Who Wrote the Red Line

Miran didn't put the printouts in her own bag. She set an empty chair on the lobby floor and spread a clear file open on top of it. A number ticket 0, a number ticket 37, a copy of the safety rules from before the edit, the reprint log, and a list of screen captures of the unregistered ledger were laid out one after another.

"Don't gather it all in one place," Seojin said.

"That's why it's spread out."

Miran left the envelope under the chair too. It was the envelope holding the S.M. card taken from the cram school and today's dated confirmation document for Hajun. She didn't open the envelope. Instead she stuck a new memo on the outside of it.

Accessed by: Seo Miran. Reason for retention: to prevent evidence tampering. Limit of confirmation: identity of the author unconfirmed.

Seojin photographed the sentence. "You wrote yourself that the identity is unconfirmed."

"Because I haven't confirmed it."

"Then what about the red line."

Miran didn't answer right away. On the lobby display board, the call for window 0 had disappeared, and two people were shown waiting. Yun Hajun and Kim Taemin. Kim Taemin sat in a chair gripping with both hands the study room entry pass with his name reprinted on it. Park Hyeonju couldn't see her son's shoulder directly, but she didn't let go of her pen.

Officer Lee Jeongbae came out of the situation room holding papers. His handwriting was crooked.

Night cooperation record. Lee Jeongbae of the Civil Complaints Support Division cooperated with access to the annex civil affairs office at 23:11 at the request of Special Complaints Team 3. No authority over complaint judgment or revision of the unregistered ledger. On-site confirmers: Yun Seojin, Kang Doyun, Seo Miran.

The section for the person in charge was left blank.

As soon as Seojin saw that blank space, she didn't pick up a pen. "If we leave it blank, it goes back to how it was."

Jeongbae asked. "I can't be the one to write it, can I?"

"It's not your responsibility."

"Then who writes it."

That question hung in the lobby. One civil servant, two contract workers from a subcontractor, one agency team leader, two unregistered people. No one wanted to leave the section blank, and no one could write it in alone.

Doyun said. "What if we write it as joint responsibility?"

Eunchae answered right away. "The system field only takes one entry. It's set up to accept only one name. But the attachment field allows multiple people. If you write 'see attachment' in the person in charge field and attach a separate sheet with real signatures, it might get around the restriction. Getting around it isn't the same as solving it. The original system could erase it again."

Miran looked up. "It's not getting around it. It's a procedural supplement. Official documents allow it."

"Do the safety rules allow it too." Seojin asked.

"I don't know."

Those words were useful. She was the first person to say she didn't know. Seojin took out a new sheet of paper.

List of attached persons in charge. Case name: Temporary reopening of the unregistered disappearance at window 0. Subjects: Yun Hajun, Kim Taemin, and the entries before and after them in the unregistered ledger. Scope of responsibility: prohibition on closing the ledger, retention of number tickets, attempt to restore guardians' memory, prohibition on damaging the original documents.

Seojin wrote her own name at the bottom. Kang Doyun signed next to it. Miran wrote her name on the third line. Jeongbae wrote his name separately as a cooperating party. Eunchae sent an electronic signature log as a remote confirmer. Park Hyeonju was about to write her name as the guardian confirmer, but her hand stopped.

"If I write it, won't it be bad for Taemin?"

Seojin didn't say it was fine right away. "This isn't the list of those in charge, it's the guardian confirmation field. You don't have to write in it. If you do, it stays on record along with the fact that Taemin was here. The risk hasn't been confirmed."

Park Hyeonju held the pen for a long time before writing her name. At that moment the name under Kim Taemin's entry pass photo came back completely. Kim Taemin didn't answer, and set the entry pass down in front of his mother. This time Park Hyeonju looked at it. She still needed more time before she could look at her son's face.

The number of people waiting on the display board dropped to 1. Only Yun Hajun remained.

Inside the shutter of window 0, the copier turned on again. This time Seojin didn't go in. A single sheet of paper slid out from under the shutter. Doyun stopped it with his foot, and after everyone saw it, Seojin picked it up.

List of temporary reopenings for unregistered disappearances.

The first line was Kim Taemin. Status: temporarily reopened. Guardian confirmation pending, item confirmation complete.

The second line was Yun Hajun. Status: temporary reopening failed. Reason: mismatch of person in charge.

