The Regressed Idol: My Second Chance To Debut

Andrew woke up with a throbbing headache, and the last thing he remembered was sitting outside the ICU, his hands trembling as he stared down at a hospital bill he could not pay.

He spent the last three hours swallowing his pride, weeping, and begging the head doctor to just start his mother’s surgery with a desperate promise to find the money.

But it was no use.

His mother's outstanding medical debt already climbed into an amount he could never hope to repay. Without full payment, the hospital refused to touch a single scalpel and operate on her until the past bills were cleared in full. His mother lay unconscious behind the ICU doors, her life slipping away with every passing second, and all he could do was watch. The crushing helplessness nearly drove him insane. Completely drained by the weight of despair, he sat on the hard chair in the hospital corridor, burying his face in his palms until exhaustion finally pulled him under.

A sharp, familiar voice broke through the dark. “Andrew, wake up! Otherwise you’d be late for school.”

Andrew winced, his eyes fighting to focus through a dull ache. He lay on a bed, staring up at a stained ceiling.

School? The word tasted foreign, bewildering. Decades passed since he last stepped into a classroom.

His gaze swept the room, landing on a beat-up apartment wall where a BigBang poster hung by peeling tape. The faded image brought a sudden, physical jolt to his chest. He kept that exact poster as a teenager, using those faces as his daily fuel to debut as an idol.

Before his mind could untangle the memory, his name rang out again. This time, his ears recognized the exact pitch and warmth of the voice.

Andrew scrambled from the mattress, his feet hitting the cold floorboards as he lunged into the living room. He didn’t hear her sound so full of life in over a decade. The moment he crossed the kitchen threshold, his boots froze to the floor.

“Mum,” he breathed.

His eyes locked onto her skin. No IV marks on the back of her hands. No faded hospital gown. Just a dusting of white flour on her fingers and a familiar, sharp annoyance in her eyes.

A breathless chuckle escaped his lips at the exact same time hot tears welled up, blurring his vision.

“What is that look for?” She crossed her arms, anchoring her weight on one hip. “Is that your new excuse for not going to school? I work day and night to make sure you go to class. You are not skipping today.”

“Mum, you’re healthy!” Andrew’s voice cracked, raw and emotional.

A wooden spatula smacked sharply against his arm. “Of course I’m healthy! Who’s going to feed you if I get sick, you little rascal!”

“You’re really… alive…”

Pain shot through his forearm from the blow, but a choke of pure excitement tore from his throat instead. She was healthy. She was moving. That was the only reality that mattered. The horrific memory of her admission to the ICU slid into the back of his mind, locked away under the desperate assumption that the hospital corridor was nothing more than a vivid nightmare.

He smoothed his hair back, trying to convince himself everything was completely normal, when she spoke again.

"It's already the twentieth of June," she said with a gentle smile, setting the spatula down. "When will your examination results be released?"

Andrew froze. The fragile smile on his face vanished. His heartbeat quickened, a terrifying possibility slamming into his chest.

“Examination?” The word spun in his head. He was thirty-two years old. How could he possibly have any exams?

His eyes darted wildly around the small living room. His mother’s face possessed a flawless, youthful smoothness, completely free of the hollow exhaustion from the hospital. His gaze swept past her, taking in the familiar room. They were back inside their old apartment. His breath hitched as his eyes locked onto the paper calendar hanging on the wall. It was June 2010.

He fell asleep as a broken thirty-two-year-old man in a grueling hospital hallway. But the reflection staring back from the small hallway mirror shared no resemblance to the man he remembered. Smooth, unblemished skin. A smaller, frail frame. No dark circles under his eyes from years of grueling overwork at the construction site.

The reality hit him like a physical blow. He occupied his eighteen-year-old body.

If his memory served him right, this was the exact month of his first major idol audition.

In his previous life, he passed the first round, believing his entire world was turning around. Then disaster struck. A faulty electrical wire caused a catastrophic fire that trapped his mother inside this very apartment. By the time he rushed her to the emergency room, too much smoke filled her lungs.

She survived the flames, but the permanent damage remained. The severe smoke exposure quickly developed into an agonizing, chronic lung disease. Even then, he stubbornly refused to let go of the stage. For years, he chased every audition by day while working multiple part-time jobs by night. Every single paycheck disappeared into her ever-growing medical bills. He clung to the foolish hope that one successful performance could change their lives, but reality proved far crueler than dreams.

As the debt piled higher and her lungs worsened, the stage became an unaffordable luxury. He traded the spotlight for a hard construction helmet, spending his days hauling heavy steel and wet cement under a scorching sun just to keep her treatment going for one more day.

Is this a second chance? The thought drifted through his mind, rendering him absentminded. The universe is actually giving me a second chance with a healthy mother.

His eyes stung as he looked back at her. “Thank you for staying alive, mum.”

"What's gotten into you? You're acting so strange today."

Though his unusual behavior clearly confused her, she smiled warmly and pulled him into a tight embrace, gently patting his back as if comforting a frightened child. Andrew closed his eyes, his arms locking around her waist as he silently returned the hug.

If only she knew.

After assuring her several times that he was completely fine, Andrew finally left the apartment. He drew in a long, steady breath of morning air as his sneakers took the familiar path toward school. A single thought surfaced in his mind, causing his pulse to race.

He could make new decisions with this opportunity. He could correct every single past mistake. He would not let his life get swallowed by a stupid, impossible dream that netted him nothing but debt and regret in return.

In his previous life, he believed passion alone was enough to alter his future. Reality taught him otherwise.

Andrew swallowed hard, his fingers tightening into fists at his sides. “No more auditions. No more chasing impossible dreams. My mother comes first.”

A sudden wave of intense disgust hit his stomach at the thought of the BigBang poster waiting back in his bedroom. In this life, he would study harder than anyone alive, land a stable corporate job with premium health insurance, and protect her at all costs.

After ten minutes of walking, the iron gates of St. Aveline High School loomed ahead. A crushing wave of deja vu washed over his chest. Fourteen years passed since he last walked through these barriers. In his past life, only a matter of days remained before the apartment fire forced him to drop out, shattering every plan.

With a completely different goal in life, he stepped through the entrance.

But the moment his feet crossed the threshold, a sharp, digital notification sound resounded directly inside his mind.

[Ding.]

[System integrating… 100%]

Andrew stopped dead, staring at a floating blue holographic screen that appeared before his eyes in a flash of electric light.

[Scanning Host…]

[Deepest unresolved desire detected. Suitable scenario found.]

[Congratulations.]

[You have been selected as a contestant in the StarGlow Survival Show.]