Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 537 - Spectating (2)

After watching the music festival all the way through, I was in quite a sentimental mood. You could say I was soaked in memories, feeling a bit wistful.

 

This wistful atmosphere didn’t last long, however. Because the damn broadcasting station decided to flip me the bird.

 

≫ Imjingak in the middle of winter…?

We’re going to freeze to death…

 

≫ It’s freezing. Why do they always insist on outdoor performances? F*ck.

The fans are the only ones who are going to suffer.

└ Exactly. If you wait for over 5 hours and then watch the 3-hour main show, you’ll turn into a frozen pollack on the spot ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

 

≫ No, seriously;;; When it’s this cold, your body tenses up and you get injured.

Who the hell picked this date?

 

≫ I bet there will be a flood of requests to edit the visible breath out of the photos.

└ Why would they want it edited out?? That’s the whole point.

└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

All sorts of online communities erupted when news broke that the broadcasting station was planning to make every participating group stand outside under the pretext of holding a year-end K-idol charity concert. It was a surprise event of a different nature than the awards ceremonies hosted by music services or entertainment companies.

 

The idea of donating the concert proceeds was certainly admirable. The problem was that, perhaps because the organizer was a broadcasting station, they had released the ticketing and concert information ridiculously late.

 

They had calculated that even if they ran the business with a brazenly exploitative approach, they could secure the performers simply by inviting them themselves, and fans would only complain a bit on social media and buy tickets regardless of when they were released.

 

I felt sick at the shoddy management. I could already tell how this hastily thrown-together concert was going to go without even seeing it. There had been a similar event around this time of year in the past.

 

The standing section, lazily labeled ‘True Fan Zone’, seating sections where plastic chairs had been crammed together with barely any space between them, and the general admission seats—open to anyone on a first-come, first-served basis without prior reservation—all received a fair share of criticism.

 

≫ They’re cramming 2,000 people into a standing area with no extended stage, just a fence thrown up around it, and that’s the ticket price they’re charging??

You can’t call this a K-Idol donation concert. I’m the one donating, not the idols. It should be called ‘K-pop Fandom’s Grand Unified Charity Event (Guest Performers: K-idols)’.

 

≫ Look at the seating chart; there aren’t even any aisles.

How many unnies’ bags do I have to cross just to go to the bathroom once?

└ Why go to the bathroom? Just stop drinking water the day before.

└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

≫ First-come, first-served for general admission. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

As if the warning to ‘refrain from waiting in advance’ will actually work. How are they going to stop the army of fan girls bringing tents?

└ I hope they’ve at least assessed the situation properly and hired enough staff to manage the lines on the day… ㅋㅋㅋ If they’re going to ban overnight queuing, they need to actually enforce it…

 

≫ I honestly want to boycott this.

What kind of management is this?

But then again, if my boys are performing, I can’t not go… ㅠㅠㅠ

 

It wasn’t just harsh for the fans. Due to the severe cold wave, the venue—which should have been heating up—was filled with performers whose lips had turned purple. You could tell whether they were lip-syncing or not just by looking for their breath.

 

Spark was among those ‘idols who don’t earn money easily’. I remembered a time in the past when Kang Kiyeon, who had injured his ankle, had to sit on a chair at the edge of the set and sing.

 

‘That won’t happen this time.’

 

I felt relieved, but at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking how cruel it was. Even if I made Kang Kiyeon sturdy and remodeled Spark’s career to be like new, the fact that these events happened anyway was… strange. Regardless, it wasn’t my business, so I put my phone away and went to sleep.

 

***

 

As I idled around, the New Year quietly approached. Since I hadn’t posted any photos wearing hanbok or filmed any New Year’s special content, it didn’t really feel like the year was about to change.

 

Wasn’t it strange? I had probably spent more year-ends alone than otherwise, yet after only a few years, the time spent without others felt awkward.

 

Unlike me, whose time had stopped, Spark and Sparkler were busy rushing forward. Everyone gathered their strength for the ‘real_final_final_end.jpg’ last performance of the year.

 

≫ What am I going to do with this sweet leader?

He told us to just watch the K-Pop concert at home…

Because the weather is too cold…

└ A true leader, he even showed a screenshot of next week’s weather forecast to bring reality to Sparklers who failed the pre-booking and were aiming for general admission

 

≫ [Repost] Must-have items for outdoor concerts

1. Hot Packs

They say hand warmers these days are good enough to last 12 hours, but that’s meaningless in the face of severe cold and an open field… Pack plenty. If you stay still, your body cools down, and you might get sick while waiting.

They also sell insole hot packs, so make sure to take them! You might wonder whether they’re even working while you’re wearing them, but you’ll know immediately when you don’t have them or they get cold… Standing or sitting on the bare ground for a long time makes your toes hurt like sh*t, so bring two sets and change them halfway through. These cool down faster than the hand-warmer type.

Also, when using hot packs, don’t put them in the outer pockets of your coat XXXXX. Put them in the inner pockets of your padding or jumper for them to stay warm longer and transfer heat better!!

2. Water

Some people don’t bring it because it’s heavy or they’re afraid of going to the bathroom, but you will get dehydrated. Seriously.

