty school grounds passed by in sequence.

It was a doodle.

A hand wrote something with a fountain pen on an old diary, similar to the one seen in the tracklist image. As the camera tilted up slowly, it revealed the hand’s owner—a familiar sight to everyone.

For the first time since his debut, Dan Haru’s hair was a dark brown, and he wore a neat, formal prep school uniform, much like one from an elite private school.

No, it was a word.

No, a trace.

The pencil continued to scratch against the paper as Haru kept writing.

Simultaneously, the film rewound with a disjointed effect, interspersing jarring images and sounds, as if recalling lost memories.

Viewers quickly recognized the scenes, which flickered with static noise, as fragments from the music videos and concept trailers for *Over the Night* and *This Is Not a Carol*.

No.

Suddenly, Haru’s hand stopped moving.

As he looked up, the camera, which had been close enough to capture every detail of his face, pulled back to reveal a wide shot of Haru alone in an empty classroom. The crimson sunset was gone, leaving the classroom in total darkness.

In Haru’s memory, the members in their school uniforms briefly appeared, laughing and having a party in the auditorium.

It was something as fragile as graphite.

A sketch that could be erased in a single sweep, imperfect.

As the narration ended, a fast-paced piano solo began. The bright, ethereal, and beautiful scenes that followed sharply contrasted with the earlier somber tone.

Something like a rainbow in the mist, unreachable.

The first scene that appeared was the thumbnail—Hajin and Taehyun, just as they had been shown.

* * *

“Aah, please, they’re so beautiful…!”

Windy, an all-fan of Kairos who had once claimed Dan Haru as her bias before giving up on ranking them altogether, couldn’t control her racing heart. She paused the video and slammed her fist on her desk.

“Are they insane? Seriously, what the hell….”

She couldn’t hold back the curse. How could she?

Our boys, doing a pure concept? A pure concept!

With pink blush on their cheeks, Igari makeup, and dressed in white sweaters for a dreamy and innocent look…!

‘See? I told you Kairos could pull off a pure concept! I said they could do it! To all those who said “cry it out and then explain,” show yourselves.’

She remembered the painful experience from last year when she had argued alone that Kairos could pull off a pure, cute girl group concept, only to face fierce opposition.

At the time, she was deeply upset that no one took her seriously, but now, she felt nothing.

‘What are you going to say now? It’s official.’

We have a pure concept!

Of course, she was a bit concerned that half the group members still stood as a barrier to this pure concept…

But Windy decided to hold onto hope. If this concept was something planned by Kang Hajin, who shared similar otaku tastes with her, there had to be a deeper meaning behind it.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Windy resumed the video.

♩♪♪♬♩♬♫♩—

Contrasting with the dark and profound intro, the subsequent scenes were bright and hopeful, matching the piano melody.

Hajin, who had been leaning on Taehyun with their heads touching and eyes closed, was suddenly awakened by sunlight streaming onto his face. He slowly opened his eyes, only to find that the curtain over the window of the log cabin was half-open. He approached it cautiously.

-……?

As Hajin curiously pulled back the curtain and opened the window, he saw Haru, Eunchan, and Yugeon outside, all wearing similar white outfits and making funny faces as they waited for him. Hajin, seeing his younger members, laughed in disbelief and reluctantly stepped outside at Eunchan’s urging.

The following scenes were even more stunning.

Jung Siwoo, with his hair bleached silver, walked barefoot through a flower field in a white blouse, the green and lilac colors swirling around him. He looked nothing short of breathtaking.

Even Doha, who had mostly kept his hair short due to his athletic background, looked surprisingly good with a neat, soft fringe. Visually, it was impossible not to give the concept a passing grade.

‘Forget the storyline, thank you, stylists.’

Even someone like Windy, who could spend all night analyzing a single word like “worldbuilding,” thought this concept might appeal even more to casual fans.

Or maybe not? Perhaps this vibe of “fragile romance tinged with an impending sense of doom” was something only otakus like herself would be obsessed with.

Having lived more years as an otaku than as a regular person, Windy quickly gave up trying to understand casual fans’ tastes and focused on the video again. It seemed full of potential interpretations, but even without considering all that, the storyline of this “dreamlike world” appeared clear enough.

