The Interrogation Room Beside the Director's Office

The interrogation room was next to the director's office. Seorin had been walking that hallway since she was sixteen.

Seorin still remembered what Kwon Heesu had told her the first time she walked it at sixteen. In this hallway, you decide before you go in. If you decide inside, you'll mistake someone else's decision for your own.

It was a good thing to say. Seorin had decided before going in, just as those words said, again today.

Kwon Heesu brought only one sheet of paper into the interrogation room.

Seorin looked at that one sheet. This woman always had one sheet. On the desk in the director's office, in the succession interview envelope, and today too.

A problem that fits on one sheet is usually a problem where the person organizing it left the rest out.

"I'll summarize before the questioning starts," Kwon Heesu said. "The academic affairs decision has already been made. Today is a negotiation over adjusting the sanctions."

"Adjustment is possible?" Mirae set her bandaged hand on her knee.

"It's possible. There are three approaches." Kwon Heesu did not turn the paper over.

She stated the first.

"First, current terms stand. Four week suspension, all funding frozen, Park Mirae submits the original."

"What's the second?" Seorin asked.

"Second, cleaning up the violation record." Kwon Heesu said it without turning the paper over. "Park Mirae's unauthorized use can be reclassified as emergency response due to equipment malfunction. The backflow device pulling in a student from outside the zone was, in fact, an equipment failure."

Seorin knew that sentence was true. Moon Sea had stated as much.

"And if it's reclassified?"

"The violation record won't remain. The demand for the original disappears too. The practicum suspension drops to two weeks, and the funding freeze on all three of you lifts immediately."

"All three," Mirae said.

"All three."

That was the third approach. Kwon Heesu didn't state it separately, she folded it into the second.

"Han Doyun will be separated out as a special asset case. Individual instruction, individual evaluation, individual support."

"If he's separated, what happens to Team Seven?" Seorin asked.

"It stays at three. A permanent branch team requires a minimum of three."

Seorin knew that clause. Minimum of three. Kwon Heesu had come having checked even that number.

Mirae's hand stopped moving on the bandage. Seorin watched that hand.

Mirae was calculating right now. No need to submit the original, the demerits vanish, her father's company seal never shows up on any document.

Garam was calculating too. His palm lifted off his knee and settled back down.

Doyun wasn't calculating. His face already had an answer set on it, and Seorin thought that was the problem.

And she admitted that she herself had been calculating.

If she accepted the second approach, Seorin lost nothing. The freeze would lift, the succession interview would stay on track, and the fracture index would stop at six.

By the numbers, the second was correct. Yesterday, when she wrote the supplementary sheet, the numbers had also said it was correct for Doyun alone to write it.

"Director." Doyun said. "I'll go."

"Han Doyun."

Seorin cut him off.

"You're doing the same thing again, the second time."

"This is different-"

"Yesterday in the review room you tried to say Mirae's violation was on your orders. Now you're trying to step out to save the three of us." Seorin said. "It's the same structure."

"Then what should I do."

Seorin had been waiting for that question. There was one reason she'd waited. What she was about to say next would put her own succession standing on the line.

"Director. I have one question."

"Ask it."

"In the second approach, what exactly gets deleted from the record."

Kwon Heesu looked at the paper for the first time.

"Park Mirae's case of unauthorized use."

"How many items are attached to that case."

"..."

"I'll count them." Seorin opened her own document, a copy of yesterday's review room record. "One count of unauthorized use. One count of failing to respond to teammate Lee Garam's call. One count of skipping the risk assessment procedure. And one count of the used abandoned choice's source being unverified."

"That's correct." Kwon Heesu admitted it.

"All four disappear."

"If reclassified as emergency response, the procedural items don't apply."

Seorin had heard that answer twice now.

"So the next time another student does an unauthorized use in the same situation, what basis will that student have to know they did something wrong."

The interrogation room went quiet.

"Student Yu Seorin, you're making your own team's sanctions heavier right now."

"I know."

"You're a member of this team. You have no obligation to represent your teammates' interests, but there's no reason to volunteer for a loss either."

"There's a reason." Seorin said. "Kang Somi."

Mirae heard that name beside her. Doyun heard it too. All three knew Seorin was the first to say that name in this interrogation room.

Kwon Heesu's hand lifted off the paper.

"That student's name isn't in the academic records." Kwon Heesu's answer came fast.

"It isn't. Which is why we can't confirm what procedure erased that student." Seorin said. "We can't confirm it because the record was classified as an error. Errors don't have a verification procedure."

