| Episode 175. Fan Meeting (4)
When the lights came back on, Spark stood there, having changed into the school uniforms from the music video they had just watched.
The hall filled with reactions from people who had become completely immersed.
“How do you like our first fan song, everyone?”
“XLove it!”
One Sparkler who had shouted the loudest clapped a hand over their mouth. Everyone desperately held back their laughter.
“We were incredibly nervous backstage. We kept wondering what we’d do if the reaction wasn’t good.”
Gim Iwol said it with a face that looked as though he had never been nervous in his life. Nervous, my foot. He had clearly just been watching the fans with the eyes of a hawk.
At Jeong Seong-bin’s prompting, they sat down again to talk a little about the fan song.
Perhaps because it was difficult to touch up their makeup in the short span of three minutes, Choi Je-ho and Park Ju-u, who had worn particularly intense makeup, looked subtly mismatched with their school uniforms and faces. It was funny in its own way, so Won Chae-hui diligently captured it in photographs.
“There’s a reason this song is titled *The Third Letter*, right?”
Gim Iwol opened the subject, and Jeong Seong-bin smoothly picked up the cue.
“As you know from the lyrics of *Flowering* and *With List*, we write all our songs with Sparklers as the listeners in mind. Though this is our first fan song, we gave it this title because, as a story sent to Sparklers, it’s our third.”
I had never thought about it that way. They said Spark knew how to love their fans, but it was surprising to learn that they had maintained that level of enthusiasm since their debut song.
Jeong Seong-bin then praised the group’s composer.
“Cheong-hyeon worked really hard again this time, everyone.”
“It’s a fan song. What do you mean, worked hard? I had a great time working on it!”
“It did look that way.”
Gang Gi-yeon’s remark further affirmed Lee Cheong-hyeon’s sincerity. Maybe it was because he had witnessed the reaction firsthand at the moment the song was released. Lee Cheong-hyeon was brimming with energy.
“Though it seems there are others who really worked hard.”
Gang Gi-yeon said this while looking to the side. Gim Iwol and Choi Je-ho each looked away in turn. I had a feeling we were about to get some extremely interesting gossip.
Lee Cheong-hyeon took the microphone again.
“As all the Sparklers know, our hyungs aren’t exactly gifted at writing, right?”
“Just look at the letters they wrote for the reverse fan gifts….”
Everyone nodded in agreement at Park Ju-u’s words. Only Won Chae-hui, who had joined the fandom late and didn’t know such detailed information, rolled her eyes.
“But this time, we decided that everyone would write the lyrics for their own parts themselves, right? Our hyungs really suffered~.”
“You look like you’re enjoying this, Cheong-hyeon.”
Gim Iwol smiled brightly. Dark shadows lay thick beneath his eyes.
“They really were a bit much.”
“…They kept putting the word ‘lacking’ in the lyrics until they turned all of us into Lacking Sparks.”
As though venting their accumulated grievances, Gang Gi-yeon and Park Ju-u took turns criticizing Choi Je-ho.
“I was praising you for making it this far despite everything. Why don’t you understand my feelings? My cute, pretty, jewel-like Cheong-hyeon is about to get upset, you know?”
“Yeah, I was wrong.”
In Won Chae-hui’s eyes, even the so-called “tiki-taka that never takes a day off” between Lee Cheong-hyeon and Gim Iwol had begun to look cute.
There was only one thing left that Won Chae-hui could decide for herself now: who to choose as her bias. That, at least, was something no one could know until the fan meeting was over.
* * *
After watching Spark perform *Flowering* live in their school uniforms and seeing a few cover dances of the latest hit songs, it was time for questions.
The standing signboard brought in according to the program schedule was covered with Post-it notes on which the fans had written their questions by hand.
At Jeong Seong-bin’s suggestion that they pick and read them one by one, the members crowded around the signboard. Gang Gi-yeon was the first to choose a question.
“‘SparkSexyDancePunch Day 1,386’ asks, ‘Are you planning to change roommates?’”
