Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 469 - Cool Time (2)

≫ The views on the Live video are insane.

The rising trend is crazyㅋㅋㅋ

It’ll hit 1 million in no time.

└ People say the music charts are their own world, but if they’re getting views like this on a video muggles watch a lot, you can’t say they lack public appeal. b So proud.

└ And as I’m typing this, it hit 1 million~~!!!! Congrats, Spark~!!!

 

≫ They really put effort into the live-band session too.

It’s a band live, but they did three songsㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ Don’t groups usually do, like, two songs max?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

≫ I’m used to seeing Visually in ads, being the Pretty member recognized by everyone, and being the Bubble Pop Cutie, but seeing Lee Cheonghyeon doing his main job makes me want to die.

Rapping over just a drum beat? Isn’t that cheating? You’re gonna get arrested at this rate, Cheonghyeon.

└ └ He’s the kind of rapper who aims not to stand out too much in songs, so I liked how naturally he blended into Spark’s tracks, but sometimes I wanted more. Seeing him lay out the mat and go all out like this was absolutely amazing. T_T

└ There must be people who still haven’t escaped from IDC Season 1 position battles and missions. That’s me… How can you not love the maknae who looks like a prince but turns into a gangster the moment he raps?

 

≫ Choi Jeho and Kang Kiyeon are great singers too.

Is it because they’re ‘Made in UA’?

└ It’s my lifelong wish to see Kang Kiyeon in ‘bad boy’ styling rapping with a ‘trashy ex-boyfriend’ vibe

└ The cover video uploaded last week had exactly that vibe! Highly recommended if you haven’t seen it!

└ Nope. That kind of ‘half-baked punk who only has a bad boy face’ vibe cannot satisfy my thirst.

└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

≫ Stop Jeong Seongbin from looking down under red lights.

Stop him from flirting when he’s not even going to marry a Sparkler.

└ When a cute kid from another group makes a sexy expression, it’s just cute and makes you laugh, but with Spark, even when they’re being cute, they’re still Spark, so I can’t laugh at all and my heart just hurts like crazy. You guys are sexy just by keeping your mouths shut.

└ I’m seriously worried if I’ll even be alive the day Spark decides to go all-in on a sexy concept.

 

≫ Ah, Park Joowoo’s personal color is literally band sound

I refuse all objections

Ignorant people just get out.

└ I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious: is there actually anyone claiming Park Joowoo’s personal color isn’t band sounds?

└ Even if there were, Kim Iwol probably wouldn’t let them live.

 

≫ You know what’s really mean about Kim Iwol? He looks like he wouldn’t be kind at all, but he’s actually sweet, and he has a voice that sounds like he’d never engage in small talk except for necessary words yet he sings so softly.

Look at him today. He came in an all-black outfit with zero humanity, but then he’s just beaming and smiling. He has hands that look like they should only be holding a Zippo lighter, but he’s holding a microphone, making us make ‘mic vs. hand size comparison’ clips.

└ Grandma, please stop. It’s been 70 years already!!!!!

└ Be honest, you’re using a saved text template, aren’t you?

└ What’s really mean about Kim Iwol is that his face turns bright red at a single compliment, but he doesn’t feel shy at all when telling fans he loves them. I mean it sincerely, you mean it sincerely, and the fact that we can never be together feels like the real lie.

Look at him today, making hearts with both hands and acting charming, but he won’t come out of the screen. If this isn’t betrayal and deception, what is? Did I ask for a life-long contract or something? I just asked you to sing next to me, no more, no less, until the day I die.

└ I can’t believe this wasn’t a template but was handwritten.

 

TThe long-awaited ‘actually doing their main job’ moment uploaded through an external channel received an overwhelming response. Thankfully everyone loved it. We were planning to rerecord the band-version tracks and include them as bonus tracks on the next album anyway.

