I sat side by side with Kang Giyeon on the practice room floor.

In the mirror across from us, he was fidgeting with his hands for no reason.

The air was so awkward it was hard to breathe.

I debated whether to try easing the mood, but for this kid it seemed better to lay out the stage than to coddle him, so I opened first.

“If there’s something you want to say, feel free.”

Even so, Giyeon didn’t start right away.

Did he want a little small talk first? I hadn’t pegged him as someone who had trouble expressing himself.

Thankfully, before much more time passed, he opened his mouth.

“About... nerves. I was wondering if I could get some advice.”

The reason he’d asked for a sit-down was, surprisingly, “I need advice.”

Guess my guts for not tanking the first evaluation had impressed him.

“Was Choi Jeho the only one in SPARK who looked mentally strong...”

Jeong Seongbin will get pretty steady later, but for now they were all still kids.

And the one person worth asking—Choi Jeho—had conversation difficulty set to extreme.

Which left me by process of elimination.

“I can respect the attitude of asking even a klutz for advice when you’re in a pinch.”

Taking a direct critique from someone isn’t something you do on ordinary courage. That part was admirable.

While I was genuinely moved, Giyeon asked me:

“Hyung, are you the type who doesn’t really get nervous?”

“I didn’t get nervous a lot, but I wasn’t the type who never did. I think I was average.”

“How did you fix getting nervous?”

Yeah, by getting royally chewed out by a department head as an example in front of executives.

I shut my eyes, trying to forget the conference room where voices had been raised.

Be patient. Giyeon’s a high schooler, not an office worker.

Instead of teaching him the bitterness of corporate life, I sanitized the painful memory as much as I could.

“I did a lot of practice that felt like the real thing. Like mock interviews.”

“Like the real thing...”

He echoed me.

“Imagine getting wrecked, imagine making mistakes. Then plan how you’ll respond when you do, and in which situations you tense up the most.”

“I’ve done a lot of mock tests. I even set up cameras. Didn’t help much.”

“If the pressure’s lighter than the real thing, lots of practice can still leave you flustered.”

Even if you prep a deck all night, one “Assistant Manager Kim, what’s with your face?” from the boss can make you feel the blood drain out of your body.

“Did the teachers give you any advice?”

“They said I’m doing well, so just do what I’ve been doing... that kind of thing.”

As expected of UA. Gentle advice.

Maybe they were deliberately not poking them, thinking about the mental wear idols get later.

Praise only lands when your ears are open to it.

If you’re currently failing to show your skill, hearing you’re doing well wouldn’t have hit home for Giyeon.

“How do I create pressure, then?”

He asked.

For my part, I’d held self-Q&A marathons, running through tail questions like Department Head Nam would ask, hundreds of times.

Good thing I lived alone—if I’d had a roommate they’d have thought I was losing my mind.

“If you set up the situation as concretely as possible and practice in it, you’ll probably adapt... but you can’t ask the teachers to create the environment for you every time.”

“Exactly.” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

I thought for a moment, then made a proposal.

“Want me to play evaluator?”

“Sorry?”

His eyes widened a fraction.

He’d been so even-toned without raising his voice once—guess he didn’t see that coming.

“You said cameras weren’t enough. If we make the surroundings and mood feel more real, it might work better.”

“Wouldn’t the mood not land if you open your mouth? You loosen the air.”

“Don’t worry. I’m good at playing the old-timer.”

He looked like he couldn’t trust that. He’d be shocked after seeing me channel Department Head Nam’s soul.

I never imagined I’d voluntarily do something good for SPARK in this life.

But I’d gotten a lot of help from Giyeon, so I decided to think of it as paying a debt I couldn’t really avoid.

“Then... please.”

Either he had no other option, or he was truly desperate—he accepted without a long pause.

“In return for you watching my practice by day. If you want to practice at night, tell me anytime.”

“Let’s start tomorrow.”

“I really respect your drive.”

I didn’t spare praise for the way he clearly would’ve said “let’s start today” if we had a little more practice room time left.

Then I added one short line about what had been bugging me.

“Also, for something like this, you don’t have to beat around the bush.”

Whether it’s counseling or not, it’s five-ten thousand times better to check first and deal with the fallout than to dither and make it big among yourselves.

Same for fights. Better to throw punches in front of me than dig a deeper trench out of sight.

Best of all is fighting out of sight and then showing up already reconciled, but still.

“If you bugged even Choi Jeho several times to do group practice, you’re not the type who finds it hard to ask people for things.”

If anything, when it was for his goal, he was the type who didn’t even nurse much resentment.

Meaning he wasn’t the kind to make a big show and ask for separate time just to ask this one thing.

Then he gave me a pretty surprising answer.

“You’ve looked busy lately, so I was debating whether it was okay to ask.”

And with a pretty commendable reason attached.

Worlds apart from Department Head Nam, who went “Assistant Manager Kim looks busy, huh?” while asking me to book an entire birthday café for SPARK.

It was one of those moments that made my old vow—better I eat the rice cake than give one to a brat—feel silly.

Right. Being human means taking the rice cake from the brat and giving it to the kid who’s working hard.

I thought of Section Chief Song—the model of a hard worker, with a good personality, good at the job, and diligent to boot.

Section Chief Song, I’m sorry I didn’t look after you better.

Your cackling laugh at my Department Head Nam impression... I’ll put it to good use here too. Please, may you get through tonight without overtime.

