Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols - Chapter 43
Only Krnovel
| Episode 43. Promoting Friendship Among Men (2)
When you become an office worker, especially a low-level employee, there is something you are very likely to do.
‘Mr. Lee Wol, where did you decide to have the company dinner today?’
‘Team Leader Cho recommended a meat restaurant, so I made a reservation there!’
‘Meat? Oh, me. It’ll stink on my clothes.’
From arranging company dinners, to reserving a chicken restaurant for the welcome party, to choosing a place to go for a company outing, to planning a hiking course to fill the executives’ list of 100 famous mountains.
In the past few years, there hasn’t been a single appointment at Hanpyeong Industries that I haven’t made.
More than that, Manager Nam, that guy, he used to eat a lot of meat when I didn’t make a reservation.
I apologized about thirty times because I thought I had chosen a meat restaurant without realizing it.
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[SYSTEM] ‘New task’ has been assigned.
▷ Music video filming location scouting
▷ Reward: Experience (varies depending on the condition of the shooting location)
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‘I’ve never tried scouting a filming location before. What should I do?’
It seems like this system is trying to hold me responsible for all the changes I made when I returned to the past.
If this isn’t a fuss about changing the song, then what is?
The first and easiest background that came to mind was a school, but the words, “It varies depending on the conditions of the filming location,” were on my mind.
Perhaps even things like location selection and directing were included in the producing ability.
‘Usually it seems like it was filmed in at least two places, an outdoor and an indoor studio… … Do you have to take all that into consideration?’
I have always believed in the power of experts.
Why are experts experts? They are experts because they are good at what they do.
But I couldn’t understand why I had to do this while there were people who were good at their jobs. I’m a procurement expert.
The bigger problem was that when I was a college student, I only did part-time jobs, and after I got a job, I only worked overtime, so I don’t remember going anywhere.
I think I would have gotten a feel for it if I had just wandered around, but all I can remember right now is that there are a lot of good restaurants near Hanpyeong Industrial Complex.
‘There’s no time to be selling things now.’
The sweet days of the past few days, when I just wanted to get some sleep at night, have all ended today.
The thought of scuba diving until dawn in a sea of information made me almost cry with excitement.
If I had to start something anyway, it would be better for me to start it as soon as possible. Work is something that comes to me without any consideration for my circumstances.
Two hours after lying down to sleep, I was about to get out of bed when a familiar alarm rang above my head.
It was Lee Cheong-hyeon’s alarm.
The alarm went off in an instant. And then the sound of Lee Cheong-hyeon struggling to get up was heard.
“Why did you set your alarm at this hour? It’s 5 a.m. right now.”
I asked in a small voice so as not to wake Choi Je-ho, afraid that Lee Cheong-hyeon might have set the alarm wrong.
But the answer I got back was, ‘You didn’t set the alarm wrong.’
“I have exams coming up soon… … I’m going to study and then go to school.”
“what?”
Before I knew it, the exam period for high school students was fast approaching.
* * *
Until I was in high school, I spent a lot of time studying.
Except for the time spent eating, washing, and sleeping, I spent almost all my time studying.
There were many reasons why I studied hard.
Because in our country, there is still a tendency to place importance on academic background.
If you’re concentrating, you won’t even notice loud noises at home.
If I get good enough grades to receive a scholarship, I can go to college.
By sheer luck, I was able to receive a greater reward than I had put in. I did receive a lot of help from my older sister, but in the end, I was able to leave home.
So I don’t regret the time I spent studying, nor do I remember it as a time of suffering.
After graduating from college, I lived a life far from studying.
‘It definitely was like that.’
I thought as I looked at the students huddled together in the living room, opening their workbooks.
‘How did things turn out like this?’
After waking up from bed together in the morning, Lee Cheong-hyun spent an hour studying in the living room, and I spent time searching for music video filming locations.
Then Lee Cheong-hyeon started to rack his brain.
‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s something I don’t understand. The commentary is at school, so I can’t check it right now.’
Luckily, it was a problem I could solve, so I gave him a rough solution. Lee Cheong-hyeon then asked if he could ask me questions if he had any questions in the future.
A few days later, with the exam date approaching, the students decided to have a large study session in the living room after practice.
That too with me.
‘Wait a minute. Why me?’
‘You said to talk to me whenever you need to.’
‘Did I say that?’
Since Jeong Seong-bin, Lee Cheong-hyeon, and Kang Ki-yeon all had different weak subjects, I had no choice but to sit at the table with them.
It was fortunate that I still had the knowledge I had from the time I took the exam.
Jeong Seong-bin and Lee Cheong-hyeon, who were in charge of managing the grades, would occasionally ask questions, and Kang Ki-yeon… … .
“Giyeon, it seems like the pen has stopped.”
It was almost soulless.
