Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols-Chapter 208: Role-Playing Interview (1)

‘Am I still half asleep?’
I rubbed my eyes and looked down again next to my door.
A brightly colored, pink comic, sparkling with glitter, sat at the entrance of my room as if greeting me good morning.
Was he lending this to me? Because I said I was looking forward to the next part?
I did enjoy it, but I hadn’t planned on borrowing the next volume from Kang Kiyeon. Especially since I wasn’t in a position to say, ‘I know you find me annoying, but I enjoyed the comic. Could I borrow the next volume too?’
But it was awkward to refuse, so I had to get in the car with the second comic I hadn’t even asked for.
After the music show, I took out the manga I had received in the morning in the car on the way back.
“You’re going to read it now? Want me to turn on my phone’s flashlight?”
Lee Cheonghyeon, sitting next to me, asked.
“It’s okay. It’s not that dark.”
“You told me to work in a well-lit room so I wouldn’t ruin my eyesight.”
That’s because you use your laptop without blue-light filter glasses. Actually, that reminded me—I had ordered a pair. They should arrive tomorrow.
“I can’t stop now. The previous volume ended on a cliffhanger.”
“What kind of cliffhanger?”
“A new male lead candidate appeared at the end.”
“Didn’t you say a male lead candidate appeared last time too?”
“This is a different one. I think there might be more than one candidate.”
Princess Soda of the Cream Kingdom, the setting of the comic, already had a designated fiancé, but for some reason, the number of men involved with the princess kept increasing. Meanwhile, the princess herself was focused on doing her best to become the queen.
“…Do people read that kind of comic because they’re curious who the princess ends up with?”
Park Joowoo showed interest. He must have been eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Probably?”
“No, Kang Kiyeon has his own philosophy.”
“What philosophy?”
“He said, ‘I don’t watch stories about protagonists who don’t move forward.’”
“Aha.”
I knew what he meant. Princess Soda was quite a proactive person.
Still, the fact that I now had the time to read a comic during car rides was something to celebrate. A few months ago, I would have been running through the choreography in my head 300 times just to make sure I didn’t forget it.
After my dance proficiency reached double digits, the malicious comments about Kim Pep’s dancing skills decreased significantly.
≫ Kim Pep’s dancing has improved a lot
Is he doping?
└ Even a dog can learn to recite poems in three years, but I guess it took Pep 1 year since he’s at least human
└ If he went from a wooden doll to a human, he’s practically been reborn
≫ Wow, but seriously, what’s up with Kim Iwolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Did he awaken or something?
└ He’s always been secretly powerful like a steamed bun hiding its filling
└ Why the hell was he hiding it then?
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
≫ Look at the Kim Pep akgaes rejoicing now that there’s no Gyunton…ㅋㅋ
It’s not that your oppa got better, it’s just that the ceiling has gotten lower, so it just looks like he improved. Don’t get it twisted
└ Are the bastards saying this even watching the fancams??
└ Yeah, our Iwol’s dancing has improved a lot~ he busted through the ceiling and turned it into a convertible~
└ Kim Pep’s fans are so stubbornly blind and deaf…
└ Why is this blind and deaf…? Honestly, I didn’t feel like he was lagging behind in this performance
└ Yeah, there were actually a lot of good parts. If no one had said anything, you wouldn’t have known his parts were switched the day before
≫ More than anything, his body control and gaze have really improved
It wasn’t that it was lacking before, but Iwol wasn’t good at controlling the dynamics or making eye contact
During the mission, his camera timing was good (before, it felt like he was trying to find the camera, but now he seems to distinguish between scenes that look good when he looks at the camera and scenes that look good when he doesn’t), and his waves are natural, so even when he’s mixed with the members, there’s not much of a disconnect… I can’t imagine how much effort he put in to get to this point
└ This is exactly what I wanted to say. He’s become much more relaxed in finding the camera. Even when his back is shown, he seems to be thinking about how to present his body
≫ Being a male idol is f*cking easy
Even if you dance like Kim Pep, you get praised as a growth-type idol
Wasn’t he just bad at his job in the first place? He’s got no other skills, coasting along, and now he does the bare minimum, gets dramas and variety shows handed to himㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ  While members work their asses off and get no screen time, leading to panic attacks, the oldest hyung gets pampered and acts all pleased. It’s truly a pathetic sightㅎㅎㅎㅎ
└ Wow, can’t we this bastard?
└ I’m already pissed that this bastard is badmouthing him, but why bring up a sick person? Don’t you ever mention Spark again. It’s disgusting to think we’re in the same fandom
└ Who the hell said Iwol caused the panic attack?
└ Do we really need to say it????? It’s obvious
└ Rumors start because of people like you spreading baseless assumptions… Please have some awareness
└└ Pep’s the one who gave people a reason to assume. Why are you cursing at me ㅋㅋㅋAre you feeling guilty?
└└└ Try living a real life for once, you idiot, pleaseㅠㅠㅠㅠ Huh? Go out and talk to actual peopleㅋㅋㅋㅋ Why would your head be any different from your monitor when you’re stuck in your room clinging to the keyboard?
└└└ Guys, just ignore the comments below.
…Anyway, they did decrease.
And I wasn’t taking much damage either. My fancam views had almost caught up to the other members.
