The First Line of the Diagnosis

Baek Narin didn't ask him to save the factory.

Instead, she asked him to put a line in the contract stating that she herself could be removed.

That line cost more than three days of diagnostic fees.

The meeting room at Narin Packaging was full of packaging samples. Lavender boxes, matte silver-foil envelopes, cushioning printed with seasonal slogans. Narin lined up the corners of the samples and set the contract in front of Taegyeong. Outside, forklifts were moving pallets, and inside, the room smelled of scented paper.

"The scope of the diagnosis is cash, inventory, leased equipment, and wages," Taegyeong said. "Employee interviews only with consent."

"What about brand materials?"

"Only what's necessary."

"That's the most dangerous part of what you just said." Narin set down the sample. "Who decides what's necessary?"

Taegyeong drew three lines in the margin of the contract. Owner's consent to review, employee consent to interview, no external sharing. "I'll write the purpose and the reader for each piece of material. If the diagnosis results go to investors, that requires separate consent."

Narin didn't nod. "Add the possibility of my removal too."

"I don't have the authority to remove you."

"Then it needs to say that the diagnosis could name the owner as the problem. So the story doesn't change later, in front of the employees."

She started to say "our brand" and stopped. Her fingernail traced the corner of the sample box three times. Taegyeong noticed that the gesture was a way of buying time, but he said nothing about it.

"If the results recommend replacing the owner or halting production, I'll write a clause saying the owner can't demand it be deleted."

"What about disclosure?"

"Who it's disclosed to is a separate vote. A diagnosis isn't a verdict."

Narin checked the time for returning materials before she checked the fee section. A small daily rate, immediate suspension if false material turned up, originals not to leave the factory. For Taegyeong, this was his first client. For Narin, it was letting someone's eyes into the factory to protect her brand.

"One thing before I sign." Narin said. "Don't tell the employees right away that the factory might close."

"That's not something I can promise."

"Why not?"

"If wages or safety are immediately at risk, the people who need to know first have to be told."

Narin's face stiffened for a moment. "So you're not on my side."

"That's not in the contract either."

She signed a long while later. She left the company seal unstamped until the very end, writing only her name. She said she would stamp it after checking the account balance sheet matched. The contract had begun, but Narin still held the most important signature in her own hands.

The first material was the cash sheet. The second was the inventory sheet. Looking at the numbers alone, the factory could hold out until next week. Narin explained that there was enough packaging stock, and two major clients were waiting to pay. Taegyeong looked at the client names next to the expected payment dates but didn't ask about them. He needed to see the warehouse first.

The warehouse was colder than the meeting room. Every pallet had a raw material code attached, and some still sat there stacked with "shipping complete" stickers on them. The site foreman stopped in place.

"I heard that shipped out yesterday."

Narin answered right away. "The system update must be delayed."

Taegyeong pointed at the date on the sticker. Three days ago. If raw materials marked as shipping complete were still sitting there, it meant the inventory that looked like money coming in and the actual warehouse were telling different stories.

"Who confirms this?"

"Inventory team," Narin said.

"Not just one person from inventory. The shipping order, the waybill, the customer's confirmation of receipt."

The foreman took out his phone. Two waybill numbers were blank. Narin didn't look at those blanks for long. Instead she turned her gaze to another pallet.

"Once this order goes out, it'll all get sorted."

Taegyeong shook his head. "Let's confirm what 'sorted' means first. If material marked as sold is still sitting here, the cash sheet can't be trusted either."

He didn't ask her to open the account balance. It was still the first day of the contract. Instead he wrote down the names of the inventory team, the shipping staff, and the transport staff, along with the times for reconfirmation, on a sheet. Narin sighed looking at that sheet.

"If we check all this while the factory's still running, we'll miss the delivery deadline."

"If we don't check it, we won't even know whose money is keeping that deadline."

That afternoon, only five employees who had consented came into the interview room. Taegyeong didn't bring up the factory closing first. Instead he asked who could work the night shift today, and who to call if the equipment stopped. One worker spoke up.

"I can't do nights starting next week. There's no one to watch my kid."

Narin was taking notes and stopped her hand. "That can be adjusted."

The worker shook his head. "Not adjusted. Please write down that I can't do it this time."

Taegyeong wrote it down exactly as said. Narin didn't object, but she seemed more uncomfortable with that one line than with the removal clause she'd added to the contract. The brand could keep running at night, but a person's time to get home couldn't be turned into a logo.

After the interviews ended and the employees left, Narin turned her chair toward the warehouse. "If we can't run nights, we can't meet this order. And if that order falls through, the account dries up even faster."

"Which is why I wrote down first that someone can't work nights," Taegyeong said.

