Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols-Chapter 264: Pre-release (2)

There was a fairy tale called ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves.’ It was a story about a shoemaker who ran a shoe shop, who prepared leather at night and found wonderfully crafted shoes in the morning.
In truth, the shoes were made by elves who worked while the old man was away. When the old man and his wife made clothes to thank them, the elves happily disappeared.
In this music video, Spark played these ‘elves.’
To give a sense of unity, we all wore brown overalls reminiscent of leather craftsmen.
We even had numbers embroidered on the pockets on our chests according to age—for reference, I was 01—and since we filmed before the hair dye for the title track, the shoot happened much earlier than that of the main promotions.
The original elves were all naked, but if we did that, not only would age verification be required to watch the music video, but it would also cause a social scandal, so we wrapped ourselves up from head to toe in beige sweatshirts and overalls. Standard work attire for a workshop, right?
Anyway, when the play button was pressed, the title ‘Winter Night’ descended onto the roof of a small, snowy cabin, one letter at a time, like snow. Both the letters and the snow melted into the elegant piano accompaniment.
The camera soon entered the house through a window from outside the cabin.
A warm and heart-warming brown-toned workshop. Neatly organized props. A drawer that seemed like it would make a pleasant clattering sound, and a background that made you feel at peace just by looking at it.
And hidden among the tools were the components of the Goldberg machine used in ‘Flowering’.
There was no better device to evoke the image of a song heard in front of a warm bonfire on a winter night. Although, since we became elves, the backgrounds had to be fully CG.
The song began with Jeong Seongbin’s whispering voice.
Dark night
Snow falling
Cold wind doesn’t reach
My little blanket
The day comes to an end
Six elves, grunting and groaning, climbed up a giant chair to reach the top of a table.
To film this scene, we had to undergo the ordeal of climbing a chroma-keyed temporary wall the height of a double-decker bus.
Unlike the time we spent shedding beads of sweat, the song was warm and peaceful.
The overall melody was bright and light, like twinkling light bulbs. But the bass and accompaniment that build beneath it were heavy and solid, like snow piled up overnight.
It felt like listening to music while sitting in a camping chair in the middle of a snowy field, a lamp glowing above your head, wrapped in a cozy blanket and holding a hot drink in your hands. The more you listened, the more relaxed you felt.
On the table where everyone was gathered, six pairs of well-cut leather materials were placed.
The six of them put their heads together and moved around on the instructions written on an old piece of paper.
Choi Jeho, struggling to read the small print with a magnifying glass, Jeong Seongbin, dragging a piece of leather as big as his body and comparing it to the drawing, and Park Joowoo, flipping the leather this way and that, were captured on screen in turn.
Park Joowoo, lying on his stomach on the leather, rested his head on his arms and sang, kicking his legs alternately.
It was a busy day
But to write it all down
I didn’t know where to start
I just hesitated
Me, boldly drawing a line on the leather with a piece of chalk as big as my body, Lee Cheonghyeon, threading a large needle, and Kang Kiyeon, who was inside a large wooden plate, engrossed in choosing his favorite buttons, also appeared.
After that, Spark was absorbed in making their own leather crafts. They took out adorably sized scissors from the pockets on their chests to cut protruding threads, and Kang Kiyeon and Park Joowoo worked together to bring a long ruler.
On a lonely night
A long time
Wondering what to write
The hesitation, and
The pen circling the page
Leather was glued, stitched, and slowly took shape.
There was even a scene where Choi Jeho and Jeong Seongbin accidentally glued their overalls together and everyone burst into laughter.
But you know…
There’s so much I want to say
So tonight, I’ll try to write it all
Even if it’s late
Through the dark window, heavy snow could be seen falling intermittently. From Lee Cheonghyeon’s fingertips, leather dust from sanding fell like snowflakes.
The camera filmed from somewhere on the ceiling of the old leather workshop, looking down on the six elves moving busily.
On one side, a fireplace lit up the room, orange lamps glowed, and a sofa with dried flowers and a classic checkered blanket came into one frame.
The snow was pretty, wasn’t it?
The wind was cold, but
The streets were shining, weren’t they?
We were together, weren’t we?
Before long, the work was reaching its final stages. At the same time, the identity of the object the elves were making was revealed.
A small notebook with the same outer design as the QR album, but with a leather cover.
The members gathered in the middle, dragging notebooks of slightly different colors. Then, they dipped their right foot in pre-mixed gold leaf ink and stamped their footprint on a corner of the notebook cover. A gold leaf certification mark was left on the brown cover.
On screen, I headed towards a large inkwell. While pulling out a quill pen, half of my work clothes got messy, but I didn’t let go of the pen, dragging it, dripping with ink, to my notebook.
I’ll leave it here
The stories of the past
My heart
That was here today, in winter
And I wrote largely on the notebook.
