Had it even been five minutes since I came into the CEO’s office with the manager?

Once Ms. Min Jugyeong, who clearly looked like she’d run over here straight from work, arrived as well, all the attendees for this monumental first face-to-face meeting were present.

“You don’t need to be nervous. For UA artists, I just like to see your faces and say hello at least once a month, that’s all this is for.”

The CEO opened.

Sure enough, neither the manager nor Ms. Min Jugyeong looked particularly stiff.

‘UA’s Job Planet rating was around 3.2 stars, wasn’t it?’

For a small entertainment agency with a notorious reputation, that was actually a high rating. Probably about twice as high as Hanpyeong Industries.

“I skipped last month since I figured you’d be right in the middle of your adjustment period, but you’re all done adjusting now, right? You’re busy practicing, so just think of this as taking a short break and relax.”

For an idol who has to train their body, those were words to be grateful for, but I felt like the veins were popping on my clenched fists.

Normally, if someone says their condition is bad, you tell them to take it easy. You don’t call them up to the CEO’s office.

After I even received buckwheat tea the CEO personally brewed, the real conversation began.

“How are you doing, is anything uncomfortable, and so on”—it was mostly the kind of topics you’d hear in a new-employee interview.

“Even though you started late, you don’t get discouraged, and you stay late to practice every day. Chanyeong-ssi is always complimenting you.”

When I looked at the manager, he winked at me.

Thank you very much for packaging my make-up work like that.

The CEO and Ms. Min Jugyeong laughed and chatted, showering me with questions.

“You said you’re using Jeho and Cheonghyeon’s room at the dorm, right? Getting along well with the kids now?”

“What do you usually do during self-practice time?”

“Do you feel like you’re getting ready well for the next evaluation? Got any rough ideas?”

For a green trainee in his early twenties, just setting foot in this industry for the first time, these were impossibly attentive questions.

But for me, who had learned personnel management in the mud, thick-colored glasses were already welded over my eyes.

To me, the two of them’s questions sounded like this:

→ Are you communicating with your teammates without any issues?

→ What do you usually do for your development of job-related skills?

→ Have you started drafting your second-half work plan? We’re going to do a surprise inspection, so start early.

If that wasn’t actually their intention, then I’m the one who should apologize, but I answered in the most solid, well-behaved manner I knew.

“Everyone in my room is nice, so I’m comfortable.”

...And so on.

That meant, “Choi Jeho’s personality is outstanding, and even though Lee Cheonghyeon is on his laptop until dawn, he doesn’t ride me, so we’re maintaining peace and getting along well.”

After a few rounds of back-and-forth like that, Ms. Min Jugyeong burst out laughing.

“CEO, isn’t Iwol so sincere in the way he talks?”

“Exactly. When I only heard what you said, Jugyeong-ssi, I was like, ‘All our kids are diligent, what’s so special about that?’”

I could tell the “sincerity” they were talking about was the “Yes! I’ll work hard!” kind, but I didn’t bother to say that out loud.

This way of talking, I picked it up working under Department Head Nam.

Or maybe the attendance-management effect on my résumé was being applied even in places like this.

Sure enough, at the edge of my vision, a small phrase was faintly glowing.

‘Recognized for excellence in attendance management, you are receiving a high evaluation.’

While the mood was still full of goodwill, the manager suddenly said something unexpected.

“Iwol has a very sharp, put-together side to him. The kids warmed up to him really fast, too.”

Them?

Didn’t seem that way to me.

We hadn’t even known each other a month yet; what kind of great charm could there be in someone only a year or two older.

Especially when that someone is a clumsy lump like me.

But the manager seemed determined to push a very sociable image of me.

“He adjusts quickly, he’s friendly, and when they’re all together, he quietly loosens up the mood.”

By putting some slack into a tense practice room, that is. Thanks to that, I eat two bowls of air made of reading the room every day, so I’m never hungry.

Listening to the manager’s neatly wrapped praises, the CEO spoke up.

“Someone like that is really rare. Not just in a group, but in any organization.”

