WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Regressed Assistant Manager Kim Can Read Minds ◈
Chapter 17
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As the door closed, Lee Juhye let out a long sigh.
“Will you be okay?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t seem to know you’re Chairman Han’s daughter.”
Han Ara belatedly narrowed her eyes.
“You were going to tell him, weren’t you?”
“How long are you going to keep it a secret?”
“I wasn’t keeping it a secret. There just wasn’t any need to bring it up yet.”
“Shouldn’t you tell him now, at least?”
“I don’t want to make things awkward for no reason.”
Han Ara looked down at the cake on the tray.
She had set it aside for Seongjun.
“If I’d known he’d leave like that, I would’ve at least packed it for him.”
“Oh, you’ve fallen hard. You never even blinked when all those upperclassmen chased after you at school.”
“How is that the same? Seongjun’s different.”
“What’s different about him? Apart from being tall and handsome, he seems pretty ordinary.”
“I know. I hope nobody else ever notices. Then I can keep him all to myself.”
Han Ara smiled.
She looked far too happy for it to pass as a joke.
“What do you like so much about him?”
“The first time he came into the café, he ordered ssanghwa tea.”
“Ssanghwa tea?”
“Yeah. He came in looking perfectly well-dressed and asked if we had ssanghwa tea. He seemed like a middle-aged man, but then he was like a boy when he asked for my number.”
“And?”
Han Ara couldn’t answer right away.
She remembered Seongjun telling her about his mother’s procedure and her shoes in Pimatgol. That day, he had said without any pretense that he was happy right at that moment.
“For one thing... I feel comfortable with him, but nervous.”
“Comfortable, but nervous?”
“I feel at ease when we’re together. I don’t have to try hard to impress him. But when he comes close, my heart starts racing. Sometimes it even catches me off guard, and I wonder why I’m acting like this.”
“What else?”
“He remembers what I say. He doesn’t brush off even the little things. Sometimes it feels like he can read my mind.”
Han Ara looked down at the small box.
Seongjun had remembered her old hair tie after seeing it just once in Pimatgol.
Lee Juhye stared at her. It was the first time she had seen her friend, who used to be called the Ice Princess, smile like this over a man.
“You’re dating.”
“Right?”
Han Ara’s face brightened at once.
“This counts as dating, right?”
“Yeah. Secret dating.”
“Just say you’re jealous.”
Han Ara took the hair tie from the box and tied back her hair.
After checking herself in the mirror beside the counter, she turned to Lee Juhye.
“Juhye. Does this look good on me?”
“It is pretty. Can I try it on, too?”
“Nope. You can’t.”
“That’s so mean. I’ll tell Chairman Han everything.”
“Just try it. I’ll sew your mouth shut...!”
Lee Juhye couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“There she is. That’s the Han Ara I know.”
* * *
It was the day of the manager promotion exam.
Promotion candidates from the various departments sat scattered around the large conference room.
A Human Resources employee checked our employee IDs, then handed out the question papers and answer sheets.
I opened the question paper.
The first page covered trade English. The following pages covered import and export procedures, contracts, and payment terms.
Even after several pages, my pen never stopped. These were answers I had learned at a high price over twenty-eight years of dealing with clients.
After finishing the last written-response question, I checked the clock. There was still plenty of time left.
Around me, the sounds of erasers rubbing out answers and pages turning continued.
Some people seemed stuck on the foreign-language questions, reading the same sentence over and over.
I checked my answers again from the beginning, then put down my pen.
When I left the conference room after the exam, Assistant Manager Hwang Insu from Human Resources caught up with me.
“Assistant Manager Kim, how did the exam go?”
“Well enough.”
Hwang Insu had joined the company three years after me, but we had taken the manager promotion exam together this time.
Promotions in Human Resources tended to be slower than in Sales. Taking the same exam as Hwang Insu made me realize all over again just how late my own promotion was.
We headed to the interview waiting room side by side.
After sitting down, Hwang Insu let out a long breath, still looking tense.
“Aren’t you nervous? Phew, I really need to make manager this time.”
Hwang Insu patted their chest, then glanced at me.
“Though I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”
“Why’s that?”
“Everyone’s saying you’ve suddenly found your true talent. You keep landing contracts, and I heard you even turned down Deputy General Manager Seo Jeonguk’s offer.”
