Chapter 3: Boomer System (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 3: Boomer System (2)
When you're job hunting, the one thing you rewrite over and over again is your resume.
At the same time, a resume was a document I had seen enough to make me sick during my time in the HR team, and one I had edited daily back when I dreamed of switching jobs.
However, the resume I was looking at now was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life.
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[UA New Trainee] Kim I-wol
Kim I-wol (20 years old / Previous age: 29)
Experience
— Joined UA through street casting
Extracurricular Activities
— Assistant Manager, HR Team, Hanpyeong Industry (5th year)
Performance Evaluation (100)
— Vocal Proficiency: 4/20
— Dance Proficiency: 1/20
— Self PR: 12/20
— Attendance Management: 18/20
— Organizational Adaptability: 10/20
Cumulative Experience Points: 0
Cumulative Points: 0
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It claimed to be my resume, of all things.
My past at Hanpyeong Industry, which had been as tough and stringy as the fibers of a poorly boiled sweet potato, was relegated to "Extracurricular Activities."
My career experience has turned into total fluff.
More importantly, was that "Dance Proficiency: 1" for real? It was a godsend that I never got picked for the talent show during company workshops.
As I stared blankly at the "Experience Points" and "Points," wondering what they were, a new explanation appeared.
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[SYSTEM] The ‘Experience-Point System’ is being notified to ‘Party B.’
▷ Upon completion of a ‘Task,’ a certain amount of ‘Experience Points’ will be awarded.
▷ When Experience Points reach 100, they can be exchanged for 1 Point.
▷ Points can be added to Proficiency levels.
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This was nonsense.
If working hard made you a good dancer, corporate executives would have already gathered office workers from around the world to hold a grand talent show.
Other than that, the parts that stood out were "New Trainee" and "Street Casting."
‘Joined through street casting?’
February, nine years ago. On the street. Idol casting.
I felt like I was starting to remember something.
Just before I entered university, I had a vague memory of someone stopping me on my way home. I think I received a business card while I was on the phone with my sister.
I remember being quite puzzled when they handed me a card for UA—an agency famous for its roster of ballad singers—and told me they were putting together an idol group.
I recall ignoring it completely, thinking it was a scammer using a famous company's name.
Since that wasn't the first time I’d received a card related to idols, I had forgotten all about it.
It seemed that the current "me" was a version of myself that had accepted that offer and joined the company.
‘The only male idol group to debut from UA after this was Spark.’
After all that, I had ended up back with Spark again. What a world.
I had no idea what they saw in me to contact me in the first place, but as the pieces of the story clicked together, my brain finally started functioning.
Nothing gets done when the blood is rushing to your head.
I calmly organized what I knew so far as simply as possible.
The situation was still a mess, but I could accept reality now.
If I thought of it as giving my sister seventy years' worth of birthday presents all at once—presents I almost never got to give her—I felt like I could find some peace of mind.
As for me, I’m going to collect my birthday presents with compound interest in this life.
Fine, I’ll grit my teeth and endure it.
I struggled to compose myself.
Just then, an alarm went off above my head. To be precise, it was coming from above the wooden ceiling.
At the same time, the Center Emperor, Choi Je-ho, who had been sleeping next to me, opened his eyes.
He had the same face from the pre-debut reality show—the bridge of his nose that wouldn't change even after nine years, and the slight furrow between his brows whenever he woke up because of his poor eyesight.
The moment I saw that face—a face I knew so well it drove me crazy—all my composure evaporated.
In its place, a deep-seated, bitter resentment filled the void.
Could I do this?
Me?
A happy debut with these bastards who make my blood boil just by looking at them?
My stomach churned. My acid reflux was definitely acting up.
"Oh? You're already up too, Hyung."
At that moment, a face popped down from the ceiling along with a bright voice that was hard to believe belonged to the early morning.
Was it the light?
Looking at his features, which seemed to radiate a halo, I was momentarily speechless.
It was such an unrealistically sculpted face that for a second, I didn't think he was human.
‘Wait, is that Cute Pretty Visually Lee Cheong-hyeon?’
