Manager Lee stared at the bruises on Choi Wonjoon’s face, momentarily speechless.
He had worked under Wonjoon for nearly ten years, yet this was the first time he had ever seen him injured outside of a fistfight.
And last night, Wonjoon had very clearly instructed the driver to take him to Kim Yieum’s apartment.
“…Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”
“Is it that bad?”
“How exactly did this happen?”
Instead of answering, Wonjoon looked at his reflection in the mirror and let out a quiet laugh.
Last night, after lying down in bed, sleep still hadn’t come.
On impulse, he had gone to see Kim Yieum.
They had spent several days together already, and Wonjoon had assumed there was enough familiarity between them that a little persistence might work in his favor.
Apparently not.
The first thing Yieum had done was throw a punch.
Then he kicked him out.
“Kim Yieum hit me.”
“…”
“I asked him to put me to sleep, and he beat the hell out of me instead. Was he trying to knock me unconscious?”
Manager Lee’s face remained blank, but internally his thoughts were probably in complete chaos.
Why is he so obsessed with a detective?
Wonjoon felt a flicker of regret.
Maybe I handed over the culprit too quickly.
If suspicion had lingered a little longer, he could have kept using the investigation as an excuse to visit Sehwa Construction and at least see Yieum’s face.
“May I ask what exactly you intended by going there?”
“It was the first time.”
Wonjoon answered so casually that it almost sounded like a confession of first love.
Manager Lee blinked in confusion.
“…Pardon?”
“The first time in ten years I managed to sleep without medication.”
“Ah…”
“I wanted to confirm it. If it’s real, then he’s someone I need.”
Truthfully, the exact cause of Wonjoon’s insomnia had never been determined.
When he was young, he had been kidnapped and had barely survived. His psychiatrist believed the trauma might have manifested later in life.
Mental illness didn’t always appear immediately.
Sometimes it waited years.
Sometimes decades.
“What about the thing I asked you to look into?”
Manager Lee opened his briefcase and handed over a file.
Inside was Kim Yieum’s personal information.
Beta.
The classification was written there clearly.
Wonjoon flipped to the next page detailing Yieum’s family background. As expected, nearly every member of the family had ties to law enforcement.
“Did you know CEO Choi Taeseung was investigated for bribery last year?”
Choi Taeseung was Wonjoon’s second older brother.
As Manager Lee explained, he had been investigated for bribing a National Assembly member. The charges had ultimately stuck, though the sentence itself had been suspended.
“The prosecutor handling that case was Kim Yieum’s older brother.”
Wonjoon pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, amusement flickering across his face.
Manager Lee continued.
“And roughly forty years ago, Kim Yieum’s father, Kim Chunsam, was the one who arrested Chairman Choi and sent him to prison.”
Wonjoon’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“There were several violent incidents during the Chairman’s rise to power. Most of the prosecution intended to overlook them, but Kim Chunsam pursued the case relentlessly. In the end, the Chairman served one year in prison.”
Suddenly, Wonjoon remembered the framed family photograph he had seen at Yieum’s apartment.
Now he finally understood why his father had reacted with such fury after hearing about Kim Yieum.
Why did you have to get involved with people from that family line?
“In every possible sense,” Wonjoon murmured, “our families are incompatible.”
Manager Lee remained silent, but his expression alone suggested he agreed wholeheartedly.
“Go on,” Wonjoon said lazily. “I’m in a good mood today, so I’ll listen.”
“I don’t know why you sought out Mr. Kim Yieum,” Manager Lee replied carefully, “but I don’t believe anything good will come from getting involved with him.”
Wonjoon swung his legs off the desk and stood.
This was precisely why he liked Manager Lee.
Most people around him only said whatever they thought he wanted to hear. But Manager Lee didn’t flatter him unnecessarily.
Anyone with common sense could see this relationship never should have started in the first place.
Without much interest, Wonjoon tossed the file into the trash can.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Manager Lee wisely chose not to argue further.
He knew Choi Wonjoon well enough already.
Wonjoon had always been the type who refused to stop until he personally exhausted his curiosity.
Before turning thirty, his bed partners had changed almost daily. Most of their names and faces blurred together now in his memory.
Adding one more detective to the pile probably wouldn’t make much difference.
Standing outside the building, Namsu couldn’t hide his tension.
They had come to meet the boss of the Jeil gang, and the atmosphere surrounding the place already felt unusual.
From the outside, the building labeled Jeil Trading looked like any ordinary company office.
