WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Regressed Assistant Manager Kim Can Read Minds ◈
Chapter 1
──────
“Thank you for all your hard work.”
The president spoke with an apologetic look.
My name was on the layoff list.
“Is it final?”
“The board made the decision.”
The president looked uncomfortable.
“I opposed it right to the end. I know better than anyone that people like you have kept this company going, Department Manager Kim.”
I’d worked at this company for twenty-eight years.
Three Japanese clients I’d handled since my days as an assistant manager were still with us. I’d restored a deal in Thailand that had nearly fallen through. Last year, I’d saved a sensor module on the verge of being discontinued and sold eighteen billion won’s worth of it.
But none of those achievements had my name on them.
The division head at the time had taken credit for saving the Thailand deal.
The head of the New Business Office had taken credit for saving the sensor module.
I was still just a department manager.
And had been for eleven years.
“When’s my last day?”
“Let’s make it the end of this month. We’ll treat your remaining annual leave as used.”
I had twenty-eight days of annual leave left.
There were only ten days until the end of the month.
That meant they intended to simply erase eighteen days.
In the past, I wouldn’t have argued.
The company was struggling.
My junior colleagues needed to make a living too.
If I accepted a small loss, everything would end quietly.
I bit down hard on my lip.
“I’d like to see the breakdown of my severance pay first.”
The president’s eyebrow twitched.
“Department Manager Kim.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s end things on good terms.”
Good terms.
What a convenient phrase.
It came up every time the company took something that belonged to me.
“I’d like that too. So I’ll only take what I’m owed.”
“Who said we wouldn’t pay you? We aren’t that heartless here.”
The president chuckled and stood.
He came around the desk and clasped my hand in both of his.
“You’ve worked so hard. I mean that.”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t the end of our relationship, all right? Keep in touch after you leave. I’ll see if I can find a position for you somewhere.”
“Thank you.”
I pulled my hand away.
The president even opened the door for me.
As I walked down the hallway, I heard a voice through the closed office door.
“Get the HR team leader in here.”
I stopped.
“Review Department Manager Kim’s severance calculation. Leave out the special severance payment.”
“Sir, you said you’d consider making an exception for long-serving employees...”
“That’s for people taking voluntary retirement. Department Manager Kim isn’t doing that, is he? Why would he get a special payment?”
I took my employee ID off my neck.
[Kim Seongjun]
[Department Manager, Overseas Sales Team, Automotive Electronics Division]
The man in the ID photo was younger than I was now.
On the day that photo was taken, an HR employee had said something to me.
“You really should make executive this time.”
I’d laughed it off then too.
I’d thought becoming a department manager was enough.
As long as I could support my family, pay off the apartment loan, and save a little for retirement, that would be enough.
I’d believed the company wouldn’t abandon someone who worked hard.
My phone rang.
It was my wife.
“Honey.”
“Is it over?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They told me to work until the end of the month and leave.”
“What about your severance pay?”
That came before any words of comfort.
It wasn’t even surprising.
“I haven’t received the breakdown yet.”
“You said there’d be a special severance payment.”
“I think they’re going to leave that out.”
A sigh came through the phone.
“Then what are we going to do about the apartment loan?”
“Let’s talk when I get home.”
“All right. I have something to tell you too, so come home early today.”
The call ended.
When I returned to my empty desk, my team members rose awkwardly.
“Sir.”
The junior colleague who’d been promoted to division head instead of me approached first.
He’d joined as a new recruit when I was in my third year. Whenever he drank, he said Department Manager Kim had made him who he was.
“I’m sorry. I only heard this morning.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I should’ve spoken up more strongly...”
“Forget it. A seat has to be empty before someone else can take it.”
My junior colleague bit his lip.
He looked ready to cry.
The team members came forward to shake my hand, one after another.
“I learned so much from you, sir.”
“I’ll be sure to stay in touch.”
“You’ll find a good position in no time.”
I believed every word.
Until that evening.
The subway ride home from work took twenty minutes.
Normally, I would’ve spent that time checking company emails or replying to clients’ messages. With nothing left to do, those twenty minutes felt far too long.
When I opened the front door, my wife’s shoes were gone.
Instead, a document envelope lay on the living room table.
My wife came out of the bedroom, pulling a suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
“My mom’s.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Sit down.”
Hyejin sat across from me.
This was our twentieth year of marriage.
We had no children. We’d even gone to a fertility clinic at one point, but after Hyejin said we should stop treatment, I’d never brought it up again.
I’d thought that was fine.
We only needed to be happy together.
Apparently, even that was ending today.
Inside the envelope was an application for divorce.
“Haah. You do know I got fired today, right?”
“That’s why I’m telling you now.”
Instead of looking at me, Hyejin examined her fingers.
Her nails were neat, as if she’d just had them done.
“You need to make a fresh start now too. I want to live my own life before it’s too late.”
“So your life until now wasn’t your own?”
“No. It wasn’t.”
Hyejin looked at me coldly.
“We ended a long time ago.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You never know anything.”
My heart sank.
That hurt more than anger would have.
“What did I do that was so wrong?”
“Don’t say that. You always think you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Did I cheat on you?”
“No.”
“Did I ever fail to give you money for living expenses?”
“That’s not the problem.”
“I paid your mother’s hospital bills. I covered the deposit for your younger brother’s shop three times. I’m still paying off the apartment loan. I’m sorry I went to work on weekends. But I was working, not out having fun.”
