A long time ago, there was exactly one time I threatened the system with my life. It was back when I still didn’t know whether my sister was alive.

At the time, I only thought there had to be a reason it specifically had to be “me” becoming an idol, and that if I strayed from the path, the system’s entire design would collapse. My sister’s situation had been too urgent to dig deeper, so I’d put off wondering why it had to be me.

Whenever the system adjusted my negative emotion recognition rate or showed me the other members’ pasts, I assumed its purpose was to support the mission process. Like some kind of employee benefit.

But the more I thought about it, the stranger it became. Even if the system branded itself like a black company, at its core it was still just an anomalous phenomenon. Why would something like that have any obligation to care about my welfare, my mental health, or my physical condition?

‘Nudge....’

If I assumed the system’s actions had another objective, everything suddenly lined up.

It pretended to help me achieve KPIs, but in reality had a completely different intention, and everything it had shown me so far was merely a way to conceal its true purpose.

At this point, the strongest possibility was that “I had to stay alive in order to carry out something.”

For example, even the system’s damn way of talking....

Manager Kim.

[I’m visiting a client tomorrow before coming in.]

[Have Assistant Manager Kim handle the onboarding for the new hire.]

[Come in early and get things set up.]

...might have been adopted because Department Head Nam had once turned me back around when I’d already made it all the way to the Hanam Bridge.

Because Kim Iwol always carried out what his superiors told him to do out of sheer habit. Even after trying to drown himself, he still went back to where he belonged and finished the work that needed doing.

As long as it imitated a black company, I would instinctively put the brakes on any extreme action myself, and naturally learn the structure the system presented.

‘Fuck.’

A hollow laugh escaped me. My body trembled so badly I had to take several deep breaths just to calm myself down.

If the system’s KPIs and achievement rewards had no real utility at all, and were merely stages designed to induce specific behavior—

If the system had some separate ultimate goal for me, but couldn’t control unpredictable variables like emotional fluctuations or synchronization, so it deliberately made me misunderstand and believe it was managing even those uncontrollable areas—

If it cornered me into feeling like I was absolutely the subordinate in this environment, and even used my sister and Spark as tools through things like KPIs—

‘Tell me your original purpose.’

I snapped at the system.

‘I’m not going to die, so tell me. It’s obvious now that one of the conditions is me staying alive and stable. Everything you’ve done so far points to that. What exactly do you need me to do?’

I asked again, but the system didn’t answer.

‘I’ll cooperate however you want. If nullifying the car accident doesn’t require some enormous price or effort, wouldn’t it be better to make a direct deal?’

As though responding to my question about why it insisted on taking the long way around instead of using the shortcut, the system returned an insincere answer.

 [SYSTEM] A work directive has arrived from “Supervisor.”

▶ Assistant Manager Kim still doesn’t seem to understand himself very well. How about taking a job aptitude test?

 I don’t need a test to know I’m office worker material, asshole. What would you know?

 [SYSTEM] A work directive has arrived from “Supervisor.”

▶ Managers don’t give orders for no reason. It’s all based on previous data and experience. Imagine I dumped work onto Assistant Manager Kim without giving any feedback at all. Would Assistant Manager Kim understand the core objective? The vision?

 Why? The synchronization rate keeps climbing even though you can’t stop it, so now you’re getting nervous because it looks like I’m starting to doubt the KPI system? Was it fun roleplaying and mocking me, but now that we’re laying our cards on the table and negotiating directly, it’s suddenly not entertaining anymore? Did you think I’d never fulfill even one of your demands unless you manipulated me like this?

At the very least, you shouldn’t have deceived someone that desperate.

Don’t try to make me feel guilty anymore....

 [SYSTEM] A work directive has arrived from “Supervisor.”

▶ Assistant Manager Kim.

 The system flickered. Slowly, it began typing.

Assistant Manager Kim seems to think he can do anything, but that isn’t true.

Assistant Manager Kim is still....

 [SYSTEM] A work directive has arrived from “Supervisor.”

▶ Still a long way off.

 With those words, the system disappeared.

What kind of task absolutely had to be carried out by a living individual?

For a while, whenever I found spare time, I tried thinking it through.

It wasn’t easy. An idol in the middle of promotion season barely had enough time to sleep.

Even Park Juu, who’d suffered through a controversy, had pulled himself together and focused on work again. I couldn’t exactly be the only one wandering around in a daze. I worked hard to stay focused.

≫ Popup collaboration with the Spark Gallery

The gallery’s surprisingly fresh lol

Everyone kept saying the posters and jewel top loaders were pretty, so I went to look and ended up overcome by the irresistible urge to buy the green apple puppy

Sorry, wallet

└ I checked the merch lineup and the mini posters are seriously gorgeous

└ The jewel top loaders were kind of expensive for merch, so I was debating whether to buy them;;; but then they uploaded sample images with album photocards inside and I immediately added them to my cart

└└ Seriously, I was wondering who in their right mind mass-produced jewel top loaders that usually only circulate in commission markets, but it turns out they did it solely to match the birthstone concept...... and the colors came out insanely good

└ I already took like a million screenshots of green apple Giyeon from the MV, but they straight-up turned him into a pictorial and I’m so happy

└└ Sparklers were all going “aww the mini apples are cute~~” and then Kim Iwol hit us with apple green faustite

└└└ Thank god Iwol didn’t make friendship bracelets. If Kim Iwol had done it, they all would’ve been birthstone bracelets

≫ Today’s Spark fan return gift: mini bouquets

Apparently they dried the real flowers used during Seongbin’s MV shoot

The members personally collected the flowers and only outsourced the drying process!

