| Episode 1. Prologue: Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols
Past eleven at night, at home.
Still unable to shake off work even in my room, I busily moved my hands as punishment.
[~Congratulations on the 7th anniversary of the inextinguishable flame, Spark~]
Still, the pink banner file was nearly finished.
Once I finished this, I could sleep.
I could say goodbye to Department Head Nam’s nagging messages, and to the dozens of reference materials that piled up in my inbox every single day.
I’d be able to enjoy the Chuseok holiday a day earlier than everyone else.
‘Just try canceling my annual leave on the day of again. I’ll make you the ambassador of the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s interrogation room.’
Because of whom did I still have seventeen days of annual leave left in September?
This time, I wouldn’t yield. I would absolutely protect my vacation.
Muttering a phrase I’d picked up from some online community, I threw myself into typing.
How many times had I repeated the cycle of glancing at the calendar and focusing on PhotoFlat?
“……Done. I’m not touching it anymore, seriously.”
After struggling for ages, the file I’d created through sheer grit was finally renamed “Spark_7th_Anniversary_Cafe(Banner).”
Now all I had to do was send the email. I hurriedly opened an internet window.
And there, the dizzyingly handsome faces I’d gotten sick of seeing on the banner greeted me.
It was because I’d set entertainment news as my main page after being told to always keep up with Spark’s updates.
These damned bastards were the phantom thieves who had stolen our department head’s daughter’s heart, and the main culprits keeping me from sleeping at this hour…… or so they were.
“What the hell.”
There, I saw it.
The subject of the banner whose color I’d changed about twenty-eight thousand times while agonizing over which looked prettier.
A single article headline containing the name of that godforsaken Spark.
『Spark Unable to Survive the Cursed Seventh Year…… Set to Begin Disbandment Process.』
“Fuck…….”
My memory after that was hazy.
I didn’t know if I’d been so pissed off that I’d fallen backward, or if I’d slammed my head into the keyboard and fallen asleep from extreme sleep deprivation.
It wasn’t even that I’d passed out from working overtime. I’d passed out while fangirling on behalf of my superior’s daughter.
And since I hadn’t collapsed at the office, I probably couldn’t even get workers’ comp.
From start to finish, it was absurd. My darkened vision felt like my future.
* * *
Warm sunlight. A quiet and peaceful morning.
Even my body felt refreshed, as if I’d slept for who knew how many hours.
Without question, I was in my best condition in recent memory. Everything was perfect.
……Except for the fact that there was a wooden board right in front of my nose.
‘Was the ceiling always this close?’
For some reason, the ceiling seemed to be right before my eyes.
For objects to look this much closer than they actually were—apparently I still wasn’t fully awake.
After working seven days a week and then overtime on Monday too, it made sense that I wouldn’t be in my right mind.
On top of that, I’d received the shocking news that the banner I’d worked on for two weeks had become useless.
Of course I’d be tired. I didn’t even remember when I’d come to bed.
When I reached beside my head to grab my phone and check the time, a conversation my team members had once had in passing flashed through my mind.
‘When you oversleep, even the air feels different, doesn’t it?’
‘I know. Your body feels strangely refreshed, and the sunlight’s all warm.’
‘And it’s quiet around you. That’s when the cold sweat starts.’
Peaceful air: check.
Refreshed body: check.
Quiet atmosphere…… a perfect match.
‘I’m fucked.’
I sprang upright like a coil. Then I nearly hit my head on the strangely low ceiling.
It wasn’t an optical illusion. The ceiling really had gotten lower.
‘Did the house sink while I was asleep or something?’
Wondering whether I could write “the ceiling of my house collapsed” as my reason for being late, I turned my head.
Beside me unfolded an even more shocking scene.
Someone was asleep in the bed across from mine, close enough that I could reach them if I stretched out my arm, their back turned to me.
The bed and floor were cluttered with luggage I’d never seen before.
This was something that could not happen in the nest where I had lived alone ever since becoming independent.
‘First of all, this isn’t my house. Definitely not.’
The inexplicable points increased by the second as my field of vision gradually widened.
But who cared? If that guy hadn’t broken into my house, then I must have been dragged to his.
I immediately picked up my pillow. It was time to make use of the strength I’d built up over years of serving as a pack mule in the company hiking club.
Just as I was carefully aiming at a spot about a handspan above his head, a flash of light burst before my eyes. At the same time, my eyes reflexively squeezed shut.
When I struggled to open them, an unbelievable phenomenon was unfolding before me.
+
[SYSTEM] Approval has been granted to reuse the life of Assistant Manager Kim Iwol (hereafter, Party B).
+
‘……? What is this?’
Words had appeared in midair.
And they were words I couldn’t understand at all.
I did try to live an environmentally friendly life, but I’d never intended to reuse my life.
Or was this the eye floaters Assistant Manager Hwang had said he was experiencing?
But among the symptoms Assistant Manager Hwang described, there had been nothing like, “The approval window keeps shimmering in front of my eyes.”
