Episode 48
In many media, the senior assistant is usually one of two people.
‘Either it’s strong or it’s pitiful.’
First of all, given that he walked through hell before the main character, this point of view is bound to arise. Those who have gone through the terrible experience they are about to go through will be either revered or pitied.
In the former case, ‘awe’ is a kind of fear. Awe is the feeling of respect and fear for someone who has already done something great that one could not do, but ‘Director Jae-heon Lee’ was not a great person worthy of respect.
‘That doesn’t mean we had any human interaction.’
In the end, all that was left was nothing but harshness.
However, in pity, regardless of a person’s rank or authority, the person giving pity stands above the person receiving pity. Of course, this is just Lee Jae-heon’s personal opinion, but isn’t it half-tacit common sense? If you think about the word sympathy in the first place, which means ‘pitying and pitying the difficulties of others,’ the answer was obvious.
In that context, I wanted to avoid the image of receiving sympathy in order to protect my pride….
‘Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve failed?’
Lee Jae-heon could not hide his embarrassment at the unexpected warm wind.
“…Well… what kind of facial expressions are they making now?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“I didn’t say something I couldn’t say.”
“That’s right, Manager, you always say the right thing.”
“No….”
I thought about it for a moment and realized that from their perspective, the current Lee Jae-heon is the only survivor of the underworld. In other words, all the information he is sharing now is information that Jaeheon Lee himself found out through personal experience.
‘For someone like that to talk about heading to the ground, I can’t help but feel solemn.’
Of course it was all a misunderstanding.
It wasn’t the information he had obtained by going that far, but rather the person who had rolled around was the main character in the novel, and Lee Jae-heon had just skipped it…
He furrowed his brows inwardly.
‘That sounds plausible.’
It was a structure that one could only sympathize with if they were still innocent chicks.
However, this was not what Jaeheon Lee wanted. From the beginning, he wanted a strong image somewhere between a villain and a neutral character, and if he became a sympathetic character like he is now, his personality that he would show later would suffer. People often call it a kaebung.
‘If I keep going like this, it could be revealed that 99% of what I’ve shown up until now was just acting.’
Crashing means that there is an error in the settings, and in this case, it gives you the opportunity to review the settings you have built up until now, so it becomes even more uneasy because there is already a case where you have played ‘Manager Lee Jae-heon’ before.
And even if it wasn’t a real problem, I personally really didn’t like the image of being pitied like that. Even the person you sympathize with is the main character, Jung In-ho? This is not enough even if you die once.
“Unless I said something wrong, I hope you don’t make that face. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel uncomfortable.”
“There’s nothing particularly wrong with what you said, but… I would say there are parts that resonate with me as a subordinate. “You must be very tired.”
“With the situation being this bad, it’s impossible not to be tired, right…?”
‘If things go on like this, the problem gets bigger…’
Lee Jae-heon became embarrassed.
Maybe, but I really don’t want to think about it that way. If we continue like this, all of the character traits that will be shown in the future could be seen as ‘pretending to be bad so as not to put a burden on the other person.’ Wow this was truly terrible.
Of course, their likability so far has been negative, and they are not people with whom he can have human interaction, and Lee Jae-heon has revealed his fundamental sense of discomfort several times. This means that the difference in perception of fear of death or pain would have made him stranger than an alien.
So, the thoughtful protagonist must have felt the intensity to some extent, but…
“…”
Suddenly, confusion came over me.
‘Is it a concept where sympathy and harshness can coexist?’
I’ve never thought about it like that before, but with so much evidence presented before my eyes, Lee Jae-heon couldn’t deny it. The protagonist was wary of him but also felt sorry for him.
I felt really dirty.
‘These chicks?’
To put it in a grandiose way, I felt like my authority was questioned, and to put it in a petty way, Gao was defeated. Do you dare sympathize with the young chicks who are just now crawling around, squirming?
However, he was not stupid enough to express his feelings out loud, so he continued speaking calmly.
“…Anyway, this is all I can tell you right now. “I’m sorry for the lack of information.”
