Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 428 - Preview

“You guys have to come out looking even cooler than this…”

 

“Hyung, that’s the tenth time you’ve said the exact same thing.”

 

“You were counting?”

 

“I lost track a long time ago, so I’m just rounding it off to ten.”

 

Kang Kiyeon spoke to me as I sat there clutching my tablet and lamenting. For three hours now, I had been staring at the photos taken on-site for color testing until the data itself felt like it was weathering away. I was anxiously waiting for the rough cut of the music video to arrive.

 

For a male idol, the ‘growth period’ wasn’t just about getting taller. It was the phase where they either glowed up or they didn’t—a period when fans prayed, ‘Please just let our bias grow up exactly as they are’. This was especially true for idols like Spark, who had little baby fat to begin with and already had well-defined features from a young age.

 

I personally believed that an environment where kids had to groom their appearances even before they were physically mature was quite harsh… but that was not the issue right now, so I’d set it aside.

 

Spark, especially Lee Cheonghyeon, was basically the icon of a glow-up, so I wasn’t too worried. However, looking at Spark’s faces after they had received the ‘camera massage’ effect, it felt like a waste to simply be satisfied with the fact that they hadn’t glowed-down. Honestly, it was frustrating that something like that could only be captured in flat images.

 

Instead of watching Manager Nam print out a hundred pages of stock reports on the office printer, it would be a million times more beneficial to print Spark’s MV still cuts in full color. At least it would improve the viewer’s eye health.

 

“Don’t you think this already looks good enough…?”

 

Park Joowoo approached me and asked. Coincidentally, a photo of Park Joowoo was displayed on the tablet.

 

This year, Park Joowoo had dyed his hair a transparent blue. He wore lenses with a faint blue tint over his gray pupils, creating a color palette reminiscent of a winter lake. Because the scene was shot with shadows, the surroundings were dark. The sunlight hitting only half of Joowoo’s face created a mysterious atmosphere.

 

The photo turned out good enough to do justice to both his refined visuals and the expensive set. But human greed knows no bounds, so here I was, tearing my hair out, waiting for the editing and retouching to take it even further.

 

“…How about looking at Cheonghyeon’s photos?”

 

Seeing my state, Park Joowoo swiped the screen. The next person was Lee Cheonghyeon. The first thing that caught my eye was the contrast in his hair: light brown for the bangs and inner layers, with a dull, cloudy green for the outer layers.

 

The heavy glitter applied over a light blush base, and the dangling accessories lost their strength in front of his features. Even if the presence of the secondary elements was intense, it couldn’t match the brilliance of his eyes. If they hadn’t blasted the lighting to create reflections on the jewelry, people surely wouldn’t have even noticed that Lee Cheonghyeon was wearing a laurel wreath tiara.

 

Am I being greedy if I say it’s still not enough? No, they say a person should have big dreams, whether it’s greed or ambition. If you throw a tantrum over something nonsensical, it’s stubbornness, but if you have a goal, it’s conviction. I’m just working with conviction. Really.

 

Really…….

 

“I should have tied a lace ribbon around his neck!”

 

“We tried it on-site and decided against it, remember? We said the item overlapped with a previous stage……!”

 

Park Joowoo panicked. I buried my face in my hands and wailed without tears.

 

“It’s all over for me now. I should step down and retire from the front lines. Who knows when I might bring back some outdated cyborg concept next?”

 

“Hyung.”

 

A calm voice cut off my spiraling words. Park Joowoo’s finger touched the screen once more.

 

“Look at Kiyeon.”

 

“……”

 

My spiraling self-doubt calmed down a bit. The face in the photo featured makeup that could be called his best yet.

 

The emerald hair matched his skin tone perfectly. It was his first time sporting a green-toned hairstyle since the teal hair during MISSION. Perhaps because it was a proven color, it it worked just as well again.

 

A fine layer of brown tones was applied under his eyes and on his cheeks, giving him the vibe of a fashion magazine pictorial. If Kang Kiyeon weren’t an idol, he would have surely graced the cover of the December issue of Vogue.

 

The harmony with the background was also excellent. Apple trees were placed on both sides of a dark, monochromatic set, and the lighting was lowered to create the feeling of an old house or garden. Of course, his face was brightly spotlighted. He looked radiant.

 

“…Are you feeling better now?”

 

“Thank you. Joowoo, you are my savior.”

 

“Just because of this…?”

 

“People can be saved by very small things.”

 

Swiping back, Jeong Seongbin’s solo shot appeared. He had coral-colored hair with slight waves. He felt awkward about looking ‘too idol-like’ despite being the group leader, so I told him to take 300 mirror selfies until he got used to it.

 

Multicolored light passing through stained glass covered Jeong Seongbin’s hair and clothes. White and pink lights blurred downward as if flowing over his shoulders. Since I wanted the shadows to fall like rippling flowers, I had sent a folder full of references when planning the fake stained glass, and the result was a high-quality piece of art.

