Yeon Daehwan just came back from investigating a murder case out of Seoul outskirt. The office atmosphere is quiet, yet unusually tense. His hoobae, Woorim, trotted into the interrogation room bringing a first aid box. He follows behind.
A younger woman and a man around his age sitting across the table with their chief. The woman looked quite beaten up. One of her eyes was swollen and she got some bruises on her arms and was wearing a crutch on the other.
The man with glasses is having a conversation with the chief. His terrified expression showed how he would be in big trouble if something happened to that young woman, while she seemed to have no clue of the conversation and just stared at everyone in the room.
"I already explained to you that none can know their faces. Didn't we say it clearly?" He raises his voices and about to stand.
"Hush it, you're too loud."
The young woman speaks in English. Ordering him to act calmly as it may look and he proceeded to obey with no objection. Gradually lowering his tone, kneading between eyes and sighing then started talking again.
"This was just a brother and sister's quarrel. The incident's unpurposely turned out to have a fatal result. We will sort it in the private accounts. But we don't want these things to be in the public's eyes. Can you imagine what the news will be a few days later? No need to be late, this evening if we hadn't taken actions, the news would be more out of our control. Those people would exaggerate things and that wouldn't be beneficial on our side."
"We already did our best to stop the records spreading around. But you said that the reporter insisted she got it from someone insider. However you do it, threaten that reporter or something. Investigate our office or anyone connected to the CCTV access. Just make sure you catch someone responsible for this mess."
"I got it, Mr. Shin Joonyoung. We already interrogated the reporter. But there's nothing we can do if there's no strong evidence. I will order my subordinates to go to your office once more and question the CCTV control staff or anyone with access to it."
The chief stands off excusing himself to get out of the room. He walked away then almost bumped into Yeon Daehwan leaning by the opened door, that old man frowned with an annoying expression.
"What the hell are you doing here? Go help Woorim or something, you fucker!" And there he vents while walking out on Daehwan who's clueless as a baby.
"Sunbae, please help treat her bruises. Here's the first aid box."
"Oh, okay."
He instinctively took the bandage and ointment out of the box.
"Excuse me Miss, can I see your arms?"
Daehwan bends closer to the woman, proposing to see her bruises on the elbows and clean its wounds. She doesn't move and doesn't even look at him.
So he repeats politely, "Miss?"
The woman snaps, looking up to Daehwan standing closer beside her chair.
"What is it?" Replied with a vapid tone in foreign language.
Daehwan falters, discovering English as his weakness, quickly resolving with body language. Showing his elbow and the bandage to point at hers. The woman extended them understanding what he meant, giving permission to be taken care of.
"No need to put bandages on it."
"Pardon?" He is confused.
"She said don't put a bandage there. She doesn't want it."
The glasses man sitting beside her translates those into Korean.
"Oh, I see."
So as it is. He just cleaned it with alcohol and put ointment into the wounds, she flinched slightly.
"I'm sorry."
He can only say that, with a thick Korean-English accent. That woman looks down on him who's half kneeling beside her.
"Evelyn."
"It's my name." She continued.
Daehwan is confused. The glasses man beside her spoke in English explaining the police officer doesn't understand what she said, she nods a little wisely.
"I’m Shin Joonyoung, Miss Evelyn Yang's secretary."
They introduce each other by nodding, as a sign of polite Korean greeting. While Evelyn remains quiet, appears as someone better to be that way since she doesn't understand anything.
Once in a while she’ll let her voices out when the glasses man repeated the police officer’s questions asking her the details of how they had an argument in front of the CEO’s office. She looked at Woorim’s eyes fairless, told him in her language how the brother lost control and raised his hand, slapping her wobbling bumping to the wall. They don’t understand anything but Daehwan and Woorim can’t keep their eyes off of hers, mesmerised by the way she talks, moving her lips.
As she continued, Evelyn ran to the emergency exit stairs as self defence when he tried grabbing her hair. That unlucky woman lost her balance and fell face first on the corner of the stairs. The secretary repeats what she said into Korean.
They were given the record of CCTV, Woorim checked everything from the floor hallway to the emergency exit camera footage. It's accurate as what she described. He notes down everything while Daehwan continues asking a few questions to her. Though he's in much confusion digging up possibilities how the record got leaked and from whom, he has no choice.
