WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Regressed Assistant Manager Kim Can Read Minds ◈

Chapter 3

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"I'm not going through with it."

"What did you say?"

My father-in-law glared at me, his eyes wide, but no shout came.

Only then did my mother-in-law start watching my reaction.

Hyejin hurried to her feet and grabbed my arm.

"Seongjun. Let's talk outside."

"No. Say it here."

"How can you end something like this with a few words?"

"Would talking longer change anything?"

I looked down at her coldly.

Startled by my unfamiliar indifference, Hyejin loosened her grip.

[What's gotten into him? Usually, he'd let it go like an idiot once I soothed him a little.]

The old me might have done that.

But not this time.

My father-in-law slammed his hand on the table.

"How dare you behave like this in front of your elders! Shouldn't you at least give us a proper reason?"

"Then let me ask you one clear question."

I looked at my father-in-law, then my mother-in-law.

"Even if we get married, I have no intention of giving money to her family."

Both their faces stiffened.

"I won't pay off Boseong Distribution's debts, either. I won't take out loans in my name or act as a guarantor. And I certainly won't put up our newlywed home as collateral."

I stopped and waited.

The room fell silent.

"Would you still approve of this marriage?"

My father-in-law couldn't open his mouth.

Neither could my mother-in-law.

But I heard their answers clearly.

[If not for that, why would I marry my daughter off to some salaried worker?]

[We chose him because he owns a home and has a clean credit history. What use is a son-in-law who won't give us a penny?]

Hyejin glanced at her parents.

[They need to say yes for now. Once we're married, Seongjun won't be able to turn us away. Not with his personality.]

None of them could say aloud why they wanted this marriage.

My father stood up.

"That's enough. Let's go."

My mother silently picked up her bag, too.

I said only what remained to be settled.

"I'll return the six million won you put toward the deposit on our home on Monday. The contract is in my name, so I'll leave it as it is."

"Seongjun, wait."

"If you have anything else to say, text me. Don't call."

Hyejin blocked my path.

"...I can explain about Junseok."

"Forget it."

"You're not even going to give me a chance to explain?"

"You mean make excuses."

I stepped around her and headed for the door.

Their thoughts followed me.

[How do we break through that stubborn streak?]

[If he walks out like this, who's going to pay Taesik's debts?]

[He used to do nothing but grin. How did he turn so ruthless?]

The elevator doors closed.

Less than ten minutes had passed between my announcement that the engagement was off and my leaving the room.

In my previous life, I had spent twenty years on those people.

This time, ten minutes was enough.

My father spoke while staring at the floor indicator.

"It's a relief you found out what kind of people they are, even now."

He cleared his throat briefly.

"...Don't let this get you down."

[How dare they treat my son that way.]

I gazed at my parents' backs for a long time.

* * *

Six o'clock on Monday morning.

Neither the pain of breaking off the engagement nor the confusion of returning to the past had faded.

Still, I switched off the alarm and got out of bed out of habit.

Unlike when I was fifty-three, I didn't need to support my lower back, and my knees felt light.

Halfway through washing my face, I looked at my body in the mirror.

A thin body with no beer belly or fat around the waist.

I used to think it looked scrawny.

Now, even that thin frame looked wonderfully young.

"Not bad."

I buttoned my shirt and left the room.

On the dining table were sweet potatoes my mother had steamed.

Since the night before, she had been nagging me to at least eat those instead of leaving on an empty stomach if I wasn't going to have breakfast.

My parents had farmed until illness left them unable to keep going.

Every season, they sent me a box of potatoes or sweet potatoes. Back then, I had snapped at them, asking why they kept sending things I wouldn't even eat.

After my mother died, no amount of money could buy that taste.

I picked up the biggest sweet potato.

When I bit into it, hot steam burst into my mouth.

"Ow, hot."

Still chewing, I stepped out the front door.

I crossed the vegetable garden my mother tended and opened the iron gate. A silver Avante stood beside the wall.

