"Someone asked, ‘Who is the most dependable member and who is the member you have to look out for the most?’"

"They’re all a bit worrying—they’re like kids dropped alone on a deserted island—but I do rely on Jeong Seongbin quite a bit mentally. Because I’m also a troublemaker who needs the leader’s guidance. I end up taking care of Park Juu and Kang Giyeon about equally. I think it’s because they’re like babies!"

"A moment I was grateful to the members......."

"I’ve been grateful to them from our trainee days until now. They were really good to me, who was the only one to join late, they did their best to help me so we could debut together, and even now, they treat my affairs as more important than their own. That’s why I always want to be of at least a little help to the members."

"There were also questions about how I act when I feel lethargic and if I could comfort the office worker Sparklers."

"I tend to just lie down and think, ‘I have to try to do well again.’ I need to motivate myself to find the strength to get up.

But if the members or Sparklers are so tired or lethargic that they need comfort, I would tell them to rest enough until they feel energized. Because we live in a society where there aren’t many opportunities to hear that it’s okay to take a break. I’d like to be a comfort to you, at least."

"Dieting is so hard. Say something harsh to get me to my senses. ...Someone said."

"If you don’t have a health issue that requires you to lose weight, I don’t want to recommend dieting. There is such a thing as a standard weight, but everyone has a different basal metabolic rate, and just as there are individual differences, so the weight at which each person can live healthily is different.

Nevertheless, if you have to lose weight inevitably due to the nature of your job, like an idol or a model, or if you are persevering through a diet for your health! Rather than saying something harsh, I want to tell you that you are going through a lot, and that your efforts to make a change are amazing.Changing a long standing lifestyle takes so much time and effort. I hope you can endure that long stretch with encouragement rather than a whip."

"And actually, there was one more ‘vs.’ question, but I set this one aside because I wanted to answer it separately. The question is ‘The idol I loved the most’ vs. ‘The idol I loved last’!"

"I like seeing the fans happy when they look at us, and I work with that as my driving force, so I will choose ‘The idol I loved the most.’"

"In a similar vein, you asked if there’s anything I want to hear from Sparklers."

"Whatever you say, I believe you are saying it because you love us the most, so I’m happy to hear anything. I mean it."

"What genre we want to challenge in the future is a topic we often talk about among ourselves."

"The most recent one we discussed was ballads. It’ll definitely be a challenge, so I can’t promise anything, but we really want to show you one someday!"

"There’s also the question, ‘What is Spark to Iwol?’"

"They are my everything right now. I think that’s the most accurate way to put it."

"There were also a lot of questions worrying about my happiness. A lot of questions came in asking how I feel when I’m happy and if I’m hurt anywhere."

"You asked me to promise to be healthy and happy together forever, so let’s make that promise on this occasion! Don’t get sick, and please be happy. And thank you for saying that you’re happy because of me."

"This is the last question of this long broadcast. What do you want to say to Sparklers?"

"I said this just a moment ago, but I hope you are always happy. We will only show you our best sides, so I hope you just enjoy a comfortable and exciting Sparkler life. I love you."

"This has been Iwol’s ‘Ask Me Anything’!"

"To everyone who stayed with me until this late hour, thank you so much. I’ll send a Bubble Pop tomorrow, so don’t wait up and go to sleep right after the live ends! Sweet dreams!"

When I returned to the dorm after the live broadcast, everyone was asleep. And for good reason; the date had already changed.

"I didn’t even answer all of them."

Even while I was washing up, the unanswered questions lingered in my mind. Before I even dried my hair, my feet carried me to the sofa, along with the list of questions I had printed out first.

"Did you organize all these questions in webcel, group the similar ones, and then make a list?"

Laughter escaped me at the first question I saw.

Of course. I even categorized them into major and minor groups.

There were also questions I could have fully answered as a corporate employee but couldn’t mention as an idol. Things like whether the agency had a labor union, how I knew so much about social life, etc.

Even if UA didn’t have a union, wasn’t there a possibility that an integrated entertainment industry union might be formed? If it did, I’d have to join. As for social life... I learned it through blood, sweat, and tears, everyone.

I didn’t mention the question about how many hours a day I work because I was worried it would needlessly concern the viewers. There was also a question asking me to speak up if I wasn’t happy with the company... I held back, worried that the fans would emboider the main gate of UA with light sticks. And besides, I only worked for 2 hours a day at most these days.

There was also a question asking me to choose between a room where I had to just watch as the members do things that go against the virtues of an idol, and a room where I had to watch the staff work without being able to intervene. No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like it would become a high level diss on UA, so I avoided answering.