“Come to think of it, haven’t we never changed them?”
Choi Je-ho tilted his head.
“Gyeon and I switched once before. You used to share a room with Gyeon.”
“Did we?”
He clearly had no memory of it whatsoever. He was remarkably unflappable in more ways than one.
“It might be… fun to switch.”
Park Ju-u murmured from the back like a baby hamster. Everyone—even the members of Spark themselves—focused on what he had said.
Even at a glance, Won Chae-hui could tell that Park Ju-u wasn’t particularly sociable.
The fact that a member like him was open to changing roommates proved that Spark was, overall, a group in which everyone was close.
The members’ familiarity with one another was also evident in the conversation that followed.
“But Je-ho hyung and Ju-u hyung would have to use different rooms. Ju-u hyung can’t sleep well if there’s any light.”
“I bought an eye mask, so I’m fine…!”
Gang Gi-yeon, who took such careful consideration of his roommate’s habits, and Park Ju-u, who was willing to put up with Choi Je-ho’s poor night vision, were both like that….
“Anyone sharing a room with me or Lee Cheong-hyeon would have to be a heavy sleeper, wouldn’t they?”
“You and Cheong-hyeon just need to go to bed on time. Personally, I think people should be asleep before sunrise.”
Jeong Seong-bin was the same, scolding Gim Iwol and Lee Cheong-hyeon with a smile over their seemingly ruined sleep schedules.
“What combinations would you like to see, everyone? If you tell us now, maybe the company will assign your preferred roommates!”
Lee Cheong-hyeon was busy communicating with the fans at the very front of the stage. Requests came pouring in, such as “Make the maknae line roommates!” and “Split them into the Miracle Morning group and the Night Owl group!”
“If you split us up like that, everyone, I’d have to use two rooms.”
When Gim Iwol, famous for sleeping very little, answered, complaints came flying from all directions, telling him to just sleep more.
There were many questions besides the roommate issue. Sometimes, conversation topics arose from something that wasn’t even a question.
“‘SparkSexyDancePunch Day 1,386’ says… Wait a moment. Who here is using this nickname?”
Perhaps he had picked it without properly looking, because Choi Je-ho read the nickname aloud before belatedly trying to identify the mysterious punch master.
“We haven’t even been debuted for a year, but it says 1,386 days….”
“Sparkler fireworks give off light, right? And light is the fastest thing in the world. Even time itself was slower than a Sparkler’s light.”
“Isn’t that theory only applicable within a physical framework?”
The discussion of SparkSexyDancePunch had now progressed to the question of whether throwing punches quickly could break through the limits of time.
Jeong Seong-bin cut them off before the conversation could spiral completely out of control, but Gim Iwol and Lee Cheong-hyeon promised to discuss it again later, displaying a truly relentless determination.
“This is a question from ‘Melted Pudding.’ ‘Is Spark ever going to do a sexy concept?’”
A true leader. I had believed he would choose a dignified question. Won Chae-hui found Jeong Seong-bin so admirable that she pressed the shutter repeatedly. Everyone around them let out shrieks similar to the ones that had erupted when the fan song was released.
“Je-ho hyung already did a sexy concept once. In *A Royal Palace*.”
“You mean you want to see a sexy concept during a proper team promotion now.”
“Hmm.”
Lee Cheong-hyeon nodded as though giving the matter serious consideration.
That was when it happened. Gim Iwol, who had been sitting at the end of the table, sprang up and hid the members behind his back.
“No, everyone, they can’t do sexy yet!”
“Why not!”
“Why can’t they!”
“They may look like this, but they’re still just babies! Let’s wait until their ID cards are issued and the ink has dried before we even think about it!”
Babies, he said. How arrogant, knowing full well that his team’s average height was over 180 centimeters.
Won Chae-hui sincerely applauded Gim Iwol’s great hedgehog moment.
The fans hesitated at Gim Iwol’s firm declaration. Even though our boys were splendid idols whose faces could bring frost in summer and whose presence could block an entire doorway, they were still at an age when “hot bar” suited them better than “hot guy.”
