A Blank Slate Regression For The Idol That Lost His Original Intention

“What? You want to go out that way?”

What the heck is this guy thinking? How does he expect us to get out when there’s snow piled high out there?

“Why don’t we just make this a ‘staying in’ special?”

Despite Gyeon Ha-jun’s objections, Kim Do-bin was unwavering in his determination.

“But listen up, hyungs, and you too, Jae-hee. Are we really going to waste an entire day of our precious vacation like this?”

Kim Do-bin, with a serious expression, began to explain his plan to persuade us.

“The windows are sliding windows, right? So they’ll open, at least. If we just clear out the snow in front of the window, we can get out through there. That’s my point.”

“What are you going to use to dig it out? We don’t even have a shovel in this place.”

“A dustpan! Haven’t we all had the experience of shoveling snow with dustpans on snowy days back in school?”

“Yeah, but we just scooped up a bit of snow back then. We never dug through snow piled up this high. And do we even have a dustpan here?”

“Exactly. We have a vacuum cleaner, but I don’t think we have a dustpan.”

Kim Do-bin dashed into his room and came back with a mini broom and dustpan set, the kind you’d use in elementary school cleaning time.

He tossed the broom onto the sofa and proudly held up the dustpan.

“Here it is.”

If we dig with that tiny dustpan, it’ll take us all day.

Digging out the snow with that thing would take longer than just waiting for the lodge’s front door to open.

Still, as long as Kim Do-bin kept himself busy with his nonsense, we’d have enough content for the broadcast without having to strain our brains, so we didn’t bother stopping him.

“Alright, dig out enough so we can at least get outside. If you get tired, we’ll take turns.”

I lightly patted his shoulder in encouragement, and as expected, Kim Do-bin eagerly dashed to the window.

He confidently opened the window and started scooping snow out with his mini dustpan.

Cold air seeped into the lodge.

“It’s so cold…”

“Then wrap yourself in a blanket.”

“Hey, hyung. The standard thing to do in times like this is to silently bring me a blanket.”

“Be a self-sufficient person. I didn’t raise you to be someone who can’t even get their own blanket.”

“By the way, how are we supposed to clean all this up?”

Seo Ye-hyun, who had somehow come back with four padded jackets for the members, pointed to the floor while shivering in the cold, bundled up in his own jacket.

The snow that Kim Do-bin had shoveled out was now piled up on the floor of the lodge.

“Ta-da! Let’s make a snowman!”

“Aren’t we supposed to be melting it?”

Ryu Jae-hee tried to gather up the snow piled on the floor to make a snowball, but the snow melted faster in his hands than he could form it.

While the camera was focused on Kim Do-bin diligently shoveling snow, the rest of the members lay back and relaxed in the camera’s blind spot.

And exactly five minutes after Kim Do-bin started digging out the snow blocking the window…

“Switch! Someone take over!”

Kim Do-bin, lying flat on the floor and whining for someone to take over, made me sigh.

I thought he could last at least ten minutes, but he couldn’t even make it halfway.

Of course, on the broadcast, whether he dug for ten minutes or five, it would get edited down to about three minutes of footage.

The hole Kim Do-bin had made was barely enough for a head to fit through, let alone a whole body.

“See, that’s why I said we should just do a ‘staying in’ special.”

Grumbling, I took the dustpan from Kim Do-bin’s hands and went over to the window to start digging out the snow.

If I said I’d take over, I should at least keep my word.

And ten minutes later…

“Hey, someone bring a chair! I can’t reach anymore!”

“Wow… were you a mole in your past life or something…?”

It seemed I’d discovered a hidden talent.

Seo Ye-hyun, looking at the lodge floor now piled high with snow and the tunnel I’d dug deep enough for at least an upper body to fit through, was amazed.

“Awesome! At this rate, we might actually be able to escape!”

“See, what did I tell you? This is all thanks to the brilliant idea of yours truly, Kim Do-bin!”

“Come on, hyung, it’s not like you deserve that much credit. Honestly, if Eden-hyung hadn’t dug this much, we would’ve given up and called it hopeless.”

After digging for another ten minutes and calling for a break, Ryu Jae-hee said he wanted to give it a try and took the dustpan from me.

“What the heck, Eden-hyung, how did you manage this? It’s harder than I thought.”

“With the passion and drive not to spend a precious vacation day stuck in a lodge.”

After struggling for about six minutes, Ryu Jae-hee said he was too short to dig any further and handed the dustpan to Gyeon Ha-jun, the tallest of us all.

Seo Ye-hyun took his turn at shoveling—no, dust-panning—and after everyone had their go, the dustpan was handed back to me, for the absurd reason that I was the best at digging snow.

“Do-bin.”

“Yes!”

“You should— No, forget it. If you do it, we’ll be here until morning, or the snow will just melt first.”

It had been twenty minutes since I climbed off the chair and onto the windowsill, digging away with all my might.

“Freedom! Freedom!”

“Hyung, anyone listening would think we just broke out of prison.”

Finally, I could completely get my body out through the window.

“Wow, we actually did it.”

“Again, I say this is all thanks to my brilliant idea, and the foresight to bring a mini dustpan to the lodge—”

“Why are you ignoring the 90% of effort that was my hard work?”

I stepped outside the lodge, taking a deep breath of the outside air for the first time in an hour since we realized we were stuck.

It wasn’t much different from yesterday’s air, but my mood was.

Ryu Jae-hee poked his head through the open window and handed me the camcorder, asking, “Eden-hyung, now that you’re out, could you do something about the front door too?”

