Failing to be there at the end for my sister remained the greatest regret of my life.
It’s not like I’d been impossibly far away. Maybe things would have been different if we’d hung out just a few hours longer before parting ways, if I’d walked her a little farther before saying goodbye. I spent years living with thoughts like that lodged in my head.
It’s true that I wished for Manager Nam to crash and burn miserably. Even if his entire future wasn’t doomed to unhappiness, I’d be lying if I said I’d never once hoped he would never be truly happy either.
That was why, even while threatening him, I still gave him the smallest possible chance. No matter how little he trusted my words, I warned him so that he would at least swallow his pride and go see his mother. I told him to greet her at least once. Even if he thought I was talking nonsense, he should have gone and shared at least one more piece of good news with her.
At the same time, though, I had been certain Manager Nam wouldn’t listen to me. No one knew better than I did that he wasn’t the sort of man who took other people’s words to heart.
He probably didn’t want to accept that his precious mother was nearing the end. And so, Manager Nam had almost certainly thrown away his final chance.
When you lose family, at first your mind stops functioning properly. Three days pass without you having the room to think about anything else.
You grieve, regret meaningless things from the past, and eventually find yourself forced to face the fact that reality has now changed completely.
The words Manager Nam had dismissed so lightly gained power because of the tragedy. Everything I had said started exerting control inside his head.
How many people could ignore the fear that, if they kept living the way they always had, they might lose their wife or daughter next?
The conference room door opened, and Manager Nam entered in a neat suit. The skin beneath his eyes looked sunken.
“Welcome.”
When I gestured for him to sit, Manager Nam pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. I watched him quietly for a moment before stepping outside the conference room to make coffee. It was the golden ratio I’d perfected through sheer repetition despite not even drinking the stuff myself, all because I’d had to cater to Manager Nam’s tastes.
Oddly enough, he didn’t immediately gulp it down. Staring at the rising steam, Manager Nam spoke.
“......I thought you’d say it serves me right.”
His voice cracked dryly.
There was nothing satisfying about people living or dying. Maybe it would’ve been different if something terrible had happened to Manager Nam himself, the source of my resentment, but there was nothing enjoyable about innocent people getting hurt.
If anything, what I felt was closer to pity. Otherwise, I never would have brought up his mother in front of him to begin with. It would have been far better if Manager Nam had driven straight to see her after hearing me, only for me to end up awkwardly admitting my prediction had been wrong.
That ridiculous pride of his. He should have lowered it just once. Even if he cursed me out for saying such unlucky things, he still should have gone.
If he had, then at least this regret wouldn’t have lodged itself in his chest forever.
A heavy silence settled between us. After what felt like an eternity of wordless meditation, Manager Nam finally spoke.
“Did I really do that many wrong things?”
It sounded more like he was talking to himself. I didn’t particularly want to answer. Reflection only meant something when a person did it themselves.
Manager Nam still wouldn’t raise his head.
It overlapped with the memory of my interview with him at Hanpyeong Industry. Every year, whenever salary notice season came around, Manager Nam would try however he could to tear me down, while I simply prayed for those agonizing hours to end as quickly as possible.
Not every aspect of our relationship had reversed completely, but the balance of power had unmistakably tilted the other way now. That felt strange too.
Maybe it would have been different if he’d genuinely reflected on himself, but watching him panic in advance because he thought my words might become his reality wasn’t entirely satisfying either.
“Say something, at least.”
“......”
“If you’ve driven someone into this desperate of a situation.”
Manager Nam’s breathing grew rough.
“I believe I’ve done more than enough for a passing stranger.”
I fiddled with my phone as I spoke. There was no point telling the man who had made me develop the habit of automatically turning on the recording function whenever I had to speak with him that he himself was the reason for it.
“I warned you clearly. Choosing not to listen was your decision, Assistant Manager.”
“If you’d said it nicely, I would’ve listened. But the way you said it made me defensive......”
“What exactly made you defensive?”
At my question, Manager Nam shut his mouth.
“Is it too embarrassing to say out loud yourself?”
“......”
