The Original Announcement

Go Jeongae's temporary boarding record was issued at 2:12 a.m.

The paper showed both the boarding station and the exit station stamped as Seongan Station. In reality she had passed through the second terminus and the maintenance platform, but the system had no way to generate station names like those.

Go Jeongae set the ticket and the receipt side by side at the window. The wet edge of her handkerchief was still drying.

"If it says I boarded here, isn't that a lie?"

The clerk looked at the screen and said,

"That's just how temporary records come out."

Seojin wrote in the report's correction field. Discrepancy between actual exit location and issued record. Go Jeongae looked at the sentence and slowly wrote her own name. Her handwriting was slow, but she wrote it herself to the end.

Once the record was issued, notifications went out to the other passengers' phones as well. Kim Taehu received a photo confirming that he had checked Go Jeongae's handkerchief, and Im Jiyeon received a cart damage report number. Oh Minseok got an unauthorized absence warning in his company group chat.

The rescue was over, but the day's losses had been divided up into separate documents for each of them.

Seojin attached a copy of the field card to the report.

Unrecorded passengers are to be left on the train.

The sentence vanished the moment she pressed save.

Only a blank line remained in the report.

Eunchae shared her remote screen.

"It's automatic deletion. It's not flagged words, it deletes whole sentences."

Seojin didn't type it again. Instead she attached a photo of the handwritten card and wrote the deletion timestamp where the sentence had disappeared.

Lee Dogyeong was filming the scene. This time the broadcast light wasn't off. A gray reservation indicator was lit.

"Is releasing it after 24 hours enough?"

He said it like a question, but the screen already had a title.

The Seongan Line's Last Train: The Eighth Person the Official Record Erased.

Seojin read the title, then looked over at Go Jeongae. Go Jeongae was folding the paper she'd been issued at the window into her handkerchief.

"Did you get her consent?"

"I cut the face out. And blurred the name."

"This might not be the title the victim wants."

Dogyeong pushed back immediately.

"Even the word victim is a word the agency likes to use. Should I write citizen record instead? Or should I wait some more? What happens if the recovery team takes everything while I'm waiting?"

He didn't speak fast. If anything, he pressed each word down one at a time. It was the pace of someone who suspected every request to delay disclosure was a cover up.

Seojin didn't look at her phone.

"Keep the original hash stored externally. Hold the report until victim consent is confirmed."

"If that's the agency's request, I refuse."

"Ask first whether it's Go Jeongae's request."

Dogyeong glanced toward the window. Go Jeongae was pulling out her temporary record again, the one with her name on it. The clerk had mistyped a single character.

Go Jeongae said to the clerk,

"It's not Aeja, it's Jeongae. Even if you write slowly, you shouldn't write it wrong."

Dogyeong couldn't bring himself to close the reservation screen. Instead of closing it, he tagged the title with "on hold." The scheduled release was canceled.

"24 hours. After that, I ask her myself. Anyone who doesn't consent gets left out."

He said it to Seojin, but his eyes were on Go Jeongae's paper.

Eunchae split the copy of the version 0 file into two. One was for hash verification, the other for listening. She pulled up the file's creation date and modification date on the right side of the screen.

The creation date matched the Seongan Station accident from eleven years ago. The modification date had been changed several times since. Some of those changes overlapped with the dates on the card that had carried the red edit line.

"The file itself is old, but the announcement text has been overwritten. The original track and the operational announcement are layered together."

Seojin didn't say the name Hajun.

"Let's just listen to the parts that can be separated out."

Doyun was sitting in the treatment waiting chair. Gauze was taped over his right ear. The nurse had recommended a hearing test, but he said he wanted to look at the documents first. When Eunchae read out the file name, he stood up.

"I'll wait outside."

"You might need to hear this."

"I can't listen to it."

It was a short answer. Seojin didn't stop him. Instead she wrote down the time he left. Even if Doyun was hiding something, there was no way to force it out now.

The file hadn't started as speech at all.

