A Parent Consultation at Midnight
"There's evidence?"
Baek Cheonhyeong's eyes were anything but ordinary.
One wrong word and my head rolls right here.
I scraped together every last shred of composure I had left and held my poker face to the very best of my ability.
……So, what was my real reason for scaling the kindergarten fence in the dead of night, you ask?
Well, as I mentioned before—the evidence I had on hand, even scraped together from every corner, wasn't enough to take down the director.
Which meant the next step was already as good as decided.
Find more evidence, obviously…… even if it meant taking on some risk.
Yes. The method I'd chosen was to shake this kindergarten down until nothing was left.
Walking away with a definite answer sitting right there just doesn't suit my temperament.
Though of course, I hadn't expected to be handed a time bomb of this magnitude in the process.
"Would you like to see?"
Damn it. Not that I could back out now…… Fine. Might as well do what I came to do.
Maintaining an air of shameless confidence, I briskly turned my steps around.
He's not going to attack me from behind, right?
……Ah, whatever. He already knows everything—he can judge for himself.
I reached the director's office on the first floor and turned the handle.
Locked, as expected.
I pulled the master key out of my pocket. The one I'd asked Kang Sagwa—a Summoner who could materialize anything that fit in one hand—to make for me.
I doubt this is what she made it for, but thanks anyway.
The director's office, once I let myself in with the master key, was tidier than I'd expected.
Not a single one of those endlessly accumulating empty soju cartons was anywhere in sight.
Not even in the trash can.
So Kwon Haeseong hadn't been lying.
--……The moment the director gets audited or the parents show up, he acts perfectly fine, like a ghost. Or he just disappears…… And we don't have any connection to higher-ups we could properly report this to……
So he's very good at keeping up appearances.
But look a little closer, and the cracks would be anything but few.
I strode straight up to the director's desk. As I powered on the monitor, I scanned the room……
There.
Under the desk, tucked into a corner, sat a safe of just the right size.
If the director were a thorough man, he'd have kept the safe at home.
I hoisted the unopened safe up onto the desk and tore the door off with a firm pull.
He probably never imagined a civilian director's common sense could be broken open by hand.
The cheap, low-spec safes sold on the market could be cracked by sheer strength from even a low-rank Awakened.
Let's see here.
Ledgers. It was all ledgers.
Just skimming through a few of them gave me a pretty good picture.
I picked one out and handed it to Baek Cheonhyeong, who was standing plumb in front of the desk.
"Take a look. This is all money."
Watching him take the ledger, I kept explaining while my hands stayed busy.
"Embezzlement ledgers, to be precise. If we get all of that paid back, it'll probably add up to quite a sum."
Setting the donations aside, he'd eaten a hefty chunk of the kindergarten's monthly budget allotment, too.
The computer screen came on, and the desktop popped up with no password at all.
Go-Stop and mahjong games. He really does have every vice under the sun, doesn't he?
The moment I launched the CCTV program sitting next to the recycle bin, the live camera feeds and the recording archive appeared.
Nothing less than the past week or so will do.
He'd been showing off his drinking and lazy work habits all through last week, after all.
And of course, he didn't even bother to delete these.
I worked the mouse, swiftly copying the recordings onto the USB I'd brought.
While I was at it, I stole a glance at Baek Cheonhyeong.
At some point he'd looked up from the ledger, and he was looking down at me with an inscrutable expression.
Only then did I remember why I'd been avoiding this man all along.
Damn it, my precious job.
I'd assumed Baek Cheonhyeong might see me as suspicious. No—knowing him, he might have had me flagged as a person of interest long before that.
That was why, when I got kidnapped by that cult, I'd bolted the instant I spotted him.
Nothing good ever comes from being on your employer's bad side.
But…… did that mean I should just stand by and watch the director carry on?
Afraid of making a bad impression, was I?
This wasn't just about the teachers under the director—it involved the kindergarten children too.
This was not something I could sidestep just because I wanted to.
I could do something about it. Therefore, I should.
Those two plainly linked sentences were my conclusion.
I played a recording of the director drinking and swiveled the monitor around so Baek Cheonhyeong could see it.
"As you can see, the director enjoys drinking on the job, and takes frequent, unnecessary breaks during work hours. Enough that anyone watching might mistake it for a vacation."