Hyejin let out a long sigh and shook her head.
“See?”
“See what?”
“You think bringing home money is all you have to do as a husband. You never once thought about me, left here at home.”
I couldn’t answer.
It was the exact opposite of what I’d heard at work all my life.
They’d told me I had to be loyal to the company to support my family.
My family asked if the company was all I cared about.
What was I supposed to have done, caught in the middle?
“We’ll split the assets in half. The apartment is marital property, and your severance pay is an asset built up during our marriage too.”
“You’re saying this to someone who lost his job today?”
“What would putting it off change?”
She was already looking at me like a stranger.
“How long have you been preparing this?”
“I consulted a lawyer last month. So it’ll be easier on you if you just do what I say. Going to court won’t change anything.”
Last month.
I’d slept at the office for three nights straight then, trying to stop Japan’s Shinei Motors from forcing down our unit prices.
While I’d been sleeping on the conference room sofa, Hyejin had been consulting a divorce lawyer.
“Let me ask you one thing.”
“What?”
“Did you ever love me?”
“What does that matter now?”
In the end, she never answered.
Eleven that night.
I called my friend Lee Jeongho out for a drink.
I’d known him since high school. He’d been the MC at my wedding and bought me drinks whenever Hyejin and I had a big fight.
The first thing Jeongho did was fill my soju glass.
“Both hit you at once, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“No idea.”
I emptied my glass.
The soju went down like water.
“Maybe I should try to hold on to my job somehow.”
“What would you do if you went back to the company that laid you off?”
“There are still deals I need to handle. I haven’t finished sorting out the Indian client’s order.”
Jeongho stared at me in disbelief.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“That’s why you got fired.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re the kind of guy who’d keep working today even if he was getting fired tomorrow.”
“I have to finish my work.”
“Why is it your work? The company threw you away.”
I looked down at my empty glass.
“But I started it.”
“The president must be thrilled. He’s got someone who’ll work for free.”
“Do you have to say that on a day like today?”
“Today’s exactly when I should say it.”
Jeongho set down the bottle.
He looked at me in frustration as he spoke.
“Seongjun. You didn’t end up like this because you’re bad at your job. There aren’t many people as good at their work as you.”
“Then why did it happen?”
“Because you can’t read people.”
I’d heard that from Hyejin too.
You never know anything.
“What didn’t I know?”
“What people were thinking.”
Jeongho counted the points off on his fingers.
“When your boss took credit for your work, you said the company would recognize your efforts. When you got passed over for promotion three times, you said next time would be different. Every time your brother-in-law ran his shop into the ground, you said you only needed to help him this once. Hyejin hasn’t even smiled around you for years, and you said it was because she was busy.”
“If you knew all that, why are you only telling me now?”
“I did tell you.”
Jeongho’s voice dropped.
“I told you over and over. You didn’t listen.”
I couldn’t remember.
No.
I didn’t think I’d wanted to remember.
Jeongho had always been blunt.
When he said Hyejin did too much for her family, I’d replied that my in-laws were family too.
When he told me to be careful of my junior colleague at work, I’d asked how I could work with someone if I distrusted them.
When he said my boss was stealing credit for my work, I’d said people could see what was happening.
No one had seen.
They’d probably seen and pretended not to.
Because that was in their best interests.
“Damn it. How am I supposed to know what other people are thinking?”
The curse slipped out before I knew it.
“You can tell from their expressions and their actions.”
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s what I mean when I say you can’t read people.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
Jeongho poured me another drink.
“I wish I could hear what people were thinking.”
“You’re really drunk.”
“Then I wouldn’t have let them do this to me.”
If I’d known the company never intended to make me an executive.
If I’d known my junior colleague was after my position.
If I’d known Hyejin didn’t love me.
If I’d known my in-laws saw me as a source of money, not family.
Would my life have turned out differently?
“It’s too late now.”
I emptied my last glass.
When we left the bar, rain was pouring down.
Jeongho offered to call a designated-driver service, but I refused. I hadn’t brought my car anyway.
I walked toward the main road to catch a taxi.
Rainwater ran into my eyes.
Squelch.
My shoes had long since soaked through.
My phone kept ringing.
It was the junior colleague who always said I’d made him who he was.
I didn’t answer.
A message soon followed.
[Sir, we’ve received an urgent call from the Indian client. Please just hand the account over to the person taking charge. It’s urgent, so please take care of it today.]
He was asking someone who’d been fired today to get it done today.
I laughed.
I deleted the message.
Hyejin contacted me too.
[Check the divorce papers by tomorrow morning. Send me your estimated severance amount too.]
I deleted that as well.
It was the first time in my life I’d ignored someone else’s demand that I do something right away.
“I should’ve done this ages ago.”
The rain made it hard to see.
I spotted a fallen construction sign at the entrance to an alley. Rainwater swirled on one side of the road.
The moment I took a step, the ground vanished beneath my feet.
My body pitched forward.
I reached out, but there was nothing to grab.
The manhole cover that should have been there was missing.
“What the hell...!”
I fell into the black hole.
My shoulder hit the wall.
My head rang.
Cold water struck my face.
I couldn’t breathe.
I flailed my arms, but I couldn’t tell up from down.
Even then, a strange thought crossed my mind.
This was just like me, right to the end.
After struggling in the holes my company and family had dug for me, I was going to fall into a real one and die.
I lost consciousness.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried