Funeral and Punishment (1)
So what the hospital director is trying to say is that Chairman Kwon Byung-do was deliberately murdered? No matter how late it is, a hospital this size always has people around, and Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s room even had guards posted right outside. Who on earth could slip past the security team without a sound and commit murder inside the VIP room? A ninja?
The absurdity of the thought flashed through my mind, but the future verdict I could see reacted faster than my own reasoning.
Order 1. The defendant shall be sentenced to thirty years of imprisonment.
Order 2. The defendant shall be placed under medical treatment and custody.
Medical treatment and custody is a court-ordered compulsory treatment for someone whose mental disorder led them to commit a crime. The sentence is served in a treatment facility rather than a regular prison, so it is a genuine punishment. Even after three months, release is not automatic. If treatment fails, the person stays in custody; even if cured, they must serve the remaining sentence in prison.
A far heavier sentence than a typical murder case, plus medical custody. At this point, identifying the culprit was not difficult. At the top of the verdict, written without a single blur, was the name of the person I had suspected.
Defendant: Kwon Je-gyun
If Kwon Je-gyun killed Chairman Kwon Byung-do, it would be charged as parricide. Even as a first-time offender with diminished mental capacity, such a heavy sentence made sense. Recalling the doctor’s call yesterday—reporting Kwon Je-gyun’s discharge and that he was not fully recovered—explained why medical custody had also been ordered. I regretted how lightly I had taken that call. At the time, it had seemed Kwon Je-gyun posed no threat to me. Yet instead of targeting me, who was still fully mobile, he had gone after Chairman Kwon Byung-do, the most vulnerable person in the world, unable to move below the neck.
What a despicable bastard.
Haah… My thoughts were in turmoil. If I had paid closer attention after the doctor’s warning, could I have prevented this absurd tragedy? Could I truly say I bore no responsibility for Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s death?
The hospital director sitting across from me turned the monitor toward me.
“Would you take a look at this?”
“Yes.”
The screen showed CCTV footage from just a few hours earlier—Kwon Je-gyun entering the neurosurgery ward, the very scene of the crime.
* * *
Last night, after stopping at a convenience store, Kwon Je-gyun took a taxi to Myeongryun University Hospital and headed straight for Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s VIP room. Among the many rooms, identifying the chairman’s was easy; security team members Kwon Je-gyun occasionally saw were standing guard outside.
As he tried to push past them, an arm shot out and blocked his path.
“What brings you here?”
Kwon Je-gyun lifted his lowered head and glared at the guard with a mocking expression.
“It’s me. Kwon Je-gyun, President of QS Food. Don’t you recognize me?”
Even after being stripped of his position, he still introduced himself with that title. Apparently the sense of authority he once held had not faded. Still, the guard tasked with protecting the chairman—who ranked far above the president of QS Food—showed no fear.
“If this is a business matter, please make an appointment and return during daytime hours. We have not received any visitor notification.”
“Hey!”
“Please lower your voice. This is a hospital with recovering patients.”
Grinding his teeth, Kwon Je-gyun barely suppressed his temper, pulled out his phone, and barked, “I’m not here for business. I came as a son to see my father. An appointment? Do I have to show you the message my father sent telling me to come? He called me over. Are you that curious about what we have to say to each other?”
“Even so, wouldn’t it be better to come back tomorrow afternoon?”
“I couldn’t see him when he collapsed, nor after he woke up. Now that I’ve finally been able to come, isn’t it only natural that both he and I would want to meet as soon as possible? Who are you to interfere between the chairman and his son?”
The guard hesitated, then turned to consult his colleagues. It was the last chance to stop the incident, but unfortunately their discussion concluded that they should not interfere with a father-son reunion.
“My apologies. Please go in.”
Without answering, Kwon Je-gyun brushed past the guard’s shoulder and entered the room. He stood beside the bed where Chairman Kwon Byung-do lay and looked down with a face full of mad glee, as if he had finally risen above the chairman.
“Father, why did you do it? Handing the QS Group over to Ho-gyun? If it had been Seong-gyun hyung, I wouldn’t have gone this far.”
The sleeping chairman gave no reply. Kwon Je-gyun’s voice dropped as he continued his deranged muttering.
“Since it’s come to this, I’ll make sure no one else can have what I couldn’t. I’ll kill Father, that bastard Kwon Ho-gyun, and even Seong-gyun hyung if I have to. That doctor bitch who kept me locked up for three months is the same. It’s all over.”
