How sweet a late sleep on a holiday is.
For an office worker who wakes up at six-thirty every morning, rubs sleepy eyes, showers, puts on a suit, and wedges into the hell train, a holiday morning is, quite literally, time that must be “wasted preciously.”
The UA trainees are probably the same. Those kids get up early and sing and dance every single day in their own way.
So the mister with the surname Kim, who not only spent years as an office worker but then became a trainee after that, wanted to enjoy a rare chance to sleep in!
“Why are you here already?”
I asked, having rushed out at the sound of an unidentified outsider punching in the dorm door code.
At dawn, with someone banging on the door lock, I figured it was a drunk.
Contrary to my ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) suspicion, the outsider—struggling outside and failing to beat the front-door lock—shouted.
“Iwol! Juu! Open the door!”
Thus the early-morning uninvited guest who announced to the whole neighborhood that Mr. Iwol and Mr. Juu lived here... and who was, in fact, a member of this dorm—Lee Cheonghyeon—managed to get in before the door broke.
The problem was that I’d set the safety latch, assuming no one would come.
Who told him to show up early with no notice?
I must have heard a pun somewhere that beauties are sleepyheads; turns out that was all a lie.
“I’ve never met someone who hates people being early. How upright is your lifestyle, huh.”
“You could’ve called first.”
“I thought I might wake you if I called.”
“Looking at the situation now, you ended up waking us all anyway, didn’t you?”
“Come on, how was I supposed to know you’d lock the latch too!”
Lee Cheonghyeon kept pleading his case, but I didn’t listen.
Even while we bickered, he kept pulling things out of a big supermarket tote and laying them on the dorm floor.
“What is all this?”
“Chestnuts. Ah, there’s watermelon jelly too! You guys ate jeon, right?”
“Who told you that?”
“Seongbin. I talked to him last night. He didn’t call you?”
Does he mean that call on the Han River bridge that made my heart pound?
Seems like after that call, Jeong Seongbin contacted Lee Cheonghyeon too.
I thought he’d phoned to keep watch in case the members left at the dorm got into trouble, but apparently he just called everyone one by one. The guy is brutally diligent.
Meanwhile, Park Juu, still half asleep, staggered out and moved the watermelon jelly into the cupboard.
Seeing the housework division going smoothly made this uncle proud.
While I helped stash the food he’d brought into the fridge, I asked:
“So. Why’d you come so early?”
“I thought you guys might be bored.”
“What?”
“People notice when someone’s missing even if they don’t notice who’s present!”
He declared it with pride. Saying something that embarrassing that confidently—now that is an idol qualification.
I briefly wondered if it was really okay for this kid to spend his first vacation in what feels like a million years like this.
Having finished putting things away, Park Juu came back and asked too.
“...Are you sure it’s okay not to be with your family?”
Lee Cheonghyeon was unbothered.
“What would we even do—just get nagged. Ah, but I did well on exams this time, so nobody really said anything!”
“Sounds like your family cares a lot about grades.”
“Not ‘a lot’—totally. Honestly, there are three kids. Expecting all three to only study is pure greed, if you ask me.”
He said it firmly.
Well, if there are five in the family and only one walks the path of music, it’s not easy to fit in with the rest.
So we each ate two chestnuts Lee Cheonghyeon brought and chatted.
A few hours later, Jeong Seongbin returned hugging a black bag.
“Seongbin!”
Greeting the kid welcoming him, Jeong Seongbin handed the bag to Park Juu.
Inside the bag Park Juu received were piles of yakgwa.
He stared into the bag full of yakgwa, bewildered.
“What is all this...?”
“Yakgwa. Are you okay, hy— are you okay, Juu? Cheonghyeon’s already here?”
I asked, full of dread.
“...Don’t tell me you like yakgwa?”
That would be a problem. A single yakgwa is a whopping 140 kcal.
“No, I brought them so the members could eat.”
Thankfully, he put my fears to rest in an instant.
And yakgwa weren’t the only things he brought.
His mother had also filled airtight containers with hand-made dumplings. The whole family had sat down and folded them for Chuseok, he said.
“Hey, some of these dumplings split.”
“Ah... those are probably the ones Jeong Jun made.”
Mentioning his little brother’s name, he let out a small sigh.
That flat tone and the hint of “Hopeless” tucked in his voice...
My sister probably sounded exactly like that whenever my name came up somewhere. Sorry for being the lacking little brother, sis.
While I was feeling an odd kinship with a Mr. Jeong Jun I’d never even met, Jeong Seongbin said to me:
“Mom said to keep the dumplings in the freezer and steam them. I learned how to steam, so I’ll do it.”
“I at least know that much. But how did you carry all this here?”
“Dad drove me nearby.”
I see. You could’ve asked him to come up and have some tea... Now I won’t have the face to meet Father later...
The flood of holiday food blessings didn’t stop there.
Before long, Kang Giyeon walked in carrying a box of ginger hangwa.
“...Do you guys like ginger?”
He looked incredibly sheepish.
Seems like he doesn’t like ginger himself, but I, who go crazy for ginger tea, welcomed the ginger hangwa with zeal.
Seeing his friend bring snacks in by the box from home, Lee Cheonghyeon giggled.
“At this rate, Jeho is going to bring something too, isn’t he?”
“No way. Jeho comes from far away.”
At the joke, the hand opening the hangwa box—its owner, Jeong Seongbin—brightened and waved it off with a laugh.
