The concert ended in overwhelming success.

Until the very moment the curtain fell, I stayed completely dazed. I’m pretty sure I showed the dumbest expression of my entire career since debut.

Fan events really, truly... leave people stunned.

I couldn’t even remember how we finished the performance. By the time we got off stage, all the members were crying. Choi Jeho and I each grabbed two younger members and spent the whole time pressing tissues against their faces.

Even while congratulations for our first concert poured in from every direction, those idiots cried like mineral water flowing from a mountain spring in Jirisan.

How did they even come up with the idea of splitting the slogans in half?

When did they prepare all that?

How did they manage to pull off an event that huge without us noticing?

The second I let my guard down, my head filled again with the audience glowing with lights and the waves of slogans.

I should’ve taken pictures.

I wonder if the video team captured it well...

“Hey.”

Someone tapped my back.

Choi Jeho handed me a towel.

“Thanks.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah... I’m just still kind of out of it.”

Burying my face in the steaming hot towel helped calm me down.

Still, giving us that kind of emotional ending was too much. I almost cried.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

“Seongbin, you look way less okay.”

The leader’s eyes looked swollen like goldfish eyes. All the effort he’d put into looking his absolute best over the past two days was about to go to waste.

“Did you scrub your eyes with an exfoliating towel? Why are they so swollen?”

“I think I rubbed them too much...”

“How are you supposed to do tomorrow’s concert like this? Guess we need to call Seongjun.”

“I’ll just stick my face in the freezer...”

Apparently handing the concert over to Jeong Seongjun was unacceptable, because Jeong Seongbin immediately started sniffling while frantically searching for an ice pack. His sense of responsibility was admirable.

Trying to calm them down didn’t help much anyway.

The moment their families entered the waiting room, their eyes filled with tears all over again.

I’d always known Spark had a lot of emotionally sensitive members, but I hadn’t realized it was this bad.

Still, there was one kind of guest capable of making even emotional wrecks like Spark instantly control their expressions.

“Lee Gangmyeong?”

Lee Cheonghyeon’s younger brother had come with their father.

The waiting room fell silent the moment the two cold-faced men walked in.

“Soohoon had work at the lab. He still wanted to come himself, though.”

“He told me. Didn’t expect Lee Gangmyeong to come instead.”

The one who broke the awkward silence was Choi Jeho’s mother.

After hearing Lee Cheonghyeon’s father was ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) coming, she’d apparently wanted to meet him in person and had stayed waiting all this time.

“I heard about it. They said you helped a lot with finding lawyers for the boys.”

“It was nothing.”

Thanks to that, Lee Gangmyeong ended up separated from his father and left standing alone.

Lee Cheonghyeon silently looked down at his younger brother.

“......”

“......”

They weren’t as different as my sister and I, but they definitely didn’t resemble each other much either.

Choi Jeho draped an arm over Lee Cheonghyeon’s crooked shoulder.

“Younger brother?”

“Yeah. This is Choi Jeho hyung. Twenty-two.”

Lee Gangmyeong’s gaze, which had already been tilted upward to look at Lee Cheonghyeon, climbed even higher.

Choi Jeho scanned the visitor with a bored expression.

Lee Gangmyeong flinched.

‘That’s the kind of face that says if you act up carelessly, you’ll end up in serious trouble.’

After dancing and singing nonstop for over three hours, his muscles were still pumped, and a sleeveless shirt did very little to hide them.

His wet hair made his already sharp eyes look even fiercer.

And lastly, someone like Choi Jeho—whose likes and dislikes were crystal clear...

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen...”

...never bothered hiding the fact that he found someone irritating as hell when he disliked them.

Lee Gangmyeong’s voice trailed off weakly.

“Ah.”

“......”

“You’re young.”

Which roughly translated to:

‘So this little punk’s been talking like that to his older brother.’

Lee Gangmyeong’s expression stiffened immediately.

Maybe because he was Lee Cheonghyeon’s brother, his comprehension skills were pretty good.

Lee Cheonghyeon took his thoroughly intimidated younger brother and went to find their father.

“You were taking Cheonghyeon’s side?”

“They say you’ve gotta pull weeds when they’re still sprouts.”

“Who taught you something that terrifying?”

“My sister.”

Choi Jeho answered solemnly, like a laborer who had just finished plowing an entire field.

Older sisters are never wrong. Their wording’s just a little rough sometimes.

“It probably would’ve been better if he got yelled at by me instead.”

“There’s an option worse than you?”

At my question, Choi Jeho pointed over his shoulder.

Park Juu stood there glaring hard enough to split stone.

Come to think of it, he’d heard about Lee Cheonghyeon running away from home at the same time I did.

He had rushed all the way from Daejeon to Seoul to comfort a crying Lee Cheonghyeon. There was no way he’d view Lee Gangmyeong kindly.

“Juu, relax your eyes. You’re getting wrinkles between your eyebrows.”

“If it’s for revenge, one wrinkle is a small price to pay...”

“What exactly are you planning to take revenge for...?”

Fortunately, Park Juu quickly returned to his usual gentle self.

Mostly because Lee Cheonghyeon didn’t seem especially upset by his family visiting.

“I’ll let them off this once...”

I had never seen veins bulging over someone’s fists look this terrifying before.

