Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols-Chapter 244: Previous Story

Jeong Seongbin’s shocking revelation didn’t end there.
─ He said picky eating is just an excuse, that someone in society can’t afford to be particular about such things as it damages their image…  That it’s just a habit you can fix by eating the things you avoid.
“What a load of crap.”
— Remember when he gave Joowoo that banana milk? He saw Joowoo didn’t drink it, so he gave the drink to Iwol hyung secretly. Afraid hyung wouldn’t drink it if he knew. It seems he planned to say, ‘See? He eats it just fine’, if Iwol hyung unknowingly drank it and was okay.
“And because of that, someone almost had a heart attack. This company is really something, huh?”
Choi Jeho sneered. Jeong Seongbin didn’t stop him. It seemed he agreed with Choi Jeho to some extent.
There are people like that. The kind who ignore what others can’t or don’t want to eat.
People with allergies or intolerances couldn’t help but know. How dangerous foods they couldn’t eat were.
They took precautions—clearly marking allergens when gifting food, carefully checking ingredients when ordering something themselves.
Like how at ‘IDC’ I wrote the allergy-inducing factors in large letters on the lunch boxes and only drank water when drinking something with the members.
People who hadn’t experienced similar things thought of these matters too lightly.
‘It’s a matter of willpower’, ‘It’ll get better if you eat it’, ‘A little bit won’t kill you’, ‘Don’t avoid it by saying you can’t eat it when it’s just a preference difference…’
‘So what if I can’t eat it, and so what if I don’t want to eat it.’
It seemed he wanted to be acknowledged for doing something, but why would a grown adult in society resort to this kind of behavior just because they couldn’t get a single compliment from others?
Suddenly, my body felt tired. Since my eyes wouldn’t open anyway, I wanted to just sleep more.
But I had something I needed to check.
The excessively severe physical reaction, even though I had only drunk a beverage mixed with coffee.
The unstable pulse that suggested cardiac arrest might occur, and…
+
[SYSTEM] Work instructions from ‘Superior’ have arrived.
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, check the file.
+
…Even the system.
I swallowed a sigh. And I retrieved the memory data I had been trying to forget.
If it were up to me, I really wouldn’t want to open it. What good would come from opening this?
However, this wasn’t just anything; it was a situation where something was wrong with my body. If the data and my current state were completely unrelated, that would be one thing, but with the system even giving hints, I couldn’t just ignore it.
I brought up the memory data window, which I imagined would be covered in dust. The same window as before appeared.
Just in case, I also lowered the negative emotion recognition rate as much as possible. As a precaution, in case I received a mental shock after viewing all the data.
+
[SYSTEM] Would you like to view the ‘Memory Data’?
▶ Yes / No
+
A familiar notification window appeared, then disappeared after the ‘Yes’ mark glowed.
* * *
Slowly, my eyes opened.
I was standing in a familiar room. In the apartment where I used to live.
Unlike the dark window outside, my room was bright.
And by the wall, the twenty-nine-year-old me was sitting, clutching his head, struggling in front of the monitor.
Facing a pink screen.
It was the point where my memory had cut off before I traveled back in time.
“…Done. I’m not touching it anymore, really.”
The me in front of my eyes was saying the same words as back then, stretching just like back then.
Opening an internet window to send an email, and then…
“What the.”
…He discovered Spark’s disbandment article.
“F*ck…”
Yes, this was my last memory.
Was there something else after this?  I hadn’t jumped back nine years right after that; something happened after this—and the system had blocked that memory?
While I was trying to grasp the situation, the me sitting in front of the computer clutched his chest. Just like I had a little while ago.
Then, gasping, he fell from the chair. His phone, wallet, and other things that his arm bumped into scattered on the floor.
Suddenly, what Choi Jeho had said during his call with Jeong Seongbin a little while ago came to mind.
‘They said he might go into cardiac arrest.’
Through the collar of his clothes, I could see his skin turning blue with terrifying speed.
The pain of your whole body being crushed, as if a giant metal lump was trampling you. The fear that came from not being able to breathe.
Above all, the pressure, as if your heart would burst at any moment, could be felt from the Kim Iwol crawling on the floor in front of me.
At that moment, a vibration rang.
My gaze and that of the twenty-nine-year-old Kim Iwol turned to the same place. A call was coming in on the phone.
Simultaneously, previous memories began to seep in. Very slowly and gradually.
‘…Who is it?’
Perhaps his vision was blurry, but the past me couldn’t even recognize the caller. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see who was calling either.
‘I have to… answer the phone.’
Thinking that, Kim Iwol’s thoughts flowed in a different direction.
‘…If I ask for help, then what?’
Behind the question mark, the dregs of a familiar emotion clung.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to just stay like this than to keep living this way?’
It was the skepticism that had been occupying the space where humanity used to be, abandoned on that bridge over the Han River.
Even though the pain grew worse the longer he remained still, Kim Iwol didn’t answer the phone. Instead, he closed his eyes.
‘Just a little longer.’
