Chapter 73: Registering an Interest Notification
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 73: Registering an Interest Notification
The sound of a rusted iron door opening echoes across the dark stage.
Heavy footsteps follow, and a man walks to the center of the stage. He drops to one knee, rests his chin on his hand, and stares directly into the camera.
With a slight smirk, he whispers.
[Cheong-hyeon]
Shall we?
At that moment, the stage erupts in brilliant light.
A man with black hair and round-rimmed glasses and another with flashy grey hair and a character bandage on his face appear side by side.
The member with glasses, I-wol, is dressed in a neat school uniform, while Je-ho’s outfit is a mess, his tie nowhere to be found.
[I-wol]
There are times when
A single dream feels so vivid
[Je-ho]
In the darkness of the long, long night
A power that keeps me awake
With a heart pounding so loud
The next member to appear has an impression just as striking as Je-ho’s.
[Gi-yeon]
Fueling it with my wishes
I light the spark
And send a single signal flare
Into the night sky
Gi-yeon, dressed much more neatly than Je-ho, mimics firing something into the air. From the opposite side, someone else runs toward the center of the stage, picking up the song.
[Seong-bin]
Let the warning bells ring
Let the cheers explode
When all six members finally gather in formation, the melody reaches its peak.
[Ju-woo + ALL]
Until the world heats up
And turns scorching hot
As the music races toward the bridge, Cheong-hyeon reappears.
Now bathed in light, he is covered in splatters of paint—on his clothes, in his hair—details that weren't visible before the lights came up.
[Cheong-hyeon]
A clear goal becomes the engine
To kick off the ground and rise
Cutting through the day
Where the sunlight pours down
Sun-bright smiles accompany the burning lyrics.
The choreography is perfectly synchronized, unfolding like a theatrical performance. The blue lighting radiates a refreshing energy, and the screen is filled with the harmonious sight of six faces smiling more clearly than the lights themselves.
[Ju-woo]
Let the warning bells ring
Let the cheers explode
[Seong-bin + ALL]
Until the heart boils over
And spills out
The stage, which had surged toward a climax, ends with all six members holding a single slip of paper with a red-painted tip, looking at one another.
It was a performance that felt exactly like a fireworks display in broad daylight.
‘F*ck.’
Only raw profanity filled Baek Hae-won’s mind. Don’t most modern people, Hae-won included, find themselves unable to hold back curses when they are extremely happy?
‘Ah… wait a second,’ Hae-won thought, pressing a hand to her forehead.
She replayed the video she had just watched.
Once it ended, she cursed again internally.
‘That was insane.’
That was the only way she could describe it.
There are plenty of handsome idols in the world.
But groups where every single member is handsome are rare.
And a group where every single one is handsome exactly in her style? That was unheard of!
Hae-won thumped her innocent bed three times. Out of habit, she slapped her own forehead a few times as well.
‘I have to… I have to see the MV.’
Without even taking the time to post a short blurb on social media, Hae-won typed ‘Spark Flowering MV’ into the search bar.
The music video was over five minutes long.
‘Is it a dramatize version?’ Hae-won wondered vaguely as she pressed play.
The video began with a six-way split screen showing six hands turning off alarms. Five hands disappeared from the beds, leaving one person who had fallen asleep with their hand still resting on their phone.
Jeong Seong-bin is the first to arrive in the classroom, tucking his textbooks into his desk.
Kim I-wol arrives and immediately tosses his bag onto the windowsill, face-planting onto his desk to go back to sleep.
Park Ju-woo enters quietly and stares out the window, while Kang Gi-yeon sits fiddling with his phone, earphones plugged in.
Finally, Choi Je-ho enters, and the members gather in the classroom one by one.
The camera zooms in on several tools inside Choi Je-ho’s bag.
‘What? Is this a delinquent concept?’
Hae-won, who had been enjoying the warm tones of the MV, furrowed her brows, worried they might be glamorizing school thugs.
She briefly considered turning it off, but decided to keep watching for now and hit play again.
After a brief shot of a mysterious switch being flipped, the camera returned to the school.
Just as all the students were inside and the teacher entered to call roll, Lee Cheong-hyeon burst in with messy hair. The title appeared, and the song began.
The six members’ attitudes toward class varied wildly.
Some sat upright, listening to the lecture more passionately than anyone else.
Meanwhile, Kim I-wol’s forehead refused to leave the desk, and Lee Cheong-hyeon was busy doodling in a notebook hidden under his textbook.
What was even more intriguing was how the video kept highlighting Kang Gi-yeon’s bracelet, the keychain hanging from Lee Cheong-hyeon’s belt loop, and Choi Je-ho’s suspiciously heavy-looking bag.
Of course, the MV wasn't just the dramatized story.
Every time a group choreography shot appeared with different styling, Hae-won debated whether to take a screenshot now or later. She ultimately decided to focus on the video and screenshot everything once she was done.
After the choreography shots, the setting shifted to the inside of a large shipping container.
The six members huddled together at a desk piled high with junk, discussing a school floor plan spread out before them.
Following Jeong Seong-bin’s fingertip to the edge of the paper, the word ‘Boom!’ was written there.
‘Are they… blowing up the school?’
She’d had a feeling their expressions were a bit too intense for a normal concept.
True to Hae-won’s expectations, they began preparing something in earnest.