└ Why couldn’t I go to the fan meeting......

└ They said the members even did the wrapping themselvesㅠㅠ I’m jealous and bitter and resentful toward every Sparkler who attended

└ I don’t think they were actually mini though

└ If the members said they were mini, then they’re mini

└ Our boys really do have huge hands

≫ I’ve seen lots of idols with ribbons tied around their faces, you know?

But Cheonghyeon, you’re the first idol I’ve ever seen wearing a pearl ribbon

└ How does a person look that much like a vintage doll

└ It should be illegal for Cupie to bite pearl ribbons

└ And then he gave everyone at the fansign pearl ribbon charms for decorating their lightsticks that day. He seriously understands fans

≫ What kills me most is how Kim Iwol usually nags Choi Jeho nonstop, but the second he sees “Eldorado” Choi Jeho he praises him until his mouth dries out

Basically saying, “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s handsome.”

└ “Jeldorado” is legendary

└ Sorry but Jeho isn’t the gold here

└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ Jeho × gold is literally an unbeatable combination...... the “Bright” MV did all the work

└ How could natural light × Choi Jeho × chandeliers possibly fail

Everyone liked it this much, so of course we had to live up to expectations. What did they think we spent days and nights researching and filming for?

Just because I was having trouble with the system, was I supposed to let all that effort turn to dust? Like hell I would. Who would that even benefit?

No matter how much the system tried to treat Spark like a tool, I had no intention of treating Spark as a means to an end.

There was a time when achieving the immediate objective had been my top priority. But not anymore. I’d received too much love to keep chasing nothing but rewards.

I clearly understood what I needed to value and what drove me forward, so even if the work became overwhelming, I decided I would still do what had to be done. At this age, I was finally realizing just how important it was to have something that kept a person going.

Maybe heaven was helping me avoid spiraling into useless thoughts, because there was plenty of work beyond album promotions alone. Just this week, Choi Jeho shot another pictorial with a new magazine company. Thanks to the approaching spring season, Choi Jeho’s appearance in Jang Junhu’s music video had resurfaced at exactly the right time.

At first, it started with simple posts among fans saying things like, “I miss autumn Jeho.”

Then someone passionately declared, “Who says coat-wearing Jeho only belongs in autumn? Bring him back in spring too,” and the whole thing exploded.

And so, in a heartwarming turn of events, Choi Jeho—once famous as the man of autumn coats—ended up completely wiping out an outerwear brand’s inventory and shooting a spring coat pictorial.

As for Jeong Seongbin... somehow, he became a master of reaction images and started circulating across the entire internet. One brave Sparkler neatly compiled all the bizarre incidents involving Jeong Seongbin, who normally looked icy and perfectly composed the second you covered his mouth, to the point people said, “No wonder he became the leader among all those built guys.”

≫ Spark’s Seongbin is weird

Trying to clean up after knocking over a friend’s flowerpot, then getting confused and sticking fake flowers into it

Carrying around a notebook labeled “If You Sleep More Than Three Hours You Die”

Picking up a bag his younger sibling threw away and bringing it home

Making animals out of towels

Leaving work wearing fairy wings

Taking graduation photos while wearing someone else’s name tag

Pouring grape juice into ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) a flower vase and drinking from it

└ One of these wasn’t even Jeong Seongbin

└└ ?

└└└ The one about wearing someone else’s name tag was his younger siblingㅋㅋ They’re twins, so he came wearing Seongbin’s tag

└└└└ That’s why there were two Jeong Seongbins at the graduation ceremony that day

└└└└└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ앜ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ I thought he was just a handsome, dependable young man......

└└ He is handsome and dependable though

└ My ballad prince...... is strange

Since individuality itself had become a selling point these days, Jeong Seongbin ended up drawing attention in an entirely new market. Considering how impossible it was to ignore the influx of fans coming from memes and short-form platforms, it was great news for the team. I could only hope that, thanks to our self-sacrificing leader, people would gradually forget about my own era of meme compilations.

Lee Cheonghyeon was so busy his expensive-vitamin-grown eyelashes practically fluttered nonstop. The fact that someone who almost never complained had started saying he might get put on academic probation said everything.

“But you have to work hard when there’s work to do! Cheonghyeon’s gonna go earn money!”

Seeing him stay energetic despite the murderous schedule was admirable enough that I started opening a pouch of cabbage juice for him every morning. I might never become a VIP customer at Woo Yoonjae’s ssamjang shop, but I could probably become a VIP customer for cabbage juice.

Kang Giyeon filmed a perfume commercial. Advertisers who’d previously hesitated to contact him because of his age became noticeably more proactive once the year changed. Which made sense. There would’ve been something awkward about having a high school senior advertise perfume aimed at adult men.

The youthful public image that had contrasted with his mature face was completely overturned by “Bright.” The lively Kang Giyeon flawlessly pulled off a calm, relaxed atmosphere.

Having both a classical and modern impression at the same time was one of Kang Giyeon’s greatest strengths. The advertising industry recognized that perfectly. The sample fragrance smelled nice, so I bought one myself.

There was only one personal schedule left now.

Park Juu’s “Me. Ga. Jang.”

—

Nudge Effect: A method of guiding another person’s choices through flexible, subtle intervention rather than direct coercion.