Surim watched people printing materials, bringing them to Song Hanyeong, and busily moving in and out of the laboratory, looking for an opportunity. No matter what, he wouldn’t skip lunch.
But when lunchtime came, people didn’t seem to have any intention of going to eat.
‘Song Hanyeong can’t skip meals…’
If that already haggard person skipped meals on top of it, he might collapse.
He was anxiously biting his lips when Song Hanyeong put down the documents he was holding and stood up from his seat. It was his chance. Surim jumped up and ran toward Song Hanyeong.
“Manager Song! Could we talk for a moment… Waah!”
Surim, who’d rushed over hastily and tripped over the Sansevieria pot next to Song Hanyeong’s seat, toppled forward. He barely managed to avoid tumbling over by bracing his hand against Song Hanyeong’s desk, but the Sansevieria pot rolled on the floor.
Surim turned pale and rushed over to the broken pot. This was a pot Surim had purchased with the corporate card, saying he’d change the office atmosphere a bit. But to break it after only a few weeks…!
With a tearful face, Surim first tried to handle the situation by scooping up the soil spilled on the floor onto the broken pot pieces.
“…Manager Song…”
To cause such an accident in front of a person who was already tired. As Surim, pale with shock, blamed himself and scooped up the soil, Song Hanyeong approached and silently helped him. Lee Myeongho also brought a plastic basket from somewhere and transferred the fallen Sansevieria. Surim started hurrying with the thought that he couldn’t leave the cleanup of his own accident to these two people.
It was when he’d transferred about three times that something caught on his fingertips. When he felt around inside the pot at the different texture from stones and pulled it out, a pitch-black round plastic revealed itself.
Surim just thought it was probably trash that had accidentally gotten in while putting soil in the pot. It was Song Hanyeong who realized what it was.
“A recorder.”
“…What? This is a recorder?”
Song Hanyeong took it and twisted it like twisting a bottle cap. Then, the inside appearance that was clearly machinery was revealed.
“Why, why is there a recorder here…?”
The previous incident came to mind for the dazed Surim. The matter of suspecting Song Hanyeong was a spy.
A spy. There had been someone who wanted to obtain information from this place, Research Lab 5, through a recorder. While Surim stood there stunned, Song Hanyeong flipped the basket over again and poured the soil on the pot pieces onto the floor.
From between the soil and stones in the pot, a silver paper knife fell and rolled on the floor. It was an object that gave off an eerie atmosphere with strange patterns embossed on the outside.
When Surim reached out his hand, Song Hanyeong snatched his wrist.
“Ah…!”
“You shouldn’t touch that with your bare hands.”
Song Hanyeong took out a handkerchief and picked up the paper knife.
“To think something like this had gotten into my research lab…”
A low laugh was heard, but when Surim looked at Song Hanyeong, he wasn’t smiling. Rather, his eyes were cold and chilling enough to remind him of last night.
What on earth was this that he’d react like that? Surim looked again, but to his eyes it was just a paper knife.
“What is this?”
“…It would be better if Jin Surim-ssi didn’t know.”
“What? Why…”
In the middle of speaking, Surim realized this was also information he could only know by taking one more step forward.
Surim looked up at Song Hanyeong with confused eyes. However, Song Hanyeong stood up from his seat without giving Surim a chance to speak and beckoned Lee Myeongho with a gesture.
“Overturn all the pots in the office.”
“Yes, Manager-nim.”
When Lee Myeongho, with an unusually serious face, started moving, Surim also came to his senses and turned to help.
“Surim-ssi doesn’t need to do that.”
“What? But…”
The other researchers who’d been standing awkwardly at Song Hanyeong’s words also joined the commotion and together brought pots to find foreign objects in the soil.
They overturned all the pots in the office and found seven more recorders that way. Among them, the paper knife was only in the Sansevieria pot in front of Song Hanyeong.
The gaze of Song Hanyeong, who’d been standing with his arms crossed throughout watching the scene of digging through the pots, moved to Surim. Surim, who was startled enough for his shoulders to jump, shook his head with a flustered face.
“I-I didn’t do it. Really, I didn’t…”
“You said it was Ji Seongchan from Research Lab 8 who prepared the pots?”
“…Yes.”
At that question, Surim also noticed that Ji Seongchan was involved. That’s right. These pots had all been purchased through an introduction to a nursery Ji Seongchan knew. When he recalled that fact, something he’d passed over casually at the time came to mind.