“Then the hyungs should take their shirts off instead!”
someone shouted. Won Chae-hui guessed it was probably the person who had been throwing punches at the front earlier.
What was more, Gim Iwol took the suggestion quite seriously. He seemed to think it was a reasonably sensible middle ground.
Gim Iwol ran his hands over his own arms and chest through his school uniform shirt as though feeling them over. Then he strode toward Choi Je-ho. After doing the same thing to Choi Je-ho, he draped an arm over his shoulder with an expression that suggested he had reached some kind of certainty.
“Je-ho.”
“Yeah.”
“Your abs are still doing well, right?”
Gim Iwol asked with the most innocent-looking smile in the world.
“You’re not trying to send only me out there again, are you?”
Choi Je-ho’s wariness was fierce, as if he had been victimized by this before.
Looking at him, Gim Iwol smiled fondly.
“The fans want it.”
“……”
“So, everyone! Once Je-ho becomes a little more mature, we’ll try a sexy concept!”
Gim Iwol’s bold declaration received an enthusiastic response.
But wasn’t he mature enough already? At this point, Won Chae-hui realized that her brain was no longer functioning properly.
There were some fairly ordinary questions, too.
“There’s also a question asking, ‘If you compared the Spark members to animals, which animals would you choose?’ This question is so cute!”
It was a worn-out question in the idol world, but Lee Cheong-hyeon found it entertaining.
“Shall we start with the oldest? First, Iwol hyung is….”
“A panda.”
“An eagle.”
“A hissing cat.”
Choi Je-ho, Lee Cheong-hyeon, and Gang Gi-yeon answered almost simultaneously.
When Gim Iwol asked with a dubious expression what the eagle was supposed to mean, Lee Cheong-hyeon, who had proposed it, explained.
“They say eagles have a field of vision of about 340 degrees. You have eyes in the back of your head, too, hyung.”
So that was how it was. Won Chae-hui couldn’t even begin to guess how closely Gim Iwol observed the members.
Choi Je-ho became an anaconda. Gim Iwol asked, “Is an anaconda okay as an idol’s symbolic animal?” but his suggestion wasn’t accepted. Before long, fan art of Choi Je-ho with snake scales drawn across his face would be flooding in.
Jeong Seong-bin became a jindo dog. The reason was that there was no dog more reliable than one. It was strange that Gim Iwol kept suggesting every breed imaginable, starting with a retriever, but in the end, they settled on a jindo.
Park Ju-u became a chinchilla, Lee Cheong-hyeon a harpy eagle—strongly insisted upon by Gim Iwol—and Gang Gi-yeon a black panther.
It was an extraordinary combination. The atmosphere had suddenly turned into National Geographic, but it had been an informative time nonetheless, revealing that Spark was even more eccentric than expected.
“There are two eagles. Is that okay? Won’t there be some sort of interspecies conflict?”
“They live in different habitats, so it should be fine.”
Even the eagles reached a peace agreement. It was a beautiful sight.
Just as this bizarre Q&A session was drawing to a close—
“There’s a suspicious question here….”
Park Ju-u squatted down and peeled off the Post-it note stuck at the very bottom.
“…It says, ‘What’s the password to the laptop at our dorm?’”
“Huh?”
A question with no nickname had appeared—one that clearly didn’t seem to have been written by a fan.
―
Profile
Name: Lee Cheong-hyeon
Birthday: January 31
Birthplace: Seoul
Height: 178 cm
MBTI: ENFP
Nicknames: Cutie Pretty Visual Lee, Hyeon-rmdaum, Gold Face, Human Firework
Likes: Composing, rap, piano, watching cooking vlogs, reading
Dislikes: Recitals, exams, being late
Motto: You only live once, so let’s enjoy life!
Favorite food: Korean table d’hôte
Preferred scent: Watery scents
Favorite music genres: Opera, popular music, hip-hop
Favorite sport: Baseball
Most confident physical feature: Eyes
Personal habit: Habitually trying to memorize anything that catches his interest