Following Kim I-wol’s instructions, Jeong Seong-bin taped bundles of paper I-wol had pulled from his bag onto the walls.
Park Ju-woo stuck a ‘Caution: Flammable’ sticker on the outside of the container door.
Kang Gi-yeon rolled up his sleeves, having discarded his jacket to carry heavy loads, while Choi Je-ho had his tie snatched away by Lee Cheong-hyeon, who was rummaging around for something.
‘I guess it’s not cheers that are exploding, but the school…?’
Did they change the lyrics for the debut stage to pass broadcasting regulations? Hae-won couldn't stop herself from snickering.
The video also featured cryptic scenes interspersed throughout.
Mostly shots of a gold ball rolling under objects at high speed or falling from high places.
She didn't know what it meant yet, but if she waited, someone would surely post a legendary theory thread.
So, rather than stopping to analyze it now, it was more important to watch the dance break unfolding before her eyes.
As a veteran idol fan, Hae-won didn't need a frame-by-frame capture to know: their choreography was incredibly tight.
The scenes alternated rapidly between school uniforms in an abandoned school and jumpsuits in the large container. The song raced toward its end.
『Let the warning bells ring
Let the cheers explode』
Kang Gi-yeon knocked over a series of wooden planks, and Lee Cheong-hyeon lifted a welding mask.
Park Ju-woo leaned against a wall with his arms crossed, watching everyone, while Choi Je-ho passed by with a claw hammer resting on each shoulder.
Then, Jeong Seong-bin took a match from Kim I-wol and lit a fuse.
Flames flickered over Seong-bin’s face.
『Until the heart boils over
And spills out』
The camera tilted up toward the sky, and the screen went dark.
The song stopped simultaneously, leaving only silence.
“…What?”
So, did the school blow up or not?
Hae-won tilted her head in confusion.
Just then, the screen brightened again.
It was the classroom where the members had first gathered.
‘Group Selection (Drawing Lots)’ was written in large letters on the chalkboard, and the six of them were gathered in front of it.
Each held a slip of paper with a red-painted tip.
‘Huh?’
Those were the same slips the members had held during the ending of their debut stage.
Only then did the scenes of the members looking exhausted, using their brains and brawn to suffer through various tasks, flash through Hae-won’s mind.
‘It was a group project…!’
No wonder they looked so rough. As a current high school student herself, Hae-won understood that feeling all too well.
‘So what kind of project did they actually do?’
Just as that thought crossed her mind, the camera captured the miscellaneous items in front of the container wall that had served as the background.
Scraps of wood tied together with Kang Gi-yeon’s bracelet and Choi Je-ho’s tie were hanging from various contraptions in bizarre shapes.
It was a ‘Goldberg’ machine, where everything was connected as one.
As the heat from the fire melted and snapped a string, a gold-painted ball began to race non-stop along halved PVC pipes and wooden chopsticks.
The mysterious scenes that had appeared throughout the music video overlapped with this shot.
The steel ball knocked over dominoes, bounced off Lee Cheong-hyeon’s keychain, and quickly circled the container before hitting a wooden button. The fishing line connected to the button pulled taut, and a ‘pop’ echoed.
At that moment, a waterfall of flower petals poured over the heads of the four members standing under a large gourd: Choi Je-ho, Jeong Seong-bin, Lee Cheong-hyeon, and Kang Gi-yeon.
A handmade banner unfurled from the gourd, swaying pitifully: ‘Group Project: Huge Success!’
While everyone else was brushing off confetti or spitting it out of their mouths, Jeong Seong-bin paused and asked:
『Wait… who filmed this?』
The expressions of the other three froze.
The four of them stiffly turned their heads toward one wall.
There, Park Ju-woo, who had been standing by with a fire extinguisher while wearing protective gear, pointed toward a corner of the container.
Kim I-wol, who had set up a tripod and was recording the video from there, gave them a thumbs-up.
The video truly ended with everyone cheering for their success and hugging one another.
There were even ending credits.
Director: Jeong Seong-bin
Planning: Kim I-wol
Design: Lee Cheong-hyeon
Production: Kang Gi-yeon
Support: Choi Je-ho
Inspection: Park Ju-woo
.
.
.
Filming: Kim I-wol
Only the ‘Filming’ credit at the end used a different font and was italicized, as if it had been added in a hurry.
It was… the perfect representation of a chaotic, stupid group project.
Baek Hae-won had a very busy day.
Even after scouring the vast ocean of the internet, no one had posted an interpretation of Spark’s MV, so she had to cry while cobbling together her own theory post.
Furthermore, despite them having just debuted, there was a mountain of self-produced content to savor, frame by frame.
It wasn't until nearly 10 PM that she was able to leave a post on social media.
≫ Guys, you want to stan Spark?
Their faces are a feast, but their behavior is weird.
└ LOL, isn't it usually the other way around?
└ I'm saying it because their faces are at a level where you can't say it the other way around.
≫ Mi-heon, are you really stanning SPK??
└ Not stanning yet, um… just dipping my toes in?
└ Don't lie. You said that before and ended up seeing the Marbling series five times.
After recording her overflowing emotions, Hae-won flopped onto her bed.
‘If they brought out drawing lots for this stage, what will they bring next time…?’
At the same time, the chorus of the song she had just heard kept ringing in her head. It was the signal that she was officially hooked.