The Victim Knows Me

At 00:18, Kang Taejun didn't drag me to the security office.

He sat me down in a chair at the end of the residential hall corridor. Only my right wrist wore the cuff. The other ring wasn't looped through the chair's armrest, it was in his hand. It was restraint enough to stop me from running, but to anyone else it would have looked like a temporary measure. Kang Taejun was good at creating states like that, neither one thing nor the other.

"Tell me why you looked at my wrist first."

"I saw it in the ventilation room."

"Which ventilation room."

"The manual valve near the underground core."

He didn't believe me right away. Instead of disbelieving outright, he changed the order of his questions.

"You shouldn't have clearance for that area."

"I don't."

"And yet it hasn't happened here yet."

He didn't look at my palm. There was no physical evidence. My reaction was the only evidence there was. I had to hold onto the fact that I'd tried to hide my wrist, and that Kang Taejun had seen me do it.

"Team Lead Kang died last night."

When that sentence dropped into the corridor, the automatic door opened once and closed again. No one passed through. The sensor seemed to have mistaken a draft for a person. Kang Taejun didn't look toward it. It wasn't the focus of someone being questioned, it was the focus of someone choosing the order of his own questions.

Kang Taejun's expression didn't change. Writing that he didn't change isn't quite accurate. His left thumb pressed the cuff's ring once. That was all.

"Is that sentence a threat, or a statement?"

"A statement."

"Time of death?"

"00:14. The underground ventilation room. In front of the manual valve."

He didn't write down what I said. Instead, he rolled the numbers I'd chosen around in his mouth twice, like someone trying to memorize them. 00:14. The underground ventilation room.

"And the deputy director?"

"She was alive."

"So you're alive."

"So I resisted too late."

For the first time, Kang Taejun looked past the surface of what I'd said. Resisted too late was more specific than guilt. He didn't let a sentence like that slip by.

"Too late for whom."

"For the team lead."

He didn't unlock the cuff. He only changed the angle of the ring so my wrist wouldn't bend as badly. It wasn't kindness, and it wasn't trust either. It was a measure to let the person being questioned keep talking. Which made it all the more like Kang Taejun.

Yun Haewon came walking from the other end of the corridor. She had a thin cardigan thrown over her pajamas. Before I could think it was strange that she was awake at this hour, her eyes dropped to my neck. The small ring of the Q-13 chain was showing above my collar.

"That's Seo Doyun's mark."

Kang Taejun turned his head.

"You recognize it?"

Yun Haewon didn't answer right away. She looked, in order, at the key at my throat, the handcuff, and Kang Taejun's left wrist. A courteous person observes things in order too.

"It's something he calculated might be left to his family."

"Calculated."

Kang Taejun handed her word back to her as a question.

"What did you calculate, Deputy Director?"

"That's within the range I can talk about this afternoon."

Yun Haewon put off the time. Someone who was scheduled to die still kept her own schedule, even at night. I didn't like that about her. At the same time, it was exactly why I could trust her. If she knew about the loop, it would be hard to show such wrong priorities.

Kang Taejun didn't unlock my cuff. Instead he moved the ring from the chair to his own wrist.

"07:40, the cafeteria. All three of you, come."

"Three of us?"

"Seo Ihyeon, Deputy Director Yun, and me."

He said me. He dropped his title as head of security. Whether that small change was a residue of yesterday's death or simply his way of questioning people, I couldn't tell.

At 07:40, Yun Haewon had switched the position of her cup in the cafeteria.

She wasn't in the second seat by the window but the third. The cup wasn't in front of her right hand but on her left. The handle faced outward. Noeul, behind the counter, glanced that way and raised her eyebrows. She didn't come over to fix it right away. She waited, like someone who knew Yun Haewon had done it on purpose.

I looked at the cup, then at Yun Haewon.

"Is this a test?"

"I'm checking whether Seo Ihyeon can tell yesterday and today apart."

"Yesterday, the cup was in front of your right hand, handle facing in."

Yun Haewon didn't touch the cup. Instead she spoke to Kang Taejun.

"That sentence just now contains two verifiable facts and one unverifiable premise."

Kang Taejun asked.

"The premise?"

"That there was a yesterday."

Noeul had been watching what was said. She couldn't hear the words, but she'd seen the order in which the three of us moved our mouths. A writing tablet came carefully onto the table.

*That one switched the cup. She's not usually like that in the morning.*

Noeul didn't point a finger at Yun Haewon. She pointed at the cup. That way was more accurate, a witness who names the state of an object before pointing at a person. I slid the tablet toward Kang Taejun.

Kang Taejun read it, then looked at Yun Haewon.

"Do you admit you switched it on purpose?"

"I admit it."

"The purpose?"

"To see whether Seo Ihyeon can tell my switched cup from yesterday's."

Yun Haewon didn't lie at length. That was exactly why I had to be more careful. A short, correct statement doesn't reveal what it's hiding.

I expected Yun Haewon's next words. *Then do I die today?* But she didn't say that. Instead, she raised a different question first.

"Seo Ihyeon, tell me my time of death yesterday."

"00:14."

"The location?"

"The calibration room."

"Then if I die today, is the location the same?"

The question was a trap. She wasn't someone with precise loop information, she was testing the edges of what I knew. I didn't answer right away.

"It might not be."

"Why not."

"Because I've already changed you."

Kang Taejun heard that sentence. His hand went not to the cup but toward my cuff. The phrase changed you wasn't a good thing to say, not to a criminal, and not to an investigator either.

Yun Haewon nodded instead.

"Good. That's better than a random curse."

"I never called it a curse."

"Frightened people usually explain it that way. Seo Ihyeon chose a number."