“That story reached Human Resources?”
“We’re Human Resources. We hear these things even sooner.”
It felt strange to have someone from another department list everything I had done.
I had only dealt with the work in front of me, one thing at a time, but somehow my name had become fairly well known within the company.
“At this rate, won’t you go straight up to deputy general manager?”
I could only chuckle at the needless exaggeration.
In my previous life, I had been pushed out without even managing to hold on to my department manager position. This time, though, I had brought in clients under my own name and found people who would work alongside me.
If things continued like this, becoming an executive wasn’t impossible. Office politics weren’t as much of a mystery as before, either. Now I could hear the calculations behind those smiling faces.
‘No, maybe I could go even higher.’
Thinking about a position above executive level also reminded me that Han Ara was Han Myeongcheol’s daughter.
I had no intention of using her background, but I wasn’t going to back away because of it, either.
‘If I ever sit down across from Chairman Han Myeongcheol, I need to make myself as valuable as possible by then.’
Soon, Hwang Insu’s name was called.
“I’ll be back, Assistant Manager Kim.”
“Okay. Don’t be too nervous.”
Hwang Insu entered the interview room with stiff shoulders.
A manager promotion interview usually ended after the head of Human Resources and the division head asked a few questions about your work experience.
There was no need to go on about how much you loved the company, as you would in a job interview. Most of the promotion decisions had probably already been made, too.
A little later, the interview room door opened.
Hwang Insu walked out looking half-dazed. Upon spotting me, they hurried to speak.
“Assistant Manager Kim, in there...”
“Assistant Manager Kim Seongjun from Overseas Sales Team 2.”
My name was called before Hwang Insu could finish.
‘What did they see in there?’
I stood and walked to the interview room.
The moment I knocked and opened the door, I stopped.
Instead of the head of Human Resources or the Head of Sales I had expected, Chairman Han Myeongcheol, President Cha Myeongguk, and Vice President Baek Seungwon sat side by side across a long table.
The three people who ran Taeseong Trading.
‘...What’s going on?’
I checked the notice on the door again.
[Manager Promotion Interview Room.]
Han Myeongcheol looked at my face and chuckled.
“You’re in the right place. Stop staring at the door and come in.”
“My apologies.”
I felt as if I had walked straight into a tiger’s jaws.
“Take a seat.”
Under all three pairs of eyes, I walked to the chair in the middle.
Cha Myeongguk looked me over with arms folded. When our eyes met, I remembered being told to leave the company in my previous life.
[So he threw away the chance to work under Seo Jeonguk. Is he bold, or does he just not think?]
Beside the president, Baek Seungwon opened my performance evaluation without even looking at me. The vice president rarely showed any emotion, but couldn’t hide the thoughts I could hear.
[His results are good enough. The question is whether he can keep the people under him in line when something goes wrong.]
Only Han Myeongcheol hadn’t touched the documents.
He leaned back comfortably with a faint smile, but Cha Myeongguk and Baek Seungwon would later lose everything they had after letting that smiling face lower their guard.
[They both followed me here out of curiosity, but neither wants to ask the first question.]
I bowed, then sat down and met Han Myeongcheol’s gaze.
Only a few days after making plans to see Ara again, I was sitting in front of her father.
This was supposed to be a manager promotion interview, but it felt as though another kind of interview had been added to it.
Fortunately, Ara wasn’t in Han Myeongcheol’s thoughts.
The impatient Cha Myeongguk spoke first.
“I hear Deputy General Manager Seo Jeonguk asked you to join Team 1.”
“Yes.”
“It was a good opportunity. Why did you turn it down?”
“I wanted to bring in my own clients rather than take over accounts that already belonged to someone else.”
“And that’s how you landed Mongsil Latex?”
“That’s right.”
Cha Myeongguk looked down at the contracts listed in my evaluation.
“How did you connect with Anantakul Group?”
At the question, Han Myeongcheol and Baek Seungwon also looked at me.
There was no reason to hide it.
“I made the contact during my business trip to Cambodia.”
“A sales contact?”
“Yes. Someone from Anantakul Group was having trouble with a latex contract. I helped and got their number.”
“Ha, you’re resourceful. A salesperson should know how to come away with a contract wherever they go.”
Unlike the approving Cha Myeongguk, Baek Seungwon seemed unimpressed.
