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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Meeting with the CEO (1)
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The boys' preparations for school were complete once they each grabbed a slice of steaming hot toast.
As they managed to find their own shoes in the chaotic shoe rack, all while diligently guarding their toast, I saw them off with a few parting words.
“Watch out for cars, protect your faces, and don't do anything stupid. Go be on your best behavior.”
Kang Giyeon grumbled with a sullen look.
“Even my own parents don't nag as much as you do.”
Is that so? I wouldn't know. I've never been nagged by my parents.
“So? Are you saying you're *not* going to watch out for cars, *not* protect your face, and you *are* going to do something stupid?”
Having missed his chance to retort, Kang Giyeon muttered, “How did the conversation get to this?”
I patted the shoulder of the kid who must have been tired from heading to school at the crack of dawn.
“Giyeon.”
“What?”
“I'm not telling you to go study hard, am I?”
“……”
“Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Got it?”
Then I gave Kang Giyeon a kind smile. He shuddered at my display of affection.
With my parting words to have a healthy and uneventful day, the three high school students left the dorm. It had been a chaotic morning.
* * *
“So, you're the one who made the toast?”
Choi Jeho, who had woken up with ghostly precision at his usual 8 AM, asked.
I replied as I moved a slightly cooled piece of toast onto a plate.
“Yeah. I made extra while toasting some for the kids. Want some?”
“Yeah.”
Park Juwoo, who didn't need to go to school since he'd passed his qualification exam, was already diligently eating his allotted toast.
In fact, Lee Cheonghyun had muttered, “I'm so jealous of Juwoo…” as he left.
“High school students. What a great time to be alive.”
“You talk like you graduated ten years ago or something.”
How'd you know?
Worried that the system would penalize me for leaking a regression-related secret, even though it wasn't my intention, I pretended not to hear Choi Jeho and moved on.
As I cautiously chewed my toast, sneaking glances at them, Park Juwoo unexpectedly joined the conversation.
“…Hyung, what were you planning to do after graduating high school?”
“Huh?”
“You said you'd never been a trainee before…”
I was planning to go to college.
The one I should have gone to, but couldn't.
That kid, Park Juwoo. I'd heard he was secretly the king of perception back in our Spark days, and his ability to catch you off guard was truly an art form. Thanks to him, I felt like I was about to burst into tears mid-toast.
The system just made my situation more awkward. I couldn't exactly say, “I went in my past life, but things happened and I couldn't in this one,” could I?
Oblivious to how deeply wounded I was, Choi Jeho and Park Juwoo just stared at me blankly.
If you're going to force someone to lie, you should at least provide a list of acceptable answers.
For someone like me, who had no talent for making things up or lying, this situation was brutal.
After a moment's thought, I chose to answer as vaguely as possible.
“I debated whether to go or not, but in the end, I didn't.”
“…Why?”
“Couldn't pay the tuition.”
Of all the rotten luck, why did I have to regress *after* the tuition deadline?
As I furiously chewed my toast, channeling my directionless anger, I noticed the strange expressions on the faces of the guys sitting across from me.
They looked as if they'd just asked a question they shouldn't have.
“Why do you guys look so…”
Ah.
Did they think I couldn't pay tuition because my family had no money?
I debated for about three seconds whether to correct this misunderstanding, then decided against it.
Besides, the money I had now was borrowed from my sister, so it wasn't exactly a lie.
Even if I had regressed before the deadline, quit UA, and used all my money to enroll, my family home was gone. I would've had to live on the streets while attending school.
The moment I returned to the past with nothing but the clothes on my back, my degree had become Schrödinger's diploma.
I thought of the diploma that had slipped through my fingers and the entire fortune I'd saved while slaving away at Hanpyeong Industries. Did you really have to take everything to be satisfied…?
Of course, I had no confidence I could explain all these twists and turns to the guys while keeping my secret. Nor did I have any obligation to.
‘Might as well use this opportunity to build an image of having a ‘hungry spirit.’’
As I made this bitter resolution, Choi Jeho spoke, looking more considerate than I'd ever seen him.
“Uh… Cheer up.”
Encouragement from Choi Jeho.
Not just anyone, but *the* Choi Jeho, encouraging someone else with no cameras around.
It was a rare sight that even Department Head Nam's daughter, a die-hard Choi Jeho fan, had probably never witnessed. This world was full of surprises.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Hidden Task’ has been completed.
▷ Content: Have a private conversation with a colleague
▷ Reward: Experience (10)
▷ Cumulative Experience: 10
▷ Cumulative Points: 0
+
And that wasn't all. As if to encourage a harmonious trainee life, a hidden task was completed on its own.
I was already busy enough building my skills, and now I had to work on my social life too.
No matter how important communication is in an organization, it felt like my experience points were stagnating while my to-do list was doubling.
* * *
The high schoolers returned one by one in the afternoon.
Their return destination was, of course, the practice room.
I handed a handkerchief to Lee Cheonghyun after he came back from washing his hands.
“You made it back safely? Is your face alright?”
“Of course! Returned without a single scratch!”
“That's the right attitude. Excellent.”
“Hyung, aren't you a little too obsessed with the safety of our faces?”
Lee Cheonghyun said something absurd.
It seemed the kid had no idea just how many commercials his face was destined to be in.
I decided that, if only to repay UA for their investment in me, I had to take out an insurance policy on each member's face before our debut.
“But if you're going to school, when do you practice?”