If there had been, Assistant Manager Hwang shouldn’t have come to work. He should have resigned.
“…….”
My first time oversleeping, despite having boasted a perfect attendance record until now.
A stranger I’d never met, sleeping soundly under a blanket.
And even a midair typing show unfolding in someone else’s house, where I’d suddenly been dragged.
I knew very well what you called situations like this.
‘It’s a bullshit dream.’
The moment I realized I wasn’t late for work, my heart instantly relaxed. I pulled the blanket back over myself and lay down on the bed again.
That was when it happened. Once more, my vision flashed white.
Just as I was about to ask them not to shine lights at me, a message appeared that I absolutely could not ignore.
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions have arrived from the “Person in Charge.”
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, I need you to debut with the kids from this round. This is a really good opportunity, you know? The day will definitely come when you thank me. Never forget that the higher-ups have expectations.
[SYSTEM] “Debut as a six-member boy group” has been designated as Party B’s KPI.
+
Person in charge, my ass.
There were exactly three things I loathed: one was first-degree blood relatives, another was my direct superior Department Head Nam, and the last was responsibility. I was perfectly suited to being at the very bottom, you see.
The system’s tone was even Department Head Nam himself. I thought Department Head Nam had come back from the dead.
Oh, right. That man was still alive and well.
Even if this was a dream, sending me a message impersonating my superior first thing in the morning was unforgivable.
No matter how devoid of business ethics this industry was, shouldn’t there at least be a minimum of human respect? I ought to report it as smishing.
Besides, what? Debut as a boy group?
Utter nonsense.
It was a horrible nightmare. To the point where I thought it might be better to smash my forehead into the ceiling and find enlightenment.
* * *
The tenacious ill fate between idols and me began when I was a new employee.
One week after I joined the company, the first question former Team Leader Nam, before his promotion to department head, asked me was this.
‘Kim Iwol, do you know how to use PhotoFlat?’
Not yet knowing the truth that you should say you don’t know even the things you do know, I committed the foolish blunder of saying, ‘I do have a license.’
After that, my life went spectacularly to shit. From that day on, I was selected as Department Head Nam’s official errand machine.
The miscellaneous tasks Department Head Nam ordered me to do were not limited to company work.
From transcribing radio appearances by the boy group “Spark,” the group his daughter’s bias belonged to.
To taking screenshots frame by frame whenever they started a livestream, and even designing and ordering cup sleeves for something called a birthday cafe.
Whenever Spark began promotions, I had to handle tasks I’d never done before in my life, eyes bloodshot.
It was the beginning of idol fan activities I’d never been fated for.
‘I don’t know why she pays other people to do this stuff. Watching Employee Kim do it, it seems like she could do it at home if she just learned how.’
‘Haha, this takes more time than you’d think, Team Leader.’
‘I told her off at home. Said she didn’t know how to save money. And that banner you made yesterday—my kid wants it revised.’
‘Pardon?’
‘She says it shouldn’t say Emperor Choi Jeho, but Center Emperor Choi Jeho. Send it to my email by one.’
And so, six months after I became a dedicated GIF-steaming machine for Spark’s center, his daughter’s bias, the so-called “Center Emperor Choi Jeho.”
Department Head Nam’s daughter grew from being an individual fan of Center Emperor Choi Jeho into an all-fan of Spark.
You said only Center Emperor Choi Jeho.
You said Jeho was the only one you could see.
It felt like the world was collapsing.
As the GIFs I had to churn out increased fivefold, my energy, having suddenly fallen into the position of human GIF steamer, drained away rapidly.
Of course, it wasn’t as though I simply sat still and obediently did everything I was told.
Wondering whether office workers were really supposed to cater to someone to this extent, I’d also sought advice from those around me.
After being told I didn’t need to do all of that, I tried saying, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can take on any more work,” in a hundred and one different ways, but all that did was give him endless excuses to nitpick me.
‘Mr. Iwol, what on earth does this mean? Why can’t I understand a single thing you wrote?’
‘Did you get Section Chief Jo to review this before uploading it? Tell Section Chief Jo to come here.’
Days where I made four requests for confirmation, cursed eight times internally, and bowed my head six times.
I endured under him to the death and resisted the fan-activity work, but on the day Team Leader Nam, who had wrung his subordinates dry, was promoted to department head, I finally raised the white flag.
And then those detestable Spark bastards, who had bestowed that living hell upon me, suddenly announced their disbandment.
Right before my eyes, while I was being forced to prepare their seventh-anniversary support.
As it was, idols already made me want to weep blood. Those bastards had no business ethics.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror, but my eyes were surely bloodshot. I could feel my intraocular pressure rising in real time.
To compose myself, I mentally reviewed my “List of Things to Do After Quitting,” starting from number one.
“Mmm……”
Just as I was working hard to calm down, the guy sleeping in the bed across from me stirred.
Could he be one of the kids from this round mentioned in the system?