From the third line on, names with parts blacked out continued. Unknown address, no guardian present, jurisdiction mismatch. Miran looked at the list and said. "We can't resolve all of these today."

"We're not closing it today."

Seojin answered that way. She didn't fold the list, and set it on the chair. Miran said to Officer Jeongbae. "Call in the head of the Civil Complaints Support Division. Get her in to work right now. Call the legal officer too. A shortage of night staff can be a reason, but it's not grounds for closing the ledger."

Jeongbae picked up the phone with a frightened look on his face. This time he didn't dash inside through the glass door like he was running away. He made the call right there in the lobby.

"Chief, this is the annex. The unregistered ledger has been opened. Yes, I didn't open it. No, it can't be closed. I've listed the person in charge as an attachment. You need to come."

A small shout could be heard from the other end of the line. Jeongbae closed his eyes but didn't hang up.

The display board changed.

Calling the responsible civil servant.

Ten minutes later, the first employee came in. The woman who introduced herself as the head of the Civil Complaints Support Division hadn't even managed to button her coat. At first she tried to get angry at Miran, but seeing the list of attached persons in charge and the number tickets laid out on the chair, she changed her tone.

"This isn't something our division can handle alone."

Seojin said. "That's why we split up the names. If you close it, the name of whoever closed it has to stay on record."

The chief looked back and forth between number ticket 37 and Kim Taemin's entry pass. Park Hyeonju didn't get up from her seat. Kim Taemin still hadn't fully come into focus in his mother's eyes, but his name had come back.

In the end the chief wrote her own name. Oh Gyeongran, Civil Complaints Support Division. Responsibility for reopening the ledger. Next to it she wrote that legal contact was planned and welfare liaison was planned. Her hand shook, but the signature went all the way through.

At that moment the shutter of window 0 came down. The Yun Hajun entry on the display board didn't disappear. Only the status changed.

Temporarily reopened. Identity confirmation required.

Seojin looked at that sentence for a long time. It wasn't a rescue. It wasn't confirmation of survival either. But it had moved one space away from unregistered.

Miran said. "This is about as far as today goes."

"Hajun is still inside the window."

"That hasn't been confirmed yet."

Seojin didn't argue with that. Instead she stuck a new label on the clear file. Yun Hajun: temporarily reopened, identity confirmation required, sender unconfirmed.

Chief Oh Gyeongran at first refused to reopen the ledger. She didn't sit in the lobby chair, and spoke standing up. "Missing person reports are the police's jurisdiction. The district office only handles resident registration and welfare liaison. It's a different procedure."

Seojin didn't argue back, and showed her the screen capture of the ledger. "That's exactly why this entry shouldn't be here. But here it is."

"It could be a data migration error."

"If you want to treat it as an error, you have to write down who's responsible for the error."

The chief looked at Jeongbae. Jeongbae immediately took a step back. "I only cooperated with the access. That's what I wrote."

That one step mattered. Normally a substitute worker would have taken the blow instead. This time the roles had already been divided up on paper. The chief looked at Miran. Miran didn't avoid that gaze.

"Is Team Leader Seo Miran going to take responsibility for this?"

"My scope of responsibility is on-site judgment of the safety rules and preservation of evidence. Responsibility for reopening the complaint ledger belongs to your division."

"So you're saying I have to write it alone?"

"No. I'm saying write it as an attachment."

The chief didn't smile. She read the list of attached persons in charge. The names weren't crowded onto one line, the scope of responsibility was separated out. It was a document that distinguished who had done what. It was an inconvenient format for a system that liked blank spaces.

The display board flickered.

An attachment is not a person in charge.

Doyun looked at the display board and said. "It's reacting."

Eunchae wrote it down immediately. "The system is demanding a single person in charge. Confirmed wording rejecting the attachment."

Seojin added a new line. Reason for refusing the demand for a single person in charge: prevention of substitute sacrifice and separation of authority. As soon as she wrote that sentence, the display board flickered again.

Enter one person in charge.

"No." Seojin said.

Doyun said quietly. "I told you not to answer it."

"This isn't an answer, it's a record."

Seojin wrote the same words on paper. Refusing the demand to enter one person in charge. Maintaining joint attachment. At that moment the correction text on number ticket 37 grew even fainter. Kim Taemin turned his body slightly toward his mother. Park Hyeonju still couldn't see his face completely, but she said, "Taemin, drink some water."

