Finding His Birth Parents (2)
If they had truly accepted him as their child after he came back from overseas adoption, there would have been no reason to drag a civil servant into this and force a lie. That left only one conclusion.
Then they knew I’d come looking, and they abandoned me all over again?
In the middle of that bitter reality, today’s little exchange had revealed one more useful piece of information.
My parents are powerful enough to exert influence over public offices.
That meant they had enough clout to silence an uncooperative civil servant and enough reach to put someone on his tail.
...Or they’d simply piled up an obscene amount of money.
James reached that conclusion in one swift chain of reasoning. But what he was really sorting through was not whether his birth parents existed, or how well they lived.
You rejected me?
James had never carried any longing or affection for his birth parents in the first place. All he wanted was the reason they had abandoned him. Once he knew that, everything would be over.
...How should I deal with you?
At that moment, he was thinking about what level of punishment the people on the other end deserved. But very soon, he realized what he had overlooked.
“…Ah.”
Tap, tap.
The tips of James’s shoes pointed toward the man who had turned his head away and was pretending not to notice him.
Swish.
The man in the suit, who had been stealing glances at James from the corner of his eye, saw James coming and hurried back toward his car, one hand already reaching for the door handle. He looked ready to drive off at once.
Seeing that, James lifted his hand.
Swish.
'Stop.'
Click.
These days, he didn’t even need to summon mana aloud for simple magic. A brief intent was enough.
He froze.
“……”
James walked up to him while the man remained with one hand on the handle, staring ahead in a daze.
James draped an arm over his shoulder and brought a finger to the man’s forehead.
Let’s see what kind of face the person who sent you has.
Tap.
Pressing his index finger to the man’s brow, James began to trace the reason he had come here and started taking pictures of him.
“Assistant Manager Cho. Today’s job is all about security. That’s why I called in someone I could trust.”
“Thank you, Director.”
“This stays between you and me. If you handle this well and keep your mouth shut from here on out, the company will keep moving you up.”
“…Please keep counting on me, Director. Leave it to me.”
“Heh. I trust you, Assistant Manager Cho, more than I trust most people.”
After that, the man called Director went on and on about what Assistant Manager Cho was supposed to do, and Cho only nodded along, never once questioning him.
“……”
“...Just in case, I’ll tell you this much.”
He had originally intended to tell him nothing at all, but the complete lack of questions had made his mouth itch.
“That man... he’s probably the president’s illegitimate son. He’s lived overseas for so long he can barely speak Korean.”
“!”
“I handled the government paperwork through my contacts, so all you have to do is take photos on the day he shows up. Simple, right?”
“Then is there another assignment after that?”
“No. After that, other people will keep track of his movements. They don’t know anything either; they’ll just shadow the guy for a few days.”
“If all I have to do is take pictures, then this is a very easy job for me. I didn’t hear the rest. Director, my hearing’s not very good. I’m sorry.”
He was saying that he hadn’t heard anything because it was classified from the start. But every one of those words was being relayed to James through the man’s forehead.
“Heh. You’re exactly the type for the secretary’s office. Good. Go on.”
“Yes. I’ll report back after I return.”
As he left the building, the company name shining on the exterior wall came into view. It was the image James had wanted all along.
“……”
James removed his finger from the man’s forehead and folded his arms.
So that’s where it was.
“……”
The man known as Assistant Manager Cho was still standing there, one hand on the car handle, frozen in place.
James turned away, leaving the government office the way he had come, and as he did, his hand flicked upward with a faint rustle.
Click.
With that small snap, Cho’s stiffened body loosened.
“!”
...What was I just doing?
Cho remembered that he had been taking pictures. But the fact that James had come to check on him, or that he had approached him, had been wiped clean away.
Right! That man! I’m going to lose him.
Click, click!
The camera in his hand rattled off a burst of shutters, catching James’s retreating back.
So this side is sorted. Which means the rest are the stalkers?
From what he had learned through this one man, there were others watching too.
That day, James wandered through the subway and the busiest parts of the city, searching for the people who were monitoring and tracking him. In the end, he identified them all.
Click.
The last observer fell prey to James’s illusion, and James headed for his original destination.
Cross-checking is mandatory before you move a job forward.
The place James arrived at was the very first place where he had uncovered a problem that day.
Now it’s your turn.
“I’m heading out first.”
“Take care.”
“See you tomorrow, officer.”
She greeted the coworkers around her and was leaving right on time.
Beep.
It was only when she reached the parking lot and was about to start the car and pull away that she suddenly stopped moving.
Click.
Like Assistant Manager Cho that morning, she was staring ahead with a glazed, unfocused look.
Swish.
Then James rose from the back seat.
You probably know a lot too.
His finger touched her forehead.
“……”
After confirming her brief memory, James got out of the car and left her sitting there, frozen in place.
Click.
Awakened by James’s snap, she started the car normally and drove home, none the wiser.
“My sweetie’s waiting for me, isn’t he? I should hurry~”
She had no idea anything had happened to her at all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The black sky held only a handful of stars, each one straining to assert its presence, while below, the city lights burned brilliantly, replacing the stars with their own glittering blaze.
“Life really is...”
James stood on a hotel rooftop overlooking downtown Seoul, replaying the events of the day in his head.
“No matter how badly things get tangled up...”
