| Episode 79. KPI Design Support Program (1)
The system, which had been blabbering away just fine all this time, stayed silent for quite a while.
I was not a patient person. So I pressed the system even harder.
‘Is my sister alive or not?’
If I couldn’t confirm that, who gave a damn about KPIs or idols?
What the hell did it think I was causing all this trouble for, even dragging kids with bright futures into it?
I couldn’t calm down at all. It felt as if a thousand fires were burning inside me.
Then the system appeared before me and spoke. In one short sentence.
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[SYSTEM] An instruction from the ‘supervisor’ has arrived.
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, you think the company is a joke?
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Fuck, and what are you going to do about it?
Ever since the system set that ridiculous goal of debuting a ruined human being like me as an idol, I’d had a rough guess.
How many people out there were better suited to being an idol than me? And how many things were simpler than turning back the time of the living and saving someone who was going to die?
And yet this happened only to me? To me, who had been an utterly ordinary office worker?
Then one hypothesis naturally came to mind.
Just as the only thing I could rely on to save my sister was the system, the system must also have a reason why I had to become an idol. Even if it had to go through all this annoying nonsense.
Then, from here, what would happen if I, the human the system needed, stopped prioritizing the objective and deviated from the route?
For example, if I jumped off the balcony of this building right now and wiped all the work so far clean before approval came through for achieving the KPI.
The system could read my thoughts, so it should be able to feel perfectly well that what I was thinking wasn’t a joke.
So the system would have to prove it.
That my sister was alive and well, and that it could even interfere with what might happen to her in the future.
Unless it wanted to see its one and only Party B die while it was throwing its weight around.
At that moment, the system crackled as if filled with static.
And soon after, a new sentence appeared.
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[SYSTEM] An instruction from the ‘supervisor’ has arrived.
▶ So what does Assistant Manager Kim want?
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Prove it.
Just like Hanpyeong Industries proved every month, with money paid on the dot, that it could give me a salary.
Then a long document appeared. It was a new service.
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[SYSTEM] A ‘Welfare Service’ notice is being issued to ‘Party B.’
▷ In all cases except when ‘Party B’ fails to achieve the KPI, ‘Party A’ will protect ‘Party B’s blood relatives from external threats.
▷ When requested by ‘Party B,’ ‘Party A’ will share the status of one of ‘Party B’s blood relatives (designatable; cannot be changed after being designated once) within a scope that does not correspond to privacy or confidential matters under ‘breach of confidentiality obligations.’
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It felt absurd to package this with the word “service.”
But at least, knowing that my sister was still safe and that nothing would happen to her as long as I didn’t do anything stupid made me feel a little relieved.
I immediately registered my sister for the ‘Welfare Service’ and requested a status update.
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[SYSTEM] ‘Welfare Service’ Usage Details
▷ Relationship: Blood relative
▷ Physical condition: Good
▷ Psychological condition: Good
▷ Other: Sleeping
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“Ha…….”
An emotion I couldn’t identify welled up in me. I stared for a long time at the clearly glowing word “Good,” then buried my face in both hands and sat at the dining table for a long while.
* * *
After much anguish, I barely managed to close my eyes at five in the morning, but as soon as it was five-thirty, the alarm rang. I had no idea the saying that tomorrow’s sun would rise tomorrow could feel this shitty.
Maybe because I’d slept so badly, my head was foggy. After smacking one side of my face a couple of times, I woke up a bit.
After even washing my face, I familiarly toasted bread in front of the frying pan. Just like I used to be able to tie a necktie with my eyes closed on weekday mornings, it seemed I’d now learned to toast bread altogether.
While handing out bread to the members, I didn’t forget to talk about the live broadcast scheduled for that evening.
It was roughly, “There’s been talk online lately about my name change, so questions related to it might come up in the comments. It’s true that I changed my name, so if that comes up, I’ll explain it.”
Aside from me, most of them had been forbidden from monitoring, and talk about me hadn’t been spreading that much on social media, so I expected they wouldn’t know……
“Hyung, you changed your name?!”
Their reactions were even bigger than I’d expected. I Cheonghyeon was startled out of his wits.
Gang Giyeon also chimed in, saying he had thought the name was strangely unusual. I hope these guys react exactly this much wherever they go from now on.
As scheduled, the live began at seven that evening.
The concept of the live, titled ‘[Spark] (2X0319) Project Review Presentation Begins!’ was group members having a small after-party in a refreshed mood after successfully completing all their assignments.
In keeping with the purpose of the live, all the members had received something called transparent makeup.
Only I had dark circles that were too severe, so I received “non-transparent makeup that looked like transparent makeup.”
To the staff member, I’d like to take this opportunity to say I’m sorry.
We didn’t forget the glowing name headbands either. Still, for today’s live, there was actually food placed in front of us.
Since they couldn’t put an empty table in an after-party concept, the company had prepared one snack each that we wanted to eat.
For me, who had only ever taken nuts from the pantry at Hanpyeong Industries, an assortment of six snacks was a sufficiently luxurious treat. Even more so when considering the strict diet management we’d been under for the past few months.
However, from the viewers’ perspective, that snack table seemed very modest.
≫ Kids…… don’t tell me that’s all the snacks?