 

To avoid copyright issues, UA handled the arrangement themselves. In a way, it was a spoiler that wasn’t quite a spoiler, but I was relieved the reviews were good. It felt like a thousand-year-old blockage in my chest had finally cleared.

 

With the ice broken, the members’ solo activities slowly started picking up. Not to the point of running two schedules a day like before, but enough to keep them busy without overworking them, with reasonable breaks between activities.

 

Among them, the most memorable was probably Jeong Seongbin and Kang Kiyeon’s one-day part-time job at a puppy kindergarten. The sight of the leader and the youngest being surrounded by dogs and becoming covered in fur triggered an explosive reaction from the fans.

 

Lee Cheonghyeon succeeded in producing a new song before the start of the semester. He even proudly won the title track spot after competing in a blind test against songs from external composers. Having firmly nailed down his own song as the title track, he left for school for the start of the second semester without any lingering regrets.

 

I was the only exception to this whole flow. My radius of movement was still just the dorm, UA, the gym, and the action school. The most exciting thing I’d done lately was folding pearl paper boxes in an empty meeting room while making album mockups and looking through albums from our senior artists displayed around the company.

 

Other than that, my daily life consisted of banging on the bass in the instrument practice room or lingering around the office where the dedicated team worked before returning to the practice room. It was a bit boring, but since I had acted as I pleased during the entire break, I decided not to complain further.

 

“I’m practicing a cover song to upload next week… want to hear it?”

 

“I’d love to.”

 

If I stayed still, the Spark members would bring content to me on their own. Being able to enjoy Park Joowoo’s new song or Kang Kiyeon’s cover dance in advance was a huge privilege.

 

“Where’s Choi Jeho? Is he still with Teacher Junhwan?”

 

“Yeah. He said he’d be there until late today.”

 

Choi Jeho poured all his time into creating choreography except for when he had ad shoots. It made me look back at my past actions, wondering if I had unintentionally acted like some nightmare client with endless demands.

 

‘Still… it finally feels like we’re making a comeback.’

 

Starting from September, for almost two months, Spark recorded, choreographed, added choruses, and developed the group dance draft.

 

As the number of songs increased, it took two to three times longer than usual. Living like this, we were already approaching the end of October.

 

And then there was the jacket shoot. Since autumn had so many pretty outfits, we kept going out to film self-dressed photocards and self-produced content twice a week.

 

Just last week, we’d gone to a farm together to film ourselves picking pumpkins. We also rented a studio early because we wanted to carefully set up and shoot the concept photos and album booklet images properly.

 

‘If we took 1,000 photos and 900 came out good, shouldn’t we use those photos somewhere somehow?’

 

‘Even so, we still have to narrow down which ones actually go into the album, Iwol.’

 

In the end, I tearfully selected only the very best shots. Once promotions ended, I swore I’d raid UA’s external hard drives (with legal authorization, of course) and reveal everything to the world.

 

I also checked the promotion schedule. To be precise, I sneaked a peek. I secretly logged into Dotion and got scolded for acting like a squirrel hiding acorns. I wanted to ask what kind of neighborhood squirrel was built this big, but I held back because the promo plan was so thorough.

 

‘Once the choreography is finalized, we’ll film the dance practice in the room, do a final review of whether we can upgrade the album components… Ah, can’t we make the fan-sign announcement image more flashy?’

 

As I gained some time, the things I wanted to do kept popping up endlessly. It felt like my creativity, which I thought was dead, had sprouted a tiny bud. I guess this is why people say a change of pace is important.

 

While I was deep in thought, Park Joowoo finished setting up the MR. My impression after listening was, as expected, our team’s main vocal is the best.

 

* * *

 

Content was always uploaded regularly to Spark’s official MeTube account.

 

It was only natural for videos to go up during promotion periods, but even during breaks, Spark steadily posted updates in their own way.

 

First, during the hiatus season, individual videos from each member were posted. This content, where they covered songs or played instruments according to their own tastes, had continued its legacy without disappearing into the past since their debut days.

