Knock, knock.

A waiter knocked softly and opened the door.

Slide.

The waiter came in through the sliding door, looked from Seong-ho Kim to Gae-sik Hwang and back, and asked carefully,

"Shall I bring the food?"

"No."

Gae-sik Hwang put a hand up quickly.

"There's more to talk about, so it would be better brought in a little later."

"Understood."

The waiter knew Gae-sik Hwang was an important customer of the restaurant, so he withdrew quietly without another word, closed the door and went away.

Once the door was shut and the waiter's steps had faded down the hall, Editor-in-Chief Gae-sik Hwang put his question to Seong-ho Kim in a hurry.

"Incitement to murder. Did I hear that right?"

"You did. The prosecutors are running an investigation into it as we speak."

"Is it a credible story?"

"Do you know who the dead man is?"

"Well, now. Who is it? Who is it that died?"

He had been so taken up with Mun-jong Lee committing incitement to murder, he realized, that he had never asked who died.

"If Vice-Chairman Mun-jong Lee went as far as incitement to murder, the man must be fairly important."

"He isn't an important man."

"Not important? Then…"

"Not important, no — but close to him."

Gae-sik Hwang's eyes shook at what Seong-ho Kim said.

Because hearing the man was close to him told him more about how serious this was than hearing he was important would have.

"His driver."

"Hah."

A breath went out of Gae-sik Hwang before he could stop it.

"A driver isn't simply somebody close to him… Then who was the incitement to murder given to?"

"It was done on an instruction to his attending secretary."

This time a groan came out of Gae-sik Hwang.

"You're telling me the attending secretary killed the driver? On Vice-Chairman Mun-jong Lee's instruction?"

"Yes. And all of it has been confirmed."

"…This is no ordinary matter."

If the man had been unconnected, or connected only loosely to Mun-jong Lee, a hole could have been made for him to slip out of somehow.

But with the dead…