Projection Novel (Completed) - Chapter 14

Sejin blended into the crowd of students, and Cheon Sejoo, who was about to head to his studio, suddenly changed his mind and moved the car to the back of the school. After parking, he got out of the car and headed back to an alley overlooking the main gate.

He stood there, leisurely smoking, gazing at the gate of Dongseoul Namgo. How many minutes passed in that state? Suddenly, Cheon Sejoo let out a disbelieving snort and strode forward without hesitation. It was just past 9 AM. In the distance, like a salmon swimming against the current of late-arriving students, Kwon Sejin could be seen leaving the school.

His intuition was spot on. He had known all along that he wouldn’t listen. Cheon Sejoo walked quickly towards the small head moving quite rapidly. Then he stood next to Sejin, who had left school and was waiting to cross the crosswalk. Cheon Sejoo put an arm around Sejin’s shoulder, who had only belatedly noticed his presence and flinched, looking up at him, and smiled. A chilling smile spread across his handsome face. He asked in a gentle voice, “Going to school?”

The beautiful face stiffened. Kwon Sejin blinked, biting his lip as if caught stealing. To him, Cheon Sejoo gave a soft smile and said, “You’ll be late. You should hurry inside, Sejin.”

His gentle voice conveyed an intention to let it slide just this once. Unable to overcome the pressure Cheon Sejoo exerted on him, Sejin looked up at him with a displeased expression, then finally turned around. He was practically pushed by Cheon Sejoo as he reluctantly trudged back towards the school gate.

It was almost 9:10 AM. Sejin stopped abruptly in front of the half-closed school gate. He sighed, truly annoyed, and opened his mouth. “Don’t you have anything to do?”

He’s not even jobless. Cheon Sejoo, who easily grasped what Sejin truly wanted to say, gave his usual actor-like smile. He casually brushed back his slightly fallen hair and patted the cheek of the disgruntled high school student, full of teenage angst, saying, “Study hard. You have to make your mom proud.”

Bringing up his mother always worked wonders. At the words, which strangely felt like a threat, Sejin crumpled his face, slapped Cheon Sejoo’s hand away, and left his side. Cheon Sejoo could only leave the spot after watching Sejin enter the school building.

Vroom, vroom, with a loud exhaust note, Cheon Sejoo drove out of the alley and headed straight to his studio. While he had been idling at home for two days, his team members had thoroughly investigated the deliveryman’s finances. They had uncovered all his bank accounts, cash receipt details, and even credit card usage history from over a year ago. But they found nothing.

Receiving money under someone else’s name was common in this business, so the hacker, Yoon Cheoljoo, suspected the deliveryman’s beloved niece and even checked her housing subscription account, created when she was one year old, and her New Year’s money savings account. But it was the same there too. No money had been deposited to or transferred to anyone around the deliveryman, including his niece.

Cheon Sejoo finally realized his mistake. The day he went to retrieve the goods, he had been startled by the sudden news that Kwon Sejin was homeless and, in his haste, had handed over the deliveryman to Dalma without proper verification. He should have verified the facts more accurately.

But there was no turning back now. Seonhyuk’s call this morning had already been too late, and he had personally verified the body, so there was no more information to gain. All he could do was piece together the fragmented information he had to find the answer…

Cheon Sejoo slowly rolled his tongue inside his mouth, examining each piece of the puzzle given to him. The deliveryman had consistently asserted his innocence in the basement. Even as his skin melted and he shed bloody tears, he never spoke of his pain.

“He said he just did as he was told ‘from above’…” Cheon Sejoo murmured quietly. His unfocused gaze fell on Yoon Cheoljoo. He was re-examining the deliveryman’s clean and impoverished accounts under Cheon Sejoo’s direction.

“Yes.”

The answer came not from Cheoljoo, but from Moon Seonhyuk. Seonhyuk had also been present when the deliveryman was spitting blood. At his concise reply, Cheon Sejoo hummed briefly and tapped his foot. His long leg, stretched out on the table, swayed slowly, and Cheon Sejoo again fell deep into thought.

There had been about three similar incidents since he took over the disposal team. But none of them had illicitly diverted drugs for no reason. The first one was plagued by gambling debts, the second needed treatment money for his second daughter who had a rare disease. And the third was an addict who, unable to get drugs when he ran out of money, resorted to stealing what he was transporting. They all had their own reasons. Though they might seem trivial to others, they were desperate for their own reasons.

But this one wasn’t like that.

The deliveryman had no debts, no family to support, and wasn’t an addict. The conversations left on his messenger were mostly ordinary. They were just about cursing his boss, talking about games with friends, and some conversations about women. He had absolutely no reason to divert the drugs.

He felt like he was missing something.

If the drugs were diverted, the person who would be most troubled was the deliveryman himself. Then, who would be the next to face problems?

The person who was supposed to receive the drugs was Shin Jihan’s close associate. But there was no reason for that associate or Shin Jihan to be troubled if the drug delivery was slightly delayed. Rather, the one who would suffer damage when the drugs didn’t arrive on time was the person responsible for the deliveryman’s negligence. In other words, the distributor.

“Dalma…”

There were various types of drugs distributed through the club. The crystal that had caused problems this time was something Dalma was responsible for managing. Dalma, the broker, communicated with a maker known only to him and was responsible for distributing the crystal he made domestically.

Since the delivery didn’t arrive on time, Shin Jihan must have contacted Dalma. He probably got an earful. The people most troubled by this incident were clearly the deliveryman and Dalma.