“No… thank you for sharing this important information.”
“Is that so?”
“I know you must be tired, but you kept answering my questions.”
“….”
Lee Jae-heon thought about saying a few more words as he saw the look shining through his eyes, but he soon silenced himself again when he heard Doctor Ha Seong-yoon’s voice.
“It’s not a very serious condition, so I don’t think there will be any problems with it.”
“…All right.”
“As long as you don’t touch the wound again, teacher.”
“….”
Hurt?
Jaeheon Lee blinked at those words.
“Do you have a wound on your neck?”
“…You didn’t know.”
“No…”
He groped his neck with his hand in embarrassment. With the tip of his finger, he was able to easily pick out the rough mark, and from the familiar feel, Jaeheon Lee realized that this was a scab after bleeding.
And I was embarrassed once again.
‘…When did I get this wound?’
Immediately after, my head turned quickly.
There was no wound on my neck until just before I fell asleep. I probably had bruises on my neck from sleeping in front of Police Officer Kim, but if I covered them up with a shirt, they wouldn’t be noticeable. The problem was that I had no memory of being hurt to the point of bleeding like this.
I don’t remember touching him even after I woke up, so that means the incident probably happened while I was asleep….
“….”
“…It looks like you really know now.”
“I didn’t know.”
“The context is a little strange, sir.”
Doctor Ha Seong-yoon asked with a faint smile on his face.
“Have you not been hanging yourself since a while ago? “You touched me like that and didn’t notice?”
“….”
“Maybe once or twice since we started talking…. That would have been enough for you to notice right away.”
“Well…”
“Didn’t it hurt in the first place?”
It didn’t hurt.
‘What is this?’
Jaeheon Lee groped his neck again.
I thought it would take a long time because I had some bruises, but it turned out that not only were there bruises, but there was bleeding as well. And this wound is unless someone in the group went crazy and cut his head while Lee Jae-heon was asleep.
These scars on my neck right now…
“Did I cause them?”
The doctor’s smile twisted at that.
“Seeing as you got an answer right away, I guess something similar has happened before.”
“Oh… no no. no. “This is my first time.”
“Aha, it’s my first time.”
“….”
Immediately after, the doctor closed his mouth, but no pleasure could be found in his curved lips. This was the look he sometimes showed when he looked at Lee Jae-heon as if he were a disapproving patient.
Leaving aside that painful reaction, Lee Jae-heon cursed inwardly.
‘What the fuck did I do?’
Honestly, I felt a little unfair this time.
After having a dream in front of Police Officer Kim, he gained enlightenment and how gently he tried to wake up. I mean, I went all the way to the green algae lake when I could have died by strangling myself or hitting my head on a rock.
What even killed him was a green algae monster. I was trying to quietly drown myself in the lake, but the monster even cut off my breathing. Starting from the fact that I had lake water in my windpipe, why on earth did these wounds… “….” Now that I think about it, how many times did I get
strangled
? It looks like it was scratched.
‘…I was wrong.’
I really did everything wrong, right?
I should have just stayed quiet while our green algae friend kindly strangled us. For no reason, I reflexively raised my hand to try to rip it off, but ended up throwing this Sadal away.
‘For some reason, my throat felt itchy.’
I didn’t notice it when I scratched it without thinking, but when I came to my senses and touched it, I realized it. I guess I scratched a few times in my sleep without being able to control my strength and felt a tickle from the wound. I found it funny that I didn’t notice anything strange there and just scratched it.
‘No, that’s not the problem now.’
Whether he scratched because he was really itchy or something, the problem was that he scratched his neck again in front of these disgusting chicks.
Jaeheon Lee suddenly looked at them as if they were talking to each other as if it was absurd.
“Jung In-ho, you probably don’t have anything like a handkerchief, right?”
“I don’t have anything like that… Ah, I think Minah always carried it with her.”
“But it’s a bit awkward to let people know about the current situation. “You don’t want to let the teacher know, right?”
“… That’s true.”
