Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols - Chapter 1
Only Krnovel
| Episode 1. Prologue Manager Kim Hates Idols
It was past 11pm, at home.
I was busy moving my hands in the room, feeling guilty that I hadn’t finished my work yet.
[~Happy 7th Anniversary of the Never-ending Spark~]
Still, the completion of the pink banner file was imminent.
Once I finish this, I can sleep well.
I was able to say goodbye to the urging calls from Manager Nam and the dozens of reference materials that piled up in my mailbox every day.
You can enjoy the Chuseok holiday a day earlier than others.
‘Just cancel my annual leave on the day of your vacation this time. I’ll make you an ambassador for the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s investigation room.’
Because of whom, I have seventeen days left on my annual leave in September.
This time, I can’t compromise. I absolutely must protect my vacation.
I started typing, mumbling a phrase I had picked up from a certain community.
How many times have I repeated this process of looking at the calendar once and focusing on the photo flats?
“… … The end. I won’t touch you anymore, really.”
After much struggling, the name of the file I had created with determination was finally changed to ‘Spark_7th_Anniversary_Commemorative_Cafe (Banner)’.
Now all I have to do is send an email. I quickly opened an Internet window.
Then, the dizzying faces I had grown tired of seeing on the banners greeted me.
I set entertainment news as my main page because I always check for news from Spark.
These damn bastards are the thieves who stole the heart of our company’s vice president’s daughter, and they are the ones who are keeping me up at night…
“what.”
There I saw it.
The owner of the banner has changed the colors about 28,000 times so far, worrying about which one looks prettier.
A one-line headline with that damn Spark’s name in it.
『Spark, unable to survive the 7 years of the devil… … Decided to proceed with disbandment.』
“F*ck… … .”
After that, my memory was hazy.
I don’t know if I fell over because I was so embarrassed, or if I fell asleep with my head on the keyboard due to extreme lack of sleep.
You didn’t even faint while working overtime, you fainted while fangirling on behalf of your boss’s daughter.
If the place you fell wasn’t an office, it wouldn’t be considered an industrial accident.
It was absurd from start to finish. The darkened vision seemed like my future.
* * *
Warm sunshine. A quiet and peaceful morning.
My body felt so refreshed that I didn’t even know how many hours I slept.
Needless to say, it was the best condition I’ve been in recently. Everything was perfect.
… …except that I can see a wooden plank right in front of my nose.
‘Was the ceiling originally this close?’
Somehow it felt like the ceiling was right in front of my eyes.
Objects appear closer than they actually are. I guess I’m still not fully awake.
After working 7 days a week and working overtime on Monday, it’s no wonder I’m out of my mind.
On top of that, I received the shocking news that the banner I had been working on for two weeks was useless.
I must be tired. I can’t even remember when I came to bed and lay down.
As I reached out to the side of my head to grab my phone to check the time, a conversation my teammates had with each other as they passed by flashed through my mind.
‘When you sleep in late, isn’t the air already different?’
‘I know. I feel strangely refreshed and the sunlight is warm.’
‘It’s so quiet around here. That’s when I start to sweat.’
A calm atmosphere.
A refreshing body fit.
The calm atmosphere… …matched perfectly.
‘X is done.’
I raised my upper body like a water jug, and almost hit my head on the ceiling, which was strangely low.
It wasn’t an optical illusion, the ceiling really was lower.
‘Did the house collapse while I was sleeping?’
I turned my head, wondering if I could write ‘the ceiling of the house collapsed’ as the reason for my tardiness.
An even more shocking scene unfolded next door.
Someone was sleeping with their back to me in the bed across from me, within arm’s reach.
The bed and the floor were strewn with luggage I had never seen before.
This was something that could not have happened in my home where I had always lived alone since becoming independent.
‘First of all, it’s not my house. It’s definitely not.’
The mysterious thing was that it kept increasing by the minute as the field of vision gradually widened.
But what do I know? If he hadn’t broken into my house, I would have been dragged into his house.
I immediately grabbed the pillow. It was time to put my strength, built up over the years as a porter for the men’s mountaineering club, to use.
As I was carefully aiming my shot about a foot above the guy’s head, a flash of light appeared before my eyes. At the same time, both my eyes closed reflexively.
When I opened my eyes with difficulty, an unbelievable phenomenon unfolded.
+
[SYSTEM] The reuse of the life of Representative Kim I-wol (hereinafter referred to as “B”) has been approved.
+
‘……? what’s this.’
The letters floated in the air.
That too, with content that makes no sense at all.
Although I pursue an environmentally friendly life, I never thought of reusing my life.
Or is this the epilepsy that Manager Hwang was suffering from?