"Wow. This thing's still here."

A 1998 Avante.

It had 120,000 kilometers on it, and its body was covered in scratches.

It shook every time I started it, but it had done its job until it finally broke down for good on the road.

It reminded me of my former self, Department Manager Kim of Taeseong Trading.

I put in the key and turned it. The engine roared roughly to life.

Even the steering wheel vibrated.

"So you're still young, too?"

When I pressed the accelerator, the old Avante lurched forward.

Familiar scenery passed beneath the orange streetlights.

River water rippled below the elevated road, and an old bus swayed as it pulled ahead.

Was the bus fare one thousand won back then?

There were no smartphones.

We mostly used flip phones, email, and faxes. Contracts and approval requests were printed on paper and stamped.

It was a time when people mattered more than systems.

To put it kindly, it was a time with a strong human touch.

Of course, that didn't mean people's greed was innocent, too.

Housing prices rose in 2006 as well, and people talked about new transport links, planned cities, and loans.

The world looked old, but the way people lived wasn't all that different.

Before long, a four-story building came into view.

[Taeseong Trading]

The sign was faded, and grime marked the outer walls.

This was the old office building, where the air conditioning broke down in summer and we had to stuff towels into the window frames whenever it rained.

Ten years later, Taeseong Trading would become one of the country's top twenty general trading companies and move into a new headquarters.

Compared with that gleaming glass building, this place looked shabby.

Still, it was where I had devoted all the youth of my twenties.

When I first came for an interview, I was so nervous that I took three doses of uhwang cheongsimhwan, a traditional calming remedy, and threw up.

I even vaguely remembered the interviewer's final question.

'What would you like to do if you join our company?'

This was how I answered.

'I want to land a contract worth one hundred billion won!'

It was a twenty-five-year-old's big talk.

In my previous life, I hadn't achieved it even after twenty-eight years at the company.

But now...

"I might actually pull it off."

I laughed before I knew it.

I had spent those twenty-eight years living like a cog in a machine, but they had left me with something.

Sales know-how and knowledge of how the world would change.

Enough English, Japanese, and Russian for short conversations, too.

But my greatest asset was something else.

Myself, the person who had survived twenty-eight years at Taeseong Trading and made it to department manager.

Carrying all those years inside me, I had returned to a thirty-three-year-old body.

I used to think my company and my bosses were my whole life.

Most of the beliefs I had trusted had already fallen apart.

So I intended to live differently.

Not a continuation of fifty-three-year-old Department Manager Kim's story, but a new life for thirty-three-year-old Assistant Manager Kim.

I hung my employee ID around my neck.

[Kim Seongjun / Overseas Sales Team 2 / Assistant Manager]

* * *

Six thirty-one in the morning.

When I opened the office door, the smell of the old copier and paper greeted me.

The cleaning lady was just putting away her mop.

"Good morning."

"Oh, Assistant Manager Kim. You're even earlier today."

I hadn't seen her again after we moved to the new headquarters.

Until then, whether I arrived at dawn or left late at night, she had always greeted me warmly whenever we met.

I held out a bottled drink I had bought from the vending machine.

"Please have this."

"Oh, thank you. I was just getting thirsty."

She opened the bottle and took a sip.

Only then did I realize I didn't even know her name.

She greeted me every day, yet I had never once asked.

"I just realized I don't even know your name."

"My name?"

Her eyes widened before she smiled.

"It's Park Sunja. What a thing to ask out of the blue."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Ms. Park."

"Oh, no need to be so formal."

Leaving her laughter behind me, I sat at my desk.

First, I looked through my computer and binders.

I had expected everything to feel unfamiliar, but my hands remembered first.

I naturally recalled which file held the client list and even which drawer contained last month's sales report.

Those twenty-eight years remained in my body.

Whether it was a good thing or not, I didn't have many clients at this point.

Just a few small companies that had been ordering the same products for years.

Instead, my shelves held an unusually large number of files marked "Shared, Team 2."

