"Mr. Jang."

The voice that came out of the nurse was nothing like her usual soft, kind one.

"What have you been doing all this time?"

Byeong-hui Jang was still in a hospital gown, lying in the bed, and the nurse looked at him with eyes full of irritation and said,

"Aren't you going to do your discharge paperwork?"

"Please wait a little longer. The person I'm expecting hasn't come yet. My family will be here shortly, and then I'll check out, so just wait until then."

"Who's coming? And I told you plainly yesterday, didn't I? That you were to leave early today. If you keep this up, there's nothing we can do either."

The nurse stepped up to Byeong-hui Jang.

Then she pulled the blanket off and tried to drag him down out of the bed.

"Get down right now and do your discharge paperwork. We have to clear the room and take the next patient, don't we? Come on."

"One moment, please. Really, one moment is all I need."

The tug-of-war went on for a while before a man came into the room.

"There's no need for that."

The man, in a suit, walked over with some kind of paper and held it out to Byeong-hui Jang.

"We've taken care of the discharge paperwork, so you can just go, Mr. Jang. Check out right now, as you are."

The man looked to be from the billing office, and the paper he had brought was a receipt.

Byeong-hui Jang took it before he knew what he was doing and asked the man,

"The bill… who paid it? Did Brother Song pay it? Is Brother Song here? He must have been late because he stopped at the billing office first."

Du-ho Song had left saying he would go and see Prosecutor Dae-su Park, and with no word from him since, Byeong-hui Jang had grown anxious.

"Brother Song?"

The man from the billing office tilted his head a moment, then said,

"I don't know who this Brother Song is, but the secretariat settled the bill."

"The secretariat?"

"The Chairman's secretariat.…