His appearance was so grand that it briefly erased our terrible ill-fated relationship from my mind.
Looking at this face, I felt like I could almost forgive UA for selling full-body mini acrylic stands of him for 23,000 won each.
Of course, that didn't change the fact that he was the same bastard who would come back from his first long vacation with a total sunburn, driving the retouching difficulty through the roof.
Life is full of surprises. To think that kind of visual actually exists in the secular world.
There was something mysterious about Cute Pretty Visually Lee Cheong-hyeon's face; his eyes, nose, and lips were all soft and rounded, yet when put together, they gave off a chilly aura.
"Je-ho Hyung is an early riser too. I really like our room's habits! This Maknae is satisfied!"
The guy was cheerful from the break of dawn, as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Meanwhile, Center Emperor Choi Je-ho didn't even seem to be listening to him.
"Hyung! We eat breakfast at the practice room. Let's get ready to head out first!"
Cute Pretty Visually Lee Cheong-hyeon explained kindly as he climbed down from the top bunk.
How many more days would I have to listen to these voices that made my skin crawl? The future looked bleak.
An hour later, I was standing inside the UA building with the future members of Spark.
UA, the agency that cast me, had long been known as a powerhouse for ballads.
Most of the artists under UA were ballad singers with at least one hit song to their name.
Then, for some unknown reason, UA suddenly announced its entry into the idol market.
The space UA had hastily put together for trainee cultivation was the basement practice room where I had just arrived.
Spark's fans used to call this place the "UA-style Underground Prison."
≫ A rookie with only 2 songs having a hiatus of 1 year and 2 months? LOL. Just say you don't want to make money. hahahaha
└ The kids must feel like shit too. They debuted, but they're basically dungeoned for no reason.
This was because Spark's hiatuses were incredibly long.
It got to the point where rumors circulated that their "sentence" was extended every time a scandal broke out.
For the record, this place wasn't unfamiliar to me either. I’d seen it until I was sick of it while taking screenshots to measure their synchro-dance for choreography videos.
As I stood there feeling a familiar sense of dread, someone approached me and spoke.
"It's only been a little while since you joined, so you must be feeling overwhelmed, right? Since you said this is your first time being a trainee, I-wol Hyung, I'll start by briefly explaining our practice routine."
It was the Mental Pillar, Jeong Seong-bin, the future leader of Spark.
To me, Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin was like a "filial son" member. Thanks to him having the softest features among the group of intense-looking Spark members, I had been able to memorize his face quickly.
Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin explained various UA rules, including the times the trainers would arrive. His orientation skills were top-notch.
‘He’d be a natural at training new recruits...’
As I was admiring his gentle and clear pronunciation, Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin threw a surprise question at me.
"Do you have any other questions?"
"No. Thank you for the explanation."
I answered quickly, fearing he’d realize I was daydreaming, but then Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin’s expression turned strange.
"Uh, Hyung. Didn't we agree to speak casually yesterday?"
There was a specific detail like that?
Seeing as Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin, who must be a much more senior trainee, was using honorifics, it seemed the hierarchy was based on age.
I’ve never been a fan of conservative organizational cultures. As someone whose true calling was being at the bottom of the ladder, it made me even more uncomfortable.
"Maybe it's because... I'm still a bit awkward. You can speak comfortably too, if you're okay with it."
"Okay."
I hated using age as an excuse to drop honorifics upon first meeting. But I didn't want to hear any complaints, so I decided to play along.
Fortunately, Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin didn't press the issue further.
"Then shall we start with stretching?"
With those terrifying words, Mental Pillar Jeong Seong-bin stood up.
The time had come for me to sweat alongside my enemies from hell to achieve the same goal.
I want to go home.
I want to go home so badly.
The words I used to carve into my heart every day as an office worker naturally came to mind.
Just then, a white light flashed before my eyes.
Ah, I’m not buying any more manuals or whatever.
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[SYSTEM] A work order from the ‘Person in Charge’ has arrived.
▶ You know we give out points as part of company welfare, right? If you do well starting today, you might get some points. There aren't many places that take care of you like this, you know? Anyway, Assistant Manager Kim is lucky. Don't waste them; use them where they're absolutely necessary.
