Exit Confirmation

The ink on today's confirmation sheet had not yet dried.

Seojin could not put it in the envelope. It wasn't because the signature was unfinished. It was because every time he looked at that paper, he wanted to throw open the staff room door. Instead of an envelope, he fixed the paper under a clear plastic sleeve and laid another sheet on top of it.

Actual headcount list.

Bora saw the title and pulled out her own file.

"If you just write a name, it gets erased again."

"That's why there are three columns."

Seojin drew the columns. Current location, paired witness, exit confirmer. Each student's name needed at least two other names attached beside it. Bora paired Jeongmin with Seo Ihyeon, and Park Minjae with the student behind Seo Ihyeon.

Eunchae said she could open a temporary disaster evacuation roster on the city hall server.

"It needs confirmation from an on-site officer. An academy administrator or a public on-site officer."

The director stepped back immediately.

"I can't sign a document that admits to illegal operation."

"There are actual people here."

"Not according to the insurance roster."

The smoke warning light climbed up one more level. The parents' phones rang at the same time. Some parents refused to let their child's name appear in ghost story records, and some said they couldn't manage confirming another student's name on top of their own.

Seojin didn't write that refusal down as malice. Guardian consent delayed. Refuses confirmation beyond own child. That was what he wrote.

Dogyeong didn't photograph the parent call screen. The phone numbers were visible. Instead he had Eunchae write down the number of calls and the wait times.

"The numbers go out without names."

He said it first. His voice belonged to someone swallowing a procedure he didn't like.

Bora didn't thank him right away, even after hearing that.

"If our class name goes out, the school will find out first."

"I know."

Dogyeong answered shortly. He was probably still composing headlines in his head. But right now the screen had no headline.

The director watched the call delays and spoke.

"If we proceed without guardian consent, it'll be a problem later."

Bora asked right away.

"Which comes first, a problem later or breathing smoke right now?"

The director didn't answer again. While he stayed silent, a student coughed twice. Seojin wrote down the number of coughs too. It wasn't conversation, it was evidence of time running out.

Bora said,

"Then let the students go first. The parents can confirm later."

"What if it turns out wrong later?"

"If two of us get it wrong together, a third one fixes it."

Bora's words weren't a finished solution. But they were better than dumping it all on one person.

Doyun was looking at the responsible party column.

"Put my name in."

Seojin stopped the pen.

"If you sign alone, you become the one responsible again."

"You said you needed that one person."

"What's needed isn't one responsible person. It's a structure where responsibility doesn't disappear."

Doyun didn't answer. He wrote his own name. Kang Doyun. On-site officer. The handwriting was short and pressed hard.

Seojin started to draw a line through it, then stopped. Erasing a name already written would just create another blank. He drew an assistant officer column beside it instead.

Yun Seojin.

Then he drew a third column.

Kim Bora, student confirmer.

Bora looked at Seojin, startled.

"Am I in charge?"

"Not the one who makes decisions. The one who confirms students."

Bora hesitated for a moment, then wrote her file number instead of her name. Building 3 tip file 01. It was a way to prepare for when a name might shake. Seojin let the choice stand.

The stairwell indicator light turned green. Two enrolled students went down another floor. The second floor sign came up normally. Doyun's signature had worked.

That effect became the new problem.

The attendance sheet moved. Kang Doyun's name, which had been in the adult officer column, slid downward. A new category appeared.

Absent: 1.

Doyun was standing in the hallway. But his voice came from the empty seat at the very back.

"Exit confirmed."

Some students didn't see Doyun. Even though he was right in front of them, their eyes passed over him. Seojin grabbed Doyun's arm. It caught in his hand. He hadn't disappeared.

"Can you see me?"

Jeongmin shook his head.

Seo Ihyeon said,

"The voice is coming from over there."

The voice from the empty seat spoke again.

"Exit confirmed."

It was a false completion. The real Doyun was in the hallway, and two students couldn't see him. A signature dumped onto one responsible person was turning Doyun into someone marked absent.

