What is Jeong Seongbin in SPARK.

To that question, the four past SPARK members answered in a single word.

"Leader."

Setting aside how those tongue-tied idiots made me want to tear my hair out, Jeong Seongbin was, in his own way, recognized in that barren group.

Even the fans who slapped every other guy with some chaotic nickname called him “SPARK’s spiritual pillar, Jeong Seongbin.”

And if someone like that runs?

What happens. Debut, everything—finished.

It’d be no different from secretly trying to hop onto a bus full of furious passengers and watching, eyes wide open, as the driver vaults out the window.

What do I do? Drag him to Starbucks and start by stuffing a 6,800-won drink into him?

I tilted my head, trying to remember if there was a Starbucks nearby.

Only then did I realize it was pitch-black all around.

Right. We came out at midnight.

Fuck.

I rummaged through my dust-caked head for all it was worth.

But no matter how far back I rewound, I couldn’t find a single scene where Jeong Seongbin said anything like “Back when I was a trainee I wondered if this path was right.”

For his part, Jeong Seongbin snapped back to normal quick. He looked like he hadn’t even recognized the deep, honest darkness inside him yet.

Don’t relax. People like this are more dangerous.

They’re the type who worked overtime yesterday and then, on a bright, clear morning, smile and say “Welp, can’t do this anymore!” and submit their resignation.

In the same tone you use to ask someone out for coffee.

As it stands, it’s obvious that within a month, tops, Jeong Seongbin would spiral into doubts about life and start pondering what life even is.

And in two months, he’d leave us.

At that point, “What are you talking about out of nowhere! Things were good between us...!” won’t help.

Because by then he’ll have run the resignation simulation three hundred times in his head.

If we don’t head this off, UA will be left in front of the only one-of-a-kind leader material who suddenly quits the idol road, wearing the raccoon-washing-cotton-candy face.

I have to stomp this out before it even becomes a g of “goblin of worries.”

Like hell I’m letting the one guy bail while the four problem children stay. No way.

"Seongbin, want to talk for a minute before ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ we go in?"

I stopped him in front of a convenience store. I was ready to get as clingy and pathetic as needed to make him feel like he’d regret it till death if he walked away here.

A few minutes later.

We each held a hot red-ginseng honey tea and sat side by side on the swings at a playground. For the record, he chose the drinks.

Knife-cold wind dug under our outerwear.

"Sorry. It’s freezing."

"It’s fine."

Even with my bulldozer-style counseling request, he smiled and said it was okay. Ha... protect the leader at all costs.

"There’s something you’re worried about, right? Lately."

When I broached it carefully, he looked at me.

His face screamed How did you know. Sorry, but you were leaking tells everywhere.

Half-swinging, half-not, he fidgeted his legs and said,

"It’s just... thinking that the evaluation results are coming out soon makes me a bit heavy."

Then he gave a bitter smile.

Objectively, UA’s evaluation method wasn’t harsh.

But considering that along with feedback, the trainees were ranked every round, the point he was stewing over was very likely his rank.

What he said next didn’t stray far from my guess.

"It’s not like we have a lot of trainees, but at some point the rankings pretty much stopped changing."

This evaluation ran in the order Park Juu, Choi Jeho, Lee Cheonghyeon, Jeong Seongbin, Kang Giyeon.

And that was last time’s ranking order.

Considering how often Kang Giyeon failed to show his true ability and got poor results, purely by skill it meant Jeong Seongbin’s rank was the lowest.

Even below Lee Cheonghyeon, whose trainee history is much shorter than Seongb⁠in’s.

Then of course you’re anxious.

It’s the kind of thing that happens when you’ve got monsters around you.

Inevitably you take similar classes every day, invest similar hours, and he himself is conscientious to a fault about everything—so the hit must be landing harder.

Personally, I think the grit to bear down and grind beside geniuses is a talent in itself.

But saying that out loud is a different matter.

So instead of jumping in, I decided to give him a little time.

I’ve never seen a counseling session go well when the company jumps down the throat of the person who requested it.

"Drink your tea. It’ll get cold."

"...Yes."

Looking a touch glum, he peeled the plastic wrap off the cap seal.

I toyed with my bottle and thought about what I could do right now.

There were roughly three usable methods.

Lock him in a praise hell.

Mix in some of the thirsty copy I wrote on the coffee-truck banner and swaddle him in love.

But I’m UA’s prize clumsy oaf—me doing it won’t land. Like how when Department Head Nam praised me in the past for organizing the break room well, I felt nothing.

Present a positive outlook with concrete grounds.

Use the huge pile of data I collected while sorting every breadcrumb and explain, objectively, which skills are improving and what kind of growth curve I project from that.

Except if he answers, “How do you even know I sang that song, hyung?”—we hit bad ending instantly.

He’d probably look at me with the gaze people reserve for creepy shut-ins. I’d be weirded out too.

Just start flapping my mouth.

Tell him I have the ability to see the future, that he will absolutely do well, succeed, gain wealth and fame, and be able to sing here and there at least until he’s twenty-eight.

The critical side effect is that one wrong phrasing and I might get gently advised to seek medical help.

How is there not a single decent line to use.

When my life got reset, I figured my Hanpyeong Industries career had become empty calories, but looking at me now, maybe it wasn’t such a wrong assessment. Outside the company I’m this incompetent—once again, I feel it in my bones.

