The next morning.
Just like yesterday, I left my work phone with Saori and went in to the office. The moment I arrived, I found a group of unfamiliar suits dismantling the entire desktop that had been under my desk and carrying it off. I was at a loss for words.
Then a middle-aged man who seemed to be the suits’ superior approached and spoke to me.
“Good morning. Are you perhaps Kim Taemin from the Night Zero Dawn Development Department?”
“Yes.”
“We’re from the Audit Team. Mr. Kim Taemin, you’re under suspicion of leaking confidential company information.”
As he said that, the man showed me his employee ID, glanced at my trouser pocket, and held out his right hand.
“We’ll need to conduct digital forensics, so please hand over the phone you’re currently using.”
…I had braced myself to some extent, but I never imagined the Audit Team would move this quickly.
I knew full well that if I refused to hand over my phone here, I’d look suspicious, so I obediently held out the phone I had on me.
“Then we’ll need to question you, so please follow us.”
After saying that, the people from the company Audit Team headed toward the elevator.
“……”
To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but for now I decided to quietly follow their instructions.
***
When people think of an interrogation, the image that usually comes to mind is detectives questioning a criminal at a police station.
A procedural formality where they mix carrots and sticks in just the right measure, trying to pry some kind of clue out of the suspect no matter what.
But the questioning I received after going to the Audit Team’s office was far more perfunctory than I’d expected.
Whether I knew about the exposé posted on the company messenger.
Whether I had really leaked internal confidential information.
Whether there was anyone I suspected might have posted the exposé, and so on.
I answered their questions as sincerely as I could.
Of course, I didn’t bother answering questions that could put me at a legal disadvantage, but since these people were also just salaried employees doing their jobs, I tried to be as cooperative as possible.
Neither side would want to waste time for no reason.
“…Understood. Then we’ll contact you separately once the digital forensics results are out.”
“Yes, thank you for your work.”
After being seen out by the Audit Team leader, I realized quite a bit of time had passed while I was being questioned, so I hurried back up to the office.
Clatter—
The office I returned to was as noisy as ever.
The sound of keyboards being hammered away at busily, voices on calls about work, even the footsteps of employees walking back and forth to copy documents.
With the department already busy enough, it now looked like I alone had been off slacking, so I carefully closed the door and stepped into the office.
The silver lining was that, perhaps because everyone was busy with their own work, unlike yesterday, no one seemed particularly concerned with me.
“I wonder if they’ll return the phone they took tomorrow.”
Thinking that, I sat down at my desk, and my junior, who was in the middle of working, spoke to me first.
“Assistant Manager, what did you do at the Audit Office?”
“Nothing much. They just asked me a few obvious questions, and I got a cup of coffee out of it.”
As I answered, I habitually tried to turn on the tower under my desk with my foot, only to kick empty air and realize the desktop was gone.
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, the Audit Team took it earlier.
Since things had turned out this way, I figured I might as well legally get paid for doing nothing, leaned back in my chair, and asked my junior, who was typing diligently away at his keyboard.
“Seokjin, how’s my reputation in the office right now?”
“Are you asking because you really don’t know? It’s obviously the worst.”
“Well, I guess it’d be stranger if people thought well of me.”
In a way, in a situation where no one knew who to blame, a perfect target to throw stones at had appeared.
“Should I seriously think about changing jobs?”
To be honest, the only reason I hadn’t quit until now was because of my own stubbornness.
If even I left the company, I felt like the original form of the game would really disappear without a trace, so I’d been gritting my teeth and holding on. But after this incident, it was like every last bit of affection I had had drained away.
“I’ve honestly done enough, too.”
No one would blame me if I quit now, right?
Just as my worries about the future were growing deeper—
“Assistant Manager Kim.”
“Yes?”
At the sudden voice, I raised my head and saw the youngest female employee looking restless, so I asked what was going on.
“Um, the CEO told us to move Assistant Manager Kim’s desk out of the office…”
“……”
Honestly, at this point, it was almost impressive.
As if being dragged to the Audit Team the moment I got to work wasn’t enough, now they were even removing my desk from the office.
I could feel the determination to fire me no matter what, so if anything, it was almost funny.
These days, even office dramas probably wouldn’t bully someone this blatantly.
At any rate, I didn’t want to get worked up over something like this, so I said I understood and sent the youngest female employee back to her seat.
“Assistant Manager, are you really going to move your desk out?”
“If the person paying my salary tells me to do it, I have to do it.”
Heave-ho!
After saying that, I lifted the desk clean off the floor, and the employees around me looked at me with puzzled expressions.
But I paid no attention to their stares and carried the desk out into the hallway.
People from other departments passing through the corridor looked at me as if I were strange, but since things had come this far, there was no point feeling any more embarrassed.