Behind a noise like wind, the announcement voice came in. Attention, passengers of the Seongan Line. In the event of a fire, please follow the crew's instructions. The sentence matched the current announcement, but the sound quality was lower.

Eunchae paused the waveform.

"There's another track underneath this one."

She lowered the noise. The announcement thinned out, and underneath it, the sound of a child catching their breath, far away, was left behind.

Seojin couldn't get the pen cap back on.

The child's voice wasn't clear. It could have been synthesized, or it could have been a different child. The fact that the file was eleven years old didn't make it Hajun.

Eunchae said,

"If we have family video, waveform comparison is possible. I can't confirm it beyond that."

"Don't confirm it."

Seojin's words came out first.

Dogyeong raised his camera, then lowered it again. This time he chose not to film. Instead he only noted the recording time and the hash value.

"This can't be reported."

"Why not."

"No sharing before verification. I just said that myself."

He wrote his own words down with an unhappy look on his face. He looked like someone writing something bigger because he didn't want to have to keep it.

Eunchae opened the section under the noise a little further.

"Sis."

One word came out.

Seojin looked at the screen. The waveform was small and broken up. It didn't sound like the child had spoken up close. It sounded like the sound had bled in from somewhere near the broadcast equipment.

The next sentence was even shorter.

"Are you listening to the announcement?"

Dogyeong's hand moved toward his phone on reflex. The screen was off. The camera with the battery removed sat separately on the desk. He reached to turn on the phone's recording app, then stopped.

"This might be a family record, not a tip."

"Whether it's a family record hasn't been verified either."

Seojin noticed her own voice speeding up and cut herself off. Eunchae didn't rewind the playback bar. If they started listening to the same sentence over and over, it wouldn't be verification anymore, it would start mixing in hope.

"We log this as having been heard once."

Eunchae said. She recorded the listen count as 1 in the log. Dogyeong closed the phone's recording app. The urge to release it hadn't disappeared. His thumb stayed on the closed app screen.

Dogyeong said nothing. Eunchae didn't add any explanation either. Seojin pressed her palm against the edge of the desk. On the day Hajun disappeared, he had called her sis before the call cut off too. That memory wasn't evidence.

Seojin opened the family video folder, then closed it.

"We compare using a copy. The original stays locked."

Eunchae nodded.

"Hash value fixed. I'll log everyone who accesses it."

Only then did Dogyeong ask,

"If this goes to the agency, it disappears."

Seojin put the version 0 storage device into a small envelope. She didn't write her own name on the flap. She wrote the names of the three people with access, side by side. Yun Seojin, Park Eunchae, Lee Dogyeong. She left Doyun's name off, since not listening had been his own choice.

She also wrote down the reason it was left blank.

Refused to listen.

That was when the message came from Miran.

Report on file acquisition status. Immediate transfer to Baekro Academy for nighttime complaint.

A photo arrived next. It was a picture of an old attendance book. Correction fluid had been layered on several times, and in the leftmost name column, only a surname remained visible.

Yun.

Seojin didn't zoom in. Zooming in would probably make the character clearer, but clearer didn't mean it was true.

Dogyeong looked at the screen from the side.

"If this gets out, tips will come flooding in."

"If it gets out, copycats come flooding in too."

"Then we can't do anything at all."

Seojin taped the envelope flap shut.

"We go to the site first."

Dogyeong didn't answer. Instead he deleted his video's title. He kept the file name.

Seongan_line_version0_unverified_private.

He put his phone in his pocket and said,

"I'll confirm on site whether staying private is different from covering it up."

The address for Baekro Academy wasn't far from Seongan Station. The taxi app showed both a late night surcharge and a traffic control detour at the same time. The wait time had grown longer because of the route suspension.

Go Jeongae came back from the window and held out a piece of paper to Seojin.

"This says I got off, right?"

The temporary record had been corrected to read one boarding, one exit. Seojin nodded.

"What should I do with the footage?"

Dogyeong asked. This time he asked Go Jeongae, not Seojin. His tone was still sharp, but the lens was pointed down.

