IDTE 25

Chapter – 25

― Want to have lunch together?

I didn’t want to reply to Kim Gun’s message. If I faced him now, I was sure I would waste energy on something pointless.

For example, why he acted as if he had saved me personally.

But trying to figure out another person’s intentions was not important to me right now.

I didn’t want to get unnecessarily entangled with anyone anymore.

What mattered was the matters that were directly pressing on me.

I turned my attention back to piecing together the disordered sentences on the monitor.

― I’ll wait for you on the rooftop!

Looking down at my phone, I let out an irritated sigh, and a shadow fell over it.

“Not easy, is it?”

It was Kim, the department chief, who was reeking of cigarette smoke.

“No. I’m doing my best.”

“Honestly, you’re stubborn.”

The unpleasant smell drifting beside me made my brow unconsciously furrow.

Strange. The cigarettes that clung to Do I-hyun had felt like a faint, expensive perfume.

“You don’t have to sit so stiffly. You know what I mean, right? This place is a completely different world from where you were.”

“There’s no such thing as that when working. It’s all the same work.”

“You shouldn’t ruin your career here out of unnecessary ambition. If it doesn’t feel right, quitting early is also an option.”

I didn’t want to respond, so I deliberately straightened my back and fixed my gaze on the monitor.

“Too greedy for nothing.”

Kim’s muttering behind me sounded like the residue of long-dried emotions.

“Later, don’t come complaining, asking why I didn’t stop you.”

His voice gradually grew smaller, carrying what felt like the sediment of worn-out feelings.

During lunchtime, when the team members were gone, I sat in the quiet office and began organizing the still-unfinished materials.

The sound of my own typing, occasionally breaking the silence, was somewhat pleasant.

Until a dull knocking sound interrupted my typing.

“Minha, since you didn’t reply, I came looking for you!”

It was Kim Gun.

“I’m sorry. I’m really busy right now.”

“I heard. You’re in charge of the EcoBlue president’s case, right?”

As usual, he pulled a chair over and sat beside me without hesitation.

He carried the scent of withered leaves.

“It’s not easy, is it? Still, don’t skip meals. I came to give this to you for a moment.”

A neatly stacked lunchbox was placed on the desk.

I didn’t have the courage, nor the intention, to accept something that might contain his ambiguous feelings.

Hesitating, I spoke.

“By the way, I have a question. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Kim Gun’s gentle features carried his usual soft smile.

“The one who found me when I was injured wasn’t you. It was Do I-hyun. Why did you let me misunderstand?”

“I never said I found you, did I?”

His gentle smile didn’t fade.

“You misunderstood on your own, Minha. Why are you being like this? I feel hurt.”

“…Silence can also be a lie.”

“I rushed to the hospital as soon as I heard you were injured. Do you know how shocked I was?”

His brown eyes, shining more transparently under the sunlight today, felt sharply menacing.

“Later, I was so focused on whether you were okay that I only properly heard that I-hyun found you afterward. I had no intention of deceiving you.”

“Please avoid unnecessary misunderstandings in the future.”

“Don’t be angry. If you get angry, I’ll be scared, okay?”

He leaned closer, putting on a familiar, shameless appearance.

What was he thinking behind that easygoing face?

“By the way, how are things with I-hyun lately? Have you gotten closer since that time?”

The memory of Do I-hyun’s back from last night, which I had held onto by just a fraction, flashed through my mind.

“Just… so-so. Neither bad nor good.”

“That’s a relief.”

Sunlight entering through the window began scattering across my entire desk in fragments.

The sharp sunlight even reached the worn corners of my desk.

“This desk used to belong to Min-gi.”

“Min-gi?”

“The person who was originally sitting in your seat. He was a good person. If he hadn’t suddenly quit like that.”

“Was there some reason?”

“Well, I don’t really know either.”

Kim Gun’s translucent fingers began fiddling with the worn edge of the desk.

“Come to think of it, Min-gi’s birthday is soon. December 10th.”

His words were impossible to grasp.

“When is your birthday, Minha?”

I realized much later that the scent coming from him wasn’t the scent of leaves.

It was the smell of something burned, covered in ash.

The sun set, and darkness replaced it. The space was filled only with silence after everyone left.

“Wow, you do all the work alone? That’s too much.”

“Chief Kim! Tsk! Minha, this is making things difficult for me…”

After barely managing to ignore the jeering of Chief Kim and the team leader who tried excessively to send me home, I remained in the office.

As much time as I invested during the day, the disordered materials began to take on a more plausible form.

When comparing the contract between Seongjin and EcoBlue, no legally flawed clauses were found.

The performance failure targets and the periodic reporting obligation used as reasons for investment withdrawal were agreed upon terms.

There was insufficient evidence that the Seongjin side applied coercive pressure.

Now I was looking through the predecessor’s USB that I received from Chief Kim.

It was an unexpected gain, but difficulties were expected. The financial records inside it were strange.

The amount listed as “outsourced service fees” caught my attention.

It was understandable for a chemical materials startup to spend such a sum under R&D expenses.

But how should I interpret spending billions under the category of outsourced service fees?

Moreover, this money was flowing into a company called LineSafe.

Even someone ignorant of accounting could see the suspicious flow.

Money was consistently flowing into one company under a meaningless item.

Opening the file labeled “EcoBlue_Outsourcing_Contract” allowed me to easily infer LineSafe’s identity.

About 500 million won in cost, with no related reports or supporting documents.

There was no trace of work being exchanged.

And unlike EcoBlue’s president’s handwritten signature, LineSafe’s representative signature was replaced with a digital signature.

“…Checkmate.”

LineSafe was probably a shell company of Seongjin.

EcoBlue was certainly a money-laundering channel for Seongjin.

Then the meaning of the strangely named outsourced service fees became clear.

Then why did Seongjin suddenly try to recover the investment from a system that had been running smoothly?

The investment recovery was likely used as a plausible pretext for outsiders.

A realistic-looking dispute and a legal separation from EcoBlue. Not a bad picture.

Perhaps what Seongjin wanted to eliminate wasn’t EcoBlue’s president himself.

The image of EcoBlue’s president’s grinning face from the photo came to mind.

The blood draining from my hands slowly made me feel cold.

I became certain that EcoBlue’s president’s cause of death might not have been an aggravation of an underlying disease.

If I examined every file inside this USB, something would likely emerge.

Checking the time, it was almost eleven at night.

Staying up all night was not difficult. There might be enough time.

I resolved to dissect all the data here even if it meant staying up all night.

“Huh? Why is this?”

But the USB storage capacity shown on my computer was also strange.

Total capacity was 10GB, used space was 7GB…

There’s that much data?

However, the files visible in the folder did not add up to even close to 7GB.

I felt as if someone was blowing a cold breath down the back of my neck.

The fine hairs on my skin stood on end.

There are hidden files here.