Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols

What does Kim Iwol hate the most?

 

If you asked this question, all the Spark members would give the same answer.

 

Doing something unbecoming of an idol.

 

It was as if Kim Iwol divided everything in the world into two categories: ‘actions that idols can do’ and ‘actions that idols cannot do.’

 

No, it wasn’t as if—he actually did.

 

‘You made a blank expression at this XX fan signing?’

 

‘I was drinking water…’

 

‘If you weren’t an idol, do you think there would be anyone in the world who would take a bus from Busan to Seoul at dawn to meet you, wait for 3 hours, meet you for 1 hour, and then tell you to get some rest on their way out?’

 

Just one photo of Choi Jeho looking expressionless at a fan meet was enough for Kim Iwol to practically hunt him down.

 

‘What props does Lee Cheonghyeon hold in the photo shoots these days?’

 

‘His face does all the work, doesn’t it?’

 

‘Is it his face or Lee Cheongyeon himself who’s supposed to do the work? Are you planning to let him coast on his looks for the rest of his career?’

 

‘Why are you yelling at me when I am not even doing anything!’

 

He never let his guard down, worried that the members might become arrogant.

 

And that wasn’t all.

 

He loved his fans so much…

 

‘When you post on the official fan cafe or social media, pay attention to your tone. There are only two things we can ask of our fans in an imperative tone. Wishing them a happy new year and asking them not to push the person in front of them.’

 

‘Isn’t the second one something you can only say at a concert?’

 

‘Exactly, so handle everything else with care.’

 

…that every single word he spoke to fans was meticulously considered.

 

Kim Iwol was always vigilant. His strictness sometimes felt stifling, but he held himself to even higher standards than he did others, so Choi Jeho had nothing to say.

 

The reason the members didn’t complain about Kim Iwol was probably the same.

 

Now, Kim Iwol left the members in Choi Jeho’s care. He asked him to keep an eye on them so they wouldn’t do anything foolish.

 

But their underage leader came to him, asking for help with adult verification content?

 

Choi Jeho’s head spun quickly.

 

However, because his brain wasn’t built for such situations, it stopped spinning in a matter of seconds.

 

Instead, his instincts kicked in.

 

If he didn’t handle this now, Kim Iwol would rain down fire and brimstone upon him when he returned.

 

And then he thought. How would Kim Iwol act in this situation? Kim Iwol was usually great at resolving things like these.

 

‘He’d start with a conversation.’

 

Instead of saying, ‘Don’t drag me into something weird’, Choi Jeho sat up in his bed.

 

Next, he chose what to say.

 

Saying whatever came to mind had never gone well for him, so he needed to be cautious.

 

He wanted to blurt out, ‘Couldn’t you ask for something else? Have you lost your mind?’ but he held back. Instead, he thought about how Kim Iwol would handle this and carefully chose his words.

 

After organizing his thoughts in his head, Choi Jeho asked.

 

“What were you looking up?”

 

He had done his best.

 

Even if Jeong Seongbin had been caught trying to look up something shady, Choi Jeho could now confidently say he had given it his all.

 

Choi Jeho felt both satisfied and complicated at the same time.

 

While worrying about how Jeong Seongbin would react next.

 

However, Jeong Seongbin’s response was too innocent.

 

“Hangover cure!”

 

“What?”

 

“Iwol hyung’s going to come home drunk today. I was wondering if there was anything I could do for him, but then I found out that minors can buy hangover cures, so I was clicking through the related search term…”

 

As Jeong Seongbin looked it up, he found a product that seemed very useful, but when he clicked on it, the adult verification page suddenly appeared. Choi Jeho’s nervousness evaporated into absurdity.

 

“What the… I mean, yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

 

Choi Jeho quickly backtracked, squirming a little. He then took the shared phone from Jeong Seongbin and logged in with his own account.

 

“Can I just summarize it for you instead?”

 

“Yes…!”

