Episode 49. Work Distribution
Park Juwu basked in the members’ heartfelt attention and recovered in no time.
Of course, my nursing was indispensable too. Thanks to my devoted care, Park Juwu’s complexion became absolutely radiant.
After that, I kindly used a weekend evening to teach them emergency protocols too.
“If there are any unusual signs, report to Jeong Seongbin immediately and go to the hospital during the day. Got it?”
I seated the patient, Park Juwu, on the sofa out of consideration and held a special lecture. Everyone else was on the floor.
In the middle of this, Lee Cheonghyeon raised his hand with a serious face and asked.
“Hyung, do I need to write this down?”
“Yeah. It’s on the test.”
Lee Cheonghyeon, who displayed excellent class attendance, was sent to his room early to work on composing.
Seeing one guy get cut loose, everyone else started listening much more diligently from then on.
Having had the importance of health management and condition maintenance drilled into them, those guys evolved into hardcore devotees of the disciplined life, eating and sleeping with machine-like regularity and never forgetting to exercise. It was a desirable change.
The debut song’s lyrics were also completed smoothly.
It was exactly the atmosphere I had wanted. The reactions from the members and the company weren’t bad either.
Seeing everything going so well, I felt something would blow up soon, but even the System stayed quiet.
These peaceful days were a first since my rejuvenation. How much blood and tears had I shed chasing a high-teen star dream that had never been in my destiny?
“Hyung, what are you thinking about?”
“That even a mouse hole wouldn’t grow mold.”
Feeling the warm sunlight of all creation, I focused again on the lyric sheet.
Lee Cheonghyeon and I had taken on the role of first considering part distribution, with the qualifications of composer and producing member respectively.
“I had some idea of which member would be good for this part, but nothing really clicks.”
“It’s your first time doing this, so it’s natural you don’t have the feel for it yet. Just organize your opinions first.”
“Can we really decide this among ourselves?”
“The company will review it too.”
At that, Lee Cheonghyeon began concentrating, his brow deeply furrowed.
“First, relax your brow. You’ll get wrinkles.”
“Oh, please.”
Oh, please? Oh, please?
I’m meticulously preventing vertical lines from forming on his brow, and he says “oh, please”?
I was about to flip over the lyric sheet, draw a human face, and explain the Botox costs by facial area right then and there.
If I did, this kid might get fixated on something random and ask, “Hyung, why did you become an idol instead of going into plastic surgery?”
Seeing both sides of the lyric sheet crumpling in my hand, Lee Cheonghyeon smoothly relaxed his brow.
How nice it would’ve been if he’d done that from the start. Anyway, these guys always make me say everything twice.
“Probably… I think dividing it like this would be the most balanced.”
Then I marked on the lyric sheet the parts each member had sung nine years ago.
When you’ve been mass-streaming songs for years, you can distinguish b-side track parts with your eyes closed.
After all, at this stage, only Park Juwu and Jeong Seongbin could handle the high notes.
I handed over the blank rap part that needed to be written directly to Lee Cheonghyeon in one piece, and it didn’t take long to chop up the remaining lyrics.
Lee Cheonghyeon watched Kim Iwol’s lyric dissection show beside me with great interest.
Then he exclaimed, looking at the lyric sheet divided by colorful highlighters.
“Oh, I think I can roughly predict how it’ll feel!”
“Right?”
I smiled shamelessly.
But Lee Cheonghyeon, who had been staring holes into the lyric sheet, raised an objection.
“But, Hyung.”
“What?”
“You don’t have a single part, Hyung.”
Crap. I hadn’t thought of that.
I’d been so focused on perfectly restoring the parts that I’d completely forgotten the existence of sub-vocalist Kim Iwol.
“You’re not planning to run away the day before debut, are you?”
No. I’ll run away after debut. I have to debut due to circumstances.
But to Lee Cheonghyeon, who didn’t know how desperate I was for debut, suspicion was already filling his eyes.
I tried hard to clean up the mess I’d caused.
“It’s not like that. I forgot.”
“There are other things you can forget—how do you not secure a single line for yourself?”
“Your five voices harmonize so well that I just…”
“You’re not calling that an excuse right now, are you?”
Lee Cheonghyeon furrowed his brow again. I told him to relax his brow, but he really didn’t listen.
“I’m serious. More importantly, we don’t have time, so let’s focus.”
I didn’t have time to squabble with Lee Cheonghyeon over whether there were parts or not.
Lee Cheonghyeon looked displeased, but he didn’t press further.
‘The points fans consider important were the intro, chorus, and high-note parts, right?’
Positions with titles like “Intro Fairy” or “high-note specialist” all had to be distributed to the members.
Besides the chorus, I had to avoid the killing part that gets mentioned in every song too.
In the end, I needed to find the parts that seemed like it wouldn’t matter at all who did them in this song.
Thanks to Lee Cheonghyeon refining the song amazingly, every melody was beautiful and excellent, but I somehow found the sections with the most unobtrusive and boring melody.
Seeing me highlighting two painstakingly excavated lines, Lee Cheonghyeon asked.
“Surely that’s not your part, Hyung?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Isn’t it too little? Look at the other members’ parts.”
“This isn’t even the final version. And since our stats differ, it can’t be helped.”
Razor-sharp part distribution? That would be nice.
In the idol industry, it was common to measure and compare parts by the second, since you could only get parts if you had the skill.
In such a market, there would be nothing better than all members dividing the parts equally.
But that was a story that applied only ‘when everyone had the skills.’
Try holding a mic while enduring dizziness alone among members who pulled off excellent live vocals while dancing. Was there anything more pathetic than that?
No one would be upset over my amount to begin with.