Seojin looked at the assistant officer column. His own name was still there. Bora's file number was still there. Only Kang Doyun's name had slid down. The name written first, the clearest one in charge, had been the first one dragged away.

Eunchae said,

"It looks like it took the single representative value. We added multiple columns late, but the first entered value is the standard."

"Can it be reversed?"

"We'd need to make a new roster. If we add to the existing one, it reads the first column again."

A new roster. Those were words that took more time.

Doyun heard the voice from the empty seat but didn't move. If he moved, the students might see him even less. He pressed his back against the hallway wall and spoke.

"Drop my name and start fresh."

Seojin shook his head.

"We don't use the dropping method."

Seojin wrote beside Doyun's name: single officer model failed. It wasn't a judgment, it was a status.

Doyun saw his own name pushed down and said,

"Erase it. Take my name out."

"If we take it out, the officer column goes empty."

"Then put the director instead of me."

The director took a step back.

The students looked at the director. No one said it out loud, but their faces all held the same thought. Maybe if we use that person, the door will open.

A new column appeared at the bottom of the attendance sheet.

One person to be left behind.

The blank space was far too wide. It was shaped for writing a single name neatly.

The moment Bora saw that column, she snatched the pen. She didn't tear the paper. Tearing it might just create another column. Instead she drew two small columns beside the blank.

Witness A.

Witness B.

"Don't let anyone write it alone."

Seojin looked at Bora. She was trembling but wouldn't let go of the pen. The student whose own name had been erased was now attaching conditions beside the column for the one to be left behind.

Eunchae said,

"I can make a mutual confirmation field in the system. If it's a temporary item."

"Make it."

"It needs officer approval."

Seojin looked at the director.

The director started to say, "I'm..."

Doyun cut him off.

"If you don't sign, you can't stop the kids from writing your name in."

It could have sounded like a threat. But the students' eyes were already on the director. He saw it.

Seojin said,

"Signing isn't exemption from punishment. It's acknowledging the actual headcount."

The director picked up the pen. He didn't write a name. While his hand stayed still, the smoke warning light turned red.

The voice from the empty seat spoke a third time.

"Exit confirmed."

Seojin wrote the time on the real Doyun's wrist with a pen. 11:29 PM, hallway. He asked Jeongmin if he could see it. Jeongmin shook his head. Seo Ihyeon said she could only see Doyun's shoes.

Mutual witnessing was necessary. If one person couldn't see, another had to attach whatever part they could see.

Bora drew her two columns bigger.

"In pairs. Everything in pairs."

The one person to be left behind column was still empty. Being empty made it more dangerous.

Seojin took out a new roster. He didn't add it on top of the existing one. As Eunchae had said, that would read the first entered value again. At the top of the new sheet, he didn't write the word officer.

Mutual exit confirmation sheet.

On the first line, two students wrote each other down. Name, current location, confirming object, exit time. Park Minjae used his phone case as the confirming object. Seo Ihyeon used her blue pencil case, Jeongmin a photo of his gym clothes. The small things got erased later than the official roster.

The director looked at the sheet and said,

"That kind of improvised document has no legal effect."

"It has effect right now, if the stairs read it."

Bora answered. Seojin didn't treat her words as a thesis statement. Instead he watched the two students on the first line step onto the stairs. The green light didn't come on one name at a time, it lit beside both names at once.

It had effect.

Doyun's name was still shaky. Between Absent: 1 and on-site confirmer, the letters thinned and thickened. Doyun looked at the time on his own wrist and said,

"Who can see me?"

Bora raised her hand. Seojin raised his too. Jeongmin shook his head. Seo Ihyeon said, "Only the shoes."

Seojin recorded the visible parts too. Full body confirmed, wrist confirmed, shoes confirmed, voice location mismatch. If a person couldn't be confirmed all at once, he attached whatever part could be confirmed.

Eunchae said,

"I'll add a partial confirmation field."

"Add it."

The director said, "If there are too many fields, it'll cause confusion on site."

Doyun looked at him.

"Confusion is faster than being marked absent."

At that, the director closed his mouth.

