Even if it was only the second comeback, the communities had changed.
At debut, you’d only see a few people with fixed nicks. This time there were a fair number of posts mentioning Spark.
≫ Is Seongbin team leader again?
└ [laughs] Look at him looking all sorry for everyone [laughs]
└ Seong-tteo-jo... (“Seong again team leader”...)
└ Seong-tteo-jo [laughs]
≫ s p k looks like it’s a youth concept again
It’s wild—how do they pull that off when their faces don’t have “youth” on them
└ [laughs] “Their faces don’t have youth,” he says
└ That’s too harsh, teacher—except for our oldest two, they’re all real high-school boys ㅠ
└ It’s the kind of “youth” you hardly find in idolland these days, so I love it
└ Lately most groups do strong concepts and it’s tiring; feels like they aimed the other way well
≫ Is Lee Cheonghyeon a genius?
I only heard a bit and the melody already slaps
└ The more I see Cheonghyeon, the prouder I get ㅠㅠ He doesn’t even have that long a composing history and still brings good songs every time. It’s amazing.
└ Isn’t it just that *** is pushing him?
└ Being jealous of a kid is ugly, friend;;;
≫ UA’s working hard
They’re pacing the comeback cycle well so the firepower doesn’t drop
└ If you don’t push in the beginning, when will you ㅠㅠ Right now is exactly when you have to go all-in
└ For real—if you don’t grind hard as rookies, your survival odds drop. If a year passes and you still haven’t popped, revival’s insanely hard
Maybe because antis hadn’t latched on yet, the board was mostly positive.
Times like this were why it was nice to stan a not-so-famous idol.
“Keep this form... No, get famous... Taste the sweet of success... But don’t get too famous...”
Thinking the most two-faced thoughts imaginable, Baek Haewon turned off the phone.
If they kept reading related posts, it felt like their heart would burst from being overwhelmed.
“I hope the MV drops soon.”
Like a kid wishing on Christmas Eve night, Baek Haewon prayed earnestly.
And before long, like a present, the MV was released.
As the video began, to a backdrop of birds chirping in the distance, Jeong Seongbin, in a gray hoodie, walked into frame.
He passed an empty school and climbed the hill behind it, stopping in front of a tree.
Then he rolled aside a big stone pressing on the roots, opened the backpack he’d been carrying, took out a little hand shovel, and started digging into the damp earth.
After a few shovels of dirt came the sound of the shovel hitting something, and his movement stopped.
The angle switched down into the ground, showing Seongbin’s hands brushing off soil and the blank sky beyond.
With the motion of pulling something out, the camera was lifted from underground.
He knocked the dirt off a cookie tin he’d dug up and opened the lid.
With the sound of stainless steel popping open, the title appeared and the song began.
“Even without an alarm, my eyes open
Just seeing the morning sun already lifts my mood—
a day like that.”
As verse 1 started, the screen switched to the [N O V E L I G H T] whiteboard scene from the teaser.
Having written big, “Operation: Have the Most Fun in the World!”, Seongbin sticks up the old colored paper he took from the time capsule, and next to it a blown-up flyer for an amusement park.
“Right, the day we promised!”
As he looks straight ahead, Seongbin’s part flows out, and right after that the members’ group-dance scene appears.
Dancing in front of a carousel, the members’ hair colors are dazzling.
Among them, Seongbin’s bright yellow blond and Park Juu’s pale pink hair stand out the most.
“If we’re going to play right,
we’ve got to prepare right—
phones on silent,
a small wallet and even sunglasses—
got everything?
Ready to play perfectly?”
Kang Giyeon slips an expensive-looking camera from a glass cabinet in a stately living room into a bag, and Lee Cheonghyeon cracks open a piggy bank.
Then in turn: Choi Jeho laying outfits across the bed one by one, and Kim Iwol stuffing the bag with drinks.
Ending with Park Juu trying on multiple animal headbands in front of a mirror, the drama-style sequence switches back to the chorus group-dance.
“Playing is the best—
at a place with a great view,
eating all the delicious things I want,
doing only what I want to do,
I want to live every day like vacation.”
Soap bubbles pour down behind the members’ bright smiles.
As verse 2 begins, the members soak up the amusement park.
“For good kids, the present they wish for;
for cool adults, the best vacation;
yeah, that’s right—
the time with you, too!”
We see the members riding all sorts of rides, Giyeon filming his friends, and Seongbin buying six helium balloons and tying them around the friends’ wrists.
Soon the screen fills with photos: shots wearing goofy sunglasses and eating amusement-park food.
After the happy time ends, the members leave the park with the parade at their backs.
As the melody tidies up and slowly builds back toward the chorus—
led by Seongbin, five members—Choi Jeho, Kim Iwol, Lee Cheonghyeon, and Kang Giyeon—visit a small out-of-the-way hospital.
In the room they enter, Park Juu lies with his eyes closed.
“It’s a dreamlike wish—
but at least once,
sharing joyful stories,
wearing happy smiles,
I want to live every day like a movie.”
