Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols

“

I can’t believe there’s another school besides yours with a uniform like that… I’m honestly shocked.”

 

Baek Haewon clicked her tongue. She didn’t even consider the possibility that her brother might attend the same school as the idol she was watching.

 

Baek Haein felt the same. He couldn’t think of anyone among his friends who would be into celebrities. So Baek Haein just grumbled.

 

“Does our country only produce spinach-colored fabric?”

 

Just as Baek Haein was about to turn his gaze away complaining, the face of the guy dancing in a uniform that looked like well-ripened kimchi was caught on the screen.

 

“Huh?”

 

Baek Haein paused. Baek Haewon, noticing, spoke up.

 

“What? Even you can see that he’s way better looking than you, right? His face really is everything.”

 

Ignoring Baek Haewon’s admiration, Baek Haein couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.

 

After seeing a couple more zoom-ins of the guy in the green uniform, Baek Haein muttered.

 

“Why is he there…?”

 

Baek Haewon looked up at Baek Haein, wondering what he was talking about. Baek Haein’s next words were even more shocking.

 

“I know him. He’s from our school.”

 

“What?”

 

“The one in our school uniform. Isn’t he that guy? Kim Han.”

 

“Ah, you surprised me. No, that’s Kim Iwol.”

 

“Is that his real name? Not his stage name?”

 

“They all use their real names.”

 

Baek Haewon replied, disappointed. She had hoped for a situation like, ‘My idol turns out to be a distant cousin of my sibling’s friend’s aunt’s nephew’, but life wasn’t that easy.

 

Despite Baek Haewon’s disheartened tone, Baek Haein insisted.

 

“No? But he really looks exactly like Kim Han.”

 

“Come on, if there was someone like that at your school, don’t you think I’d know about it?”

 

“What do you even know about me?”

 

“Fair point.”

 

Baek Haewon turned her back on Baek Haein, telling him to stop lying.

 

But really, the guy on the screen looked exactly like Baek Haein’s classmate.

 

“Are you sure his name is Kim Iwol? He never changed his name?”

 

“I don’t think so, since he never mentioned anything like that.”

 

At Baek Haewon’s response, Baek Haein stroked his chin thoughtfully and nodded.

 

“Yeah, there’s no way that guy would become an idol.”

 

“What? Are you looking down on idols or something?”

 

Baek Haewon snapped back. Regardless of what his sister said, Baek Haein continued unfazed.

 

“Can you stop picking fights? I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic at all. Seriously, your attitude is just…”

 

“Ugh, if you’re going to keep yapping, get lost already!”

 

Baek Haewon threw the cushion at him, and Baek Haein quickly dodged it. It was a move that spoke of years of experience.

 

“No, I said that because Kim Han always studied hard. He always seemed to be a top rank. Would someone like that really become an idol?”

 

“You weren’t close to him, were you? You were just goofing around after all.”

 

“We only talked when we played soccer, you a**hole.”

 

Sparks continued to fly endlessly between the siblings.

 

Then, images of Kim Iwol, who always seemed exceptionally sharp, flashed through Baek Haewon’s mind. She also recalled hearing that Kim Iwol started his trainee life at the age of 20.

 

Baek Haewon spoke to Baek Haein.

 

“Hey, go get your yearbook.”

 

“If you’re so curious, go get it yourself. I’m too much of an idiot to remember where it is.”

 

“Ugh, you’re so annoying!”

 

Frustrated, Baek Haewon ruffled her hair.

 

In the end, despite having to dig through the storage herself, she managed to find her brother’s yearbook with the power of overflowing love.

 

There, printed clearly alongside a younger-looking Kim Iwol’s face, were the two characters for his name: ‘Kim Han’.

 

* * *

 

≫ Is Iwol his real name?

 

The moment I saw that title, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I rubbed my eyes and read the post again.

 

But nothing changed. The sentence asking if Iwol’s name was real stood out clearly.

 

The time this post was uploaded was about 3 hours ago.

 

When I searched, there were a few similar posts. Fortunately, there weren’t that many.

 

It seemed it was a rumor that spread after being mentioned somewhere. It must have been on a community forum or a private account.

 

I did change my name. That was true, but…

 

‘Having my old name spread around is a bit much.’

 

It was a headache. I hated my old name so much.

 

When people who didn’t know my situation found out I changed my name, they would ask,  ‘But it’s a precious name that your parents gave you. Don’t you regret changing it?’

 

For the record, I didn’t regret it at all. Every time I thought about how my parents, who always preached filial piety, named me ‘Hyoil’ but ended up neglecting me, I couldn’t help but change my name out of fury.

 

(TL note: the first character hyo in Hyoil means ‘filial piety’.)