She wasn't remembering me, she was reading how I made decisions. The difference was small but it mattered. A person who remembers replays sentences. A negotiator calculates a person's next choice.

At 09:30, there were three temporary folders in the deputy director's office, each marked only with a number.

Yun Haewon opened only the middle folder. Inside were blank form sheets. Small numbers sat in the upper corner. 4. 7. 12. They looked like door numbers. There were no names.

"Seo Doyun said there was a chance the Q-13 user's key could pass to his family."

"When."

"July 4th, 2019. Two days before the accident."

She stated the date too precisely. An exact date can either build trust or suggest a lie prepared for a long time. I set both possibilities aside.

"Why would my brother say something like that."

"Because he'd calculated the chance that he might fail."

Yun Haewon's tone stayed calm, but she paused very briefly on the word fail. It was a pause that refused to make Seo Doyun a hero. That was worse for me. People who dismantle heroes usually hold more facts than most.

"Did he say that to you directly that day?"

"No. I saw a memo he left for Manager Han Dogyeong."

"The original, or a copy?"

For the first time, Yun Haewon couldn't answer right away. That delay mattered. If someone willing to reveal an original hesitates in front of a copy, there's a problem with deletion or with how it was passed along.

"A copy."

"Who made it?"

"That question has nothing to do with today's protective measures."

"My brother's name is relevant, but a copy isn't?"

Yun Haewon's finger pressed the corner of the blank form sheet. The paper bent just slightly. She fixed things with her hands too, when she was uncomfortable.

"It's relevant. But if I say it now, someone else will move first."

She said someone else. Not to avoid a name, she treated it the way she treated the numbered slots, as something not yet assigned.

"Isn't Q-13 a key that opens a door?"

Yun Haewon looked at my throat.

"It opens doors too. But that might not be the point."

"What is the point?"

"I won't say, not now."

Kang Taejun cut in immediately.

"At this rate, the grounds for protective custody are weak."

"Team Lead Kang has a habit of stripping away every choice under the name of protection."

"And Deputy Director Yun has a habit of placing people using the word choice."

Their sentences were short. They traded them back and forth like two people who knew each other's weak points. In the middle of it, I touched the Q-13. The key wasn't warm. I couldn't tell if that was because it was far from the core, or simply because it was still too early.

"Do you know the exact time of death?" I asked.

Yun Haewon looked at me.

"My time of death today, or my time of death yesterday?"

"Both."

She pushed the blank form sheet on the desk with her finger.

"Yesterday, I expected it to fall between 00:11 and 00:19. Today, I still don't know."

Wrong.

I didn't say so right away. Yun Haewon didn't know the 00:14 I had seen. She was calculating a range. A loop rememberer wouldn't leave that much margin. And yet she seemed to know too precisely about Q-13 and Seo Doyun's story for someone who knew nothing at all.

"The margin is large."

"You're calling a person's time of death a margin."

"You called it an estimate yourself, Deputy Director."

She fell silent for a moment. Not because I was right, but maybe because the way my sentence turned her own words back on her resembled Kang Taejun's style. Kang Taejun heard it and said nothing.

At 10:00, Yun Haewon went to the window.

Outside was gray from the typhoon. She watched the chain at my neck reflected in the glass and spoke.

"Do I die today?"

This time, it wasn't a sentence I could dodge.

"It's possible."

"Can you save me?"

"I saved you once."

"Who died in exchange?"

I didn't answer. Kang Taejun was right there. Telling a living person about their own death felt like creating a second death.

Kang Taejun spoke.

"Tell her."

He wasn't someone who wanted to confirm his own death, he was an investigator confirming my silence. So I spoke.

"Team Lead Kang died."

Kang Taejun didn't move. Yun Haewon did. She stepped back from the window. It was the movement of someone watching the cost of her own survival standing in the room.

"Then I'll have to change the terms of our deal," Yun Haewon said.

"A deal?"

"I won't go to the calibration room today. Instead, Seo Ihyeon will tell me, in order, who gave her the Q-13, whether Seo Doyun left a personal voice message at the end, and what choice she made on the very first day."

What choice she made on the very first day.

She didn't know exactly. But she knew where the blank was. And I knew that blank was the most dangerous one.

Kang Taejun looked at me.

"Is there a choice from the first day you haven't spoken about?"

"There is."

"Does it concern a person, or a procedure?"

The question was fair. Which made it all the more cruel. I didn't answer right away. Yun Haewon didn't push either. She looked like someone waiting to use my silence as a card in her own negotiation. The victim I had to save and the witness I had to trust wore the same face.

"Deputy Director Yun has terms too. What the numbered folders are for, the standard for documents printed after Door 4, and why she says my brother told her the Q-13 would pass to his family."

Yun Haewon didn't agree right away. Her finger stopped over the right pocket of her jacket. The management key was there.

"Half and half."

"The order?"

"The living first."

It sounded like a good rule. But if she'd truly put the living first from the start, she wouldn't have made things like documents sorted by person. I didn't say that contradiction aloud. I still needed her.

At 10:10, we stopped in front of the deputy director's office door.

Kang Taejun checked the corridor while Yun Haewon took hold of the door handle. She didn't take out a key. Her hand, inside her pocket, caught my gaze pointing toward the Q-13, just once.

"My brother's key isn't for opening doors."

The sentence came out whole, but no explanation followed it. Yun Haewon closed her lips like someone who realized she'd said too much. It wasn't the face of someone who knew the key's exact function. It was the face of someone who doesn't look at a key in front of a keyhole.

Kang Taejun asked.

"Then what is it used for."

Yun Haewon didn't answer. Instead she turned the door handle with her hand. The door opened without the key.