“Team Leader, it’s been a while.”
“Iwol, how have you been? Your complexion looks much better, at least.”
“Thank you for the compliment!”
We exchanged a warm greeting with the head of the planning team.
“Cheonghyeon is here as an observer?”
“Yes. He’s here for ideation, so please don’t mind him and proceed as usual.”
The meeting I attended with Lee Cheonghyeon wasn’t with Spark’s dedicated team, but a promotion meeting under the existing UA planning team.
Since I’d given them a heads-up, the conversation flowed smoothly. Looking relieved, Cheonghyeon took a seat in the corner of the conference room.
Thirty minutes later.
“No, not like this—what’s the point of having a meeting at all?”
“How long are we going to say the same thing? We should have a conclusion by now!”
“We have to produce a result today no matter what. Everyone knows that, right?”
“We do, it’s just... sigh.”
Ta-da. A perfectly ordinary meeting scene you can see anywhere unfolded.
Wide-eyed, Cheonghyeon darted his gaze around, flustered.
Of course. He’s only ever seen meetings where I show up with everything I need to say already decided.
He probably has no idea how he’s supposed to pull inspiration from this. It’s not like he can write lyrics like, “Meetings every day, no conclusion—this won’t work, I’m done.”
In the corner of my notepad, I jotted a short line.
Focus on the sound.
His eyes went wide.
The sighs, the rising voices, the hush when one side starts speaking, the swell together and the sudden drop, the click of a ballpoint pen.
Whether he chooses to render the sounds or the atmosphere is up to him, but the surest way is to hear the room tone and then decide.
Most people would close their eyes to concentrate on sound; instead, he opened his eyes even wider.
He focused like he meant to memorize everything in the room.
Even the way a wet paper cup hit the table with a smack.
When the bogged-down meeting crept past an hour, he tapped my notepad. The signal to step out.
We slipped out and closed the door carefully so we wouldn’t interrupt.
“Don’t need to see more?”
“No, I’ve got plenty.”
He gave a wicked little grin.
“I’ll make an OST you can’t help but use every time an emotional scene hits.”
The resolve was on another level. Maybe I should’ve shown him this raw mess ages ago.
“So that’s why the OST moved so fast. Was it Cheonghyeon? He really must be a genius.”
“Objectively speaking, I agree.”
At my line, Ha Seomyeong burst out laughing. Not what you’d expect from his face, but his love for the members is fierce, he said.
“Hope the final mix comes out soon. I caught ‘I’m the Best,’ and Seongbin sings like a dream.”
“Our main vocals really do sing well. I’m just struggling to keep up.”
“Yeah? Then next time I should catch something with you in it.”
“Wouldn’t your precious time be better spent somewhere prettier? Seongbin’s got a cover that’s downright killer.”
Kim Iwol showing up after Jeong Seongbin—what a dishonorable death that would be. I have no desire to face Ha Seomyeong dodging eye contact with me at the next shoot.
I was desperately pitching Spark’s highest-output songs when a familiar voice cut in.
“Figures the showbiz boys get along.”
The actor playing Ji Seongin, Goo Jahan, was looking our way. The area went quiet in an instant.
“Ha...”
Ha Seomyeong gave a dry laugh.
Goo Jahan taking digs at actors who came up from idols wasn’t exactly new.
Me, I take no damage from his words. There’s no reason my pride should be hurt just because someone calls me a song-and-dance clown. If anything, he’s broadcasting his own shabby mindset.
But you could see the stress building in Ha Seomyeong day by day because of him.
It was simple. Goo Jahan—the “blue-blood actor”—was worse at acting than “showbiz background” Ha Seomyeong.
Imagine this: someone you have to adjust to because he acts worse than you keeps sneering at you, and you’re supposed to let it go because he’s one of the leads? From Ha Seomyeong’s point of view, that’s enough to make anyone snap.
This is why you don’t force two suns into the sky. One is a flawed artificial sun, which means the real sun has to pump out twice the energy. Peak unfairness.
And it’s not like he only lags in acting, either...
Ha Seomyeong has an unusual sense of responsibility for any project he takes. You can tell just from how he grabs me to try ad-libs multiple times a day.
He wants to pull more than what’s on the page, to plant lots of seeds because you never know what will sprout where.
Goo Jahan was the opposite. Minimum effort, maximum effect. The way every big corporation wants things done.
But corporations and Goo Jahan differ in one crucial way: corporations have technology built up over time. Goo Jahan doesn’t.
If he memorized only lines, a slight tangle in blocking wiped the script from his head, and he constantly messed up supporting actors’ names.
Bottom line, he wasn’t very good. More precisely, he wasn’t good for someone with his years in the craft.