‘Note’
The sun slowly began to rise. We hurriedly climbed down the table legs and escaped from the workshop.
Waiting for us were a flower-patterned handkerchief draped over a small branch and six adorably sized ceramic cups. And six red scarves.
Inside the mugs was steaming milk.
The wind blows
Powdery snow flutters
Gray waves crash
Remember, this winter
The words we shared
Spark wore the scarves and sat in a line on the branch. Then, holding a cup each, they watched the sunrise.
The shadows of the elves, with their backs to the camera, flickered in the shape of ‘Winter Night’ before blurring in the light of the rising sun.
Without missing a thing
I’ll write it all down
There was a beauty in rustic things. The sound of wood hitting wood, the traces of paste left along the grain of a brush, the surface of a metal piece glossy from varnish, the one-by-one stitches sewing leather.
Such things evoke a certain nostalgia. Like a winter night in a certain year when you looked back on a day, and a year.
The concept of this song was to stimulate a fleeting emotion that everyone had felt. Whether it worked… we’d have to wait and see.
‘It would be difficult to expect a reaction right away.’
I didn’t expect the song to perform spectacularly right away. But I believed in the potential of Cheonghyeon’s song.
“Is it too easy-listening? What if the fans forget about it tomorrow?”
“No, Cheonghyeon. The song is so good. I like this song the most in this album.”
“Seongbin hyung, if you’re a real leader, shouldn’t you say the title track is the best?”
Lee Cheonghyeon said with fire in his eyes. Jeong Seongbin must have a hard time too. Having to work with this kid.
‘I actually think going with easy-listening was a good choice.’
Probably, when winter came around, this song would slowly creep into people’s minds. That was how well the song turned out—that was what I believed.
In a good way, my prediction was way off.
Released at the start of December, Lee Cheonghyeon’s ‘Winter Night’—with its cute, animated-like music video and emotional melody perfect for the deep winter nights—rode a wave of buzz from recent ads and debuted with Spark’s best chart ranking ever, despite being a pre-release.
On the evening the results came out, Lee Cheonghyeon earnestly begged to be allowed to revise the sound source of the title track just one more time. We told him it wouldn’t be possible since the albums were probably already printed at the factory, but the guy was in agony.
In the end, we had no choice but to resolve the incident by placating him, saying we should release a repackaged album next year.
* * *
After the release of ‘Winter Night, Baek Haewon’s daily routine became lying in bed, tears streaming sideways down her face.
‘The album… when is it coming? They must have printed all of them anyway… Can’t they just send it to me early…?’
In this state, she would listen to the line ‘We were together, weren’t we?’ on repeat.
‘Winter Night’ was a song that sounded beautiful even in the most classic sense. If you went out to a commercial district, you might be lucky enough to hear it playing once in a while.
But when a person became too emotionally invested, their heart started to ache. Baek Haewon, knowing this fact, wiped her tears again.
To think she had to wait a full week for the actual title track. To think it would take a whole week before album shipping even began!
Give me the album Spark worked so hard to make with leather crafts! Is it taking a long time because it’s handmade?! If so, then really send it to me with your footprints stamped on it!
It felt like the whole world was unfairly ganging up on Baek Haewon. Now, only the regular self-produced content that would be uploaded soon kept Baek Haewon going.
Without that, she would’ve resorted to squinting at the mock-up images, trying to guess who was on the blurred-out photo cards, like one of those Magic Eye puzzles.
‘Life is bitter.’
Baek Haewon got up from the bed listlessly. Then she trudged over to her desk and sat down. Now she really had to prepare for the final exams that were right around the corner… but.
≫ @spArk_official
First Story. The Snow……
It was just an official account notification, but Baek Haewon touched the pop-up notification faster than the speed of light.
Damn it.
Spark was always like this. The moment she finally decided to study, they’d make her life harder!
And just like that, the concept photo that appeared on screen stole her voice away.
≫ @spArk_official
First Story. The Snow Queen
#Spark #spArk #Iwol #OUR #The_Words_I_Want_to_Say
A snowfield, clean without any traces of being stepped on, with the spaces in between sparkling with an aurora light.
A long, white neck wrapped in layers of ornate lace.
Above it, a sharp jawline and delicate lips connecting softly. Eyes rimmed with crystals like scattered snowflakes.
Passing through all these sections, Baek Haewon witnessed Kim Iwol’s two eyes shining with a deep blue color.
White eyelashes over half-lidded blue eyes, and…
Gleaming white hair rested upon them.
The man with the personal color ‘Yeouido Securities Gray,’ who seemed to have been born with black hair and would return with black hair, whose only hair dye during his promotions had been a dark gray.
He appeared, having removed all the color that must have existed in his hair.
Under the title of ‘The Snow Queen.’