But if I had to choose one, I would choose the room watching the staff. I could tolerate the company doing strange things, but I couldn’t stand by and watch an idol forget their duties.

I also couldn’t answer questions related to the members’ personal lives on the broadcast. Things like the age gap with their siblings or questions about their childhood.

"Back then, too many of them came from complicated family situations, so it was awkward to ask them about it."

I did know the age gaps, though. I remembered that Ms. Jeyoung was six years older than us, and Ms. Miho was four years younger. I wasn’t sure about Lee Cheonghyeon’s older brother, but he had said his younger brother was two years younger. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

It was also a shame that I had to filter out all the questions about friendships because I was on edge about the ‘Allover’ issue. If it weren’t for those drug addicts, I wouldn’t have had to skip the answers!

Still, I rationalized that mentioning Verion as the ‘celebrity colleague I feel closest to besides Spark’ might have bothered Verion, so it was for the best.

Someone also asked if I’d ever had dinner with Hellas Yur. I am sorry, I haven’t. Allover was close with Parte, and Hellas Yur was at Parte’s agency... I would not dine with them until they were all indicted...

I wanted to answer questions about what CFs I want to shoot or what brands would suit me, but I didn’t because it might look like I was encouraging fans to buy things. Should I have talked about the CFs? Come to think of it, saying I want to shoot a public service announcement wouldn’t have led to inciting the fans.

Maybe I could have expressed it more indirectly if I had talked about the product category instead of the brand. Choi Jeho for suits, Jeong Seongbin for watches, Park Juu for perfume, Lee Cheonghyeon for jewelry, Kang Giyeon for shoes, like that. Why do good ideas always come up later?

"Do you have a nickname from your school days that others called you?"

I couldn’t answer this because I didn’t know if the nicknames from my ‘Kim Hyoil’ days would apply or not. And I didn’t have many nicknames to begin with. My classmates had a habit of including me as an extra player, and the only nicknames they gave me were ‘Altari’ (young radish kimchi), which they gave me because I was tall for an extra, ‘Soccer Vending Machine,’ and ‘Snowman.’

Someone also asked about essential certifications for employment. It was information that would be strange for the current Kim Iwol to know, so I couldn’t cover it on the live broadcast. But just having a driver’s license and a computer literacy certificate really widened the range of jobs you could apply for.

And I didn’t know where I slipped this up...

"Can’t you just do your specialty, the boomer voice impression, just once?"

...a question like this came in. Where on earth did I talk about this? Kim Iwol, are you not living with your head on straight?

It was not that I couldn’t. Honestly, Assistant Manager Kim, this is the problem. You never do anything properly. How am I supposed to trust you with work if you keep this up? How are you going to fix this mess? You’re making me age prematurely, Assistant Manager Kim.

There were also a lot of health related questions. I didn’t answer them because I was worried that mentioning something that had gotten better would needlessly bring back concerns, but maybe I should at least have said I was doing perfectly fine now.

Other than that, there were questions that anyone might have heard, but for some reason, the weight of them felt different, so I couldn’t touch them.

"If you could go back to the past and get close to one member, who would it be?"

"Compared to your debut, has there been a change in your feelings now?"

"If you were reborn, how would you want to live?"

"If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you want to do?"

If I went back to the past, I probably would have to meet Jeong Seongbin. So that he wouldn’t get any more involved with Jang Junhoo than necessary.

My feelings were similar now as they were at the time of my debut. I still worked while thinking of noona, and I felt a petty sense of guilt because my temperature was different from the others. Maybe it was because I had been living too much like an idol; because I hadn’t lost my original intention, I hadn’t moved forward a single step.

Even if I were reborn, I didn’t have the confidence to live like this again. I hope this life, or this regression, is the last.

If the Earth were to end tomorrow, I would go out to the nearest intersection and stand there endlessly. Because that was the best I could do.

I slowly traced my finger over the questions that particularly caught my eye.

"If you could say goodbye to only [N O V E L I G H T] one member before dying, who would it be?"

Right. I should think about this too, just in case. Since I had learned that my heart had an expiration date.

But the answer was already set. In the first place, I couldn’t give such a burden to kids younger than me.

To think that I might have to say my final goodbye to the person I resented to death—what an irony.

"If you were born again, would you still want to do Spark with the current members?"

In front of the kind question hoping for Spark to be together, I couldn’t say anything. So I kept making excuses in my head.

If noona lives well.

If the members still accept me then.

If people still enjoy my activities.

If I get the chance, even without a KPI.

The night deepened. Using the affection that had come to me as a blanket, I placed the questionnaire on my chest and fell asleep right there on the sofa.