Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 536 - Spectating (1)

Who says I’m coming back? Can you think of anything more horrific than rejoining a company you’ve already quit?

 

And what did the other Spark members do to deserve this? Their trust must have been shattered into a million pieces; how were they supposed to work on a group project with a member who went AWOL?

 

Huffing with indignation, I turned off my phone. I sat at my desk to try and clear my head, but I still couldn’t focus.

 

‘Did really no one object to this plan? They’re going to tell a lie to the fans that could be exposed at any moment, with no end in sight?’

 

It was utterly absurd. They couldn’t possibly not know how important it was to maintain momentum when you’re at the peak of your career. I’d spent ages lecturing those guys until their eardrums practically wore out. And yet they were just going to sit there and watch an announcement like this get posted?

 

I was especially puzzled that Jeong Seongbin, out of everyone, agreed to this. Someone responsible who understood how the industry worked wouldn’t simply stand by and watch the situation deteriorate for no reason. 

 

F*ck, did the agency threaten them? Now that was a truly reasonable suspicion.

 

Whether my contract was five years or everyone’s was five years, it was fundamentally impossible for all six of us to renew at that point. If they knew that, they should have been focused on solidifying the 5-member system by any means necessary. I was starting to wonder if I’d left that part out of the handover notes.

 

≫ Iwol’s hiatus…

It was so unexpected that I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything since I saw the announcement.

I’d actually been hoping he’d take some time off, so I’m relieved, but since he’s the type to endure everything, I can’t help but worry that something really bad happened.

 

≫ Spark’s Iwol is going on hiatus.

The reason is health issues.

There doesn’t seem to be any specific date for his return.

└ What?!

└ Oh no… the icons of physical endurance…

└ If it’s bad enough for him to stop everything, it must be serious. ㅠ

 

≫ U-T-P-I-A, you b*tches.

I told you to stop overworking the boys

f*ck, I’m so mad I can’t even type straight.

 

The communities and social media were already in an uproar. News articles about the hiatus, using my red carpet photos as the main image, were flooding the internet.

 

“It’s a mess, a total mess…”

 

If they’d announced my departure, of course it would have been even noisier than this, but the issue would have settled much faster. The person who left wouldn’t be coming back, and those remaining would carry on with their new activities.

 

However, if therey presented a possibility of return, the voices calling for the missing person would never stop. Why didn’t they understand that giving people vague hope and then pretending nothing was happening was even crueler?

 

“How are they planning to promote in such a chaotic atmosphere?”

 

It would be one thing if I had just vanished out of the blue. But I gave them a clear warning that I’d be running away one day… about a million years ago.

 

Even when I tried to forget about it, I kept sighing. Perhaps it was because my mind was elsewhere. I ended up solving only half of the practice problems before checking the answers, and it took me a good three hours just to finish my error notes.

 

***

 

Needless to say, I flunked the CSAT. I didn’t even need to check my score to know I had utterly bombed it. If I had expected a good grade after studying like that, I’d have been punished by heaven itself for having the audacity.

 

It wasn’t a complete waste, though. I’d been curious whether the system’s recognition-adjustment function would still work even with my identity as Kim Iwol exposed. To my surprise, even after verifying my ID at the testing site, no one recognized me.

 

rom what I could tell, even if someone met me face-to-face and realized that my name was ‘Kim Iwol,’ they would simply register me as a person named Kim Iwol rather than connecting me to ‘Idol Kim Iwol’. It was a relief to know I wouldn’t have to live as an invisible man forever. Getting a good score hadn’t been my goal in the first place, so I didn’t feel particularly hung up about it.

 

It would take some time for the report cards to come out. Since I had nothing better to do and I wanted to earn money rather than eat through my savings, I spent my free time building a portfolio.

 

I had plenty of content to use. The number of PPT templates I created at UA alone reached double digits. Even if I had to scrap the confidential content, the frames and layouts were enough to show my skills, making them decent supplementary materials.

 

When I was job hunting, I’d hated doing this so much, but after not touching it for a while, I actually found it somewhat fun. My PPT skills had even improved a bit. I guess skills really do get better the more you work. I should have realized this earlier and prepared to go freelance! I was too complacent.

 

In between, I kept an eye on Spark’s activities. On the day of the CSAT itself, they had a live broadcast in the evening. It was their first group live since Choi Jeho’s abruptly canceled birthday broadcast.

 

These rascals brought up the hiatus notice as soon as the live started. In my head, I acknowledged that they needed to explain themselves and apologize for not being able to broadcast on Choi Jeho’s birthday.

 

At the same time, I thought it was a reckless move. How could they pin it on ‘health issues’ with their own mouths when they had no idea what kind of stories I might make up and spread out here? They shouldn’t be so lacking in social experience as to not realize that doing this could make them liable as well.

 

Every ten minutes, I mentally added another lecture to the list. I refrained from commenting because I was afraid the fans, who were as sharp as a cybercrime investigation unit, might trace it back to me. Just in case, I checked—and because I’d recently created a new email account, the nickname had automatically been set to ‘Yiwol’. I almost advertised for them to come and get me.

 

Still, SPARK was professional. They didn’t look confused or flustered at all.

 

Since they suddenly went from an even-numbered formation to an odd one, there were occasional moments where one person almost looked out of place—mostly due to the aftermath of the relationship-focused promotional content, where two members had to make a heart together or take a commemorative selfie.