Meeting materials, weekly sales reports, and client visit records.

An hour was enough to get a handle on my work again.

That didn't mean I intended to work as hard as before.

The current Overseas Sales Team 2 was different from Teams 1 and 3.

It was like a sandcastle that collapsed almost as soon as you built it.

However hard we worked, Oh Sangcheol took the credit.

At some point, the team members had started looking out for only their own clients and positions.

'In the end, the team was reorganized within a few years, wasn't it?'

Oh Sangcheol had also been fired before I was.

They had gotten by at the company without ability, relying only on knowing how to read people.

I had tried to get by on ability alone, without knowing how to read people.

Both of us had ended up fired.

Neither approach was the answer.

I needed a reasonable amount of both ability and social awareness.

'In this life, Assistant Manager Kim should learn to read the room.'

Not just at work, but in my personal life, too.

Now that I could even hear people's thoughts, it probably wouldn't be too difficult.

As eight o'clock approached, my teammates began arriving one by one.

They all looked younger than I remembered.

Some had stayed with the company for years afterward. Others had disappeared one day without a word.

Back then, I had seen their faces every day without really knowing who they were.

Now, I saw not just their faces, but the way they had lived.

Manager Han Gyeongsu, wearing thick reading glasses, went straight to the faxes from their own clients upon arriving.

Han was the team's only manager but rarely took an interest in anyone else's work.

"Good morning, Manager Han."

Assistant Manager Choi Yeongjin opened a calendar before even putting down a bag.

Choi paid more attention to bank visits and lunch appointments than to clients, but always wore a friendly smile when asking for a favor.

Assistant Manager Park Soyeon paused while sitting down and looked at my left hand.

"Assistant Manager Kim, did your engagement ceremony go well? Where's your ring?"

"I broke off the engagement."

The office went quiet for a moment.

[Oh, no. I shouldn't have asked.]

Park Soyeon quickly lowered their head.

"What? I'm sorry. I had no idea..."

"You asked because you didn't know. It's fine."

That was the end of it.

Being curious and digging into someone's wounds were different things.

Im Jaeho, a first-year employee, filled Oh Sangcheol's water glass before turning on a computer.

Jaeho knew how to read the room.

Kang Minho, on the other hand, had only been here three months and asked nothing.

A little later, Minho simply placed a cup of vending machine coffee on my desk.

"What's this for?"

"Have some coffee and hang in there."

Even after moving to another company, this junior colleague had contacted me every holiday to ask how I was doing.

Back then, I had mistaken that quietness for indifference.

"Thanks."

Minho gave an awkward smile and returned to their desk.

Eight fifty in the morning.

Oh Sangcheol entered the office.

The department manager had more hair than I remembered.

They flipped through a few pages of the meeting materials I had prepared and smiled.

"Assistant Manager Kim, you're quick as always. You get everything done without me even asking."

[Having Assistant Manager Kim around makes life so easy. I don't have to worry about these little things.]

I had lived believing remarks like that were recognition.

I accepted empty words instead of raises or promotions, trusting that I would be rewarded someday.

Only now did I hear them properly.

Those empty words hadn't appeared anywhere on my final settlement statement twenty-eight years later.

Oh Sangcheol opened a desk drawer and shook an empty cigarette pack.

"Ah, damn. I forgot to buy some on the way in. Assistant Manager Kim, I'll give you the money. Go get me a pack."

Kang Minho rose halfway from their seat.

"I'll go."

"No. Keep doing what you were doing."

Oh Sangcheol smiled at me.

"Cigarettes taste better when Assistant Manager Kim buys them."

[Assistant Manager Kim never complains when I send him. That's what makes it easy.]

Back then, I had even heard affection in those words.

I had felt proud, telling myself they wouldn't ask just anyone to buy their cigarettes.

I used to buy their preferred brand before they even asked. When I pulled out a pack and said, "I happen to have some," I thought I was being a thoughtful subordinate.

'What an idiot I was.'

I stood up without a word.

