The Name Erased From the Report Title

Even after Minwoo erased Song Juhyeok's name from the report title, he still suspected him. Suspicion wasn't a feeling that faded so much as a sense that told him which materials were still missing. Song Juhyeok had handed over the logistics records but blocked access to the raw text of the company account. He'd spoken of protection, but never said who he was protecting. Minwoo needed to confirm whether the profit from the crime and the purpose of that protection were truly separate.

At eight in the morning, an urgent notice arrived from the platform. An external approval service planned to delete the relay logs around 4:03 under its account cleanup policy. Gray Thread's preservation request was already filed, but the server administrator said he would hand over only the abbreviated log first, not the original.

Minwoo picked up the phone. "We already requested that the original be preserved first."

"The request was received, but we need confirmation from the account owner."

"Who is the owner?"

"The logistics company's administrator account."

That meant Song Juhyeok's company account. Minwoo thought that if he refused to confirm, the logs could vanish. Beside him, Seojin checked the expiration time on the preservation request, while Yeoreum went through the company's legal team to demand a proxy confirmation from the account owner.

Just then, Song Juhyeok walked into the conference room. Seeing that Minwoo hadn't hung up, he guessed what was happening.

"I'll confirm it myself."

"Does that mean you agree to let us view the original text?"

"No. I'll only approve the preservation."

Song Juhyeok approved the log preservation through the platform's separate confirmation process. Minwoo noted the fact that he had used his ownership of the company account to save the evidence. At the same time, Song Juhyeok maintained his refusal to let anyone view the delivery personnel roster and the contract files inside the account.

"Why go this far and then block the rest?"

"Because past that point, you could find the person I'm trying to protect."

"You could also be hiding the crime."

"Record that possibility too."

Minwoo didn't like that answer. But when the other party told him to record a possibility that worked against himself, ignoring it would turn the investigation into a matter of feeling. He organized Song Juhyeok's refusal and put it into the report.

At ten in the morning, the preserved logs turned up two approval accounts. One belonged to the warehouse operations office, the other to an external delivery management service. Song Juhyeok's account was linked as the administrator of the first approval account, but the actual requester was hidden behind a hash. Minwoo argued that they should seize the entire company server to break the hash.

Seojin didn't object, but she drew up a narrower seizure list instead: approval requests from 4:00 to 4:06, the test phone's access records, and the refrigeration zone's power logs. Minwoo said they needed the whole company account.

"Taking everything is faster."

"Faster, but it pulls in people who have nothing to do with this."

Minwoo looked at her. In the past he would have pushed it through on field authority alone. But he remembered his own report, the one where he'd bolded Song Juhyeok's name and then erased it. He split the seizure list into what was needed now and the conditions under which it could be expanded.

"Fine. Let's preserve with this list first, and expand if the relay account leads outside this range."

Seojin looked at him. Minwoo didn't wait for her approval before sending the list to the outside reviewer. Their relationship was turning into something less like trust and more like a habit of waiting for each other's confirmation.

At two in the afternoon, Song Juhyeok did something unexpected. Instead of handing Gray Thread the warehouse's unofficial work schedule, he sent it to a protection agency first. The schedule contained times and payment methods that could help identify Adil, but it also contained shift information for whoever had used the test phone.

Minwoo tried to get the material right away. Song Juhyeok pulled his hand back.

"The protection agency separates it first."

"In the meantime, we could lose track of whoever accessed the test phone."

"I'll take that risk."

"Are you obstructing the investigation?"

Song Juhyeok said quietly, "No. I'm confirming that my purpose isn't the same as the investigation team's."

That answer angered Minwoo. He was trying to solve the case, and Song Juhyeok was trying to protect one person. Both looked legitimate, but which one took priority hadn't been decided.

Seojin stepped in. "Can we get just the equipment and time data first, with the personal information masked?"

Song Juhyeok checked with the protection agency and agreed. An hour later, the material that arrived at Gray Thread retained the shift times, the refrigeration zone's power changes, and the times the test phone was used. Names and payment accounts were left out. Minwoo admitted that even this material let them confirm part of the movement pattern.

But the second usage time of the operations office test phone was missing from the same material, on the grounds that it could connect to the person being protected. Seeing that blank, Minwoo said they should expand the seizure list. Song Juhyeok immediately exercised his veto.

"Accessing that blank could identify someone."

"That someone could be the culprit."

"Possibility alone isn't enough to open an identity."

