Episode 190. Preparing for the Follow-up Project (1)
Spark’s comeback announcement dropped. Since the members valued confidentiality and almost never gave out crumbs, Sparklers had to greet the comeback as if they’d been struck by lightning.
Baek Haewon was no exception. Finals were approaching, and Spark was coming with them, so her heart was suffering twice as much. Spark, my handsome men who came to ruin my life.
‘I hope they come back with insanely intense makeup and ridiculously amazing styling.’
This was their first comeback after UA created a team dedicated to Spark. (Excluding the fan song, since they said the kids did all of that themselves.) There was no way she wouldn’t be anxious.
Until now, their Iwol had handled everything neatly, cleanly, and with perfect sense all on his own, so she worried whether that incompetent agency could really be trusted.
But with that raw material, it wasn’t easy to mess things up, either. Baek Haewon thought over and over again that if they couldn’t even hit average with Spark, the UA employees deserved to be flogged.
≫ UA, if you still haven’t come to your senses and bring us something weird, you’re dead
≫ It’s time to show the sincerity of that apology you posted. Show us how much you reflected through investment
≫ Kids, hurry up and come back. You need to discipline the idol scene with your faces. But if UA does a shit job just because they’re rushing you out, UA is seriously dead
Correction. She hadn’t only thought it; she had also posted about it on SNS.
‘If their comeback is coming anyway, I’ll finish all my exam studying before then!’
Baek Haewon made a solemn vow and, powered by passion, solved math problems for about two hours.
And right around the time Baek Haewon’s concentration began to fade.
≫ @spArk_official
J / Leader
#Spark #spArk #Seongbin #MISSION
The first concept photo dropped.
As expected, the world was fair. Did it not reward those who worked hard like this?
Baek Haewon’s spinal cord reacted to the notification.
Jeong Seongbin’s upper body filled the screen as he sat arrogantly in a chairman’s chair.
‘A suit? A suit? SUIT? A three-piece all-black suit?’
The leader, wearing a dress shirt and vest with sleeve garters on his forearms.
The sight of him in a dark conference-room-like space, looking toward the light source while biting a pen.
The man who, until just the other day, had been the most tragically delicate man in their group, now staring straight ahead with an expressionless face and not a single hint of a smile!
≫ fuck
≫ Fxxk
≫ No, fxxk, Seongbin
≫ No, sir, no, FUCK, what on earth is this right now
≫ Thank you, UA. I believed in you
≫ What the hell is with the sleeve garter? I’m so mad. I love you enough to die, but you started it
└ Please calm down
Calm down? When was there time to calm down? She had to go show off her baby’s concept photo everywhere like the Lion King showing off Simba from a cliff.
Baek Haewon reposted the concept photo, quoted it, downloaded the photo, attached it anew, and expressed her overflowing emotions.
She did not forget to zoom in on each incredible part, screenshot it again, and deliver a long speech about exactly why it was good.
≫ This… this thing where the tip of the pen is “almost bitten but not quite” makes a person obsess so hard. So did you bite it? Did you not? There’s a shadow on your lips, so at this point you bit it, right? Say you bit it. Hurry
≫ Leather gloves
(sigh)
≫ Are these truly the upper arm muscles of a nineteen-year-old high school student? Are they? Stop going to the gym with your hyungs. No, keep going. Showing off arms like this with a face like white jade is deception, it’s flaunting, it’s greed
└ Their frames are seriously insaneㅠㅠㅠㅠ Wear suits forever
└ What are you talking about??? They need to wear uniforms and rash guards too. I’m going to see their shoulder lines up, down, left, right, front, and back before I die
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
≫ Men really are best with their hair down
└ Miheon-nim, I feel like I’ve seen you around for about three years, and you really never change
└ I never lost my original spirit, you see
Something huge was coming.
Something freaking huge was coming!
Her heart pounded as if it would burst. She desperately wanted the comeback day to come—no, she desperately wanted to know who would be in the very next concept photo.
* * *
“We’ll run through that part one more time.”
Jeong Seongbin stopped the music and pulled the progress bar back. Rough breathing could be heard from all over.
Lee Cheonghyeon, who was panting just the same, raised his hand and stepped out beside the formation.
“Hyung, I’m passing for a bit.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“I think I’ll be fine if I just rest once and come back in.”
Below his practice shorts, his taped knee was visible.
He wasn’t injured. The guy was just growing like bean sprouts in a steamer.
‘Argh!’
‘What is it?!’
In the middle of the night, he woke up screaming, so I wondered what was going on, and it turned out to be growing pains. He rolled around, groaned, and made such a fuss that I stayed up the whole night massaging his legs.
No wonder he seemed to be tearing his hair out especially hard while working on the “In My Office” OST. It must have been because it was work he’d never done before, and on top of that, his legs hurt, making him more sensitive than usual.
Anyway, now that we knew the cause, he was practicing while taking proper breaks. It wasn’t as if Lee Cheonghyeon was slow at picking up choreography, and above all else, the height of a visual member was important.
I met Lee Cheonghyeon’s eyes through the mirror. The guy, who had been rubbing his knee, grinned.
