Toward the end of the year, there’s a kind of merchandise idols release like an annual ritual. A bundled set of a calendar, photo cards, a diary, posters—Season’s Greetings, or “SG” for short.

And today, Spark’s Season’s Greetings info is scheduled to go up. For the past hour, I’ve been sitting with my hands clasped, praying there aren’t any issues I failed to catch.

As the weather turned cold, the Season’s Greetings UA had released long ago kept resurfacing in my mind. It was a distant memory now, but the shock from back then still hadn’t faded.

≫ Spark Season’s Greetings Contents Summary

Wall calendar

One set of photocards

Keyring with the group name

Undated diary

End

└ This is f***ing trash

└ Where do I even start with this......

└ What company gives just 5 photocards in an SG setㅋㅋㅋ Others give 20, 30 and even include binders for themㅋㅋ

└ An undated diaryㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Planning to reuse leftover stock next year?

└ Honestly, very likely. The cover’s plastic... they’ll probably just swap out the pages

└ Scrap the wall calendar and make it a desk one. Our living room wall is already taken by an insurance company calendar

└└ Size, font, fast delivery—insurance calendars win in all three......

≫ Who doesn’t know this company’s whole thing is “cost efficiency”?

Just don’t make it obvious 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Who wants to feel like a sucker when they spend money?

If the agency itself is basically announcing our fandom are pushovers, what are we supposed to do

└ Then just don’t buy it? This calls for a boycott

└ Normal companies lower prices or redo the contents if sales drop. UA doesn’t do that—they cut the next investment budget even more...... and this is the result

└ Are other artists’ SGs this bad too?? This is the worst I’ve ever seen

└ Others are at least a bit better...... Not sure if they think idol fans are pushovers or just allocate budgets by seniority, but none of last year’s SGs from this agency were this bad

└ Not every artist under them even gets an SGㅠ Maybe they’re patting themselves on the back just for giving one since Spark are idols!

≫ If you don’t want to work, just quit

Bought an SG just to start the new year feeling like crap

└ How hard is it to understand we want a desk calendar or daily calendar????

└ Then why even do a survey in the first place?

└ Seriously......

That was why this year, every single staff member on the dedicated team had worked themselves to the bone. Weekly field reports piled up from those who visited factories to check prototypes and production status.

An enormous amount of effort had gone into the photos as well. Spark had spent a full two years preparing this Season’s Greetings. Ever since their rookie debut year, there had been countless arguments with the company over this. With that much data already gathered, they could have released one last year—how much sweat had been spilled stopping them from pushing out merchandise too early?

‘We already spent a ton on the double title track. Extra expenses? We were lucky both didn’t come out half-baked.’

This year, thankfully, things were different. The concert had been planned from the beginning of the year, so its budget had already been set aside early. The final album had also been released digitally, significantly reducing production costs. They now had enough funds to upgrade the contents at least twice over.

I understood the company’s need to turn a profit. But viewing fans as mere consumers was something that had to be avoided. The affection fans had for idols went far beyond that of loyal customers.

Love for an artist often stepped outside the bounds of ordinary social logic. Things people would call needless hardship, fans endured willingly. More than that, they even tended not to raise their voices much, even when treated unfairly.

≫ If this isn’t defective, what is;;;

I requested an exchange for a defective item and this is what they sent me

Should I report them to the consumer agency...... this is getting more annoying by the day

└ Filing complaints about goods doesn’t really helpㅠㅠㅠ Guess fans aren’t considered consumers

└ I paid money for this, and I have to beg them to replace it???? What even;;;;;

≫ Why is it my responsibility that my ticket got lost during shipping?

It’s not like it’s cheap—if something worth over 100,000 won disappears before it even reaches me, shouldn’t they resend it? It should all be registered in the system—how hard is it to check and note an exception?

How incompetent do you have to be that once it’s issued, there’s nothing you can do??

└ It got lost in delivery and they won’t reissue it?

└ Yeah. Even after I submitted documents proving it was the courier’s faultㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ It must’ve been hard enough to prove fault, and that still didn’t fix it......?

└ Would’ve been less unfair if I’d at least gotten to hold the ticketㅋㅋㅋ I’m gonna cry

≫ Don’t they even inspect the goods?

