Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 546 - Noona (3)

The silence stretched on for quite a while. It was only after flipping through several pages that I was able to finish reading the rest of my sister’s records.

 

Has he ever tried doing something he actually wants to do?

Does he even have friends?

If someone asked him what’s fun in this world, how many could he come up with?

Is there anywhere he wants to go?

Does he even know what he likes?

Well, he’s the kind of guy who can stare intensely at a bass guitar and never connect it to the thought of actually wanting to play it, so I doubt it.

 

I could almost hear her clicking her tongue. She pitied my situation more than her own, even though she was the one who had died so young.

 

I don’t know why the kid grew up so oblivious.

Am I wishing for too much?

He’s a guy who can’t even take a compliment at face value. Should I be worrying first about whether he’d even know how to accept affection or trust from someone else?

What a difficult kid.

He acts like an airhead, but he’s only sensitive about pointless things.

He keeps saying he doesn’t remember whenever something happens, then lies that everything is fine even while suffering that much stress.

 

Noona poured out complaint after complaint without restraint.

 

Actually, no. It’s better that he forgets.

It’s not like they’re good memories worth holding onto forever.

It’s much better to live as if nothing happened than to keep draining his emotions.

 

Even so, she pondered how I could live a better life. I could picture her jokingly calling my inability to forget what happened during childhood a ‘loss’. Even though the entire thing was nothing but her badmouthing me from beginning to end, I felt like I was going to cry.

 

We’ve spent far too long feeling sorry toward each other, so let’s stop doing that.

 

That short sentence pierced my heart. I knew all too well what kind of emotions a person had to go through before reaching those words.

 

Watching her look at me with pity over the smallest things, I had wondered dozens of times if my existence was a burden to her. I often thought it would have been better for her if she didn’t have a brother like me.

 

That was why I had left Spark so abruptly. Once I judged that there was nothing to be gained from being connected, I believed my decision was for the best.

 

I realized it only by experiencing the other side. I was arrogant. It was a decision so cruel it was agonizing for those left behind. I wondered if this was how Spark had felt too.

 

It would be better to build memories with new people now.

Don’t crumble just because someone who was by your side is gone; you need to practice getting back up by remembering the happy things.

You have a longer life ahead of you, after all.

 

How many thoughts must have gone through noona’s mind as she watched me, unable to get back on my feet after losing my family? How much did she agonize before reaching this decision?

 

And how deeply could it hurt the person left behind when the conclusion she reached was to remain forever distant from the people who could make the pain of parting worse?

 

I remembered how I had demanded to know if the system ever had any intention of giving my sister back to me. I had protested that I couldn’t understand why helping Choi Jeho was ‘defying fate’ when it was the one who told me to change Spark in the first place.

 

Now that I had come this far, I understood. The ‘fate’ the system spoke of—the thing that was destined to happen—wasn’t some accident or disaster.

 

At the moment I was given the chance to live my life again, I had been destined to sever my ties with noona, a relationship from my past, and move forward with my colleagues, the relationships of my present.

 

The letters were becoming increasingly blurry. No matter how many times I wiped my eyes, the tears wouldn’t stop.

 

If you have several precious people around you, wouldn’t you gain a little more strength to endure difficult things when they come?

You’ll be less lonely than being left all by yourself like you are now.

Since you have a good head on your shoulders, it’s better to fill it with happy things rather than erase all the bad memories and leave a bunch of empty space.

And you should experience being loved that much.

 

There was no need to ask why the system had made it impossible for me to hate Spark more, or why it had made me feel a sense of kinship with those guys.

 

Because that was what noona wanted.

 

Did she know I would eventually read what was in her heart?

 

She probably didn’t. That was why she had been so honest. If she had known that I would cry until I could barely breathe, she would never have said these things.

 

Still, she should have at least given me a chance to explain that I didn’t agree with her. She left forever, so now I couldn’t even tell her that she was wrong.

 

She shouldn’t have left like this. It would have been better if she had scolded me to snap out of it and live properly, instead of telling me not to dwell on the past and to start fresh.

 

I just hope you keep on being happy.

 

At the end of the final sentence, there was a description: ‘(Request Received)’. It seemed the footprints my sister left ended there.

 

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

▶ As you can see, Assistant Manager Kim had to raise his stats quite a bit to satisfy Kim Wonjoo’s expectations. I can’t exactly call back someone who already left to rewrite their request, so I had no choice but to fulfill the request as much as possible.

+

 

For once, I agreed with the system. She left so early, yet she expected far too much from me. Wasn’t this why I ended up becoming an idol—a profession I had never even had a connection to in my previous life?

 

She worried too much. Have I ever done what I wanted? I did everything exactly the way I wanted. Every album our team released turned out exactly the way I wanted it to.

 

I have friends, too. And I have dongsaengs I’m as close to as friends. I wondered why the system was weighing noona against those guys, but it was probably because she told me to make sure I had precious people. And without realizing that, I had almost done the exact thing she would have hated most.