‘Boys in love.’

Hajin, with a wreath of lilac flowers on his head, smiled softly as he crafted a bouquet, as if preparing a gift for someone special. Haru, with his light brown hair, blew on a dandelion puff and smiled brightly—both looked like boys experiencing their first love.

Siwoo played his guitar, serenading as if to woo someone.

Yugeon tended to someone’s injury with care, while Taehyun, after being pushed into a lake by someone, couldn’t help but smile as if he couldn’t stay mad at them.

Eunchan had fewer specific scenes and mostly glanced back at the camera, as if gazing at someone—likely due to his accident and the need to shoot quickly, though it could also be a part of the storyline.

‘The theme seems to be first love, for sure…’

After all, the title was *The Case of the Missing First Love*.

However, the identity of the person they were in love with remained ambiguous. The camera carefully avoided showing the person beside them in the frame, to the point where viewers couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

There was nothing in the video that could hint at their identity.

‘Is this a deliberate choice in the storyline, or was it done for practical reasons…?’

Unlike the past, where male idols often appeared alongside female celebrities in music videos, the modern idol world—with its focus on parasocial relationships—left no room for male idols to be publicly associated with women, except for family and fans.

Windy didn’t really care about these things, but she knew that some fans could spiral into negative moods just from hearing a female staff member’s voice in behind-the-scenes clips.

Though she didn’t personally buy into parasocial relationships, she couldn’t deny that it was a significant selling point in the idol industry.

In fact, Kairos had a reputation for excelling in this area.

‘Did they avoid showing a female actor because it would cause a scandal? But if that’s the case, isn’t choosing a first love concept risky…? Wait, but the one leading this is Kang Hajin. With him, it’s even harder to predict what’s really going on.’

After observing him for a year, Windy realized that Hajin was the type of person who might have planned this direction to leave open the possibility that the first love could be more than just a typical heterosexual relationship.

From the *Miro Maze* days until now, it was clear that Hajin was highly sensitive to fan reactions and adept at managing both his and the group’s image.

Because of this, Windy couldn’t shake the feeling that this “mysterious first love” concept was a deliberate part of the bigger picture.

“…Oh, what?”

While lost in thought, the happy, fairy-tale-like scenes had ended.

As the piano melody shifted from a major to a minor key, the atmosphere darkened.

The boys’ scenes flashed by rapidly, as if a film reel was spinning out of control….

-…….

The location shifted back to the original school.

Unlike the empty scenes at the beginning, this time the classroom was filled with students sitting at their desks, and a teacher was teaching in front of the chalkboard.

Inside this ordinary classroom, Dan Haru slowly opened his eyes.

Memory is so fragile.

His narration began again.

Haru, with a blank expression, lifted his head and looked around the classroom. The scene emphasized that none of the older members or the person he had fallen in love with was there.

What was my memory?

A doodle, a word, a trace.

No, just pencil marks, easily erased.

Haru slowly turned his head to look out the window.

Unlike before, his eyes were empty as he gazed at the world outside. The sunlight beyond the window grew increasingly bright, until the entire screen was engulfed in an unnaturally intense light.

Bbbbbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii―

An unknown electronic sound played as the screen went black.

This time, the voices of all seven members overlapped.

Our first love is missing.

****
****

White serif text against a black screen.

Windy found herself staring blankly at the final screen, unaware that the video had ended.

“…What the hell? What are they planning now?”

Kang Hajin, you otaku, what kind of grand scheme

are you brewing?

After all this, the title track is *Spring Is Gone*?

“End of youth, they said, end of youth…!”

Wasn’t it supposed to be a tragic story of boys struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world?

Even though not a single lyric from the title track had been released yet, she could already sense the heartbreak and sorrow of a doomed love story.

She hadn’t even heard the song yet, but she already loved it. After all, the lyrics and composition were by Seo Taeil, so there was no way it could be bad.

But that wasn’t the point right now…

‘How did these guys know I’m a sucker for tragic love stories?’

Windy slapped her palm against her forehead with a resounding smack.

She had a strong feeling that Kairos’s upcoming comeback would be a 100% direct hit to her tastes.