Your Notebook Was Right
The elevator indicator stopped at the seventh floor.
Two men stepped out. The hallway was empty. Room 703. They stood silently in front of the door. One pulled out a device and pressed it against the electronic lock. It was something that should open in thirty seconds.
The device didn't work.
It wasn't the electronic door lock that had died. The device itself had. The backup device too. Their cell phones. Even their wristwatches. Every piece of electronic equipment they carried fell silent at once.
The two exchanged glances. Then they switched to a physical method. One wedged a lever into the door crack.
The lever bent.
The steel lever twisted like taffy, slipped from his hand, and floated into the air. Then, right before their eyes, it slowly tied itself into a knot. Like a ribbon.
The hallway's emergency lights flicked on all at once. Instinctively, the two men bolted for the stairs. They yanked open the stairwell door.
Beyond the door, there were no stairs.
More precisely, the entire landing was the night sky over the city center. They couldn't stop—they stepped forward—and instead of falling, they floated upward. Another familiar sight unfolded. Fifty meters above the officetel. Two men hanging upside down.
Inside room 703, the instructor had no idea of the commotion. He was just clutching his bag, wide-eyed through a sleepless night. He only learned of the two people floating upside down outside his window when the sirens sounded at dawn.
Before daybreak, the sky flashed briefly.
That final line froze the air in the signless private room. All that time they believed themselves anonymous, the sky had been watching. Knowing, but not calling.
The silence in the private room was broken by the eldest's low voice.
"...Pull out. Cut ties with Cheonmyeonghoe. Clean up Myeongjin too."
"Here? The funds just crossed 100 billion."
"It's not about the money. Didn't you hear that? Knows but doesn't call. It's not trying to catch us. It wants us caught... by the people. In their hands."
For the first time in his life, he admitted they were the prey. For fifty years, they had rigged the board. But now, someone was rigging a bigger one. And on that board, they were the pieces. Passed from hand to hand.
"Erase the traces. Go underground. Until no light reaches."
But that order came half a step too late. Three months' worth of scripts had already arrived at the newspaper.
Early that morning, the instructor arrived safely at the newspaper.
Cha Pil-gu greeted him and led him to an empty conference room. The instructor handed over the envelope with trembling hands. Three months of scripts. And partially erased author information.
"Why... bring it to me?"
"Back when you exposed me, I ground my teeth. But working this job, I realized—you were right then. And now. I was a doll reading scripts then, and still am."
He smiled weakly.
"Saw Han Bong-su's interview. The witness. ...I want to be a person, not a doll, just once."
Cha Pil-gu took the envelope. He opened the file. The scripts were meticulous. Negative phrasing, anxiety triggers, fund inducements. Designs at a psychological research paper level. And the author info on the last file.
Myeongjin Research.
The company that had surfaced in the chairman's court testimony but remained untouchable without hard evidence. Proof that it wrote Cheonmyeonghoe's scripts now lay in his hands. For the first time in twenty years, he had touched the shadow's flesh.
Cha Pil-gu stared at the instructor for a long moment. Then he asked.
"You know handing this over puts you in danger. They came to your door last night. Those... guests."
The instructor's face went pale. The dawn sirens. The two hanging upside down. His hand trembled on the envelope.
"...And yet, you're alive. Thanks to me."
"Heaven protected you. People who try to speak truth don't die anymore. That's the new national rule."
The instructor was silent for a while. Then he looked up.
"Reporter. I'll... do an interview too. On the record. I was gonna hand over the scripts and run, but I changed my mind. Lies I read with my mouth—I gotta smash them with my mouth. And apologize... to the people who saw me as a savior on that stage."
Cha Pil-gu nodded and opened his notebook. One more name joined the witness list. Han Bong-su, Han Ji-young, and this man.
That day, a small clue arrived for Seo Ha-jin too.
The two who had been hung were tight-lipped as expected. Anonymous job, faceless client. But this time, something turned up in their lodging. A burner phone. Outgoing calls erased, but recharge records remained. The recharge spot: a convenience store in front of a hanjeongsik restaurant in the city center. The alley with the signless private room.
"Investigator Ko Jin-su. Get us the reservation ledger for that hanjeongsik place."
"They won't hand it over without a warrant."
"Then let's get a warrant. This time... even the judge can't deny it. The whole country's watching."
