Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 541 - Kim Wonjoo (2)

Handing her a tissue from her bag, Wonjoo’s friend asked, 

 

“Do you want to sleep over at my house? Or you could stay a bit longer.”

 

“I’ve already stayed long enough! It’s fine, it’s fine.” 

 

Wonjoo replied with a smile as she wiped her hands. The tissue grew damp instantly.

 

As she threw away the trash, Wonjoo added. 

 

“Hyoil is at home. I need to hurry back.”

 

Floating in the air, I shouted at the top of my lungs for her to just keep playing. Why go back to that corner of a house so early? Go to a karaoke room or something! You can go to a coin karaoke for just 500 won! You know I played perfectly fine by myself back then, so why?

 

Naturally, my shouts collapsed before they could even reach her. Instead, a moment of kindness delivered from right beside her reached her ears.

 

“Then let’s just ride the swings for ten minutes at the playground before you go. Exactly ten minutes!”

 

Wonjoo’s friend didn’t let her go straight back to the source of her depression. She willingly gave up her evening time to give Wonjoo a moment to soothe her heart.

 

The two, now middle schoolers, didn’t kick their feet with all their might to see who could go higher like little children. There was meaning only in sitting there and killing time. The swings creaked as they swayed.

 

The promised time passed in an instant—far too short to help someone endure a day in a house where she’d have to spend more than ten hours.

 

However, Wonjoo didn’t dawdle.

 

“See you tomorrow! Thanks for walking me home!”

 

She said goodbye without a hint of hesitation and watched until her friend exited the apartment’s main gate before heading bravely toward the building.

 

Wonjoo, standing in the corner of the elevator with her back against the wall, looked strangely small. I used to think she was so big back then.

 

Inside the elevator, she took several deep breaths. She gripped the strap of her bag tightly and steeled her eyes.

 

The sound of the door lock buttons echoed in the apartment hallway. As soon as the unlocking beep rang out, someone rushed out from inside.

 

A large man collided with my sister, sending her stumbling backward. The person who had kicked the door open was our father.

 

“What were you doing coming home so late?”

 

It wasn’t a question meant for an answer. Father walked right past her, huffing in his indoor clothes as he stomped down the hallway.

 

Wonjoo, entering the apartment, let out a scream.

 

“Hyoil!”

 

I followed her into the living room, but there was no one there. But seeing the pool of blood on the floor was enough for Wonjoo to call out for me.

 

She flung the bedroom door open. In a voice that sounded like it would tear apart, she called my name again and again.

 

I remained fixed in the living room, watching the scene. Wonjoo, covered in blood, ran back out into the room. While rummaging through the living room cabinet with one hand, she used the other to turn on her phone and make a call.

 

“Mom, it’s me.”

 

Wonjoo begged through her tears.

 

“Tell me where the cash is. I know there’s emergency money in the house. We have to go to the hospital right now. I won’t tell them Dad hit him. So please, just tell me.”

 

“If you don’t give me the money, I’m going straight to the police station. You don’t know what Hyoil looks like, do you, Mom? This time, the police won’t let it slide without taking action. I’ll make sure our whole family ends up in the news.”

 

Pleading, threatening… and then begging again. Wonjoo was out of her mind the entire time.

 

Unable to contain her agitation, she threw her phone down and ran into Mom’s room. She came back out clutching a thick wad of banknotes, then headed straight for the room she’d entered earlier.

 

My younger self was carried out on Wonjoo’s back. My arms and legs dangled limply. Carrying my dark-red, bloodied form and clutching the cash, Wonjoo ran out into the world.

 

Wonjoo left the house, but I couldn’t follow her. It was as if I were tied down; I couldn’t take a single step.

 

If she carried me like that all the time, I suppose it was only natural that she seemed so big to me.

 

A bitter smile formed on my face. I was trapped in that spot until the edge of the red dining table and the floor turned black, and until the surroundings grew dark because no one came home even after the sun had set.

 

***

 

The background changed abruptly, like a film strip cut and spliced back together. I was now inside the small, cramped room whose entrance I had seen earlier. Wonjoo and I used to share this room.

 

I was lying face-down on the floor. Propping a pillow beneath my chin, my only occupation was lying there and idly swinging my legs.

 

Occasionally, I would reach for my back. Then, I’d gently scratch over my clothes where the wounds were. The moment I put any strength into my fingers, my sister would sharply slap my hand away.

 

“I told you not to scratch. It’ll get infected!”

 

Wonjoo was firm. When it came to things that weren’t allowed, she was always that strict.

 

“Getting the stitches hurt, didn’t it? So why do you keep scratching it?”

 

My sister’s expression as she scolded me looked grim. It made sense. She had to scream and rage just to get the money for the treatment; if it got infected now, she would have been at a total loss.

 

I quietly hid under the quilted blanket. Looking at the rounded shape of the blanket, Wonjoo shook my shoulder playfully.

 

“Hey, are you sulking?”

 

“…”

 

“Do you hate me because I scolded you?”

 

At the question of whether I hated her, the part where my head should be shook from side to side. Trying not to let the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile, Wonjoo lifted the edge of the blanket.

 

“Then why are you hiding in there and staging a protest? What’s bothering you?”

 

Wonjoo, looking inside with a playful smile, suddenly froze. The perspective shifted as if using a different camera angle. I saw my younger self crying under the blanket. Perhaps because I didn’t want to be caught crying, I quickly buried my face in my arms.