Honestly, saying this much should be enough for him to understand.
What I was trying to say.
Could you take care of this man for us?
And, whether I intended it or not, the man in front of me was arguably the perfect person for the job of making the director disappear.
Concealing my nerves, I drove the wedge in before Baek Cheonhyeong could speak.
"There's plenty more evidence besides this. Couldn't you do something about it?"
Baek Cheonhyeong gazed at the screen for a moment, idly flipped through the open ledger, and finally looked back at me.
Then he delivered his verdict with remarkable indifference.
"That won't work."
…….
A heavy silence hung in the air for a moment.
It won't work, he says.
Why?
……Don't tell me the director had connections not just to the board of directors, but to the CEO's office as well?
A chilling thought flashed through my mind, but I suppressed the worst-case scenario and asked.
"Is there a particular reason?"
"There is."
Baek Cheonhyeong answered without hesitation and settled onto the sofa across from me. The luxurious couch, so ill-suited to a kindergarten director's office, suited him remarkably well.
Tapping the table with a finger, he began to lay it out.
"For one thing, I only took this position recently. If I handle a director with ties to the board however I please while evidence is sitting on the table like this, what do you suppose happens?"
You knew the director had ties to the board?
"The board will raise objections. And that could well become the prevailing sentiment of the boardroom."
……
"Say, for instance, that the greenhorn CEO is trying to quietly purge the higher-ups he doesn't like."
Isn't that stretching it a bit?
I couldn't imagine anyone making that kind of argument over a kindergarten directorship under a company's subsidiary.
But being ignorant of the geography of the world above me, I couldn't presume to chime in.
"Besides, in a case like this, it makes a far bigger splash when someone inside the kindergarten strikes first. It's more credible, too."
Like I don't know that.
But that would make me a whistleblower.
Even going straight to the CEO like this, the way things stood, could arguably be viewed as internal whistleblowing already.
"And when you cut a person loose, you have to prepare a plausible replacement for the position, too……"
Baek Cheonhyeong exhaled slowly and lifted his gaze from the table, where it had been pinned the whole time, and turned it on me.
Every time he'd reacted negatively, I'd been scrambling to draft workaround plans in my head, and now that his stare had abruptly landed on me, all it did was crank my combat readiness up.
So—what, exactly. What do you want from me?
Should I write up a petition and scatter it across the company lobby?
As I racked my brain over a question with no clear answer, Baek Cheonhyeong snorted a quiet laugh and said this:
"That said, it's not as though there's no way at all."
You spent all that time listing why it can't be done, and now it's not impossible?
Are you kidding me?
"And that way would be?"
"You do it, Teacher."
What?
"As an insider, you attend the regular meeting tomorrow afternoon and make the report. Oh—and find a replacement for the director while you're at it. There, that does it."
Like that's going to work?
In all my life, I had never once wanted to punch someone.
But that was about to change.
Hiding my trembling fist under the desk, I pulled my mouth into a bullet-straight line.
"Last I checked, whistleblowers don't usually meet a happy ending."
Fired, or forced to resign.
Granted, I doubted the Bada Kindergarten teachers would hold a grudge against me for turning whistleblower.
Those people are just as sick of the director as I am.
But from headquarters' perspective, who could say.
They'd probably try to clean me up and dispose of me somehow.
Steadying my tangled feelings, I forced myself to think practically.
Truthfully, this method was the reliable one. Once I finished gathering evidence, I'd figured my best option was to bide my time and post everything to the anonymous board on BOND's intranet……
I stared at the tall man in front of me.
This son of a—no, this CEO bastard—if he's in my corner?
After furiously running the calculator in my head, I pivoted my stance on the spot.
"Once I've made my report at the regular meeting…… would you step in, sir?"
Why not try having some backup myself for once.
"For someone who's pulled off what you have, you're rather small of nerve. What were you planning to do if you hadn't asked me?"
Ha….
So which is it—will you, or won't you?
A moment later, the man's gray eyes vanished behind pleasantly lowered lashes.
Baek Cheonhyeong showed me a somewhat reluctant smile.
"Adding a few words of my own, I can manage."
And then, wearing the merciful face of a predator gazing at prey it had long since cornered, he murmured quietly:
"Conveniently, a few names have come to mind to tie up and ship out along with him. Excellent."
