My Company Is Black

#020

“What do you mean by that?”

The best response in this situation is to firmly deny everything. Jung Hwi-kyung blinked his eyes, putting on a poker face and claiming he knew nothing about it. At this point, the only option left was to make the other person seem crazy.

However, the other person was Lee Gyo-ha, Hwi-kyung’s far superior and a parachute-appointed managing director. Gyo-ha scrunched up his handsome face and glared intensely at Jung Hwi-kyung. But Hwi-kyung was too seasoned by various hardships to be intimidated by such a glare.

A waiter, hearing the sound of a glass breaking, slightly opened the closed door, asking if everything was alright. Hwi-kyung instinctively knew that even though this was a private room in a restaurant, it wasn’t suitable for such a conversation.

They say daytime words are heard by birds and nighttime words by mice. In Hwi-kyung’s view, daytime words were heard by company people and lunchtime conversations by restaurant staff. It wasn’t a good choice to make statements like “You’re a regressor!” in front of others, no matter where they were.

“Sir, there are many eyes watching. Let’s go inside first.”

“…”

“And don’t talk about regression or whatever to others. This could become a news article.”

BK Group’s youngest son shows symptoms of schizophrenia…

Chaebol family on drugs? South Korea no longer a drug-free country…

Hwi-kyung could easily imagine a few article headlines. It was obvious that if his superior got caught up in such issues, it would be extremely troublesome for him.

Moreover, Hwi-kyung still had a lot to uncover from Gyo-ha. He needed to find out how and when Gyo-ha had discovered that he was a regressor. Hwi-kyung gave up on the meal and stood up.

“Follow me.”

“Aren’t you going to eat more?”

“Do you think I can swallow food right now?”

At this point, Hwi-kyung’s true personality emerged. It wasn’t easy to consistently put on an act in front of someone who knew he was a regressor and might guess that he could move to the next iteration if things went wrong.

It wasn’t even Hwi-kyung’s closest grandmother, but this parachute-appointed managing director whom he wished would trip and break his nose every day on the street, who had noticed his regression the fastest. This was wrong on so many levels.

* * *

Jung Hwi-kyung and Lee Gyo-ha decided to finish their conversation in the emergency stairwell between the 11th and 12th floors, like enemies meeting on a narrow bridge.

The upper floor emergency stairwell not only had few people coming and going, but there were also no CCTV cameras in the middle of the landings. During his twelfth iteration, Hwi-kyung used to sit on this landing whenever he had a hard time.

At the 12th floor, people usually don’t use the stairs, so unlike the lower floor emergency stairs, you wouldn’t run into people who couldn’t wait for the elevator. Sitting alone on the landing for a short while often calmed his troubled mind.

It was a bit annoying to bring Gyo-ha to this space, but Hwi-kyung had no choice. Besides this space, there was nowhere else they could talk about regression just the two of them.

The meeting room? The soundproofing there was too poor. The same went for Gyo-ha’s office. Although Gyo-ha used it alone, there were too many employees coming and going. The smoking area was obviously not appropriate for secret conversations as all kinds of gossip circulated there.

Between the men’s restroom and the emergency stairwell, the emergency stairwell was the better option. If someone saw the two of them together, it would be perfect for starting rumors that the managing director and the HR deputy manager were in that kind of relationship, but Hwi-kyung was too confused to consider that far.

“Now, sir.”

“…”

“Let’s talk slowly about this regressor thing again.”

“You’re going to deny it anyway.”

“Me? Haha…”

I’ve been caught?

Jung Hwi-kyung deliberately put on an embarrassed expression. But it seemed odd to ask “How did you know?” here. Lee Gyo-ha just turned his head away with a noticeably gloomy expression.

Making such a pitiful expression in this situation doesn’t really evoke any sympathy. Hwi-kyung intended to examine one by one why Gyo-ha had suddenly brought up a word like ‘regression’.

It was strange how he could casually utter the word ‘regression’ with a face that looked like an ordinary person’s. Isn’t it embarrassing to say that word out loud?

However, before Hwi-kyung could politely rephrase “Stop talking about regression because it’s embarrassing,” Gyo-ha spoke first.

“Every time you regress, I go back with you.”

“…What?”

“Every time you regress, I get caught up in it too!”

What is he talking about? Jung Hwi-kyung was dumbfounded. It made no sense. He had gone back to the past several times due to wrong job choices, but except for himself, no one remembered the previous iterations. He had even tested various people in the early iterations.

So how could it make sense that someone was now claiming to be caught up in his regression? What on earth was Lee Gyo-ha saying? Of course, Lee Gyo-ha was Hwi-kyung’s far superior and a managing director of BK International, but that wasn’t reason enough to regress along with Jung Hwi-kyung.