So two lines of lyrics were enough for me.
One line happened to be Choi Jeho’s part, which Department Head Nam’s daughter had adored so ardently, but I decided to accept this much as compensation for the hardships I’d suffered as a salaryman.
Miss, this lyric is mine now.
However, my perfect plan to cleanly use only about 14 seconds and return the part after debut turned to foam within a few days.
“Iwol. About the parts, could you talk with Cheonghyeon and rework them?”
“Huh?”
My absolutely perfect part distribution had been rejected at the planning team level.
I couldn’t figure out the reason at all. UA’s operational policies hadn’t changed between nine years ago and now.
‘Haven’t things at the agency been proceeding similarly to what I know?’
Using the existing parts as they were would have been the closest to the ‘Part_Distribution_Final’ that UA would have produced.
That’s why I’d forced Jeong Seongbin, who found the intro burdensome, to take it by saying, “Just trust me this once.”
“Your part is too few. Did Cheonghyeon agree to this too?”
“No, Cheonghyeon pointed out the same issue.”
“Still, there needs to be some balance. It’d be best if all six took similar amounts, but even if you can’t divide it exactly the same, the balance should roughly match.”
That’s not it. Their song is most perfect when sung by five people.
The majority of the public acknowledged this too.
A team that covered Spark’s song on a certain survival program received all kinds of harsh criticism from judges and commenters.
≫ I applaud your challenge spirit. I’ll give you 3 points.
└ Is it out of 5 points?
└ Out of 100 points.
≫ Spark’s songs are seriously unique… The members make it look easy when they sing, but your throat explodes at karaoke.
└ Hahaha, they boldly request it then cancel immediately after verse 1.
≫ It’s amazing they don’t blow up despite singing this well. It’s not like they’re ugly or short. At this level, it’s a talent.
└ Scandals blow up every year, equal to the number of members.
└ They’re a group deadlier than flu season. One day they come striding in, drain all your tears and snot, then leave alone.
≫ I wish trainees on survival shows would go easy on the Spark covers…
The skill gap shows too clearly, so it’s off-putting instead.
They’d be better off singing safer songs matching their skills.
└ We expect so damn much from trainees.
Though there were some posts where you couldn’t tell if they were praising Spark or mocking them.
The System should have given me Spark’s music from the existing five-member system instead of a hologram scheduler.
Only then could I have plugged the music into the planning team staff’s ears and persuaded them, right?
My head throbbed. But as the lowest of the low, I had no choice.
“Understood. I will rewrite it.”
I was a virtuoso of repetitive labor who’d redo it all if told to.
In the end, I bowed my head apologetically to Lee Cheonghyeon and had to divide the lyrics again. I had no face to show.
* * *
After 100 minutes of debate between Lee Cheonghyeon and me, an emergency meeting of the planning team, and even a Spark TF team meeting, the parts were safely finalized.
When I watched self-produced content of them recording, they just wrote their names next to the lyrics on A4 paper with a ballpoint pen and sang, so I’d thought it would take about 10 minutes. Nothing is ever easy.
With their parts decided and the choreography completed by Choi Jeho and Gang Giyeon’s design, the trainees began full-scale live practice.
Meaning they were dancing and singing together during all practice hours.
For me, who could only do one thing when taught one thing, singing and dancing while fixing my gaze was harder than organizing web spreadsheets at 4 AM.
Trying to conquer two mountains at once, my head felt like it would burst.
At times like that, I recalled Hampyeong Industries.
‘Deputy Kim, it must be boring doing the same thing all the time? The CEO said we should try organizing in-house study groups, so Deputy Kim, take charge and think about it. Ah, just submit the report before I leave work.’
‘Ah, Deputy Kim. The CEO’s cabinet won’t open, so go take a look and come back.’
With that kind of thing waiting for me, I couldn’t not practice.
I’d rather meet my end in the practice room than return to Hampyeong Industries to create a book club and open other people’s cabinet doors.
Whether thanks to rolling around the practice room until my shoe soles wore out, once I reached the point where I could dance even upon waking from sleep, the System recognized my choreography mastery.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.
▷ Reward: EXP (5)
▷ Accumulated EXP: 95
▷ Accumulated Points: 0
+
That wasn’t all.
The self-content in question had finally secured about 10 episodes’ worth, allowing us to begin full-scale video editing.
Concepts, captions, and effects to attach to each member had already been organized separately and handed over to the planning team.
I made active use of web novel keywords this time too. If only I could have continued past the preview chapters, I could have gotten more ideas. I should spend even 10,000 won once I get paid.
With content quantities stocked up abundantly like that.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.
▷ Reward: EXP (5)
▷ Accumulated EXP: 100
▷ Accumulated Points: 1
+
It felt like I’d earned a point for the first time in a million years. My heart swelled.
Recalling the recording date that wasn’t far off, I invested the point in vocal proficiency.
+
Performance Evaluation (100)
— Vocal Proficiency: 7(▲)/20
— Dance Proficiency: 6/20
— Self PR: 12/20
— Attendance Management: 18/20
— Organizational Adaptability: 10/20
Accumulated EXP: 0%
+
Since they said manual investment in proficiency became impossible from 7 points upward, the last thing I could raise with EXP would be 1 point in dance proficiency.
‘Still, I came all this way—where else would I be?’
Without the System’s help, let alone debut, I’d already be picking up cigarette butts dropped by Department Head Nam beside the Hampyeong Industries building entrance.
Although the path had been fiery, I felt relieved I hadn’t become a whole roast pig yet.
However, peace in the workplace and society never lasts long.
Along with the autumn wind, an early storm that seemed to herald a harsh winter was rising at UA too.