Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols-Chapter 165: Mind Control (1)

How long had my eyes been closed?
In that indistinct moment between wakefulness and sleep, a familiar voice echoed in the darkness.
“Young people these days have such weak mentalities. Their heads are screwed on wrong. How do they expect to survive being so fragile like that?”
A blunt, harsh, and emotional tone.
It was Manager Nam’s usual refrain.
Even without seeing it, I could vividly picture the office atmosphere. Manager Nam grumbling to himself while reading online articles, everyone else pretending not to hear and focusing on their work.
Someone whispered next to me. It was Assistant Manager Ahn.
“An employee in a nearby office died. That’s why he’s like this.”
Assistant Manager Ahn sighed.
“I’m so tired of him going on about ‘young people these days.’ He talks about people like they’re losers. Does he even know how desperately people are struggling just to hold on?”
It was around the time when Assistant Manager Ahn’s team members were leaving the company one after another. And he was one of the few who didn’t curse the departing employees.
“That’s how it is these days. They think something terrible will happen if they quit, so they end up having extreme thoughts. They feel trapped. No matter how much others tell them to take a break, they can’t hear it. When your mind is struggling, your judgment gets clouded…”
He spoke calmly, his words heavy and dark.
“But the world is a big place. This isn’t the only company out there.  So…”
That day.
The day I returned to work after saying goodbye to my sister.
I remembered his last words to me, words of comfort.
“Don’t be like that, Assistant Manager Kim.”
A chill seeped into my bones. I heard the faint sound of water.
I opened my eyes, and a shimmering nightscape spread before me.
A few skyscrapers, still lit up, looked glamorous.
‘The Hannam Bridge?’
I recognized it easily, having crossed it countless times.
But there was something different. The bridge, usually jammed with traffic during commuting hours, was completely empty.
The road was deserted, and the streetlights flickered, casting their glow on the damp night air.
The night sky was pitch black.
‘What time is it…?’
I rummaged through my pockets and found my phone.
4:10 AM. Even the first buses wouldn’t be running yet.
As I walked along the sidewalk, I felt a chill on my arms. I brushed my arm, and the rustling fabric of my shirt met my hand.
Suddenly, I turned around and looked back the way I had come. I saw buildings with almost all their lights extinguished. Hanpyeong Industry was about an hour’s walk from there.
The moment I turned back around, a coldness washed over me. My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.
The wind blew, but I couldn’t draw a breath.
Beyond the narrow railing, I saw the vast, black expanse of the sky.
It blended seamlessly with the dark river below, making it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Nausea welled up inside me. My hand trembled as I covered my mouth. My steps faltered in the wind, and I had to grip the railing tightly to avoid falling.
Unconsciously, a word I hadn’t intended to speak escaped my lips.
“Noona.”
My other hand also reached for the railing. The dark river flowed silently below.
The sight before me was the same one I had seen at twenty-eight.
The ‘erased emotions’ I’d forgotten resurfaced, weighing heavily on my heart.
“Do I really have to keep living like this?”
Back then, I had asked that question by the unresponsive river.
I couldn’t say I’d lived diligently, but I hadn’t been lazy either.
I didn’t have dreams, but I hadn’t been without hope.
I just thought I was living… adequately.
Life twisted so suddenly. After an unexpected tragedy, I started living on autopilot.
Waking up when the alarm rang, going to work when it was time, indifferent to the insults hurled at me.
Then, when the time came, returning home and falling asleep alone.
Everyone talked about changing their tomorrows, but I remained unchanged, like a stone stuck in place.
As if annoyed by my stagnation, people constantly picked fights with me. I hated it, so I kept hiding, taking root in barren places and refusing to move.
I had no motivation, no desires. No thoughts at all.
Someone forced their way into the space where my defenses had crumbled. I didn’t resist even when they poked at my wounds.
I gave up on thinking. I had no confidence that I could live a better future.
Because the more aware I became, the more I felt the void. Because my sister had lost even her future.
Because it was agonizing.
My sister was the only one who told me to live well. Now there was no one left to give me courage.
Because it suffocated me.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, a rough sound escaping my throat. My breathing turned ragged.
I hung my head low for a long time.
Even though the wind whipped my hair across my face, I didn’t bother to brush it away. I didn’t straighten up.
I kept my gaze fixed downwards, as if trying to see the bottom of the invisible river.
Then a faint vibration buzzed in my pocket.
A familiar saved name, a familiar tone. And…
Manager Nam
[I’m going to the client’s office tomorrow before work]
[Have Assistant Manager Kim take care of onboarding the new hires]
[Tell him to come in early and set things up]
…The kind of treatment I’d probably receive for the rest of my life.
The city lights were so far away, but the light from my phone was so close, blindingly so.
I took a step back from the railing.
The heart that had sustained me felt dead.
At twenty-eight, burned out and empty, I gave up on Kim Iwol’s human life.
Kim Iwol stared at the message that arrived around 4:30 AM for a long time.
Then he smiled sadly.
“Life is so hard, Noona…”
He murmured.
Kim Iwol started walking. A staggering, heavy gait, without will or purpose.
And then I woke up.
There was nothing but pitch-black darkness, like the color of water.
