Park Juu made a quick recovery under an avalanche of heartfelt attention from the members.

Of course my nursing doesn’t get left out. Thanks to the devoted care I poured in, Park Juu’s complexion turned downright radiant.

After that, I took advantage of a weekend evening to kindly drill everyone on what to do in emergencies.

“If you notice anything off, report to Jeong Seongbin immediately and go to the hospital during the day. Got it?”

Out of consideration, I sat the patient, Park Juu, on the sofa for the special lecture. Everyone else got floor seating.

Right then, Lee Cheonghyeon raised his hand with a serious face and asked,

“Hyung, should we be taking notes?”

“Yeah. It’ll be on the test.”

With that excellent class attitude, I dismissed Lee Cheonghyeon early to go compose.

Once one guy got released, the rest started listening hard from then on.

Having had the importance of health management and condition maintenance drilled into them, the kids evolved into machine-like saints who ate and slept regularly and never forgot to work out. A desirable change.

The lyrics for the debut song were completed smoothly.

It was exactly the vibe I wanted. The members and the company didn’t react badly either.

Seeing everything fall into place like this, I figured something would blow up soon—but even the system stayed quiet.

Since turning back the clock, this was the first time the days had been this peaceful. How many tears of blood had I shed dreaming of being a high-teen star, which had nothing to do with my fate.

“Hyung, what are you thinking about?”

“That even mold wouldn’t grow in a rat hole.”

Basking in the warm light of all creation, I refocused on the lyric sheet.

That’s because Cheonghyeon and I had been tasked, respectively as composer and producing member, with first-pass considerations for part distribution.

“I’ve thought a bit about which member I’d like on this section, but nothing really sticks.”

“It’s your first time doing this; of course it’s hard to get a feel. For now just get your thoughts in order.”

“Can we really decide this by ourselves?”

“The company will review it once or twice too.”

At that, Cheonghyeon pulled deep wrinkles into his brow and started concentrating.

“First, un-knit that brow. You’ll get lines.”

“Oh, come on.”

Oh, come on? Oh, come on?

Here I am meticulously preventing vertical lines from forming between his eyebrows, and he gives me “oh, come on?”

I almost flipped the lyric sheet I was holding and drew a face on it to explain the botox costs by region.

If I did that, he’d latch onto the wrong thing again and ask, “Hyung, with that talent why didn’t you go into plastic surgery instead of being an idol?”

Seeing the edges of the lyric sheet crumple in my hands, Cheonghyeon dutifully relaxed his brow.

Would’ve been nice if he’d done that from the start. These kids always make you say everything twice.

“I think... dividing it like this would be the safest.”

Then I marked on the lyric sheet the parts each member had sung nine years ago.

If you run streaming mass-plays for years, you can split album-track parts with your eyes closed.

Anyway, for high notes, at this stage only Park Juu and Jeong Seongbin can handle them.

I handed the blank rap section—which had to be newly written—wholesale to Lee Cheonghyeon, and it didn’t take that long to carve up the remaining lyrics into pieces.

Next to me, Cheonghyeon watched the Kim Iwol Lyric Disassembly Show with great interest.

Then he admired the lyric sheet, now divided up by highlighters in every color.

“Oh, I can roughly imagine how it’ll feel!”

“Right?”

I gave him a brazen smile.

But as he stared holes in the lyric sheet, Cheonghyeon raised an objection.

“But, hyung.”

“What?”

“There isn’t a single part for you.”

Ah, hell. I didn’t think of that.

I’d been so focused on perfectly restoring the parts that I completely forgot the existence of sub-vocalist Kim Iwol.

“Are you planning to run away the day before debut or something?”

No. I’m planning to run away after debut. I have to debut for various reasons.

But since Cheonghyeon had no idea how desperate I was to debut, his eyes were already full of suspicion.

I tried to patch up the mess I’d made.

“It’s not that. I just forgot.”

“That’s not something you ‘just forget.’ How do you not reserve even one line for yourself?”

“Your five voices blend so well I, uh...”

“You’re not calling that an excuse, are you?”

He furrowed his brow again. Un-furrow it, I said—he’s got selective hearing.

“It’s true. More importantly, we’re short on time, so let’s focus.”

We didn’t have time to bicker about whether I did or didn’t have a part.

He looked dissatisfied, but he didn’t press further.

“What fans care about are the opening, the chorus, and the high notes, right?”

Any position that comes with modifiers like “opening fairy” or “high-note specialist” had to be assigned to the members.

And beyond the chorus, every song has that “killing part” everyone talks about—which I had to avoid.

In the end, I needed to find parts within the song that it truly wouldn’t matter who did.

Thanks to Cheonghyeon’s brilliant polish, every melody was beautiful and good, but I still managed to find the section with the safest, most middle-of-the-road melody in the whole thing.

Watching me highlight two hard-won lines, Cheonghyeon asked,

“Don’t tell me that’s your part?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Isn’t it too little? Look at how much the others have.”

“This isn’t the final version anyway. And our stats are different; there’s no helping it.”

Knife-clean part distribution? Sure, that’d be nice.

Because in idol-land you earn parts with ability, people do measure seconds of screen time and compare them.

In a market like this, nothing’s better than every member sharing equal time.

But that only applies “when everyone has the skill.”

Try standing there clutching a mic, fighting down waves of dizziness, while the others pull off live vocals flawlessly while dancing. There’s nothing uglier.

And it’s not like anyone would feel slighted about the amount I get.