The net was tightening, link by link.
That evening, Nam Do-yun burst into the convenience store. Grabbing two triangle kimbaps, he chattered away.
"Hyung! You see that officetel footage? Caught it live at dawn—man, the upside-down angle was artistic. But who lives there for those guys to target?"
"Who knows. We'll find out soon enough."
"Hyung always says that. 'We'll find out soon enough.' But weirdly, when you say it, we really do..."
Kim Jeongsang scanned the barcode. 1,700 won. He didn't reply.
That night, Cha Pil-gu stayed alone at the newspaper, drafting the article.
Title: 'The Scripts of Heaven's Business—Whose Hand Wrote Cheonmyeonghoe?'
Around midnight, he went up to the rooftop. To clear his head. Ten years smoke-free, but nights like this made him miss it. He leaned on the railing, gazing at the city lights.
"Took twenty years..."
It was a mutter to himself. Twenty years ago, that memo. Shadow. Entity unknown. But definitely there. Even on the night he wrote that line, he had been on this rooftop.
Then it came.
Twenty years ago, your notebook was right.
Cha Pil-gu froze.
The voice echoed in his head. The voice that had rung across the nation. But now, the city and streets were silent. It spoke only to him.
"...Talking to me? Right now?"
Yes. First time. Speaking to one person alone.
Cha Pil-gu gripped the railing. His legs went weak. Thirty years as a reporter, he'd seen it all—but a solo interview with a divine being? First time.
Twenty years ago, you chased the right thing and ended up alone. Your sources got hurt. You stopped. That night on this rooftop, what you wrote in your notebook—I saw it.
"...You've been watching since then?"
I've watched a long time. People like you breaking alone. That's one reason I appeared.
Cha Pil-gu's eyes burned. If someone had told that twenty-years-ago self. You're not alone. Someone's watching.
"...Just watching? For twenty years?"
Half accusation in the question. He startled himself saying it. Arguing with God. But the voice didn't anger.
Yes. Just watched. That's my greatest sin.
An unexpected answer.
Didn't know if I had the right to step in. Or how far to go. So I hesitated long. Meanwhile, your sources got hurt, Han Bong-su broke, Jeong Seong-bok's family died. People broke as much as I hesitated.
So this is an apology too. Sorry for coming so late...
Cha Pil-gu clung to the railing, speechless for a long time. An apology from God. Twenty years late. Yet strangely, it landed. Late truth is still truth—he'd written that himself.
"...Late, but you came. That's enough."
He roughly wiped his eyes.
"Let's do what the living do. So, what do you want from me?"
Myeongjin Research is a finger. The body is behind it. The ones you chased twenty years ago.
"I know. But why not expose them yourself? You could end it tonight."
If I expose, people become spectators again. And they regrow in the dark. To uproot, people must do it. Recorded, tried, made history.
That hand... is yours, old man.
Cha Pil-gu chuckled. Old man, huh. Even God calls him that.
"Heavy appointment. I'm old now. Slow on my feet."
Not words from someone who held on twenty years.
"...True enough."
One promise. While you chase truth, no one touches you. Or your sources. Nothing like twenty years ago. Never again.
Cha Pil-gu gazed at the city long. Then he pulled out his notebook, flipped to that page from twenty years ago. Under 'Hunt Resumed,' he added a line.
'Got a backer. Solid.'
"I'll go to the end. But one question. Why me? Plenty of young, fast reporters."
The answer came a beat late. And at it, the old reporter finally shed tears.
For twenty years, you never tore out that page.
Back at the convenience store, Kim Jeongsang retied his apron.
First time. Speaking to one person alone. He always spoke to all or none. Never picked one. Picking made favoritism, and favoritism led to deification.
But today, he chose. A twenty-year debt needed twenty-year words. A broadcast to the nation wouldn't console one old man's twenty years.
And no need to step out further. Cheonmyeonghoe and Myeongjin would crumble now. Instructor's testimony, script evidence, hanjeongsik warrant. People's hands were closing the net. His job: protect those hands unscathed to the end. That alone.
One thing nagged at him, though.
That order in the private room. Go underground where no light reaches. He knew where they meant. And that place... wasn't inside the barrier.
Precisely, the other side of an ancient passage connected to the outside, even before the barrier fell.
"The tail was outside."