 

“I was trying to hold back, too.”

 

“…”

 

“But it was so itchy…”

 

My voice was a tiny whisper. It seemed my younger self was frustrated for unconsciously doing the very thing Wonjoo told me not to. I wanted to be obedient, but couldn’t control myself, leaving me confused and upset.

 

Because the viewing angle changed, I couldn’t see Wonjoo’s face. She left the room silently, only to return a long while later and sit by the blanket again.

 

With a swift motion, she pulled the entire blanket off me. She rolled up my t-shirt without hesitation and placed an ice pack wrapped in a towel onto my bare, exposed back.

 

“Does this feel better?”

 

I nodded, my face still buried in my arms.

 

“I didn’t think about it being itchy. I’m sorry.”

 

Wonjoo’s tone was as gentle as ever.

 

“I’ll teach you how to make an ice pack later. It’s easy, so you can do it by yourself…”

 

And she was strong-willed, too. The reason I’d been able to become independent at such an early age was because my sister had always made me learn to do things on my own. She was a person bold enough to raise younger brother to that extent.

 

“Actually, no.”

 

But Wonjoo wasn’t cold-hearted…

 

“I’ll keep doing this for you from now on.”

 

…And like now, her heart would weaken over the smallest things.

 

The footage ended there, but I vaguely remembered what came afterward. The trembling voice, the movement of an arm roughly wiping something away.

 

Back then, I thought that no matter how itchy my back got, I had to endure it so that Wonjoo wouldn’t cry.

 

***

 

Several more past events passed by after that. Arguments over tuition, a scuffle in front of a hospital where I was supposed to undergo a scar-removal procedure—things like that played in succession. The more I watched, the more uneasy I felt.

 

‘Why only show me these kinds of things…’

 

If anyone saw this, they’d think Wonjoo and I lived in gloom every single day. We actually had plenty of fun memories too.

 

If it only showed me things like these, it just…

 

‘It only makes me remember the painful emotions.’

 

I swallowed a sigh.

 

Moreover, there were many things I didn’t remember. Realizing just how comfortably I’d apparently lived made my heart feel even heavier.

 

Unconcerned, the system continued to lay out old episodes. Since it seemed to be doing this because I was just quietly watching everything it showed me, I seriously considered simply ignoring it. But that attempt failed because it had been so long since I’d seen my sister alive and moving.

 

The chronicle of the pitiful brother Kim Hyoil was impossibly long. From the time Manager Nam’s power trips became seriously severe, my complexion looked different.

 

“Are you getting any sleep?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“How much?”

 

“I’m not sure……”

 

I pretended otherwise, but my answer was half-hearted. Only the sound of a straw poking at ice could be heard. I wanted to avoid talking about the company, but I had no other topics to discuss at all.

 

Wonjoo hesitated before speaking.

 

“You know, these days… they say depression among office workers has become a serious social problem.”

 

“Are you depressed, noona?”

 

“No, I’m fine.”

 

Wonjoo waved her hand and watched my reaction. I was still preoccupied with tormenting the ice, my eyes vacant.

 

“What about you? …Is the company bearable?”

 

Was Wonjoo always such a cautious person? It felt new. The Wonjoo in front of me felt like a different person from the one I knew.

 

And I, who didn’t notice despite her acting so out of character, was just as bad. It felt like even if she’d put a tin can in front of me instead of herself, my reaction wouldn’t have been much different.

 

“Isn’t everyone’s life the same?”

 

With a face void of expression, I answered as if muttering to myself.

 

“Who isn’t struggling? It’s all the same.”

 

Observing as a third party, it was blatantly obvious that my mental state was broken. It seemed Wonjoo had looked into psychiatrists and received a business card starting from this day.

 

I didn’t understand the intention behind showing me that these things had happened. I couldn’t grasp the context of the statement that Wonjoo was my ‘predecessor’.

 

I couldn’t accept this as a reward simply because she was born before me. It said I would understand if I watched, but I didn’t understand what I was supposed to gain from reviewing Wonjoo’s life.

 

I strongly expressed my opinion to the system that I could not accept this as a reward. Then, the system asked:

 

+

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ Did this really look like it had no meaning at all in Assistant Manager Kim’s eyes?

+

 

Was it just my imagination? I didn’t feel like the system was trying to mock me. It felt like it was asking out of pure curiosity.

 

+

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ Why do you think the document only contains things like ‘Why did it have to be these things?’

+

 

Before I became entangled in the strange phenomenon of regression—in other words, my predecessor, who created the vacancy that made it necessary for me to regress, and the author of the document, was noona.

 

The trivial fragments of the past, pieced together through my sister’s memories, and the data that stopped appearing after her death.

 

All those things that made me think, ‘Of all things, why did it have to pick these?’ Things I had forgotten and gone on living with, yet which were nothing but painful to see again, became tangled together in my mind.

 

It was only then that I finally understood what noona had been settling.

 

+

[SYSTEM] A work instruction from the ‘Superior’ has arrived.

▶ They say when a person has deep-seated resentment (Han), they can’t even close their eyes in death.

+

 

It was all the knots of sorrow and regret tied in noona’s heart.

 

And at the center of that Han was always me. There wasn’t a single record that was solely about noona. Not even one.