Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols-Chapter 242: Forbidden Food (1)

The comeback date was fast approaching. Naturally, Spark also became slaves to practice and meetings.
‘We scheduled the meeting to line up with our after-school time, okay? See you in the meeting room right after!’
Jeong Seongbin had emphasized so much before he left. The kid was clearly wearing a school uniform, yet he seemed like a fully-fledged working adult. He was truly the talented individual I had mentally bookmarked as an OT (orientation training) person from the first time I saw him.
Looking at the clock, it was already the appointed time. I turned off the music and said to the guys in the practice room.
“Shall we head up now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay…!”
Choi Jeho and Park Joowoo stretched their legs a couple of times and got up.
As always, we took the stairs instead of the elevator to burn some calories. Kang Kiyeon was the exception—he was excused because some stair-climbing postures weren’t good for his knees.
As Choi Jeho was climbing the stairs, he suddenly threw out a question.
“What are we supposed to talk about today?”
“We’re supposed to fix the comeback live schedule. Didn’t you see the notice?”
“I forgot.”
Choi Jeho said something infuriating.
It was true that we didn’t have much to prepare separately for scheduling a live broadcast. It was not like we were going to pick an auspicious day to broadcast.
But still! If a meeting had been scheduled, shouldn’t we at least prepare a few ideas?! At the very least, a content theme!
Just as I was about to feel a tightness in my chest, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with Choi Jeho in the emergency exit.
‘Why are you doing that?’
It was the day we had an issue over the family topic for self-produced content. When I tried to stop him, Choi Jeho had responded with that.
‘Coming up with ideas, planning the album concept, writing articles, tracking album sales trends… Was that your job in the first place?’
A typical idol probably wouldn’t do these things. At most, they might toss out a few opinions—nothing more.
On top of this, Lee Cheonghyeon’s question, which had flown at me a while ago when I was preparing for the advertisement, overlapped. Why do we have to go this far?
He hadn’t said it sarcastically. However, it was enough to be a point for consideration. Because the point Lee Cheonghyeon raised was a question anyone could have.
‘Am I expecting too much from these guys?’
These kids probably just wanted to be idols in an ordinary way. I was the one in a rush, not them.
Maybe I was letting my KPIs get to me, dragging them along for the ride, pushing the ones who already wanted to do more just because I had a grudge and something to prove.
And even after already having one moment of regret about this, here I was again, doing something that would only leave me feeling guilty.
Instead of finding an alternative, I was just weighing down the team.
‘A person who doesn’t learn from experience is helpless. Incompetent.’
My steps slowed down a little.
My mind was filled with distracting thoughts. Suddenly, my mood plummeted to the bottom. Strangely so.
Why do I keep having mood swings lately? What’s the cause?
Did I mess with the negative emotion recognition rate incorrectly? Should I have lowered the recognition rate more than I thought?
But there was no time to adjust that right now. It would be troublesome if I accidentally moved the scroll incorrectly and caused another misunderstanding.
Should I just tell the others to go back and practice?
Like before debut, when I handled everything myself, shielding Spark from the company and outside world so they could focus solely on their craft…
“Hyung, why aren’t you coming…?”
Park Joowoo, who was ahead, turned back and asked.
Something felt off. Something kept welling up inside me. My emotions were on a rollercoaster.
It was not just today.
When I found out Hong Unseop smoked in the car and drove like a maniac, and when he tried to force his views on others.
Whenever my sister or Director Nam crossed my mind, it felt like someone flipped a switch and sent me plummeting emotionally. Even though I was living perfectly fine and ordinarily, it happened suddenly, without warning.
So, recently, I…
I felt like I couldn’t handle my emotions anymore. Not since I dropped my negative emotion recognition to its lowest point.
At first, I thought I was feeling emotions at a level similar to right after I regressed, but no. The numerical value of the emotion recognition rate might be similar, but the degree to which it actually affected my body hit differently.
Just like how it felt incredibly hard to go back to a 5-day work week after experiencing a 4-day work week due to a public holiday. Even though I originally lived a life of going to work five times a week.
So where was all this stress coming from?
Hong Unseop? But he hadn’t been here for that long.
Or was it because I kept thinking of my sister? Because that bastard Hong Unseop reminded me of my sister’s accident?
Conversely, was it because I was becoming less and less sure of how much I actually remembered about her?
Or was it simply a side effect of returning to daily life after experiencing a good period where I didn’t feel negative emotions? But if I’d been that chronically depressed all along, wouldn’t that be a problem in itself?
Above all, was it normal for my mood to be good one moment and then plummet like this, repeating endlessly?
When I lifted my head, my eyes met the gaze of two people who were looking at me.
Not knowing what to say, I stammered out a lie.
“I thought I left something behind.”
“…Should we go back down and get it?”
“No. I was mistaken.”
My head ached. I felt like I would need to take a painkiller after the meeting.
* * *
Jeong Seongbin’s group had already arrived. As soon as we opened the meeting room door, their faces brightened, and they shot up from their seats. Could they really be that happy to see the members even though they see each other every day? It was hard to understand.
