Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 491 - Future Ambition (2)

To get straight to the point, the advance team had not lied. Simply getting the children dressed in the winter clothes we had only just finished putting away was an ordeal in itself.

 

Until they experienced the bite of the harsh winter wind for themselves, the kids had no desire to wear thick, stuffy padded jackets. Gloves and scarves were even worse. I was sweating buckets before I’d even put on my own coat.

 

The moment we put helmets on them, they would immediately take them off again. Catching them, putting the helmets back on, and lining up twelve tricycles to head out was something that sounded easy in words but was utterly soul-draining in practice. Still, thanks to following them around the whole time, I managed to memorize all the names of the tricycles.

 

After ‘valet parking’ them, washing everyone’s hands in a group, and applying lotion so their skin wouldn’t chap in the winter, it was time to prepare lunch. Not time to eat lunch—time to make it.

 

As the chosen victims of Wednesday’s weekly ‘Make Your Own Lunch’ activity, we scooped rice into large stainless-steel bowls and let it cool while preparing to make rice balls.

 

The children’s resistance to putting carrots in the rice balls was fierce. Even when the teacher waved a strip of carrot and said, ‘Mr. Carrot wants to be a rice ball too~!’, the smart kids who remembered the taste of cooked carrots were unmoved.

 

Only after Kang Kiyeon and I put on a spectacular performance, chanting a medley of ‘Seven-year-olds who eat carrots are totally cool seven-year-olds’, did the blanched carrots manage to enter the bowls.

 

The rice balls made at the daycare possessed the kind of cute visual you’d only see on social media. They were completely different from the inari sushi Spark had once painstakingly shaped with hands resembling Paleozoic-era fern fossils while preparing for the college entrance exam lunchbox.

 

Heart-shaped and bear-shaped rice balls were whipped up instantly with just a single mold. While Kang Kiyeon worked hard cutting seaweed to place as eyes, I diligently delivered decoration materials to the little chefs. Since they said they needed to take photos with the finished rice balls, I lay flat on the floor and did my best to take the life shots of a lifetime for them.

 

“There’s no nap time today?”

 

When Kang Kiyeon asked while looking at the schedule, the teacher nodded. She said that since they were at the age to go to elementary school soon, children in the six- and seven-year-old class no longer took naps. No wonder the other Spark members had returned looking more haggard than usual.

 

Instead of a nap, the schedule listed ‘Art Activity’. The name sounded peaceful, but I had a feeling it would be anything but.

 

…They had told us to bring a change of clothes. My intuition told me that this ‘art’ would surely be closer to… a type of performance art.

 

My hunch turned into a conviction as we covered the floor, walls, and ceiling of the empty classroom with plastic sheets. I was filled with dread for the upcoming artistic endeavor.

 

***

 

The sensory-development art activity, where paint was splattered across huge sheets of paper, left behind wonderful and creative artworks, the children’s delighted smiles, mountains of laundry, and plenty of cleaning to do.

 

Oh, and it also left behind about ten photos of Kang Kiyeon’s ‘paint-covered little rascal moment’. I couldn’t archive every single second as usual because I was focused on my primary duties, but the quality of each photo was excellent.

 

In particular, the shot of ‘a flustered Kang Kiyeon blocking paint that spurted out like a water stream because a child stepped on a tube’ was a masterpiece. The photo immediately after it, ‘Cool-guy Kang Kiyeon smiling only for the children’ was also top-tier. I honestly thought those two photos should be titled as a series and hung in the UA lobby.

 

After recording these momentous events, Kang Kiyeon and I worked hard to clean the classroom, which now looked like the Hongdae Mural Street. Since we had taken thorough precautions, the cleaning just mostly consisted of tossing out the exploded paint tubes and throwing the aprons into the washing machine.

 

We took a moment to admire the classroom, which was now clean enough for a good transition edit point, and then headed to the sink to wash our hands. Only then could I see what I looked like in the mirror.

 

With paint-clotted hair and face, and clothes dyed in five colors, I looked exactly like someone who had just finished a paintball-themed survival experience. Because my forearms had been protected by gloves and sleeves, they were startlingly white, which felt rather jarring.

 

“Don’t you think we need a shower room rather than a sink…?”

 

The staff held back their laughter at my comment. My newly purchased pale yellow handkerchief had become mottled just from dabbing my hair. My little chick-yellow handkerchief had evolved into something in the style of Jackson Pollock. I hadn’t even left a photo review for it yet. My heart ached.

 

***

 

During free-play time, I put the knowledge I’d painstakingly crammed beforehand to good use and opened a venue for conversation. Children’s worlds of knowledge were endlessly vast and astonishingly sensitive to trends, so you couldn’t hold a proper conversation with them using shallow small talk.

 

‘Mini-Mini Pang-Pang’, which was a hot topic the last time we were here, had already turned into a legendary existence known only to the seniors of the daycare.

 

Kang Kiyeon was truly an excellent mentor. If not for him, the Spark members, myself included, would have become old-fashioned adults who kept repeating outdated topics. I sincerely expressed my gratitude to him.

 

“Teacher.”