"I'll be back, then."

Park Soyeon's lips tightened slightly.

[Making him buy cigarettes, too? The department manager's going too far.]

Choi Yeongjin scoffed without looking away from the monitor.

[Good grief. What a spineless fool. He's actually going again.]

I had been insulted, but strangely, I wasn't angry.

What came to mind first were all the days when those words hadn't been wrong.

I pushed the weekly work reports the team members had filled out toward Choi Yeongjin.

"Assistant Manager Choi, put these together for me."

"Huh? Why me?"

"I have to run an errand for the department manager."

Choi Yeongjin looked at Oh Sangcheol.

Oh Sangcheol waved a hand instead.

"Right. Assistant Manager Choi, take care of it for him."

Choi Yeongjin merely smacked their lips and took the reports.

I left the office with a smile.

In the past, I had run because I thought I couldn't keep the department manager waiting.

Looking back, it was ridiculous.

Today, I intended to take a thirty-minute break.

I sat on the bench in front of the company.

I opened the cigarette pack in my inside pocket and put one between my lips.

While the orange ember burned, I did nothing.

'They are giving me a free break. I might as well enjoy it.'

Even after finishing the cigarette, I didn't get up right away.

I bought a drink at the shop and took my time finishing it before finally rising.

For someone who had lost twenty-eight years to the company, thirty minutes didn't even cover the interest.

"A pack of Arirang, please."

Finally, I chose a pack of the cigarettes Oh Sangcheol hated most.

They could decide whether to send me on the next errand after taking a puff.

When I returned to the company carrying the bag, an argument was taking place in the lobby.

"I'm sorry. The person in charge is away from their desk right now."

"You told me to make an appointment, so I did. What is this?"

The receptionist bowed again and again.

A man in an old gray jacket picked up his briefcase.

[Are they looking down on us because we're a small company? Forget it. I'll go to Hando Trading.]

The visitor log on the reception desk caught my eye.

[Yun Gwangho, Gwangjin Precision Representative]

I remembered that name.

It was still a small manufacturer with only around twenty employees, but in a few years, it would become one of Hando Trading's major clients and bring in considerable sales.

My former self would have walked right past.

I would have hurried upstairs, thinking Oh Sangcheol was waiting.

Looking back, it had always been that way.

It wasn't one grand decision that had ruined my life.

The moments when I put someone else's pack of cigarettes ahead of an opportunity right in front of me had added up to twenty-eight years.

In the end, I had nothing left to call my own.

Changing the future didn't have to be anything grand, either.

This time, I only needed to take one step off my usual path.

For that first step, I intended to put Gwangjin Precision on my own sales record.

I slipped the cigarettes into my inside pocket and lightly brushed off my lapels.

"Mr. Yun Gwangho."

He stopped and turned.

"Who are you?"

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Kim Seongjun, an assistant manager with Taeseong Trading's Overseas Sales Team 2."

I took out my business card and offered it to him.

Yun Gwangho accepted it and checked the name.

"Do you know me?"

"This is our first meeting, but I know Gwangjin Precision. You manufacture and export industrial equipment, correct?"

[...Someone here actually knows our company.]

Yun Gwangho's guard eased a little.

I asked the receptionist a question.

"No one's been assigned to this account yet, have they?"

"Well, that's..."

[Everyone thinks it's too small a company and doesn't want to take it. What am I supposed to say?]

The receptionist glanced at Yun Gwangho, then looked away.

My guess had been right.

It wasn't that the person in charge was away.

They were deliberately avoiding a small company they thought wouldn't bring in worthwhile sales.

I pointed to an empty meeting room.

"That works out well, Mr. Yun. Why don't you speak with me?"

Yun Gwangho looked between my card and my face.

[He doesn't seem to have just picked up our name somewhere.]

He followed me into the meeting room.

Setting his briefcase on the table, he checked his watch.

"All right. You have exactly ten minutes."

I smiled.

Ten minutes was enough to change his mind.

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