12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

I read the title of the article again with my eyes blinking.

[Director Tak Joon-gi of Suyeon Travel jumped to his death.]

It was a shocking article. I read it slowly, swallowing.

[Director Tak Joon-gi of Suyeon Travel, who was accused of manipulating stock prices and murder, jumped from the top of the headquarters building of Suyeon Travel and died.]

After seeing the first line, I found my cell phone instead of reading the article. The news I was watching was news in 12 Hours After. Tak Joon-gi would die within twelve hours. No matter how evil he was, I could not make a man die.

‘Do I have to call Tak Joon-gi to convince him not to kill himself? No, he will not listen to me… Then, should I call 119?’ To call 119, I needed to know the exact time when he would be going to make the jump. I read more about the article, especially the time he jumped off. He had died at 9:18 p.m.

[Police said Tak jumped off from the roof of his own Suyeon Travel building at 9:18 p.m. today and died.]

I felt a slight chill in my body. I was just watching the nine o’clock news. I picked up my cell phone, and it was 9:24. It was already too late. Six minutes ago, Tak Joon-gi was already dead.

‘Even he threw himself off, if I had reported in a hurry, he would have been able to survive, wouldn’t he?’ I thought of that, but it was written in the article.

[119 crew members, called by a number of passers-by who were traveling around the Suyeon Travel Building, were dispatched to check his condition, and deduced that he had immediately died after the jump…]

They said that he had jumped from the roof of the building, so he must have died immediately. I put my phone down.

‘Huh, of all occasions, at that time…’ 12 Hours After did not match its name. Sometimes it would release the news of 6 Hours After, 3 Hours After, and 1 Hour After. That exactly extended up to the news of twelve hours, but it aired the future news from less than thirty minutes this time. Because I watched the news late, the future news became the past news.

‘… if I hadn’t seen the nine o’clock news…’ If I had read the future news as soon as I had woken up at 8:55, I would have known twenty minutes before Tak Joon-gi died. Now, it was too late. Tak Joon-gi died six minutes ago. This was not the future news, it was the reality.

I went back to the portal site and searched for ‘Tak Joon-gi.’ The news of his death hadn’t come up yet.

‘If it’s six minutes, they will collect the body soon.’

He was dead. I thought about him for a moment, leaning back in my chair. ‘He didn’t even raise his eyes to kill anyone… I’m not sorry to hear that he is dead, but he should have been sentenced by the law.’ However, whenever I thought that Tak Joon-gi had committed suicide, I felt a strange sense of resistance, a strange sense of conflict in my mind.

‘What is it…? Why…’

Strange as it was, I picked up my cell phone and saw the text sent by Tak Joon-gi once again. This seemed to have been sent by himself. It was a text full of curses and malice, ‘… I’ll pay you back. You son of a bitch.’

I read the sentence over again. ‘A man who is going to take revenge on me… committed suicide?’

That was the source of my sense of conflict. I checked the time the text had been sent: exactly 8:30. He had killed himself at 9:24, less than an hour since he had sent the text.

‘He was determined to avenge himself, but within an hour, he killed himself. Revenge is a powerful motivator for a person.’ I was a little unconvinced.

‘Too angry? Did he jump off since he couldn’t handle it anymore?’ I didn’t think so. He wasn’t such a man. He had a style that was cold to others, but very attached to himself. Reporter Kang Joo-hyuk, likewise, chose to kill himself after being cornered, but Tak Joon-gi was not a man to commit suicide.

‘Maybe… it’s not a suicide, but murder?,’ I thought. He had many enemies. If others found out that they had lost all their money because of him, there were those who would go after him with a sword. My girlfriend Ah-young was so weak that she could not think of doing it, but she also brought up revenge when she was drunk.

‘If someone called him to the roof and pushed him off… Maybe…?’ There might be more written in the article. I read more articles.

[The police found a suicide note on the rooftop of the Suyeon Travel…] So, there was a suicide note. If there was a suicide note, it only meant that there was a suicide, or that it was disguised as a suicide.

[The will contains an apology for all the victims who suffered losses due to his stock manipulations…] By the way, the contents of the suicide note were strange.

‘He wouldn’t say he was sorry to anyone. What a lie! Of course, he was good at lying and it might be… ‘ But the thought was awkward. I thought about his death with my arms crossed. Some time later, even in reality, there was news around 9:50.

[Breaking News – Director Tak Joon-ki jumped to his death from his own company building.]

It appeared twenty-two minutes after his death, and was fast enough to be “breaking news.” However, it wasn’t that fast for me.

————–

The next morning, as usual, I put on my clothes and left the apartment.

