Highly trained Spark members tended to stay alert anywhere cameras were present. Thanks to that, even after lying there for ages, I couldn’t fall asleep.

I also couldn’t go outside. If I opened the door, the freezing wind might wake the two sleeping soundly beside me. So I quietly stayed under the blanket, staring at the stains on the ceiling.

After about an hour, though, it started to feel like a waste of time. The adults had all fallen asleep the moment the sun went down, while I alone was still wide awake in this newly recovered young body of mine. Winter days were already short enough as it was! And because we were in the mountains, it got dark even earlier!

If Jeong Seongbin saw this in the broadcast later, he’d probably ask why I hadn’t slept, but this time I was genuinely innocent. It wasn’t that I lacked the will to sleep well. These people just went to bed absurdly early. If I slept now, I’d wake up at two in the morning....

In the hellish silence, I slowly slipped only my upper body out from under the blanket. Fortunately, neither senior moved an inch. I reached for my bag, pulled out my mini tablet, and lowered the brightness as much as possible. Then I grabbed my Bluetooth keyboard too and crawled back under the blanket.

If I stay under the blanket, the typing sounds should be muffled a little, right?

I had no intention of ruining my eyesight working in the dark with bloodshot eyes. I’d just check some of the piled-up Dotion alerts.

As I reviewed the changed items one by one, something unusual caught my eye. The budget assigned to the next music video had nearly doubled from the original proposal. The comments from members who had checked it before me filled the page.

Jeong Seongbin

[@Dam Gyehyeok Hello, Gyehyeok hyung! Is the budget listed for our music video correct by any chance?]

Dam Gyehyeok

[@Jeong Seongbin Yes, that’s correct! Additional funds were allocated, so I’ll add a remarks section in the attached file and write the details there~]

Lee Cheonghyeon

[Are we bathing in gold flakes in this music video?]

Kang Giyeon

[At least one of us probably has to.]

Looks like they were having fun.

An idol’s workload was brutal for their age. Kids who dreamed of debuting so they could sing and dance eventually learned, after becoming trainees and debuting, that there were plenty of things they’d never expected to do. Things somewhat related, like studying foreign languages or acting practice, and sometimes things that seemed completely unrelated altogether. It was similar to office workers who, after joining a company, ended up doing far more than what had been listed in the job posting.

Still, it wasn’t easy to tell idols, “The staff will handle all the support work, so just focus on performing!” At least in my opinion, idols whose work revolved around fans needed to understand what they were showing people, why they were showing it, and the process behind it.

Companies sold products for money, but idols and the entertainment industry ran on affection from fans. Just as you shouldn’t toy with people’s feelings, every task required a minimum level of sincerity.

Following that philosophy, Spark had become involved not only in visible group activities, but also in the unseen parts of planning, operations, monitoring, and data analysis. The degree differed from member to member, but there wasn’t a single aspect of team-related work that any Spark member knew “nothing” about.

To make people consistently pay attention to work they weren’t interested in, you needed a carrot. That carrot could be intimidation, or it could be reward. But based on my experience receiving both at Hanpyeong Industry, neither had worked particularly well on me.

What allowed people to keep moving tirelessly until the very end—

What made them look one more time, what let work seep so deeply into daily life that ideas surfaced naturally even in ordinary moments—

Park Juu

[@Jeong Seongbin Seongbin, should I include reference images for the gold-flake bath in the proposal too? (* @Lee Cheonghyeon, @Kang Giyeon)]

Kang Giyeon

[@Park Juㅇ Hyung, that’s not it!]

Kang Giyeon

[@Park Juu Hyung, no!!!]

...was fun.

All I had to do was create an atmosphere where people could work while feeling like they were playing a little. These overly responsible idiots weren’t going to start taking their jobs lightly just because they enjoyed themselves.

Look at the effect of teaching them how to use tags carefully so they wouldn’t trigger pointless notifications with casual chatter. Weren’t they now amusing themselves perfectly fine, tagging only when necessary?

Maybe he heard me stifling laughter, because someone tapped lightly on my shoulder. I pulled down the blanket and met eyes with Woo Yoonjae.

"...You’re not sleeping?"

"Ah, I’m going to sleep soon...!"

I lowered my voice as much as possible in case Gu Jahan woke up too. Woo Yoonjae’s shoulders were hunched just as tightly.

"You have to work this late at night?"

Woo Yoonjae alternated between looking at me and the bright tablet screen, sympathy written all over his face.

"It’s a hobby."

I answered seriously, because at this rate UA was going to get reported to the Ministry of Employment and Labor. Unfortunately, Woo Yoonjae didn’t seem particularly convinced.

"Idols really are busy...."

Woo Yoonjae gently comforted me. This would have been the perfect moment for that system skill—Sunshine Smile or Crabstick Smile or whatever it had been called—to activate. My bright smile apparently looked to Woo Yoonjae like “the hope and passion of a hardworking young man.”

Anyway, since I’d woken my senior, this was the end of overtime. I turned off the tablet and lay back down.

"Should we make steamed cabbage tomorrow?"

"The cabbages left in the field were all frozen, though?"

"They probably left them there to turn into fertilizer. We can use the ones in the fridge."

"Sounds good."

