| Episode 45. Family Invitation Event (2)
After living for years as Manager Nam’s diatomite bath mat, the HR team people used to say, “Iwol really seems good at hiding his emotions.”
Because whether Manager Nam cursed at me or threw documents, I always attended to that bastard of a manager with the same consistent attitude.
My secret technique, “How Not to Show That This Is Fucking Awful,” which even people skilled at reading an organization’s atmosphere had acknowledged, had been seen through by nineteen-year-old Jeong Seongbin. It was hard to believe.
Pretending to ask very casually, I took the mug from Jeong Seongbin, rinsed the inside, and asked.
“Did it look to you like I was nervous?”
Maybe Jeong Seongbin believed that I wasn’t upset because of my parents’ surprise visit, because he answered in a lighter voice than before.
“Yes. Ah, it’s not that it showed in your expression or tone!”
“If I let it show that way, my nickname would be Dead Fish Eyes the moment I debut.”
“Hup……”
Jeong Seongbin flinched in surprise and shut his mouth.
What was wrong with dead fish eyes?
If an idol doesn’t manage their expression for no good reason, aren’t they doing it prepared to hear that?
Still, I needed to know what point Jeong Seongbin had picked up on. That way, I wouldn’t make some stupid mistake somewhere else.
“Then what made you think that?”
I pretended to wash the dishes as if it were nothing and studied Jeong Seongbin’s expression.
There was no uncomfortable sign on Jeong Seongbin’s face that suggested he wanted to hide something.
“I wonder?”
“What?”
“I’m not really sure what I saw that made me feel like you were nervous, hyung. I guess I’d say it was just a feeling.”
It was an answer that drained the strength right out of a person.
So much so that I felt stupid for worrying, even for a moment, that I might have given myself away somewhere.
Still, it was far better than openly doing something idiotic. With my mind much lighter, I said,
“It’s good to be quick on the uptake, but don’t go around watching other people’s moods too much. It’ll wear you out.”
“I won’t. Oh, right, hyung! Can I just text my mom to ask if she got home safely and then help clean up?”
“You think there’s no one here to clean up if not for you? Just go contact her.”
Jeong Seongbin insisted on getting my permission for something so trivial.
Contacting your mom, huh.
It was something I couldn’t even imagine doing. To begin with, I didn’t even have those two people’s contact information in my phone.
Thinking that next time someone else’s parents came, I should ask whether they had contacted them to see if they got home safely, I finished wiping the water from the sink.
* * *
“Assistant Manager Kim! Book me a pension in Jeju-do. Somewhere with plenty of parking and an ocean view.”
“A pension?”
“Yeah, yeah. Big enough for a family of three to stay in. Check my vacation schedule and book it accordingly.”
“Did you request vacation time, Manager? For when……?”
“I just submitted the request. You can book it by the end of today, right? I asked around, and they said if you don’t grab those quickly, there won’t be any rooms left.”
Annual leave that I had never once been able to attach to a holiday, Manager Nam used as much as he pleased.
Whenever that man took vacation, he easily used four or five days in a row.
And attending to Manager Nam’s vacation needs fell solely to me.
One day it was round-trip plane tickets, another day accommodations, and yet another day even theme park reservations.
I had to prepare a full course with all my heart and soul for the sake of one person, Manager Nam.
If it was a domestic trip, that was actually a relief.
On days when Manager Nam planned an overseas trip with his family or went on a golf tour with his alumni friends, I had to remain in the company office until ten at night, clutching my head over Saipan and Guam, places I had never even been to in my life.
Thanks to that, I often thought it might have been better if I had gotten a job at a package tour agency.
Of course, those idle thoughts were neatly folded away thanks to complaints from the bastard customer who returned from vacation.
Because I learned that I had no talent for planning package tours.
“Assistant Manager Kim, how is it that all I could see from the lodging was a gloomy ocean? I paid a lot because they said it was an ocean view, and I didn’t get to see a clear sea even once the entire trip.”
“Manager, that was because the weather in Jeju-do at the time……”
“And why didn’t you reserve the hairtail restaurant I told you about? We waited twenty minutes and ended up going to another restaurant. Are you going to compensate me for my time, Assistant Manager Kim?”
“That hairtail place, as I told you last time, doesn’t take reservations……”
“Honestly, Assistant Manager Kim, the way you handle work is frustrating. I’m letting it slide because it’s me, but if it were someone else, you’d have already gotten cursed out. You know that?”
“I don’t, you XX……!”
I woke up, spitting out profanity like a single scream. It had been two hours since I lay down in bed. It had been so vivid that I was short of breath.
Was it because I’d been searching all over the place for music video filming locations? My dreams were nothing but ominous.
At this rate, I was worried that if I ever ended up in a situation where I met a third person with the surname Nam, I might foam at the mouth and collapse.
It pissed me off, but now that I was awake, it seemed unlikely I’d be able to fall asleep again.
Cursing Manager Nam, who still clung to me like an evil spirit and tormented me even now that I had come nine years back in time, I laboriously got out of bed.
