You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 123

Unlike the pale-faced Director, Choi Jong-hyun calmly turned to look at Kim Jung-woo, who had appeared from behind.

The Director rubbed his eyes.

He had no idea why Kim Jung-woo, who was supposed to be dead, was here.

‘It must be a mistake due to the darkness,’ he thought.

The Director slowly approached Kim Jung-woo.

He shined his phone on his face.

And once again, he was startled and dropped his phone on the floor.

He barely calmed his trembling lips and slowly opened his mouth.

“…Reporter Kim.”

“Yes, Director.”

“Are you really Reporter Kim? I heard you were dead…”

He looked at Choi Jong-hyun.

Seeing his still calm face, he seemed to understand the situation little by little.

If Choi Jong-hyun really thought Kim Jung-woo was dead, he couldn’t help but be surprised by his sudden appearance.

Kim Jung-woo was not dead.

And Choi Jong-hyun knew it.

“As you can see, Jung-woo is alive,” Choi Jong-hyun answered instead.

The Director couldn’t hide his confusion and stared intently at Kim Jung-woo.

He seemed unable to find the words, waving his hands in the air, and then said strangely.

“Then why were you absent today?”

“I had a high fever since dawn and was in the emergency room. By the time the fever subsided, it was almost 12 o’clock, so I couldn’t call in advance. I’m sorry. I’ll submit a medical certificate tomorrow. But, Director.”

Kim Jung-woo changed the subject and glanced at the laptop.

“Is it true that a suicide note I didn’t write was found?”

Kim Jung-woo slowly approached the Director and stood in front of the laptop.

“No, Reporter Kim… what are you talking about? You didn’t write it?”

The Director feigned ignorance.

He glanced at the two of them and quickly racked his brain.

He pondered over and over how to deal with this situation.

‘There’s no evidence that I directly manipulated the suicide note on Kim Jung-woo’s laptop,’ he reminded himself.

He had to stay calm.

If he got caught here, he didn’t know what kind of difficult situation he would be in.

The Director swallowed hard.

Choi Jong-hyun only heard the sound of the keyboard clacking, but he didn’t see him typing the suicide note directly.

He wouldn’t be able to completely avoid suspicion from these two, but he would still have a way out.

“Yes. I never wrote a suicide note.”

“…Reporter Choi. I heard the news that Reporter Kim jumped around noon and rushed out. And since then, I’ve been in contact with the bereaved family… and I said I was waiting to go to the municipal funeral hall? What’s going on? And what is this suicide note!”

The Director shouted as if he couldn’t understand.

“It turns out that the body wasn’t Jung-woo’s,” Choi Jong-hyun replied coldly.

“Ha, do you think that makes sense? You might have misunderstood for a moment. If the body was severely damaged, so much that even fingerprints couldn’t be identified.”

“Yes. That was the state. The body had Reporter Kim’s belongings, so I misunderstood it as Reporter Kim, and I just found out it wasn’t after contacting Reporter Kim,” Choi Jong-hyun replied shamelessly, as if he had been waiting for it.

The Director chuckled, a dry, humorless sound.

This was a clear mockery.

Originally, the relationship between Choi Jong-hyun and the Director wasn’t that bad.

Of course, they didn’t usually think well of each other, but they maintained a smooth relationship on the surface.

In this situation, there was clearly a reason why Choi Jong-hyun was acting so openly.

And the only reason the Director could think of now was that he had found out that he had been threatening Kim Jung-woo.

The Director squeezed the back of the chair with his sweaty hands and forced a smile.

Since it wasn’t certain yet, he thought he should watch a little more and decide how to deal with it.

Since all of this happened at the behest of the Editor-in-Chief, he had to consult with him.

“…I see. I’m glad Reporter Kim is alive. But if Reporter Kim didn’t write it, who wrote this suicide note?” The Director barely calmed his trembling voice and asked as if nothing was wrong.

“I don’t know either,” Kim Jung-woo replied.

The Director sighed deeply.

“Then what about the contents of the suicide note? That Reporter Choi has been harassing you. Even if Reporter Kim didn’t write it, I have to check it as a manager.”

He had to deal with it naturally.

The Director repeated it several times in his mind.

“That’s not true, Director. Reporter Choi is always good to me.”

There was no point in dragging this situation out any longer.

It would be better to get out of this place first.

“Really? …That’s strange.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

The Director glanced at Choi Jong-hyun, who was full of sarcasm.

“Well, it’s too late today, so I think I’ll have to check the CCTV [closed-circuit television] tomorrow morning. There’s no way to find out now. The document was written last Friday, so I’ll check who was sitting in your seat at that time… That would be good,” the Director said, closing Kim Jung-woo’s laptop.

Choi Jong-hyun and Kim Jung-woo exchanged glances for a moment, then readily nodded.

“I understand. I’m sorry for making you worry about me.”

“No. I don’t know how glad I am that Reporter Kim came back safe and sound. I had a drink because I was so upset… I’ll go home and stretch my legs and sleep well.”

The Director patted Kim Jung-woo on the shoulder.

And he brushed past them and left the office.

While waiting for the elevator button, he felt uneasy and glanced at the office several times.

He tapped his feet restlessly and headed for the emergency stairs.

He quickly moved his feet and went down to the first floor.

No one followed him, but his heart was still pounding.

The next day, from the morning, reporters from the social department gathered around Kim Jung-woo’s seat like clouds.

