| Episode 84. Our Company’s All-Purpose Entertainer (3)
“Hello, listeners of Conversations on a Moonlit Night. I’m Iwol of the group Spark, the last substitute DJ filling in for Senior DJ Polo.”
Kim Iwol’s voice was even, yet firm.
The pacing was appropriate, the pronunciation clear, and even the tone was neat.
One might think he was a very well-put-together DJ. If one only listened to the sound.
But Kim Iwol’s voice and his outfit were polar opposites. Polo found himself desperately curious about where on earth he had gotten that bizarre bracelet.
‘Didn’t they say his agency was UA? They can’t be so bad off they can’t assign him a stylist, can they?’
Unable to even bring himself to assume that Iwol had come looking like that of his own free will, Polo half-listened as his junior group Parthe introduced themselves.
The fortunate thing was that, apart from his bewildering style, Kim Iwol’s hosting ability was outstanding.
Of course, Polo had expected Kim Iwol to do well to some extent. That was why he had gone so far as to recommend Kim Iwol, whom he had met exactly once, as his substitute.
But Kim Iwol easily surpassed Polo’s expectations.
More than simply not relying on the script, Kim Iwol rarely looked at the script at all.
‘Did he memorize it?’
In his head, Polo knew that was impossible.
It wasn’t as if the script came out with a comfortable one- or two-week buffer, and because the program required an entire hour of talking, the DJ’s portion was substantial.
And yet, on the screen, Kim Iwol’s gaze was always directed at one of three places: the guest who was speaking, the prompter showing comments, or the staff.
And that was not all.
Kim Iwol’s strengths shone brighter as the radio show went on.
His deep understanding of the guests. His comfortable hosting.
Even though it was his first time as a DJ, he made sure no one was left out and gave everyone a chance to speak.
And then…
“Thanks to the opportunity Senior Polo gave me, I was able to have a valuable experience despite my shortcomings.
It was a time that made me feel fortunate that our group Spark’s first radio show was Conversations on a Moonlit Night. Starting next week, I too will return as an avid listener of Conversations on a Moonlit Night.
Thank you to all the listeners who stayed with me despite my lack of experience.”
A clean closing that left neither Polo’s fans nor the listeners any room to criticize—if anything, they could only praise it.
With a satisfied smile, Polo ended the replay, his head filled with thoughts of bragging to his leader hyung that his eye for talent had not been wrong.
* * *
“Iwol, we got a message from Mr. Polo.”
Our manager, who had come to check on our break time, came over beside me and said that.
“From Senior?”
“He said thank you so much for filling in on Moonlit Night, and that you worked hard.”
I was surprised he had even gone out of his way to send greetings.
As expected, an experienced idol was different. They did say that a highly specialized idol was no different from a working member of society.
“It’s not as if I did anything particularly well. Thank you for passing that on.”
As I bowed my head and thanked the manager, Lee Cheonghyeon cut in.
“You did well enough, hyung! You didn’t make a single mistake!”
“How do you know whether I made a mistake or not?”
“Because we all turned on a laptop and listened together!”
“You did something that cute behind my back?”
Thinking about the five of them huddled together listening to the radio show I hosted made me feel slightly uneasy.
It was a tremendous relief that these guys didn’t have personal phones they could use to send in listener stories. If they had phones, they definitely would have sent something.
‘More importantly… all together?’
I looked over at Choi Jeho, who was stretching a short distance away.
Then I asked Lee Cheonghyeon.
“Does that ‘all together’ include Choi Jeho?”
“Yes. Amazing, right?”
It is. That’s amazing, hey.
The fact that the five of them had gathered and done something together was meaningful. It meant they had developed the willingness to do things together outside of work as well.
No matter how much trouble and noise the Spark of the past had caused, it was true that they had worked together for seven years. And that would have been impossible without even the slightest bond.
‘Looks like they’re gradually getting closer among themselves.’
These guys would likely end up working together for seven years by repeatedly going through moments like this.
It bothered me that this time, of all things, my radio show had served as the trigger, but I decided to think of it as repaying the guys who were carrying me.
Besides, these guys had been listening well lately.
After I thoroughly grilled them over their self-produced content, the six individual contents came out splendidly.
≫ F***, f***, Choi Jeho is insane
He was born to captivate women in their twenties
└ Looking for someone to tell me how to get out of this video… I’m so desperate, I’ve been watching only this for 40 minutes
≫ Why on earth is Kang Kiyeon’s favorite manga the same as mine
As someone who has walked the single path of romance manga, I feel like I’ve found a comrade
└ Meanwhile he stubbornly only sides with the second male lead lol Kiyeon, I can smell pine resin through the screen
≫ Juu, please just make one YouTube channel
Please upload your playlist, I’m begging you… I’m serious
└ I’ve never heard any of these songs before, but they’re all good… You’re an old-timer of the pop song world
└ I’m an ajusshi in my thirties who prided himself on having listened to quite a lot of pop music, but I don’t know even half these songs haha Thanks to you, I’m leaving with some good music
└ The fact that you know around half is amazing in itself…
≫ I knew he composed himself, but he’s good at piano tooㅠㅠ Cheonghyeon is truly a jewel of the idol world
└ Apparently Cheonghyeon was originally going to major in classical music!
