Chapter 136
Chapter 136
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 136
Chapter Title: The Pit (4)
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There are times like that.
Moments when an unexpected wave of anxiety forces you to re-examine things you hadn’t noticed before, only to realize your judgment was flawed.
For Seo-rim, this was one of those moments.
Late at night, in her room.
Having returned home, Seo-rim lay in bed, unable to fall asleep.
Her bloodshot eyes stared at the ceiling of the dark room, her hands clutching the blanket pulled up to her chin.
She was replaying the drinks she’d had with Yeon-ho earlier.
—*I’m glad to hear you’re okay. When you suddenly said you wanted a drink, I thought something was wrong. Should we just have a little and head out?*
His tone was business-like.
No, he was friendly, but it certainly wasn’t affection.
If anything, it felt like he was treating her as a colleague.
He also seemed so busy with his own work that he had no time to look around.
A new theory began to form.
‘It wasn’t that?’
He hadn’t been pretending to be struggling to get her attention because he liked her.
He was just genuinely, incredibly stressed.
Once she reached that conclusion, a flood of other memories came rushing back.
‘…The game dialogue.’
All that talk about engraving himself onto me.
Isn’t that a common line from romance dramas?
Why did I think he was saying it to me?
‘And contacting my brother?’
The private messages he exchanged with Jin-gyeong… come to think of it, Jin-gyeong was the one who had spent time with a drunk Yeon-ho the night before.
Wasn’t he just checking in?
And finally, all the attention he’d given her.
‘He was especially considerate.’
But I’m a founding member, after all.
As her thoughts reached that point, the corners of Seo-rim’s lips began to tremble.
Her fingertips tightened.
Her grip, strengthened by exercise, was wringing the blanket.
“Ugh, ah…!”
*Whoosh!*
Her face flushed crimson.
But Seo-rim couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
She couldn’t.
Just think about it.
The other person hadn’t done anything special, yet she had been overthinking his every move.
This was just…
‘A one-sided… c-cr…’
…That’s as far as she got.
Seo-rim vehemently denied it.
Then, seeking stability through the empathy and support of others, she turned on her phone.
Now was the time for an objective, third-person perspective.
『Anonymous (Rewind): He likes me, right?
A coworker of mine is especially nice to just me. He says flirty things, came to my place drunk, we often drink together, and we’ve even met outside of work on weekends.
Thinking about it now, it seems a little suspicious.』
The post, written entirely from her perspective, was a creation of her subconscious, trying to rationalize the situation.
It was framed in a way that any third party would have to agree with her.
But what kind of place was an online community?
It’s a place where people will say 1+1 equals sex.
It’s a place where if you post a picture of a passing dog, someone will pick a fight by saying cats are cuter.
Han Seo-rim (in a weakened state of mind), had made a miscalculation today.
『Anonymous (New Company): What a load of bullshit.
Anonymous (Doctor): Aren’t you just a little too self-absorbed?
Anonymous (Civil Servant): It’s not ‘thinking about it now,’ is it? Hasn’t a post like this been up before?
Anonymous (Neosoft): This sounds similar to my experience. My senior asked me out after work and kept saying he didn’t want to go home, begging for just one more drink. We ended up at a motel. What happened after was, well, good. I don’t know what he’s thinking, being a married man. I feel bad for my girlfriend, too. I’ll have to figure things out from here. In conclusion, I think that coworker likes you…
└ Anonymous (NQ): ?
└ Anonymous (Nettos): ??
└ Anonymous (Rewind): ???
└ Anonymous (Neosoft): Wait, are you Assistant Manager Jeong from Team 3?
Anonymous (Hyunseong Motors): Aren’t you the one who likes that coworker?』
The replies were, astonishingly, all completely unhelpful.
From people who started with insults, to personal attacks (which she could almost tolerate), to someone suddenly confessing their and their boss’s sexual identity.
No, not a single one was meant to be ‘normal.’
A vein throbbed in Seo-rim’s eye.
The last comment bothered her the most.
『Anonymous (Hyunseong Motors): Aren’t you the one who likes that coworker?』
Her own actions flashed through her mind.
—*It’s not that you don’t want to remember, is it?*
—*There you go again. Really. I get it. I get it. You can stop there. People are so dishonest.*
—*Sigh, what can you do? The human heart isn’t so simple, is it?*
—*Well, I won’t cheer you on or reject you. It’s all my fault.*
In that moment, Seo-rim screamed in despair.
“Aaaargh!”
*Thump!*
The blanket flew into the air from her kick.
*Creak!*
The door to her room flew open.
It was Jin-gyeong.
“Wh-what’s wrong!”
He clearly just woke up.
The dark circles under his eyes, a result of sleep deprivation from learning the ropes at work, showed just how hard he was trying.
But that was the last thing on Seo-rim’s mind right now.
“Get out!!! Get oooout—!!!”
*Thwack! Thwack!*
She grabbed whatever was at hand and threw it at Jin-gyeong, who yelped, “Oof!”, “Whoa-oof!” as he fled.
Seo-rim buried her face in the blanket, trembling.
‘No! It’s not true!’
It couldn’t be.
It had to not be.
If it was…!
‘I-I’ll just die…!’
She would die of sheer embarrassment.
No, before that, how about a death with honor?
Here was a pitiful woman (though it was her own karma) about to fall into her own Hell of Self-Destruction.
The night deepened.
***
At this point, work was her only escape.
Having reached this conclusion, Seo-rim began to devote herself to her duties more diligently than anyone else.