 

Jaeyoon approached me while I was busy putting books back on the shelves—a habit whenever I caught sight of books within reach. Jaeyoon squatted beside me and helped organize the books the younger kids had pulled out.

 

“Jaeyoon. We can finish organizing this later. Should we go play with your friends and the other teachers now?”

 

I stopped touching the bookshelf, feeling like I had accidentally made him help me while everyone else was playing. But Jaeyoon continued to linger around with a strange expression.

 

“There was something Jaeyoon wanted to show Teacher Iwol. Go get it quickly!”

 

The teacher, who had been watching Jaeyoon, spoke with a smile. Jaeyoon’s eyes widened like a game character with an exclamation mark over their head, and he ran to his cubby to pull out a sketchbook.

 

“Teacher. Um, we had a class where we drew what we wanted to be when we grow up.”

 

It felt like only yesterday that he struggled just to pronounce ‘Iwol’, yet now the words flowed effortlessly. It wasn’t just Jaeyoon; it was the same for all the children I was meeting again after a long time.

 

‘Kids really do grow up fast.’

 

While I was marveling to myself, Lee Jaeyoon flipped the page. Between lines of intense colors stood a single person.

 

“Tall, and if I dance well, Mommy said I can be like Teacher…”

 

His face was slightly flushed with excitement.

 

So, the protagonist in this laser-filled drawing was a daycare teacher. Had the teachers here also prepared some kind of performance for the children, like a high school festival? And Jaeyoon was so moved by it that he dreamed of becoming a daycare teacher?

 

Just as I was about to say, ‘Jaeyoon is kind and gentle, so you’ll be a great teacher!’, the clothes the man in the drawing was wearing caught my eye.

 

“Teacher, you know…”

 

The shoes with all the straps sticking out, the pitch-black body, and the gray lines drawn on the ears and clothes—intended to represent accessories—reminded me of someone. I also realized what the two black circles, the size of fists on both ears, were.

 

“If I drink milk and go to bed early, can I be like Teacher?”

 

It was me during the Alight promotions. I was startled by the detail, which even included the in-ear monitors.

 

Jaeyoon babbled on without stopping. He told me that he had cried a tiny bit in secret at night because he missed the Teacher, but then he saw the Teacher on TV and found it amazing. He also said that because his mom only let him watch MeTube for 30 minutes a day, he spent those 30 minutes watching videos of me.

 

He also told me about his friend Jiah, whose dream was to become an idol too, so they promised to be on the same team. Since Jiah was good at singing, they decided that if Jiah sang, he would dance. The next page was full of traces of the two of them practicing their signatures.

 

I was happy enough that my eyes nearly welled up with tears, but I also felt a bit conflicted. If he wanted to be a dancer, it would be more logical to recommend Choi Jeho or Kang Kiyeon.

 

I knew childhood dreams often changed, but if the speaker was being this sincere, shouldn’t the listener take them seriously too? After much thought, I recommended an even better mentor to this aspiring idol.

 

“Teacher Kiyeon over there is also a great dancer, and the tallest hyung is also good at dancing. Jaeyoon, do you not like the other teachers?”

 

“I like the other teachers too, but, um…”

 

His small fingers fidgeted.

 

“I think Teacher is the coolest.”

 

The slightly imperfect grammar did nothing to weaken the sincerity behind those words. I was truly moved, so I gave Jaeyoon a ‘You can do it’ high-five, and on the back of the wonderful drawing, I signed my main job signature and drew a flower with words ‘You’re very cool!’. Even if I filled the entire sketchbook with praise stamps, I wouldn’t be able to repay the compliment I received from the child.

 

***

 

The daycare shoot left behind precious assets: innocence and healing, three weeks’ worth of content, and a firsthand experience of the struggle on the front lines of childcare.

 

Leading up to our spring comeback, we wanted to maintain our popularity by appearing on a few variety shows in addition to our own content, and several good offers came in. Once again, Spark accepted all of them as long as the schedules allowed.

 

Among them, the show I was filming today was ‘We’ll Visit School for You’. It was a semi-observational variety show where celebrities visited unique high schools, attended classes and activities alongside students, spent a day there, and introduced the school to viewers.

 

Since we’d gone straight from a daycare center to a high school, there wasn’t much concern about overlapping concepts. By the time our daycare content was edited and uploaded, this episode would already be airing, making the contrast between the two settings even more striking.

 

The viewing demographic was also similar to the age range of Sparklers. Naturally, I wanted to give the fans something entertaining.

 

Lee Cheonghyeon and Kang Kiyeon, who were active high school students until recently, were immediately eliminated as candidates. The appeal of the show was watching celebrities who either found academic high schools unfamiliar or who had been away from school for a long time struggle to adapt. In that regard, neither of them was suitable.

 

Jeong Seongbin and Park Joowoo also couldn’t quite shake off the ‘student’ vibe. University students and high school students were worlds apart, but apparently the distinction wasn’t dramatic enough.

 

So, the ones the production team requested for casting were…

 

“Jeho, get up.”

 

…Me and Choi Jeho.

 

“We have to go to school.”

 

To think I would have to live as a classmate in the same room as this guy all day. I felt like the day was going to last 240 hours.