“Team Leader Ji, give us a toast!”

“Sorry?”

“A toast, a toast! It’s a rare honor having you at our team dinner! Okay, everyone, raise your glasses!”

The team all lifted their glasses in unison. Seongin Ji, seated at the head, wore a plainly troubled look.

I glanced at Seonguan, but she clearly had no intention of rescuing her team leader.

“Let’s... just do it this once.”

“Just this once! Let’s go!”

Beer glasses clattered messily across the table. With a reluctant face, Seongin Ji touched the cold beer to his lips. In the raucous noise, beer didn’t even taste like beer.

Even so, one thing stood out crystal clear.

“Ahh! This beer is so sweet tonight—so sweet!”

Seonguan’s face.

She’s a strange woman. Stubborn and steel-spined, yet when she’s with people she lets her guard down completely.

“Team Leader, I know you’re amazing. But that doesn’t mean you’re absolutely the most perfect, does it?”

Sometimes she’s so bold it’s stunning.

“Did you really convince the execs? Then we’re investing right away? Team Leader, you’re the best!”

Other times she showers him with praise like she has no pride.

“Is that just her personality? Or part of playing the social game?”

Turning that over in my head is how I ended up saying yes to a team dinner I’d always declined by default—namely, tonight.

You’d think having the boss there would calm things down at least a little. Somehow, with the boss present, Seonguan was flying even higher.

“Are we seriously going to keep drinking only soju? Who wants a beer-and-soju mix?”

“Ah, Assistant Manager Seon’s beer-and-soju is bad, though.”

“Excuse me? Watch me redeem my honor tonight.”

Rolling up her sleeves, Seonguan sprang up. Popping a beer bottle, she giggled; her smile shone bright under the pub’s yellow lights.

Her beer-and-soju mix really was bad. Teammates griped in turn that there was too much soju, or too much foam from the beer.

“All beer-and-soju tastes the same. Right, Younghwan?”

“Kind of.”

Do Younghwan, meanwhile, was holding a glass that glowed a luscious gold just from looking at it.

When it came to alcohol, Seonguan had radar. She pointed at Younghwan’s glass.

“Is that... straight beer?”

“A beer-and-soju.”

“You didn’t let me make it, did you?”

“...I mixed it.”

“Then will you make me one? I need to know why those guys are whining like they’re dying.”

Before she even handed him a bottle opener, Do Younghwan flipped the beer cap with a spoon. Without measuring anything, he grabbed a bottle of soju and a bottle of beer and poured both into the glass.

He pinched the rim and rolled the wrist; a clean beer-and-soju came together. No slamming the glass with a spoon, no dunking a soju shot for show.

“Please try.”

With a quick wipe of the rim using a napkin—nice touch—Do Younghwan offered the glass.

It was the first “proper” beer-and-soju Seonguan had ever tasted.

“Younghwan! If you can mix drinks like this, you should’ve been a bartender!”

“You can’t run a bar selling only beer-and-soju.”

“The taste is... wow. It just slides down.”

“That good? Assistant Manager Seon, may I borrow your glass for a sec?”

“Don’t you dare steal someone’s precious alcohol!”

They were a glorious mess of a team. Rock-paper-scissors to fight for one glass, losers crying into fish-cake soup with straight soju, winners beaming as they savored paradise in a glass.

“Definitely not a place I’ll be visiting twice.”

Even thinking that, Seongin Ji’s gaze couldn’t leave Seonguan.

Seonguan, drinking the beer-and-soju that Do Younghwan mixed with the happiest face in the world. Seonguan, demanding the next glass like it was only natural after three straight wins of rock-paper-scissors—no surprise on her face whatsoever.

Maybe it was the alcohol, but Seongin Ji’s cheeks looked a shade warmer.

“Wow, they’re actually drinking.”

I’d heard some productions fill bottles with water for shots, but every shoot is case-by-case. The “In My Office” team, it seems, is the keep-it-real type.

At least they only started mid-take; if we’d been pounding drinks from first take to last, I’d have been done for.

My common sense about “drinking while working” has been shattered since that drinking show, and I’m just confused at this point.

I didn’t want to go home smelling like booze. Too bad—looks like I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.

“Iwol. Iwol.”

I was wondering if there was fabric deodorizer in the van when someone called me.

Another actor from Team Ji.

“Yes, sir!”

“Why are you so good at mixing beer-and-soju?”

“Sorry?”

He means that sudden “beer-and-soju at the team dinner” bit I revived on the fly because of Ha Seomyeong’s ad-lib, # Nоvеlight # right? Back in the day I could stack a whole tower out of those mixes.

“Seomyeong said it was seriously good, so I took a sip, and it was amazing! What’s your ratio?”

“It was ad-lib on my end too...! I think I just got lucky!”

Times like this, you always chalk it up to luck. It does me no favors if word gets around that an idol knows how to nail a beer-and-soju by feel because he’s out drinking all the time.