Doesn’t anyone see him as mentally weak?
‘Well, I think it was because of stress or something like that.’
Sometimes there are people like that. These are people who have been mentally traumatized or have been exposed to constant stress and have become a little sick of it, so they try to relieve it by harming themselves.
Naturally, it is difficult for these types of people to survive in an environment like this. Both the main character and the doctor probably knew this, so I tried to avoid appearing like a psychopath as much as possible, but wow. I’m throwing this away again like this. I couldn’t even say that it was a slap in the head to myself.
Moreover, in the case of Lee Jae-heon, his condition would have looked even worse as he scratched his neck while dreaming. Just as the same disease appears to be more serious if the patient does not know about it, there was a high probability that such stress was buried deep in Lee Jae-heon’s subconscious. Even if in reality it was the result of his struggle to somehow escape the influence of the dream.
If you bring up the dream story as an excuse in the first place, it is natural that the atmosphere will turn sour, so you should come up with a different excuse if possible…
“Chief, don’t even think about touching my neck for the time being. “Not only can scarring occur, but inflammation can also occur.”
“It would have been nice if there had been more bandages, but it’s a shame.”
“…I am so grateful for your continued interest and affection. Thank you very much.”
I didn’t think words would make sense.
‘I think I misunderstood the fact that I scratched it because it was itchy.’
In addition, since it seemed like he didn’t even know he was sick, it seemed impossible to come up with a plausible excuse in front of these suspicious and thoughtful people. Isn’t the place where you rub your buttocks supposed to be a proper place to fit?
Lee Jae-heon, who thought there was no room for further resolution, decided to give up at this point.
“I won’t scratch my neck. If it hurts, I will tell you. “I’ll scream a lot.”
The protagonist smiled with a sincere face.
“That’s nice.”
“You disgusting bastard.”
“As expected, you meant it.”
“Did you think that wasn’t the case?”
“Oh my gosh, it can’t be like that.”
“….”
That chick.
Lee Jae-heon, who was about to curse at the sight of his appearance at work, realized that the story was not over yet and tried to keep his mouth shut.
Considering the image, ‘Manager Lee Jae-heon’s’ old-fashioned power could not be shown here.
He didn’t bother holding back the sigh he had been building up and let it out.
“…I’m sorry I don’t have much to tell you. There are still a lot of things you are curious about and things you don’t understand… but I don’t want to tell you about my personal circumstances yet. “If the situation arises, we will talk about it separately.”
“….”
“So, all you have to remember about me is this.”
“What.”
“I will do my best to do my best, but I will not hesitate if necessary.”
He continued.
“Whatever it is.”
If the images had accumulated like this and could not be resolved, they had to be used.
At this point, no matter what Jaeheon Lee did, it was highly likely that his current image would be maintained for quite some time. The protagonist is wary of him, but at the same time feels sorry for him, and it is unlikely that the doctor, who was close to a third party, will actively kick him out. He had to open a new passage to convince the rest of the party.
“…Are you talking about things like threats or murder?”
“well.”
Even though they said, “I don’t know,” they weren’t people who didn’t know that it was actually a yes.
The doctor turned his head away as if he hadn’t heard anything, and the protagonist fell silent for a moment. Since the character has very clear standards for a ‘good person’ and a ‘bad person’, Lee Jae-heon’s crazy remarks must have raised caution.
And soon the main character, assistant manager Jeong In-ho, opened his mouth.
“…In that case.”
“yes.”
“If things go better if the manager dies….”
“I have to die.”
“….”
Jaeheon Lee raised his eyebrows.
‘When am I going to do this to get out of being a chick?’
Originally, with the current team composition, it was not at all strange for one of the most capable team members to be separated. The rule of human life was to raise as many healthy companions as possible and then let them go when they became useless.
Of course, Lee Jae-heon did not have that kind of anxiety because he had no intention of being obedient and would only return even if he died, but… looking at the bright yellow protagonist made me sigh.
Jaeheon Lee continued calmly, hoping that he would grow up.
“That’s efficiency.”