“Reporter Kim, I’m so glad. I thought I was going to faint yesterday. No, why didn’t you come yesterday?”

“I suddenly had a high fever from dawn and was in the emergency room. I couldn’t even come to my senses, so I couldn’t keep in touch, and this happened. I’m sorry for worrying you. Haha.”

As Kim Jung-woo scratched his cheek and answered, the reporter waved his hand.

“No, what are you sorry for? There were rumors that you were dead, but no obituary came. I wondered what was going on. But I’m glad you came back safe and sound.”

Even reporters who only knew his face came to him, handing him drinks and snacks, and offering words of encouragement.

Kim Jung-woo smiled awkwardly and bowed repeatedly, thanking them for their concern.

The incident seemed to pass as a simple happening.

Until someone shouted after seeing a post on the company’s anonymous bulletin board.

“Reporter Jo, check the company bulletin board!”

The reporters’ intranet messengers also spread like wildfire.

It contained only a concise message to see the post on the company bulletin board as if delivering breaking news.

[Exposing the Editor-in-Chief’s Misdeeds.]

It was the title of the latest post on the company’s anonymous bulletin board.

The post had a video file attached.

It seemed to be a recording of the laptop monitor screen.

The document contents, which listed contact information, were all erased, and new content began to be typed quickly.

[I don’t want to live anymore

Why is my life like this

……]

It was a suicide note that was pessimistic about his life and resentful of Choi Jong-hyun.

The title of the post indicated the owner of the suicide note as Reporter Kim XX, but anyone who worked at Iljung Daily could infer that it was referring to Kim Jung-woo.

The time displayed on the taskbar below the document window was 3:18 AM on November 3, 2009.

Before they could even question why the suicide note of Reporter Kim Jung-woo, who was said to be not dead, was written, the video screen switched.

The face of a middle-aged man, glistening in the light reflected on the monitor screen in the dark office, appeared.

“Isn’t that the Editor-in-Chief?”

The reporters who were reading the post buzzed.

Judging from the angle and quality of the video, it seemed to be a video taken with the laptop camera.

Behind him, the numbers on the wall clock installed on the office pillar were clearly visible.

[2009-11-03 Tue

AM 3:13]

Then, the Editor-in-Chief in the screen, who was engrossed in typing, turned his head to the side with a flustered expression.

Suddenly, Choi Jong-hyun’s figure appeared on the screen.

Choi Jong-hyun looked into the laptop for a moment and began to talk to the Editor-in-Chief.

And soon after, Kim Jung-woo appeared and the video ended.

[Dear journalists of Iljung Daily,

I am Choi Jong-hyun, a reporter from the social department.

I have no intention of hiding, so I am clearly revealing my identity, even though it is an anonymous bulletin board.

Yesterday, you heard the news that Reporter Kim XX jumped from the Iljung Daily office.

Fortunately, everything was a misunderstanding, and Reporter Kim XX has returned to our side in good health.

However, I cannot help but write this because I cannot help but reveal the shocking facts surrounding this incident.

The video above was taken with Reporter Kim XX’s laptop.

The video in front was taken through the laptop camera, and the document creation screen behind it was also recorded on the laptop screen at the same time.

In the early morning of the day after the news that social reporter Kim XX had jumped, the Editor-in-Chief wrote a document that appeared to be a suicide note on Reporter Kim XX’s laptop.

As revealed in the video, the main content of the suicide note was that he chose to die because he could not stand the harassment of his senior, me.

However, it is not true that there is discord between me and Reporter Kim XX, and Reporter Kim XX did not jump.

If it was true that Reporter Kim XX had jumped, and if this video did not exist, the suicide note in that video would have been considered to have been written by Reporter Kim XX.

I would have been branded as the person who drove Reporter Kim XX to death, and I would have been forced to wear a disgraceful yoke [a symbol of burden or oppression].]

Behind the post, photos of the phone screen with the text message box displayed were posted in succession.

The sender’s number displayed in the text message box in the photo was clearly that of the Editor-in-Chief.

In Choi Jong-hyun’s post, it was also explained in detail why Kim Jung-woo had been threatened by the Editor-in-Chief.

The post also clearly stated who Choi Jong-hyun’s coverage, which the Editor-in-Chief wanted to stop so badly, was targeting.

Woo Shin and Minwoo Party leader Lee Jung-chan.

Most of the reporters thought that Choi Jong-hyun’s post was not a lie.

They, as members of Iljung Daily, knew best.

Which group this newspaper was influenced by.

It couldn’t be a lie in the first place.

Wasn’t it revealed that he openly threatened Choi Jong-hyun that he would die if he kept digging into Wooshin in text messages?

[Dear journalists of Iljung.

Iljung Daily, as Korea’s leading newspaper, has been at the forefront of uncovering the truth of the world and eradicating corruption from the Japanese colonial period to today.

And we, as journalists, have a duty to cover the truth and inform the world.

However, is it fair for the Editor-in-Chief of Iljung Daily to interfere with a reporter’s coverage and give unfair disadvantages to junior journalists in order to do so?

We strongly condemn the Editor-in-Chief’s misdeeds.

In addition, we demand that Iljung Daily investigate all the truth.

Journalists of Iljung, please gather your strength and support us.

November 3, 2009, Choi Jong-hyun of the Social Department]

The reporters who checked the post to the end all turned their eyes to the innermost part of the office.

There was the Editor-in-Chief’s office with the blinds drawn to the floor.