What sin had he committed in a past life to be punished with becoming an idol alongside an old man like me? This young man seemed to have quite the unlucky fate too.
Even if this was a dream, I was about to at least feel some sympathy for him when his sleeping face turned toward me.
Shockingly, it was a face I knew.
Bold, well-defined features and thick eyebrows.
A sharp jawline and a long, elegant neck.
It was a face I couldn’t fail to recognize, because it had been branded onto my corneas.
Because it looked exactly like the younger face of Center Emperor Choi Jeho, Department Head Nam’s daughter’s bias, who had kept me from sleeping for over three years.
Spark showed up here?
And of all people, him?
The very face that had made me return to the office after getting off work because I’d omitted a single photo correction was right before my eyes? Even if my eyes rolled back in rage, I’d be innocent.
My whole body grew hot, as if I were lying on an electric heating pad. It was definitely pent-up rage.
Still, hold back. This is a dream.
Grabbing a sleeping person by the collar and demanding, “Were you out of your mind, clearing your feed when I had just finished archiving your Inbyeol?” wouldn’t change anything.
In any case, no one would understand that pain unless they were the subordinate who’d been threatened by their superior into scraping someone else’s posts until nine at night.
But I couldn’t do anything about the rage boiling inside me. It seemed anger had been carved into my spinal cord.
‘Don’t tell me the other four are also from Spark……?’
If you added me to Spark, a five-member group, you got exactly the six-member group designated by the system. The pieces fit together terrifyingly well.
If only I could contact Department Head Nam’s daughter at this moment, I wanted to ask her something.
To the person who had said 5-1 equaled 0.
I’m very sorry, but what does 5+1 become?
I fiercely regretted not closing my eyes before seeing that ridiculous message.
And I very strongly denied the current situation.
If it was Spark, no thank you.
If it was Center Emperor Choi Jeho, even if they locked me in a hotel and fed me nothing but room service while making me work, I would absolutely refuse.
Debut with the bastards who, during a two-hour livestream in which I had to capture fifty smiling screenshots for each member, smiled exactly three times?
‘Yeah. Absolutely not.’
Did the sound of my heart’s bolt sliding shut somehow reach it?
The words that had been floating there disappeared, and a new sentence appeared.
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions have arrived from the “Person in Charge.”
▶ They say kids these days only work as much as they’re paid? But that’s not how corporate life works, is it? Still, I’m not stingy with evaluations. Our Deputy Gim should get paid for the work he’s done. Right?
[SYSTEM] Due to ‘Eul’s’ failure to meet the final KPI, an ‘HR penalty’ has been designated.
[SYSTEM] Due to ‘Eul’s’ achievement of the final KPI, a ‘performance reward’ has been designated.
+
It was nothing but passages that stoked my anger from start to finish.
Did they think I’d fall for that?
I won’t deny that my life has been pathetic enough for some system to look down on.
From the moment I swallowed all of Manager Nam’s bullshit, I might as well have chosen the path of hardship myself.
But I didn’t want to be branded a certified pushover, even in a dream.
Rather than keep looking at that garbage, I was ready to poke my own eyes out with my fingers, but then my vision flashed with light again.
What followed was truly shocking.
+
[SYSTEM] The ‘HR penalty’ is announced.
▷ Mandatory reinstatement at Hanpyeong Industries and job-change restriction measures triggered upon resignation
▷ Permanent forfeiture of the opportunity to receive the final performance reward
+
It was a clause stating that I would be forcibly reinstated at my former company—a place I hadn’t even been able to resign from.
To think I’d have to go back into a s**thole like Hanpyeong Industries.
That I had to join, against my will, a company that tells you to wait for the supermarket discount period when the bathroom toilet paper runs out!
They were even saying they’d restrict me from changing jobs if I resigned.
They seemed to think dumping bucketfuls of coal ash on someone else’s career was no big deal.
I’m supposed to reach retirement age at that damned company?
That can’t happen. Little wonder the greatest regret of my life was submitting my resume to Hanpyeong Industries.
No, f*ck. It’s utterly devastating that I even logged onto a job site at that hour on that day.
It took me a moment to understand the explanation that followed. My eyes had turned inside out at the forced reinstatement to Hanpyeong Industries, so my brain wasn’t working right.
‘Final performance reward?’
What did the final reward matter? I was already dying at the thought of being reinstated.
I didn’t doubt for a second that there couldn’t be a situation sh*ttier than this.
At least, not until I saw the explanation that appeared right after.
+
[SYSTEM] The ‘final performance reward’ is announced.
▷ Nullification of death and opportunity for reunion with elder sister (blood relative)
+
The chance to meet again with my sister who died two years ago had been presented with nothing more than the word ‘reward.’
Nullify my sister’s death?
I must have been hit by a terrible streak of bad luck. Either that, or my nightly wishes for Manager Nam to go to hell had caught up to me and backfired.
Honestly, it felt like I’d fallen into hell, not dreamland.
—
*KPI: Key Performance Indicator. A core performance metric.