“Obviously no one enjoys hearing insults, but that wasn’t really the problem, was it? Wasn’t it actually that you hated some younger punk talking down to you like he was teaching you something, and that you were offended by being told you’d lived your life the wrong way? Did you expect me to flatter you while politely begging you to go see your mother once?”
“If you had.”
“Nothing would’ve changed even then.”
I already knew what he’d been about to say without hearing the rest. He probably wanted to argue that maybe something could have turned out differently. Manager Nam was always like that.
But why did I have to cater to his feelings every step of the way? He was the one convinced he knew more than me and was capable of making the right decisions. Weren’t we all long past the age where criticism had to be padded with compliments so our feelings wouldn’t get hurt?
“I can understand wanting to vent your frustration. I won’t accept anything beyond that.”
For someone like Manager Nam, who had likely lived his entire life doing whatever he pleased, being rejected probably wasn’t something he was used to. Sure enough, his bewilderment showed plainly.
“If you don’t have anything else to say, I’ll be leaving first. I don’t have anything more to discuss.”
“Wait.”
Manager Nam called out to me urgently.
“Fine. I didn’t exactly live a life I could proudly brag about to others. I’ll honestly admit that.”
“......”
“But I was busy surviving too. I worked myself to the bone supporting my family, climbing over people in a brutally competitive society.”
‘Should I count {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} it as progress that he didn’t come in here acting shameless from the start?’
I swallowed a sigh internally. The only reason I hadn’t gotten up and walked out was because what Manager Nam was saying sounded less like self-justification meant to prove he’d done nothing wrong, and more like a desperate attempt to explain himself to me somehow.
The two sounded similar on the surface, but they were fundamentally different. One came from arrogance. The other carried shame.
He must have spent the entire funeral drowning in thoughts. Apparently he hadn’t been a son who was all talk after all.
“It must have been hard, stepping on your competitors to climb upward. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
“But what exactly did I do that was so.......”
“The people being stepped on suffer even more.”
Manager Nam froze.
“No matter how busy they are, some people still live honestly. There are people who don’t use others while still fulfilling their responsibilities to their families.”
“......”
“You chose to live selfishly because it was easier. All I did was tell you that someone eventually has to pay the price for that convenience.”
I couldn’t say I failed to understand the urge to lash out after coming all the way here.
When people start blaming themselves, they inevitably begin blaming others and society too. Admitting that a chain of events was your own fault was that difficult. It was an entirely natural reaction.
But still......
“If you keep living the way you have until now, you’ll make department manager. You’ll climb comfortably and smoothly. You probably won’t even need that long to become a division head after that. You already know that yourself.”
“And then?”
“Someone dies. Just like I told you before. Five years after you become department manager.”
......Wasn’t forcing people to take responsibility for their wrongdoings your own ironclad principle, Manager Nam?
I wasn’t lying to threaten him. I had actually died around then, so even if whoever took my place didn’t inherit sudden death itself, I doubted they’d get through it unscathed.
It was unfortunate that even after spending three full days drowning in guilt and reflecting on the past, he still couldn’t identify exactly what the problem was.
‘Though I had expected it would be difficult for someone who had never reflected on himself before.’
He’d probably racked his brain until it felt like it would burst, then crawled his way to me clutching a problem he couldn’t solve.
And sure enough—
“Can’t you just think of it as helping someone lacking and tell me exactly what I should do?”
With death hanging over him, Manager Nam asked the obvious question.
“I really don’t know what to do. Older people are all like this, aren’t they? After spending so many years in corporate life, your thinking becomes rigid......”
“Excuses solve nothing.”
“......”
“That’s what you always say.”
‘I hate excuses more than anything in the world. Why should I have to understand their circumstances too?’
Manager Nam’s face went pale as he heard his own habitual words thrown back at him. He stared at me quietly for a moment before lowering his head again. As though resigned, he muttered softly.
“Should I get on my knees?”
“......”
“Would that make you feel a little better, Kim Iwol?”
“No. Don’t do that.”
Nothing connected to Manager Nam held any meaning for me. Other than hoping he’d live properly from now on, I expected nothing from him.