"What does that have to do with this case."

"It's the same method." Seorin said. "Reclassifying as emergency response and classifying as an error both remove the verification procedure."

Kwon Heesu didn't immediately object to that sentence.

The silence lasted four seconds. Seorin counted those four seconds. It was the first time she'd seen this woman not answer right away.

"Student Yu Seorin." Kwon Heesu said. "Are you requesting a public hearing."

"I am." Seorin didn't back down.

"A public hearing means every student's statement gets recorded and posted. Park Mirae's family contract would also become a disclosed item."

That was this woman's method. She never blocked Seorin's demand, she just attached the cost of that demand to someone else.

Mirae stood up at that point.

"I'll answer that."

"Student Park Mirae."

"I agree to the public hearing." Mirae said. "But I'm applying for partial disclosure of my family contract. Only the career clause and the seal section."

"Partial disclosure is subject to review."

"Then review it. And I'll state one thing now."

Mirae spoke without looking at any paper.

"The company seal on my family career contract is from the same line as the third seal on the academy scholarship regulation appendix. Both documents were drawn up four years ago."

The interrogation room stirred. The academic affairs officer flipped through the papers.

"That appendix is confidential." the officer said.

"I received a copy through a viewing request. It was filed under Yu Seorin's name."

"...there's no procedural problem with that."

Kwon Heesu listened to that exchange to the end. Then she folded the paper.

"The academic committee will set the public hearing date. It will be in two weeks."

"And the sanctions?" Doyun asked.

"Current terms stand." Kwon Heesu rose.

Four week suspension, all funding frozen, demand for the original submission stands.

As the four of them left the interrogation room, Kwon Heesu called Seorin back.

"Student Yu Seorin. A moment."

The other three went out first. The door closed.

Kwon Heesu spoke while still seated. Her voice was the same as before.

"Did you read the succession interview materials."

"I only read the first page."

"Did you see the fracture index reference table."

"I saw it."

"What number are you at now."

Seorin had no obligation to answer that question. She could have refused to answer.

"Six." Seorin didn't show her hand.

"At seven, you're disqualified."

"I know."

"What you did today is the kind of thing that moves you from six to seven." Kwon Heesu said. "The succession recommendation is my discretion. It can be withdrawn."

It wasn't a threat. Seorin understood that distinction. This woman had said the same thing to Doyun last month.

"Is that information."

For the first time, Kwon Heesu's expression shifted at that word.

"...it is."

"Then let me ask one thing." Seorin said. "Does that index measure decision stability, or my obedience."

Kwon Heesu didn't answer.

Not answering was information too.

Seorin asked one more thing at the door.

"Director. Do you remember what you told me when I was sixteen."

"Which words."

"You told me to decide before I walked into the hallway."

Kwon Heesu heard that sentence. Seorin saw age in her face for the first time.

"I remember."

"I did that today."

"...I know."

When Seorin came out, the other three were in the hallway. No one asked what the conversation had been about.

Instead, Mirae said something else.

"Public hearing's in two weeks. There are three things to check before then."

"Tell me."

"The original appendix seal, the procedure for erasing Kang Somi's academic record, and the eleven cases."

"What are the eleven cases." Garam asked.

"The number of academic record errors that senior Na Junseo compiled." Doyun answered. "And there are eleven items with scraped-off names in Im Yeonwoo's archive room."

Mirae wrote the two numbers side by side. They were the same number, though whether they shared the same cause was still unknown.

"Can we get it done in two weeks." Garam asked.

"We have the time since we're suspended from practicum," Mirae said. "First time the suspension's actually working in our favor."

That evening, Seorin took out the succession interview envelope. She had put it away after reading only the first page.

She opened the second page.

There was a title. Improvement Guidelines by Succession Suitability Item.

The first line read: raise objections to academic procedure only when necessary, and keep demands for a public procedure as a last resort.

Seorin looked at that line for a long time.

Today she had requested a public hearing. It hadn't been a last resort. If she'd accepted the second approach, she would have lost nothing.

The guideline was accurate. Following it meant the fracture index wouldn't rise.

Seorin didn't open the third page. Instead she laid the first and second pages side by side and took a photo.

Then she sent it to Mirae. She added one line.

This has the fracture index and the guideline in the same document. See if we can use it in the public hearing.

The reply came six minutes later.

We can use it. But if you submit this, your succession recommendation is over, Seorin.

Seorin read that reply and looked at her own hand. Six marks.

She rewrote her reply three times. The last line was short.

I know. It's my decision.