Cheon Sejoo got up and checked Hae-ung’s laptop. He scanned the absurd behavior of the boss that the deliveryman had complained about to his friend on the messenger. He couldn’t call him a broker to others, so he just called him a boss, but it was clear he was referring to Dalma. The phrase donggwi-eojin¹ suddenly came to mind. Could the deliveryman have been targeting Dalma?

Thinking that far, Cheon Sejoo frowned at the incoming headache. He bent one leg on the sofa and lay down. After thinking for a moment, he picked up his phone, which had been on the table.

The repercussions of the matter were heading downwards. No matter how he thought about it, this matter had nothing to do with Shin Gyoyeon and Shin Jihan. Cheon Sejoo’s job was to clean up and resolve the troubles caused by those who harmed the organization. Since he had recovered the goods, his job was done. There was nothing more for them to gain from further investigation.

Moreover, if this was truly an act committed by the deliveryman to cause damage to Dalma, there was no need for further involvement. Dalma wasn’t affiliated with the organization.

Cheon Sejoo fumbled with the screen as if about to make a call. But his finger, hovering over the call button for a long time, ultimately didn’t press it and moved to a corner of his forehead instead. He pressed, pressed, massaging one side of his throbbing head.

Throughout the interrogation, the deliveryman’s words were consistent. He said he just did as he was told ‘from above’. And the person who ordered him was Dalma. The deliveryman shifted responsibility to Dalma. This much was beyond doubt.

There were only two answers. Either the deliveryman answered that way to frame Dalma, or Dalma truly used the deliveryman. The former was more credible than the latter. If the drugs were lost, the person who would suffer significant damage was Dalma, so there was no reason for him to risk himself.

Moreover, only Dalma knew the identity of the maker. Since he was the sole contact, if someone else wanted drugs, they could just open a new transaction. As it was a matter of increasing production, he had no need to divert the drugs originally set to be traded with Shin Jihan.

All circumstances pointed to the deliveryman acting alone. And yet…

“Fuck.”

With an uneasy feeling, he bit out a curse and stood up. Cheon Sejoo ignored the glances from his team members and took out a cigarette and lighter from his suit jacket, which he had taken off. He needed fresh air. The studio building had no windows, so he opened the door and headed for the stairs.

Despite its shabby exterior, the studio building had strict security. Passing through a firmly closed iron door and two iris-recognition entrances, he stepped outside, went around the side of the building, and settled in an alley where an ashcan served as an ashtray.

He roughly ruffled his hair and was putting a cigarette in his mouth and about to light it. Thump, thump, at the sound of footsteps passing by the alley, Cheon Sejoo glanced that way, then suddenly frowned and closed his lighter. Click, at the sound of the Zippo lighter closing, the person walking by with a newspaper turned their head.

“……”

Their eyes met. Cheon Sejoo let out a hollow laugh and clutched his forehead.

“Hey.”

“……”

A stiff gaze scanned Cheon Sejoo. Receiving that look, Cheon Sejoo crumpled the cigarette in his mouth and plunged it into the ashcan. Then he took a step forward, and Sejin, who had been staring blankly at him, flinched and trembled. The newspaper, filled with job advertisements, was neatly folded. Sejin hid the flea market paper he was holding behind his back and lowered his head.

“I told you to study.”

It was absurd. He had put him back in school that morning when he tried to escape, and now he had no idea when he’d come out again and was wandering around the neighborhood like that. He wasn’t even a stray dog.

Cheon Sejoo stared at Sejin, speechless. At the expression Is this student in his right mind right now? Sejin mumbled, seemingly guilty, then avoided Cheon Sejoo’s gaze and again exercised his right to silence.

“When did you come out?”

“……”

“I asked when you came out. Don’t try to lie, tell me straight.”

At his chilling voice, Sejin subtly frowned and looked up at Cheon Sejoo, then flinched again upon seeing him standing with an even colder expression. He was so transparent that everything he was thinking was visible.

Who are you to meddle? You’re hiding in an alley smoking, whether I go to school or not… Even without him speaking, Cheon Sejoo could hear Sejin’s voice. Cheon Sejoo raised one eyebrow and stared intently at Sejin. He tried to ignore the gaze, but Sejin finally opened his mouth, unable to endure the unspoken pressure.

“After lunch…”

“Ah, so you were at school until lunch, then?”

That was a good thing. Cheon Sejoo retorted sarcastically, then snatched the newspaper from Sejin’s hand. He didn’t even carry textbooks, yet the job advertisements were meticulously circled and X-ed out. But even if it was lunchtime, it would have been 1 PM if he had eaten and left like last time, and it was only 2 PM now. Realizing something was off in the timeline forming in his head, Cheon Sejoo threw the newspaper to the floor and reached out to Sejin.

“W-what is it!”

Bending over, he plunged his hand into Sejin’s pants pocket. Sejin twisted and tried to escape the sudden contact, but he couldn’t overcome Cheon Sejoo’s strength.

The large hand fumbled around Sejin’s inner thigh. He confirmed that Sejin’s pocket was empty and then searched his hooded zip-up pocket. From there, he pulled out the prepaid phone he had given him, turned on the screen, and opened the call log.

There were call traces to numbers other than his own. The times were 9:58 AM and 10:29 AM.

“Give it back!”

As Sejin reached out, Cheon Sejoo held his arm high to prevent him from grabbing the prepaid phone, then took out his own phone and opened an internet browser. When he typed the number he had just seen into the search bar, the names of nearby restaurants and unidentified businesses appeared. It seemed he had called them after seeing the job advertisements.

But clearly, when Sejin went to school that morning, his hands were empty. It was unlikely that the school would distribute flea market papers, so he must have gone outside the school after Cheon Sejoo left and picked up the newspaper. It was utterly despicable.

“This really is.”

A cry filled with exasperation escaped him.