With each word, Kwon Je-gyun lowered his head until, by the end, his lips were nearly touching the chairman’s ear. Perhaps he thought that would drive his words into the chairman’s mind. His intent was unclear, but the effect was immediate: Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s eyes opened.
The chairman’s weakened eyes slowly widened upon seeing the intruder. He gasped roughly, as if trying to speak, but no sound escaped. Everything was muffled inside the large artificial respirator covering his mouth and nose, dissipating into faint wisps.
Seeing this, Kwon Je-gyun’s grin widened, his inner madness swelling. Ziiip—. He unzipped his coat, reached inside, and pulled out the item he had bought at the convenience store. Riiip—. Tearing open the packaging, he revealed an enormous pair of scissors. He had prepared them after watching the succession press conference live and learning that the chairman was on a respirator. Their size was so large they looked more like industrial shears than ordinary scissors—large enough to cut through bone in a single stroke if used in a kitchen.
Kwon Je-gyun felt pleased with his choice upon seeing that the respirator and its tubes were thicker than they had appeared on television. Snip—. In the next instant, his earlier vow to kill was carried out. The tube connected to Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s respirator was severed by the scissors.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep—. Less than ten seconds after the act, it became clear the crime had not been meticulously planned. The monitor tracking the chairman’s vital signs detected a rapid drop in oxygen saturation and triggered an alarm. Panicked, Kwon Je-gyun tried to silence the blaring machine but could not find the way, and the sound only grew more urgent. Though it felt like an eternity to him, less than a minute had passed when a loud announcement echoed through the ceiling speakers.
— Code blue. Code blue. VIP Room 2101, Neurosurgery Ward. Code blue.
Kwon Je-gyun did not understand the term, but in hospitals, “code blue” is the emergency alert summoning medical staff when a patient’s heart stops. The VIP room monitor was directly linked to the nurses’ station, which had triggered the code upon detecting the abnormality.
— VIP Room 2101, Neurosurgery Ward. Code blue.
The urgent announcement continued without pause. Kwon Je-gyun realized he could no longer intervene. He pulled his hands away from the monitor and rushed toward the window. Escaping through the door would be impossible with the guards outside.
Whoosh—. Yet jumping from the window was never an option. Kwon Je-gyun realized this the moment he opened it. They were on the twenty-first floor; leaping from this height meant certain death, or at best a body shattered beyond recognition.
Whoosh, crash, bang, bang—. While Kwon Je-gyun leaned out the window, the door burst open and over a dozen medical staff rushed in. The most senior doctor reflexively leapt to the chairman’s bedside and began chest compressions.
“Epi 1 mg IV! Bring the defibrillator! Hurry!”
The staff moved swiftly at the doctor’s command. Just as Kwon Je-gyun thought no one was paying attention to him—
Thud—. The security guards who had followed the medical team entered, and the same guard Kwon Je-gyun had shoved earlier placed a hand on his shoulder.
“What happened here?”
“I don’t know! I was talking to Father when that thing suddenly went off and this happened!”
“If you were speaking with the chairman, why are you standing by the window?”
“It was hot! I thought Father was feeling warm, so I was trying to let in some fresh air!”
The guard shook his head at Kwon Je-gyun’s incoherent, illogical excuses.
“You’ll need to stay with us until the situation is assessed and resolved tomorrow morning.”
Kwon Je-gyun tried to shake off the hand on his shoulder, but the attempt failed miserably. He could only scream.
“Aargh!”
The guard’s powerful grip had twisted his shoulder. Kwon Je-gyun was dragged out. Despite the medical team’s desperate efforts, Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s heart restarted only to stop again. With each cardiac arrest, hope diminished, and the doctors’ faces grew darker. By the next morning, the final death pronouncement was made.
* * *
After showing me the full CCTV footage, the hospital director apologized again.
“Based on this, the circumstances clearly point to Kwon Je-gyun as the perpetrator. However, hospital policy prohibits installing CCTV inside VIP rooms, so the actual crime scene was not recorded. We did secure this, though.”
What the director handed me were the severed respirator tube and the large pair of scissors that had clearly cut it. Both had been placed in evidence bags, as if the police had already collected them. With evidence like this, there was no way Kwon Je-gyun could escape punishment. The future verdict had already handed down a severe sentence, so no other variables would arise in the legal process.
Yet that fact alone did nothing to calm my heart. Clenching my fists, I asked the director,
“Where is Kwon Je-gyun right now?”