Disgusting. Genuinely disgusting.
Taking the long view, this was a matter his own little brother was tangled up in—how could he act like that?
Was the man who interviewed kindergarten teachers out of concern for his brother a completely different person?
……Still, either way, I'd at least scrounged up some semblance of backup, so my heart eased a little.
Of course, now I have to prepare the report for the regular meeting.
Once the storm had passed, an awkward stillness settled over the room.
As I ransacked the remaining drawers and bookshelves of the director's office one by one…… I glanced at Baek Cheonhyeong, who still hadn't left, and a thought occurred to me.
Should I do the parent consultation now?
-Baek Cheonhyeong (emotional education and mental counseling)
Even if I arranged a separate session, it was a coin toss whether this man would actually show up……
This actually works out better.
I tucked the recovered ledgers and the USB into my backpack, then sat down on the sofa across from Baek Cheonhyeong.
And for a moment, I dusted off the expression I kept folded away like an occupational disease.
Gentle, radiant—somehow the kind of expression that looked like neither hardship nor tribulation had ever once touched it.
Along with the expression, my voice changed too.
Soft, and yet somehow firm.
"May I call you Cheonji's father from now on?"
"……I'm sorry, what?"
Good.
There was a lot I'd been wanting to ask you.
Sensing the abrupt shift in atmosphere, Baek Cheonhyeong awkwardly set down the ledger he'd been reading.
"What is the relationship like between Cheonji's father and Cheonji, day to day?"
"An ordinary…… sibling relationship."
"Ah, I see. Well, given the large age gap, I was worried you two might have grown distant."
That one stings.
"Watching closely, though, it seems Cheonji truly adores his brother. He talks about him a lot at kindergarten, too."
"……Does he."
Judging by his reaction, he had no idea where any of this was coming from.
Unfortunately for him, it was far too late to escape.
"That said, it seems he takes a great deal after his brother, as well."
"……"
"A productive day. The child seems fixated on that phrase. What's your take on it?"
"……"
Oho—fortunately, that's the face of a man with a guilty conscience.
Baek Cheonhyeong lowered his ever-alert eyes and calmly attempted a defense.
"Cheonji is a child who will one day inherit BOND when he grows up. I was simply trying to teach him, in advance, how to live each day with a sense of purpose……"
"Oh? Did Cheonji ever say he wanted to inherit the company?"
"……He's never said anything of the sort."
"Then it seems he'd rather not."
Baek Cheonhyeong looked at me as though I'd lost my mind, but I simply met him with easy composure.
"Cheonji's father, a seven-year-old is more delicate than you'd think—and simpler than you'd think."
"Those two words seem to sit at opposite poles."
"Children always do."
So what.
Did you think a kid was like a bean sprout that grows whenever you water it?
"You may already be aware of this, but the way I see it, Cheonji carries worries and thoughts well beyond his years."
"……"
"Taking responsible roles upon himself among his friends, or being desperate to win his teacher's approval—his behavior speaks loudly to what's going on in his head."
Now and then, there really are kids who take on those roles purely because they enjoy them.
But the way I saw it, Cheonji wasn't one of them.
For one thing, the moment I sensed burden and fixation as keywords……
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
Now he's finally speaking my language.
I nodded emphatically and delivered, with clean satisfaction, the very thing I'd most wanted to say to Baek Cheonhyeong since the day we met.
"From now on, please keep your conversations with Cheonji pitched, for the most part, at the level of a seven-year-old child."
I'm begging you.
"……"
"And please don't put too much weight on the child's shoulders. About the future, about his role, about productive days……"
Lets leave burdens like that to the grown-ups here—you and me.
"And most important of all—praise. Praise Cheonji often."
At last, Baek Cheonhyeong looked somewhat dazed, but nodded in small, clear understanding.
"Understood. Cheonji's father."
That's it. Let's do this right.
The parent consultation went far more smoothly than I'd anticipated.
……Is this really how it's done? Honestly, it was my first time too, so I couldn't say for certain.
"I'll keep that in mind……"
From the look of him, the reaction wasn't bad.
For the next hour or so after that, I kept the consultation going, trotting out gentle speech techniques and parenting-book case studies that resembled the Baek brothers' situation.
All in all, a more satisfying night than I'd expected.