Seongbin fastens an amusement-park entry wristband on Park Juu’s wrist, and Kim Iwol places on Park Juu’s head the headband Juu had prepared.
While Lee Cheonghyeon ties a helium balloon to the foot of the bed, Choi Jeho writes on the balloon, “One wish granted for Child Park Juu!”
And Kang Giyeon shows, right in front of Park Juu’s face, an album where they’ve composited Juu into photos taken at the park.
His eyes are closed, yet in the photos they look naturally closed on purpose.
After decking Park Juu out with maximum mischief, the members sit around his bed and chatter happily for a long time.
“Just like this—this very moment!”
With the final chorus, the focus slowly pulls away from the hospital and then shows the clear blue sky.
“With List.”
The title comes back up on the brightened screen.
A big circle is drawn around it, and the video ends.
From the moment the MV dropped, the community lit up pretty well.
≫ From today on, the synonym for “youth” is Spark
So it has been decided
└ A single MV and the narrative is complete...
└ If you look closely it’s a sad story, but I liked that they kept the bright energy to the end
└ Right—it’s not melodrama; it’s the feeling that of course their friend will wake up ㅠㅠ
≫ Sorry for saying “how are you reusing the concept already when you only just debuted”
Please do youth forever
└ [laughs] Look at that switch-up
≫ Is it With List because it’s “With you + Wish list”?
ha tlqkf (keyboard smash)
└ Looking for someone to go grant Child Park Juu’s wish (1/1)
≫ Summary of Spark’s MV plot / crumbs (will keep adding)
└ If you look at the time capsule at around 00:32 it says “open at twenty year-olds” in kiddie spelling... A time capsule they made as little kids who didn’t even know proper spelling, opened when they’re high-schoolers on the verge of twenty to “wake their friend”—that’s so tender and sad.
└ Ohhh so that’s what it was (forehead smack)
└ XX Juu...
≫ Anyone listened to s p k’s new song yet?
The song’s honestly really good ㅇㅇ
Not sure about live [laughs] but it’s fun to listen to
└ Did Mr. Park Juu collapse from recording, actually?
└ It’s this
└ Reply above [laughs] “It’s this,” he says [laughs]
The response was good. Mostly favorable, too.
Just from SNS, the number of latest posts about Spark was noticeably higher.
Maybe because about half the MV was filmed at an amusement park, the cap material was really pretty.
Color grading? Check. Composition? Check. Nothing to nitpick. With their hair dyed in pastels, even the members looked like part of the park.
Most of all...
≫ Seasonal vibes S-tier
The more I listen the more I just want to ditch everything and go play [laughs]
└ Exactly—fits early May to early summer perfectly [laughs] The song’s bouncy too
└ It’s kind of that thing—an escape song for students with midterms right in front of them
...Timing of release and the song’s vibe matched like glue, exactly as planned.
Thanks to that, they got a big response from students in exam season and from office workers who aren’t kids but still eagerly await Children’s Day.
A group with as little name recognition as Spark had to row while the tide was in. Row until your arms come off.
When someone who watched the MV thinks, “Huh? These guys are pretty good,” you have to keep feeding content so they don’t drift away and so you can sell the group.
Typically, the MV and audio drop at 6 p.m. Even if you perform on the earliest music show the next day, there’d be way too much dead time.
“It’s about time for the Marketing Team to upload the video.”
I checked the time in the corner of my laptop.
6:05. People who’d hit play at 6 were starting to finish the video.
And timed to this moment, just as requested beforehand, Spark’s official channel uploaded the rowdy “rural volunteer” self-content.
Baek Haewon felt like they were going to lose their mind.
Partly because their midterm grades had cratered... but the flood of crumbs yanked their heart this way and that.
They’d been looping the five-minute music video over and over; at this point it seemed better to just run streaming and watch, so they turned on streaming and were now fifty minutes into watching the MV.
“Their faces are insanely good... The song is insanely good... but seriously—their faces are insanely good...”
Tears streamed inside their chest. The afterglow of the ending wouldn’t fade.
When was the last time they’d felt the pride and high of stanning geniuses at their main job?
Baek Haewon realized happiness wasn’t far away.
To soothe their near-mad affection, they took deep breaths.
Then they started picking their words, so as many people as possible could accept their fangirling without resistance.
If even one among their many acquaintances would join them in stanning Spark, they could die with no regrets.
With a solemn heart, Baek Haewon returned to SNS, which they’d left for a bit to watch the MV.
Unread new posts welcomed them.
≫ @spArk_official
Operation: Adults Having the Most Fun!
Come do mountain life with us!
Wishing adult: Kim Iwol
Notes: an adult with old-man tastes
[SPARK] 2X05XX Head for the hills, city friends ep.1
In the attached thumbnail, the six members in flashy floral pants were all looking up at the camera side by side.
“If it’s ep.1, that means they’ll give us ep.2 too, right?”
If they pull a stunt and make each episode ten minutes, I’m reporting these punks for getting high-schoolers riled up.
With a firm vow, Baek Haewon tapped the video link.
Then, a massive 53-minute episode greeted them.