“Ah…”
I shouldn’t have remembered.
I should have kept forgetting.
It would have been better to live my whole life without knowing about that time when I didn’t want to do anything.
“Ah, ah…”
Emotions surged within me.
I bit my lip hard and pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to soothe the welling emotions.
But nothing changed. The pain, the deep despair remained.
I frantically searched my suitcase and took out the hidden headache medicine.
I didn’t even have time to get water, so I swallowed it dry. Then, as if escaping reality, I fell asleep.
* * *
Morning came.
I wanted to quit everything. My shoulders felt heavy.
As I sat on the bed, lost in thought, Lee Cheonghyeon came down the stairs and greeted me.
“Good morning!”
My sister’s face overlapped with his.
“Hey, you’re here early.”
On the first day I regressed, his face was just a blur. Just from unlocking a single memory, it had become so much clearer.
Which made it all the more painful. My hands, hidden under the covers, trembled.
Contrary to how I felt, the smile I’d practiced appeared reflexively.
I’m such an idiot.
“Yeah, good morning.”
A top-class idiot. A fool. A moron.
Smiling in front of others whether I liked it or not, unable to express my true feelings, just burying them deep inside.
A spineless idiot who would probably die just doing what others told him to.
* * *
“Hyung, you’re done eating already?”
Kang Kiyeon asked, looking at my salad container. Half of it was still untouched, the dressing left unused.
“Yeah.”
“…Are you feeling sick?”
Even Park Joowoo, who barely ate much himself, turned his attention to me.
“I’m just tired of eating only salad.”
“That’s understandable.”
Lee Cheonghyeon agreed. Choi Jeho, on the other hand… Considering he was on his third container of salad, he clearly couldn’t relate.
“But hyung, you didn’t eat anything this morning either.”
“Are you guys keeping tabs on me?”
“It’d be weirder not to notice when we’re eating at the same table.”
Kang Kiyeon narrowed his eyes and scolded me.
If I had baked the bread myself, I could have lied and said I ate one while baking. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet received permission to bake bread.
“You should eat something to get better. You have to take your medicine, too, hyung.”
Even Jeong Seongbin tried to persuade me with his gentle tone that made it impossible to brush off.
“Thanks to your kind nagging, I think I’ll get better even without the medicine.”
“So you’re not taking your medicine?”
“Hey, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking my meds on time.”
I despised headaches. Ever since I suffered a migraine once, I learned to cherish a clear mind.
Even now, my head felt fine, but I was still taking the full eight-week prescription.
‘Ugh, it’s starting…’
Amidst the lighthearted banter, nausea rose in my throat.
I excused myself, grabbed my salad container and the trash, and stood up.
After sorting the trash outside the practice room, I headed straight to the bathroom.
I went into the last stall and locked the door.
“Ugh.”
A wave of nausea hit me. I threw up the salad I had just eaten.
This was why I couldn’t eat. What was the point of eating if I was just going to throw it up?
If I didn’t have to eat with the Spark members, I would have chosen to starve.
“Ugh, blech…”
My stomach had been like this for days. No matter what I ate, it wouldn’t stay down for more than a few minutes. All I was doing was wasting food.
It had been the same back when I was around twenty-eight. It wasn’t just my memories returning—my body remembered too.
‘At least I’ve got some tricks now.’
On the first day, I’d forgotten and eaten salad with oriental dressing. Nearly threw up the wrong way and wrecked my nose. Since then, I’d been forcing myself onto Kang Kiyeon’s diet.
I pounded my chest a few times with my fist. It helped a little, easing the nausea just enough.
After hitting my chest a few times with my fist, the nausea subsided a little.
Even this was becoming tiring. Maybe because I wasn’t eating but still expending energy, I felt increasingly dizzy.
‘But if I show any sign of weakness at work…’
I felt like the river was rising beneath my feet. I felt like if I turned around, I’d see the straight road leading to Hanpyeong Industry.
“Blech!”
My hands went back to the toilet. I dry heaved until I was dizzy, and only then could I finally lift my head.
The system was floating above the bathroom stall.
+
[SYSTEM] Performance-based correction effects are being applied.
▷ Due to ‘Outstanding Attendance Management,’ you are receiving high evaluations.
+
I’d seen this message before. Didn’t something similar activate when my attendance management score was 18?
I remembered getting some kind of benefits during the monthly evaluation because of my good attendance.
I opened my stat sheet, and the numbers had changed slightly.
+
Performance Evaluation (100)
─ Vocal Proficiency: 11/20
─ Dance Proficiency: 9/20
─ Self-PR: 17/20
─ Attendance Management: 20(▲)/20
─ Organizational Adaptability: 15/20
─ Total Fatigue: 15%
+
My total fatigue, which I’d painstakingly brought down to 0%, had gone back up. Probably because I had been moving around without eating.
The problematic attendance management was at its maximum.
‘If I got a one-time benefit for good attendance, what kind of effect does perfect attendance have?’
As I stared blankly into space, a new message appeared at the bottom of the system window.
+
▷ To ensure smooth task performance, negative emotion recognition will be minimized.
+
It seemed the system really did want to help me.
Seeing as it was giving me exactly the function I needed right now.
Author's Thoughts
:'(