However, among the symptoms mentioned by Manager Hwang, ‘the payment window appears before my eyes’ was not there.
If that were the case, Manager Hwang would have had to resign rather than go to work.
“… … .”
This is my first time sleeping in, despite having always boasted perfect attendance.
A strange man sleeping soundly, even covering himself with a blanket, even though it was his first time meeting him.
Even the air typing show that unfolded at someone else’s house when I was suddenly dragged there.
I knew exactly what to say about this situation.
‘It’s a dog dream.’
As soon as I realized that it wasn’t my fault, I felt relieved. I covered myself with the blanket again and lay down in bed.
It was then that my eyes lit up white again.
Just as I was about to ask them to turn off the lights, a message I couldn’t ignore appeared.
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions from ‘Manager’ have arrived.
Mr. Kim, you should debut with this batch of kids. This is a really good opportunity. I’m sure there will come a day when you’ll thank me. Don’t forget that there are expectations from above.
[SYSTEM] ‘Debut as a 6-member boy group’ was designated as the KPI of ‘.’
+
You sound like the person in charge.
There are exactly three things I hate: one is my first cousin, another is my boss at work, Manager Nam, and the last is responsibility. I am a low-level person.
Even the tone of the system was like that of Chief Nam himself. I thought Chief Nam had come back to life.
Oh right, that guy hasn’t come to his senses yet.
Even though it was a dream, I can’t forgive him for sending me a message pretending to be my boss in the morning.
Even in an industry with no business ethics, shouldn’t there be a minimum level of human respect? I’ll report it as smishing.
And what else? Debuting in a boy group?
That’s nonsense.
It was a horrible nightmare. I felt like I would rather bang my forehead against the ceiling and look for light.
* * *
The long-standing feud between me and my idol started when I was a new employee.
This was the first question that Team Leader Nam (former) asked me a week after I joined the company, before I was promoted to manager.
‘Kim Iwol, do you know how to use photoflats?’
Not knowing the truth that I should say I don’t know what I know, I ended up saying the outrageous thing, ‘I have a certificate.’
After that, my life went crazy. From that day on, I was selected as Manager Nam’s official chore machine.
The chores that Manager Nam instructed were not limited to company work.
When the boy group ‘Spark’, which the boss’s daughter’s favorite member is a member of, appears on the radio, they start by recording the recording.
Once the live broadcast starts, we capture each motion and design and order cup holders to be used at a birthday cafe.
As soon as Spark started working, I had to deal with things I had never done before with red eyes.
It was the beginning of an idol fandom that was not even in one’s fortune.
‘I don’t know why he pays someone else to do this. Looking at what Mr. Kim does, I think he could do it at home if he just learned how.’
‘Haha, this is taking longer than I thought, Team Leader.’
‘I said something at home. I said that you don’t know how to save money. And my child asked me to edit the banner you made yesterday.’
‘yes?’
‘You should write ‘Center Emperor Choi Je-ho’ instead of ‘Emperor Choi Je-ho. Send it to my email by 1 o’clock.’
So it’s been about 6 months since I became a professional GIF maker for my daughter’s favorite Spark center, aka ‘Center Emperor Choi Je-ho’.
Chief Nam’s daughter grew from being a personal fan of center emperor Choi Je-ho to becoming an all-time fan of Spark.
Only the center emperor is Choi Je-ho.
Jeho, you said you were the only one who could see me.
It felt like the world was falling apart.
As the number of GIFs to be steamed increased fivefold, my energy, which had suddenly been reduced to a human GIF steamer, was quickly depleted.
Of course, he didn’t just sit still and obediently follow what he was told.
I wondered if it was really necessary for a working person to go to such lengths, so I asked for advice from people around me.
After being told that I didn’t have to do all that, I tried a hundred different ways to say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do anything more,” but that just resulted in a ton of nitpicking.
‘Mr. Lee Wol, what on earth are you talking about? Why don’t I understand anything you wrote?’
‘Did you get this reviewed by Manager Cho before you uploaded it? Tell Manager Cho to come.’
Days where I ask for confirmation four times a day, curse inwardly eight times, and bow my head six times.
I, who had resisted the urge to work under him and resisted the urge to do other things, finally gave up on the day when Team Leader Nam, who had been squeezing his subordinates, was promoted to manager.
Those detestable Spark guys who brought about such hell suddenly declared disbandment.
Right in front of my nose as I was forcibly preparing for the 7th anniversary support.
It’s already a shame that idols are crying tears of blood. These guys have no morals.
I didn’t look in the mirror, but my eyes must have been bloodshot. I could feel my intraocular pressure rising in real time.
To clear my mind, I reviewed the ‘Things to do after quitting my job’ list from number 1 onwards.