Jang Geun was waiting for me, and said, “Let’s go, boss.” I took the elevator with him, but the silent Jang Geun first brought out the story as he pressed the button on the first basement floor. “Boss, did you see yesterday… the news that Director Tak Joon-gi died?”

‘Of course. I’d have seen it the fastest in the world!’ Thinking so inwardly, I answered briefly, “Yes.”

“… I see.” Thanks to the words, “Tak Joon-gi is my enemy,” Jang Geun must have been paying attention to him.

The enemy was dead, and it was very awkward.

Secretary Seo, who was waiting for us in the parking lot, also brought it up, “Did you see the news yesterday, boss? I was surprised.”

It was not too much. Yesterday, Tak Joon-gi climbed to the top of the real-time search list; one for the article of his corruption at 4 p.m. and one for the article of his death at 9 p.m.

“When I saw him before, he was really… never going to kill himself…” Secretary Seo had seen him several times before. Tak had always maintained a strong and arrogant attitude.

I told Secretary Seo, “… I think so, too.”

Secretary Seo replied, turning the wheel, “Is that right, boss? Well, he had lived in luxury as a third-generation chaebol, and if he went to jail and sat there, it would be hell for him.”

“… Yes…”

Then, suddenly, Secretary Seo said, “Ah! Don’t tell me… it might happen to be!”

I asked him, “What is it?”

“Maybe… he didn’t want to go to jail, and he disguised himself with a pinch hitter. He might turn himself into someone else.”

I shook my head, “I don’t think so.”

It was once said that a notorious con artist, Cho Hee-pal, died in disguise in China, but that was only possible in a foreign country. No matter how weak our nation’s public power was, he could not change and kill a person.

“He could find a similar person…”

“There was no time to pick a man. The article was at 12:00, and he died at 9:00.”

“Oh, I see.”

Jang Geun, who was next to me, also said a word, “Maybe if he were going to take that route… he was not going to be thrown down, but burned to death. But if they check his dental history, they’ll find it.”

Tak Joon-gi was surely dead, but I suspected more than that, that he was intentionally killed, a case of him being murdered. There were a lot of people who would be damaged if Tak was left alive. Perhaps there were some people who were at ease after his death.

Moon Hee-sang, a prosecutor at the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office, was a representative of the case. He was the very person whose real name was written on the information Crow had brought; he was the person who had investigated and reported the case of stock price manipulation in the Bisang Construction to the upper managers of the investigation. He was supposed to get $700,000 in cash secretly from Tak Joon-gi. However, now that Tak Joon-gi was dead, it was highly likely that the investigation would be disrupted if prosecutors started to investigate one another.

‘I’d like to see the suicide note of Tak Joon-gi directly…’ I was very curious about the suicide note that had apologized to someone. However, the suicide note was not released to the press. If it was not released to the press, I couldn’t get it from the future news.

————-

“Hmm…”

“We are here, boss.” The car that Secretary Seo drove arrived at the company in no time. I decided to put aside the business of Tak Joon-gi and focus on my work. I had work to do today.

I spoke to Secretary Seo in the elevator, “Call Vice President Jang and tell him to come to the president’s office.”

“Yes, boss.”

I called Vice President Jang about Suyeon Travel. With the bad news, the man that held 30% of the company, being resolved, it might rebound.

Secretary Seo brought Vice President Jang to the president’s office.

“Did you call me?”

“Yes, Vice President Jang. Did you see the news yesterday?”

Tak Joon-gi’s name didn’t come out, but Jang replied immediately, “Yes, I saw it. I ordered the short stock sale team to wait and see.”

“Good job. Please be flexible about the short stock sale, whether you will buy back or watch, when you see the market.”

“Yes, boss.”

To that end, I turned on the HTS when I finished responding to the death of Tak Joon-gi.

‘Yes, let’s forget about Tak Joon-gi, I’m sorry to hear that he is dead, but… Now that the man who’s gonna die is dead, that’s enough. Let’s earn money as usual.’ To make money as usual, but the mystery of Tak Joon-gi’s death lingered in my mind. I hit the desk with my fist. ‘I wonder…’

A person worthy to die was dead, but it was so strange to think about it. I picked up my cell phone and turned on the calendar app. Once I unlocked the complex patterned lock that only I knew, it was heavily illustrated with when to buy and what to sell, and the road map to make money. This month was packed to the point where there was nothing more to fill.

‘Yes, this is enough money this month.’ Thinking so, at 8:55, when I received the email, I scrolled right down to the bottom without even looking at the title of the article. There was a phrase written there, “Do you want to call Crow? (One time remaining).”