Think about it: someone who trained like mad to shake off a label versus someone who tried “just enough.” Who’s going to be better?
As for me—another former idol—I may not win in every kind of role, but I won’t lose at “pretending to be a basically nice guy” or “office worker acting.” I’m confident I can do “old-school bully of a department head,” too, but that’s got nothing to do with Do Yeonghwan, so I’ll leave it aside.
Anyway, it’s one thing to have outsiders pop in as supporting roles; it’s another for them to snatch a lead. Of course that would rub people the wrong way. Still, wearing your pettiness on your sleeve like this?
“My voice must’ve been too loud. I’ll be careful, senior.”
“Your senior is Seomyeong, not me.”
He twisted the knife right to the end and walked off.
Ha Seomyeong raked a hand through his hair.
“Thinking about shooting a romance scene with that guy makes me want to quit everything...”
In that moment, there was nothing I could say to comfort him.
This week’s team meeting.
As usual, Spark cheerfully praised one another and checked whether the twelve dorm commandments—somehow doubled over time—were being kept.
To practice “talk a lot,” I brought a topic of my own.
“I’ve got something I want to ask you.”
“Us?”
“What’s the occasion?”
Lee Cheonghyeon and Kang Giyeon responded with their usual cheek.
Yeah—no other friends to ask, so I’m asking you punks.
“I think changing careers—or tracks, I guess—doesn’t earn you extra points, but it isn’t necessarily a negative either. Still, in some cases people ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) hit resistance during the switch. I wondered how it was for you.”
Even without counting Cheonghyeon, plenty of them switched majors. Choi Jeho from street dance to idol dance; Park Juu from rock ballad to idol vocal.
“There were people who looked down on me, but I never paid much attention, so I don’t really know. They all say the same things anyway.”
“What do they usually say?”
What Jeho relayed was filthy and gross. I regretted not having a thousand hands to cover all their ears.
Cheonghyeon ran both forearms as if shaking off a chill.
“I think that turf war is scarier than a diss rap.”
“Isn’t diss rap rough enough...?”
“A lot of diss tracks still include respect, you know? That stuff is just abuse!”
You, who dissed a senior group with a muzzle on like a big dog, are not the one to talk. Please schedule some self-reflection soon.
“I think songs are freer by nature... If anything, you get praised for being able to handle more genres.”
Park Juu tilted his head as he spoke. Jeong Seongbin brought a counterpoint.
“I don’t think reactions are that favorable when a general singer moves into musicals or classical voice. Acting is part of it, but when the vocal technique has to change, I see pushback.”
“Mm... I agree on that part.”
Neatly acknowledging it, Park Juu nodded. Then Kang Giyeon jumped in.
“Is it really a technique issue, though? No one rips into someone from metal for singing a ballad.”
“Then what about someone trained in pansori becoming an idol trainee? Or an opera singer switching to trot?”
“Hold on—don’t make the topic more complicated!”
A storm of Cheonghyeon’s “what ifs” hit, and Kang Giyeon clutched his head and yelled.
Still, the one whose shift was the most dramatic has to be Cheonghyeon.
The second I glanced his way, he shrugged.
“My family insisted on jobs in suits. Researcher, prosecutor, professor. If I had to touch music, then piano or conducting.”
“Even orchestral session work didn’t make the cut?”
“Nope. They’re obsessed with having your name listed separately. They don’t know how different performance and conducting are. Funny people.”
With a face that said “not funny at all,” he sneered.
“And you still said you were going into entertainment?”
With zero hesitation, Jeho hurled a fastball. The pupils of the four of us—everyone but Jeho and Cheonghyeon—shook like crazy.
I’d heard the gist before; Kang Giyeon knew some of it too, probably...
But Jeong Seongbin and Park Juu were sweating bullets and reading the room.
Cheonghyeon, for his part, stayed calm.
“It was a huge fight. Not even a fight—more like I just got chewed out. ‘We’ll strike you from the family register,’ all that. And I was soft then, so I went to my room and cried.”
“Seriously...?”
Moved by our younger one’s plight, Park Juu’s brows drooped into a pity mark.
“But what could they do if I said I wouldn’t study? So first they allowed piano. Once I’d talked back once, I learned how, and from there I drifted.”
“That’s something.”
“But only on the condition I kept my grades up. If they fell, they’d really strike me. Which is why, Iwol, I’m counting on you for my midterms.”
“How about you start by telling me the test dates, Cheonghyeon?”
I smiled pleasantly.
As his expression darkened at speed, Jeong Seongbin called to me.
“Iwol.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Is filming ‘In My Office’ really hard on you?”
What the heck.
Are you the one with an ancestor god perched on your shoulder, not me?