“Right, that bit wasn’t in the script.”

“No. I survived because the seniors led me so well.”

“Oh please, I saw you—smooth as anything.”

Unexpected praise.

Suddenly I recalled what Jeong Seongbin said at the meeting a few days ago.

“There’ll be more and more good people around you.”

Look at my life—here I am, getting cheered on by Spark.

For life...

I thought I’d hate that for life.

“Thank you for saying that. I’ll keep working hard for the remaining episodes!”

“If you work any harder than that, how hard are you planning to work? Anyway, great job today. You probably drank a lot with all the retakes—ask your manager to grab you a hangover cure before you go in!”

A hangover cure? We’ve got those in our dorm fridge.

The kids bought five when I said I was doing a variety show.

Each of the five bought a bottle.

No one in the dorm drinks, so after cracking one out of politeness the day we filmed that drinking show, four are still sitting there.

I’d really rather not include those punks under “good people around me.”

I paced and waited outside for a long time until our manager drove back to set.

So lost in thought I didn’t even hear the horn when he arrived.

While I was sleeping, something rustled above my head.

The moment I poked my head out of the covers and opened my eyes, I locked eyes with a strange silhouette.

“Gah!”

“Gah—!”

We scared each other. The difference being that he clapped a hand over his mouth and I grabbed my pillow.

I may have failed to avenge myself with a pillow on Choi Jeho last time, but this intruder—this one I would—

“Iwol, it’s me!”

“Oh—PD?”

The trespasser was a PD from UA’s video team. He glanced around, whispered, then gave me a “shh.”

Something flashed through my head.

“Is today the reality-shoot day?”

When I whispered, the PD just nodded.

So the observation cams are in. And this is why I kept asking them to unlock the laptop and open the shared calendar!

I nearly assaulted an innocent PD with a pillow. The man probably had to leave at dawn; I nearly did him dirty.

Installing a camera in the ceiling corner, the PD climbed down and said:

“Get a little more sleep, Iwol. We’re starting from you waking up anyway.”

“Got it.”

...So I said, but I was wide awake. I decided to just fake it.

Today’s self-produced content concept is “Spark, raw and unfiltered.” The goal is to show everything: the bare faces we’ve kept under wraps, all the nooks of the dorm, and a full day of our routine.

I never used to understand wanting to watch every move someone makes, but now I do. I read a masterpiece line recently:

I want to stan Spark down to their peach fuzz.

Compared to peach fuzz, a routine is something we can show over and over. Peach fuzz is... maybe possible when science and tech advance a little more? For our 6th anniversary, maybe we can do a “Guess the member by peach fuzz” quiz at the fan meeting.

While I was off on a tangent, I heard the camera team picking spots. I hurried out the door.

“Excuse me, can I ask something?”

“What is it?”

Since it’s reality, fans will be expecting truly real honesty.

Starting off with “Yaaawn, what a bright, sunny morning!” felt... wrong to me.

“Could we switch it so I’m the one waking the kids up?”

My pitch passed easily. Thanks to that, I could grip a frying pan handle like old times, turn on the gas, and get to work.

That familiar grip, the feel of soft bread. This is daily life. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

“What self-content are we getting this week?”

Baek Haewon twirled a pen at his desk, buzzing.

UA even ran a “What do you want to see from Spark?” survey recently, so expectations were extra high. If Iwol had planned that survey too, the company building would’ve been pelted with eggs or ostrich eggs—but thankfully, word was he hadn’t.

“Whatever it is, I hope it’s insanely good.”

Having earnestly written “no-honorifics time” on that survey, Baek Haewon shot to his feet.

Because of an SNS notification.

spArk_official Wanna come over to our dorm?

There’s not much to see...

It’s just six guys...

Still, we want you to be our first guest!

[SPARK] 2X10XX Come Over to Our Dorm, ep.1

“Is this copy actually this spicy?”

Since that royal-court era, he could feel the spike in older Sparklers. Even big-name fansite photographers who’d left the fandom were testing the waters with Spark one by one.

A believer in the need for a little order in any fandom, Baek Haewon welcomed the old-guard influx.

Look at this even now. He’d only been thinking about the maknaes talking down to the hyungs for no-honorifics time, while the older sisters were over here throwing the dorm doors wide open!

“Time to go feral and stan...”

He abandoned the cold chair he’d just sat in without a second thought.

Then he flopped into the comfiest position on his soft bed, powered on his fully charged tablet, and opened MiTube.

On the thumbnail, jam-packed: Iwol in a black short-sleeve tee and sweats, Jeho grimacing as he beats dust off a jacket, Seongbin stretching, Juu mopping the floor, the back of Cheonghyeon typing on a laptop, Giyeon watering a plant.

They were all dead. He was going to screenshot like a madman today. Baek Haewon grinned wickedly.