The Living Victim

At 16:40, Yun Haewon slowed his steps alone in the corridor behind the medical office.

He looked at his right shoe first. Then at the handle of the inspection hatch. The same order I had seen. The handle was still closed. Jeong Mugyeom's seal tape was in place, and Kang Taejun's signature crossed it diagonally.

"Don't open it."

At my words, Yun Haewon did not turn around.

"I was trying to confirm the seal status."

"Alone."

"There's a route I have to confirm alone."

Kang Taejun switched on the statement recorder beside me.

"Tell us what that route is."

Yun Haewon took his hand off the handle. There was moisture on his fingertips. The corridor floor was dry, and the handle looked dry on the surface too.

"I had to confirm who the envelope reaches."

"Why confirm it from the shaft."

He looked toward me for a moment. His face stayed polite, but his eyes were choosing who to answer.

"If the person who opens the official door changes, the envelope goes somewhere else. I was trying to confirm that within the procedure I built myself."

"If it's within the procedure, why the inspection hatch instead of the records room."

"There are too many eyes in front of the official door."

That answer fell short as both an excuse and a confession. Still, one thing was clear enough. He knew this path.

Jeong Mugyeom appeared at the end of the corridor holding a flashlight. He looked back and forth between Yun Haewon's shoe and the handle.

"His right foot is wet."

"He hasn't gone into the shaft yet."

When I said that, Jeong Mugyeom shone the light under the handle. There was one small drop of water. Hard to tell if it had fallen from the handle or splashed off Yun Haewon's shoe.

"He was about to go in, that much is true."

Yun Haewon did not deny it.

"If the envelope's route changes, the victim changes. You've probably already seen that, Seo Ihyeon."

He had guessed what I hadn't said. Not from loop memory. It was closer to the calculation of someone who knew his own procedure. If the person who first opens the official door changes, the envelope changes. If the envelope changes, someone moves. A designer could predict that much.

"You knew that and went in alone anyway."

Kang Taejun asked.

"Going in alone means fewer other people have to move."

"They already moved."

At that, Yun Haewon fell silent for the first time. The silence did not last long. But in that gap, Kang Taejun photographed the seal, the water drop, and the contact on the handle, all of it.

At 17:05, we did not let Yun Haewon go into the shaft.

It was just before the inner wire mesh would have locked. Jeong Mugyeom held the exit side open and waited. Kang Taejun gave Yun Haewon no choice. It was restraint, not protection. Yun Haewon did not smile. He did not hide his displeasure either.

"Are you trying to save me, or take my plan away from me."

Kang Taejun said.

"It could be both."

That sentence sounded borrowed from me. Yun Haewon seemed to notice too. He looked at me.

"Seo Ihyeon is learning how to move people."

"Better than the envelopes you made."

My answer came fast. A fast answer is usually not an accurate one. Yun Haewon did not push back. The fact that he didn't push back was more unsettling.

We resealed the inspection hatch. Yun Haewon's right shoe began to dry. This time he had not stepped on the dirt inside the shaft. One mark that should have existed was now gone. That alone was enough to change the input.

On the way to the security office, Yun Haewon never once used the word rescued. He said his movement had been blocked. Kang Taejun wrote it down as a protective measure. I wanted to write rescue, but in the ledger I wrote "restrained before shaft entry." Using a colder word keeps the cause from being distorted later.

When the glass door of the security office closed, Yun Haewon asked a question.

"If I'm here, who becomes the first authenticator."

"That's exactly why I stopped you."

At my answer, he gave the smallest nod.

"Then this wasn't saving a person. It was running an experiment."

"I can't choose only one of the two."

"That answer is dangerous."

He was right. I remembered the hand that had refused to look at the alarm button on the first day. Saving a person and protecting the record sometimes pointed the same direction, and sometimes pushed against each other. This time I still didn't know which it was.

At 18:00, Yi Juwan stood in front of Door 7.

Yun Haewon was in the security office. Kang Taejun had isolated him directly in the corridor behind the medical office. The first person to authenticate at the official door was not Yun Haewon. It was not Oh Sejin either. Before Yi Juwan swiped his card, he checked the camera positions first.