Still, considering the kind of man he was, I could acknowledge that offering to kneel was a tremendous decision for him.
“But what value would your knees have to me, Assistant Manager?”
Still, if I had to pick one action among the things Manager Nam could actually do that might hold some value......
“Apologize. There are plenty of people you need to ask forgiveness from.”
“......”
“Don’t just say you reflected on yourself or that you intend to improve. Show sincerity instead of putting on a performance.”
......I would adopt the same method of change that Gu Jahan had shown.
While Manager Nam took time to think, I didn’t say another word. I let him sit there alone with his thoughts for as long as he wanted.
Instead, I pulled out a clean sheet of paper and a pen.
Then I started writing an employee handover document for Manager Nam. The final document I’d never gotten to leave behind because I died before even having an exit interview—I was delivering it directly to him now.
How to apologize properly. First, maintain a respectful attitude. Second, clearly state what you did wrong. Third, do not make excuses.
And below that, I kept writing. Don’t add unnecessary qualifiers. State what led to the wrongdoing and where the real problem was. Present at minimum a solution and compensation plan. And so on.
As his predecessor, I left behind a few instructions too. Complete mandatory training personally. Especially workplace harassment lectures—don’t just leave them playing in the background while doing something else.
Handle family matters within the family. Never forget that issues unrelated to company work are not an employee’s responsibility.
Do not forget that employees are human beings.
For a long while, the only sound in the conference room was the scratch of writing. Manager Nam no longer demanded that I tell him what he wanted to hear or threw a tantrum asking for solutions. He simply stayed silent and waited to see what I would do.
Quietly, I held out the paper. Manager Nam picked up the page titled “How to Apologize Properly.”
Silence followed.
This is goodbye now.
Whether you crumple it up and throw it away before regretting it later, or secretly take it back out because you’re afraid of the consequences heading your way while pretending nothing’s wrong—do whatever you want.
Once Manager Nam leaves, then Hanpyeong Industry and I really will be finished forever......
“I’m sorry.”
Manager Nam muttered the words while staring blankly at the page.
“I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“......”
“I’m sorry for barging in without thinking too.”
At first I thought he was just rehearsing. But he wasn’t. He was talking to me.
“I lashed out because I didn’t want to hear it. That was my fault.”
Manager Nam’s gaze never left the paper. His hand trembled so badly that the page shook in his grip.
Every word he spoke came painfully slowly. The bullying bluster and arrogance were gone.
Everything felt unfamiliar.
“You worked hard.”
He said more after that, but I stopped listening. I turned my eyes away because I didn’t want to see the redness gathering around his eyes.
That he was sorry to me. That he had been wrong.
That I’d worked hard.
‘Ha.’
It irritated me. I almost wanted to ask what the hell he thought he was doing now, after all this time.
“Thank you for giving me a chance to change.”
Manager Nam stood and bowed deeply. He gathered his coat, carefully folded the paper, and left the room.
How much of that gratitude had been sincere? If not for what happened to his family, he probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Some of that gratitude had surely been forced out of him. Some of it probably mechanical.
I didn’t believe him. Even if he had meant it seriously, I had no intention of accepting it at face value. I didn’t pity him either. Part of me still wanted him to live trembling in fear of unhappiness.
Still......
‘This feels freeing.’
I’d lived my whole life never expecting to receive an apology or gratitude from anyone.
I carried unfairness alone, handled other people’s work for them without ever hearing a kind word in return, and treated that as normal. And then, for the first time, someone told me they were sorry. That they were grateful.
Those insignificant words—nothing more than empty pleasantries, really......
To the version of me sitting inside Hanpyeong Industry, they felt like someone finally telling me that the suffering I endured there had not been my fault.
I covered my face with both hands. Time I should have heard apologies for, but never did, flashed through my mind. And now I could finally let those things go.
Even if someone criticized me and asked whether I myself had been perfect, I would still live more easily than before. At the very least, I would no longer devour myself wondering whether I had truly been flawless.
I wasn’t afraid anymore.
That alone was enough.
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