‘It’s fine. No one knows yet, right?’
The fact that she had misunderstood, that she had been so excited she’d spouted meaningless nonsense, that she had smugly arranged for drinks—for now, only she knew the truth behind it all.
Even Yeon-ho seemed to think her strange behavior was just due to stress.
All she had to do was manage her shame.
Isn’t it true that a little bit of shamelessness is necessary to get by in life?
Today, Han Seo-rim was a super career woman.
“What’s the status on the texture work? Oh, the rigging is done, right? Let’s apply it immediately. Hye-ji, how’s the model progress? Are the effects synced with the sound?”
The cinematic progressed at a speed incomparable to before.
As she threw herself into her work, she even started to forget about the incident with Yeon-ho.
Right, people only have distracting thoughts when they aren’t busy.
Seo-rim, satisfied, dedicated herself even more fervently to her job (by grinding her employees into dust).
Sure, she still flinched whenever she saw Yeon-ho, and she’d raise her voice unnecessarily when he spoke to her, but that was fine too.
The utterly clueless Yeon-ho would just say things like, “Looks like you’ve sorted out your problems. Glad to see you’re back to your usual self.” What an idiot!
Today was another one of those days.
She had just come from a meeting about refining details and discussing camera angles and direction for the full implementation phase, and was now on her way to share the relevant updates with the sound team.
“A-yun?”
Seo-rim approached A-yun, who was busy researching game skill settings.
“Y-Yes…!”
Startled, A-yun quickly alt-tabbed to switch windows.
Seo-rim saw the whole thing, of course, but didn’t scold her.
Whatever she was doing, A-yun had never missed a deadline.
“Here are the revisions from today’s meeting. I know it’s a lot, but could you take another look?”
What else needed to be done?
Even as she spoke, Seo-rim’s mind was focused solely on work.
It was a desperate measure to distance herself from the shame.
However, a single sentence was about to bring her crashing down.
“B-But, unni…”
“Yeah?”
“Y-You haven’t been doing that lately…”
“Doing what?”
“You know… ‘Y-You’re just being shy…’”
Seo-rim’s body froze.
Her head turned toward A-yun with a creak.
The smile on her face was, naturally, awkward.
Forcing the tremor out of her voice, Seo-rim looked at A-yun, who was staring back with wide, bright eyes, and asked.
“Wh-What’s that supposed to…”
A-yun’s words, honed sharp as a sashimi knife, began to pierce Seo-rim.
Each phrase brought back a memory Seo-rim had desperately tried to erase.
“Don’t want to… remember…”
—*It’s not that you don’t want to remember, is it?*
“S-So… dishonest…”
—*There you go again. Really. I get it. I get it. You can stop there. People are so dishonest.*
“Not so simple…”
—*Sigh, what can you do? The human heart isn’t so simple, is it?*
“All my fault…”
—*Well, I won’t cheer you on or reject you. It’s all my fault.*
Seo-rim’s body shuddered violently.
She looked like a criminal being tased.
Her face turned beet red, and her eyes began to tremble as if an earthquake had struck.
“Geuk…!”
Through it all, A-yun continued to look up at Seo-rim with those bright, innocent eyes.
At some point, looking into them, Seo-rim realized just how dark A-yun’s pupils were.
A-yun’s eyes curved into beautiful half-moons.
“Hehe… it was fun…”
That was the final blow.
What was the reason Seo-rim had been able to hide her overwhelming shame until now?
It was because no one truly knew the extent of her cringeworthy behavior.
In other words, the sliver of security that came from knowing all she had to do was keep her mouth shut was what had been protecting her.
But someone had seen it all.
And it wasn’t just anyone; it was A-yun, who she had always seen as a little sister.
What could one call the emotion welling up inside her at this moment?
At the very least, Seo-rim couldn’t find the right word.
“Are you… are you not going to do it again…?”
*Stab!*
A-yun’s words pierced Seo-rim’s heart.
Unable to bear the shame any longer, Seo-rim stumbled backward before covering her face and fleeing the sound team’s area.
‘Aaaaaaaaargh!!!’
Had she screamed out loud, it would have made for some excellent sound recording.
As she scurried away, she ran into Yeon-ho.
“Ah, Seo-ri…”
“I don’t know! Later!”
“???”
*Tap-tap-tap!*
The way Seo-rim zipped past him like the wind was a marvelous movement technique that would have astonished Nishimura and Cobson from Team 2.
Of course, Seo-rim was just embarrassed.
Seo-rim thought to herself.
‘I want to die!’
If there was a mouse hole, she wanted to crawl into it.
No, not a mouse hole, a pit.
A huge pit she could never climb out of!
A pit so deep no one could ever follow her in!
Reaching her desk in an instant, Seo-rim buried her head in her arms, still not having realized something.
Just how did A-yun know about that conversation?
…The truth remained buried today as well.
***
Before long, it was November.
In an era where Seo-rim’s screams that had once torn through Rewind were forgotten, where Gil-sang’s hair was buried in the sidewalk, and where no one cared about such things because work-life balance had become a vulgar joke,
[‘Hellic 4: The Man Is’ Official Cinematic.]
The cinematic for Hellic 4 was released.
Without any warning, without even an announcement that development had begun, the roughly three-minute video, which only revealed what it was by its title, was a clear display of confidence.
There was no need to explain what that confidence was directed toward.
Only one fact mattered.
『Waiting4Hellic: I thought I’d turn into a grandma waiting for this!』
Three years after the release of Hellic 3 in ‘14, Rewind had returned with news of a new title.