“Seongbin and Giyeon attend just enough to meet the minimum attendance days. The arts high school is pretty lenient with schedules.”
“What about you?”
“My school shows no mercy. But it's close by, while Giyeon's is far, so when you factor in commute times, it all evens out.”
Indeed, Kang Giyeon was stretching beside us with a look of profound disappointment.
“You need to have time to sleep, though. I'm worried.”
Kang Giyeon retorted.
“You practice late every night, hyung.”
“I'm fine, my growth spurt is almost over.”
“Well… they say some people even grow taller in the army.”
That's them. You won't.
Kang Giyeon's height didn't change after his debut. This was a fact he himself had revealed with his own mouth.
‘Did I have a growth spurt? Sparklers… I thought we agreed not to talk about our height.’
‘Isn't Kang-gyeon being too genuinely bitter? It's hilarious.’
‘It's been the same since I was a sophomore or junior in high school….’
‘Giyeon-seu, you're not crying, are you?’
In other words, now was Kang Giyeon's last chance for a final spurt.
At such a crucial time, if he missed this golden opportunity and stayed awake day and night, it wouldn't end well.
I had wondered what he was doing while all the other members were growing.
With so little sleep, it was no wonder he wasn't growing. It was even more so considering his diet of only bread and salad. Who knows where the protein went.
‘I'll try to secure some time for the kids to sleep if possible… If not, I'll just have to make them drink milk in the morning.’
Are there always this many factors to consider when preparing an idol group for debut?
I wasn't sure, but I couldn't deny that being able to do something was far better than being able to do nothing.
That night, I was only able to return to the dorm after buying two cartons of low-fat milk with Kang Giyeon, braving the early spring night breeze.
‘I should've applied to change my career path to manager instead of idol.’
It was a night of regret.
And that regret would soon blossom in full.
* * *
For a while, my schedule was quite stable.
My days lately looked like this…
7:00 Wake up and make toast for the high schoolers (+ make sure Kang Giyeon has his low-fat milk)
8:00 Eat breakfast and get ready for practice
9:00~24:00 Practice and so on
00:00~00:30 Wash up and reflect on the day's awkwardness
00:30~ Worry about the future, formulate plans for Spark's revival, etc.
…it was extremely monotonous. I occasionally made French toast, which they seemed to enjoy.
Preparations for the next monthly evaluation were also going smoothly.
This was thanks to my vocal proficiency improving, allowing me to intuitively grasp where and how I was lacking when I sang.
By combining the problems I'd identified with my reverse-engineered deductions of the members' past training routines, I could roughly predict the feedback I'd receive at the next evaluation.
All that was left was to choose a song that would most clearly demonstrate I had improved on that feedback, and that part was neatly resolved as well.
This was because Jeong Seongbin, Spark's human karaoke songbook, heard my criteria once and came back with a list of twenty songs the very next day.
I'd only brought it up because he seemed so apologetic about me making him toast a few times.
‘The list is shorter than last time?’
‘Listening to every single one would be a pain. I considered your tastes from the last list and the song you sang at the monthly evaluation, so I tried to narrow it down a bit… Do you prefer having more options?’
‘No. You're a genius.’
And so, preparations for the evaluation proceeded at lightning speed.
Now, all I had to do was upgrade my dancing from a runaway locomotive to a steam engine.
For the record, my goal for dancing is just to not derail.
“You really have no talent for dancing.”
“The first month after joining a company is always when you feel the most incompetent.”
“What kind of analogy is that?”
No sooner had I resolved to avoid derailing than Choi Jeho lifted my elbow. The angle must have been off again.
Sure enough, Choi Jeho immediately pointed it out.
“You can see the angle is wrong in the mirror. Hasn't it sunk into your body yet?”
If my body were capable of that level of parallel processing, I wouldn't be suffering like this.
I missed Kang Giyeon, who, though strict, taught with a more humane approach than Choi Jeho.
“You need to be able to do at least one dance cover so you have something to show for yourself at the meeting.”
“Meeting?”
“Our company has individual meetings at the beginning of the month. With the CEO, the manager, and the management team.”
My friend. Don't you think you should have mentioned something like that a little sooner?
A meeting with the CEO. It was utterly dreadful. Was there anything less productive than a meeting with someone in power?
Right on cue, the system glowed brightly between Choi Jeho and me, displaying a new task.
+
[SYSTEM] A ‘New Task’ has been assigned.
▷ Content: Undergo the first CEO meeting
▷ Reward: Experience (10)
+
If I lost focus in the middle of a conversation, rumors might start that I was seeing things.
I quickly read the main points and turned my attention back to Choi Jeho.
“What do you usually talk about there?”
“Not much, really. Just stuff like if being a trainee is manageable and how you've been doing lately.”
That's damn important.
Don't you know how exhausting company life becomes once you're branded as a misfit?
‘Then again, he's not the type to care about that sort of thing.’
I recalled my last meeting with Department Head Nam.
He'd mentioned how he was constantly praising Assistant Manager Kim to the higher-ups, and how that made things incredibly awkward for him.
And finally, his request to quickly finish up some banner his kid had asked for. That meeting had been like Department Head Nam's one-man talk show.
I prayed that the CEO of UA had absolutely no expectations of me.
Furthermore, I desperately hoped that even if he had a child who was an idol fan, he wasn't the sort of senseless person who would bring that into the workplace.
As if Choi Jeho's words had been foreshadowing, a few days later, the trainees were individually notified of their meeting times.