 

What was even sadder was that my circumstances were better than my older sister’s.

 

I heard that my sister’s name was hastily derived from abbreviating the name of the local district office where her birth was registered. It was a name chosen from whatever they saw at the time.

 

My sister didn’t change her name, but I changed mine. As soon as I came of age, I immediately applied for a name change.

 

Now that I’d also changed my name in this life, I wanted to live as if my old name never existed.

 

If my real name was revealed before I left Spark, when I returned to civilian life, I would hear people asking, ‘Assistant Manager Kim, your real name was ‘Hyoil’? Is there a reason you changed your name?’.

 

However, it seemed things would not go the way I wanted.

 

What kind of people were idol fans? They were cyber archaeologists who used their amazing search skills to find stories from the past that even the person concerned had forgotten.

 

No matter how much I wanted to hide my three-letter name, if someone got a hold of my graduation album, it would all be over.

 

It was a name that I had desperately tried to hide at the Hanpyeong Industry, but I had no other choice. I’d have to tell the members first that my name was originally Kim Hyoil and that I was almost forced to live as a Confucian boy focused on filial piety.

 

I let out a deep sigh as if the ground would sink beneath me and got up.

 

Then, I tried to issue a detailed certificate to prove my words, but…

 

“Huh?”

 

Something was strange.

 

The ‘Name after the name change’ section correctly showed ‘Kim Iwol’, but the ‘Name before the name change’ wasn’t ‘Kim Hyoil’.

 

It was written there as ‘Kim Han,’ the name on my school uniform.

 

The school I attended remained the same, but only my name and name tag changed.

 

Before, I had been accepted into college but couldn’t attend.

 

Analyzing the things I had experienced before, the current situation…

   

…could be summarized by these two points.

 

Did this even make any sense?

 

The fact that I’d returned nine years into the past was already bizarre enough, but what was the point of manipulating these sh*tty a** details to make me an idol?

 

My old name had nothing to do with becoming an idol.

 

This interference suggested that the system wanted to control me in ways beyond just achieving KPIs.

 

Why? What does that mean?

 

What difference did it make if my name changed from ‘Kim Hyoil’ to ‘Kim Han’?

 

Seeing how those people, who treated their children like trash, disappeared without a word, it didn’t seem like their feelings toward us had changed much, so why did the system do such a bothersome thing?

 

At this moment, I really wanted to fight the system. If it weren’t for my sister, I would jump out the window right away and render all this s**t the system had painstakingly designed meaningless.

 

But anger wouldn’t change anything. I knew that very well.

 

Instead, I started to think. If I couldn’t remember the past, I had to at least predict the future. I tried to focus and looked back at the current situation.

 

Either my parents’ expectations of me were shattered, or they were more upset than I was in my last life and kicked me out early.

 

The structure of my family had already changed a lot from what I knew.

 

And my memories of my family were incomplete.

 

When I combined the two, an unsettling hypothesis I didn’t want to imagine came up.

 

What if my sister, like me, had been separated from the family, and because of that, it was impossible for me to find any contact with her until I fully recovered my memories or achieved all my KPIs?

 

So, regardless of what situation my sister was in, if I was one-sidedly manipulated by the system due to my lack of information…

 

My mind, which had been spinning like crazy, suddenly stopped.

 

“F*ck!”

 

I slammed my hands on the table. I tried to hold back my anger.

 

The thought that I might have been played by the system this whole time made me feel like my head was about to explode.

 

I buried my face in my hands and took deep breaths. At that moment, I recalled the last interaction I’d had with the system.

 

+

 

[SYSTEM] Work instructions from your ‘superior’ have arrived.

 

▶ Assistant Manager Kim, do you really need that for work? Have you thoroughly thought about whether there’s a better way?

 

[SYSTEM] Work instructions from your ‘superior’ have arrived.

 

▶ I’ll give you a list of supplies, so choose from them.  You should appreciate that no company takes care of you like this, Assistant Manager Kim. Tsk.

 

+

 

That time, the system had clearly behaved differently.

 

Instead of giving me tasks like usual, the system spoke to me, reacted to my thoughts, and gave me alternatives.

 

Realizing that interaction with the system might be possible, I called the system out.

 

The system didn’t appear immediately. So I fueled my anger, making sure it was strong enough to be felt by the system.

 

‘Come out, you piece of s***.’

 

Before my mind could fully erupt in obscenities, the system appeared.

 

+

 

[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the ‘Superior’ have arrived.

 

▶ Assistant Manager Kim, do you know what time it is? Is your superior a joke to you? Do you think I’m someone you can just summon anytime? 

 

+

 

‘Enough, speak properly.’

 

I glared at the system and asked.

 

Is my noona alive right now?