By Zephyria 
CEO Kim, whom I met in a place that I didn’t know whether it was a dream or reality (probably a dream with a high probability), was still CEO Kim. What that means is…
“Why are you looking at people up and down like that? Hey, Assistant Manager Lee Young-won.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“I’m not saying I want to hear you say you’re sorry. I’m saying you should take care of your body first. You said you have to work overtime every day, but you stood people up, and last month you even collapsed while working overtime. If I hadn’t found you and taken you to the emergency room right away, Assistant Manager Lee wouldn’t be in this world anymore!”
He was definitely older than me, but he had a smooth physique that looked like he was twenty-five if he was twenty-five, and thirty if he was thirty, and he had a strange way of speaking that spewed out good words like curses.
He even developed a game that was a smash hit during the Windows XP era. How long ago was XP discontinued? Giving as much as possible, even if he was a college student at that time, his age now is… No, that’s not important now.
“I collapsed? While working overtime?”
“Oh my god, you even forgot that? Your condition must be very bad. So I’m telling you to just quit and come to our company. What’s so good about a company that only makes you work overtime without any need?”
“……”
The hazy memories of my past life began to surface one by one. I quietly narrowed my eyes and looked up at CEO Kim.
“What. Why?”
“That overtime… wasn’t it because of you, CEO Kim?”
“No, well. Meeting with a client representative can also be called overtime, but Lee Young-won was the one who took it literally, wasn’t he? Geez, should I call this cute, or hopeless.”
Come to think of it, it seemed like that was the case. But at the time, I was desperate in my own way. In fact, it hadn’t been long since I was converted to a permanent position at the company where I had been a contract worker, and the period since I was promoted to assistant manager was even shorter. There were cases where the period of working as a contract worker was not recognized, but I was very lucky to have my experience recognized and smoothly promoted. I wanted to produce proper results no matter what. I had to secure my position stably. I also had to pay off my student loans, and now I wanted to escape the life of a goshiwon and move to a one-room apartment, even if it was just a monthly rent. But what fell in front of me, who was so desperate, was a game that had failed miserably because it was too easy.
Wow……. Looking back, I was breathless. Although the genre was different, ‘Lee Young-won’s’ life was just as tough. When I was ‘Noah Hamilton’, I didn’t have to worry much about economic reasons at least. Even that became quite difficult when I took the wrong route and was chased down from the territory’s estate or had my noble status taken away.
Anyway, even if I worked overtime like eating rice, I never collapsed. When I really couldn’t stand it, I took sick leave from time to time. A life with no capital other than my own body was rolled around with calculations. It was because I didn’t have the confidence to fix it when I got a serious illness.
So, the first and last day I collapsed must have been the day I died.
“Why are you looking at me like that? It makes my heart flutter.”
“…CEO Kim. Exactly how many days ago did I collapse?”
“Hmm, about two weeks ago? And you’ve been on sick leave ever since, not answering any of my calls, and today is your first day back. I asked your team leader, and he said you skipped lunch and kept dozing off like a sick chicken because you were tired.”
“Ah.”
So that’s the Setting. What ‘Lee Young-won’s’ life would have been like if I hadn’t died from overwork.
I didn’t think I had any attachment to this life, but when I saw it again, I was glad. Especially things like a strong iced Americano that I couldn’t even dream of in that world, or a cell phone that fit snugly in my hand. By the way, that Allen bastard…. What the hell is he up to?
“Let’s go in for now.”
“Why are you, CEO Kim?”
“Is it just a day or two that I go to your office to see Assistant Manager Lee?”
Wow……. His tone is so old-fashioned.
“Come quickly.”
CEO Kim, who took the two drink carriers I had put down next to me as if it were natural, didn’t wait for me and started walking away with his long legs. Just looking at his tone, his age, which I was trying not to imagine specifically, was becoming more and more realistic…….
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Yes, I’m going.”
When I looked at his upper body, which seemed to be there for the sake of formality, and his overwhelmingly long legs and handsome face without a single wrinkle, I couldn’t think of anything else. I stuffed my cell phone back into my back pocket and scurried after him.
