Episode 105. 50-Minute Self-Introduction (4)
What did Kim Iwol hate the most?
If you asked that question, every member of Spark would give the same answer.
That it was acting un-idol-like.
Kim Iwol was the type of person who seemed to divide all worldly affairs into “things an idol can do” and “things an idol cannot do.”
No, not seemed—he actually did.
“Hey, you brat, were you making a dead expression at a fansign?”
“I was drinking water…….”
“If you weren’t an idol, do you think you’d ever see anyone in this world who’d take the dawn bus from Busan to Seoul, wait three hours, meet you for one hour, and then tell you to hurry and go rest?”
He was exactly like that—catching even a single photo of Choi Jeho’s expressionless face from a fansign like he was snaring a rat.
“What prop were they telling Lee Cheonghyeon to hold for the photo?”
“His face works hard enough.”
“That’s his face working, not Lee Cheonghyeon working. You planning to mooch off your face your whole life?”
“Why are you picking on me when I’m just sitting here?!”
He was exactly like that—never letting his guard down for a moment, afraid the members might get cocky.
And that wasn’t all.
How great his love for the fans was…….
“Everyone, watch your tone when writing on the official café or SNS. There are only two things we can ask of the fans in the imperative form: wishing them a Happy New Year and asking them not to push the person in front of them.”
“Isn’t the latter something you only say at concerts?”
“So outside of that, tell them to behave on their own.”
……He poured enormous care into every single word shown to the fans.
Kim Iwol never let his guard down. There were times when his attitude felt suffocating, but since he himself lived even more strictly than what he demanded of others, there was nothing to say.
The reason the members held no grievances against him was likely the same.
That same Kim Iwol had left the members in his care. Telling him to watch them so they didn’t do anything stupid.
But a guy who was still a minor—the leader, no less—had come to ask him to check adult-verification content in his place?
Choi Jeho’s head spun.
But since his brain rarely functioned in that direction, his thoughts ground to a halt within seconds.
Instead, Choi Jeho instinctively sensed something.
That if he didn’t beat this guy up right now, he would face the lightning wrath of Kim Iwol when he returned home.
And he thought. About how Kim Iwol would act in this situation. Because Kim Iwol generally resolved every situation well.
“He’d talk first, at least.”
Choi Jeho sat up on the bed instead of half-heartedly refusing with a “Don’t drag me into weird stuff.”
Next, he chose what to say.
Things had never gone well when he just spat out whatever came to mind. So he had to be careful.
He wanted to say, “If you’re going to ask for something, ask for something normal; are you crazy?” but held back. Recalling the Kim Iwol he’d seen up until now, he refined his words.
After organizing his thoughts, Choi Jeho asked,
“What were you searching for?”
This much was doing his best.
Even if Jeong Seongbin had been caught trying to search for something strange, he could proudly say he had done his utmost.
Choi Jeho felt both pride and complicated emotions.
Anxious about what kind of reaction Jeong Seongbin would show next.
But Jeong Seongbin’s reaction was excessively bright.
“A hangover cure!”
“What?”
“Iwol hyung is coming back after drinking today, right? We were wondering if there was anything we could do to help, and they said minors can buy hangover cures too. So I was following the related search terms, and…….”
He’d followed the search terms and found a product that looked extremely useful, but when he clicked it, an adult verification page suddenly popped up. The story was so hollow that his earlier tension felt meaningless.
“What the hell…… no, yeah. That can happen.”
Choi Jeho clicked his tongue and hurriedly gathered his words. Then he took the phone from Jeong Seongbin and logged in with his own ID.
“So I just need to look and summarize it for you?”
“Yes……!”
Then Jeong Seongbin opened a diary. It seemed he was going to take notes.
But unfortunately, Choi Jeho couldn’t summarize anything. Because the related search terms had led Jeong Seongbin down a path entirely unrelated to hangover cures.
After explaining that this had nothing to do with what he was looking for, Choi Jeho thought he could now escape the responsibility of being the elder.
But of course, responsibility wasn’t something that disappeared so easily. Choi Jeho ended up accompanying Jeong Seongbin all the way to the convenience store to buy the hangover cure.
For the first time since they’d become acquainted, he missed Kim Iwol.
* * *
“Hyung! The video dropped!”
At Lee Cheonghyeon’s shout, everyone gathered in front of the phone he was holding.
On the screen was the thumbnail for my episode of *People Who Drink*.
Uploaded one hour ago, and the video title was…….
**[Looking for the Soju Sweeper…… Spark Iwol Episode]**
……it was.
Excuse me, but don’t I have any human rights in that title? I was bewildered.
“Hyung, how much did you drink there?”
“Ah, I only drank a little.”
Even after I answered, Gang Giyeong’s eyes were full of suspicion.
“It’s too small to watch on a phone right now, so shall we watch it on a laptop when we get to the dorm?”
“All together?”
Jeong Seongbin’s suggestion was also bewildering. So they were saying we’d all watch my drinking show together?
Clueless to my inner thoughts, Jeong Seongbin smiled brightly and said,
“It’s our first solo variety appearance among the members! We have to monitor it together.”
Looking at his innocent smile, I thought,
If you watch that, you’ll realize how unnecessary it was for you guys to buy me five bottles of hangover cure the night of the shoot.
The video was extraordinary from the thumbnail alone.
The layout with a photo of me smiling placed beside the MC, who looked unable to hide her shock, was like a comedy sketch.