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However, if it was a material reward, that was a different story.
It was annoying that it was "points" and not "money," but as the recipient, I had to squeeze out whatever I could.
But could they do something about that tone? Just reading it cut my motivation in half.
Still, for someone like me who wasn't in a position to be picky, it was a win. Especially since my dance proficiency was rock bottom.
‘Do I get work if I beg for it?’
The situation where I had to request work was quite foreign to me. Usually, work would pile up even if I stayed still.
I briefly contemplated whether I should kneel or bow in the direction where the text appeared.
Fortunately, the disaster of having to beg for work while already being forced to debut did not occur.
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[SYSTEM] A ‘New Task’ has been assigned.
▷ Complete 1 basic move
▷ Reward: Experience Points
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I should be able to manage just one, right?
Surely they gave me a task possible for someone with a dance proficiency of only 1. I steeled my resolve.
Without a doubt, this was the most foolish decision I had made recently.
Do you know what the practice volume of an idol group in the K-Pop powerhouse of Korea is like?
‘Fuck, fuck...!’
I didn't know. And that's why I feel like I'm dying right now.
Ignorance truly is a sin. I couldn't explain the hardships and adversity I was experiencing as anything other than a punishment.
"Kim I-wol, I told you to turn left!"
"Turning isn't the problem right now. Hyung, be honest. You're confused between your left and right hands, aren't you?"
I can at least tell those apart.
But didn't I just turn left?
"How can a person be this clumsy?"
"It's beyond clumsy; he's practically creaking. If his limbs stay this free-spirited, his brain is going to go on strike by tomorrow."
The group's dance experts, Center Emperor Choi Je-ho and King Cute Kang Gi-yeon, were seriously discussing the situation with grave expressions.
Looking at the two of them, who were responsible for the perfection of the stage, a post I’d seen on a community board came to mind.
≫ But for a small-time agency, didn't UA recruit the members damn well? LOL. Not a single one of them has a hole in their skills.
Well, they’ve added a "clumsy person" to provide the public with some entertainment. My heart ached.
Center Emperor Choi Je-ho, who had a strong individualistic streak, didn't seem to think much of this catastrophe.
On the other hand, King Cute Kang Gi-yeon, who had been famous for being a perfectionist since the old days, never took his cold eyes off me.
For me, someone who gets motion sickness just by looking at a photo of Spark for five seconds, this was the ultimate punishment.
After I swept through the practice room like a broken, runaway train, King Cute Kang Gi-yeon’s eyes flashed. I could feel a murderous intent as sharp as the corners of his eyes.
I was already an expert at reading the gaze of Spark members.
Sure enough, he spoke in a chilling voice.
"Hyung."
"Yeah."
"Don't even think about going back to the dorm today."
Suddenly, I remembered something a junior at work, who said she liked idols, had told me while eating a triangle kimbap in the pantry with hollow eyes.
She asked if I knew what the "Three Great Mayos" were.
That was... around the time when our team had been working overtime for three weeks straight, and a news report came out saying the idol she liked had skipped a fan meeting to go to Kangwon Land, claiming he was sick.
I forgot the one besides "Tuna Mayo" and "Oppa, please don't (mayo) do whatever you want," but King Cute Kang Gi-yeon’s brand of "don't" was quite stinging as well.
After repeating those incomprehensible movements several more times...
"Oh. You got it."
"Quick, do it one more time. Before you forget."
As soon as the dry "okay" from Center Emperor Choi Je-ho and the relentless "do it again" from King Cute Kang Gi-yeon dropped, a white light flashed before my eyes.
I thought it was a sign I was about to faint, but it was the system. What a persistent fellow.
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[SYSTEM] ‘Task’ completed.
▷ Reward: Experience Points (20)
▷ Cumulative Experience Points: 20
▷ Cumulative Points: 0
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20? Only 20?
After I suffered this much?
When my limbs are literally trembling?
This is ridiculous. It seems I’ve grossly underestimated this paranormal phenomenon.