"You could find alternatives. Temp workers, another line."

"Being able to find something and being able to do it today are different things."

Narin picked up one of the samples. The silver foil logo flashed under the light. "This product sells the best."

"When was the last safety inspection?"

When she didn't answer, Taegyeong set the product back down. Asking about the most profitable line on the first day of the contract might have seemed rude. But if he only asked polite questions in a factory that had run out of cash, someone's hand would end up hurt first.

"Tomorrow I'll also look at the equipment lease agreements. Along with maintenance records and insurance certificates."

"That's expanding the scope of the diagnosis."

"It already expanded the moment the cash sheet didn't match the shipping sheet."

Narin took a bundle of keys out of her bag. She lifted one storage room key into her palm, then put it back. "There are contracts in that room that only the owner sees."

"Then let's write out the purpose and scope of the review separately. I won't make copies, and you'll be there the whole time."

"They can't be shown to the employees."

"If the content affects employee rights, the relevant parts need to be disclosed."

Narin's voice dropped. "You keep trying to make my company not mine anymore."

"I'm still just confirming whose company it is in the first place."

After that, Narin held onto the key for a long time. The fact that Taegyeong hadn't said the factory should close gave her no comfort. What was worse was that no one could yet say whether it would close or not.

In the warehouse, the inventory team employee was searching for the waybill numbers again. One of the two missing entries showed a note that the customer had refused delivery, and the other had only a shipping order left, nothing more. The raw material recorded as sold had gone nowhere. The packaging made from that material was already eating into the cost of the next order.

Taegyeong added a new line to the inventory sheet. "No cash entry allowed before physical confirmation." Narin looked at the owner's confirmation box next to it.

"If I sign that line, our clients are going to get nervous."

"If you don't sign it, the inside of this place falls apart first."

Narin picked up the pen, then set it back down. "Not today. I want to hear more from the inventory team and the transport staff."

"That's the owner's choice to make."

"You're the one who put that clause in the contract."

"Which is exactly why I'm not signing it for you."

Narin folded up the inventory sheet and took it with her. Taegyeong didn't stop her. A contract wasn't a rope to tie a client down, it was a paper that wrote out the range each side was allowed to refuse.

On the way out of the warehouse, the inventory team employee called out to Taegyeong. "I found one of the waybills. It's not that the customer didn't receive it, it says here it was sent to a different warehouse."

"Who ordered that?"

The employee scrolled the screen further down. "It's under the owner's account, but there's no approval on it."

Narin stopped behind them. "That's sample storage. It's stock for next month's exhibition."

"The cash sheet has it recorded as a customer payment," Taegyeong said.

"That was just handled that way temporarily. Once the order comes in, it'll be squared up."

Taegyeong said nothing. "Temporarily" was the word that lingered longest on a cash flow sheet. The employee checked the date on the shipping order again. Three weeks until the exhibition, four days until payday.

"This material is recorded as sold even though it's still inside the factory," the employee said.

Narin reached to line up the corner of a sample box and stopped her hand. "I'm not reversing that line today. Not until I check with the client."

"And the wage sheet in the meantime?" Taegyeong asked.

"I'll confirm it myself."

"Confirming it doesn't make the money appear."

Narin's face flushed. But she didn't tell the inventory team to close the screen. Instead she asked them to print out the exhibition storage order and the customer payment record side by side. The two pieces of paper described the same pallet in two different ways.

In the meantime, Taegyeong reread the suspension clause in the contract. The sentence saying they would stop if the material turned out to be false was easy to write. Writing down the name of the person responsible for confirming what was false had never been easy. He added the names of the inventory employee, the transport staff, and Narin to the reconfirmation sheet. Narin still hadn't signed it.

"By tomorrow morning," she said. "I'll check, and then decide."

Taegyeong nodded. That promise wasn't part of the contract either. But it was a timetable all the same: if the material recorded as sold today was still sitting in the warehouse tomorrow, the factory would have to make a different decision.

Around the time the interviews wrapped up, Taegyeong's phone buzzed. A photo from Seoyun. The envelope was still unopened, and beside it sat the school schedule. Taegyeong didn't zoom in on the photo. Narin Packaging's inventory sheet was still open, and inside it, material already recorded as sold still sat in the warehouse.

Narin folded up the copy of the contract and put it in her bag. "If I don't like the diagnosis results, do I have to close the factory?"

"I don't know yet."

"That's the answer I hate the most."

"Even so, that's the right one for now."

Outside the warehouse, the forklift came to a stop. The pallet with the shipping complete sticker didn't move. The cash sheet and the inventory sheet were pointing to two different factories.