Turning the Enemy Commander into an Ally (2)
White judgment documents weren't something I saw often, but from my experience so far, there was only one scenario where they appeared. It meant the prosecution had reviewed a complaint or accusation and determined no crime had been committed, so the case never reached trial. Yet the defamation K had committed against Park Da-hyun already carried a separate guilty verdict. So what was this blank document? For now, all I could infer was that another layer to this case still lay hidden from me. The fact that it never reached court simply meant it held no legal significance, and since I could uncover the truth with a little digging anyway, there was no need to fret.
* * *
Once I realized that simply getting involved in Park Da-hyun's school violence exposé would resolve the matter, I checked the time and saw lunch hour approaching. Investing my valuable time and effort in this affair was ultimately to bring Chae Hee-geon under my control. Therefore, obtaining the basic information he needed from him at the outset seemed like a reasonable move.
— Team Leader, if you don't have lunch plans today, I'd like to treat you. There's something I'd like to discuss as well.
Chae Hee-geon's reply to the message I sent through the Junggyeongbon internal messenger came quickly. Too quickly, in fact, and it wasn't particularly satisfying.
Pfft. The awkward, uncomfortable demeanor Chae Hee-geon always displayed whenever he ran into me in the hallways of QS Tower was perfectly captured in that message. There was another point of amusement in it too. Even though he didn't need to specify a title, he had deliberately written "Audit Team Leader." It revealed his reluctance to acknowledge me either as the young master who would one day lead the QS Group or as a qualified lawyer.
Of course, whatever thoughts he harbored made no difference to me. Before long, he would be bowing his head and begging to lead the vanguard of my march toward absolute power. I decided to give Chae Hee-geon one more chance and sent another message.
Oh? So he intended to keep playing hard to get.
He wanted to swallow only the information he needed without offering anything in return. I replied again.
Unlike his first reply, Chae Hee-geon took quite a while to respond this time. His mind was probably spinning furiously, beads of sweat forming. It would be difficult for him to refuse assistance from the Audit Team on a matter involving legal issues, especially given the case-handling skills I'd already demonstrated. Yet accepting my offer to help with a problem that was giving him a headache would bruise the pride of someone who had only ever seen me as a good-for-nothing.
It made no difference to me how Chae Hee-geon reacted. I simply solved the problems I had decided to solve in a way that advanced my own goals. Chae Hee-geon might possess information about Park Da-hyun and the self-proclaimed victim K, but I could obtain that level of detail far too easily on my own.
Look at that—another message was already arriving. This time it was from Song A-reum, the reporter from Hanbit Ilbo whom I'd met at the QS Electronics franchisee abuse press conference.
Besides Yu Ju-yeon and Song A-reum, several other reporters I'd met while resolving cases through the media had also reached out. Since it didn't matter where I obtained the basic information on this incident, it posed no problem even if Chae Hee-geon continued to ignore me. On the contrary, once the case was resolved, the burden on Chae Hee-geon—who had refused to cooperate with the Audit Team that offered help on a matter that was technically his responsibility—would only increase.
While I was contemplating how to reply to the reporters, a message from Chae Hee-geon arrived with only three minutes left until lunch hour, suggesting he had grown desperate.
Pfft. The way he tried to dress it up as the PR Team Leader treating me. He was going to pay with a corporate card linked to the company account that would eventually belong to me anyway—what did he mean by "treat"? Whether I paid with my personal card or the QS corporate card, it was still me footing the bill.
The lunch meeting I ended up having with Chae Hee-geon was, frankly, rather bland. More precisely, it seemed Chae Hee-geon wanted it to remain that way. As if he had no desire to discuss the Park Da-hyun school violence exposé in depth, he handed me a prepared document the moment we sat down. Though he'd had at most fifteen minutes to prepare, the document neatly contained all the basic information required, true to his reputation for efficient work. It included Park Da-hyun's direct contact number, basic personal details on the self-proclaimed victim K and those around her, as well as the high school the two had attended where the alleged school violence occurred and the contact information for the teachers at the time.
Then, as if to suggest that was all I could possibly want to ask, he kept steering the conversation away from the case toward other topics—jokes he'd heard somewhere, trivial stories about his personal life, and even comments about which female employee in Junggyeongbon was attractive. Since the document didn't contain everything I was curious about, I posed a question that would have felt awkward if not asked face-to-face.
"By the way, how did Park Da-hyun come to be selected as our group's promotional model?"
"Hahaha, is there any grand reason for choosing a model? I should have looked into it more carefully, but back then I never dreamed something like a school violence exposé would surface. As you've seen on TV, Team Leader, she's quite pretty, isn't she? That's why we selected her."
Hmm. The more we talked, the more suspicious his behavior seemed. It felt as though he was trying to paint himself as a lecher to avoid answering important questions. If he had been a simpleton, I would have devoured him on the spot, but Chae Hee-geon was someone who had survived and thrived in a large corporation for decades. Thanks to his skill at deflecting, today's lunch meeting concluded with nothing more than the basic information needed to resolve the case. Yet doubts continued to rise within me.
When I first sent the message, Chae Hee-geon's refusal might not have stemmed solely from his dislike of Kwon Ho-gyun as an individual, but also from my position as Audit Team Leader. There could be details in the process of selecting Park Da-hyun as the model—a decision known to have been pushed by Chae Hee-geon—that the Audit Team was never meant to discover. And that might be precisely why I had seen both Park Da-hyun's defamation judgment and the blank judgment document together in this case's overview.
Strangely, these suspicions didn't sour my mood. Quite the opposite, in fact. If Chae Hee-geon was hiding something that shouldn't become public, then once I uncovered it through resolving this case, he would have no choice but to submit to me completely.
* * *
After finishing the rather flavorless lunch that felt as though it lacked salt, I returned to the Audit Team office and carefully examined the documents I'd received. Not because the content was entertaining, but because there was work to be done with the newly acquired information. As I turned each page, the vague outline of the case I'd known only through articles and passing remarks grew clearer in my mind. And as expected, once concrete details about the incident were inputted, my ability to preview judgments revealed far more than before.
Oh? A section that made my eyes widen appeared.
Reason. (...) The defendant disseminated false information through the media, inflicting irreparable financial and emotional damage upon the victim, who is an entertainer by profession, and even obtained unjust financial gain thereby. The nature of the crime is grave. However, taking into account that the defendant has no prior convictions of the same nature (...)
The phrase "and even obtained unjust financial gain thereby" had not appeared in the previous judgment I'd seen. In other words, the woman named Ko Mi-jin—K's real name—had orchestrated this incident not out of malice toward Park Da-hyun, but for money. The vague concern I'd felt when deciding to intervene in this case vanished completely. If the false exposé had been driven by a grudge between two high school girls who simply hadn't gotten along, I wouldn't have had the slightest idea how to reconcile them. If the root of this matter had been an emotional conflict between teenage girls, the effort required would have far outweighed any reward, leaving me exhausted for nothing.
How fortunate that the issue turned out to be money—a problem I was all too familiar with as the son of a chaebol family. This made the case far easier for me to approach and resolve. Moreover, the direction of the solution shifted dramatically. From now on, my focus needed to be not on Ko Mi-jin, but on whoever had paid her to make the false accusation. I had cast a casual fishing line, and already Chae Hee-geon's unease, along with the powerful forces capable of orchestrating such a large-scale scandal with money, were biting one after another.
* * *
That evening, I entered the café where I had arranged to meet Ko Mi-jin. Having been informed of her outfit in advance via message, I could identify her sitting in the far corner even from a distance. Yet with every step I took closer, Ko Mi-jin's condition appeared considerably worse than expected.