The vice president turned a page of the contract and asked,
“A direct deal isn’t necessarily a good deal. Did you check the payment terms?”
“I checked both the inspection requirements and the payment terms.”
Cha Myeongguk snorted.
“Vice President Baek always looks for problems, even when someone’s done well.”
“Better than looking for them after something goes wrong.”
A familiar exchange of barbs passed between them.
Han Myeongcheol watched without any intention of stopping it.
Cha Myeongguk gave another light snort, then looked back at me.
“What if you think a superior’s judgment is wrong?”
“First, I check whether I’ve missed anything. If I still think it will cause a loss for the company or the client, I bring it up again with evidence.”
“And if they still won’t listen?”
“I’d rather get on their bad side once more than lose a client and have to go around apologizing.”
A faint smile appeared on Cha Myeongguk’s face.
[He’s stubborn, but he doesn’t charge in blindly.]
Baek Seungwon turned through the evaluation, then stopped at the report on the EVA resin incident.
“When Assistant Manager Park Soyeon made that ordering error, you got the whole team involved.”
“Yes.”
“The team spent four days dealing with one person’s mistake. Don’t you think that was excessive?”
“Assistant Manager Park reported the mistake as soon as she found it. She didn’t hide it, and she tried to put things right until the very end.”
“So you shared the responsibility?”
“Anyone can make a mistake. I didn’t want to leave a teammate to deal with it alone when she was trying to take responsibility instead of hiding it.”
Baek Seungwon lightly tapped the report with the tip of a pen.
“How will you prevent the same thing from happening again?”
“We’ve separated the person who writes the purchase order from the person who checks it. One more check of the quantity would have prevented the whole incident.”
Cha Myeongguk immediately cut in.
“Won’t checking every little thing like that slow down sales?”
“It takes one minute to check a single line showing the quantity.”
“One minute?”
“We tried to save that one minute and spent four days selling nine tons.”
Cha Myeongguk let out a dry laugh.
Baek Seungwon closed the evaluation without any further objection.
[So he wasn’t covering for her mistake. He valued her willingness to own up to it. He isn’t needlessly emotional, either. Not bad.]
After my answer, only the tapping of a laptop keyboard filled the room for a while.
Han Myeongcheol, who had only been listening, leaned back in his chair.
“My turn, then?”
For some reason, I felt more nervous than I had with the other two.
“They’ve asked all the questions, so I’ll ask an easy one.”
“Yes.”
“Who at Taeseong Trading would you like to work with the longest?”
As expected, the question that sounded easiest was the trickiest.
The moment I named Cha Myeongguk or Baek Seungwon, I would be taking one side. If I chose Han Myeongcheol, I would get on the wrong side of the two people who currently held the real power.
Seo Jeonguk was someone I genuinely wanted to work with. But for now, they were under Cha Myeongguk’s influence.
[Let’s see whose name he gives.]
Whoever I named, I stood to lose more than I gained.
My mind worked faster than it ever had before.
Someone far removed from the factions, who would also make a useful shield if I put them in front of me.
Only one face came to mind.
“Department Manager Oh Sangcheol.”
Cha Myeongguk’s smile disappeared.
Baek Seungwon checked the department listed on my evaluation, as if wondering whether they had misheard.
Even Han Myeongcheol was silent for a moment.
“What? Who?”
“Department Manager Oh Sangcheol.”
Cha Myeongguk pointed to Oh Sangcheol’s name on the page.
“The Oh Sangcheol I know?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Though clearly baffled, Cha Myeongguk waited for my answer.
I thought of Oh Sangcheol.
‘He believes the team’s results determine his own evaluation. When he thinks the trouble might spread to him, he moves faster than anyone.’
“He’s very eager to get results.”
Cha Myeongguk stared at me in disbelief.
“That’s why you want to work with him?”
“Thanks to that drive, he acts faster than anyone when the team’s results are at risk. During the EVA resin incident, he even dug out his old business card file and made calls himself. He also came with us on the business trip to Busan.”
Cha Myeongguk started to object, then stopped. Oh Sangcheol’s motive might have been self-preservation, but he really had made those calls himself.
‘Whenever someone from another team approached me, he physically stepped in to block them, worried there’d be nobody to bring in results if I left.’
“He’s also eager to hold on to his people. When another team tries to recruit someone, he protects his team members first.”