≫ There are six people, so there are only six snacks? That’s not it, right? Say it’s not
≫ If UA is shaming you over eating snacks, please shake the Photo Chips
Comments expressing outrage at the fact that the first snacks ever to appear on Spark’s live were six bags of snacks started sprouting up like mushrooms.
Thanks to the guys smiling and explaining that they usually didn’t eat snacks often, the broadcast was very warm and wholesome.
Except for the part where I Cheonghyeon, who hadn’t seen the comments, got excited about the rare snack party and tried to shake the Photo Chips, nearly giving Jeong Seongbin a seizure.
After that, when it became time for each member to share updates, comments related to my name change began appearing one by one, just as expected.
≫ Did Iwol change his name?
≫ Were you born in February, so your name is Iwol?
≫ Please tell us why you changed your name!
While satisfying the curiosity of the people watching the broadcast, I also read out similar questions together as much as possible, hoping more time would go to the other members.
“There are a lot of questions about my name change. It’s true that I changed my name, and I chose my current name myself!”
“You chose it yourself, hyung?”
Gang Giyeon asked as if surprised.
Sorry. Since I only told you today that I changed my name, I guess I didn’t explain enough.
“Yeah. Some of you guessed it, but I was born in February, so I chose Iwol! They said if you change your name, your luck can open up a bit, so I changed it.”
In the past, whenever I said it like this, everyone had understood the reason for the name change. I’d never been as grateful for the existence of saju as I was then.
Bak Juu, who had been listening from beside me, praised it, saying it seemed like a unique and good name.
In reality, I’d gone to apply for a name change because I was sick and tired of the name “Kim Hyoil,” but since I hadn’t decided what to change it to, I’d hurriedly taken it from my personal information.
Meanwhile, Jeong Seongbin was nodding vigorously, saying, “Fortune is important. Of course.”
Somehow, that bastard seemed to be misunderstanding that I’d changed my name after receiving a revelation from an ancestral spirit.
In order to scatter the attention focused on me, I changed the topic by asking the other members about the origins of their names. And while the guys were talking, I checked the comments.
≫ Kids, you worked so hard until the final broadcast♡
≫ Only 6 snacks, and the headbands are reused tooㅠ The thrift-dols of our era
≫ Our Jeho’s physique is insane…… Jeho, please measure your shoulder width
≫ I Cheonghyeon’s face saved the nation again today
Fortunately, comments like “UA being stingy about snacks” were no longer visible. It was much better for reactions related to the live to make up the majority.
‘Choe Jeho’s shoulder width…… I Cheonghyeon’s face…….’
After memorizing as many of the keywords mentioned in the comments as possible, I returned to the ongoing conversation.
What came after that wasn’t much different from what had been decided in advance. Most of it was about things like where we bought the stage props each time, what had been good about promotions, and what had been regrettable.
When the live was nearing its end like that, Jeong Seongbin read out one comment.
“Here, there’s someone who says they came in because of our faces and became a fan after watching the stage. Could you tell us when you watched the stage?”
“You’re going to watch it before sleeping tonight……?”
At Bak Juu’s question, Jeong Seongbin smiled brightly and answered, “Yeah.”
Would I show up a lot on that stage? I hoped not.
Because if the stage video that made them become a fan dropped in quality because of the mosaic, I’d feel too sorry to that person.
“They say it was the day Jeho hyung broke the ballpoint pen? If we’re going to watch it anyway, let’s all gather in the living room later and watch it together!”
I Cheonghyeon said, brimming with excitement.
Everyone except Choe Jeho was biting their lips to hold back their laughter, but I couldn’t laugh.
Still, I did my best to smile. Very carefully, so that the atmosphere of the live wouldn’t break.
When night came, the guys really gathered in front of the TV screen. It was to watch, as a group, the stage video that the fan said had made them stan us.
For the record, I intended to sit it out.
Since there weren’t many days left for us to be together anyway, I planned to give them a memory that the five of them could share together.
But my grand consideration all went up in smoke.
‘Hyung, if you’re not going to sleep, watch it with us! How can the eldest hyung sit out!’
Because that bastard I Cheonghyeon grabbed me. Since he’d been taking good care of his skin lately, I had been kindly calling him only by his full three-syllable name, but from this incident onward, I decided to call him “that bastard I Cheonghyeon” for a while.
Having no choice, I sat down beside Choe Jeho, who had taken up a corner of the sofa.
He, too, had an uncomfortable expression as he hugged a cushion. Right, you probably weren’t used to this situation either.
“Everyone’s seated, right? I’ll play the video!”
With Jeong Seongbin’s signal, the video played.
Deep blue lights poured over the stage, and the camera captured the six of us in formation.
The guys reacted loudly whenever someone appeared on screen. Then they busily complimented one another.
‘This is uncomfortable.’
Was it because I’d spent too long monitoring Spark’s videos all by myself? This moment of watching a screen that all of us appeared in together felt far too unfamiliar.
The uncomfortable feeling grew whenever I was close-upped alone. I felt a sense of alienation I couldn’t explain in words.
In the end, unable to bear the sense that something was off, I tried to get up, saying I’d go to sleep first.
And at that moment.
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[SYSTEM] ‘Party B’s KPI, ‘Debut as a six-member boy group,’ has been confirmed.
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The KPI approval notification I had been waiting and longing for appeared.