 

I don’t know how many things most people could name if someone asked them what was fun, but I can give you a few answers too.

 

Noona, have you ever run a marathon and then gone out as a group to eat bossam? Have you ever gone to an amusement park and only eaten popcorn without riding any rides? Going in a group to see a night view might seem like no big deal, but it’s actually really great, you know?

 

I thought I had no desire for travel, but I found myself wanting to go to Singapore. It’s a thought I had very recently; what a coincidence.

 

And I… I know what I like. It’s because I left that behind that I’d been depressed all this time.

 

Right. Because the system took what noona wished in passing and translated it literally, it made me do something I was never destined for.

 

I really didn’t want to admit it, but since I had never once won against my sister, you could say this was how it was meant to be.

 

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

▶ It was truly a difficult problem.

+

 

I sobbed in front of the system. More than when I had first lost her. I wondered if I had ever cried this much, this childishly, in my entire life.

 

***

 

After seeing the Support Request, I had a long conversation with the system.

 

‘Is the reason my college admission was canceled also because ‘I didn’t go into the Business Administration department because I wanted to’?’

 

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

▶ Correct. You had no interest in Business Administration, Assistant Manager Kim. You see, people only achieve results when they do what they like and are good at.

+

 

‘Can you really say I’m good at it? The only reason I was supposed to become an idol was because Spark happened to catch noona’s eye at the right time.’

 

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

▶ Well, Assistant Manager Kim, you certainly did your part. You consistently developed your professional skills, too.

+

 

“You shouldn’t include ‘Proficiency’ in that. Weren’t you too strict to count a cheat code as my own ability?”

 

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

▶ Did I not mention it?

 

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

▶ I wasn’t the one who raised that proficiency level. Think about it logically. If you practice and work yourself to the bone for more than ten hours a day, wouldn’t you naturally improve? Assistant Manager Kim didn’t even take any days off, so it makes sense that the results would show. Looking at how quickly you improved, you might just have had a natural aptitude for it.

+

 

For a long time, I had been weighed down by guilt over the fact that while other people were diligently putting in the work, I had improved my skills through an unfair method. Because I believed I had taken a shortcut, I couldn’t accept praise as genuine praise.

 

However, the system said that the proficiency I had built up so quickly was the result of my effort. It added that it was possible because the job suited my aptitude. Those words relieved the pangs of conscience that had been weighing me down for so long.

 

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

▶ I’m only explaining this to you because Assistant Manager Kim made the effort himself to improve. Understand?

+

 

It didn’t fail to include a scolding, as usual. But now that I knew the context of those words, I didn’t feel instinctively offended.

 

My sister wanted me to be happy. For the past me, who couldn’t escape depression and hovered between life and death with extreme actions, it was an undeserved expectation.

 

To change such a person, the system had taken the long way around. Even though it used coercive methods, it watched my change of heart, knowing that ultimately everything depended on me.

 

And by Spark’s side, I succeeded in escaping the lowest depths of the mire. I no longer viewed death as an escape. I realized I could be okay. I found a place where I wanted to stay and even allowed myself to be ambitious.

 

Because I tried to change, the system acknowledged my path. Although my attempts to live a little better had ultimately been for my own sake, they eventually became the reason I was able to understand noona’s true feelings.

 

If I had stayed the same, I never would have known. I’m glad I changed. Truly.

 

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

▶ It was a very long journey. Just how did you live for your life to get this tangled up, Assistant Manager Kim? There wasn’t a single opening. That’s why I had to chase all the way over to Kim Wonjoo’s side.

+

 

Looking back, ever since I regressed, it had been one failure and setback after another. Whether the system gave me rewards or Spark achieved something, I would always collapse and become consumed with plans to run away. It must have been quite a headache to fix this mindset from a non-human perspective.

 

‘Sorry about that.’

 

For the first time, the system’s complaining made me smile without any malice. It complained that I had been far too late, and proceeded to chew out Assistant Manager Kim mercilessly.

 

I pointed out that it had been a long time since I was a Hanpyeong Industry employee, that its identity wasn’t actually my boss, and that things like the company, ‘Superior’ and ‘Subordinate’ were all just empty shells—so why was I still being called Assistant Manager Kim? The system made quite a fuss. Then it firmly insisted that, no matter what happened, I would remain an assistant manager until the day I officially resigned.

 

Before I knew it, the conversation was reaching its end. As it always had, the system carried out its duties.

 

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

▶ Now, think seriously.

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It went through the procedures and presented me with the next action I should take.

 

I, who had yet to be released from my status as ‘Subordinate’ also remained in place. I confirmed what the system was saying and accepted the task given to me.

 

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

▶ About what Assistant Manager Kim needs to do to achieve the assignment given by your senior.

 

[SYSTEM] ‘Subordinate’ is notified of the ‘Syncronization Rate.’

▷ Current Syncronization Rate: 99%

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Slowly, the end was in sight.