| Episode 166. Mind Control (2)
After receiving the system’s help, the whole business of eating and then throwing up disappeared completely.
I didn’t feel particularly bad, nor did I get pointlessly lost in thought. I was exactly as I had been when I’d first returned to being twenty.
‘Maybe my mental state wasn’t that bad when I regressed because my memories weren’t intact.’
If I’d come back with those memories, I would have spent every day steeped in self-loathing for no reason. In that sense, the system’s choice had been right. Not that I wanted to admit it.
Ah, there was one peculiar thing, though.
‘Hyung, would you like porridge today?’
‘Huh?’
During mealtime, Jeong Seongbin had suddenly prepared porridge through our manager.
And it wasn’t even porridge for the whole group. It was only mine.
‘Why porridge all of a sudden?’
‘It feels like you haven’t been able to eat much lately. Since you’re not skipping meals, I figured it wasn’t that you had no appetite, but maybe heavier food wasn’t sitting well with you.’
‘What…….’
‘This one’s vegetable porridge, and there’s also pumpkin porridge and pine nut porridge.’
I was a bit flustered when he set down three containers of porridge, each portioned by type. Judging by the lack of anything like spicy jjamppong porridge, he really seemed to have ordered only things that would be easy for a sick person to eat.
Thinking of the care he’d put into preparing it, I diligently ate the vegetable porridge, which looked the least burdensome.
‘When you look at him, he’s oddly perceptive in the strangest places.’
He’d noticed that I was nervous when Jeong Seongbin’s parents came by, too. He really was the type to observe people with care.
In reality, Jeong Seongbin’s porridge therapy helped a lot. Even if the system had cured my stomach problems, if I’d gone straight back to normal food after throwing up every time I ate, I might have gotten sick. But Jeong Seongbin kept supplying me with porridge without rest until the day I asked Choi Jeho to toast me half a piece of bread.
“Hyung, our meeting!”
“I’m coming!”
Thanks to that, not only had I made a perfect recovery, I was now heading out with light steps even at Lee Cheonghyeon’s hellish call for a meeting.
This meeting was special. The dedicated team had been handling most of the planning meetings for us, but this time, we were taking the lead.
Because the next album was a digital single containing Spark’s first fan song.
Preparations went smoothly. It was quite nice to see everything proceeding step by step under Jeong Seongbin and Lee Cheonghyeon’s supervision.
Even if there was a mountain of work to do, how wonderful was it to be able to do something everyone wanted to do in an environment that made it possible?
“They said the timing would be around the fan club recruitment, right?”
“That’s what they said. The exact schedule isn’t out yet, but they’re apparently looking at around late October.”
Jeong Seongbin pulled up a calendar on the screen. The schedule was packed without a moment to breathe. It really reminded me of work.
Since I’d only been hearing about Spark’s work in passing for a while, I sat down properly to look over the schedule, and something caught my eye.
“There’s no mention of hiring a lyricist. If we exclude recording and promotion, we have less than a month left. Are we sure we don’t need to check on that?”
“We decided to write the lyrics ourselves. That’s why I prepared the demo for today.”
Lee Cheonghyeon opened the shared drive. A file titled “Demo_LyricsReference_NoGuidelinesIncluded” stood out.
“Ourselves? Us?”
I couldn’t believe it. When on earth had such an important and dangerous conversation taken place?
Lee Cheonghyeon, the very person who’d made that shocking statement, was perfectly calm.
“Yeah. I wrote it in the minutes from the last meeting. You didn’t see it?”
“You put a password on the shared laptop!”
Jeong Seongbin soothed me as I nearly collapsed from sheer frustration. So no one had told me about something this critical.
Lyrics. And fan song lyrics, at that.
This couldn’t be happening. The only things I could write were job postings and proposals.
Sure, if I threw my conscience out the window, I could package a hellish company like Hanpyeong Industries.
But a fan song with lyrics like, “I want to pay Sparkler an annual salary of one billion won and keep them by my side”? Anyone who heard it would definitely unstan.
As dizziness washed over me, Lee Cheonghyeon played “Demo_LyricsReference_NoGuidelinesIncluded.”
The beautiful melody Lee Cheonghyeon had embroidered stitch by stitch filled the meeting room. Its simple structure and classic combination of instruments gave off a fresh, youthful impression.
Just listening to the song brought to mind boys in white school uniforms beneath a wall shaded by trees on some late-summer day.
The fact that an image formed just from listening meant the song’s level of completion was quite high. If we layered a few session tracks and backing vocals on top, it would already be good enough to release.
‘What kind of lyrics am I supposed to put over this?’
I couldn’t even get a feel for it. I couldn’t refer to Spark’s fan songs from the past, either. Those were songs for the Spark and Sparklers of that time.
If I’d known this would happen, I should have taken a writing class as an elective. Then my feet wouldn’t be on fire like this.
“In keeping with the purpose of a fan song, rather than deciding on a specific concept, I think it would be good to write the lyrics with the mindset of honestly saying what we want to say to our fans.”