Maybe satisfied with both the breakfast menu and my reaction, Woo Yoonjae looked oddly proud.

We talked a little more after that. Maybe because it was nighttime, the topics got deep. Things like his life spent as an obscure supporting actor with little recognition for many years. Since he probably hadn’t had many chances to talk about it himself, I listened carefully to his calm words.

"How have things been for you lately, Iwol?"

"Me? Same as always. Though every day does keep getting more enjoyable."

Life was still harsh as hell. But if I laughed more often these days and found work fun, wasn’t that already a pretty good life? At least, that’s how I saw it.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask five things."

I wondered what question required such hesitation, but then—

"...Is searching for your older sister going well?"

...a topic that was just as difficult to bring up as his acting career appeared.

Considering the way the Exclusive Report team had behaved around me so far, it wasn’t hard to guess why he asked. They probably wanted to give me a platform to mention it anywhere possible. Fair enough. It wasn’t exactly the kind of story suited for a music program.

"There hasn’t really been any progress. Work’s been a little busy."

"Ah, right."

There was one thing I’d learned through the SYSTEM while drinking at the dorm.

At the time, when I tried to say my sister’s age out loud, my voice had cut off.

‘...Years old?’

‘Seems like it’s not certain. Around seven to nine years older... maybe. Yeah.’

My sister and I had an eight-year age gap. Her basic personal information hadn’t changed.

"She’s eight years older than me. Pretty big age gap, right?"

And thanks to recent events, this was information I could finally reveal.

My mother and father, who’d been accused of infant abandonment, had publicly disclosed exactly when they’d given birth to and abandoned my sister in order to claim the statute of limitations had expired. Even if they avoided direct punishment, the evidence they’d submitted themselves would become an obstacle in the domestic violence case involving me.

"If your sister finds you, she’ll probably adore her little brother."

"Are you close with your younger sibling, sunbae?"

"Not really...."

"What kind of answer is that?!"

We covered our mouths with our sleeves and laughed quietly.

"You’re tall, Iwol, so maybe your sister is tall too?"

"She might actually be closer to average."

"Really?"

"Just a feeling."

I brushed it off like a joke, but it was true. My sister had personally described herself as “average height.” Since average values changed depending on the era, I’d guessed the SYSTEM might not interfere if I phrased it this way. Turns out I was right.

"And I don’t think she looks much like me."

Even comments about appearance, which fell under subjective impressions, passed safely through the SYSTEM. Stupid system. Apparently it failed to recognize that my sister and I not resembling each other was obvious enough to be considered objective fact.

"It’d be nice if you at least had baby pictures."

"Seriously."

What else could I say that would be both specific enough to identify her and vague enough to skirt around things?

After some thought, I carefully began.

"...Apparently, my sister was born in autumn."

My sister loved her birthday. Even to me, her birthday suited her perfectly. Clear skies, the warmth of early autumn before the cold wind arrived. A season where traces of summer still lingered.

‘The roasted chestnuts in our neighborhood got more expensive.’

‘How much now?’

‘Ten thousand won for three bags.’

‘Everything goes up except my salary.’

A season filled with warm memories, even if they weren’t sentimental.

If this scene aired, and just like my mother or father had found me, my sister happened to see me somewhere and contacted me.

If the day ever came when we met again....

Then I hoped it would be autumn.

The final morning began with Gu Jahan interrogating us. He asked what the two of us had whispered about all night, so I told him to watch the broadcast and find out.

We washed our faces in water covered with a thin layer of ice, and all three of our faces turned as red as tomatoes. Since Gu Jahan kept whining that his bangs had frozen, I diligently dried and styled his hair with a blow dryer for him.

For breakfast, we ate steamed cabbage just as we’d decided the night before.

"Yoonjae, what did you put in the ssamjang?"

"Just a few seasonings from the kitchen."

Woo Yoonjae’s homemade ssamjang was... genuinely delicious. Delicious enough that even Gu Jahan sounded impressed. I even wrote down the recipe so I could make it for the Spark idiots next time we had a meat dinner. If Woo Yoonjae ever started a ssamjang company, I’d sign up for the online store and keep buying until I hit MVP status.

Woo Yoonjae and Gu Jahan carried the blankets we’d used out into the yard and beat the dust out of them. I figured even their fans probably hadn’t seen many pictures of the two of them wearing gloves and beating blankets together, so after asking the production staff for permission, I enthusiastically pulled out my phone and started taking pictures. Once I got the best shots, I swept the wooden floor and finished everything off neatly with a mop.

"You know what I just realized?"

"Yes?"

Gu Jahan suddenly spoke while we were wiping dust off high places older people couldn’t easily reach, like the tops of cabinets ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) and storage shelves, as a thank-you for letting us use the house as a filming location.

"Instead of filming, it feels more like we came here to hang out."

Well, that’s because you completely ignored the cameras....

Idol Kim Iwol was deeply worried that his swollen face might get caught on camera, thank you very much. I rubbed my face under the blanket about thirty times before getting up. If Gu Jahan ever lived a life spent twenty-four hours a day with Twinkle Super Hot Stars, he’d understand how I felt.

Aside from that....

"I had fun too."

...it had been an enjoyable shoot.

It’d be nice if Spark could come here together next time too.