That was how the small reward came. Even if someone hadn't fully come back, the everyday sentence came back first.

Miran watched that scene without smiling. Instead she took out a red pen. Seojin reached out at once.

"Don't draw a line with that pen."

"I won't."

Miran set the red pen down next to the attachment list. "There are lines I drew in the past. Not all of them. And it would be a lie to say that line was drawn from the start to erase a person."

Seojin looked at the pen. "Is that a partial admission?"

"It's a partial admission. I'll make my excuses later. Right now the window has to be closed."

"If you close the window, it could go back to unregistered."

"That's why it has to be reopened under the responsible civil servant's name before it's closed. If it's closed under the subcontracted record keeper's name, Seojin gets pulled in."

As soon as those words ended, new text appeared next to the Yun Hajun entry on the display board.

Substitute complainant candidate: Yun Seojin.

Doyun stood in front of the display board, blocking it. Blocking it didn't make it disappear. But Park Hyeonju and Kim Taemin didn't look. Jeongbae also turned his head away. Only then did Chief Oh Gyeongran pick up her pen.

"Oh Gyeongran, Civil Complaints Support Division. Responsibility for the temporary reopening of the unregistered ledger."

She wrote her name out clearly, stroke by stroke. The moment the writing finished, the substitute complainant candidate text on the display board disappeared. The Yun Hajun entry remained, but Seojin's name dropped out.

Seojin wrote down the result. After entering the civil servant's real name and responsibility, the substitute complainant candidate text was erased. Confirmation of Hajun's own identity was still required.

Three messages had come in from Dogyeong. One asking about the location on-site, one asking if the word annex was correct, and the last one saying, "I won't publish it, I'll only confirm it." Seojin didn't reply. Instead she spoke to Eunchae.

"Don't share the location with Dogyeong. After the case closes, only pass along what falls within the scope the victims agreed to."

Eunchae answered dryly. "Statistically, reporters don't believe it's over even after it's over."

"Even so, we're not sending it now."

That choice wasn't a small thing. The civil servant's name and the unregistered ledger really existed in the annex lobby, and making it public could create pressure right away. But Kim Taemin still hadn't fully come back into his mother's eyes, and Hajun's status still required identity confirmation. Seojin recorded the cost of delaying disclosure too.

Not shared with Dogyeong. Reason: victim confirmation incomplete, risk of location spreading, original ledger document not yet secured.

Miran said nothing when she saw that note. She used to be the one who said things only got worse once they went public. This time Seojin had slowed things down herself.

Before Oh Jeongho came in, Kim Taemin hadn't left the annex. He sat in the lobby chair until Chief Oh Gyeongran attached the night welfare contact network. Park Hyeonju couldn't hold her son's wrist, but she opened the cap of a water bottle and set it beside him. So as not to record that much recovery as complete, Seojin wrote it down as "waiting alongside."

Just then the annex's automatic door opened again. A man in a suit came in. He was young, and carried an umbrella that hadn't gotten wet. He swept the lobby with his eyes once, then went straight to Miran.

"Team Leader Seo. You need to stop here."

Miran asked. "Why has Case Officer Oh Jeongho come at this hour."

Instead of answering, the man started putting the documents on the chair into an envelope. Doyun grabbed his wrist. The man didn't smile.

"This is evidence preservation. And record keeper Yun Seojin is excluded from on-site work as of now. She's a direct party of interest in her own family's case."

Seojin looked at the list of attached persons in charge that had her own name on it. Oh Jeongho picked up even that sheet of paper.

"Give us the reason and authority for the exclusion in writing."

"I will. But until then, no further contact."

Miran put her hand on top of the envelope. "Write the seizure list first."

Oh Jeongho's brow moved for the first time. "Team Leader."

"We chose this, not the safety rules."

Miran said those words looking not at Seojin but toward Chief Oh Gyeongran and Officer Lee Jeongbae. "The red line, the blank space, today's attachment. Whoever chose them, their name has to stay on record."

Seojin looked at Miran. Miran didn't explain. Instead she picked up the remaining half of number ticket 0 and put it into a separate clear file outside the seizure envelope.

Oh Jeongho's pen stopped on the first line of the seizure list.

The section for the person in charge was still blank.