The Intern Missing Four Days

An intern hadn't come back for four days.

His name was Baek Jihun. Third year, missing during an underground pipe inspection practicum. The academy notice listed it as unauthorized absence, and unauthorized absence automatically became withdrawal after three days. Today was the fourth day.

Team 7 learned the name through Yeonwoo's lost item log. There was an item returned three days ago under Baek Jihun's name. One safety helmet. The returner column was blank.

Yeonwoo flipped through that log without ever saying the title out loud. That was different from yesterday.

"The basement is a closed zone." Seorin folded the blueprint. "You need authorization to get in."

"Professor Ma Eunha issued the authorization." Mirae held up a document. "Yesterday. Before we even requested it."

Doyun looked at the document. There was one line in the reason column. Student request anticipated.

"So she knew we'd go there?" Garam asked.

"She must have." Mirae didn't fold the paper away. "But she didn't say anything first. She just issued the authorization and waited."

"Is that her helping us?"

"Half of it." Mirae said. "The other half is that she didn't tell us anything until we asked."

Doyun thought that math checked out. Ma Eunha was the kind of person who left a door open and never mentioned that it was open.

They found Baek Jihun on basement level 3.

For a closed zone, basement level 3 was surprisingly maintained. Half the lights were on, and there were recent footprints on the floor. That meant someone came here regularly, even though it was supposed to be closed off.

Mirae photographed the footprints. "These are smaller than ours. And they go in several directions."

"Now's not the time for that." Doyun said.

"Right. That's why I only took pictures."

He was alive. Sitting wedged in a narrow gap between pipes, he'd had nothing but water for four days, and his leg was fractured.

And he didn't want to come out.

"Baek Jihun." Seorin's voice bounced off the pipes and came back. "We're here to rescue you."

"...I'm fine." His voice cracked.

"Your leg's broken." Mirae lowered her flashlight beam.

"I think it's right for me to stay here." He pressed himself further against the pipe.

Doyun understood that answer. It was the same kind as Kangjun's.

Garam sat down in front of Baek Jihun. She bent her knees, matched his eye level, and said nothing for thirty seconds.

"Senior Jihun."

"Yeah."

"Did you want to get out?"

"...I did." Baek Jihun said. "On the first day, I did. I even tried to crawl out."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know why that mattered so much."

Garam stood up. Then she spoke to the other three.

"The two sounds don't match. The wanting to get out sound is still there, but the reason to get out sound is gone."

"What does that mean?" Doyun asked.

"I don't know. But this senior didn't give up on getting out. He lost the reason he gave up for."

Doyun looked at his left hand. The seal was half undone, and use on a person was allowed only with prior authorization and the person's own consent.

"Mirae. Can I use it?"

"I'll check the conditions." Mirae opened the document. "Prior authorization, there's an item covering use on a person in Professor Ma Eunha's authorization letter. His own consent needs to be obtained right now."

"If Garam's right, isn't he not in a state to judge that?"

"Then it can't be used." Mirae gave that answer immediately. "Consent from someone who can't judge isn't consent."

Doyun stopped for three seconds in front of that sentence. One of the things he thought in those three seconds was this: if they didn't get him out now, he'd be processed as withdrawn, and once he was processed as withdrawn, this student's life would change. Assuming things went well.

He'd learned the rest of that sentence on the first day.

"Mirae, let me check one thing." Doyun said. "Is that your judgment, or a clause?"

"A clause."

"If it were your judgment instead of a clause, I could try to talk you into it."

"I know. That's why I answered with a clause." Mirae didn't lift her eyes from the paper. "I know you're good at talking people into things."

Doyun almost laughed at that answer. It wasn't a situation for laughing, but that happened often on this team.

"Then I'll just ask about the part he can still judge."

"That's not in the clause." Mirae said.

"If it's not there, let's make it now."

Mirae thought for three seconds. "Partial consent item. Confirm treatment consent and movement consent separately. Fine. I'll write it in as provisional. We get the whole team's approval later."

Doyun sat down in front of Baek Jihun.

"Senior. Just two things. First, do you want treatment for your leg?"

"...I want it."

"Second, can I help you get out of here?"

"How?"

"I'll explain." Doyun laid it out in the clause's order. "I can reopen the attempt you made on the first day, the one where you tried to crawl out. If I open it, that attempt becomes possible again for a moment. There's a cost. You might lose a little more of the reason you wanted to get out back then. And I'll go through the fear you felt at that time, in my own body."

"How much?"

"I can use up to thirty three seconds."

Baek Jihun thought for a moment. It took a while, and Doyun didn't rush him.