So two lines were plenty for me.

Of all things, one of those lines had been originally assigned to Choi Jeho—the very one adored by Production Chief Nam’s daughter—but I decided to chalk that much up as payback for my suffering as a salaryman.

Miss, these lines are mine now.

However, the perfect plan—to use a clean fourteen seconds and then return them post-debut—went up in smoke after just a few days.

“Iwol. About the parts, can you talk with Cheonghyeon and rework them?”

“Huh?”

My immaculate distribution got shot down at the Planning Team level.

I couldn’t fathom why. UA’s operating policy hasn’t changed in nine years.

“Haven’t events at the label been unfolding more or less like I remember?”

Copying the old parts as-is should’ve been closest to the “part_distribution_final” UA would’ve put out.

That’s why I forced the opening onto Jeong Seongbin, who said it felt burdensome, telling him, “Trust me just once.”

“Your part is too small. Does Cheonghyeon agree?”

“No, he pointed out the same thing.”

“Still, we need some balance. It’s best if the six of you have similar amounts. Even if it can’t be exactly equal, it has to be roughly even.”

No, it doesn’t. Their singing is most perfect with five.

The general public agreed.

There was a team on a survival show that covered Spark’s song and got roasted by both judges and commenters, to every possible degree.

I applaud your courage; I give you 3 points

└ Is that out of 5?

└ Out of 100

Spark’s songs are honestly weird... when the members sing it looks easy, but go to karaoke and your throat explodes

└ lol you pick it with swagger and then cancel halfway through verse one

It’s wild that they sing this well and still haven’t blown up

They’re not ugly and they’re not short

At this point they’re “talent-ridden”

└ They have as many scandals a year as they have members

└ Harsher than seasonal change—shows up one day, wrings out your tears and snot, then leaves alone

I wish trainees would cool it with Spark covers on survival shows...

The skill gap shows too clearly and it just makes people recoil

Better to pick safe songs that match their level

└ People expect way too f***ing much from trainees

Some posts straddled the line between praising Spark and backhanded shade.

Instead of giving me a hologram scheduler, the system should’ve given me Spark’s five-member audio.

Then I could have jammed the track into the Planning Team’s ears and persuaded them.

My head throbbed. But as a peon among peons, I had no choice.

“Understood. I’ll draft a new version.”

I’m a prodigy of repetitive labor, the kind who jumps when told.

In the end I bowed to Cheonghyeon, saying I was sorry, and re-divided the lyrics. I had no face left.

After a 100-minute debate between me and Cheonghyeon, an emergency meeting in the Planning Team, and even a Spark TF Team meeting, the parts were safely finalized.

From the self-content behind-the-scenes I’d watched, I thought they just scribbled names with a ballpoint pen next to lines on an A4 and decided in ten minutes. Nothing is ever easy.

With parts locked and choreography finished—the one that Choi Jeho and Kang Giyeon devised—the trainees finally moved into full-on live practice.

Meaning every practice session combined singing and dancing.

As someone who can only perform the one thing I’ve been taught, doing live vocals, dancing, and keeping my gaze fixed all at once was harder than organizing web-sell sheets at four in the morning.

Trying to summit two mountains at once made my head feel like it would explode.

Whenever that happened, I thought of Hanpyeong Industries.

“Assistant Manager Kim, doing the same thing over and over is dull, right? The CEO wants us to set up some in-house study group—why don’t you take point and think something up. Ah, just get me the report before I leave work.”

“Oh, Assistant Manager Kim. The CEO’s wardrobe won’t open—could you run over and take a look?”

That’s the sort of thing that makes you practice.

If my choices are going back to Hanpyeong to build a book club and fix someone’s wardrobe door, or meeting my end in the practice room, I’ll die in the practice room.

Maybe because I ground my soles down in that room, I got to the point I could dance right after waking up, and even the system acknowledged my choreography retention.

 [SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.

▷ Reward: EXP (5)

▷ Accumulated EXP: 95

▷ Accumulated Points: 0

 And that wasn’t all.

We finally secured about ten episodes’ worth of the problematic self-content, which meant we could properly enter video editing.

Concepts, captions, and per-member effects had already been organized and handed off to the Planning Team.

This time too, I leaned hard on webnovel keywords. If I could’ve read beyond the free preview, I’d have had even more ideas. Once I get paid, I should at least drop ten thousand won on it.

With the content pipeline nicely stocked—

 [SYSTEM] ‘Task’ has been completed.

▷ Reward: EXP (5)

▷ Accumulated EXP: 100

▷ Accumulated Points: 1

 For the first time in what felt like a million years, I managed to earn a point. My chest swelled.

Thinking of the recording sessions coming up, I invested the point into vocal proficiency.

 Performance Evaluation (100)

— Vocal Proficiency: 7(▲)/20

— Dance Proficiency: 6/20

— Self PR: 12/20

— Attendance Management: 18/20

— Organizational Adaptability: 10/20

Accumulated EXP: 0%

 Since manual investment isn’t possible past 7, the last thing I can raise with EXP will be one more point of dance proficiency.

“Still, getting this far is something.”

Without the system’s help, forget debut—I’d already be standing by the door at Hanpyeong, picking up the cigarette butts Chief Nam dropped.

The path had been full of fire, but at least I wasn’t roasted through yet.

But peace at work and in society never [N O V E L I G H T] lasts long.

With the autumn wind, a chill that felt like a forewarning of a cold snap for UA began to stir.