Minwoo tapped his fingers on the table. He knew that if he pressed Song Juhyeok too hard, the man could shut off all the material. But if he left it alone, the real culprit might use the protected person's silence to shift the blame.

Yeoreum recorded what both of them said. They needed a condition for expanding access, not simply "possibility of being the culprit," but a condition that expanded only when a hidden time connected to a physical record. They set a rule that if two or more of the following overlapped, test phone access time, the vehicle door, the refrigeration power, or token issuance, the case would be reviewed together with the protection agency.

Song Juhyeok agreed to that condition. He had closed off one piece of material for his own purpose, but he left a path to reach the same question through the physical records.

That night, Minwoo compared Song Juhyeok's statement against his actions. He'd admitted to going as far as the empty house but said he hadn't taken any photos. The vehicle door record showed he had left the car, and the test phone access record overlapped with someone else's time. The purpose behind Song Juhyeok's lie was starting to look more like protection, but the conclusion that he hadn't moved the drugs still hadn't been reached.

He wrote three lines next to Song Juhyeok's name. Protective purpose confirmed. Delivery proxy admitted. Photo and token generation unconfirmed. The three lines pointed in different directions.

Seojin said, "Separating a person's suspiciousness from physical possibility makes the chart complicated."

"It's supposed to be complicated," Minwoo answered. "I used to pin everything on one person and try to close things fast."

He noticed that his own words were pointing at the past. There had been a case where a quick arrest had wrecked the victim's life even further. He hadn't explained the material back then, just pushed forward on experience alone. This time, he decided to keep that experience as a warning rather than as evidence.

At eleven at night, the first original of the preserved log arrived from the external delivery management service. One branch of the approval account led not to Song Juhyeok's company but to a separate cleanup service. The service handled delivery completion photos and cancellation tokens together, but it didn't display the time a person had entered.

Even after seeing this, Song Juhyeok didn't open his entire account. Instead he provided only the contract date and the permissions chart showing when the company had started contracting with the service. The contract had added an item called "delivery completion error cleanup" starting a month before the incident.

Minwoo pinned the contract date to the case chart. It wasn't a motive for the crime, but the fact that an external service had handled the company's delivery records even before the incident opened up a new avenue of approach.

Song Juhyeok said one last thing. "Looking at this contract, you'll realize that separate from my reasons for hiding things, someone already knew how to erase records."

Minwoo recorded that statement. Song Juhyeok had a different purpose from the investigation team, but that purpose was revealing the outer boundary of the case. The material closed off for protection and the material narrowing down the crime were splitting apart in the hands of the same person. Minwoo pored over the contract's permissions chart until dawn. The external cleanup service had authority to fix delivery completion errors, but no authority to recreate original photos. Still, the approval pathway had an item called "reissue," and if the normal token was cut off, a new token could be created.

Seojin read that item and said, "That doesn't mean the same person made both the photo and the token."

"But it means the same service can connect the two."

"We'd need a separate log to tell whether that connection was actually used in this case."

Minwoo laid the contract's authority and the case log side by side. Authority showed possibility, and the log showed use. Keeping that distinction was his job in this case.

The next day, Song Juhyeok got back the work schedule the protection agency had separated out. He submitted to Gray Thread only the copy with the personal information stripped out. Even with that copy, Minwoo confirmed that the refrigeration zone's power changes overlapped with the test phone's usage times. Without any hidden names, the physical movement pattern was narrowing bit by bit.

"So you can get this far even without Adil speaking directly," Song Juhyeok said.

"This far isn't everything."

"Even if it isn't everything, don't try to find that person."

Minwoo put that promise in writing. Not because he trusted Song Juhyeok, but because failing to keep to the agreed scope of access could shut off every piece of material to come.

Late in the afternoon, the external cleanup service tried to reclaim part of its contracted authority. A notice came saying it was an action requested by the company, and access to the original records under the approval account could be blocked. Minwoo immediately renewed the preservation order, and Seojin saved the list of reclaimed permissions separately. They hadn't yet determined whether someone was trying to erase the material or whether it was simply a routine contract cleanup.

At the end of that day's meeting record, Minwoo wrote in his own hand: 'Song Juhyeok's independent purpose is separate from the profit of the crime, but the lie told for the sake of protection has generated a cost to the investigation. To reduce that cost, access to physical material and to personal information will be managed separately.' Minwoo didn't erase the blanks in the chart. Leaving the blanks in place meant the next person wouldn't have to repeat the same question and could see what still hadn't been confirmed. Song Juhyeok's refusal had created that blank, but at the same time it had kept other material alive.