Just as my heart was getting a little dewy, I noticed the clock reading 11:50.

Before worrying about others, it was my time to finish overtime. Bitter.

After our midnight talk, my relationship with Kang Giyeon got a little interesting.

“You should go tada-dan tang here, but you’re just going udang tang, hyung.”

“Sorry about that.”

By day, he grabbed me by the scruff and dragged me forward...

“Stop shaking your hands, Kang Giyeon. Eyes forward. Straighten your back.”

“Yes.”

By night, I grabbed him like a rat.

There were even days when Lee Cheonghyeon, who’d stayed behind asking what the two of us were doing every night, fled after twenty minutes of “mind your facial expression” nagging.

“Shoulders back, straighten your waist. If your posture’s collapsed you’ll feel even more nervous.”

“...I’m nervous even with my posture ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) straight.”

“Then lie down over there on the floor for three minutes and get up.”

It was a joke to loosen him up, but he actually lay down on the floor.

That’s how desperate he must’ve been. If you’ve got the skill but can’t show it, how suffocating must that be.

With a vow to make sure my dance student saw the light, I walked over to where he lay.

“How is it? Feel any nerves easing?”

“...Yeah. Maybe because it’s comfortable.”

Judging by his face, it wasn’t a lie—he did look more at ease.

Watching him find his breathing, I said:

“Then get up. Let’s run the simulation from the top.”

He hauled himself up with great effort. I gave him high marks for never once saying he was tired.

Not that he only ate up my practice time.

Since we were doing this every day by accident, I was learning too.

Watching dozens of model cases in a monitoring mindset, I started seeing the movement down to a finer level.

For example, like this:

“It looks like there’s less weight on your left foot than before. Was that because you were tired just now, or because you were nervous?”

“Because I was tired.”

“Fair enough. But you know the teachers won’t factor ‘being tired’ into their evaluation, right?”

“...Yes.”

When I told him the angle between his index and middle finger changed every time he danced, he had a face that said he was fed up.

What. So what. Even if I don’t say it, you’ll end up caring about it later anyway.

I asked, while he was drenched in cold sweat even though I hadn’t moved much at all:

“Your ankle hasn’t hurt since then?”

“No. Maybe because I went to the hospital early.”

“That’s why you go to the hospital right away when it hurts. Don’t put it off because it’s a hassle and turn it into something big.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Maybe he’d gotten used to the barrage of nagging—his reply was mechanical.

“Still, compared to the beginning, your movement’s way more natural. At least with me, you’ve adapted.”

“I feel it too.”

“It could be the mood doesn’t land because I look soft. Maybe I should’ve sat Jeho down instead?”

“Sorry?”

He looked dumbfounded.

“Do you... think you look soft, hyung?”

“I figure I look normal or a little blurry, one of the two.”

I stopped myself from saying I probably looked more gelatinous than a boiled dumpling.

Otherwise Department Head Nam wouldn’t have singled me out to hound three days after I joined.

But his answer was downright shocking.

“Hyung, uh... I don’t know if I should say this.”

“Say it.”

“Honestly? No filter?”

“When did you ever have a filter? Say it raw.”

“Just seeing your face is XX scary.”

...What?

“Cheonghyeon said when he first saw you, he thought you weren’t a trainee—you were a director.”

“What are these cold-blooded cool-tone punks even saying.”

“Juu hyung was so nervous the day you came that he couldn’t even eat dinner properly.”

“You’re lying, right?”

“It’s true. You’re dishing out plenty of pressure, so I don’t think you need to worry about that part.”

The more he talked, the more I was taken aback.

Looked like I needed to fix my dark circles soon.

After hearing even Giyeon’s shocking confession and getting back to the dorm, I found Lee Cheonghyeon waiting for me.

At this point it felt like onboarding new hires one by one.

Past midnight, having occupied Kim Iwol’s back office, Cheonghyeon asked:

“Hyung! I’ve finished the melody—what do I do next?”

“You should ask a different expert about that, not a director-type like me, Cheonghyeon.”

“Did Giyeon tell you that?! He never listens when I say it!”

“If you two keep talking weird, I’ll tell Seongbin to raise your practice quota.”

“C’mon. We have so many constructive conversations!”

Then he pulled out social skills from God knows where for his age and started complimenting me.

Stuff like, “Hyung, you’re so good at noticing movement,” and “Giyeon says that a lot too.”

But his approach wasn’t all soft edges.

“Hyung, if your motion tracking’s that good, why can’t you output it?”

He threw a real heavy punch at the end.

“Can you copy a Picasso exactly just because you look at it?”

“Ah.”

So we traded a few dumb lines.

Then I steered the conversation back to work.

“You said you finished the melody. Can I hear it?”

“Of course. Just... please keep the feedback gentle.”

“Gentle?”

“It feels like I’m showing a house where I built the roof first.”

His tone was uncharacteristically cautious.

Not that a non-expert like me had any real advice to give anyway.

Standing beside Cheonghyeon, who was covering his eyes like he couldn’t stand to look, I put in my earbuds and hit play.

What came out was definitely the melody of “Start,” the B-side that, in the past, Cheonghyeon had composed.

But there was a clear difference this time.

“Isn’t the song... better than before?”

So much better that my meager vocabulary frustrated me—I couldn’t describe it any other way.

Cheonghyeon’s song was good. I could stake my years of SPARK stan psd files on it.