L*st and Death

“Ah, fuck. The funeral.”

Baekgyeong muttered the curse under his breath and pressed a hand to his forehead. He suddenly remembered—his mother’s funeral had been scheduled to be held as a private family service at a temple in Korea. If he had boarded the flight bound for Korea, he would have made it in time. But thanks to Kim Seontae’s scheme, he’d been forced onto a cheap plane with nothing but economy seats, and the next thing he knew, he’d been abducted to the island.

“That’s right. You were on your way to the funeral when you got taken onto that shady flight, weren’t you? And it was Kim Seontae who booked the plane you were kidnapped on.”

Baekgyeong turned a disbelieving stare on Siron.

“How the hell do you know that in such detail?”

“Daniel called me. Said it looked like you’d been kidnapped.”

Siron dug into his blurred memories, recalling the phone call with Daniel, his longtime fan. Daniel had told him that a man named Samuel Kim—Korean name Kim Seontae—seemed to have orchestrated Baekgyeong’s abduction. And fittingly, that phone call with Daniel had been the last before Siron himself was kidnapped to the island.

“Kim Seontae, that fucking bastard.”

Baekgyeong ground his teeth as he clicked through page after page of emails.

“Why the hell did he send so many?”

The subject lines were all nearly identical: “This is Danielㅋ,” “Daniel hereㅠㅠ,” “Hyung, it’s Daniel.” None of them revealed the contents. Baekgyeong skipped the trouble of opening each one and went straight to the latest.

Diggy hyung, it’s Daniel.

Hyung, you’re alive, right?

You’ve got to spend your inheritance before you go. Don’t you think it’s a waste?

That bastard Kim Seontae went and died before paying for his crimes, so now there’s no way to find you anymore. ㅠㅠ

And it’s a shame to just leave that big money sitting in an account.

Until you come back, I’ll invest it hard. If you don’t return, I might just swallow it for myselfㅎㅎ

P.S. If you’re pissed, then come backㅠㅠㅠㅠ

It was an email full of shocks, too many to even process. Siron stood behind him, reading over his shoulder, while Isaac asked,

“Who is Kim Seontae?”

“Vile Group’s Chief Secretary of External Relations. My mother’s right hand.”

“A man tied to Choi Baekhee’s death and your abduction?”

Baekgyeong stared hard at the name Kim Seontae in the email, then finally answered after a long pause.

“Yeah.”

Isaac slid the laptop toward the center of the table. Leaning forward, his lower stomach pressed against Siron’s left shoulder as he typed a search for Vile Group and Kim Seontae on a Korean portal site. The subtle contact made Siron freeze, and Baekgyeong’s glare sharpened dangerously, but Isaac didn’t care.

At last, gray blocks and broken image icons appeared on the screen. After a few seconds, blurry letters began fitting together like puzzle pieces. Siron’s eyes flicked sideways, acutely aware of Isaac’s abdomen against his shoulder.

“The man named Kim Seontae... is already dead.”

“What?”

Baekgyeong’s eyes trembled, a twitch flashing across his face. He stared at the monitor like someone slapped across the face. The screen was plastered with articles about Kim Seontae’s death. In silence, the three of them read the headlines on the main page.

Choi Baekhee murder-conspiracy suspect jumps to death near Manhattan Riverside Park

Vile Group’s Kim Seontae throws himself into Hudson River... suicide to avoid charges in Chairwoman Choi’s murder?

Death of Vile Group insider Kim Seontae stalls investigation into Choi Baekhee mother-and-son murder and abduction plot

A tragedy born of profit logic... corporate murder inside Vile Group

Baekgyeong clutched the mouse with a desperate grip, clenched his teeth, and clicked the first article.

Choi Baekhee murder-conspiracy suspect jumps to death near Manhattan Riverside Park

Kim Seontae (47), Chief Secretary to Vile Group Chairwoman Choi Baekhee (58), was discovered in cardiac arrest after leaping into the Hudson River from Manhattan’s Riverside Park on the 13th. No suicide note was found at the scene. He had been under investigation for conspiracy to murder Chairwoman Choi, and was also suspected of involvement in the disappearance of her second son, Baekgyeong (27).

Kim Seontae was the father of two children with a rare disease. The eldest had already died of the illness, and the younger was diagnosed with the same disease last year. For years he had advocated within Vile Group for the development of a treatment, but Chairwoman Choi had rejected the idea for lack of profitability. Some claim it was rage and despair at this refusal that led him into crime.

Local police have secured evidence that Kim Seontae chartered the plane Baekgyeong boarded before his disappearance, and believe finding the missing son may hold the key to the case. This incident goes beyond ordinary crime, once again casting light on corporate ethics and the structural problems of the pharmaceutical industry.

High Focus – Issue Sketch by Reporter Kim Jeongsu

kjs0001@y*.com*

“What the... fuck is this bullshit.”

Baekgyeong raked his face with his palm and glared at the screen, bloodshot eyes narrowing. The claim that Kim Seontae had conspired to kill his mother and sold him to Hybris because she had refused to develop a rare disease drug—articles twisting it so it sounded like his mother deserved to die for not being “ethical enough.”

Rage consumed him. He felt like he might smash the laptop, so instead he shot to his feet, yanked at his hair, and stormed circles around the living room.

“Did Vile Group ever do anything besides suppressant development that could’ve pissed off Hybris?”

Isaac sat in Baekgyeong’s place and asked calmly. Watching Baekgyeong pace like a rabid dog, cursing under his breath, Siron answered with uncharacteristic seriousness.

“She said she was going to report something about suppressants to the FBA. Some kind of... trial, I think?”

After a moment of thought, Isaac organized Siron’s words and confirmed.

“You mean she filed a clinical trial application to conduct suppressant testing on alphas and sought FDA approval?”

Siron blinked a few times, lips parting. Swept along by the tone, he nodded automatically.

“Y-yeah. That’s it.”

“Then Hybris’s aggressive response makes sense. They would have had no desire to see alphas exposed officially. So they made contact with an insider hostile to Chairwoman Choi.”

If that insider was Kim Seontae, then Hybris had used him to steal corporate secrets. And the moment he outlived his usefulness, they dumped all blame on him and discarded him like a pawn. That was Isaac’s conclusion.

“You mean Kim Seontae might’ve been murdered?”

At some point Baekgyeong had stopped pacing. He stood still, face blank, listening. At his question, Isaac answered evenly, without emphasis.

“That’s impossible to know. Maybe he gladly accepted death once he achieved what he wanted.”

Baekgyeong stared with scorn at the Hudson River photo on the screen, then returned to the table. Leaning down, he rested his chin on top of Siron’s head and opened the email thread with Daniel.

“Kim Seontae really was trying to steal data. He’d planted a backdoor in the company servers. ...Probably planned to hand over suppressant data to Hybris.”

“Any evidence left?”

At Isaac’s question, Baekgyeong tapped the monitor.

“They said there’s digital evidence. Chat records on the company computer with an outsider. The contents are encrypted so they can’t be read, but the logs themselves weren’t erased.”

He stared at the laptop screen as he spoke slowly, drumming his finger against the mouse until he reached a conclusion.

“Anyway, that can wait. What matters now is getting the jet.”

He immediately sent Daniel a short email—both a survival notice and a request to charter a private plane. Minutes later, a reply arrived. Reading Daniel’s message full of frantic fuss and over-the-top exclamations, Baekgyeong finally let a faint smile curl across his lips.

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