 

Next, there was the self-produced content. While every idol has self-produced content these days, Spark consistently released long-form content over 30 minutes per episode even when they weren’t promoting.

 

Vlogs of waiting rooms or commutes were categorized separately, and the self-produced content was filmed only in a standard web-variety show format. Because of this, among Sparklers, there might be a ‘period with few updates,’ but there was never a ‘period with no updates.’

 

Today was no different. When Won Chaehee saw the thumbnail for the newly uploaded Halloween-week episode, ‘Spark Can’t Miss Out on Lantern-Making ─ We’re Making Jack-o’-Lanterns,’ she doubted her own eyes.

 

‘Do people usually start by harvesting the pumpkins themselves?’

 

There was a huge disconnect between the title and the image of Spark huddled together in a pumpkin field, holding ripe pumpkins.

 

How was this idol content in any way? It looked more like a government-sponsored youth rural resettlement campaign poster. The video was even over an hour long.

 

The intro, which looked like an old documentary, and the BGM, which was a lyrical arrangement of one of their b-side tracks, blended together eerily.

 

[[Part 1: Harvesting the Pumpkins]]

 

‘Look at that formal calligraphy font for the subtitles…’

 

Even riding a time machine probably wouldn’t feel this bizarre. Won Chaehee wasn’t from this generation, after all. Even for her, who was in her late 20s, the retro scent exuded by this content was not just thick, but sticky.

 

The young men, who had set off at dawn and stepped out of a worn-out van, each grabbed a pair of work gloves and gardening shears and headed to the field.

 

[[Kim Iwol (23): Since the harvest season is almost over…… we came to pick the last remaining pumpkins.]]

 

Kim Iwol, having gone through rural variety shows and ‘Let’s Have a Meal,’ exuded quite the aura of a farmer. He had the visuals of a grown son of a pumpkin farm owner who came back to his hometown during vacation to help out.

 

[[Choi Jeho (23): The pumpkins are big.]]

 

Choi Jeho, who looked like his childhood friend who likely lived next door to the city-bound Kim Iwol, was second to none in terms of naturalness. If there had been an interview with a passing neighbor, they surely would have said of Choi Jeho, ‘He grew up eating pumpkins he grew himself, so he never had a single day of sickness.’

 

[[Jeong Seongbin (21): Hyung, were pumpkins always this heavy…?!]]

 

Jeong Seongbin said as he walked over, carrying a pumpkin the size of two of his own heads combined.

 

Jeong Seongbin was… the junior Kim Iwol met at university after moving to the city. That was exactly the role he gave off.

 

Park Joowoo, who was engrossed in picking pumpkins next to him while wearing a wide-brimmed hat, perfectly fit the role of a kind junior and friend who followed his classmate all the way here. The two city juniors scattered to opposite ends of the field and worked hard picking pumpkins to be of help to their senior, Iwol.

 

And of course, no peaceful countryside scene would be complete without a familiar friendly character.

 

[[Lee Cheonghyeon (20): Hyung! Are we going to eat snacks, too?]]

 

The younger cousin from the city, Lee Cheonghyeon, followed Kim Iwol around. If there was a difference between a typical younger cousin and Lee Cheonghyeon, it would be that Lee Cheonghyeon talked non-stop while moving the mountain of pumpkins his brother had piled up to the truck without showing a single sign of exhaustion.

 

The young men continued harvesting pumpkins for quite a long time. Slow-motion shots that weren’t sped up passed by like one of those healing videos.

 

[[Kang Kiyeon (20): Everyone, they said you should eat before you continue!]]

 

In the distance, Kang Kiyeon appeared holding a yellow kettle in one hand and a tray full of plates in the other.

 

Won Chaehee checked the title of the video again. Then, she wondered why the title of this video wasn’t ‘In Celebration of Farmers’ Day’.