“Even the KTX takes three hours, right...?”
Park Juu also looked like there was no chance.
Choi Jeho truly didn’t bring anything.
He wore it on his back instead.
“So you’re telling me you carried plum extract on your back from your house to here?”
“Yeah. Mom told me to bring it.”
He put down a bag that looked heavy at a glance and slumped onto the sofa.
From the outside you could make out the silhouette of two 1.5-liter PET bottles.
“If you don’t want it, just leave it. I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you talking about! I love plum!”
As if he really might throw the extract out, Lee Cheonghyeon darted over and shoved the two bottles into the fridge.
“‘Make all positions below deputy department head match the holiday bonus of regular staff?’”
“‘Yeah. Orders from up top. Plan with that in mind.’”
“‘Compared to last Lunar New Year it could be up to 400,000 won less... Won’t there be backlash?’”
“‘What? The gap’s that big?’”
There are companies that begrudge even the holiday bonuses they’ve given to employees of five-plus years, trimming them down to once every few years.
“Guys.”
Thinking of the chestnut plate, the yakgwa bag, the hangwa box, and the PET bottles now in the fridge, I said:
“Gather up. Let’s start with thank-you calls to Jeho’s family.”
Thanks to the kids who brought all sorts of food with us in mind, we all nearly put on 500 grams apiece.
If the six of us hadn’t run along the Han River in two ranks every night, the love the families sent would have gone straight to our bodies.
So we did our best to keep an idol’s basic duty even on that short holiday...
“I did some thinking while everyone was resting. About how this group can survive in a unique market.”
If there is a god, I want to ask.
Why did you neglect your duty and not strike Yoo Hansu’s head with lightning?
I wanted to either shred the PPT in front of me—titled “Spark Stage Names (Draft)”—or stab out the two eyes that were looking at it. Violently.
It’s not rare for an idol group to use stage names.
Sometimes stage names are in vogue, and other times using one’s real name is the main trend.
But stage names are only made when you need a tool to present the idol more effectively.
Considering the team’s color and the member’s individuality, after much discussion.
“Like this, give them stage names that contain elements showing the six belong to one collective...”
Not give all six matching syllables.
While everyone watched Yoo Hansu, I covertly rubbed my eyes. Then I looked back at the screen.
But the words “Yoo Family’s Six Brothers” remained.
As did the names Iwon, Jewon, Seongwon, Juwon, Cheongwon, Giwon.
What were the ancestors doing this Chuseok—why didn’t they come take Yoo Hansu.
He must have squeezed that out because there are already precedents with character counts, alphabet themes, and native-Korean words.
I’m not some genius of creativity.
And I know how ridiculous it is to sit on the sidelines and just add commentary without helping the person who did the work...
“Isn’t this just too lame?”
I read again through the trend research materials Yoo Hansu had brought.
Fans like family-like groups? True.
It’s also true that people often assign positions like Mom, Firstborn, Secondborn, Uncle, Maknae.
But do we really need to take not just a few self-content episodes but the entire worldbuilding into a noisy, brother-ensemble concept? Not an album concept—an entire group concept?
Things had gotten so far it went past anger into bewilderment. At the same time, I was at a loss for how to handle this.
Maybe it’d be better to just leave now, I seriously considered. Nothing could be more useless than sitting here at this moment.
But I couldn’t. What if I left and “Iwon” ended up under my profile photo.
For the record, that “Won” is from “one team.”
Lee Cheonghyeon—whose nickname would obviously become “Public Petition” after debut—didn’t look good today either.
Sitting next to him, Kang Giyeon—destined to be nicknamed “Lottery Prayer”—was abusing his innocent lips.
“Aren’t our kids’ real names all fine? One or two using stage names is okay, but the entire team... Matching names like this—there’s really no precedent.”
One of the Planning Team staff spoke up. A kind of uprightness that made me want to swear eternal loyalty.
But Yoo Hansu’s will was firm.
“You can’t succeed by only doing what others do. UA is challenging a new market. The public will have expectations befitting that, and I think we need the spirit to take on a challenge that matches.”
He shrugged.
Across from me, I saw Lee Cheonghyeon squeeze his eyes shut. Apparently no one has ever told Yoo Hansu that there are reasons people avoid certain things.
Whether he couldn’t see the faces around the conference table or didn’t care, he kept presenting.
“Let’s emphasize it starting with the names. Names represent people, right?”
Why not make the team chant “Spark is always one!” while you’re at it.
Make the debut song title Only One, and run music shows once per album.
Teamwork is a basic competency for idols. It’s not something to emphasize so much as something you must have as a given.
“Is he trying to notch a ‘try something’ while stealing others’ work for the actual results, just to preserve his pride?”
It’s been a while since I’ve seen one this troublesome. My head hurt.
The only relief was that his spiel wasn’t getting a warm response from anyone else either. Judging from the Planning Team’s rotting expressions, I probably wouldn’t need to step in this time.
Sure enough, the Planning Team lead spoke.
“Understood for now. Are there other items we should be discussing?”
A subtly topic-shifting phrasing. He looked like he wanted to end this draining meeting as soon as possible.
“Ah, it’s an extension of the stage-name topic.”
Yoo Hansu flipped the PPT page.
On the screen, in clear Malgun Gothic on a white background, were the words “Set Spark Fandom Name.”
No.
Why is the fandom name coming out here...?