I seemed to be able to solve problems in other subjects somehow, but when it came to math, I was completely lost.
Thanks to that, I had to give Kang Ki-yeon an educational broadcast-style math lecture instead of looking for the fifteenth abandoned school.
As I gave full play to my experience from working as a tutor several times, Kang Ki-yeon’s pen began to move little by little.
I felt like I was taking a private lesson while drinking the ionic drink that Park Joo-woo gave me in a cup, telling me to cheer up.
“Hyung, why did you decide to become an idol?”
Lee Cheong-hyeon, who was taking a breather while drinking a beverage, asked me.
From a distance, Park Joo-woo was seen flinching as he tried to put juice in the refrigerator.
That’s right, he misunderstands that I’m not going to college and becoming an idol because I can’t pay my tuition.
I asked back in a deliberately loud voice, pretending it was no big deal.
“Why all of a sudden?”
“Just that. It seems like you’re good at studying, but I was wondering why you became interested in becoming an idol after graduating from high school.”
Rather, that was what people were curious about about Lee Cheong-hyeon.
He was a guy who played classical music as a child and was preparing to enter a gifted high school when he grew up, but he suddenly became an idol trainee and entered a regular humanities high school.
However, I couldn’t answer Lee Cheong-hyeon by saying, ‘Yeah, originally I wasn’t even interested in it, but I had no other choice in order to do filial piety and change jobs at the same time.’
I smiled brightly, as if practicing the old saying that you can’t spit on a smiling face, and pointed to a new page that had not yet been solved.
“Cheong-hyeon, is that important right now?”
“Of course studying is more important, hyung.”
Whether Kang Ki-yeon was looking at him with a face that said, “Are you kidding me?” or not, Lee Cheong-hyeon started to focus on the test paper again. In a way, it was an amazing concentration.
I thought to myself as I watched Lee Cheong-hyeon solve the problem book at a frightening speed as if he had never said anything.
‘Is it better to prepare an answer in advance regarding what made you become an idol?’
This was a question that could come up again anytime, anywhere.
I just avoided answering by talking to Lee Cheong-hyeon as if I was joking, but I was practicing so hard that I was embarrassed to show it to anyone, so I couldn’t just say, ‘Because of the casting.’
‘I’m glad I’m not speechless.’
I never thought that my experience of working with Manager Nam and responding positively to all kinds of absurd comments would come to fruition in a place like this.
Even then, after about a year, the conversation started to turn around like an answering machine.
Until this point, I believed that I could solve any future situation with my own improvisation.
It was truly a naive thought.
* * *
As you live, you come to realize that there are things in your world that you cannot even imagine.
Like a good boss or a professor who gives less homework.
I’ve had things like that too.
This refers to people who ‘have never had’ something like a company that provides lunch as an employee benefit or a younger sibling.
And this included being a ‘good parent’.
Some people say that domestic discord lingers in their minds and torments them for a long time, but my case was a little different.
‘Don’t you remember when we couldn’t sleep because we were cold, and Mom said we were full and threw us out? It was the middle of winter.’
‘I don’t remember a single thing.’
‘Wow, I’m the only one who’s at a loss. How can you forget about that after hanging up a statue?’
Rather, I was one of those people who had very little memory.
Unlike me, my older sister, who remembers her childhood in detail, only remembered what she had taken apart.
I have met countless adults in society.
But they were teachers or superiors, not ‘guardians’.
So, throughout my life, I never met an adult who shared an emotional bond with someone my age.
“Your parents are coming?”
In that sense, Jeong Seong-bin’s parents, who were coming to the dorm soon, were going to be the type of adults I would meet for the first time.
“Yes. He said that since my debut was confirmed, he wanted to make me something delicious.”
“Wow! Seongbin hyung’s parents are coming?”
From what I heard, it seemed like Jeong Seong-bin’s family had often visited his residence before and filled the refrigerator.
I… I’m not mentally ready yet.
If I had any friends, I would have gone to their house to visit them and met their parents.
Unfortunately, I’m not a very sociable person.
At this point, as the date of the face-to-face meeting drew closer, I started to get more nervous.
Even though we are all adults, isn’t it natural that the manners we show to professors, doctors, and executives are slightly different?
Although my family home was a mess and raised me as a scoundrel, Jeong Seong-bin’s house was the house that raised Jeong Seong-bin.
If I had done something reckless to someone from that kind of family without knowing it, it would have been a big problem. Don’t they say that people only know their own mistakes?
I unknowingly did something that went against social norms… … .
‘I can’t stand my son debuting with such a slut even if it means getting dirt in my eyes!’
‘Please trust me just this once, Mother!’
… … If that situation had occurred, it would have been a big problem.
‘You have to come to your senses.’
Since returning to the past, this was the second embarrassing moment after being faced with the situation of having to become an idol.