"I'm putting this sentence on record. I am accessing this in my capacity as foundation auditor, as required by procedure."

Baek Somyeong raised his lens.

"Who needs the procedure. You, or Director Hong."

"Are you going to record that question too."

The card reader turned green. The printer cried out immediately. This time it was neither Kang Taejun's name nor Oh Sejin's. The front of the envelope carried Hong Sangwook's name. The recipient was Yi Juwan.

Yi Juwan did not open the envelope right away. He photographed the corner of the envelope and the printer's timestamp first. A person who protects evidentiary value looks at content last. While he waits, others imagine more.

Hong Sangwook walked up from the end of the corridor.

"This audit procedure is restricted to the deputy director's authority."

"If it were restricted, it wouldn't have printed."

Yi Juwan picked up the envelope. Hong Sangwook did not snatch it away. He kept his hands folded behind his back, like someone who knew a snatching motion would stay on camera.

Yun Haewon watched the scene through the security office glass. He did not look relieved. His face was one of watching another name fill the seat left empty by his own missing death.

The printer did not stop at one envelope. A strip like a small receipt followed. Go Yura picked it up first.

"Recipient authority, Yi Juwan. Subject, Hong Sangwook. Opening restriction, legal audit."

"We're not reading the contents," Kang Taejun said.

Yi Juwan held out his hand without smiling.

"That receipt is my procedural material too."

"It's a field record."

Kang Taejun sealed the receipt in a clear evidence bag. Yi Juwan took the envelope but could not take the receipt. That small failure stayed on his face. A man who likes deals hates losing a receipt.

Hong Sangwook saw his own name on the envelope and did not raise his voice. Instead he looked around at everyone present. Baek Somyeong's camera, Go Yura's terminal, Kang Taejun's gloves, Yun Haewon behind the security office glass. He was the kind of man who counted how many people were watching before he did anything.

"Let's talk in the conference room."

"Let's talk in the open corridor."

Baek Somyeong said.

Hong Sangwook did not smile back at him. Like a man careful with a camera that keeps whatever smile it catches.

At 20:10, voices rose in front of the conference room.

Hong Sangwook's voice stayed low the whole time. That was exactly why it carried farther.

"For the sake of the whole institution, this needs legal review first."

"There's no document the whole institution signs. The signer is always an individual."

Yi Juwan's answer was thinner than an envelope. But it still cut. Hong Sangwook pressed a finger once against the nameplate on the conference room door. The plate read "Closed Audit Meeting." It wasn't paper put up for the first time today. Old adhesive residue remained around it.

"Do you know what's inside there."

Hong Sangwook asked.

"I opened it, so yes."

"Then you also know the risk of carrying it around."

"I can probably also tell you who created that risk."

Yun Haewon closed his eyes at those words. I saw him calculating the side effects of his own design. He had chosen a different pressure point for each person. This time that pressure point was turning like a blade, changing direction.

"The envelope needs to be recovered."

Yun Haewon said quietly.

"You're the one who sent it out."

My words landed closer to an attack.

"That's true."

For the first time, Yun Haewon admitted it outright. There was no self pity in it. Only admission.

"That's exactly why it needs to be recovered."

He raised a hand inside the security office and knocked on the glass door. The sound of his palm was small. It wasn't a gesture asking to be let out. It was closer to a gesture asking to be seen. For the first time, he was showing someone else that a route he had built had slipped out of his own hands.

Oh Sejin avoided that scene in front of the medical office. When Hong Sangwook's envelope printed, the tremor in his right hand showed again. He pretended to be tidying the medical cart. There wasn't much to tidy. He opened and closed the same drawer twice.

I noted that movement too. It might not be the answer to this attack. But if I erased movements that turn out not to be the answer, later I won't be able to explain why the wrong answer had seemed reasonable at the time.

Baek Somyeong lowered his camera at the end of the corridor. For the first time. He usually raised his lens before he looked at a person. This time he did not photograph Yun Haewon's face.