I proceeded to lecture Park Juu once more on the importance of peaceful conversation.

A little while later, Lee Cheonghyeon returned alone. He said he had gone to see his family off.

Twisting open a fresh water bottle, he spoke.

“Lee Gangmyeong just left without saying anything.”

“Really?”

“I was ready to return ten insults for every one thing he said, but he stayed quiet the whole time. Guess Jeho hyung scared him.”

“Well, his face is scary.”

Lee Cheonghyeon burst out laughing at that.

After chugging half the bottle in one go, he wiped his mouth.

“There aren’t many people who can keep their head held high after getting scolded by both Lee Soohoon and Choi Jeho.”

Apparently even his older brother had started disciplining the youngest sibling.

I quietly watched him.

Lee Cheonghyeon smiled with an expression that looked genuinely relieved.

“When I become an adult, I’ll finally be free in a lot of ways. Right?”

Of course.

By then, the only thing capable of controlling Lee Cheonghyeon would be deadlines.

As encouragement, I patted him on the back.

Even that tiny gesture made him absurdly happy.

If the first day was emotional because it was our first concert, then the second day hit hard because it was the last.

If there had been a third day, we probably would’ve cried because it was the third day.

How many days in life leave behind this much of a mark?

The undeniable MVP of the second day was Kang Giyeon.

The guy didn’t just bounce around the stage—he practically flew.

Once he overcame his fear of trying something new, Kang Giyeon became unmatched.

Even the comments he had memorized the night before were delivered perfectly without missing a single word.

During the closing speeches, he even mentioned the slogan event.

I saw all those idiots desperately trying not to cry.

The moment we came off stage, praise poured in endlessly.

We even hugged the managers.

Everyone should’ve been exhausted, but maybe because the endorphins were still pumping, we even went out for a staff dinner afterward.

The members, finally eating a proper meal for the first time in months, passed out the instant the van started moving.

Choi Jeho and I each dragged two younger members into the dorms, pushing them along by the back.

Everyone collapsed into bed.

Every light in the dorm went out.

But I alone couldn’t fall asleep.

There was still one final task left.

 [SYSTEM] Confirmation complete: “Eul” has achieved the KPI “Hold a Concert.”

▷ Reward: Extra Data

 The KPI completion notification had appeared.

For once, the approval came quickly.

And then the next KPI appeared.

 [SYSTEM] “Eul”’s KPI has been designated as “Win a Grand Prize.”

 Debuting, winning first place on music shows, gathering fans, holding a concert—those had all depended on individual ability.

But a Grand Prize was different.

Nobody could predict how judging criteria would change, or which artist would dominate the charts that year.

Variables beyond my control.

The rapidly rising Synchronization rate.

The shortening contract period.

And on top of that, combining the reward marked “extra” with the previous data...

The answer became painfully obvious.

‘This is the final KPI.’

Meaning the System had already provided all the data it considered necessary.

Both ears pounded like my heart had moved into my skull.

I slowly steadied my breathing.

Unless someone reached a truly absurd level of fame, popularity alone didn’t guarantee a Grand Prize.

Some idols were unusually blessed when it came to awards.

Others weren’t.

The Spark of the past had been famous, but not enough to become a cultural phenomenon.

And they had never been particularly lucky with awards.

Before disbanding, Spark had never once won a Grand Prize.

‘They want Spark to win their first Grand Prize with me there.’

Even making Spark re-achieve the accomplishments they’d already reached in the previous timeline hadn’t been easy.

Still, it had been enough to somewhat clear away my guilt.

I rationalized it by telling myself they were always going to reach first place anyway—I had merely accelerated the timing.

But standing before a staircase Spark had never once climbed before made it impossible to think so conveniently.

They were supposed to win that among themselves.

Out of everything, a Grand Prize of all things.

No matter how I felt, I still had to respect the path they originally walked.

And yet, since it had been designated as “Eul”’s KPI, I couldn’t use tricks to make the five of them receive the award alone.

My chest tightened painfully.

With a complicated expression, I opened the memory data.

A darkness blacker than the room itself swallowed my vision.

I saw an ordinary intersection.

Ordinary, at least until that day happened.

People and cars moved in orderly streams according to the traffic lights.

The route I used to walk to work every morning without a second thought.

A crosswalk where I only knew the timing of the green lights, never caring where the CCTV cameras were mounted.

It looked familiar.

The hazy scenery sharpened into focus.

The words on banners.

Even the names printed in the corners of shop signs became perfectly clear.

How had I forgotten this place?

Just remembering it made my eyes burn.

My sister’s figure crossing through the crowd toward me looked so vivid.

It felt like I might collapse just from standing here.

Like if I quietly waited long enough, the face I missed would eventually walk toward me again.

The traffic light turned red.

Dozens of people brushed past me.

The sun set, night came, and morning arrived again.

Snow fell, then fresh leaves sprouted on the trees.

After the pouring rain stopped, dead leaves followed.

The old shopping complex disappeared, replaced by a mixed-use apartment building.

Everything changed.

And I alone remained standing there exactly the same.

Unable to leave.

Waiting until the longing dulled.

Time continued to pass.

But I couldn’t let my sister go.

Endlessly.

Continuously.

Even now.