“He said it would take some time in exchange for a 20% discount…”
“That must have been the time it took to prepare and hide the recorders.”
“……”
“This Sansevieria pot, did you ever tell Ji Seongchan you’d put it next to me?”
“…Yes.”
He’d asked which pot would be the one to put next to the Senior Researcher and said he’d specially send a large one. Was that to put that unidentifiable paper knife only next to Song Hanyeong?
Surim’s face turned red at the thought that he might have ruined everything. His careless actions had ruined Research Lab 5’s iron-clad security.
“Manager Song, it’s all because of me…”
It was when Surim reached out his trembling hand to Song Hanyeong. Song Hanyeong, who suddenly dodged to the side and stepped away, frowned.
“It would be better if Jin Surim-ssi returned to his seat.”
“What? I…”
Surim, who was about to say something, couldn’t continue and bowed his head deeply at the thought that he might be a hindrance.
“And treat your wound.”
Wound? Following Song Hanyeong’s gaze, he saw a long gash on his index finger. It seemed he’d been cut while cleaning up the broken Sansevieria pot. Messy bloodstains were visible around the thinly cut wound.
Surim hastily hid his hand behind his back and obediently withdrew. His hand was too dirty to let him drink the blood, and above all, there were too many people around.
Even while taking out the medicine container from the cabinet, disinfecting the wound, applying ointment, and putting on a bandage, Surim couldn’t do anything about his troubled mind.
Everything seemed like his fault.
No, it wasn’t just that it seemed like it—it actually was all because of him. Because he’d insisted on putting pots in the office for no reason. Moreover, the reason he’d thought to do so was purely selfish. Because if he put pots here and there, he thought he could go near Song Hanyeong more often with the excuse of caring for the plants.
Yet Song Hanyeong didn’t hold him responsible. It was probably because he was the party who’d made the blood-selling contract. If he’d just been a new employee dispatched from the General Affairs Team, could he have not received any reproach like this?
‘That can’t be.’
Looking at what Song Hanyeong did to Lee Myeongho, he wasn’t originally such a lenient superior. If he’d been a regular employee, he would have surely been scolded severely, a formal complaint would have gone to the General Affairs Team, and his dispatch might have even been canceled.
Surim looked back at Song Hanyeong with wavering eyes. In the meantime, he was saying something to the researchers whose numbers had increased by a few more.
Among the busily moving people, Surim felt as if he alone was isolated and separated.
* * *
“What should we do about that side, Master?”
That side referred to Song Hanyeong’s uncle. This recorder was something sent by the uncle, who thought the suddenly appearing bait was suspicious, to confirm the truth for certain. Regrettably, he wouldn’t have been able to find out anything.
“Just to the extent of being a bit annoying.”
“Yes! I’ll make it moderately annoying for him.”
Lee Myeongho answered while flashing his sharp fangs. At the suspiciously appearing word “moderately,” Song Hanyeong frowned.
“Ah, what’s the harm? Even knowing it was meaningless, I was bothered by it and couldn’t work during that time.”
As he said, the recorder had no meaning at all. On the first day Jin Surim brought the pots, Song Hanyeong, who’d examined the pots in front of the iron door, had known there were suspicious devices hidden inside. A good idea came to mind momentarily so he left them alone, but instead installed a device to prevent communication information from leaking outside.
So if he just destroyed the recorders, the conversations that took place in the office wouldn’t leak outside.
“…Do as you like. But don’t step forward in earnest.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just send some dolls.”
Lee Myeongho, who saluted playfully with a grin, took out a bat doll hidden under his desk.
“I’ve collected quite a few dolls as it happens.”
What had been nothing but a plump stuffed doll twitched on Lee Myeongho’s hand, then raised its body and flew up with a whoosh. Then it flew toward the window. Surprisingly, the bat doll passed through the window like seeping through without hitting it and disappeared somewhere.
The bat dolls would go to the uncle’s place of business and make things very annoying for him by ruining his business and such.
“Ah, what should we do with this?”
Lee Myeongho asked, holding up the paper knife wrapped in a handkerchief.
“Melt it and get rid of it.”
“Ah, but I worked hard to make it.”
“Don’t leave any traces either.”
“Ye-es, understood.”
At the merciless instruction, Lee Myeongho had no choice but to nod his head. It was such a waste. It had taken quite a bit of effort to make.