“Oh Sangcheol tries to keep people from being taken away?”
“At the very least, he’s helped me several times.”
[Wasn’t he just worried about losing someone who would bring in results for him?]
That was true, too.
But it didn’t mean the help he had given me was a lie.
Han Myeongcheol covered his mouth with one hand and asked,
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
‘His family’s in Canada, and whenever he doesn’t want to go home to an empty house, he arranges a team dinner. Once he’s had a few drinks, he keeps bragging about his wife and daughter.’
“He often has dinner with the team, too. He creates opportunities for everyone to talk freely, regardless of rank.”
The corner of Cha Myeongguk’s mouth twitched oddly.
Baek Seungwon was also looking at Oh Sangcheol’s name more seriously than before.
‘He was excited from the day the promotion candidates were announced, saying it would be harder for another team to take me if I became a manager.’
“When someone under him does well, he’s as happy as if it were his own achievement. When my name went up as a promotion candidate, he was even happier than I was.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
[Did Oh Sangcheol take such good care of his people? Have we misjudged him?]
Cha Myeongguk was genuinely starting to wonder.
[Han Gyeongsu has stayed under him for a long time, too. So there was a side to him the reports didn’t show.]
Even Baek Seungwon seemed to be coming around.
But Han Myeongcheol studied me through narrowed eyes.
[Greed for results becomes responsibility, possessiveness becomes protecting talent, and dinners arranged out of loneliness become communication... He’s turning Oh Sangcheol into a whole new man. This fellow’s as slippery as an eel.]
Han Myeongcheol finally burst out laughing.
“Department Manager Oh certainly trained one person well.”
The practical questions that followed were ordinary. After a few more answers, Han Myeongcheol closed my evaluation.
“That’s enough. You may go.”
“Thank you.”
I stood and bowed to all three.
Just before I closed the door, I heard Han Myeongcheol’s thoughts.
[He’s even more unusual than I expected, but I like him. Even that pretty-boy face is growing on me. I’ll tell Eunho to keep a closer eye on him.]
* * *
When I returned downstairs to the Team 2 office, Oh Sangcheol was staring intently at his monitor.
I wondered if he was waiting for the interview results, but a photo of his daughter in Canada filled the screen.
Noticing my gaze, Oh Sangcheol glanced at me.
“Oh, Assistant Manager Kim, you’re back? Good work.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Want to see a picture of my daughter? She entered some competition or other and won a prize, apparently. Haha.”
He looked like a soldier coasting through his last days before discharge.
But that was exactly why he made a good enough shield for me.
He had no idea what a wonderful boss I had made him out to be in the interview.
‘Ignorance is bliss.’
* * *
A few days later, I was writing an email to a client.
Beside me, Park Soyeon drew in a sharp breath.
“Assistant Manager Kim!”
“What?”
Instead of answering, Park Soyeon pointed at her monitor.
[Regular Promotion Announcement.]
[Overseas Sales Team 2: Assistant Manager Kim Seongjun → Manager.]
I stared at my name on the screen for a moment.
In my previous life, I had been passed over for promotion to manager three times.
Whenever someone who had joined after me handed me a business card with “Manager” on it, I had to smile and congratulate them.
My eighth year at the company.
This time, the deals I had made and the results I had earned had brought me the right rank on time.
“Congratulations, Manager Kim!”
Kang Minho was the first to stand and bow.
“Congratulations, Manager Kim. You really made it!”
Park Soyeon clapped, as excited as if it were her own promotion.
Im Jaeho also sprang up and joined in the applause.
Choi Yeongjin looked back and forth between the announcement and me, then shook their head.
“We were both assistant managers until yesterday. Now you suddenly feel so far above me.”
Manager Han Gyeongsu pushed up their glasses and spoke briefly.
“Congratulations, Manager Kim.”
“Thank you.”
Oh Sangcheol, whom I had expected to make the biggest fuss, was instead leaning back in his chair with a calm expression.
“See? What did I tell you? There was no way Assistant Manager Kim wouldn’t make it.”
[Now the other teams won’t be able to take him so easily.]
Oh Sangcheol nodded in satisfaction, then stood.
“Right. Nobody has plans, do they? If you do, cancel them. Tonight, we’re having a team dinner to celebrate Manager Kim’s promotion!”
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