“If I notice any signs of that, I’ll contact you right away. And Jae-young, can you bring a pen from over there?”
Jae-young, who had been making a sad face as if just thinking about it was horrifying, raised an eyebrow.
“A pen? Why suddenly a pen?”
“I’ll print out the CCTV models for you, so check all of them if you find anything similar. It’s going to be annoying, but if we don’t have another method, we’ll have to search through everything. If we go through the programs provided by the CCTV companies one by one, we might find something. If we find that and crack it…”
“Then we can know everything, right?”
“That’s right.”
Jae-young licked his dry lips once with his tongue. He walked to where Ju-yeon was pointing and picked up a red water-based pen.
Lying on the bed, Jae-young held up his phone. Before leaving the workroom, he had received a location tracking application invitation code from Ju-yeon. The newly installed application was doing its job well. On the screen, a dot marking Sa Gong-hyun’s location blinked.
Sa Gong-hyun was still in Incheon. Since the phone was in his possession, he couldn’t even receive any calls that might come.
Jae-young was worried that he really wouldn’t want to see him. But then again, he hadn’t said he wouldn’t see him anymore, so maybe it was okay.
Despite the time spent worrying, finding Sa Gong-hyun wasn’t that complicated. He had left behind his coat and phone, so he had a clear reason.
Though he was impatient, the gift he had planned to give Sa Gong-hyun would have to be postponed for now. If he brought a gift insensitively after that incident, Sa Gong-hyun would obviously think he was stupid. Or even more ridiculous.
Jae-young stared at the dot that showed no movement at one location. His arm was starting to feel numb, so he placed it down on the bed. He lay on his side and looked at his phone again.
“Aren’t you sorry to me at all?”
Jae-young spoke with a sulky voice as if the phone were a conversation partner.
“Want to use that damn nasty temper of yours?”
Jae-young, who had been glaring at the phone, suddenly made a sad face.
“Ah, this is pathetically miserable…”
What on earth was he doing? His feelings were utterly desolate. He stamped his feet in the air. After huffing and puffing alone, he let his body go limp. Having suddenly used up all his energy, he felt completely drained.
Honestly, he wondered if being concerned about Sa Gong-hyun was such an infuriating thing. No, he wasn’t asking to be paid for his concern; he was voluntarily offering it, so why get angry? If someone shows concern for you, isn’t it normal to calm down a bit even if you were initially angry?
In reality, he hadn’t gotten angry at Jae-young, but Jae-young had interpreted the situation in his own way. From Jae-young’s perspective, Sa Gong-hyun’s common sense was completely incomprehensible.
Well, he hadn’t lived within the same boundaries as ordinary people, so there would certainly be differences, but this was truly beyond reason.
Does he mean not to cross the line…
After briefly blocking the phone from his sight, he picked it up again and stared at the screen. Unable to calm his anger, he suddenly sat up and shouted.
“Just do half of what you do for Ver, you bastard! Am I worse than a dog? When someone is this desperate, you should at least pretend to care!”
He screamed at the top of his lungs and lay down irritably, as if the sky was falling. The cheap bed made a death rattle noise. He closed his eyes with his arms stretched out to his sides.
Everything was uncomfortable and annoying—his hands sticking out beyond the narrow bed, the creaking springs, Sa Gong-hyun, all of it.
***
The next morning, as soon as dawn broke, Jae-young moved busily. He neatly arranged his hair, grabbed a large shopping bag, and left the house.
The GPS signals of Sa Gong-hyun and Seung-kwon were still blinking around Incheon. After checking the time as well, Jae-young put his phone in his back pocket.
He went out to the main road and immediately got into a taxi. He told the driver his home address and then leaned back comfortably in the back seat.
“On the 22nd, the prosecution announced that they will summon LK Group Chairman Choi Kyung-seok on charges of slush fund creation and drug cover-up. Meanwhile, the chairman’s son, Choi Seok-woo, who was urgently arrested for violating the Narcotics Control Act…”
The radio that the driver had turned on was broadcasting content about LK Group Chairman Choi Kyung-seok and his son Choi Seok-woo.
It wasn’t just the radio. Since yesterday evening, related articles had flooded the internet, and the names of the father and son were firmly fixed at the top of real-time search rankings without budging.
It was laughable. Not just an ordinary citizen, but a pillar leading a major corporation collapsing helplessly overnight.