According to the last information he had gotten from the civil servant, it had not been his parents who had rejected him. It had been only one of them. His mother, it seemed, was impossible to meet.
Because she was already dead.
The records the civil servant had uncovered stated that she had died after going missing.
“My birth mother was declared dead after a disappearance, and around the same time my birth father secretly sent me to an orphanage... so that’s how it went?”
Unlike what James had been told earlier, the records from the orphanage still remained intact. That was where his mother’s death had been recorded.
“At least they gave them my real name.”
The civil servant had found James’s Korean name, Choi Ji-min, in the archives and started checking it against the database. Normally the old records would not still exist in digital form, but some entries had survived because of past paper-to-database conversion work. Even the small note left behind when a child was placed in the orphanage had often been preserved as a scanned image during that process.
And there, the civil servant had discovered the name of an old company.
“Taeyoung Telecom? Was my father someone who worked there?”
It was a giant corporation that had since changed its name to TY Telecom.
The civil servant, thinking it might be worth trying, had contacted TY Telecom and tried to track down the employee listed in the note. It had been many years ago, but information about former employees might still remain.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t connect you to the president. Officer, if you don’t mind, may I ask what this is regarding? I can leave a message for you.”
“H-he... h-he was the president?”
From there, the call between TY Telecom and the civil servant had unfolded, and what followed was a heartwarming(?) display of sweet little hush money being passed across the line. Satisfied with the money, she had flashed James a bright smile and showered him with polite lies. That was the whole reason her attitude had changed that day.
Thud.
James dropped onto the edge of the hotel rooftop railing and scratched his head hard.
“Still, if Mom disappeared before I was sent to the orphanage, then it means they didn’t both abandon me, right?”
According to the documents the civil servant had reviewed, he had been placed in the orphanage about one to two months after birth. No matter what magic he used, he couldn’t recover memories from within the first six months of life, so that period was a blank void in his mind. But James decided to think about it positively.
Mom must have loved me.
The fact that he had been sent to the orphanage only after she was declared missing made that likely.
But why?
And yet another question had surfaced. It was the kind of question that came because James refused to accept things without doubt.
Why was she reported missing? A young mother with a child...
No matter how he looked at it, the disappearance had no visible cause.
A woman who had even given birth just vanished and was declared dead for no reason?
James’s gaze settled on one point.
TY Telecom.
It was a sign he could often see in the busy districts of Korea’s cities.
Could that be your doing too?
The only mage in the world had begun to have doubts.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A dark conference room was lit by the beam of a projector. A man stood in the cone of light, pointing at the screen as images flickered behind him.
“Name: James Kane. He was adopted into the United States about twenty-two years ago. After that, records show he lived with his American foster parents...”
These were the details James himself had written down when he began searching for his birth parents. The secretary delivering the presentation had identified him using the data he had received from the civil servant. However, because nothing about the Texas mass shooting had been included in the records, he knew nothing of that event at all.
“We were also able to track his movements through social media.”
The screen showed James Kane performing as a magician in Las Vegas. It was the kind of material anyone could find if they only knew the name.
“And as for yesterday’s visit...”
Just as the photographs taken by Assistant Manager Cho appeared, a small sound interrupted the secretary’s speech.
Tap.
It was only the faintest noise, the tip of a pen touching the table, but in a conference room with only two people in it, it could not be ignored.
“……”
The secretary quickly closed his mouth and sat waiting for the middle-aged man’s instruction.
“...So where is he now?”
“I’m sorry, sir. We sent out three teams—two internal and one external—but all of them lost him. Still, since he has no ties in the country, if we check the hotels we should be able to find his lodgings soon...”
He understood that finding the accommodation of a foreigner should not be difficult. What he was really curious about was something else.
“Our mistake? ...Or did he know and avoid us?”
He wondered whether information from their side might have leaked somehow.
“I’m certain nothing has leaked. The national database has already been completely destroyed, so no one can search it anymore.”
“……”
He looked at the photograph showing James’s sharp profile, glittering in the light.
“He’s handsome enough to be someone’s son.”
“……”
There was nothing more to learn.
“Just in case, pull the internal teams off surveillance for now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And reinforce the external teams. Keep tracking his location, and make sure that bastard suffers until the day he leaves the country.”
“...Yes, sir.”
“...I’ll give you just one month. If he doesn’t leave by then, handle it yourself.”
“……”
The secretary understood exactly what the president meant by handle it.
...Handle it.
It meant to erase him from the world. It was the same word he had used long ago.
“I appreciate the work. Once this is over, let’s have a drink.”
“Yes, sir.”
After the president left the conference room, the secretary tidied the desk and muttered to himself, looking at the young man on the screen.
“If you don’t leave within a month, you’ll follow the same road as your mother.”
Then he gathered up every document and shut off the projector.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The president returned to his seat, receiving his staff’s bows on the way in.
“Any special appointments?”
“None today. Tomorrow, after lunch, you have the golf appointment.”
“Then good work.”
“Yes, sir.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
One mage hid his presence on the rooftop of TY Telecom and listened in on every word.
So even my mother... that was your doing too, wasn’t it?
The mage was the kind of man who couldn’t rest until a question had been solved.
But can I do it too?
James’s eyes fixed on the black sedan leaving the company.