It meant my dancing was finally worth watching. I had come a long way from the days when I just needed to avoid making mistakes. I’m proud of myself.
As I was finishing the comic with a joyful heart, the car arrived in front of a small studio building.
“Iwol, we’re here!”
“Okay!”
I had a web variety show shoot scheduled for today. With the drama promotions, the drama hype, and the comeback hype all overlapping, I had been as busy as the Hanpyeong Industry during its year-end settlement.
Today’s shoot was a format I had never experienced before.
The web variety show, Act On, now in its second season, had simple rules.
Four to six people would enter a small room at random.
Each person would have a uniquely defined character, all belonging to a single group, except for one person who didn’t share the common keyword. A variation of the ‘Liar Game’, so to speak.
Inside the room, each person had to figure out their character and join the conversation, all while identifying and eliminating the person who didn’t belong to the shared group.
The unique thing about this show was that the characters were all similar, yet distinct.
Even if everyone was assigned the role of ‘idol’, if someone misinterpreted the ‘main vocalist’ attribute as ‘singer’ and referred to themselves as a ‘solo singer’, they could become the target.
As someone tired of using my brain, it was a daunting task, but I couldn’t be picky now.
If I couldn’t shine, I’d at least try to do okay—hopefully well enough to get the music video aired at the end. Maybe even rack up some broadcast points. And please, let there be no other idol group members on this episode…
I got out of the car, praying earnestly. Someone blindfolded me as soon as I reached the building entrance.
* * *
As the blindfold was removed, I heard the sound of a door closing behind me. I was left alone in a set that was slightly larger than a phone booth.
A familiar atmosphere greeted me as I looked around.
Gray interior. Light green partitions.
A neat desk with dual monitors, a Logitech keyboard and mouse set.
There was nothing more to see.
‘An office worker.’
Damn the In My Office effect. It was driving me into a corner.
I could hear other people reacting with curiosity in the distance. From what I’d seen on the show, each individual set was slightly spaced apart, and it appeared to be the same structure this time as well.
As I was secretly wiping away tears, a narration came from the ceiling.
『Hello everyone, and welcome to the world of Act On.』
The familiar robotic voice I’d heard during monitoring filled the room from above.
『You will now have 30 minutes to explore ‘your space’.』
It felt a bit sad that this tiny office was my space. Can’t you just send me home? Besides, this area felt way too small to actually work in.
As if reading my disgruntled inner thoughts, the narration came again.
『Don’t lose sight of your role. Then, let’s begin!』
An alarm sounded, and the timer on a large digital clock started ticking. I heard bustling sounds of drawers opening and closing, along with screams from here and there.
I suddenly remembered what Lee Cheonghyeon had said as encouragement before I got out of the car.
‘Hyung! Show them the power of an S University acceptance!’
An acceptance alone doesn’t give you power, Cheonghyeon.
I would try my best anyway. This program was perfect for playing MISSION as background music, so I’d do my best to create a cool scene.
* * *
I started by accessing the PC. As an office worker, most information was on the computer.
The clean desktop had only the messenger and a recycle bin icon.
‘All the previous message logs are here. The department is… the data team?’
I checked the recycle bin folder just in case, but it was empty.
The calendar showed recurring meetings every Wednesday. Comparing it with the messages, there were records of me uploading meeting minutes every Wednesday.
There was nothing unusual except for one additional meeting on a Friday last month. I felt like mentioning this would make me a target.
‘Is the clean desk a reference to Do Younghwan?’
Even the wallpaper was the default one. Out of habit, I checked the program list in the control panel, but there were no programs installed other than the messenger. Well, they might not have installed programs like Bdobe because of copyright issues.
Fortunately, there were some items in the drawer. A half-used business card with the name ‘Cho Yonghan’, sticky notes, and so on.
On the back of the card were some lowercase letters and numbers scribbled by hand. Probably a password.
When I logged into a virtual website using the password, a window popped up saying ‘Incorrect ID’, and the login failed.
‘Huh?’
I typed it in a few more times, thinking I might have made a mistake, but the login still failed.
This narrowed down the possibilities.
First, large-scale: I could be an industrial spy who forged the business card.
Second, small-scale: It was highly likely that I was no longer an employee of this company.
An industrial spy wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving a business card with their handwriting on it.  If they were that stupid, they should quit spying and find another job.
In these situations, checking the web browsing history was useful. You could see saved accounts and passwords, recently visited sites, and the cache all at once.
I checked the computer usage history in the web page settings.
The saved domain ID was a server commonly used in companies. Considering the bookmarked pages were digital trend news, the IT category of a news page, and Destination, it was clear that this computer was used by a regular employee until recently.
I took notes on the download timestamps of all files and folders, then attempted a Windows backup.
After the backup was complete, I restored the organizational chart from the recycle bin to check the team structure.
There was one team leader, one assistant manager, one deputy manager, and three employees.
My name on the org chart didn’t have any special markings. However, the chart’s last modified date was one day before the current system date.
So as of yesterday — the day the org chart was created — I was still an employee, but now my account was blocked.
Then there was only one conclusion.
“I’ve resigned.”
To think that I was the only non-employee and the target in this small company. Should I say I was lucky or unlucky?
Things were getting interesting. My mind started to work.