His voice, soaked in exhaustion, filled my head. It sounded like a mantra, a hypnotic chant.
‘It’ll be over soon.’
Even until the call ended, Kim Iwol didn’t feel anxious, and he quietly soothed himself, whom no one was looking out for.
‘I just have to do nothing…’
With a dizzying ringing in his ears, he fell into the deepest sleep he had experienced since birth.
* * *
‘…What is this.’
I covered my mouth. Even though it was my own image, seeing a corpse was shocking.
It overlapped with the time my sister was being placed in her coffin. My stomach churned.
To have died like this. Without asking for help even once. Completely given up.
That was how little attachment I had to life.
My breath quickened. My mouth went dry. I was incredibly thirsty.
The dizziness made it impossible to lift my head. I pressed both hands against my knees to keep from collapsing.
What on earth is the system’s intention in showing me this?
Is it laughing at me now, a guy who used to live without dreams or hopes, suddenly scrambling for life?
Is this its way of telling me to know my place? That no matter what I do, this is how it ends?
My head hurt so much. I felt like I wanted to open the painkillers on my dead self’s desk and gulp them down.
Just as my vision blurred, I felt my heart beating fast. Whether it was due to fear or anger, I didn’t know.
At least, the current me was alive.
‘…Let’s calm down.’
I had to think calmly. Why the system showed me the memory data at this point in time.
What I was supposed to gain from this goddamn memory.
Because if I got nothing from it, it would mean the system was just playing with me.
I slowly wiped my face and straightened my bent back. My steps began to move, little by little.
As I approached my breathless self, I thought relentlessly.
The warning about my EKG results. Choi Jeho’s phone call, saying I might experience cardiac arrest.
And then, one word surfaced in my mind.
‘Synchronization.’
The system had definitely said that the previous body and the current body would synchronize.
When I first read that explanation, I thought it only applied to things like dark circles.
But if the heart that had already lost function once, and the skin that had turned white and then ghastly blue like a corpse, were also effects of synchronization…
I opened the explanation window related to synchronization.
+
[SYSTEM] The ‘Synchronization Rate’ is being notified to ‘Subordinate’.
▷ Current Synchronization Rate: 60%
+
I remembered the synchronization rate dropping by 3% as a reward for winning the overall championship at ‘ISD’ bringing it down to around 30%. The current figure was double the last one I had seen.
In summary, my past self died from cardiac arrest for reasons unknown.
I had gone back 9 years, but my body was still being affected by the event of cardiac arrest that actually happened.
And the higher this rate got, the more my body synchronized with the ‘dead’ Kim Iwol’s body.
Now I finally understood why people kept saying I looked like a corpse.  Why even my fortune said I had the fate of someone already dead.
I had been walking around with my lifeline severed, and like a fool, I hadn’t even known that. Since my heart’s durability had decreased, caffeine would have affected me more than usual too.
That wasn’t the only strange thing.
The fact that my heart ached unusually just from riding an amusement park ride once, and the feeling of my heart tightening every time Lee Cheonghyeon popped up from behind.
And probably from the point the synchronization rate increased, even the fact that my heart would race and then calm down repeatedly just from being a little tense during archery practice.
What would happen if I rode an amusement park ride like before, unaware of this, with a high synchronization rate?
What if they set something off for a hidden camera prank on a filming set? My heart pounded even when I just concentrate, so what if I got even more stressed because of people like Hong Unseop?
In the first place…
If I reach 100% synchronization, or when I turn twenty-nine.
Will I become exactly like this Kim Iwol?
I felt like my mind was going blank. I approached the back of the Kim Iwol who had frozen stiff. And I crouched down and sat in the empty space.
My heart was in turmoil. The churning feeling was like waves, or like dark clouds.
Snow fell in my heart.
“You pitiful bastard.”
I straightened Kim Iwol’s disheveled hair with my fingertips. The sight of the still-damp strands slipped through my fingers saddened me.
“You wretched bastard.”
My vision darkened. My last moment must have felt like this too.
* * *
“Gasp…!”
Expelling the darkness, I came to my senses. Unlike before I opened the memory data, this time my eyes opened properly.
“Kim Iwol.”
When I shifted my gaze slightly to the side, I saw Choi Jeho. I slowly regulated my breathing.
Watching me carefully as I caught my breath, Choi Jeho asked in a soft voice:
“Are you okay?”
“…Probably?”
There was no pain anymore. My heart wasn’t pounding either. My body felt a little drained, but not to the point of exhaustion.
Noticing that my words weren’t a lie, Choi Jeho also let out a sigh of relief.
I thought he would explain something now that I had regained consciousness.
But Choi Jeho was quiet. He only fiddled with the safety rail of the bed, which had been put up to prevent falls.
Then, all he managed to say was…
“They said you need to take good care of your heart.”
…That was it.
He must have been shocked. Well, it would be strange not to be shocked if someone clutched their heart during a meeting and an ambulance had to be called.
But if just this much shocked him that much…
What’s he going to do when I actually die?