“...Excuse me?”

I was thrown.

In all the company interviews I’d had in my life, I had never once heard that kind of line.

The CEO even encouraged me, saying that going forward, we should “just keep doing things the way you’ve been doing them so far.”

In a mood so full of praise it made me doubt whether it was genuine, I didn’t know what to do with myself and could only keep smiling mechanically.

It was such a foreign feeling.

As a reward for finishing the meeting, I even got experience, and when I came back to the practice room, only Lee Cheonghyeon was there.

“Why are you alone?”

At my question, Lee Cheonghyeon answered cheerfully.

“Jeho hyung went to the convenience store, and Juu hyung’s in the vocal practice room!”

“What about Seongbin and Giyeon... did school end late for them today?”

“It’s ID photo day, so they said they’ll come after that. We didn’t have any after-school class today, so we got out early!”

“Ah, photos are important.”

Those photos were probably going to wander around the internet world for the rest of their lives.

Hearing what he said made me remember the days of after-school classes and mandatory night self-study.

And my sister clutching the back of her neck, cooking soup out of “Back in my day, night self-study was mandatory, you know.”

Every time something I thought I’d forgotten surfaced, the feelings were strangely new.

“What are you going to do today?”

“I have to finish some rap lyrics I was working on, but that’s for tonight... I was told to try writing a song, so I thought I’d give it a shot, but there are a lot of parts I’m conflicted about, so I think today I’ll just focus on dance and head home.”

UA, whose CEO was originally a singer-songwriter, was the best environment you could ask for to learn composing.

When he was younger, Lee Cheonghyeon had majored in classical music, and only after joining UA did he really start learning to compose pop music.

True to the fact that SPARK’s members were all outstanding rough gems, once he debuted, Lee Cheonghyeon’s growth rate exploded.

From a rookie composer who managed to get one track on the debut album, he grew in just a few years into someone capable of making an entire album.

The one thing Lee Cheonghyeon regretted was just this.

“Question from user 1103! If Cheonghyeon could change the past exactly once, what would you change?”

“This one’s kind of hard... If I had to pick just one thing, starting composing late.”

“Didn’t you make this title track too, Cheonghyeonssi? Even so, you still feel regret?”

“I didn’t start composing particularly early. I just think, if I’d been more diligent learning, I might be doing even better now.”

If only he had started composing earlier.

Back then, he hadn’t known he had a talent for making pop music, so he had focused on his strength in rap, but once he actually laid hands on composing, it seems greed awoke in him.

“There were just so many people around me who started dance or singing really early, too.”

I ran through the songs Lee Cheonghyeon had made.

His songs that fit SPARK’s group color more and more as the years went by.

Creation isn’t something you can suddenly do just because you move the schedule up like with the debut date, but...

If he was going to regret starting late, then this time, he had to walk down a different path. All the more, considering Lee Cheonghyeon’s potential.

‘If we want to move the timing up by a whole year and still debut stably, it’s better if the songs come out early.’

They say job applications and recruitment postings are better the faster they go up.

The problem was whether composing was something you could just “start early” because someone told you to.

‘I don’t know anything about the realm of creation.’

I’m someone who only ever received twelve years of rote learning, then studied nothing but business administration in college.

The only chance I’d ever had to demonstrate creativity at Hanpyeong Industries was when I pushed back the Friday night company dinner Department Head Nam was trying to set, moving it to Monday lunch.

“What are you thinking about so hard?”

“I’m thinking about how to raise you into a composing genius.”

“Me?”

Lee Cheonghyeon asked back.

Careful not to let the system judge my words as “talking about the future,” I continued.

“Yeah. I’m going to raise you well and recruit you as the team’s composition machine.”

“That wish is kind of too specific and grandiose, don’t you think, hyung!”

“Is it bad to have expectations for a young, smart talent? Ah, if it feels like pressure and you don’t like it, tell me. I’ll rein myself in.”

But I already knew. That this kid Lee Cheonghyeon was not the type to feel burdened by something of this level.