└ I hope he covers not just the title track but also the B-sides on pianoㅠ
≫ lol This is the first time I’ve seen an idol leader introduce a leadership book this seriously
└ I thought it was a paid ad and was getting ready to skip, but the skip ad button never showed up even once lol
Because the responses were good, I almost found myself smiling the entire time I was monitoring them. Really, how unprofessional of me.
For reference, I also looked at the comments on my content.
I originally hadn’t planned to, but since I had ended up continuing idol activities, I couldn’t exactly avoid looking at feedback.
≫ I came in because “members’ pore care method” on the thumbnail was way too intense
≫ 3:19 I flinched when I saw Webcell. I think he uses Webcell better than me
└ “When you work, you end up using Webcell a lot.”
Why does an idol have so many reasons to use Webcell lololol
≫ You’re the first idol I’ve seen who’s honest to this extent, Iwol
└ Seriously lololol It said a huge TMI dump, so I thought he’d tell some episodes, but then out of nowhere he tells us the dorm maintenance fee
└ This idol even tells us the product number of their shared laptop
The comment section was generally favorable. I occasionally saw posts saying they had come over from the radio show as well.
But as with all things in life, there weren’t only good reactions.
≫ Honestly, doesn’t Kim Feb reek of being a concept try-hard
He’s so into pretending to be the smart member
Seems like his personality is just f***ing sly
└ Agreed lololol It’s obvious at a glance he’s doing it to build a character, so it’s amazing people think that’s his real personality
└ Even if you saw him while passing by on a KTX, you’d know it’s all an act, but only they don’t know haha
└ Who’s Kim Feb?
└ SPRK KI
└ Why is he Kim Feb?
└ Don’t you know how to lurk before asking???? ^^^^^^
└ Try putting his name in English
└ Kim + the first part of February
≫ Honestly, the kids only listen to Kim Feb because they’re nice^^
He had the shortest trainee period and his skills are f***ing trash too
Must be nice, Feb^^ getting a free ride thanks to your members^^
I saw reactions like this fairly often too.
They said it seemed like I was putting on a concept. Had they caught on to the social mask I wore as an office worker after all?
I also agreed to a certain extent with the statement that the kids were nice. They caused trouble now and then, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t tolerate.
So I decided to accept comments of this level as legitimate expressions of opinion.
I organized the keywords from the malicious comments in Webcell, then closed my laptop.
Then I spoke to Lee Cheonghyeon, who was rolling around on the floor wrestling with his composition notebook.
“Making any progress?”
“None at all!”
“Mm, your confidence is admirable, at least.”
Lee Cheonghyeon was in the middle of choosing one of the pieces he had written before debut and improving it.
Since he had been making music for quite a long time in his own way, Lee Cheonghyeon had accumulated a fairly large number of melodies.
However, turning those into one complete song was another matter. So after discussing it with the agency, I grilled Lee Cheonghyeon whenever there was a gap in our practice or broadcast schedules. Of course, I had already reached an agreement with him as well.
I had even deliberately planned his self-produced content as “Arranging K-pop into Piano Versions” so that Lee Cheonghyeon’s musical sense could transition more smoothly from classical music into idol music.
It wasn’t solely thanks to that, but in any case, Lee Cheonghyeon was showing astonishing growth.
Even to me, who knew nothing about composition, Lee Cheonghyeon’s ability to absorb things was remarkable.
“Where are you stuck?”
When I asked, Lee Cheonghyeon approached the side of my bed with his notebook as if he had been waiting for the question.
“First of all, I finished organizing the bass line, right?”
“Didn’t you start with the top line last time?”
“The god of bass delivered a revelation to me… No, that’s not it.”
Lee Cheonghyeon ruffled his hair.
“So, we’re going to do a concept that’s extremely exciting, right?”
We were.
The second comeback I had planned for us was about two months later, in May.
And the title track concept was “Mischievous youths who think playing around is the best thing in the world!”
For a moment, I remembered the first time I had shared this opinion with the guys.
‘Hyung… do you perhaps need a vacation?’
I would never forget Jeong Seongbin’s face as he looked at me with pity then.
Unfortunately, though, that wasn’t an idea I had come up with because I wanted to rest. It had probably taken me an hour to explain to the guys the background that led to that concept.
That was why I had been in charge of monitoring, planning, and final organization, while Lee Cheonghyeon was composing candidates for the title track.
Watching Lee Cheonghyeon struggle more than expected, I wondered if I should revise the plan.
Since the goal the system had given me required a fairly long battle, I did not want to push Lee Cheonghyeon too hard from the beginning and end up making him collapse.
“Right. Is it difficult to express?”
“It’s not that. It’s more that the keywords you told me don’t really resonate.”
“Which part?”
When I asked, Lee Cheonghyeon answered.
“Back then, hyung, you said that if I needed an image, I should reference children running around excitedly for Family Month.”
“I did.”
“But in my family, they only gave me workbooks every Children’s Day, you know? Children’s Day wasn’t that happy for me! I don’t have any memories of being incredibly excited, but the song has to be exciting, so I feel alienated!”
“…What?”
“It’s like being the only one getting stationery when all my friends got toys! Like finding out KidZania exists, only to find out that the very same year, I hit the age limit to enter! Like going to jump on a trampoline and hearing that from high schoolers onward, there’s an extra fee!”
Ah, so that’s the problem?