When I returned to the office, I safely returned the card to the team leader and diligently delivered drinks to my seniors’ seats. I was promoted to assistant manager, but since no new employees had been assigned to me yet, my position in the department remained the same.
CEO Kim took the team leader straight into the conference room, and I moved as my body remembered. When I came to my senses, it was my seat with the name tag
Let’s take a look at the contents of the email that came in earlier. ‘Hidden ending’, ‘maniac keywords’……. Unsettlingly familiar contents were written in a row. The game developer said that the official patch would be distributed in two days, so they would reconfirm the contents of the promotion that had been planned according to the schedule.
I crunched on the ice I had shaken out of my already empty coffee cup and scrolled down. I already knew what kind of tastes each character had, so I didn’t have to look at it so carefully.
Then, my eyes suddenly stopped at the bottom of the polite and detailed email.
Story Writer Fried Egg [huraisbansuk@nnee.com]
…In addition, if the response to the second patch is good, we are planning to plan
“…What?”
C, crazy…. What? What is Jewel and what?
“Why do you look so surprised, Assistant Manager Lee?”
“Ah!”
I was wondering what the hell this was, and suddenly the back of my neck felt chilly. My heart was pounding. I quickly grabbed the back of my neck and turned around, and CEO Kim was standing there with a big smile, holding a cold drink full of ice.
“Ah, really. You surprised me.”
“I’ll tell you more surprising news. Assistant Manager Lee, you’re going on a business trip from now on.”
“Yes?”
“You saw the email, right? It’s a pretty big update. I don’t think it’s possible to just exchange emails.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve already talked to the team leader. Now, hurry.”
“W, wait a minute, C, CEO Kim!”
I couldn’t figure it out at all. CEO Kim turned off my computer as he pleased and grabbed my wrist haphazardly. I turned to the team leader’s seat as if sending a distress signal, and the team leader put his hands together as if he was sorry and gave me a pitiful look.
It was already disorienting enough to suddenly return to a past life that had already ended in death, but this can’t be compared to a roller coaster. I felt like I was caught in a storm.
He didn’t even put in the navigation and hummed a song as he came, so I wondered where he was going, but the place I arrived in CEO Kim’s incredibly expensive foreign car was a hotel parking lot in the middle of Seoul. I couldn’t even unfasten my seat belt and just blinked my eyes.
“What are you doing. Aren’t you getting out?”
While I was doing that, CEO Kim finished parking and got out without hesitation, walked towards the passenger seat, knocked on the window, and asked. I couldn’t answer and swallowed hard, and he smiled slyly and asked if he should open it himself. Should I hold your hand too?
“No no no no!”
I’m going to faint if I say it without spacing…….
I spat it out without breathing and popped out like a spring.
Could this be a vivid dream that reflects my subconscious, not some trick by Allen or something?
I didn’t want to admit it, but to be honest, in Lee Young-won’s nearly thirty years of life, who had been living like a bulldozer with her eyes closed to love and everything else because her life was so tough, CEO Kim was, well, a belated first love, or something similar.
It was annoying because he didn’t seem serious at all and seemed to enjoy teasing me all the time, and I felt like I was the only one getting impatient, but he was the first person who had become so close to me privately. And he was so incredibly handsome……. It would have been different if I was Noah Hamilton, who had already flirted with several outstanding Alphas, but as Lee Young-won, whose dating experience was close to 0, all I could do was put strength into it and endure so that I wouldn’t fall in love and be dazed.
He asked me to have a meal for no reason, he came to see me for no reason, and he bought me coffee for no reason……. Damn it. How can I not like him!
Ha, no matter what, CEO Kim had never taken me to a hotel or showed any signs that he would, so this was more likely to be my delusion.
“What are you thinking so hard about. Huh?”
He looks down at me, who is barely under 180cm, and laughs. His long fingers tapped my cheek. Then he wrinkles his nose.
Ah, CEO Kim is really a crazy bastard…….
“This barbecue restaurant is good. As a way to ask you to take good care of our game, I’ll give Assistant Manager Lee a body boost today.”
I just want to die…….