| Episode 128. The Third Contest (1)
Compared to Choi Jeho, who was wrestling with Allover, practice life at Greenline was heaven.
No one gave me side-eye for being a singer from another agency. Thanks to that, I could focus solely on practice.
Still, shamelessly receiving things without giving anything back didn’t suit me, so I observed the bare minimum of courtesy within what I could do.
First, since the company looking after even me was entirely an act of goodwill, I would express my gratitude with all sincerity.
Second, just as Verion respected my opinion even though I was in the minority, I would treat Verion as colleagues too.
While I was indebted to Greenline, I decided I would keep those two things properly.
Besides, keeping those two resolutions wasn’t particularly difficult.
Any person would naturally be grateful for what they received and want to maintain a good relationship.
‘What’s this? A heat pack?’
‘Yeah. I bought it to use at the dorm, but was it Huirang? His knees looked a little bad. This one hasn’t been opened yet, so I brought it in case he needs it. Our youngest says this product is the best.’
So I shared things I had extras of…
‘While choosing songs, I picked out a few that I thought would suit you guys. Do you need them?’
‘Songs that would suit us?’
‘They’re ones I listed up while picking our contest song, but in the end, they didn’t match the color, so I excluded them. But they’d suit individual members well if they sang them.’
And I gathered up the songs that had been eliminated during selection and handed them over. Though since I’d just stumbled across them while working, it felt a bit awkward to say I “gave” them anything.
Oh, and when they said they didn’t have a first-aid kit at the dorm, I bought them one.
Because I never wanted to see again the sight of a place where only kids lived together not even having basic medicine.
Verion apparently had a foreign member too, so I wrote “headache,” “stomachache,” “cough,” and “chills” in huge letters in English on labels and stuck them on.
Anyway, that was all I did.
“Hyung, are you going straight to sleep when you get back to the dorm? If you have time, you should see Huirang before you go. He said he really wanted to greet you.”
“Just have breakfast before you leave. There’s a really good gukbap place in this neighborhood. CEO Moon, bean sprout gukbap is healthy food, so it’s fine, right?”
“Yeah, hyung, eat breakfast before you go. While we’re waiting for delivery, could you maybe teach us how you choose songs?”
Now, with the third contest right around the corner, these guys weren’t just trying to get close to me themselves—they looked ready to introduce me to every single one of their other members too.
Aren’t they tired after practicing all night? What impressive stamina.
And what? Have breakfast before I go?
Gukbap is tempting, but I’m not so shameless a person that I’d freeload breakfast from someone else’s agency too.
And once practice ends, I need to hurry back to the dorm. The Spark guys are waiting.
“I can teach you how I choose songs, but I’m not going to eat before I leave. It isn’t polite for an outsider to stay too long at the company. I’m sure I’ll have another chance to greet Huirang.”
I politely refused and quickly packed my bag. All three of them drooped at the same time.
At this point, shouldn’t Greenline have put at least one older member into Verion? It feels like the kids are in need of a helping hand.
With a sigh, I took three powder sticks out of the front pocket of my bag. They were unsweetened pear-bellflower root tea powder, the kind I often made for the Spark guys.
I handed the pear-bellflower tea sticks to Moon Yeongyu and said,
“When you get back to the dorm, make one cup each, drink it, and go straight to sleep. The contest is soon, so hang in there just a little longer.”
At my words, Moon Yeongyu looked moved.
You don’t have to be moved, Moon Yeongyu.
It’s only because our team’s center warned us he was going to smash the stage in a bad way, so I just thought I should at least do well…
* * *
After many twists and turns, the day of the third contest dawned.
Thanks to the ones who needed rest resting, and the ones who wanted to do whatever they wanted doing exactly that, everyone in Spark looked fresh and polished. As expected, except for me.
‘Hyung, are the Verion sunbaenims maybe overworking only you?’
My dark circles were so bad that Jeong Seongbin asked me that seriously. Thanks to that, the moment I stepped over the threshold of the salon, I got scolded a ton.
Today, for the first time in a while, I was about half free from planning the outfit concept.
Choi Jeho and Lee Cheonghyeon would wear the outfits matched by their respective units, and I would be wearing the outfit I’d coordinated with Verion too.
Since my workload had decreased, today I poured my heart and soul into Jeong Seongbin, Park Juu, and Kang Giyeon’s clothes.
Hanbok fit for refined scholars, matching Awasil’s concept while also being pretty in color.
To explain briefly, for Park Juu, I dressed him in a pale sky-blue hanbok reminiscent of a white dog to bring out the keyword of “indifferent doggo.” To make him look cute, I even bought a puppy paw-print stamp and diligently stamped it on his sleeves and the ends of his durumagi.
Since Jeong Seongbin is our team leader, I considered putting him in a gonryongpo, but if I did that, it was obvious there would be controversy over favoritism toward a specific member and we’d end up doing another explanation broadcast, so I replaced it with a light pink hanbok.
And while I was at it, I tried adding pink blush to appeal to the warm, handsome side he had by Spark standards, but…
‘Sseup…’
‘Why does he look like a young master who just came of age and got drunk after tasting moju for the first time?’
…That happened, so he returned to being a fresh, soft scholar. It was my mistake for trying to emphasize a gentle side in these guys.
