"When we went on the farm volunteer trip, you’re the one who stole Kang Giyeon’s pillow, right?"
"Was it you?"
Kang Giyeon, who had been listening quietly, glared with dagger eyes. He must have had a rough night without a pillow back then.
Lee Cheonghyeon’s eyes went round.
"When did you see that?!"
"You think there’s anything in this team I don’t know?"
Kim Iwol was unflinching. He was so confident it felt like the only things he didn’t know were the last digits of everyone’s ID numbers.
"Feels like this match isn’t going anywhere."
"Do they just go around looking for each other’s weak points..."
Jeong Seongbin and Choi Jeho marveled in different ways. Either way, the fans were riveted.
"I really wasn’t going to bring this one up."
Hands on both hips, Lee Cheonghyeon struck a solemn pose.
"Hyung."
"Yeah."
The two men’s gazes drifted back and forth, easy and unhurried.
This combo’s visuals are really something. Thinking that, Won Chae hui hit the video record button.
"Hyung, in your contacts you saved Seongbin as ‘Spiritual Pillar Jeong Seongbin,’ didn’t you?"
"Pfft!"
A massive bomb dropped. Screams burst from every direction.
Trying not to spit his water, Kim Iwol flushed apple red. Jeong Seongbin’s face went without saying.
"You... when did you see that?"
So it was true. Color surged and drained from Kim Iwol’s face over and over.
Then the redness crept up from under his shirt collar. Eventually even his ears were red—there wasn’t a spot that wasn’t flushed. Not at all like the usually pale-as-a-polar-bear Kim Iwol.
He’d acted like such a pro on camera, and now here he was, crumbling in front of it—who would’ve thought.
"That time you asked me to send a video conference link for you. I saw it then."
"Ah..."
"I guess our Seongbin hyung’s been a big support for you, huh. Right? I love our leader so, so much too!"
Won Chae hui’s instincts screamed that this was a rare specimen of a moment. He kept filming, capturing every expression as Kim Iwol failed to keep a straight face.
"Just to clarify, everyone, I absolutely did not snoop on hyung’s private stuff! He asked me first! He told me to send something from his account! Since we still don’t have phones, we share a common laptop, so that kind of thing happens sometimes."
"Don’t you usually log in on a tablet?"
"That was when we were on vacation in Busan, so I didn’t have the device."
Spark then took a moment to air the woes of "life in a group when you don’t have personal electronics." To a modern human who can’t live without a phone, it sounded brutal.
"We’re always logging out accounts on the laptop and a spare phone and passing messages around."
"Or Seongbin hyung relays them for us."
"Right. Half of Seongbin hyung’s messages are, ‘Juu saw it too!’ or ‘The maknaes confirmed!’"
He hadn’t taken UA for boomers, but apparently they were. Still, it beat starting a dating scandal or some other mess with a personal phone. He was only curious when UA would finally allow personal phones.
"For the record, it was in the group chat, so I saw everyone’s saved names. Mine was ‘Cutie Pretty Visually,’ you know?"
Laughter burst out all around at a naming style that screamed love of beauty. Kim Iwol buried his face in both hands.
The man in question, Lee Cheonghyeon, was shameless. He even seemed to live up to the nickname. Framing his face with both hands like a flower, he fluttered his fingers and sidled up to Kim Iwol.
"Hyung, am I that cute?"
"..."
"Cheonghyeon is kind of pretty, right?"
"..."
"Maybe he’s the one destined to carry the team’s visuals?"
"Ha..."
Kim Iwol let out a deep sigh. His head had been hanging for a while.
Lee Cheonghyeon slung an arm around his shoulders.
"Still, it’s not strange that you think that way about me."
"..."
"You compliment my face a lot. You’re strict about maintenance too. Honestly, if you’d just saved me as ‘Spark Lee Cheonghyeon,’ I might’ve been a little hurt."
He kept up the banter.
"But thinking of Giyeon like that was a bit unexpected."
"...!"
"Don’t tell me you saved Giyeon as ‘Super Cute’..."
"Let’s stop. I surrender."
Clapping an antibacterial tissue over Lee Cheonghyeon’s mouth, Kim Iwol declared defeat.
The shame of it was that he missed the timing because he had to pull out the tissue—the sabotage was late. No doubt because of the naive thought that he couldn’t lay bare hands on Lee Cheonghyeon’s sacred face.
With a hand over his mouth, Kang Giyeon muttered,
"Super Cute?"
Hearing Kang Giyeon’s faint voice, Lee Cheonghyeon burst past the tissue barricade and shouted,
"He saved you as Super Cute Kang Giyeon!"
Kang Giyeon’s face flushed like a boy hearing a confession.
Fans went wild. Calls rained down demanding the rest of the saved names too.
"Are you curious, everyone?"
Sunk in shame, face of resignation, Kim Iwol asked.
"Totally!"
There are many ways an idol can play this. One, power-through stare down. Two, pretend not to hear and change the subject. Three, scold the member who started it and kill the mood.
But Kim Iwol didn’t let go of the mic. Fans also believed that if it was Kim Iwol, he’d give them whatever they wanted.
"In that case, I suppose I’ll have to say it."
It was a voice of total resignation. Like someone submitting to fate.
"Juu hyung’s was really funny. Tell them quick, hyung, what it was."
Leaning in with an arm over his shoulders, Lee Cheonghyeon stood crooked.
They say Spark never keeps their heads down long in front of fans. True to that, Kim Iwol soon lifted his. The hand covering one reddened cheek stayed put.