Sure enough, even if he did look at me weird, he wasn’t uncomfortable.

“It’d be nice if young, smart Cheonghyeon became a composition machine, but maybe because the new semester started, I just don’t feel motivated, hyung.”

“Motivation doesn’t matter when it comes to work. The important things are the deadline and pressure.”

“Huh?”

“I believe that as long as there’s compulsion, people can do anything.”

I put both hands on Lee Cheonghyeon’s shoulders.

“Cheonghyeon.”

“...Yes.”

“Let’s pour all those worries into at least laying down a beat first.”

I understand that creation isn’t something you can do by force.

But you can at least build enough basics to grab hold of inspiration by the neck when it shows up.

I couldn’t share the pain of creation with him, but I did personally ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ make and gift him a deadline schedule, packed with encouragement.

For about a week after that, Lee Cheonghyeon really did share his progress with me every single day without fail.

Even today, he was, as always, wrestling with the composing program until nearly midnight.

After a long while staring at the monitor alone, Lee Cheonghyeon asked me in a husky voice.

“Hyung. Then why do you tell Giyeon to go to sleep if it’s late, but you don’t tell me to sleep?”

“Because you’ve got the face of someone whose height will keep going up even if you sleep a little less.”

“You’re seriously awful.”

“If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to.”

“That would hurt my pride, so I don’t like that either.” 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Of course, I didn’t do the shameless thing of keeping a kid up late while I alone lay down in bed.

Instead, during the time Lee Cheonghyeon was working on his song, I predicted what work the system was likely to assign me next and drew up the next day’s schedule.

If I just sat there waiting for tasks to pop up at random, it felt like it would take ten years to gather experience.

This was what you’d call sweeping the yard before they even told you to pick up the broom.

Just like when I’d predicted vocal feedback, I tried a few things based on the tasks that had popped up so far, and they hit at a pretty high rate.

Thanks to that, my current accumulated experience had reached 90.

‘If only a nice round hundred thousand would fall from the sky.’

I was drawing long lines across some innocent algorithm when an alarm went off from Lee Cheonghyeon’s phone. It was the notice that twenty-five minutes were up.

This was the influence of introducing the Pomodoro study method so that during the short time he had, he’d focus hard only when he was focusing.

Whenever he hit a wall, instead of just staring blankly into space, he was getting used to this way of doing the work when it was time to work and resting when it was time to rest.

“Good work. Time for bed now?”

“Guess so... What about you, hyung?”

“I’ll stay up just a little longer.”

“Is this hyung an elephant and not a human? How can you sleep so little?”

I was more surprised by the fact that you know elephants are animals that sleep very little.

Just then, a phrase so familiar it was almost welcome popped up.

 [SYSTEM] ‘Hidden Task’ has been completed.

▷ Content: Get your grit recognized by a member

▷ Reward: Experience (10)

▷ Cumulative Experience: 100

▷ Cumulative Points: 1

 “Cheonghyeon.”

“What?”

“You’re really such an admirable kid.”

“What are you even saying. Just go to sleep!”

Whether Lee Cheonghyeon recoiled or not, I quickly exchanged my newly earned welfare point for proficiency.

 Performance Evaluation (100)

― Vocal Proficiency: 6(▲)/20

― Dance Proficiency: 5(▲)/20

― Self PR: 12/20

― Attendance Management: 18/20

― Organizational Adaptability: 10/20

Cumulative Experience: 0

 In the middle of all that, my vocal proficiency had gone up on its own again.

The vocalist next door is doing just fine all by himself; I don’t know why the dance over on our side takes so much hand-holding.

From 1 to 5, the growth it had shown was so amazing that I decided to let it slide just this once.

By raising Dance Proficiency to 5, the task of increasing dance proficiency before the March end-of-month evaluation was also processed as completed.

 [SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.

▷ Reward: Trial ticket for viewing another member’s résumé, three-piece set of standard proposal forms for debut album planning

 At long last, I could look at the members’ résumés instead of my shabby one.