“Umm… … .”
As I was trying hard to calm my mind, the guy sleeping in the bed across from me started tossing and turning.
Could it be that you are one of the new batch of kids that came out in the system?
What sin did he commit in his past life to be punished by becoming an idol and an old man like me? That young man seems to have quite an unlucky fate.
Even though it was a dream, I was about to sympathize with him when the guy’s sleeping face turned towards me.
Surprisingly, it was a familiar face.
Thick facial features and dark eyebrows.
From the sharp facial lines to the long neckline.
It was a face that was unrecognizable because it was imprinted on the cornea.
Because it was exactly like the face of the center emperor Choi Je-ho, the daughter of the head of the Nam family who had kept me up for over three years, when he was young.
Sparks coming out of here?
Why him of all people?
Is that face right in front of me that made me come back to work after leaving off work because I missed one photo retouch? Even if my eyes roll back, I am innocent.
My whole body felt hot as if I was lying on an electric blanket. I was sure I had a fever.
But let’s bear with it. This is just a dream.
Even if you grabbed the sleeping person by the collar and asked, “Are you out of your mind, pushing the feed when you were just archiving personal information?”, nothing would change.
Anyway, the pain is something that only a subordinate who is threatened by his boss and ends up scraping other people’s posts until 9 p.m. would understand.
But there was nothing I could do about the boiling anger. It seemed like the rage was engraved into my spine.
‘Could it be that the other four are also Spark’s…?’
If you add me to the five-member group Spark, it would be the perfect six-member group as specified by the system. The fit was incredible.
At this very moment, I wish I could contact Director Nam’s daughter and ask her.
To the person who said 5-1 was 0.
I’m really sorry, but what about 5+1?
I bitterly regretted not closing my eyes before seeing that ridiculous message.
And he very strongly denied the current situation.
If it’s spark, I’ll reject it.
If it was Center Emperor Choi Je-ho who locked me in a hotel, made me work while only feeding me room service, I would absolutely refuse.
I had to take 50 screenshots of each member’s smiling face, but I debuted with those who only smiled three times during a two-hour live broadcast?
‘Yeah. Absolutely not.’
Did I hear the lock of my heart closing?
The previously floating letters disappeared and new sentences appeared.
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions from ‘Manager’ have arrived.
They say that kids these days work as much as they get paid? But is that how company life is? But I’m not mean to be evaluated. Our Manager Kim gets paid as much as he works. Is that okay?
[SYSTEM] ‘Personnel disadvantage’ has been designated due to failure to achieve the final KPI of ‘.’
[SYSTEM] ‘Performance Reward’ has been designated based on the achievement of the final KPI of ‘.’
+
It was full of infuriating phrases from beginning to end.
Do you think I’ll fall for that?
I won’t deny that my life has become so shabby that I’ve underestimated the system.
From the moment I accepted all of Manager Nam’s nonsense, it was like I was asking for a difficult life.
But I didn’t want to be branded a genuine fool even in my dreams.
Rather than keep seeing that kind of thing, I was about to poke my eye with my finger, but then my vision brightened again.
What followed was truly shocking.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Personnel disadvantage’ is notified.
▷ Hanpyeong Industry enforces re-employment and restricts transfers upon resignation
▷ Permanent loss of opportunity to receive final performance rewards
+
It was a statement that threatened to force re-employment to the old company from which one could not even resign.
You want me to go into that fucking shitty place like Hanpyeong Industry again?
I have to join a company that, against my will, tells me to wait until the supermarket has a sale if they run out of toilet paper!
They even said that if I quit the company, they would limit my chances of changing jobs.
The idea of throwing a bucket of coal ash into someone else’s career seemed trivial.
I have to retire from that damn company?
That can’t be. No wonder the biggest regret of my life was submitting my resume to Hanpyeong Industries.
No, f*ck. I regret going to that job site at that time on that day.
The explanation below took me a while to understand. It was because I was so shocked by Hanpyeong Industries’ re-employment that my head didn’t work properly.
‘Final performance reward?’
What does final compensation matter? I already hate re-employment.
I had no doubt that nothing could be more beggarly than this.
That is, until you see the explanation that follows.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Final Performance Reward’ will be announced.
▷ Invalidation of death of older sister (blood relative) and provision of opportunity for reunion
+
The opportunity to meet my older sister who died two years ago was presented as nothing more than a ‘compensation’.
Invalidate my sister’s death?
It seemed like the number nine had come in too strong. Or maybe it was because I had been wishing for Manager Nam to go to hell every night, and it backfired.
Seriously, I felt like I was in hell, not in a dream.
―
*KPI: Key Performance Indicator.