Healthy sportsmanship, a contest that fires you up to your core.
The beautiful friendship that blossoms inside that—that was supposed to be this stage’s selling point.
“Iwol.”
“What.”
“I don’t know if this is the right way to say it, but...”
Stopping me, Kang Giyeon picked his words with difficulty.
“It’s okay. Say it.”
“Your face has zero drive in it.”
I said it was fine, but it wasn’t. My chest hurt.
“Up through ‘With List,’ your smiling look felt really natural, you know? So why can’t you do an eager look?”
Because at Hanpyeong Industries I faked smiles a lot, but I was never once eager.
For “Flowering,” I channeled a salaryman clocking out on a Friday night; for “With List,” a salaryman going on vacation. This time, I had no memory to summon.
Anyway, this kid Kang Giyeon sees right through people.
“Is the gap that big?”
“Yeah. We’re all playing a league match, and you alone look like you’re in a friendly.”
“That won’t do.”
The metaphor hit so hard I got chills. Beside him, Lee Cheonghyeon chimed in.
“That’s {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} funny. You’re proactive about work.”
For the record, since the day I started being an idol, I’ve never once been eager. I’ve just been chased by work.
“...Maybe it’s because you don’t have a competitive streak?”
Even Park Juu carefully added a line.
“Come on, what is this, why are you all piling on?”
“It’s a very important issue. You don’t even have defined dance lines, so you have to cover with your expressions.”
“Giyeon, I have feelings too, you know.”
Despite my protest, they shut off the music and sat me down on the practice room floor.
“Was my expression that bad?”
“It was bad, and, well.”
Even now, Kang Giyeon wouldn’t let anything slide. If you’re just doing this because you’re tired of practice, I won’t let it go.
“It kept nagging at me.”
“What did?”
“You work out, you help with company stuff. You don’t seem like you hate people, and you’re not the type to get lazy about everything. But then you have no drive... it just doesn’t add up, you know?”
I told you I’m not doing this because I want to.
It’s maddening. But if I say I can’t help it because the System is pushing me, it’ll penalize me for leaking secrets. I’m already furious about the budget crisis.
“Yeah. You don’t have much of a competitive streak either. If we bet on a convenience store run, you always volunteer to go.”
“Do you guys observe me like a zoo animal?”
“You’re the last person who should say that.”
Lee Cheonghyeon snickered.
“How can a person compete every minute of their life. It’s exhausting. Anyway, let’s just finish practice.”
“How are you going to do an eager expression?”
“I’ll watch you, Choi Jeho, and copy it.”
That guy’s the best in Spark at facial acting.
I told Choi Jeho to earn his keep and learned center-worthy facial acting from him. Thank god copying expressions is a million times easier than learning choreography.
We made it through a stretch full of issues—budget shortfall, hater posts showing up, weak facial acting—and the day of the first round dawned.
▶ Deputy Kim, you really make work hard. Why do you keep doing what you’re told not to do?
I don’t care anymore. You’ve already taken the only thing that matters to office workers—money—what else are you going to hold hostage? You’re the one who told me to take this team to first place.
Once I cracked open my own wallet, there was nothing left to save. Let’s fight.
I stepped out of the car, grim with resolve. The overheated atmosphere hit my skin harder than before.
As usual, I bowed to the fans who’d come all the way to the morning call, and when I raised my head I heard someone above me say our “show-off acting” was insane.
I’ve never once failed to bow at ninety degrees to fans. It was surely a fan of another group, but it still put me in a bind.
“Don’t let them crush you, my babies!”
Thankfully, the fans’ cheers blew away the bad taste.
So Song Minil feeds his fans the line that he’s being cherished this much.
I don’t understand it, and I don’t care to. I just hope he learns that people who wound others’ hearts eventually pay for it.
With their spirits sky-high, my babies in Spark stepped into the studio.
The order for first-round stages was decided by drawing lots.
Since the show’s title is “Annals,” could they really not think of something more distinctive? Even a tuho toss would’ve been fun.
And if it’s a song-swap round, what’s the point of a random order?
Don’t they usually pair the groups who swapped with each other? Lots to nitpick in this setup.
“Anyone want to go out and draw the ball?”
“Such matters ought to be handled by the family elder.”
So I got way too immersed in the program and even slapped an honorific on our noble leader as “Elder.”
Poor, suddenly-an-elder Jeong Seongbin trudged out and drew. Our turn was fifth.
“But everyone looks amazing. The outfits are so polished.”
Beside me, Lee Cheonghyeon marveled. I echoed him.
“Should we do a flashy concept next time too?”
“Like what?”
“You know courtyard theater? I’ll wear a lion mask for you.”
“No thanks, I like us as we are.”
Then he looked away. See? Why say things that won’t even break even, you punk.
Unlike the self-PR stages, starting with the first round every team could watch the others from their own waiting rooms.
I was glad we could avoid watching while worrying about reading the room.
First up were Verion, who’d given a great stage last time.
Verion covered Sticky’s title track—a group with a “sweet, gentle, maybe-maybe-not friends-to-lovers” concept.