 

Then Jeong Seongbin opened his journal. It seemed he even planned to write it down.

 

But unfortunately, there wasn’t much for Choi Jeho to summarize. The related searches had led Jeong Seongbin down a path entirely unrelated to hangover remedies.

 

After explaining that this was unrelated to the information he was looking for, Choi Jeho thought that he was now finally free from the responsibility of being an older member.

 

Of course, responsibility was never that easy to shake off.  In the end, Choi Jeho had to accompany Jeong Seongbin to the convenience store, where he had to buy hangover cures.

 

For the first time since meeting Kim Iwol, he genuinely missed him.

 

* * *

 

“Hyung! The video is up!”

 

At Lee Cheonghyeon’s shout, everyone gathered around the spare phone he was holding.

 

On the screen, a thumbnail for the Kim Iwol episode of ‘Drinkers’ was displayed.

 

The upload time was 1 hour ago, and the video title was…

 

[Looking for the Soju Thief… Spark’s Iwol Episode]

 

….

 

I’m sorry, but doesn’t the title lack respect for my dignity? I was flustered.

 

“Hyung, how much did you drink there?”

 

“Oh, I only drank a little.”

 

Despite my answer, Kang Kiyeon’s eyes were filled with suspicion.

 

“The screen’s too small to watch properly on the phone. Should we watch it on the laptop at the dorm?”

 

“Let’s all watch it together.”

 

Jeong Seongbin’s suggestion threw me off guard. Wait, you’re saying we’re all going to watch a show of me drinking together?

 

Completely oblivious to my inner turmoil, Jeong Seongbin grinned innocently.

 

“You’re the first of our members to have a solo variety show! We have to monitor it together.”

 

Looking at his pure smile, I thought.

 

When you watch it, you’ll realize how unnecessary it was for you guys to buy me five bottles of hangover cure on the night of the shoot.

 

The thumbnail alone was already extraordinary.

 

With a smiling photo of me next to the MC’s astonished face, it looked like a comedy skit.

 

Thanks to that, I came out like some kind of cheerful-eyed lunatic. It was embarrassing.

 

The suspicious editing began from the entrance itself.

 

『Mr. Iwol, you’re really tall, aren’t you? Isn’t our food stall going to collapse at this rate?』

 

『He didn’t look this tall on video…』

 

『Oh, was it the video of me with Jeho? That guy is so tall that when we stand together, we all look small.』

 

『For now, let’s not get up from our chairs for today’s shoot, and from now on, let’s not cast anyone taller than 180cm. Okay?』

 

Because of the camera distortion, my height was already as tall as a door, but due to the MC who exaggerated for the sake of the tension of the broadcast and the flustered production staff, it was edited like a ‘giant human visiting a street food stall’.

 

When the scene where potato chips were served as snacks came out, sounds like ‘Hmm?’ filled the room.

 

“Hyung, do you actually like potato chips?”

 

“Why? Does it sound like a lie?”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat chips before.”

 

Lee Cheonghyeon pointed out.

 

“I am just keeping fit. Plus, I haven’t had a reason to drink since moving into the dorm.”

 

“But you barely ate them on the show either, right?”

 

“True, I actually ate seaweed on a regular basis most of the time.”

 

“Wow, the reality is even sadder.”

 

I explained that I couldn’t just serve seaweed to the MC, and only then did Cheonghyeon nod in understanding.

 

『You started as a trainee late, right? What did you want to do before that?』

 

『I didn’t have a specific job in mind, but I was interested in business administration, so I thought about majoring in business.』

 

『It suits you. Are you good at handling money?』

 

『I’m not bad at it, but we’ve got a human calculator in our team, so I leave it to him.』

 

Look at how much I talked about you guys.

 

Suddenly labeled as the ‘human calculator’, Lee Cheonghyeon smacked my thigh.

 

He grumbled about how ridiculous I was, but honestly, I thought he was the one being more ridiculous.

 

Up until that point, things seemed to be going well.