“How can we help you?”
Two large men approached cautiously.
“Is Mr. Park Seoktae here?”
The men exchanged glances.
“The boss is away on business.”
“Really? That’s strange. I saw him enter through the parking garage ten minutes ago.”
Even after Yieum said that, neither man budged.
Then another figure emerged from inside and greeted them politely.
It was one of Park Seoktae’s subordinates—the same man Yieum had encountered outside the restroom earlier.
“We’d like to speak with Mr. Park Seoktae regarding the late Mr. Yang Taekil.”
The man nodded immediately.
“Please come in.”
They followed him all the way to the office at the end of the hallway.
The first thing Yieum noticed when the door opened was the golf club propped nearby. Decorative scholar’s rocks sat beside the window, while a large framed slogan hung prominently on the wall.
WE ARE FAMILY.
The childishness of it was almost absurd.
“What brings our detectives all the way here?”
Park Seoktae rose from behind his desk and approached the sofa area.
The cut across his eyelid stood out immediately. The lingering swelling around it suggested he’d been hit hard.
Yieum’s eyes lingered there briefly before lowering again.
“We’re here to ask a few questions regarding Yang Taekil.”
“I already explained everything to the detective who came before,” Park Seoktae replied smoothly. “And hasn’t the culprit already been caught? I heard he turned himself in yesterday.”
“You’re aware the man who confessed belongs to the Jeil gang, correct?”
Park Seoktae placed a cigarette between his lips and gestured casually toward the sofa.
“Please, sit. Suho, bring us some tea.”
“We’re fine. We’ll ask a few questions and leave.”
Park Seoktae exhaled smoke slowly.
“I’m troubled by the situation myself. Who could’ve imagined something so unfortunate happening within our organization?”
“What was the relationship between the two men like? From what we heard, they weren’t exactly close.”
“Taekil originally came from Busan, but he was competent, so I kept him around. Sangbeom probably didn’t appreciate that very much. In the end, this is my fault too. I failed to manage my own people properly. If I’d noticed earlier, maybe things wouldn’t have escalated this far.”
Despite his regretful words, his expression barely shifted.
“What happened to your face?” Yieum asked. “Get into a fight?”
“Ah, this?”
Park Seoktae touched the cut and laughed awkwardly.
“It’s embarrassing to admit, but I fell while drunk.”
“No, you didn’t. Someone hit you.”
“Haha. Hit me? I’m Park Seoktae. Who would dare?”
“Choi Wonjoon from Sehwa Construction?”
The name was deliberately thrown out as bait.
And Park Seoktae’s expression twitched for the briefest second.
Yieum didn’t miss it.
“Did he tell you to clean up the mess?” Yieum pressed calmly. “Did he threaten you? Tell you your people caused trouble, so you’d better handle it yourselves? Did you decide to throw out a substitute and wrap the case up neatly?”
Park Seoktae burst into loud laughter.
“Hahaha! Detective, you should write novels instead of solving crimes. You’ve got quite the imagination.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Right then, Namsu’s phone rang.
“Excuse me for a second.”
He stepped outside to answer it.
Left alone, Yieum continued staring at Park Seoktae in silence until Namsu reappeared, poking only his head through the doorway.
“Sunbae. Can I talk to you for a second?”
Once outside, Namsu scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck.
“I think we need to head back immediately.”
“Why?”
“I just got a call from Detective Lee.”
Namsu’s face tightened.
“They already transferred Yang Taekil’s case to the prosecution.”
“…Already?”
“Yeah. The National Forensic Service report came back. The blood on the weapon matched Yang Taekil’s exactly, so they pushed the case through right away.”
Yieum fell silent.
Everything was progressing too smoothly.
Almost like events were following a script someone had already written.
Of course catching the culprit was a good thing.
But the unease gnawing at him refused to disappear.
He was just about to call Team Leader Oh and ask him to hold the suspect a little longer until he arrived—
—when Namsu suddenly grabbed his arm.
“That’s not the real problem.”
Yieum frowned.
“Then what is?”
“Who did you meet last night?”
“Last night? We had the team dinner.”
“I heard you met Choi Wonjoon from Sehwa Construction.”
A beat of silence.
“Youngsik.”
Yieum’s expression faltered instantly.
A bad feeling crept up his spine as he looked at Namsu.
Namsu sighed heavily.
“That guy’s lawyer showed up this morning.”
“…What?”
“He filed a complaint against you, sunbae-nim.”