“You say it hurts, so what are you so happy about?”
“I just thought about looking down at my hyungs, and I started smiling!”
“Not a chance.”
A hollow laugh escaped me. Do you know how tall you’d have to be to look down at Choi Jeho or me?
Still, I was relieved that everyone seemed to be growing well. At the very least, they were growing faster than before.
From Kang Giyeon, who had seemed like he would never grow even if he died, to Lee Cheonghyeon, some members were shooting up visibly, while Jeong Seongbin and Park Juu were the type to build themselves up from within first.
As for me, after I turned off that Labor Support-whatever, I was satisfied because I was putting on muscle well again…
“Hey, face forward after the turn.”
“My bad.”
There was a bit of a problem.
Because Lee Cheonghyeon volunteered to have Kang Giyeon cover for him while he caught up, my dance teacher ended up changing to Choi Jeho.
“No, I’m telling you to turn and look forward.”
“Wait. I got as far as turning, didn’t I? Now I’ll look forward.”
“Did Kang Giyeon not start producing relics while teaching you?”
“He produced so many he made them into necklaces and sold them. Happy?”
Maybe because I’d given him so much shit all this time, Choi Jeho had also gotten better at giving me shit. So this was what it meant to give by the cup and get it back by the bucket. Next time, I’d have to harass him by the barrel.
After repeating the same move several more times like that.
“You should just sleep here today.”
Choi Jeho informed me. I humbly accepted it.
When is “In My Office” coming out?
Hurry up and come out so you can raise my dance proficiency a bit…
* * *
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions have arrived from the “Person in Charge.”
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, how are your KPIs coming along?
+
To think the first thing I saw as soon as I opened my eyes was a system like that. I want to quit.
Right, I’m a freelancer without employment insurance. I need to get my first settlement soon so I can at least pay into the National Pension.
My old-age security is worse than it was in my Hanpyeong Industries days. Since I have to give the money from selling my stocks to my sister, I effectively don’t have a single coin to my name. What am I supposed to do about this?
As expected, getting a heavy equipment license, immigrating to Australia, living miserably in a share house, and doggedly earning money is…
While I was diligently racking my brain, Lee Cheonghyeon, who was climbing down from his bed, spoke to me.
“Hyung, what’s up? You’re lying down instead of getting up.”
“I’m worrying about the future.”
“Did you reach a conclusion?”
“I thought I should study English a little harder.”
“Looks like the workbooks won’t survive for a while.”
Still, I had to live diligently. Hadn’t I done all sorts of things in order to achieve my KPIs?
If we didn’t get first place with this album, achieving the KPI would be pushed back until next year. Like hell I was going to let that happen.
Today’s schedule was the music video shoot. From today onward, we wouldn’t be able to return to the dorm for two nights and three days. Apparently, that was what idol music video shoots were like.
Park Juu, Lee Cheonghyeon, and Kang Giyeon got into the car with the hair they had newly redone for today completely hidden.
After I pulled their hoods over their heads and tightened the strings, all the kids turned into webfoot octopuses. I also made sure to take photos of the three webfoot octopuses so they could be uploaded to the official account anytime.
At the salon, everyone successfully underwent a complete transformation. Their faces and silhouettes made all the sweating at the gym and the nightly maintenance feel worthwhile.
On top of that, to express maturity, extra effort was put into the eye makeup. I had no idea how many layers of eyeshadow had gone on.
Lee Cheonghyeon, who had only worn heavy makeup a few times, kept looking in the mirror and going, “Oh… Ooh…”
“Everyone take fifty selfies each. I’m going to check.”
“The quota’s low today…?”
Park Juu asked, sounding puzzled.
“I’ll take the remaining fifty myself as we go, so don’t worry.”
“O-okay…”
There was demand for photos of my babies taken by someone else too, you see. I’ll snap them properly when you’re standing by a wall or sitting on a sofa.
For the first shoot, as befitting a straightforward choreography shoot, everyone wore suits. There were slight differences in variation, but the black half-palm gloves and plain-toe dress shoes gave everything a unified feel.
“We’ll film the group dance shot once against this gray background and once against that burgundy background over there. After you change outfits, we’ll film together on that set.”
The assistant director gave us a brief explanation based on the storyboard we had received beforehand.
I looked back and forth between the two sets and asked,
“Since all of our colors are dark, won’t the members get too swallowed up against the burgundy background?”
“We decided to make the lighting stronger on that side. You might have to worry about the makeup getting washed out instead.”
When I looked around in person, I saw a gray set on one side with nothing in it so the members could be the focus, and on the other side, a burgundy set splattered with black paint.
It felt like only yesterday we were filming a music video at an abandoned school we’d gone out of our way to rent. Now we were filming a music video on a proper set. It stirred up new emotions.
“And aside from the group dance, there are the individual shots for each member from numbers 3 to 8, Giyeon’s blind shot at number 13, Iwol’s upper-body shot at number 14, Juu’s conference room shot at number 27…”
Ah, this wasn’t the time to be moved.
Honestly, me. There was a mountain of work to do, and here I was thinking about other things. I’d gotten complacent. Too complacent…
Assistant Manager Kim hates idols.