“More than that, young master.”
Nasol tilted his head with a fox-like smiling face and looked into the rearview mirror. The two people’s eyes met. Song Hanyeong hesitated seeing a red light rippling in Nasol’s jet-black pupils.
“How is the ‘prey’s’ condition?”
“…He looks better than I thought.”
Jin Surim didn’t skip his morning jog and ate all of the salad topped with grilled tofu. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks looked dry, but that was natural since he probably hadn’t slept properly for several days. At this level, it could be said he was enduring quite well.
“How was the taste?”
“…It was delicious.”
“Still.”
Nasol, who muttered as if continuing Song Hanyeong’s words, nodded his head with a pleased smile.
“That’s fortunate.”
Song Hanyeong, who had finally put on his cufflinks and was perfectly dressed in his vest and jacket, leaned his body smoothly against the back seat. Only then did the car begin to move forward through the alley.
* * *
Surim, who had been hugging the toilet, lifted his body while panting for breath. However, before he could even fully raise his body, he urgently shoved his face into the toilet again.
“Urgh…!”
His stomach convulsed and pieces of the salad he’d eaten earlier came surging out. Things that hadn’t even been fully digested roughly scratched his esophagus.
When there was finally nothing left to come out, Surim raised his head with an exhausted face. His eyes were bloodshot red with tears pooling in them, and his face was flushed. He gasped for breath for a while before lifting his body again.
Surim, who had been blankly staring at the sight of water swirling down, suddenly found it absurd that all the food inside the toilet was nothing more than vegetables and tofu.
The fourth change that the contract made when he was fifteen brought to Surim’s life was that he became unable to eat meat.
Because what they wanted from Surim in exchange for bringing a doctor who could save his hyung and covering all the surgery and hospitalization costs was the blood of a vegetarian who didn’t consume any animal-based ingredients at all.
Surim had faithfully kept that bizarre requirement for his hyung all this time.
“…Hyung.”
Surim rinsed his mouth and slumped down in front of the living room coffee table, hugging the pure white urn sitting there alone and curling up.
“Hyung…”
That was the problem. Surim no longer had anything left to protect.
* * *
When Surim arrived at work, Ji Seongchan was just leaving the office. He showed a thoroughly pitiful expression as if being dragged somewhere terrible.
Wondering what was going on, Surim recalled that they would be assigned research labs starting this week. It seemed Ji Seongchan had become in charge of Research Lab 8 as he’d said last week, and that work didn’t seem easy at all.
It seemed he too should be prepared. As soon as Surim entered the office with a tense face, Assistant Manager Seong spotted him and greeted him with her eyes, then showed her palm as if asking him to wait a moment. She was holding the phone receiver, her expression crumpled as if chewing on bitter herbs while her voice alone was brighter and kinder than anyone’s.
Only after a long while did Assistant Manager Seong get up from her seat and gesture to Surim, calling him out to the conference room.
“You waited long, right? They say they can’t, but I’m asking if they can’t let them use another research lab’s equipment because it’s urgent, they’re throwing a fit… no, whining. They should have applied for supplies earlier…”
Assistant Manager Seong shrugged her shoulders and continued.
“Anyway, did you rest well? Hm? Why does someone who took annual leave and came back after resting look like this?”
Surim rubbed his rough cheek and smiled awkwardly.
“I’m sorry for taking annual leave so suddenly. My circumstances…”
“No no, there’s nothing to apologize for. If it sounded like I was being passive-aggressive, I’m sorry. Our research institute encourages use of annual leave, so feel free to use what you have. You just look too tired.”
“I happened to not get much sleep.”
“Hmm. When I was young too, I’d take a morning flight to Korea and go straight to work. But after passing thirty, my stamina couldn’t hold up anymore. If I don’t rest well at home for about a day, my brain doesn’t work. Being young is the best, really.”
It seemed like a complete misunderstanding from the actual situation, but Surim didn’t bother to correct it.
Assistant Manager Seong, who laughed cheerfully, started talking in earnest.
“Actually, it really exists.”
“Yes? What does?”
“Research Lab 0. It really exists.”
“…What?”
Assistant Manager Seong carefully lowered her voice and began explaining.
“It’s a research lab directly under a director, a team where the research content is secret, the budget is secret, and the researchers’ identities are half secret.”
It was exactly the same as what Ji Seongchan had said last week. Ji Seongchan had also said it was a research lab directly under some director.