While Jae-young couldn’t blame Sa Gong-hyun, he kept realizing that making a fool out of someone was no big deal.
Moreover, he had exposed the true face of a corporate chairman without taking any damage himself. There weren’t any articles related to Sebin Construction anywhere on the internet.
Jae-young had been checking internet portal sites since last night, worried that even a single rumor article might appear, but not a single line about Sebin was posted.
Actually, there was something. An article saying Sebin Construction would be taking on the redevelopment of some district, causing their stock to skyrocket.
While Jae-young was clicking his tongue at the rotten society, the taxi stopped. After getting out, he headed straight to his monthly rental apartment.
He entered the security code, went in, and changed into the suit he had brought. He arranged his hair to look as neat as possible and rummaged through his dressing room to put on thin-rimmed glasses. He found a press pass he had used once before and put it in his jacket pocket, also preparing a small voice recorder and a notepad in case of emergency.
By the time he was about to leave the house, adjusting his neatly tied necktie, heavy rain was falling. Holding an umbrella, he went to the main road and descended to the underground shopping area of the nearest station. After putting spare clothes in a storage locker, he headed straight to his destination.
Jae-young’s destination was the Prosecutor’s Office. In front of it, broadcast station reporters had gathered to cover the story about Choi Seok-woo. Wearing raincoats, they were waiting for the prosecutor in charge of the Choi Seok-woo case, talking among themselves.
While they probably wouldn’t share important information that could become an exclusive, it was a place where rumors could easily circulate.
Where was reporter Kim Jung-han? Jae-young was looking for the reporter who had been the first to report the LK Group story last night.
Just then, he spotted Kim Jung-han talking with other reporters on one side. Jae-young pushed up his glasses, which had slid down his nose, and began walking. As he walked, he put a Bluetooth earphone in one ear.
Rain splashed on his pants and soaked his sleeves, but he didn’t care at all.
Their conversation topic was dominated by Chairman Choi and Choi Seok-woo. They were adding details to what would soon be revealed as established facts while sipping instant coffee.
Having joined their group, Jae-young quietly listened to the conversation, nodding his head. After scanning the faces of the group one by one, he slowly opened his mouth.
“I heard a rumor that Sebin was the one who passed on that source. Is that true?”
He spoke with a rather serious voice and an innocent face. The reporters, now aware of the stranger’s presence, began to stare at Jae-young one by one.
“What are you talking about…? And who are you? I don’t think I’ve seen your face before.”
Jae-young gave a friendly smile to the reporter who was questioning his identity. With a natural, flowing movement, he took out his press pass.
“Ah, I’m Hayashi Ren from NTB. I was dispatched to Korea a few days ago and came to check out the situation. You all seem to be Korean reporters, and I was wondering if I could get some information from you.”
“Ah, from NTB… But your Korean is very good!”
“I’m Korean-Japanese.”
After turning his press pass to show it to all the reporters in the group, Jae-young responded smoothly. He hung the umbrella handle between his shoulder and ear, then arranged his press pass by wrapping its lanyard around it.
“I see. But where did you hear that the source for the LK information came from Sebin? This is the first time we’re hearing about it.”
The reporter who newly addressed Jae-young was smiling kindly. It was a very friendly smile, but he seemed somewhat wary. With rainwater splashed on his face as he smiled, he looked somewhat like a hyena waiting for its chance.
LK and Sebin had maintained a close relationship for several years. But it turns out that Sebin was the one who deliberately dug up LK’s allegations? How would Sebin even know about that? As Jae-young suggested, if the source of the information was true, it would indeed be worthy of an exclusive news story.
This was why Jae-young had come to the Prosecutor’s Office. The reason he was pretending to be a reporter on a rainy day.
The purpose was solely to mess with Sebin. More precisely, to mess with Sa Gong-hyun.
After hearing such dog-like words, he couldn’t just sit and take it. Let him suffer a bit by getting caught up with these aggressive reporters. Jae-young looked at the reporters who had fixed their gaze on him and smiled meaningfully.
“Actually, I happened to see the informant while passing by. I saw someone making a tip-off call and then entering the Sebin company building. I noticed that NBS reported it exclusively, and they said the reporter Kim Jung-han from that broadcast station received the tip directly. Is that person here by any chance?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