“I’ll take a look. From the photos the manager sent, it looked like a lost cause.”

Taking the camcorder, I replied, and Kim Do-bin, who had managed to climb through the window and out of the snow tunnel with difficulty, raised his arms in victory, jumping up and down.

“Yes! We escaped!”

“Don’t jump; it’s slippery.”

I gave Kim Do-bin a short warning and then walked toward the front door. Kim Do-bin followed closely behind me.

I looked at the snow piled high enough to block half the door and wondered how to clear it.

“Could we just boil some water and pour it over?”

“Wouldn’t that just freeze everything solid, like an igloo?”

“Even with hot water?”

“Sure, it might melt, but it’d refreeze right away. You’d need a water tank to melt all this snow at once… Achoo! Man, it’s cold!”

“Did you seriously come out here without a coat? Great job. Get back inside before you catch a cold.”

Too scared to go back in, fearing he might slip and hit his head on the floor, Kim Do-bin whined, making me start another round of dustpan shoveling against my will.

After clearing enough snow around the window, Kim Do-bin quickly slipped back inside the lodge.

“A dustpan’s not going to cut it. We’d need a real shovel to do this.”

As I squatted by the window and spoke, Ryu Jae-hee came up and thrust his phone screen in front of me.

“Eden-hyung, the local community center rents out snow shovels.”

“Oh, so after I dug out the snow by the window with a tiny dustpan, now I have to go to the community center and get a snow shovel? My younger brothers really want to make the older brother work, so I guess I have no choice but to go. Ah, do I have to suffer like this?”

As I complained loudly, making sure Ryu Jae-hee and Kim Do-bin could hear, Ryu Jae-hee rolled his eyes.

“Huh? If we go by birth order, you’re third out of five.”

Seeing the camcorder in Kim Do-bin’s hand behind Ryu Jae-hee, I lowered my voice and whispered.

“Look, as the youngest, please just go get the shovel. Your hyung is tired.”

Flinching at my low voice, Ryu Jae-hee quickly nodded.

Standing on his tiptoes, Ryu Jae-hee whispered conspiratorially, “Can I take Do-bin-hyung along to the community center?”

“Sure, do what you want. But why are you asking me? You should ask Kim Do-bin.”

“If I ask him to come with me, he definitely won’t go. But if I say you told him to come, he’ll agree right away.”

So they want to use me as a pretext, huh?

Anyway, Ryu Jae-hee managed to drag Kim Do-bin, who was constantly checking my mood, to the local community center. Since the youngest two had taken the camcorder with them, the rest of us could relax in the lodge.

-Hyung, should I bring back some calcium chloride too?

“How much do they have?”

-A 25kg bag. They don’t do smaller portions.

“Just come back. That’s enough to spread over the entire neighborhood.”

About ten minutes after the call ended, the youngest duo returned with a shovel.

Then we all headed to the front door and began shoveling together.

Although Ryu Jae-hee got out of shoveling because he was the youngest, he was in charge of filming, so it wasn’t exactly a break.

“This is really… ugh…”

“Okay, Do-bin hyung, that’s enough.”

“We’ve only got, what, 11? 12 years? Left—”

“Ahhh! Watch your mouth! Be careful what you say!”

“Guys, enough chit-chat. Let’s just shovel.”

Four strong men digging in with shovels finally revealed the steps and door buried under the snow.

“Wow, finally…”

“What the? It’s still not opening. Hyungs, the door won’t open!”

“Maybe it’s frozen? Should I go back in and boil some water? If we pour hot water, it might open… Hey, hey, Yoon Eden! You’ll break the door!”

I grabbed the doorknob and yanked it hard, my frustration boiling over, despite Seo Ye-hyun’s protests. The door rattled.

“Oh, it’s open.”

“What kind of brute strength…”

The sun was setting, painting the sky with twilight hues, and the front door finally swung open.

We had started in the morning, and now it was almost sunset. It was hard to believe we’d been doing this all day.

Aside from Ryu Jae-hee, who said he’d return the shovel and headed to the community center, the rest of us slumped onto the lodge floor, massaging our arms.

“Do-bin, aren’t you going home?”

“I’m too tired to move…”

Hearing my question, Kim Do-bin lay sprawled in the middle of the living room, answering weakly.

Considering Kim Do-bin’s whole reason for suggesting the escape was to go home, it was an ironic result.

Spending an entire vacation day shoveling snow… This was all because of that lousy LnL company that hadn’t moved us out of this crappy semi-basement lodge.

But because of today’s events, the move that had been delayed indefinitely for a supposedly auspicious day was finally scheduled.

When I checked the date, it wasn’t even an auspicious day. Why did they delay it, then?

Seo Ye-hyun, fiddling with the camcorder, sighed and lamented.

“I think all the broadcast footage is going to get cut. It’s just us shoveling, isn’t it?”

“So why did we go through all that shoveling? If we had done a ‘staying in’ special, we would have had enough content for the broadcast, right?”

Gyeon Ha-jun, who had suggested the ‘staying in’ special from the start, spoke up, turning his head toward me while still lying on the sofa.

“Who was the first to suggest digging through the snow?”

Kim Do-bin glanced around nervously and slowly raised his hand, speaking in a tiny voice.

“Should I do a headstand?”

“Anyone who hears that would think we’re enforcing military discipline in the group. Why would you do a headstand? We can fill the airtime with other stuff.”

Little did we know how this seemingly pointless footage would be used in the future.

 

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