Go Jeongae stopped folding her handkerchief and looked at Dogyeong's phone.

"I don't want my face in it."

"The face is cut out."

"I don't want my name either. I don't want it looking like I came out because I did something wrong."

Dogyeong couldn't answer right away. He erased the title field. He erased the words "the eighth person" too. He kept only a temporary file name.

Seongan_line_exit_record_preconsent.

It took Go Jeongae a moment to read the file name. She paused at the word preconsent, then nodded.

"I get to see it later too, right?"

"I'll show you first."

Dogyeong said, then wrote in his own notebook. Subject preview. He pressed the pen down hard, like someone who didn't like the procedure, but he didn't cross it out.

Eunchae sent the file verification results again. The hash value of the version 0 copy, the three people with access, the fourteen second listening segment. Below that was a section marked no playback. Even after Doyun left, Eunchae didn't open that section.

"Should we ask Doyun why he avoided it?"

Dogyeong said.

Seojin answered while looking at the taxi app screen.

"For now we only log the refusal to listen."

"A refusal is information too."

"Being information doesn't mean it can all be released right away."

Dogyeong didn't smile. This time, instead of arguing back, he removed his own camera battery. A physically dead camera was more certain than words.

Eunchae took separate photos of the battery removed camera and the closed recording app screen on the phone.

"In case someone later needs proof that nothing was filmed."

Dogyeong said, "You're treating a reporter like a suspect," but he didn't ask for the photos to be deleted. Instead he wrote the same time down in his own notebook. The private status was recorded too.

Go Jeongae folded her handkerchief and put it in her bag.

"So can I go home now?"

That question was the end of this case. Seojin wrote it in the report. Go Jeongae's intent to go home confirmed. Refused further filming.

Dogyeong didn't raise his camera.

The station worker handed Go Jeongae an application for alternate transportation compensation. The form required a transit card number field. Go Jeongae stopped in front of the blank space.

"I paid cash, I don't have one."

The clerk said, "Then it's hard to process."

Seojin drew a cash ticket number field below the application. Go Jeongae read the small numbers on the back of the ticket. She got it wrong twice, then right on the third try. At first the clerk said there was no place to enter it on the tablet, but once she found the paper scan attachment menu, a field appeared.

Once the field appeared, the talk of it being hard to process disappeared too. It was the same clerk, but once the screen changed, her words got shorter. "It's been received." Even after hearing that it had been received, Go Jeongae didn't leave right away. She stood in front of the window until she was handed a paper with a receipt number printed on it.

Only then did Go Jeongae tuck the ticket back into her handkerchief.

"You said if you don't know something, you can just write that you don't know. Turns out if something doesn't exist, you can write that it doesn't exist too."

Seojin didn't transcribe that line into the report. Instead she took a photo of the application copy. The action had already left its own record.

Dogyeong photographed the application too, then turned the screen around to show Go Jeongae. Go Jeongae covered the part showing her name and ticket number with her finger.

"Cut this out."

Dogyeong opened the crop tool. He didn't voice any complaint, but he saved the cropped section as a new file so it couldn't be restored separately. He put the original into the private storage folder.

Seojin wrote that sequence into the report. Public version separated after subject confirmation.

Before Seojin got into the taxi, the station information board lit up again. Below the service suspension notice, the campaign slogan repeated.

Seongan, a city with 20 years without an accident.

Right below that line was one more small line.

Unfiled complaints are not reflected in the statistics.

Seojin took a photo of that line. She added no explanation.

Miran called while she was in the taxi.

"Yun Seojin, at Baekro Academy, put student safety ahead of your personal lead."

"Is this related to the Yun character in the file?"

Miran didn't answer right away.

"Check the attendance book on site first."

The call ended.

Seojin turned off her phone screen. The version 0 storage device in the envelope didn't move on her lap. The old character for Yun in the Baekro Academy photo wasn't a name yet.

Even so, Seojin wrote a line on the back of the taxi receipt.

Do not write it as Hajun.

Below that, she wrote again.

Need to confirm the character Yun.