[SYSTEM] A directive from “Person in Charge” has arrived.

▶ Assistant Manager Kim, you can land this project, right? I trust you, Assistant Manager Kim, so I won’t look over your shoulder, okay?

[SYSTEM] A “New Task” has been assigned.

▷ Defend the concept

▷ Reward: EXP (20)

The system was on my side, too.

Yoo Hansu’s idea—what a trash heap.

As someone who never leaves EXP on the table, my resolve to protect my own proposal only got stronger.

“Assistant Manager Kim, are you out of your mind? Why would you casually say you want to axe the year-end party? If you’re just going to let the young people do whatever they want, what’s the point of coming to work?”

“Assistant Manager Kim is great at everything, but the problem is he’s cold. If you cut things clean every time for not being realistic, who’s going to feel like bringing ideas anymore?”

“Then how about you do that, Assistant Manager Kim? You like using shortcuts, don’t you? No?”

Back then, sticking it to a superior had never ended well.

Now I had nowhere to retreat. Even if it meant dying or blacking out, I had to push back.

“Then... where do I start the work.”

For the first time since graduating high school, it was time to actually use my head.

There was no way Yoo Hansu’s new proposal would sail through.

Naturally. It lacked grounds and it wasn’t fresh.

On top of that, the company no doubt expected a certain level of performance from him; an item that fell far short wasn’t going to pass.

But telling a man who’d been a producer for over ten years to go fix up a plan drafted by a trainee—anyone would find that a blow to the pride.

Maybe that’s why Yoo Hansu switched tack to picking my proposal apart and nitpicking.

“Iwol, have you considered that your references here are way too thin? Can you share the supporting sources with me?”

“How does this part connect like that? Flesh it out more. Make it readable enough to understand just by reading.”

...That kind of thing.

I was busy enough training I could die, and he was summoning me three times a day; it grated on me like crazy.

If this were still the Hanpyeong Industries days, I’d have said, well, I’m drawing a paycheck, and prettied up a sheet and handed it in.

But Yoo Hansu himself was adamant—“You’re still immature and might have drawn the wrong conclusions, so I’ll look at the raw data and give feedback”—so I handed over a web sheet with 3,800 rows exactly as is. Go on, crunch stats till your eyes fall out.

Still, there were limits to shooing Yoo Hansu away with small tactics for a moment.

I needed a secret weapon—something that would let me protect this small, precious concept no matter what nonsense he spewed.

Thanks to that, I ended up living like a shut-in until five in the morning, monitoring the comments on that shitty Jang Junhu music video and compiling the rise and fall of youth-concept idols through the ages.

“Hyung, you’re not sleeping?”

“I’ll sleep later.”

“The sun’s coming up...”

And why is the sunrise a problem. Spark is about to blow up the moment we debut in this field.

I never thought I’d be praying this hard for Spark’s fortune. Life is so fleeting.

Sometimes Choi Jeho would speak to me with a serious face.

“Your dark circles are no joke.”

“Got it. I’ll find a clinic that’s good at fat redistribution.”

“Or you could just sleep.”

Even if I did, it’s obvious I’d just have a nightmare of Yoo Hansu emailing, “Can you send me a summary of last month’s TOP 100 chart lyrics themes?” Why bother.

At times like that I feel grateful I’m the type who needs less sleep. I can function on less than other people.

It’s a bit of a waste that I dumped that precious capacity into Hanpyeong Industries, though.

‘...Still, maybe I should manage the dark circles?’

My typing hands drifted under my eyes without me noticing.

Since I never actually see my own dark circles, I hadn’t been aware, but lately I’d been hearing a lot that they’d gotten darker.

It hadn’t even been long since I got a double scolding about it from Jeong Seongbin and Lee Cheonghyeon.

If I got any lazier about taking care of it, I’d get twice as many stones thrown at me to “stop dragging down Spark’s average visuals and get out.” I’d rather not.

I swept my two hands down my gaunt face.

I wanted to see the cozy bed I’d have nine years from now.

Luckily or unluckily, the double stoning over my looks never happened.

Before that, Yoo Hansu hit me with a triple overtime assault.

Every time personal practice started, he’d summon me like a ghost and work me over. It was obvious and simple harassment.

I was actually relieved my phone was with the company so I couldn’t receive personal calls.

If I hadn’t pre-studied under Manager Nam, my weak mental state wouldn’t have endured.

By now, Yoo Hansu’s sniping had reached the level of...

“The CEO is such a nice guy. Do you know how lucky you are to have landed at this agency? At other places, you couldn’t even shove these shoddy documents under their noses.”

...that.

Judging by rhetoric alone, he seemed to have reached the same plane as Manager Nam.

There is a part of me that agrees with what he said.

How many companies would even look, with interest, at a trainee’s planning materials to begin with.

But isn’t it true I’m not the only one riding the coattails of a good-natured CEO?

Case in point: people like you are making your living under that CEO, too.

Even so, I had to beam and answer, “Yes, I think I’m lucky, too.”

There’s nothing good for a trainee in picking a fight with a producer. Bitter reality.

“PD, it’s about time for our group practice. Can I head back now?”

“What? It’s that late already?”

Yoo Hansu checked the clock hung on the office wall. Then he told me to wait a minute, left me standing there, and stepped out.

A little over ten minutes later he came back with a thick stack of papers in his hand.

He offered me the still-warm pages like he’d just printed them and said:

“This is the draft proposal I mentioned when we all ate together last time, remember?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Now think of it as actually doing the planning, and organize it with stats and references like you did on your proposal. If you polish it well, I might even put it on the meeting agenda.”

