“Great work, everyone!”
“Thank you!”
The instant the cut was called, I bowed at the waist and boomed my greeting. Another music show recording wrapped.
That made three music shows already.
Collecting today’s prop—aka “Lee Cheonghyeon’s It-Item,” the pen with the plush keychain—I thought:
How many more music shows are we going to cycle through...?
The moment the first show ended, the system definitely popped up right in front of me.
▶ Deputy Manager Kim, did you see the draft you submitted! But I’m swamped today. Yours isn’t urgent, right? I’ll definitely look at it within this week, please be understanding. Okay?
Like an office worker who sprinted to the bank on lunch break only to hear the estimated wait is 50 minutes, I felt like my heart would explode.
Given the situation, I was even pulling all-nighters with my eyes wide open so I wouldn’t miss the system’s mission-complete alert while sleeping.
Spark’s hot debut was already last week.
So even if they needed a week for review, that would’ve ended ages ago.
Shit, “I’ll check it” was a lie too!
I was naive. A guy who talks like Manager Nam is never going to review a draft on time.
I may be the underdog here, but this is too much. Is there no labor ministry in the land of System?
...Starting today I was really going to write the handover doc.
Spark’s first promo period is six weeks.
Those six weeks are the optimal window I fought UA to secure, to raise Spark’s recognition even a little.
From the start, I planned to finish this one round of promos and leave the team, but I wouldn’t feel at ease until my resignation was officially processed by the system.
I anxiously flicked the pen. The carrot plush at the tip wobbled violently.
Anything that could make Manager Nam—no, the system—suddenly say, “Deputy Manager Kim, your metrics are way too low. I need you to work longer,” I preemptively blocked at the source.
Spark’s MV views alone have more than doubled compared to their early debut era.
Sure, past results being bad helps the comparison, but from the daily community monitoring, Spark was definitely spreading name recognition in a good way by word of mouth.
≫ The task distribution is perfect
Thug who sleeps the second he gets to school → model student who pulled an all-nighter on the homework
Thug who brings tools to school → model student who brings supplies
Real final-boss-looking thug → team leader
Mysterious outsider → safety manager
That kid who goofs off during class → golden-handed model student devoted to the task
Thug with messy uniform → model student who takes on the hard jobs
└ So they were a dream team
≫ Where’d you sell your plush’s head
Everybody pretends to write with a pen for the ending on music shows and one boyband member hurriedly hides his pen.gif
└ What’s the name of the guy hiding the pen??
└ They say he’s Spark’s Jeho~
≫ Who knew six high school boys doing a school project could be this addictive
I can’t stop replaying
└ Looks like a really fun project, especially the students’ faces
≫ Music-show ending item evolution.zip
Group-project lots > ruler > pen lol I wonder what they’ll bring next
└ I’m seriously worried they’ll bring a wooden box on the last stage and smash it on their heads...
└ lolololololololol
Of course they won’t smash a box. Actions that could harm those faces are strictly forbidden.
This was my favorite post of all:
≫ Looked like another sacrificial lamb to that bullsh*t company
But the stage is crazy good... guess the main-house genes don’t go anywhere
Naturally, it wasn’t all positive takes.
There were every kind of post from criticism-disguised insults to raw, primary-color slander.
But I didn’t read those closely.
About half were about my fancams—my skills noticeably lagging behind the members—and the other half were the clickbait every celebrity gets.
Just a little patience, public. That eyesore klutz Kim Iwol will bow out soon...
Results are better than before, I’ve got a rough plan for the next year, too.
To keep the system from secretly moving the goalposts, I resolved to start that handover doc as soon as possible.
“Hyung, we’ll post the live notice!”
Right.
We just have to get through tomorrow’s live in one piece.
These last few days, Baek Hae won lived on MeTube.
All thanks to a boy group that debuted the day before yesterday.
Why are they that good on stage already, and why is there so much bait?
After swimming nonstop for four hours in the sea of content, Baek Hae won had to admit with a damp heart: they’d fallen for Spark.
Should’ve waited till they got a bit bigger to grab on... then I’d at least have fandom friends... No, it’s said the earlier you fall, the better...
Their head was pure turmoil.
Even exhausted in body and mind, the reason Baek Hae won still clutched the phone was, again, those idols.
After the music show ended yesterday, a live broadcast notice went up on Spark’s newly opened official account.
≫ ★ Notice ★
Guys, we’ve got our presentation soon...
Is everyone free tomorrow evening?
Let’s prep together at my place!
Don’t forget your phones!
So simple, yet viciously conceptual. Is there another quirky “ordinary” notice like this?
And that much-awaited live strode right up while Baek Hae won was bantering with friends on social.
[SPARK] (2X0227) Group Project Presentation begins!