None of the three looked bright, but I hardened my heart.

For this kid it’s his life, and for me it’s my sister’s life and my future on the line.

"Seongbin. If you’re not too cold right now, could I say... five lines?"

"Yes, hyung."

I spoke as flatly as possible so it wouldn’t sound like overblown cheerleading.

"Even if the gap with the others doesn’t shrink right this second, I hope you don’t let it crush you."

He reacted ever so slightly as he went to sip his tea. Sorry for poking while you were drinking.

"If you just keep doing what you’ve been doing, the day you’re recognized will come. I mean it."

"You sound very certain, hyung."

"Of course."

At my confident stance, I could see his deflated smile falter in surprise.

Kim Iwol, you can do this.

Your image is nothing compared to the granite-solid tone, the spark of SPARK, the OST killer.

For this kid to get through his growing pains—for my own future free of Hanpyeong Industries—I shut my eyes and did it.

I pried open the mouth even red-ginseng honey tea couldn’t loosen.

"I... know the future."

“Kim Iwol, twenty-nine, drops ‘I know the future’... scandal” wouldn’t be overselling the shock.

A cold gust sliced between us.

"...Pardon?"

Shit.

Most embarrassing moment of my life. Is this that secondhand embarrassment? Except I’m not “secondhand,” I’m the subject.

Face burning, I forced myself to continue.

"I saw for a mo—no, it was shown to me."

“Saw” implies intention, so I hurried to change the wording.

"Even if right now is too long and too hard for you... in the not-too-distant future, you’ll think you were able to be happy because of this time."

He let a long silence pass without a word.

He was probably weighing whether I was insane or just missing a few screws.

I used the opening to feign composure and wrap the talk.

"If you don’t believe me, that’s fine."

"No. It actually makes me feel steadier."

"Let’s lower the corners of our mouth when we lie."

Thankfully, his face had relaxed more than before. It looked less like he’d been comforted and more like he’d been amused into a mood change, but still.

A reset of thoughts is something. I barely stopped myself from sighing in relief ten million times.

Steam poured off me like this was the hottest winter on record.

On the way back from the playground to the dorm, the mood wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been half an hour earlier.

"What was future-me doing?"

He was downright giddy, peppering me with questions.

A moment ago he couldn’t even lie with enthusiasm to appear okay; now there was mischief tucked everywhere in his words.

If I say...

Yes. You become the leader of a skill-focused boy group, and by quietly leading the team through the rough entertainment world, you finally see the light. Although you do disband.

...and then he relaxes because he puts too much stock in folk beliefs—that would be a disaster.

I worked my brain again, with great difficulty.

Minimal info, lots of synonyms, but with words that carry enough sense of responsibility...

"Y... you’re the top dog?"

Why do I even have a head.

If my brain’s this stalled, I really need to do some soul-searching.

"What if I, um, become the top dog and the group collapses right away?"

"No. Without you, it goes to hell."

Wherever it burst from, he ended up laughing so hard he had to cover his mouth.

Sis, are you watching?

Your kid brother is living this desperately.

All the way to the dorm, his questions didn’t stop.

For a man who could’ve been the embodiment of diligence, this ridiculous talk must have been pretty fresh.

Thanks to that, our conversation stayed at about this level the whole way.

"You can’t just see the future any time, right?"

"Right. I have to live my actual life too."

"If you think of something you want to see, does it appear in front of your eyes?"

"It’s like a divine visitation or something. Not often—just sometimes."

At this point I owed a deep apology from the bottom of my heart to every shaman in the country.

And I vowed that once I saw this kind and good kid debut, I’d go live in Jirisan and atone.

Whether it was laugh therapy or what, by the time we got back to our rooms, he looked much lighter.

Or maybe he’d been so cornered he couldn’t even afford random thoughts like that until now.

Either way, the way his face had changed to Today, we endure again... was a remarkable result.

Feeling lazily relieved that things had worked out somehow, I was about to lie down when my vision flickered.

It was the system. Not even surprising anymore.

Except something was off. This was a different type of message than before.

 [SYSTEM] The ‘Party B’ is hereby notified of ‘HR Disadvantages Clause.’

▷ Internal regulation violation

▷ Confidentiality violation

▷ [Locked]

.

.

.

+

Words that looked ominous at a glance.

With a bad feeling, I selected the unusually blinking “Confidentiality violation.” A long text appeared.

 [SYSTEM] The ‘Party B’ is hereby notified of ‘Confidentiality Violation.’

▷ Any matter that could affect areas outside SPARK’s successful activities and any direct information related to future points in time are all considered security-sensitive secrets.

▷ The ‘Party B’ bears responsibility to maintain confidentiality regarding the aforementioned matters.

▷ The severity of disposition is determined in consideration of multiple factors such as the importance of the leaked secret and its topicality, and punishment may be up to ‘death.’

+

Surely they’re not warning me just because I once did a fortune-telling pep talk like “Jeong Seongb⁠in will be the top dog!” Right? And with a max penalty of death?

If I’d known my life was on the line, I wouldn’t have blurted a shame-spreading heavenly secret.

Unwilling to accept reality, I reread the memo—whose special talent is pissing you off even at three in the morning—slowly and clearly.

But rereading didn’t change anything.

Everything but calling my father “father” was under a speaking ban.

It was the kind of thing that’s hard to accept unless you’ve lost your mind.