 

If Jeong Seongbin weren’t an idol, he should’ve been featured in a wedding expo shoot… Wait. Isn’t this problem solved if they all just work multiple jobs?

 

‘Choi Jeho is already a model, so he’ll probably go shoot something else anyway.’

 

Fitting for his nickname ‘Emperor’, he had dyed his hair a golden color. The ‘real gold’ color suited Choi Jeho so well that the fuss I made about not letting it turn into a tacky blonde felt unnecessary.

 

To avoid the ‘bleached hair color that least suits Koreans’, I calculated the saturation and brightness as if I were planning a semiconductor nano-process, and added other color points in the middle so it wouldn’t look dull…… Ah, the screen turned off.

 

“Are you still holding onto those photos?”

 

Lee Cheonghyeon shook his head as he walked by. He added that it was ‘impressive’. Judging by his expression, it definitely wasn’t a compliment.

 

“Looks like the battery’s holding up well. You bought a good tablet.”

 

“It’s perfect for work.”

 

I put down the powered-off tablet and stretched. Now, I had to accept the fact that the final final MV shoot was over. PD-nim, I believe in you.

 

* * *

 

“The rough cut is here!”

 

Rayoon, the newest member of the Spark dedicated team, announced the breaking news. While Pyeong Daeyeon messaged Im Chanyoung to come up to the office, Min Jukyung reserved the meeting room.

 

Over the past few days, the tension within the dedicated team had been sky-high.  With the new year, Kim Iwol—an influential figure in the Spark team and its producer, an idol by day but a tireless honorary staff member by night—had taken on a new level of intensity.

 

Kim Iwol’s obsession with beauty was as peerless as his own outstanding artistic sense. The staff sometimes seriously wondered if the only thought in Kim Iwol’s head was: ‘How can I make Spark look more like they do in real life?’

 

Even without the biased fan lens, Spark’s visuals were excellent. They were idols to be proud of anywhere. Knowing that the members were putting in blood, sweat, and tears to maintain this made them even more admirable.

 

So, whenever someone tried to say, ‘Our boys are cool enough as they are!’, Kim Iwol would charge in with fire in his eyes. Wherever he learned it from, the way he expressed it were different every time, yet he was always incredibly eloquent.

 

This madness of Kim Iwol’s had become three times more potent since the end of last year. Kim Iwol wanted only one thing.

 

Something cool and beautiful.

 

It had to be the absolute best!

 

The dedicated team staff, noticing that Kim Iwol’s eyes were even more gone than usual, went all-in on the comeback preparations day and night.

 

‘If we fail to transform our image now, the next year will be difficult.’

 

Kim Iwol’s chilling warning gave the entire team a sense of tension. By this stage in their careers, many groups attempt image changes—it was obvious from the data.

 

However, the exact timing, the importance of how much to invest, and the clear reasons were elements that existed outside the data. Kim Iwol captured these more keenly than anyone. Always.

 

Min Jukyung once believed that people like Park Joowoo or Lee Cheonghyeon, with overwhelming talent, were what defined a genius…

 

‘But there are surely geniuses of Kim Iwol’s type too.’

 

…She often thought. It was true that he was good at his job, but there was something about Kim Iwol that surpassed the scope of mere work competency. Even if he himself seemed unaware of it.

 

In any case, the rough cut that UA’s unique talent Kim Iwol had been waiting for with bated breath since last week had arrived. Everyone on the dedicated team gathered in the meeting room, swallowing nervously. Im Chanyoung, who had observed Kim Iwol from the closest distance, was even holding his hands together in prayer.

 

“Mr. Rayoon, were there any specific notes in the email?”

 

“No!”

 

Rayoon answered. That was at least a relief. When an email started with excuses, it rarely ended well.

 

“The rough cut is here?”

 

CEO Yoon Hyunjoo also arrived at the meeting room. She gestured for the staff to stay seated as they tried to stand up to greet her.

 

“Forget the greetings. You all look like skin and bones.”

 

“Haha…”

 

“I heard the filming went well on-site. If the result doesn’t meet expectations, we can just edit it. We made the schedule flexible, didn’t we?”

 

Yoon Hyunjoo encouraged the staff with the composure of a CEO. The staff, who knew how frustrating a client’s request for revisions could be, swallowed their tears inwardly. Please let everything end with this one version. If not, neither we nor the studio will likely survive this unscathed.

 

Min Jukyung opened the downloaded file. The video length was fine, and the thumbnail turned out even better than requested. However, even if there were issues with these two, they fell into the category of things that were easy to fix. The important thing was the content.

 

Perhaps as a side effect of working late, Min Jukyung clicked the button with a trembling finger.

 

A moment later.

 

“I’ll share the video with the boys right away!”

 

With a unanimous signal of approval, the shared drive link was sent to the group chat.