Lastly, I dressed Kang Giyeon in a pale yellow hanbok.
Considering his image, I thought purple would suit him too, and in fact, he had worn a lot of dark-toned clothes until now, but…
Considering the demand for people who liked Kang Giyeon’s youngest-member moments, this time I specially went with the concept of “Bonus Episode: Giyeon of the Chick Class.” It’s a secret from him.
‘Hyung, don’t we have to wear gat?’
‘Why would you wear gat! They’ll cast shadows on your faces!’
I’ll put gat on them for the season’s greetings, where the shadows can be corrected. I can’t allow them on Awasil, which is an indoor shoot.
After dressing them in pastel tones and seating them side by side on the sofa, they looked like rainbow rice cakes, which was nice. I also didn’t forget to pin the eosahwa badges they’d received in the previous contest to their chests.
≫ Holiday self-produced content without hanbok?
Life is harsh.
└ If we keep waiting, they’ll wear it at least once.
How many outfits had Sparklers once longed for?
Until I voluntarily leave, I’ll dress them up as much as I can. Hang in there until you’ve worn them all, Spark guys.
While the three non-participants finished preparing to watch dressed all cute and adorable like this, the three participants were truly three people with three different styles.
I wore an explorer-like outfit to match the main content of the animation, where the protagonist’s group sets off on an adventure.
I’d worn ties before, but it was my first time tying a scarf, so it felt terribly unfamiliar. I asked if I didn’t look too much like a Boy Scout, but the stylist, as always, only praised me, saying it suited me well.
Of all things, this time I was even in charge of the intro, so I had to take care of props too.
When I was with Spark, Jeong Seongbin usually handled things like this. Maybe this was why fans were so enthusiastic about intro fairies.
Lee Cheonghyeon was a pitch-black mad dog itself.
I had no idea what kind of stage he’d prepared with Logue, but not only were both his top and bottom completely black, he’d also gone all out with a black harness and leg holster.
He even wore red colored lenses today. This is the kind of guy who should be doing contact lens ads.
“What are you guys, an assassin concept?”
“If you’re shocked by this much, we’ve got a problem.”
Then Lee Cheonghyeon shook the item in his hand.
“Is that, by any chance, a muzzle?”
A muzzle made of leather straps, the sort a large dog might wear, dangled from Lee Cheonghyeon’s hand.
“You punk, I told you over and over not to cover your face…”
“Ah, I know! I’m taking it off after the first verse!”
“If you’re taking it off, don’t pull it down. Flip it up. So you don’t hurt your nose.”
In any case, that guy had also completely thrown refreshing out the window. That bastard definitely would’ve agreed happily even if they’d told him to do a cyber warrior concept.
Lee Cheonghyeon gave me a big shock, but Choi Jeho was even more incredible.
His hair, styled with wax in a delinquent-looking way, already gave off enough pressure, but beneath an intense deep-blue cropped jacket, he wore only a see-through top, showing off solid muscles. I wondered if it was okay to show puberty-age kids something this provocative.
“Your hair color looks a little different too. Did you have time to dye it?”
“Spray.”
Under the fluorescent lights, Choi Jeho’s hair shone with a subtle purple mixed with blue.
Once he goes up onto the dark stage, the color will only show when the highlight hits him. Not a bad choice.
After seeing these two, I felt like I was the only protagonist of a peaceful healing exploration game. Rap and dance really are scary things.
Just in case there wasn’t enough Awasil reaction footage, we all diligently chattered about which unit we were looking forward to.
After we’d talked like that for about thirty minutes, the curtain rose on the third contest.
* * *
The first position battle began with the rap position.
The combination of Sticky and Verion was quite good.
Perhaps because both groups decided to make use of their strengths—brightness and cheerfulness—they chose a singing rap song that expressed a man who had just fallen in love.
It had a slow tempo, but the back-and-forth chemistry was good, and because the concept was simple, it had the advantage of being easy to enjoy lightly.
The on-site reaction was good too. Thanks to choosing a song even more public-friendly than typical hip-hop, there were quite a few people singing along despite it being rap lyrics.
‘Verion may be all or nothing, but their planning is good.’
Sticky’s consistency also stood out, as they stubbornly pushed their lovely “guy you’re in a flirtation with” concept just as much as Spark was pushing its youth concept.
Parte and Allover, who came out next… were powerful.
With gothic-style outfits and deliberately heavy makeup, they left a strong impression from their visuals alone.
And that wasn’t all. The chemistry between members who were said to have been close since their trainee days showed on stage too.
Choosing emo rap to mix Parte’s mythological image with Allover’s dark and aggressive feel was also decent.
By Awasil stage standards so far, the previous stage had been solid, but the stage that followed was much more impressive both visually and aurally.
Well, what can you do but blame the matchup luck?
If they had done a stage like that back in the second contest instead, both Sticky and Verion would have received better scores than they did then.
It wasn’t as if Parte would keep floundering forever either.
Sure enough, after placing second in the last contest, it was obvious they’d sharpened their resolve even further this time.
Excellent. This is how viewers get something worth watching. The better the program does, the more famous Spark will become too.
It was all well and good that I’d enjoyed watching the stage, but then I suddenly thought of our team’s youngest, who must be backstage right now.
‘Lee Cheonghyeon… can he do well?’