The chief was just ordering them to solve this case right out of his mouth while his mind elsewhere about a murdering case that he had earlier. Woorim was still typing all the statements made by Shin Joonyoung, the secretary persistently repeating for the second time what he’s already talking about before.
“It was all just a coincidence that they had a fight that resulted in injuries. It may be seen as something serious in the video, but it ain’t it. And if it is so, we would report on a different matter than this one. I hope it’s understandable what our concern is now. We don’t want any family members being disadvantaged by the false accusations.”
As he explained, while she's brought to the hospital, things got so out of control that however the CCTV records quickly spreaded on the news by the day. Evelyn Yang gained her consciousness faster, rushing to the police station before getting proper treatments. She’s unbothered by the wounds after receiving the news Shin Joonyoung went to report someone.
There's a bit of internal miscommunication between them. She thought her secretary would report the brother, instead Shin Joonyoung filed a report for a different matter regarding defamation and invasion of privacy.
It might be uncommon, but not all conglomerate family members prefer their identity to be revealed to the public. We might have heard of one famous figure whose name we can only hear about everywhere but we've never seen their true appearance. It might be how things run in The Yang's.
Their family, especially Evelyn's grandfather, the Chairman of The Yang Group personally made a call to their police station asking for further investigation who's responsible for spreading the footage and interrogating the reporter that spread it. As the same as Mr. Secretary explained, The Chairman didn’t want anything to do regarding his grandchildren's quarrel either, even though it caused a fatal result.
There’s nothing the official can do if the victim party insists they’re not being disadvantaged by the accident, so the chief can’t investigate her brother either. Chairman Yang was more concerned about how fast everything happened in one day. His love for them must be unquestioned to act at such a length.
The face of the secretary, unable to hide worry of thinking he might lose his job at the very moment contrary to the person beside him calmly ogling her eyes into Daehwan, waiting to say something.
"Are you done?"
"I'm sorry."
Daehwan's reflex releases her right arm unconsciously holding it since the moment he listened to them talking.
"Can you process the report immediately?" Shin Joonyoung asks.
"Sure, we'll have another investigation right after this very moment."
Daehwan stood up, took a seat across the table beside Woorim. They are reviewing the report and finalising all the documents needed. Including the information of the victim and suspects.
He looked into her personal identity. The ID photo was simple, and portrayed her mixed-race bareface clearly. It appears she has no permanent Korean citizenship card yet. So the copy was an alien card made for foreigners living temporarily in Korea.
Evelyn Yang was born in Prince George, British Columbia, 29 years ago. Parents were both Canadian-Chinese-Korean. The family run companies operating in the pharmaceutical sector, The Yang Group. She was the chief manager for her brother's company, in such a young age. Eight years younger than Daehwan.
While at the age of thirty-four, Daehwan was just an ordinary police officer who just got promoted into the regional investigation team’s captain. He bets she never felt how hard it was looking for a job after graduating college. Rich kids have their own ways of climbing up the tops.
How ironic, she hasn’t ever spoken directly to anyone including her subordinates. All the time thanks to the help of Mr. Secretary by the side translated every word that came out of her mouth, including before, explaining the story of how she fell down the stairs and ruined that pretty face of hers.
"I apologise for my rude doings before, Chief."
Shin Jooyoung repentful shakes the department chief’s hands tightly. Apologising for his past behaviour. The Chief faked a smile reaching Evelyn's hands abruptly instead, and couldn't read how she felt uncomfortable by the sudden touch.
"Don't worry. We're going to take care of everything. Soon our police officers will come to the company and investigate. Please say my regards to your grandfather, Miss Evelyn." He shakes her hands enthusiastically although she remains still by his unwelcomed kindness.
Evelyn lets off her hands turning her back on him, walking out of the police station into her car at the front parking lot. The secretary's shocked at how impolite her attitude is, he bows once more panicky apologising. Daehwan and Woorim who followed them from behind look at each other and are amazed at how bold she acted toward a police officer.
"It's okay, it's okay." The chief kept his composure at the best, acting as an understanding and bigger person.
"Then I'll excuse myself, Chief. See you again."
"See you again Mr. Shin." He’s waving the secretary goodbye as that man runs down to the car. Evelyn was waiting there for quite a moment to open the door for her.
The Chief turned his back as the front door closed and their car went out of sight. He cussed in a low tensing tone.
"That rude Chaebol Princess! She's just lucky her grandfather is an influential person in the area."
He let out his annoyance by slamming the office door expressively.
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