 

Every time this happened, Choi Jeho volunteered to step back for his same-age friends. Then, Park Joowoo would appear like a ghost, grab him, and pull him back into the formation. It made the three hours I spent writing ‘The Correct Posture to Take When a Member Resigns’ feel worthwhile.

 

‘It would be great if they would just post the voluntary withdrawal notice now.’

 

UtopiA ultimately betrayed my expectations. It seemed that company really needed to hire a professional manager as soon as possible.

 

***

 

After the CSAT, my daily life became incredibly monotonous. I worked in the morning, and in the afternoon, I would lounge around like a loafer and skim through Spark’s new content.

 

Aside from walking around the neighborhood three times a day—morning, lunch, and dinner—I spent about 22 and a half hours a day holed up in my room. I’d only recently added the walks to my routine because I was worried I’d grow mold if I stayed cooped up any longer.

 

In contrast to my quiet life, time outside moved fast. The lineup for the project Woo Yoonjae had auditioned for was confirmed and press releases were issued, and Berion made a comeback with a winter season song.

 

The arrival of winter also meant that the five members had to officially prepare for year-end stages.

 

Aside from the IDC and Kang Kiyeon’s brief hiatus, Spark had never shown a stage that wasn’t all six of them. Even when they did a unit stage at a concert, they had meticulously balanced things so that, in the end, every member had exactly the same number of stages.

 

Since those were one-off stages, it wasn’t a big problem as long as they didn’t look visually empty. But once the premise became that they would be promoting as five members indefinitely, things were different. That meant the reception of all their upcoming performances would matter.

 

I figured they’d do well enough. Given their basic stats, it would be weirder if they suddenly flopped. So, I didn’t particularly look them up.

 

『 Carry your body on the heat / Blow / So you can fly away 』

 

But as for why I was currently playing the ‘spArk – Swimming + Scene Music Festival Live Clip’ even though my mouth said I wouldn’t look them up… Well, I had my reasons.

 

Those bastards were so famous that they kept showing up in my recommendations. My MeTube recommendation feed had been completely conquered by them. How could this happen just because I searched for a few variety clips in the beginning?

 

Out of sheer indignation, I played videos of hamsters running on wheels, people planting vegetation in giant ant colonies, and injured wild animals being rehabilitated and released back into nature every day. In the end, I merely created an algorithm that alternated between animals and Spark.

 

Spark showcased top-tier stage presence even with only five members. They’d already reached star status on their own, so this was only to be expected.

 

Tonight, they were scheduled to appear at a year-end music festival in Singapore. I’d never been to Singapore, so I was a little jealous.

 

Still, even if their goal was to expand into the global market, shouldn’t K-Pop idols hold at least one year-end festival in Korea? Their agencies would all enthusiastically send them on overseas tours whenever circumstances allowed anyway. Seriously, everyone was being so unfair.

 

I had just finished my freelance work and come back from my evening walk, so I had nothing left to do. It had been a long time since I finished the 15-minute Hamster video of two hamsters running on a wheel at the same time.

 

‘Should I just sleep?’

 

I turned off the light and lay in bed. Loud voices drifted in from over the wall. I didn’t know how much they had been drinking, but several men were singing so horribly and loudly that they seemed determined to wake everyone living in the officetel.

 

…Wouldn’t watching the music festival live be better for my mental health than listening to that? The non-stop drunken singing made me seriously consider it.

 

To escape the noise, I either had to use earplugs or play other audio. There were no accessories like earplugs in my bleak little studio, so I had no choice but to turn on the live broadcast of the music festival, which had just started a little while ago.

 

Groups I had become familiar with while passing them in broadcasting stations decorated the stage. It was such a dazzling venue that it felt almost like a dream to think that I had been part of a place like this myself last year.

 

I had to wait an hour and a half before I finally saw Spark. Back when I was still in the industry, I’d been furious about the practice of putting popular groups toward the end for the sake of ratings and advertising revenue. Even now that I had ‘retired’, my anger hadn’t exactly subsided. Maybe I should organize a mass campaign demanding that they put slips of paper with the group names into a box and draw them at random.

 

Unlike me, who was absolutely livid, the members of Spark were all smiles. They skillfully heightened the atmosphere with a remix of ‘Drifting rearranged into a light dance track. Every face that appeared on the giant screens was a legendary shot.

 

The music reached its climax. As it hit the highlight, Choi Jeho, styled with intentionally messy hair, stood at the center of the formation. His ash-colored hair, tinged ever so slightly with brown, and thin silver-rimmed glasses immediately drew the eye. Light reflected off the chain attached to his glasses, making his eyes flash.

 

The folds of his clothes shifted with every movement, and his movements were so continuous and decisive that they seemed to draw clean lines through the air, overwhelming everyone watching.

 

+

[spArk’s Eternal Symbol] Choi Jeho

Choi Jeho (24 years old)

Career History

─ spArk’s 4th-year Main Dancer

+

 

Eternal Symbol, huh? Nice nickname. Must be because he was a core member.

 

Even after I debuted, the system only showed me my proficiency levels, but for these guys, it didn’t even show that. I guess experienced hires are evaluated by their job description rather than licenses or language test scores, huh?

 

I let out a small, incredulous laugh. The stage was cool.