UA spent quite a lot of money on this comeback. It looked either like they were trying to pay off the Royal Household’s debt, or like they’d finally realized you have to row while the tide is in.
So Spark ended up wearing two different suits ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ just for the group-dance scenes. In other words, scenes we’d normally gloss over with a single outfit got finely segmented so we could go full throttle on showing off the visuals.
Why bring this up all of a sudden?
“Guys, change into your individual outfits! Check the name tags carefully!”
“Giyeon, don’t forget you have to change and then get your hair set again!”
Because they dropped on me an idol look that makes no sense: a cropped jacket.
One that I had to wear on bare skin.
‘Cropped?’
When I first saw the costume concept art in the conference room, I thought I would faint.
There was even a cut line across the back. A big one, right down the middle.
They must have designed it to expose the spinal erectors. The problem is, if I wear that, it turns into a grand scar-reveal show.
Beside me, Jeong Seongbin opened and closed his mouth without managing to say anything.
Should I ask to swap with Choi Jeho’s outfit? But he’s got a bare-chest harness under his jacket. Either way, won’t it be the same public embarrassment?
Which is better—baring my back and stomach, or baring my chest?
I racked my brains till they burst, but no answer came.
In the end I carefully raised my hand.
‘I have a scar on my back. Is it okay if it shows in the MV or on broadcast?’
‘A scar? If you don’t want to show it, we can cover it with makeup! We can erase it in the MV.’
‘No, it’s just...’
Without thinking, my hand went to my back. If I tell them to erase all of that manually, the video editor is going to want to kill me.
Seeing is believing. I called Seongbin over and pulled my shirt out from being tucked in.
With his help, I lifted my top right there in the conference room and forcefully made the case that “I cannot wear a cropped jacket,” and...
‘Should we avoid outfits that show your back from now on?’
‘It doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t really mind! If it suits the team’s picture better...’
‘Then let’s cover it with a sticker.’
‘Pardon?’
...We decided to stick on a tattoo sticker of a bouquet across my back.
It felt a bit grotesque to have flowers on the back of a guy like me, but when they said the fans would really love it, I had no choice but to accept.
Seongbin quietly asked if I was sure I was okay, but I had no particular desire to hide the wound itself, so I truly didn’t care.
“Iwol, I’m spraying water now! Even if it’s cold, don’t move!”
Or maybe I did care.
Sitting half-naked on the sofa hugging a blanket while they stick a decal on my back—mortifying.
I couldn’t tell if what the stylists were spraying was water or my tears. I’m dying at the idea this might go up on a behind-the-scenes cam.
In my corporate-worker life, I had never once imagined this kind of styling.
Back then I thought the only part of my body that would ever see the sun was my forearms. Turns out there’s not a single thing in this world you can speak about with certainty.
“Wow, hyung, isn’t this the most skin you’ve ever shown?”
Lee Cheonghyeon came over and asked.
He’s in a mock-turtleneck with a harness—so why am I... No. Don’t get jealous over stuff like this.
“Record-breaking. The shame is record-breaking too.”
I slathered on the body oil the makeup staff handed me and wept endlessly on the inside.
Whether I was internally sobbing or not, Cheonghyeon gave me a thumbs-up.
“But it’s idol-like and cool!”
“Thanks.”
From a distance, Choi Jeho watched my and Cheonghyeon’s heartwarming chatter. Maybe, from the point of view of Spark’s poster boy for exposure, it wasn’t a very acceptable conversation.
Led by exhibitionist Choi Jeho and exposure-rookie me, Spark headed into the second group-dance shoot in more daring outfits.
It would be a problem if only I had flowers slapped on bare skin and people started screaming favoritism for members, so we worked hard to load the others up with dried flowers, tattoo stickers, chain accessories, and so on.
Thanks to that, my field of view kept flashing the whole time we danced under the lights. I thought we were in a jewelry store, not a studio.
We danced until our footfalls matched the heavy beat, and once we nailed it, we got the okay sign.
At the same time, I bent deep at the waist. My arms automatically covered my stomach.
“What’s wrong, hyung? Stomachache?”
Seongbin came over. It wasn’t serious enough to deserve that kind of tender concern.
“It’s not that, it’s just...”
“Then what? Is there some other problem?”
He kept at it doggedly. In a grief-stricken mood like a hamster stripped of even its hidden sunflower seeds, I said,
“I want to change out of this fast.”
“Why! It suits you great!”
Even as he teased, Cheonghyeon discreetly tugged my jacket down where it had naturally ridden up when I bent.
By the time we finished even the drama scenes, the date had flipped. Several times.
Most of the members collapsed; the only ones left standing were me and Jeong Seongbin.
Choi Jeho seems to have gone down for once after shooting wire action, and Seongbin... he’s enduring on sheer will because of responsibility. The moment he gets in the car, he’ll be out too.
“Hyung, you’re not tired...?”
Swaying his head, Park Juu asked. I slid a neck pillow onto him and answered,
“I told you I’m all better. My condition’s number one among us now.”
“Guess you’re serious...”
He smiled muzzy. He smiled because it was me; to anyone else, they’d still call it expressionless.
People need to recognize this is what a smiling face looks like.
I answered with a smile of my own.
“I don’t lie.”
Kang Giyeon stared right at me. Maybe it was just my imagination, but lately he sometimes looked at me like that.
“Why? Going to raise an objection?”
“...No.”
I was joking, but he didn’t really react.
He might have a screw loose from fatigue. He and Choi Jeho shot pretty much every action scene between the two of them.
“If you’re really worn out, want me to bring you a tonic?”
“I’m fine. You should rest too, hyung.”
“I’ll rest when I get tired. I’m okay for now.”
“...Really?”
“Really.”
