An hour passed, and Juwon woke up. The guy was following his dance leader's schedule, so he woke up earlier than he used to. Naturally, Juwon noticed his roommate, who looked weird and not in good shape.
"Jun. You have a high fever."
When the boy came to Jun's side and noticed his unhealthy complexion, Juwon placed the back of his hand on his friend's neck and forehead. Frowning, Juwon reproachingly said, "It's you who keep saying that health is wealth, so why did you overexert yourself? Jun, rest up today. I'll get you medicine and something to eat."
No response came from the other boy. Juwon became more worried. He hurriedly left the room for the pantry to request light food and fever medicine from the staff there.
Jun was left alone. His tired eyes followed the figure of his roommate, who crossed the doorway without closing the door.
Today, the truth he had just discovered threatened to break something in him.
At that moment, he was sure that he was hallucinating.
Jun saw the back of Juwon's mature and older self... and instinctively reached out his hand.
It was the back of his precious former bandmate facing him. Several backs of familiar figures appeared only to seem more illusory than ever. Seeing them going away, Jun felt his heart shake in fear and pain as if the sight just confirmed something. That his former ETM bandmates would now only exist in his memories.
...
For two days straight, Jun was bedridden. He could barely function on the first day, and it greatly baffled and worried his fellow Inhabitants since his illness came so suddenly. The mid-check still proceeded, and without Jun there, the rap team received a much harsher rebuke to the point that Seth burst into tears. On the second day, the same thing happened. Why? Because time rewound to June 11.
On the third day, or technically, on his fourth return to June 11, Jun still felt under the weather, but muddle-headedness had left his brain, and he regained a bit of his senses.
'I must have collapsed due to emotional and mental factors.'
The young man knew himself. He was not a weak person. Physically, that is. The life of an idol that he had endured was tougher and more draining than the life of a trainee in a survival show. Yet it was a life that he yearned to have again, to sparkle brightly until he matched the brilliance of the brightest stars in the skies of Kpop.
After re-accepting the fact that he could potentially regress anytime and anywhere, he sorted out his thoughts and concluded that his goal was still the same.
Jun would re-debut. He would make sure of it. The obsession in his heart sprouted and this obsession was to additionally ensure that ETM would see the light of the day in this timeline.
The youth headed to the bathroom. After a quick hot bath, he changed into comfortable jogging pants and a white shirt. His hair was not even gelled. He combed it roughly and covered it with a cap.
Today will be another day of trial and error.
He arrived in the practice room. After waiting a bit, his teammates entered one by one.
Before they arrived, he tried to recall the new routine formed before the same-day regression began.
"Guys, since we're done with the lyrics and basic assignment of parts and arrangements, let's start polishing our parts now."
After gathering the three boys, Jun played the music.
"I decided to be Xavi's backing vocalist here."
Jun demonstrated the tune that he would vocalize.
After listening, Xavi's eyes flashed with interest. "One more time, I'll rap along."
"Sure," Jun readily answered.
Without musical accompaniment, the two began. Xavi rapped in a low and gentle voice, starting a story. Although Xavi had an accent when speaking normally, it could not be heard in his singing and raps.
At the last two bars of Xavi's verse, Jun softly hummed a tune that was like a low-octave version of the chorus's first line. He repeated the melody two more times, albeit with a twist on the last note to make it smoothly transition to the chorus.
Then Daeho started singing. Seth acted as his backing vocal here, softly harmonizing using a falsetto voice.
When the first chorus ended, Jun did not continue with his own rap part. He clapped and said, "That sounded good."
"Yeah." Xavi gave a thumbs-up while flashing a cute smile. "I like it."
Jun glanced at his watch and saw that there were about 25 minutes before the surprised visitors would spook the room. He puckered his lips, then raised his head and said, "My rap part is next after the first chorus. After that would be Seth's chorus, followed by the last section, which I and Xavi would jointly do."
He added, "My suggestion is to pepper the second rap verse with vocalization or vocal ad-libs for more color. I'm entrusting this to Daeho. As for the last rap section, both Seth and Daeho would occasionally season it with high notes."
Daeho and Seth immediately focused on the lyrics sheet to check where they could insert their voices. Jun nodded in approval before he pointed to a few lines. "Here, here, and here. We can give them a try."
"It doesn't have to be high notes on the second rap verse, right?"
Jun shook his head, "No. Just enough to make it not sound bland with just rap."
He asked the two if they were ready and when they nodded, he raised three fingers, folded them one by one, and then opened his mouth at the last countdown.
...
When Jun opened his eyes, he automatically checked the time and became silent when he saw 'June 11' displayed there.
'Why?'
Jun sat down, covered his face, and then ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. He changed his course and action yet he failed to escape going back in time.
Should he be glad that, at least, he woke up with no more trace of fever?
The laughter that escaped his mouth was as if saying that sanity was also escaping him.
"Ha... ha... ha... cough... cough..."
It took him nearly five minutes to calm down. He let go of the bedsheet that crumpled messily from his tight hold and headed for the bathroom to wash his face.
As he stared into his exhausted reflection, he started to go through the events that took place 'yesterday.'
'I guided them to change some rough parts. We definitely improved. But we can't escape from the mentors' anger because our adlibs and vocalization are not that polished yet.'
'Then, when PD Keys and PD Mariam left, we took a break before we practiced nonstop.'
'Following that, we ate dinner late and went to bed.'
Jun took a deep breath and started another day of trial and error. He left the room after making himself look decent. Knocking one by one in his teammates' room, he managed to gather the rap team in the practice hall an hour earlier than before.
Did it make a difference, though?
The harsh words spewed from Keys' and Mariam's mouths lessened. His team felt contented. But not Jun, who found himself regressing several couple of hours later.
'Again...'
The regressor swallowed his sigh. Rather than discussing how to fix the first rap verse, Jun directly taught Daeho the harmonization for the second rap section and the high notes of the last rap section.
Once the first rehearsal of the new routine finished, the gazes his teammates gave him turned burdensome. Seth's, in particular, were borderline worshipful.
"I feel so good about this. Even if the mentors visit now to check on our progress, I won't be afraid." Daeho joyfully clapped.
Jun gave a small smile. Xavi was initially smiling. However, the observant guy noticed their leader's unnatural facial expression and worriedly asked, "Jun?"
The youth in question shook his head and replied, "Come on, we still have a long way to go before we can perfect our parts."
Jun set up a recorder and then led his teammates to perform while incorporating the new vocal routines and positioning.
Actually, it was already the 8th return.
Thankfully, the mentors stopped frowning at them this time. Xavi was told to work on his diction, and that was it.
When the day ended and the new day dawned, the date finally changed to June 12, 2020.
Jun stared blankly at the date on the screen of the crew-provided phone while he remained under the comforter.
Minutes passed. He covered his face and silently broke down in sobs.
That day, June 11, was finally over.