With the planning team arriving last, everyone was present. Ms. Jukyung, who came in with the team leader, lightly shook a drink carrier.
“Mr. Chanyoung left these for you guys to drink during your meeting. Everyone, grab your own drink!”
My goodness, she was probably the most troubled one here, yet she took care of something like this.
As usual, everyone was picking up the drinks labeled with their names, but something was off.
My drink, which should have been either a yogurt smoothie or chamomile tea, had been replaced with an unfamiliar one.
It seemed they were out of ingredients. Perhaps no one in this neighborhood’s franchise cafe drank yogurt smoothies, so they often said they were out of stock and couldn’t take the order.
Fortunately, the menu name was written on the seal.
“Barley latte? Is this caffeine-free?”
“I’ll look it up.”
Kang Kiyeon, who happened to have his laptop open, typed ‘barley latte caffeine’ into a search engine. Articles like ‘Barley latte made with barley, so it’s caffeine-free!’ poured out.
“Looks like it doesn’t have any.”
“Should I swap with you if you’re worried…?”
Park Joowoo, who had gotten his usual yogurt smoothie, offered me his cup. For a guy who rarely touched food that wasn’t his own, this was an immense gesture of goodwill.
“It’s fine. I like barley tea. A latte should taste similar, right?”
Worried that Park Joowoo might insist further on swapping drinks, I quickly took a sip of the barley latte. It had a savory, milky taste.
About 20 minutes into the meeting, which had started off on a pretty good note…
‘…Something feels wrong.’
I found myself in a predicament where my stomach felt like it was turning inside out. To draw an analogy, It felt similar to the time I drank green tea from a teabag without realizing how much caffeine it had—ended up so dizzy I couldn’t function for three hours.
I kept feeling like I was going to gag, so I had to cover my mouth with my hand throughout the meeting. Someone asked if there was something bothering me about one of the agenda items, and I broke out in a cold sweat trying to explain.
The nausea turned into the urgent feeling that I might actually throw up. I also felt a pain as if something was pressing down on my chest. The sound of my heart beating echoed in my head.
Am I really that stressed? Stressed enough to throw up during a meeting? No matter how much I’ve been worried about UA lately, UA is not on the level of the Hanpyeong Industry, is it?
Still, I had human dignity; I didn’t want to throw up in the meeting room. As the schedule notification was wrapping up, I cautiously raised my hand.
“I’m sorry… I’m not feeling well. Can we take a short break?”
“Huh? Iwol, are you sick?”
Everyone in the meeting room turned their attention to me. I really wanted to just suggest taking a short break, but I felt like Kang Kiyeon would nag me again if I did.
Sure enough, Kang Kiyeon was already glaring at me with narrowed eyes. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and got up.
For a moment, the world spun. My chest ached as if something was crushing it, and I couldn’t breathe.
As if I had experienced it sometime before.
* * *
Kim Iwol, who had said he wasn’t feeling well, stood up from his seat, his face pale.
But only for a moment.
Kim Iwol clutched his chest and collapsed to the floor. Park Joowoo, who had been sitting right next to him, rushed over to Kim Iwol, who was gasping and choking for breath.
At Park Joowoo’s urgent prompting of ‘What’s wrong?’, Kim Iwol struggled to open his eyes. Then, he mumbled in a faint, fading voice.
“……Bag.”
“What?”
“Bag, please…”
In that instant, everyone remembered the time Kang Kiyeon had experienced hyperventilation in the waiting room.
‘Don’t tell me hyung too?’
With that thought, Jeong Seongbin handed over a bag he had received from a staff member. Kim Iwol spread open the mouth of the bag and buried his face in it.
Still clutching his chest with one hand, Kim Iwol put the fingers of his other hand into his mouth and forced himself to vomit what he had eaten.
Jeong Seongbin quickly took off his jacket and covered Kim Iwol’s upper body.
All he had eaten before the meeting was about half a container of salad and a drink. Even then, the salad would have been mostly digested by now. A whitish liquid mixed with saliva trickled down Kim Iwol’s chin.
Lee Cheonghyeon urgently patted Kim Iwol’s back. Barely able to open his eyes, Kim Iwol clutched the bag and threw up liquid.
“Ah…”
Still unable to lift himself from the floor, Kim Iwol groaned as he clutched his chest in pain. His breathing grew audibly ragged
.
“Move aside.”
Choi Jeho pushed Jeong Seongbin and Lee Cheonghyeon away and laid Kim Iwol on the floor. He kept curling up as if in pain, but his heart seemed to be beating.
“Kim Iwol, stay with me.”
When Choi Jeho gently shook his shoulder, Kim Iwol frowned. The surroundings were bustling with the sounds of someone calling an ambulance, someone looking for a blanket, and so on.
Turning Kim Iwol’s head to the side, Choi Jeho asked, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling sick to your stomach? Or somewhere else?”
Kim Iwol gasped for breath. His focus was visibly blurring.
With difficulty, he moved his lips.
My heart hurts.
The words were barely audible, but Kim Iwol had clearly said that.