 

It was a little annoying that my scene of drinking soju without spilling or drinking it in one shot was edited like I was some great sommelier, but at least it was more entertaining than being dull.

 

The real issue began when the system triggered its ‘short-term task’.

 

The screen went black, and a short phrase appeared in white letters.

 

[But,]

 

[We didn’t know.]

 

[This man’s drinking capacity…]

 

Then it cut to me downing shots at 2.5x speed, seamlessly drinking glass after glass without a pause.

 

The MC’s widening eyes, the murmurs from the production staff, the growing pile of empty bottles, and me, completely unfazed, continuing to drink…

 

To anyone watching, I must have looked like a complete oddball. Even I found my behavior unfamiliar and strange.

 

There was one exception, though. The students sitting on the floor simply looked intrigued, their expressions no more than a mild ‘it’s interesting’.

 

Only Choi Jeho, sitting on the couch, looked unimpressed.

 

“Hyung, are you a good drinker?”

 

Jeong Seongbin asked. He must have had no experience drinking before, so he didn’t know how it worked.

 

“Just average.”

 

“What do you mean average? You’re a heavy drinker.”

 

I tried to put a positive spin on it, but Choi Jeho, this guy, just had to butt in.

 

Ridiculous. Why are you picking a fight when you don’t even drink?

 

“It’s a broadcast, so the editing must have exaggerated it.”

 

“But the frames aren’t even cut.”

 

“Hyung, you seem to drink better than my uncle…”

 

Lee Cheonghyeon kept pointing things out, and Park Joowoo even dragged elders into the mix.

 

Are we really monitoring? If you’re going to gang up on me like this, why call it monitoring? Just hold a hearing instead.

 

The climax came when the MC brought out a straw.

 

『Mr. Iwol, this can’t go on. I’m getting tired of refilling your glass.』

 

『Oh, I’ll fill it myself!』

 

『No, how can I let the guest do that? I’ll just put a straw in the bottle for you.”

 

Then he put a straw in a new soju bottle and handed it to me. He probably thought it would make a funny picture.

 

What was I thinking at that time?

 

‘If I drink all of this, it counts as one more bottle!’

 

I was excited by the fact that I could precisely add one more bottle to the count. Looking back now, I must have been completely out of my mind.

 

Thus, the screen captured me gripping a soju bottle tightly with both hands, sipping through a straw to avoid dropping it.

 

Surrounding my face were the word ‘happiness’ and bubbles with blooming flower effects—everything was surreal.

 

No wonder the video was titled ‘Soju Thief’. It almost brought me to tears.

 

“Some days, alcohol just goes down easier… That must’ve been one of those days. Drinking a lot isn’t a good thing, so don’t mention it unnecessarily on other shows.”

 

When I said it as an excuse, the guys nodded their heads in understanding.

 

However, my excuses were all useless.

 

In a society like Korea, where drinking capacity could almost be considered a bragging right, the sight of me chugging from a bottle only added fuel to the fire.

 

“…’Soju Thief Iwol Episode’ Comments Compilation?”

 

I’d made compilations of other people’s comments before, but this was my first time seeing a compilation of my own made by someone else.

 

The channel where the video was uploaded wasn’t even a Spark fan account.

 

It seemed to be a channel dedicated to extracting the most entertaining clips from variety shows and compiling them with highlighted comments. Seeing my face there left me conflicted. Was this how the system raised my self-PR score?

 

‘Do I watch this or not…’

 

After much deliberation, I decided not to watch it.

 

But my decision meant nothing. That night, Lee Cheonghyeon crawled up to my bed and demanded I watch the video with him.

 

“Hyung, did you see the compilation of comments that was uploaded this time?! I was going to watch it during break time earlier, but I waited to watch it with you. Don’t you feel touched?”

 

Yeah, I am so touched I could cry snot tears, you idiot.

 

The compilation of comments that I saw was, simply put… a grand showcase of Kim Iwol’s humiliation.