They even put the date in the title... fans will have an easy time archiving...
Without imagining they’d be one of those fans, Baek Hae won hit the broadcast button.
The screen showed six boys in matching black track suits, seated together.
“Manager-nim, it looks like our stream is live—are we good?”
Watching a tablet, member Kim Iwol asked someone off-screen in a small voice. Of course, with bat ears, Baek Hae won heard it all.
Manners: pass.
Character matters a lot when deciding whether to stan.
Once you start liking someone, you might overlook quite a bit, so Baek Hae won’s creed—tempered by years of hard knocks—was to button it right from the start.
Idols with stellar character on camera—do those exist?
Plenty. And it’s absolutely not that Baek Hae won’s old main was like tha—
Okay, it was, dammit.
Ah, no. Focus, focus!
It’s a hundred times better to focus on Spark now than to think about those bastards the industry blacklisted.
Satisfied the connection was smooth, the members started the stream with a group greeting.
“At last, we’re doing our first live broadcast since debut. Applause!”
When leader Jeong Seongbin spoke, everyone clapped along.
One thought filled Baek Hae won’s head.
Our Seongbin... how’s he going to survive this ruthless group looking that soft all by himself...
Flanking Seongbin in ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the center sat Left-Giyeon and Right-Cheonghyeon, both with killer auras, and the back row looked like hyungs who’d just come back from collections.
The saving grace: the hyungs talked extremely gently.
“Choi Jeho, want to read comments?”
“Sure, I’ll read.”
One of them seemed a bit cyborg-y, but hey. First stream—nerves happen.
“We had so much we wanted to say on our first stream... Iwol-hyung, could you take that out?”
“Yeah.”
At Seongbin’s request, Kim Iwol pulled a giant foam board from behind the sofa.
The day’s talking points, in order.
Isn’t that the board they used to introduce members in their self-content?
Catching a familiar color and size, Baek Hae won couldn’t suppress a reasonable doubt. Prop recycling—you eco-friendly punks...
More to the point, TMI what. Is that really a topic you discuss this earnestly?
Baek Hae won was a little confused.
Spark, unaware of this, stuck a felt red star next to “1. Debut impressions” and talked about the joy and gratitude of debut.
It was pretty interesting when Lee Cheonghyeon got outed by Kim Iwol for not sleeping for days after debut.
In self-content he felt like an FM model with one screw mis-threaded.
After a quick round of impressions, they moved to the MV behind-the-scenes.
“We can’t skip this in this MV. The Rube Goldberg!”
Lee Cheonghyeon pulled a printout of an MV frame from under the dining table. Who knew how many visual aids they’d stashed under the camera.
Then Jeong Seongbin said something shocking.
“That Rube Goldberg device—Cheonghyeon made all of it.”
“Oh, the planning was Iwol-hyung’s; I just did the design! Everyone helped build it together!”
So basically, that massive rig was laid out by Cheonghyeon himself.
“Cheonghyeon went through a lot...”
Park Juu said with a smile. Apparently, the only one amazed by this was Baek Hae won.
Is it easy to make every action click like stop-motion? As far as I know, the math has to be perfect?
Right on cue, Kang Giyeon pointed that part out.
“We failed a ton in the middle. Lots of trial and error.”
“For real. We even suggested splitting it into cuts, but Cheonghyeon wanted to do it one take.”
“And it came out awesome! Love you, members who helped!”
When the Kang–Jeong tag-team banter ended, Lee Cheonghyeon fired off hearts with winks in every direction.
So Kim Iwol kindly rotated Cheonghyeon’s body to face the camera head-on. Thank you, Speed Iwol!
“First time in a while I used my brain—tiring but fun! I think I can skip math study for a while!”
“As if. Isn’t your exam period in like two months, Cheonghyeon?”
“Ah, Jeho-hyung...!”
Even their bickering was quaint. Like peeking into the boys’ class at Baek Hae won’s school.
Lifestyle-close teen slice-of-life...
A glance at the social timeline during the live showed the same chatter.
Just as Baek Hae won was thinking of hopping into fandom chat after the stream, the topic moved to number three.
TMI—so, stuff like what they ate today, or a snack they saw at the convenience store.
Planning to use the moment to grab some chips, Baek Hae won set the phone down.
But they never made it for snacks. Instead, they were too busy doubting their ears.
On screen, Kim Iwol was definitely saying something perfectly ordinary about what he ate today.
“Choi Jeho had a steak-and-egg salad. The dressing was mustard, but he said he wasn’t feeling it today, so he used the oriental dressing Park Juu set aside and didn’t eat. You left the yolk, right? Seongbin had...”
The detail was almost exactly like the notes Baek Hae won used to take to copy their bias’s exact way of mixing food.