More than that—what if all six of the youngest on set are sprawled out? How’s that going to look? Everyone here’s been grinding for days.
Just for today, I’ll be this set’s endorphin.
“Spark, we’re going to check each shot once more overall and then wrap!”
“Yes!”
At last it was time for the final of the final of the final checks.
I answered energetically for the sake of the exhausted kids too. I heard them scrambling to their feet behind me.
Back at the dorm, everyone fell in turn.
Even ever-spirited Cheonghyeon blurted, “Hyungs, love you. See you tomorrow...” and fell asleep without even getting his feet up on the top bunk—says it all.
Sure enough, Seongbin passed out the moment he got in the car. He didn’t open his eyes until the manager piggybacked him upstairs.
For the first time since he started suffering my nagging, Park Juu fell asleep without drying his hair. Light sleeper that he is, he didn’t wake up even when I brought the dryer over and blasted warm air.
Once Kang Giyeon was asleep and even Choi Jeho was lying with his back to me, I finally got a moment to breathe.
I’d been waiting for just this. There was something I wanted to check.
‘Where did I see the description about cumulative fatigue?’
I meant to read properly the section on side effects I’d skimmed before. I may have been out of my mind from bizarre phenomena, but it’s true I skimmed the explanation.
Soon the system popped up a familiar write-up.
.
.
.
▷ Physical side effects may occur for various reasons, including when the period of service use becomes prolonged, when fatigue that has been temporarily reduced exceeds a certain threshold, etc.
Isn’t that extremely vague?
But reading closely, it had nothing to do with dark circles. I had those right after I regressed, remember.
There was something else unusual. The phrase “physical side effects” was shimmering.
As if bewitched, I tapped the words and a new entry appeared.
▷ “Physical side effects” is a term that includes the embodiment of damage, the unilateral synchronization by “A” of “B’s” previous body and current body, etc. (Current sync rate: 33%)
▷ Physical side effects may occur in cases where “B” has infringed on “A’s” authority, where “B” has violated confidentiality, etc.
▷ Various forms of physical side effects may appear when “B” uses the Additional Labor Support Service.
Put simply, there’s a top-level category called physical side effects, and one subcategory under that is the side effect that occurs when you use the Additional Labor Support Service for a long time.
I’ve been toggling that support service on and off as needed. Maybe that’s why, when fatigue built up, it only ever stopped at a nosebleed...
I don’t know what it means to synchronize my previous body with my current body.
Aren’t the conditions similar enough already? At most my stamina’s a bit worse than it was in my early twenties, right?
‘And the sync has already progressed a bit.’
There was no further explanation of synchronization. And then when something happens again you’ll show up late and go, “Deputy Kim, why didn’t you just listen to me in the first place,” while grinding me, right? I know you, you f**ker.
Or maybe the dark circles are an effect of the sync. Then I have to figure out whether 33% directly translates to dark circles, or whether dark circles are just part of that 33%...
My head throbbed. Back at Hanpyeong Industries I took headache pills calling them “vitamins,” and here I am popping them this often again.
I opened my work history again and checked my cumulative fatigue. Maybe because of the MV shoot, the figure was a bit higher than usual.
If I take it easy, who knows what will happen to my sister; if I don’t rest, who knows how the system will grind me down.
At times like this I wish I were a little smarter.
There has to be a better way. There has to be someone more rational than me who could crack this.
The same kinds of thoughts kept circling my head.
But I wasn’t depressed like when I looked at the memory data. I guess this is what it means to drop negative-emotion recognition to the minimum. Pretty convenient.
I swallowed a sigh.
What can I do about the fact I already went back in time?
Just do well. Don’t resent it. Work harder.
I decided to steel my heart. My head was so full of what I had to do that I couldn’t sleep.
Baek Haewon stayed up all night with eyes wide open.
The concept photos that dropped one after another over the last few days had done this to Baek Haewon.
It wasn’t just Baek Haewon going wild. Spark’s name shot up all over every community.
≫ Took a quick peek into heaven after seeing the maknae’s teal hair
Not a single thing wrong with Iwol’s claim that a handsome man must dye his hair for the country to thrive
└ It’s truly strange—Giyeon is ten years younger than me but I want to call him Director
└ Beep—diagnosis: normal
≫ Male idol who showed up today with bleached white hair
Subject: Spark’s Juu
Famous among fans for having tried lots of light hair colors
This time it’s true-true-true white
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White hair with white shirt + white gloves—tone on tone insane
His irises are pale too, which makes the vibe even stronger
└ Wow how is his hair not fried? Born with a silver comb
└ A silver co—mb lololol
└ What’s that clear thing in his mouth??
└ Syringe cap? Looks like it
≫ A riddle for the ages has appeared
Black-haired Cheonghyeon vs. Blond Cheonghyeon
└ I, Kim-Firework, hereby withdraw my support for Blond Cheonghyeon as of today. From today Blond Cheonghyeon and I are not one body, but any attack on Blond Cheonghyeon will be considered an attack on me
└ I no longer fear a live-action adaptation of a romance-fantasy
└ Wow, the highest praise
≫ Emperor Jeho’s reputation hasn’t gone anywhere
I’m looking every hour on the hour
Can’t live my daily life; he hovers before my eyes like the last plate I gave up at a buffet
Watching him bite those leather gloves keeps making my imagination run wild: “Who did he bury today?”
└ Name and reality match...
└ “Who did he bury today” lololololol
└ Those thick brows are real “man.”
└ The shoulders don’t even fit in the concept photo, but from the angle alone you can infer the Pacific. Truly insane
└ As expected, a man of 115 across the chest
And most of all...
≫ No, Iwol, what on earth role did you take
...the moment Baek Haewon saw Kim Iwol’s concept, he forgot every single thing the homeroom teacher had begged him to memorize for today’s test.