But this time the quality wasn’t great.
I couldn’t tell why. Too much had changed between the last filming and today.
Unlike the internal self-PR evaluation, today there were a lot of audience members, and trying to color a song that wasn’t prepared for them might have caused issues.
Did I peg the wrong rising star?
A bit disappointing. HR experience at Hanpyeong Industries is useless after all.
Sticky, third in the order, actually held their own. For Verion’s song—whose core weapon is freshness—Sticky came with a romantic concept of confessing love.
Watching stages back-to-back, something stood out.
“The seniors prepared a lot, huh?”
“You felt that too?”
Kang Giyeon asked back. Sticky’s main vocal was now pulling bouquets out of his hands like a magic trick mid-song.
Even Verion. Maybe the ideas were weaker than before, but you could see the care in the small stuff—tiny gestures, face stickers, details.
So they did monitor after all.
Of course they did. Among the agencies here, none is as understaffed as UA.
Beyond the fandom turf wars, there were various reactions to Royal Secretariat as a show.
One representative type was evaluating not just the six groups but the program as a whole.
≫ Royal Secretariat quick-take review
How to put it... it’s not super fun
You can feel how everyone’s hyper self-conscious
I get they don’t want a villain edit
But it feels over-fake because of that?
If you wanted group dynamics and bonding, forget it
We’ll have to see the stages
≫ Is Royal Secretariat live?
Sounded like live audio
└ Feels live
└ If they hype “strip the ranks and fight” and then lip-sync, that’d be hilarious
└ lol absolute no-swag legend
While everyone else was saying “Let’s all get along!” and “We want to make good memories!”, bottom-ranked Spark docking points from every group but Verion must’ve been bewildering.
With even the after-threads trending that way, everyone must have sensed it.
You survive by doing real stages.
If the result is an overall rise in stage quality, that’s great for us. We’re doing some showboating to stand out, but if we’re going to stand out anyway, better to stand out in a flower field.
“Yeah. The ideas are really fresh. I want to see the other seniors’ stages too.”
I smiled and answered Kang Giyeon.
And when Sticky finished their interview on screen and exited—
“Are you having fun, everyone? Thanks to your passionate support, Idol Royal Secretariat’s first-round stages are charging into the second half. Next up... the eldest of Idol Royal Secretariat! Parte, please come on out!”
Parte, who’d chosen to cover Spark’s song, entered in matched formation wearing what looked like black capes.
At the same time, the kids getting makeup touch-ups or checking their outfits hurried to the monitor.
“With rivals revealed in the earlier block, Parte’s rival group has automatically been made public as well. Parte, what song did you prepare for the first round today?”
“We...”
“It’ll be ‘With List.’ There’s nothing else Parte can pull off.”
Spark only has four songs to begin with. We used our debut track for the self-PR stage.
Two are B-sides that we poured everything into as audio because they’re impossible to stage. Translation: the vocal difficulty is hell.
With Jeong Seongbin’s range as wide as the Pacific and Park Juu’s high notes spearing the sky, the B-sides’ range jumps like Department Head Nam’s mood.
If you lower the key, you have to go crawl into a cave in the intro; if you don’t, you’ll be doing waterfall training. For a performance-focused group like Parte, there was only one choice.
“We prepared Spark’s ‘With List’!”
See? Nailed it.
The moment Parte announced their pick, I shot a look at Kang Giyeon.
Before we left for work today, I told him, “It’s just my hunch, but if Parte seniors pick ‘With List,’ you won’t make a single mistake today.” He looked back at me, beaming.
As Yur’s cue announced the start of Parte’s stage, the screen went dark.
Then the lights came up with an eerie amusement-park BGM—like something for a horror game—With List rearranged to match.
“Open my eyes, it draws near—
Even the morning sun feels perfect...
A day like that.”
With a rap altered into narration for the intro, a whispering line signaled the prologue.
“Yes, the day we’ve been waiting for.”
“Feels like they changed all the lyrics to fit the concept?”
“For real. That must’ve taken so much work... incredible.”
Jeong Seongbin reacted to Kang Giyeon. Since he rewrote all our self-PR lyrics himself, I guess he can see the sweat.
But Seongbin, their lyric credit will flash a MYTH staffwriter during the song intro. Ours will show our actual legal names.
In other words, what you just said is likely to be broadcast as an elegant backhand. Another blowtorch on the grill.
Parte’s narrative-building was full-on.
The original With List’s yearning to go play became a desperate prayer to save the world from evil.
With a big lineup plus backup dancers, they had a lot they could express in the choreography.
“We beseech you, O God—
Grant just one miracle
To this land...”
A massive effects bed swelled under the singing.
You’d need at least this much to erase Lee Cheonghyeon’s top line. The highlights were shaved down so it still felt plain, but not a bad choice.
The Spark brats, at a glance, were glued to the screen.
It’s natural to be overwhelmed by the scale. We have to stand on stage with only six today.
But is there anything to worry about?
After watching Parte’s stage, I was certain.
We might lose the internet vote, but we’ll win the audience vote.