The defect rate is insane, and the ink smears the moment you write on the memo pad—what kind of joke is that

└ The memo pad can’t even function as a memo pad~ㅋㅋ큐ㅠㅠㅠ

└ These bastards probably heard fangirls hoard goods as collectibles and decided to make them display-only on purpose

Fans who bought low-quality goods. Fans who purchased albums even when they weren’t satisfied. These actions never ended as something they simply “did”—they were always something they “did for them.”

There was only one reason they would do something they didn’t have to.

Because they loved their idol.

I knew, at least a little, just how large that love could be. You saw it in how someone could gain new fans just for editing photos of the same idol, or how people would freely give away handmade items they’d poured effort into. When you saw people preparing individually packed snacks days in advance just to meet others with similar interests, even deliberately bringing merchandise of that person’s favorite member.

≫ I find fansite masters the most fascinating

Even with staff checking every bag and tons of security yelling at them at no-photo venues, they don’t back down + they can afford insanely expensive cameras...... amazing

└ Some people even go into debt for cameras, but just owning one doesn’t make you a fansite master...... following schedules, shooting, editing, holding exhibitions—you can’t do any of that without real affection

≫ “Donations in the Name of Stars” — Meaningful Fandom Activities Gain Attention

Fans pooling their strength to donate in the name of their favorite stars is no longer rare. Many choose “donation” as a way to celebrate occasions such as birthdays or fan club anniversaries. This practice...... [Want to read more? Click the ad]

Anyone who had observed idol fans knew what people could do simply because they liked someone. And that it wasn’t just one or two—but countless.

The only thing that made all of this possible was love. A kind of love that formed naturally one day and became impossible to separate from.

Nam Jua, who had received unconditional love from her family all her life, given unconditional love to Spark, and shared an unending love with fellow Sparklers, believed that everyone held that kind of affection in their hearts.

If her father was a good person, then he would be the same outside. If someone was a fan, then they must genuinely feel happiness doing these things. They must be happy watching Spark.

Someone once told her that such thinking clouded her judgment. They asked how liking the same idol could possibly excuse unreasonable justifications.

But through living vicariously as a fan, she learned that there were people who poured out that much love without reason or reward.

Once you saw it up close, you couldn’t help but understand. Some people waited for hours in the cold night just for a chance—one they might not even get—to see the artists after work. Others handed out hot packs to the people standing beside them on that same street.

Once you realized that these things happened frequently, as if they were only natural, there was no going back to a time before you understood the depth of that love.

Whether I understood it or not didn’t matter. They existed regardless of my understanding.

Strangely enough, that immense love had spilled over even onto me, someone who had only been watching from outside the field. So I simply thought I should give something back.

‘Not just for special events, but in everything—we want to put in the effort as a baseline. No matter what we do, we can never fully repay what we’ve received.’

Because I knew how difficult it was to repay, I worked even harder. Season’s Greetings was the result of that effort—and, shamelessly, a kind of request that they would continue to love Spark next year as well.

Whether all that effort would carry meaning would be decided by the fans.

Won Chaehui still hadn’t bought a calendar for next year. She planned to look over Spark’s SG info once it dropped before deciding. She had fallen deeper into Spark than expected, so she’d probably end up buying it—but she held on to a thin thread of rationality and waited.

‘What kind of contents will they reveal.’

The worst SG she had ever seen was an “ugly SG.” They debuted idols with such good-looking faces, only to produce merchandise with absolutely no aesthetic sense—and then had the nerve to sell it. It was the kind of thing that reinforced her prejudice that entertainment companies were nothing but salary thieves who saw fans as easy marks.

‘If you’re too lazy to work, then just give {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} up making money.’

You want to make money that badly but don’t want to put in the effort? Then get lost! Do you think fans’ money just pours out like tap water?

Whenever it was time to spend money, her anger spiked uncontrollably. Maybe it was because she knew that if it was only moderately bad, she’d still end up trembling as she paid for it anyway.

Speak of the devil. The SG info went up at lunchtime that day. The preview image was overall a pale beige tone—not especially trendy, but it gave the impression it would at least meet a basic standard.

Or rather, she hoped it would.

[Hwaro High School Hobby Discovery Club Activity Commemorative Goods]

A suspicious concept title appeared—similar to their debut album, yet slightly different in direction.