There had been so many terrible superiors until now, why would someone like Lee Gyo-ha…

“What exactly are you, sir?”

“What?”

“I mean, why would you regress with me? We met for the first time this time, didn’t we?”

Finally, Jung Hwi-kyung couldn’t hold back and shared his thoughts. As soon as he said this, an annoying notification window appeared in front of Hwi-kyung’s eyes.

Inappropriate condition: Your workplace superior is talking nonsense.

“This is the first time we’ve met… Originally, I was going to put you in a drum and dump you in the Pacific Ocean as soon as I saw you.”

At this rate, it seemed like he would enter the 14th iteration. Jung Hwi-kyung dismissed the notification window with just his gaze. He desperately wanted to hit Gyo-ha on the head and regress right away, but he couldn’t act recklessly now that the word ‘regression’ had come out of his workplace superior’s mouth.

“Nonsense? Does this sound like nonsense to you?”

“…What, you can see this too?”

“Yes.”

“Ha, shit…”

As he cursed openly in the company, another notification window popped up.

Inappropriate condition: You have used inappropriate language in the workplace.

Jung Hwi-kyung rubbed his face dry and firmly grabbed Lee Gyo-ha. A workplace superior going back in time with me when I regress? This was truly the worst.

After rubbing his face repeatedly, Jung Hwi-kyung closely examined Lee Gyo-ha’s face, who was watching him cautiously. No matter how he looked at it, everything Gyo-ha said seemed to be true.

If he could see the system window and also follow the regression, it meant that this was also Lee Gyo-ha’s 13th life iteration. Hwi-kyung became a bit bewildered. You’ve lived your life thirteen times and this is how poorly you’re living? You’re a chaebol and a regressor, shouldn’t you be living more impressively?

This thought exactly matched what Gyo-ha had thought about Hwi-kyung.

But people usually find it difficult to break out of their comfort zones. Just as Jung Hwi-kyung had only worked for companies throughout his 13 life iterations, Gyo-ha had circled around graduate school and modeling agencies. Even buying a degree was something he had done for the first time in this 13th iteration.

Charitably speaking, it’s honest; less charitably, it shows a lack of ambition. Hwi-kyung and Gyo-ha were the type of characters who wouldn’t be protagonists in a modern fantasy genre.

However, Hwi-kyung was in no position to judge right now. The superior who had been bothering me is actually a fellow regressor? He had no idea where to start or what to ask.

“Don’t speak informally to me.”

So he suddenly barked this out. Even if he was Americanized, it was a bit much to suddenly speak informally without permission. Unlike Kang Moon-chul who was good at his job, he couldn’t accept informal speech from someone like Lee Gyo-ha who was coasting through company life.

“Please use formal speech again.”

“…Is that important right now?”

“Yes.”

“The more I look at you, the more abnormal you seem…”

“The same goes for you, sir.”

Hwi-kyung forcefully pushed Gyo-ha against the wall. It was what you’d call a wall slam. However, because Gyo-ha was much taller than Hwi-kyung, it didn’t create a very impressive scene.

Suddenly pushed against the wall, Gyo-ha could only gulp nervously. Although Gyo-ha had lived long enough, it was the first time he had been wall-slammed like this.

“Since it’s come to this, you’ll have to cooperate with me.”

“…”

“I won’t regress until I’m forced to, so please help me with my company life. Stop interfering like you have been.”

Strangely, his heart was beating fast. Gyo-ha was momentarily flustered. Hwi-kyung, looking at him with half-crazed eyes, felt oddly compelling. It felt like he might be developing a fetish for being scolded.

However, before Gyo-ha could dwell on this ambiguous feeling any longer, Hwi-kyung grabbed him by the collar.

“I’m going to quit being your temporary secretary.”

“What?”

“Stop meddling with the HR team, and turn a blind eye to small corruptions. You’re the pinnacle of hiring corruption anyway.”

“…”

“And take care of the strange rumors that have spread. Well, they’ll die down quickly if you create a new scandal or just stop paying attention to me. You might not know since you came from America, but in Korea, these kinds of rumors can be troublesome.”

After saying everything he wanted to say, Hwi-kyung irritably pulled on Gyo-ha’s tie. Now that he knew this guy was a fellow regressor, strangling him was out of the question.

After straightening Gyo-ha’s crooked tie, Hwi-kyung added warningly.

“Never…”

“…”

“Never interfere with my retirement again. Do you understand?”

Gyo-ha thought while trying to suppress his racing heart. I think I might have a fetish for being warned like this…