When I came out to the living room, the mood light Choi Jeho had left on was glowing faintly.
Relying on the pale green light, I took the shared laptop and sat down at the dining table, and a sigh escaped me.
If this wasn’t voluntary overtime, then what was?
The fortunate thing was that the work of selecting filming locations was almost finished.
Since I had poked the planning team and roughly heard the budget, we couldn’t push for overseas locations like a group such as Pareute, but there were several fairly decent places.
What was more, unlike during my Hanpyeong Industries days, when getting location estimates at UA, I could confidently say to the venue rental company, “Could I receive an estimate first?” This was a revolution in the world of expense processing.
“Manager, it’s currently a discount period, so I need to pay right away. What payment method should I use?”
“About that. For now, Assistant Manager Kim, you pay for it and bill me all at once.”
“Pardon?”
“I can’t give Assistant Manager Kim my card PIN, can I? Do you expect me to go through text verification every time Assistant Manager Kim makes a payment?”
It was an environment incomparable to the days when I prepared Manager Nam’s trips with my own upfront payments. Even this much was enough to satisfy me.
If I were the person in charge, I would have submitted it for approval and finished all the discussions, but I was only the proposer.
My role was limited to organizing and reporting the projected drafts, unit prices, whether sponsorship was possible, and so on.
In other words, it meant my work ended exactly here.
After pouring in about another hour, I was finally able to schedule the email to send to the planning team.
Then the system shone brighter than the mood light.
+
[SYSTEM] “New Task” is pending approval.
▷ Details: Casting music video filming location
+
Now that the work I had been holding onto for several days was done, my mind felt lighter. I even felt a little buoyant.
“Since I still have some concentration left, should I look at clothing concepts some more?”
Thanks to the labor support service, my remaining fatigue was still at 40%.
After doing some light stretching, I searched for all kinds of outfits and hammered away at the keyboard until the laptop battery drained.
* * *
Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly, but there were also things that didn’t go as I expected.
Unlike Jeong Seongbin’s wandering or Lee Cheonghyeon’s running away from home, the bigger problem was that it was undeniably “my problem.”
I stared for a long time at the large mirror spread wide across the gym wall.
What entered my eyes was a body clearly thinner than the me from nine years ago in my memories.
“I’m not putting on nearly enough muscle.”
It was strange that there was enough of a difference in build to compare with the distant past even with clothes on.
Although I wasn’t working part-time in logistics now, I danced day and night and exercised on top of that, so my activity level should have been roughly similar.
In that situation, it was difficult to accept the fact that the current me was gaining less muscle than before.
What on earth was the reason? Was it because I was eating healthy?
Now that UA even supported my food expenses, I ate salad and chicken breast, whereas when I was a university student, I always ate high-calorie ramen or instant food.
Though if it had been a matter of diet in the first place, the difference would have been in fat, not muscle.
If my muscle mass didn’t increase even though I was controlling my diet and exercising, that was a problem.
If you didn’t have a certain amount of strength to support you when executing choreography, depending on the dancer, it could give the impression that you were dancing halfheartedly.
≫ All the members are dancing with their teeth clenched, but look at this bastard flopping around like X on his own lol Did someone force him to debut? He looks like he X hates doing this
└ They said they practiced the debut song for half a year lol Did he hibernate by himself for six months?
└ If he was the only one who got different choreography from the choreographer, realized it three days before debut, and crammed it, then I’ll admit it
└ LOLLLLLL If that’s the case, I have no choice but to admit it
I couldn’t bring shame to the debut stage that would become part of someone else’s portfolio.
I had pushed harder with PT because I thought I needed to build my body to avoid that sight, but the results themselves were sluggish.
Then my thoughts reached a certain point.
It was the explanation I had seen when the additional labor support service first appeared.
“I’m sure there was something about side effects.”
When I tried to recall the relevant content, the manual I had seen at the time was reproduced before my eyes exactly the same. The item I was looking for was at the very end.
+
[SYSTEM] “Additional Labor Support Service” is being notified to “Party B.”
▷ If you wish to perform additional labor but feel that physical limitations are hindering KPI achievement, support will be provided so that additional labor may proceed smoothly.
.
.
.
▷ Physical side effects may occur for various reasons, such as a prolonged service usage period, excessive accumulation of fatigue, or temporarily reduced fatigue exceeding a certain level.
+
No, if this system was designed for a successful idol debut, shouldn’t side effects like this be excluded?
Since I had started receiving this service, I had never turned it off.
So if the side effect of not gaining muscle had occurred, there was a high possibility that it corresponded to the case of a prolonged service usage period.
“Should I turn this off only when I exercise and then turn it back on when I’m done?”
As I remembered it, my current fatigue level was 40%. The fatigue reduced through the support service was 20%.
A total of about 60% seemed like it would count as average for a modern office worker. After all, almost all workers in South Korea were in a state resembling zombies.
I pressed “Yes” to the question asking whether I wished to cancel the service.
Then the system disappeared along with a message saying the changes were being applied.