You need to bring at least a 200ml bottle!! They sell small sizes of bottled water, so make sure to buy one.

3. Winter Gear

Don’t say things like ‘I can’t wear a scarf because it’s suffocating’ or ‘A hat is bothersome’. Other than your eyes, cover everything.

When it’s really cold, frost even forms on your eyebrows…You could end up with severely chapped skin afterward, so bundle yourself upㅠㅠㅠ Even if you’re wearing a turtleneck, you still need a scarf.

Even if you end up taking it off there, layer up as much as possible! If it’s hot, you can at least take it off and put it in your bag; if it’s cold, you might not be able to endure it and have to go home after all that effort.

.

.

.

 

≫ Spark Instagram Archive

Room 602-z practice room selfie ♥♥

└ Okay. I’ll wait at Imjingak until I turn into a naturally frozen pollack.

└ It makes me proud to see Joowoo taking his hyung around with him a lot while Iwol is resting… and it’s also quite touching…

 

≫ Please confess, whoever sent the firework to our super cute Kiyeon on BubblePop saying ‘Spark will live at Imjingak, Sparklers are going to the South’.

Kiyeon apparently doesn’t know about the ‘Grand Duke of the North’ joke and is asking why we’re leaving him behind. Please take responsibility for this situation.

└ How can a Kingdom Another otaku not know the Northern Grand Duke meme?

└ Our Kiyeon is part of the deserted-island fam, so he doesn’t understand unless you say it to him directly

 

≫ Sparklers, let’s not act weak and say we’re catching colds on BubblePop after coming back from Imjingak.

Written by someone whose tear ducts broke as soon as they saw Cheonghyeon write ‘health is top priority’ on the fan cafe.

└ Maybe Iwol’s hiatus due to his condition made them more sensitive to that sort of thing… Sparklers, let’s not get sick either. You need to be healthy if you want to keep stanning!!

└ Looking at their schedule, even three bodies wouldn’t be enough to keep up, but the fact that he’s exercising even harder makes me so proud of him. Such a diligent boy. Cheering you on.

 

I didn’t have to see them in person; just hearing the news made it clear what kind of daily life they were leading. That was how nauseatingly long we had lived together.

 

I didn’t like seeing the fans suffer, but I was glad that the members were in better condition than they had been for the performance before my regression, allowing them to put on a better show.

 

More than anything, though, having the management policies changed would have been the best outcome, which was why I’d been furiously writing posts on the broadcasting station’s customer-feedback board behind the scenes.

 

If I had known a schedule like this was coming, I would have delayed my withdrawal a bit. If it had been ‘spArk’s Iwol rebels against reckless concert… decides to voluntarily withdraw for the sake of the team’, wouldn’t that have helped the group a bit more? I’m sorry, Sparklers, that all I I can do is keep piling up complaints on the customer-feedback board.

 

Anyway, aside from the ‘protesting’, the presence of the Imjingak concert gradually faded from my daily life. It was only natural, as I had gone from being the person preparing for the concert to someone who had no connection to it.

 

I should have just moderately enjoyed my studio life and then later, tucked under a warm blanket, enjoyed the broadcast clips uploaded with ‘Trending Video’ tags.

 

“…”

 

Before I knew it, I was heading toward Paju on the first subway train since the crack of dawn.

 

***

 

‘Why am I going there?’

 

Every time the subway passed a station, after I got off the subway, transferred to a bus, and passed the bus stops one by one, the same thought repeated. I couldn’t believe I had voluntarily left my house in the middle of a freezing night before the sun was even up to do this.

 

In the midst of it all, people whose routes overlapped with mine from Seoul caught my eye. They all had multiple dolls or keychains hanging from their bags—merchandise sold under the guise of ‘muggle-proof’, but in reality, anyone who was into idols would recognize them even if they weren’t fans of my group.

 

Since I was going anyway, I decided to follow the official schedule using public transportation like the fans, but it wasn’t easy. The only offline events I’d attended while doing proxy stanning had been, at most, the fan sign I went to because of Nam Jooah’s personal circumstances.

 

Events like that and music shows were relatively accessible. The broadcasting stations were located within Seoul, and most of the venues were clustered together, so once you learned the route, it wasn’t difficult to go again the next time.

 

The difficulty level rises exponentially for pre-recordings. I couldn’t put the desolation of those places into words, but I vividly remembered the reviews from people who had to go to areas where there weren’t even 24-hour unmanned cafes, convenience stores, or public toilets nearby.

 

Even just reading those posts, I’d thought it sounded difficult. But actually experiencing it firsthand was on another level. My bag didn’t even contain a light stick or slogan, yet having to carry a bag on my back, put it down on the ground, and hoist it back up over and over was incredibly cumbersome.

 

By the time I got close to the performance venue, the sky was closer to dark than dim. The wind was so vicious that groans of suffering could be heard from all around.

 

Audience admission was from 4 PM. The current time was nearing 8 AM. That meant there were still eight hours until entry, yet the crowd visible in the distance looked like it was five minutes before the concert was about to start.

 

‘8 hours of this…’

 

I doubted my eyes as I tucked my phone into my pocket. Then, I stood at the very end of a line whose starting point I couldn’t even see. When I exhaled, white breath puffed out.