The parents' calls kept coming late. One mother, while confirming another student's name, said, "Why should I be responsible for someone else's kid?" It wasn't a cruel thing to say. Taking responsibility was genuinely heavy. Seojin didn't hang up on that call either.

"It's not responsibility, it's confirming whether they're currently going down together. Please just confirm the name and the voice."

The other side stayed silent for a long time, then called out another student's name. The child answered. Just once. For the second confirmation, she raised her hand and showed it to the screen. The call took 52 seconds.

Seojin wrote down the cost. Increased call time. Increased smoke exposure. But no one marked absent.

The voice from the empty seat grew smaller little by little. The more people who could see the real Doyun, the weaker that voice became. He didn't write that they were defeating the phenomenon. He only wrote decreased volume.

Doyun peeled his back off the wall.

"Can you see me now?"

Jeongmin squinted.

"The face still isn't quite clear. But I can see the writing on the wrist."

"Then that's enough."

Doyun didn't ask for more. He accepted the confirmation possible right now instead of a complete one. That was rare for him.

The one person to be left behind column didn't carry over onto the new confirmation sheet. It remained at the bottom of the old attendance sheet, but there was no place for it on the new sheet. Bora had deliberately not made that column. It wasn't a way of erasing the blank, it was a way of not building a structure the blank could enter.

Even after seeing the new sheet, the director kept putting off signing to the end. The students could read his calculation now too. If he signed, illegal night operation would remain on record. If he didn't sign, the students would remain. He was trying not to choose either.

Bora set her own file down in front of the director.

"There's a report time right here. I was here. You saw me too."

The director didn't look at the file.

Seojin started to write director avoiding eye contact, then stopped. Eye contact was weak evidence. Instead he wrote file placed in front of director, director refuses to sign.

The director's pen was on the desk. The cap was open, and the ink at the tip hadn't dried shut. It wasn't a state where he couldn't sign. Seojin wrote down the pen's position. Open pen, blank signature line, 26 actually present. Three lines were more accurate than an explanation.

Bora pulled a convenience store receipt out of her file. It was the time she'd bought a rice ball at the convenience store across from the academy. 10:17 PM. She attached that receipt beside the entry times of the three unregistered students.

"We were here."

The director didn't look at the receipt this time either. But Jeongmin's mother, on the other end of the video call, read that time. The person who'd said it was hard to take responsibility for someone else's child read out the time anyway.

Seojin wrote guardian did not witness directly, receipt time confirmed. One small confirmation couldn't replace the whole of responsibility. But it did shrink one blank space.

Dogyeong filmed that scene. Bora's face didn't appear in it. Only the corner of the file, the director's hand, the blank signature line.

"We'll need this scene later."

"Later."

Bora confirmed.

"Later."

Dogyeong answered shortly.

The smoke rising up the stairs settled low across the hallway floor. Students started using handkerchiefs dampened from the water bottles on their desks. No one had told them to. Seojin remembered the scene of Seong Anseon and Go Jeongae holding handkerchiefs, but he didn't mention it. Here, they were the students' own things.

Jeongmin handed his water bottle to Seo Ihyeon, and Seo Ihyeon left her pencil case with Jeongmin. Each other's belongings became each other's location confirmation. Eunchae added a new column to the screen.

Confirming object.

Seojin looked at the column and nodded. When you try to hold on to a person by name alone, the system takes the name away first. When an object, a location, and a witness are attached, it slows down.

Doyun's name appeared again on the new confirmation sheet. But on the old attendance sheet, it still flickered as Absent: 1. The two documents were creating two different realities. Seojin didn't choose one of them as the real one. He posted the new confirmation sheet in front of the stairwell indicator light.

The light didn't read it right away. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds. In that gap, the voice from the empty seat cut off as if giving a small laugh. It might not have been a laugh, just speaker noise. Seojin didn't write laugh. He wrote speaker noise, 4 seconds.

At the fifth second, a yellow light came on beside Doyun's name.

It wasn't a full green, but the words Absent: 1 blurred once.