Thanks to that, I came out looking like some clear-eyed madman. It was shameful.
The suspicious editing started from the entrance.
『Iwol ssi, you’re incredibly tall? Is our pojangmacha going to collapse?』
『You didn’t look this tall in videos…….』
『Ah, did you see a video with Jeho? That friend is so tall that when I stand next to him, we all look small.』
『For today’s shoot, let’s make sure you never get up from your chair, and from now on, let’s not cast anyone over 180 centimeters. Okay?』
Already, perhaps due to camera distortion, my height came out door-sized, but with the MC adding exaggerations for broadcast tension and the flustered production crew’s remarks, it was edited to look like “giant humanity visiting a pojangmacha.”
When the potato chips came out as the drinking snack, sounds of “Huh?” echoed here and there.
“Hyung, do you really like potato chips?”
“Why? Does that seem like a lie?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat snacks.”
Lee Cheonghyeon pointed out.
“I was managing my diet. And after entering the dorm, there was no occasion to drink, either.”
“But you’re not really eating much of them on the show either?”
“Right, actually I usually ate them with dried seaweed.”
“Wow, reality is even worse.”
Only after hearing my explanation that I couldn’t feed the MC dried seaweed only, so it couldn’t be helped, did Lee Cheonghyeon nod in understanding.
『I heard you started training late? What did you want to do originally?』
『I hadn’t thought of a specific job, but I was interested in business administration, so I considered going to business school.』
『That suits you. Then are you good at calculating money?』
『I’m not bad, but we have a friend who’s like a human calculator on our team, so I leave it to him.』
See? Look at how much I talked about you guys.
Lee Cheonghyeon, who had suddenly become a human calculator, hit my thigh.
He was grumbling that this hyung was shameless, but to me, this guy seemed more shameless.
Up to here, I still seemed somewhat human.
The editing of me mixing somaek without spilling a drop and downing soju without a change of expression, like some great sommelier, was a bit annoying, but it was better than being boring.
The problem started with the broadcast portion after the system had scattered a short-term mission and left.
The screen darkened, and short phrases appeared in white text.
**[However,]**
**[We did not know.]**
**[This man’s drinking capacity…….]**
Then cups being filled endlessly and me downing them in succession without breathing were broadcast at 2.5x speed.
The MC’s widening pupils, the whispering production crew, the growing number of empty bottles, and me, drinking without a care in the world…….
Anyone who saw this would think I looked like a weirdo. Even I was unfamiliar with my own appearance.
There were exceptions. The students sitting on the floor only looked “amazed.”
Only Choi Jeho, sitting at the edge of the sofa, made a sour expression.
“Hyung, are you a heavy drinker?”
Jeong Seongbin asked. He seemed to have no sense of it, probably because he had never drunk before.
“I’m just at that level.”
“What ‘that level’? You’re a total drinking beast.”
So much for trying to wrap it up nicely. Choi Jeho had to butt in.
Funny. Why is he picking a fight when he doesn’t even drink?
“It’s a broadcast, so the editing was overdone.”
“But the frame doesn’t cut at all?”
“Hyung, I think you drink better than my uncle…….”
Lee Cheonghyeon was pointing things out again, and Park Juu was disrespecting his elders.
Is this monitoring? If you’re going to gang up and tear into me like this, why call it monitoring? Just hold a congressional hearing.
The climax came when the MC approached with a straw.
『Iwol ssi, this won’t do. I’m too tired of filling your glass.』
『Ah, I’ll fill it and drink myself!』
『No, how could I make a guest do that? I’ll put a straw in for you instead.』
Then she stuck a straw into a new soju bottle and handed it to me. She probably thought it would make for an interesting picture.
What I was thinking at that time was:
*“If I drink all of this, it counts as one more bottle!”*
I was elated by the fact that I could add exactly one more bottle. Looking back on it now, I just seem like a lunatic.
And so, on screen, I was captured gripping the bottle tightly with both hands so as not to drop it, sucking soju through a straw.
With the word “happiness” on one side of my face and bubbly flower effects blooming on the other, everything was bizarre.
No wonder the title went up as Soju Sweeper. I felt like crying.
“They say there are days when alcohol agrees with you…… That day was like that, that’s all. Drinking a lot isn’t a good thing, so don’t go bragging about useless stuff on other shows.”
When I spoke as if making excuses, the guys nodded and said they understood.
But my excuses all became meaningless.
In Korean society, where drinking capacity can be a source of pride, my appearance chugging from bottles gave them all the stimulation they needed.
“……A comment compilation for my *People Who Drink* episode?”
I’d made comment compilations for others before, but it was my first time seeing a comment compilation for me made by someone else.
The channel that uploaded the video wasn’t even a Spark fan account.
It seemed to be an account that clipped well-received parts from variety shows and made comment compilations; seeing my face on such a place was distressing.
Was this how the system raised my self-PR score?
*Should I watch this, or not…….*
After agonizing for a while, I chose not to watch.
But my decision meant nothing. That night, Lee Cheonghyeon squeezed onto my bed and shoved the video at me, saying let’s watch together.
“Hyung, a comment compilation came out for this! Did you see?! I was going to watch during break earlier, but I waited to watch with you. Touching, right?”
I’m so touched my nose is running, you brat.
The comment compilation I ended up watching was just…… a grand festival of humiliation for Kim Iwol.