"‘Nineteen-vintage Metal Steel Ball Park Juu’..."
He was practically sobbing now.
"Then are we updating his nickname every year? Like twenty-vintage, twenty-one-vintage?"
"Please don’t ask."
With a wretched look, Kim Iwol gently nudged Lee Cheonghyeon away.
Even as he theatrically stumbled back, Lee Cheonghyeon looked sunny. Won Chae hui captured him with passionate focus.
"Still, hyung, I’m really happy."
"Because you’re Cutie Pretty Visually?"
"No."
Lee Cheonghyeon smiled the purest smile in the world.
"Because our eldest line gets along."
"...!"
"Who could’ve guessed you saved Jeho hyung as ‘Center Emperor Choi Jeho.’ So in your heart, Jeho hyung is number one, right? Cheonghyeon is so moved by the hyungs’ friendship he could cry."
Through the lens, Center Emperor Choi Jeho looked frozen. Kim Iwol went down in a blaze.
They learned after the fan meeting that partway through, "Center Emperor Choi Jeho" climbed the real-time trends.
It was a beautiful friendship.
After the grand pageant of Kim Iwol’s shame, Jeong Seongbin brought the hall to order.
The mood didn’t settle easily, but the audience soon calmed again.
"Up to now, that was just the appetizer. Right?"
He tossed the line toward the members.
But for an appetizer, he felt full. Maybe because he’d picked up the big lens again after a while, the signals were starting to fire in Won Chae hui’s forearms.
"You all must be tired from taking photos, and it’d be a shame if you only saw us through the frame. We’ve prepared a segment where you can put down your cameras and phones for a bit and heal with your eyes and ears!"
So, the so-called no-leak segment. Won Chae hui wasn’t green enough to miss what that meant.
Some people still didn’t put their phones down.
But it was pointless. All the lights in the venue went out.
Then the projector lit up.
A fan VCR?
If it was that, people would want to record it even more. At the very least, try to take audio.
But he didn’t feel like drawing a scolding from security by doing a forbidden thing at a just-testing-the-waters-level group’s fan meeting. He decided to just watch the video they played.
A hand pressing piano keys appeared on screen in a sunlit music room, green leaves visible outside the window.
"Watch over me
I remember you"
A warm melody matched the color tone of the footage.
The scene cut to a hand writing something small in chalk in a corner of a classroom blackboard.
The crisp tap of chalk touching the board slipped into the accompaniment along with the sound of an acoustic guitar.
As the figure turned, a name tag reading "Park Juu" showed on the clothes.
In the whispered tone of Park Juu’s voice, a signature scratch added depth.
"At the end of my drawing
You were always there
To meet you
I drew and drew even in my /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ dreams
You, us"
Hands bouncing a basketball, working through a workbook, toying with a pen held in the mouth, locking a classroom door...
The crowd that had briefly stirred at the thought this might be a new song quickly grew quiet.
The captions on screen made it clear: this was a song for fans.
"Would someone take this hand
I hesitated and hesitated
I carefully held it out
With a trembling heart"
Jeong Seongbin’s high register flowed plain but graceful.
His eyes, working through the workbook, drifted to the window.
"They held it back
It was warm, that hand
I wanted to hold it forever
And run"
About to lock the door, Kang Giyeon’s hand paused on the worn padlock.
He wasn’t a member who centered the songs, but even so, his vocal was smooth. Even to Won Chae hui, who hadn’t put on fan goggles yet. You could sense the practice hours.
The scene changed again to a gym, shoe soles rasping against the floor.
In a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, Choi Jeho filled the frame, deep into basketball.
"I erased and erased again
I went a long way around
But still, you know
Won’t you listen?"
The melody was so low it barely felt like either a question or a statement, which made it feel less like a request and more like seating the listener gently right in front of him.
His basketball hit the floor again. As the ball rose, a bottom-to-top transition swept the screen.
The lips holding a pen came back into focus. As the camera slowly zoomed out, Kim Iwol appeared, looking down at a notebook.
He held the pen between his teeth, laid it on his lips, spun it around a finger.
Then, hesitating, he wrote something.
"Tell me it’s okay
To pass this feeling on
Let me give it a name"
Close-up on the notebook.
A page with the word "Like" written on it.
"Call it love"
The drum beat came in a little stronger. More instruments joined the melody dressing, and in an instant the sound grew lush.
And at the end, it gently faded.
"Let’s sit side by side
And look up at the bright night sky together"
Where the guitar fell away, the soft crackle of a lit sparkler filled the space.
The sound of waves swishing and a handful of piano keys mixed like paint.
"Let’s never forget
This moment"
Two sparkler sticks burned down on screen.
Then the screen went dark.
We’re screwed.
In the darkness, Won Chae hui knew.
He’d just fallen hard for them.
—
Profile
Name: Park Juu
Birthday: September 22
Birthplace: Daejeon Metropolitan City
Height: 181 cm
MBTI: INFP
Nicknames: Nineteen-vintage Metal Steel Ball, Human Dawn Mountain Mist, Furball, Sloth, Limited-time Sniper
Likes: bands, microfiber blankets, tidy things
Dislikes: spicy, overpowering foods
Motto: Let’s all be happy together
Favorite food: yogurt
Preferred scent: unscented
Go-to music genre: rock
Favorite sport: billiards
Body part I’m confident in: ...arm muscles?
My habit: wearing a headset with no music playing