After moving both the desk and the chair out of the office, I headed straight for the CEO’s office to settle things.
***
“Excuse me.”
Unlike usual, I entered the CEO’s office without even waiting for permission. CEO Lee Hyeoncheol, who had been sitting in his chair, frowned and asked,
“What do you think you’re doing, Assistant Manager Kim?”
I got straight to the point.
“Are you going to keep acting this childish?”
“Childish? What do you mean?”
“Whether the post on the company messenger is true or not hasn’t even been confirmed, and you’re removing my desk? Isn’t that basically telling me to leave the company?”
At that, CEO Lee Hyeoncheol let out an incredulous snort and turned his chair toward me.
“If you have nothing to be ashamed of, why don’t you just sit quietly until the results come out? And do you really think I would do something like this without any evidence?”
“Evidence? What evidence are you talking about?”
“Did you think I didn’t know that you’ve been continuously contacting people who left the company?”
“What the—!”
“There was an anonymous informant. They said Assistant Manager Kim seemed suspicious.”
At CEO Lee Hyeoncheol’s absurd claim, I raised my voice without realizing it.
“They may have left the company, but they were people I was close with from the start! Does exchanging a few phone calls to see how they’re doing count as leaking company secrets?!”
At that, CEO Lee Hyeoncheol shrugged and said,
“Who knows? You can say that all you want, but you might be lying. As the person in charge of a project, you should keep public and private matters strictly separate. So wait quietly until the Audit Team’s investigation results come out.”
Then he waved his right hand as if he couldn’t be bothered to deal with me any further.
It was a clear order to leave.
“……”
His attitude, as if someone like me wasn’t even worth his attention, made anger boil up inside me, but there was nothing I could do right now.
In the end, I had no choice but to leave the CEO’s office powerlessly, without gaining anything.
***
To cool my anger, I moved to the emergency stairwell and struck the wall hard with my fist.
Bang!!
“…Fuck.”
I was furious.
Not only had I been framed for something I hadn’t done, I hadn’t even been able to properly refute it.
And more than that, I felt utterly powerless.
“So this is how the seniors who left before me felt.”
Even though I knew the current situation was absurd, there was nothing I could do.
Because the one holding the knife by the handle right now wasn’t me, but CEO Lee Hyeoncheol.
“This means I can’t trust the Audit Team either.”
At first, I thought that since there was no proper evidence, my innocence would be proven quickly enough.
But seeing CEO Lee Hyeoncheol act so confident, it seemed like he intended to drive me out of the company even if he had to fabricate evidence that didn’t exist.
“What do I do?”
I couldn’t think of any way to break through the current situation.
I’d been marked by CEO Lee Hyeoncheol, so there was no way anyone would take my side, and thanks to the bad rumors, my reputation had already hit rock bottom.
To put it in janggi terms, it was practically checkmate.
If there was one way, it would be to find the person who posted on Blind, but I wasn’t the police, just a private individual. There was no way they’d listen if I asked for cooperation.
Click!
“Oh, Assistant Manager, you were here again.”
Just then, the door to the emergency stairwell opened abruptly, and my junior poked his head in.
“What is it?”
“It’s not like I came looking because something happened. I just wondered if you were all right.”
As he said that and came down the stairs, he naturally held out a pack of cigarettes.
“You don’t know the emergency stairwell is non-smoking?”
When I said that and knocked the cigarette pack away, he said, “Fine, if you don’t want one,” then suddenly asked me a question.
“So what are you going to do now?”
Hearing that, I let out a deep sigh.
“I don’t know either.”
I had been thinking of quitting if it came down to it, but as the situation kept getting more tangled, it was starting to look like I might end up leaving without even receiving my severance pay properly.
If I could find a new job right away, that would be one thing. But in a situation where I might have to rest for several months at the longest, the very fact that I might not receive any severance pay at all was a big risk.
“…Should I at least go say some flattering words to the CEO? Ask him to let you go peacefully.”
“Forget it, man. Who are you to do that?”
At that, my junior let out sigh after sigh and said,
“It’s frustrating. It’s just frustrating. Still, you’re the only senior I have, and it feels like you’re taking the hard road because of some needless pride.”
“……”
This was the first time he had ever said something like that to me.
And that was exactly why I couldn’t drag him into this.
“I’ll handle it myself, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
When I refused his help like that, my junior let out a long sigh and said as if he had no choice,
“Don’t regret it later. Don’t go saying you should’ve asked me to help back then.”
“That’ll never happen.”
Saying that, I forced myself to put on a brave smile. Then, saying it’d look bad if we stayed away from our seats any longer, I forcibly pushed my junior’s back and made him head back.