"Why aren't you shooting."

I asked, and he answered shortly.

"If I shoot now, it stops being the victim's face and becomes my interpretation."

I don't know how long that would hold. But in that moment, Baek Somyeong chose order over a scoop. Whether Yun Haewon heard those words from behind the glass, I couldn't tell. He lowered his hand only after the camera came down.

At 22:30, a short sound came from the direction of the conference room.

It was less a scream than the sound of a chair scraping the floor. Kang Taejun ran first. I was a beat behind. The habit of counting that late beat never went away.

The conference room door was not locked. Hong Sangwook lay collapsed beside the table. The lower left side of his white shirt was soaked, and the blood on the floor trailed thinly toward the door. No weapon was visible.

Oh Sejin tried to follow in, but Kang Taejun blocked him.

"Show me your hands. Everyone."

He did not rush to Hong Sangwook first. He looked at the hands, the door, and the floor all at once. It was an order no one could fault. Trying to save one person had already created another input. This time, if he lost the scene, he would have to ask the same question again in the next loop too.

"Is he alive."

I asked.

Oh Sejin answered from outside the threshold.

"I need to check. He needs pressure applied."

He did not say fatal. The word he didn't say was also recorded.

Hong Sangwook's lips moved. No sound came out. Kang Taejun raised a hand to keep himself from getting too close, and Oh Sejin knelt down and positioned his hands to apply pressure. It was a moment when a doctor and a suspect candidate stood in the same space. Kang Taejun made sure Oh Sejin's wrists stayed inside the camera frame.

"Can you talk."

Oh Sejin asked.

Hong Sangwook shook his head just slightly. It was impossible to tell if that meant refusal or pain. His left hand was empty. Only his right hand held something.

"I'll check the right hand first."

Kang Taejun said. It could have sounded like putting evidence before life. But if he didn't know what the right hand held, he would also miss whose hand came next. He had Oh Sejin keep up the pressure while he himself opened his own fingers.

Kang Taejun looked at Hong Sangwook's right hand. The fingers were holding something. It was slick with blood. He put on gloves and opened the fingers one by one.

At 22:33, a metal key came out.

It wasn't the Q13 key hanging from my neck. It was a researcher management key. A key that should have been inside my coat in the storage room. The one found in my coat in Chapter 9, the one I had believed Kang Taejun had sealed away this loop.

"That's my key."

Only after saying it did I realize the sentence was wrong. Ownership and possession were different things. Even if it was mine, it wasn't in my hand. It should have been in my coat, but right now it was in Hong Sangwook's bloody hand.

Kang Taejun spoke without looking at me.

"I'm confirming the storage room seal. Ihyeon, you don't move from here."

"I didn't put it there."

"That sentence is also on record. And right now, I don't believe it."

Saying he didn't believe me was less cruel than it might have been before. He wasn't saying it because he distrusted me. He was saying it so that trust wouldn't ruin the scene.

At that moment, Go Yura's terminal buzzed briefly. She looked at the screen and immediately silenced it.

"Director Hong's account still has a pending 00:07 correction reservation."

"Director Hong is in the medical office."

Kang Taejun said.

"That's exactly why I'm saying this. Even if a person can't move, the reservation stays active. The cancellation authority hasn't come up yet."

Go Yura said nothing more. What the scheduled command would actually do was still unknown. But the fact that a person's hand and the execution time of a command could be separated from each other was too vivid, standing there beside Hong Sangwook's blood.

Yun Haewon watched Hong Sangwook from outside the door. It was a scene where other blood filled the seat the living victim had built to avoid his own death. He said nothing. This time he attached no conditions either.

What came out of Hong Sangwook's bloody hand was Seo Ihyeon's management key.

The rescue had succeeded. Yun Haewon was alive. And yet beside a living victim, my own belonging was clutched in someone else's blood. Starting not from the next loop, but from the next minute, I was a suspect again.

The number of people saved and the amount of suspicion reduced were not the same value.

That difference was the starting point of the next investigation.

That day.