Jeong Seongbin organized the points. And since there were about thirty minutes left on the meeting room reservation, we decided to each try some ideation.
I also wrote down a few words that came to mind on the graph paper at the back of my diary.
Gratitude, thank you, Sparkler, support, benefactor, grace, light, debt…….
No good. With this, all I could write was, “Sparkler, benefactor and light of Spark, thank you for always supporting us. We will repay this grace diligently, as if paying off a debt.” And it would proudly take first place as the worst idol fan song lyric of all time.
Actually, the word that came to mind first when I thought of Sparkler was…….
‘Affection.’
……But I didn’t have the confidence to dare write that and sing it. So I didn’t write it down.
After racking my brain, I raised my hand and asked,
“When’s the deadline for this?”
It seemed this wasn’t homework I could easily finish.
As I tore at my hair, Lee Cheonghyeon replied as if asking why I was asking something so obvious.
“ASAP.”
“Got it…….”
* * *
With a lyric-writing assignment added to our plates, our workbook homework was pushed back a little.
Thanks to that, every night after practice ended, each of us had to sit in our own room, the kitchen, or the living room, holding a sheet of paper and waiting for the god of creation who never came.
There was the diligent type, like Jeong Seongbin, who made dozens of simple structures and kept combining them over and over. Then there was someone like Choi Jeho, who sat before a blank page with unfocused pupils.
As for which side I was on, of course, I was the latter.
“How much have you written?”
Choi Jeho asked. I answered in a dry voice.
“Not a single thing.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I guess I have no talent for creation.”
How could humans be so powerless? It was deplorable.
Not wanting to die alone, I asked Choi Jeho about his progress, too.
“What about you?”
“I wrote two lines.”
“Isn’t that half done?”
“I’m about to erase them all.”
The skin beneath Choi Jeho’s eyes, visible under his glasses, had turned dark. Right. Aside from expressing things with your body, you were clumsy at every form of expression, too.
But even I, a firm believer in experts, couldn’t actively recommend bringing in an expert this time.
It was a fan song…… What a dilemma.
As I repeatedly wrote and erased, our manager came to the dorm.
It was such a rare occurrence that all of us were a little surprised. Enough to make us wonder if something had happened again.
“Is Iwol here?”
“Yes, what is it?”
Our manager’s face was flushed. Only ominous thoughts came to mind.
What is it? Is it work again?
UA hasn’t been giving me work lately, though?
Don’t tell me the numbers in the company’s accounting books don’t match? I’ve forgotten most of accounting, but would I be of any help?
Tension hung in the air. Our manager smiled brightly and shouted,
“You passed the audition!”
“Yes?”
Completely unexpected words popped out.
“The audition?”
That audition where I’d gone, “Whatever, I don’t know anymore,” nitpicked historical inaccuracies like some obsessive viewer, and then stormed out by myself?
For a moment, I almost couldn’t even remember what audition it was. Far too many things had happened since the audition for In My Office.
This was absurd. Was there really such a lack of talent who could portray a worldly, exhausted office worker?
But I had no intention of obediently getting cast. An idol’s acting activities might be a plus for the idol or the agency, but for the fandom atmosphere, public opinion, and the people working on set, they were a complete minus.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand that atmosphere. No matter how much people talked about adult circumstances and whatnot, would working professionals be happy about it?
One of the few things UA had done well in the past was not making Spark do acting activities. They must have gotten a general sense of things when they once filmed a breakup music video with Lee Cheonghyeon. That, if they weren’t careful, they might drag out a once-in-a-thousand-years visual only to turn him into a punching bag.
This time, I agreed with UA’s past policy as well. Besides, what was I going to do by standing out even more here?
I needed to say that I was truly grateful they thought well of me, but after the audition, I had keenly realized my own lack of ability, so I would have to decline their company’s offer…….
+
[SYSTEM] A “new task” has been assigned.
▷ Appear in the drama In My Office
▷ Reward: Dance proficiency increases by 0.16% per episode appeared in (bonus maturity points accumulated if appearing in all episodes)
+
“I can’t believe this……. It’s truly an honor!”
I had no idea what acting had to do with dance proficiency, but who cared?
I could raise my dance proficiency, which wouldn’t rise no matter what I did? And all I had to do was work hard as an ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra-minor supporting character with only a few lines?
‘In My Office has twelve episodes, so that means I can raise it by almost two points.’
It was basically a free opportunity, so of course I had to accept. I’d muddled my way through this idol life all along anyway.
Besides, this fan song might be a digital single, but after that, a mini album was planned. The dedicated team was apparently pouring their heart and soul into preparing it, so it wasn’t like I could be the only one on the side dancing the joyful wooden doll dance.
In that sense, this reward was exactly right. I decided to submit to reality.
The members surrounded me, moved with emotion. Everyone congratulated me.
Just wait, guys. I’ll definitely come back as a dancing machine.