Surim, who was dumbfounded, asked blankly.
“Is that possible? They have to pay salaries and…”
“What I know is that externally they’re disguised as Research Lab 5 on the third floor, and that research lab’s budget isn’t executed from our research institute’s budget.”
“Uh… Research Lab 0 is Research Lab 5?”
“Externally.”
His head spun, not understanding well what this meant. Surim, who was trying to understand, asked carefully.
“Then the Research Lab 5 people listed on the intranet are…?”
“Fake.”
“And you don’t know their real identities…?”
“That’s right.”
So everything marked as Research Lab 5 was fake information, and the mysterious Research Lab 0 occupied the third floor where Research Lab 5 should have been. After hearing it, his head felt complicated.
The research institute’s internal intranet had all employees’ names recorded. Detailed personal information could naturally only be accessed by authorized people, but affiliations and names could be checked with just a few clicks by anyone who was an employee.
He’d never once thought there could be fakes among them.
“They say all the research content is seriously classified, so they even use a separate internal research server. They share research content only among research computers that aren’t connected to the internet.”
“Wow…”
“It’s a bit excessive, right? Still, until now there was absolutely no chance of running into each other, so I was just letting it be.”
“Don’t tell me I’m going there?”
“That’s right. They suddenly asked to dispatch one General Affairs Team employee. They don’t want an employee who’s worked long because they might have connections with other research labs, it has to be a clean new employee.”
That meant Jin Surim, who hadn’t come in through another researcher’s recommendation and hadn’t worked long enough to be close with other research labs. At the sudden news, Surim’s expression darkened. His first job, and he’d only been learning for just three months, so he didn’t know much yet. He was at a level where he mostly just did what he was told.
But a dispatch, could he do well? And in such a suspicious place at that.
“Even though it’s called a dispatch, you’re just going up to the third floor. They probably won’t expect anything great from a new employee either…. Still, if you have questions, come anytime. Of course, it would be annoying to do that every time…”
Assistant Manager Seong handed Surim a white laptop she’d prepared in advance.
“It’s a laptop set up so you can access our intranet. You’ll need it to apply for equipment or supplies, so I applied for it in advance. You can also use the company messenger, so if you have questions, ask through this.”
“Ah, thank you.”
As soon as Surim brightened up, Assistant Manager Seong whispered secretly.
“Of course, officially this laptop doesn’t exist either. A research lab that doesn’t even register researchers wouldn’t register equipment either.”
“Assistant Manager Seong…!”
When Surim burst out calling her at the chilling words, Assistant Manager Seong laughed cheerfully and patted his shoulder.
“I’m joking. This laptop is General Affairs Team equipment, so use it well and make sure to return it.”
She was such a playful superior anyway. He was about to get up from his seat with a deep sigh when Assistant Manager Seong suddenly brought her face close to him with a serious expression.
“Still, Surim-ssi.”
“Yes.”
“Just in case, be careful of your behavior. The people there… there’s a rumor they’re very dangerous.”
“Dangerous… you say?”
“You should know how abnormal it is to operate a team this way in the first place. The research content itself might be dangerous. Pretend you didn’t see what you saw, pretend you didn’t hear what you heard, just focus only on your work, Surim-ssi. That’s why I explained in detail. Understand?”
A strange research team not on the intranet and maintained directly under the CEO. Perhaps it might be structured to be easily cut off when something went wrong.
Surim swallowed his saliva and nodded his head.
* * *
A notebook and pen, one tumbler, one box of multivitamins. And the laptop issued today. That was all of Surim’s belongings. Shoving everything into one box and moving his steps, the place he arrived at was the dim corridor side where he’d hidden his body last time to briefly talk on the phone with his hyung.
“……”
Surim, whose expression almost crumbled for a moment, pressed his lips tightly shut and moved his steps. He’d heard that beyond here there was nothing but a warehouse gathering unused items. That’s why people didn’t pass by often, so he’d come in to secretly rest.
But the rumored Research Lab 0 was in a place like this? The location was certainly discreet. It was a path that would never be reached through normal traffic flow, so 99 out of 100 people who came all the way here would definitely be people coming to deliberately spy. The 1 would be people trying to secretly rest briefly while making phone calls.
The research lab entrance was even a heavy iron door. Surim felt overwhelmed by the solid iron door that couldn’t be opened by human hands. The words Assistant Manager Seong had whispered earlier to be careful of his behavior automatically replayed in his head.