"Seventeen seconds." The answer came fast.

"...What?"

"Can we just do seventeen seconds?" Baek Jihun said. "Just enough to get out. If you use more, I lose more, right?"

Doyun didn't know how to take that number. He'd never calculated whether seventeen seconds was enough to pull a person out from between pipes.

"Is that possible?" Doyun asked Mirae.

Mirae looked at the distance. Two meters through the pipes, then four meters up the ladder.

"Seventeen seconds just for the pipe section. We can lift him up the ladder ourselves, without the ability."

"Then we'd have to split it into two."

"Do it once, and we handle the rest."

Seventeen seconds. Doyun wanted to ask where that number came from. If he asked and got an answer, he could confirm this person had actually calculated it, and confirming that would be evidence his judgment was still intact.

"Senior, how did you get to seventeen?"

"The gap between the pipes is about two arm's lengths, and it takes me five seconds to move my arm once." Baek Jihun said. "Three times is fifteen. Two seconds of margin."

Mirae wrote that calculation down. Then she looked at Doyun.

"Judgment intact. Movement consent is valid."

The four of them split the procedure between themselves.

Mirae read out the cost. Subject, duration, what the other party would lose, what Doyun would go through. She read all four items aloud and had Baek Jihun confirm them.

Garam confirmed his intent. She listened for any mismatch in Baek Jihun's answer. She listened twice. On the second time, she nodded.

Seorin took charge of the timing. Seventeen seconds. She said she'd count without a stopwatch.

"Why not use a stopwatch?" Doyun asked.

"You can see a stopwatch. If you see it, you'll start judging." Seorin said. "If I count, you can't see it. The end call is mine."

Doyun accepted that condition. He was a little surprised at himself for how little resistance he felt in accepting it.

He opened it.

Baek Jihun's attempt from the first day reopened. Four days ago, this person had reached his arm through the gap between the pipes and pushed his body through, and that motion was now possible again, right now.

Baek Jihun moved. He moved under his own power. It wasn't a motion Doyun had made.

And the fear came.

The sensation of a body wedged into a narrow space. The certainty of no way out. What this person had gone through alone four days ago came in through the inside of Doyun's ribs.

Doyun didn't count. Seorin counted.

"Fifteen."

Baek Jihun's shoulder cleared the gap between the pipes.

"Sixteen."

His knee cleared it.

"Seventeen. End."

Doyun released his hand. He released it exactly on time. After releasing it he put a hand down on the floor, but not later than Seorin's signal.

One line on his left hand grew hot.

Mirae and Seorin lifted Baek Jihun up the ladder. Garam supported his leg from below. Doyun came up last.

On his way up, he looked once more at the gap between the pipes. Someone had been there for four days, the lights had stayed on, and the footprints went in several directions.

That meant someone might have passed through there.

Above ground, the safety personnel took Baek Jihun. Fracture stabilization, an IV, a blanket.

Mirae asked. "Senior Jihun. Why did you want to get out?"

It was a question required by procedure. A question to confirm the loss.

Baek Jihun answered.

"My younger sibling's graduation is next week." He folded his fingers twice under the blanket.

Clear. The first day's reason remained intact, exactly as it was.

Mirae wrote that answer down twice. Once in the ledger, once on her own notepad.

"No loss." Mirae said. "Confirmed."

Garam heard that voice. "No mismatch."

None of the four of them praised each other on the spot. Mirae wrote up the settlement sheet, Seorin submitted the time record, and Garam signed off on the intent confirmation item.

Before Baek Jihun was carried away, he called out to Doyun.

"Hey."

"Yes."

"When you said seventeen seconds, why didn't you push for more?"

Doyun answered honestly.

"Using more would have made it more certain. If I can't get you out in seventeen seconds, I can't reopen it again. I thought about that."

"And?"

"Because you said seventeen."

Baek Jihun said nothing to that answer. Instead he reached a hand out from under the blanket. Doyun took it. He took it with his right hand, not his left.

Doyun signed last. In the user column.

Then he looked at his left hand.

One line was still hot. On the first day it had cooled within a few seconds, and during the reopened reality it had taken a bit longer.

Now, five minutes had passed and it hadn't cooled.

Doyun told no one that fact. Not because he'd decided not to say it, but because there was no item in the clause for saying it.

If an item doesn't exist, you make one. He'd learned that last week, and he'd done the same thing today in front of the pipes.

But to make this item, he'd have to show his own hand, and showing his hand meant someone would have to count thirty three lines.

Doyun pulled at the edge of his glove. The seal's clasp was half fastened, and this time too, the glove wouldn't come off.