“...Sorry?”

So basically, right now—

You want me to clean up the garbage proposal you slapped together?

And you’re going to phrase it like you’re doing me a favor?

For the first time in a while I felt the blood rush up to my occipital lobe.

This throbbing... it feels good to be alive.

“What are you doing, not heading to practice? In this industry, you only survive if you move fast.”

Is there any industry where you’d survive by moving slow, you f**ker.

With a bright smile I chirped, “Then I’ll get going! Thanks for your hard work!” and left the office.

The moment the door shut behind me, a dry laugh slipped out.

Worried I’d look creepy—some gloomy guy laughing alone in the hallway—I covered my face with the papers he’d given me and laughed.

“Ah... what do I even do with this.”

There are plenty of companies in the world. And every company has a few shitty bosses.

So there’s no need to ride a rollercoaster over one guy like Yoo Hansu.

“I really hate people who try to steal credit.”

This time, it was Yoo Hansu who was in the wrong.

Of all the people in the world, why did he have to resemble someone like Manager Nam.

If it goes well, it’s thanks to me; if it fails, it’s your fault.

No line describes Yoo Hansu better.

For him, when a group project, a team submission to a contest, a project turned out well, it was always thanks to himself.

Right after graduating from a school known for directing, he jumped straight into the field. It was a spot a senior from the same school had put him onto.

It wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find a prodigy, but it wasn’t a bad environment for a first taste of the working world.

When the cohort who joined at the same time divvied up scut work, Yoo Hansu did nothing.

He was the talent who’d been recognized and let in through someone trustworthy, and the others were not.

“See, you should have fastened your first button right.”

That’s what he thought as he looked at his cohort.

He didn’t, in fact, have the ability to keep working for long hours, but that didn’t matter.

Instead, he had the brazen nerve to snatch a cohort’s, a junior’s, and at times even a sidelined senior’s ideas in the broadcast world in the blink of an eye.

This was absolutely not stealing items.

He was merely presenting an idea at the optimal timing—one he had refined into its best state!

Unfortunately for others, by the time whispers started to surface, all he had to do was put out his own piece of work.

Find one good freelancer and your portfolio quality skyrockets fast.

Submit someone else’s plan as your own. Then when rumors might start, hire someone to draft a new plan. Use that to land gigs. Collaborate again using someone else’s ideas...

As this loop dragged on for over ten years, Yoo Hansu’s algorithm began to warp bit by bit.

And in the end, it degenerated into this:

“I’m a capable person. I’ve been working nonstop for a span of time long enough for mountains and rivers to change, haven’t I?”

Rumors about him began to surface bit by bit along with the number of ideas he’d stolen.

Of course, he wrote them off as nonsense. He already had a well-manicured career.

But even he began to feel a touch of burnout.

He was exhausted by the endless need to prove himself.

So he made a choice.

He had never worked in idol business before, so he wasn’t savvy about entertainment planning.

The company wasn’t particularly notorious for high turnover.

The idol division hadn’t even been established yet, so he figured he could lead the new business.

At “UA,” he would take a new step.

With that goal in mind, when he saw photos of the trainees affiliated with UA, inspiration surged.

How would he use his abilities to make these unpolished rough stones shine!

It was a difficult task, but he had confidence.

While waiting for the flash of inspiration that would strike one day, he sketched ideas.

So the agency wouldn’t be overly shocked by his groundbreaking concept, he subtly wove in the initial plan he’d first conceived.

He even prepared the words of encouragement he’d give when he first met trainees who had never debuted. Kids that age need advice from someone active in the field.

With all preparations made, when he entered UA, the first thing pushed across to him was a single proposal.

[Spark Mini 1st Album Concept Plan]

He was taken aback. Wasn’t he here to plan A to Z for a group called Spark?

The CEO’s next words were even more absurd.

“From planning to deck building, our trainee did it. PD Hansu, I’d like you to work with this kid to raise the album’s level of completion. He only recently became a trainee, so he has a lot to do besides planning.”

He thought he’d fallen for an employment scam.

He checked the offer letter after getting home, but there wasn’t much difference between the letter and what the CEO had said.

He had only looked at the company name and the part about a new business unit being created.

Already in a foul mood from the start, he read the first page of the plan.

Content that could be condensed into a single page droned on and on after that, so he didn’t read further.

After reading the paper, his impression was very simple.

“Trite.”

Youth, really. How many idols debut with something other than a youth concept.

The CEO’s wording also rubbed him the wrong way.

Not “take this kid around” but “together,” really.

So he was supposed to “work together,” helping each other, with some punk who still had milk on his lips?

But soon he decided to understand the CEO’s misstep with a generous heart.

Hadn’t he said he was new to idol business?

When you don’t know, anyone can make a mistake.

If the CEO and this trainee named Kim Iwol were underestimating the idol market, Yoo Hansu would make them feel reality through competence.

Two weeks after joining, ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) he requested an all-hands meeting.

While preparing for the meeting, he focused on ideation and had Kim Iwol handle other necessary materials, taking them immediately day or night to check.

He would show the gap of a working professional with the plan the trainee had spent a month on and the plan he had created in two weeks.

Thinking that way, his motivation surged. He threw himself into it like he was back in undergrad.

And now.

“Uh, one second. PD Yoo, are those graph values correct?”

If things had gone according to plan, there should have been zero problems with his presentation, but in the middle of it, the CEO cut in and asked a question.