Chapter 26 : 450,000 won

“We’ll check the black box and give it back to you, so go to work.”

“This young lady, seriously! How can I trust you with this?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll give you my contact information.”

Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon took out his cell phone and gestured to the man.

“Take out your phone. I’ll give you my number. Isn’t my car number and cell phone number enough to confirm my identity?”

“Still! What if you take it and just erase that part? What then?”

“If you only erase that part, doesn’t it become evidence that we scratched it? There’s no need for that otherwise.”

“You wouldn’t know! You could just brazenly pretend you don’t.”

Well, that’s not entirely wrong.

If a real accident occurred and we had bad intentions, it’s entirely possible.

From the beginning, we planned this situation with this in mind.

I stood between Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon and the man and said,

“Then how about we compromise? We can’t keep wasting each other’s time like this.”

“Is this something to compromise on? It’s clear you scratched my car.”

“But you both know these are expensive cars. The repair costs alone would be considerable, so we can’t just pay without question.”

“Huh, so you’re determined to drag me there to confirm it? Then when am I supposed to go to work?”

“Then how about we give you a deposit, regardless of the accident? After all, it happened because we came here. If you need to get to work quickly, this seems like the best option.”

This parking lot is for club staff only.

In short, it means we’ll compensate him with a deposit for a situation that occurred due to an unauthorized outsider parking here.

We created a reason for him to leave the black box SD card with us.

“Regardless of the accident?”

“Yes. We’ll also give you an SD card deposit. If we genuinely delete the part about the accident, we’ll give you that too.”

“If it’s just a few tens of thousands of won, just forget about it…”

Before the man finished speaking, I pretended to rummage through Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon’s pocket.

There was a cash wallet we had prepared in advance.

“I’m just going to use this for a moment.”

“No, my wallet!”

I chuckled inwardly watching Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon’s performance of having his wallet taken so easily.

It was because Lawyer Yoon had more talent for acting than I expected.

“How can you just take someone else’s wallet like that!”

“Are we strangers?”

“Well, yes, but…”

Leaving Lawyer Yoon, who was pretending to hesitate, behind me, I opened the wallet.

Inside, there was a thick wad of crisp blue bills.

For someone who owns such a car, this amount of cash would look natural.

I lifted the whole thing.

“Here’s a 450,000 won deposit and 300,000 won for the SD card deposit. How’s that? A total of 750,000 won. If we check the SD card and return it, you just need to return 300,000 won.”

“How is 450,000 won enough for a bumper…”

Right.

It would be far short of the bumper cost.

But the accident isn’t confirmed.

He only saw us standing dangerously in front of the car while smoking across the parking lot.

Moreover, Lawyer Yoon himself is claiming it was an existing scratch and is even suggesting we look at the black box.

In this situation, what if we check the black box and it turns out he’s wrong?

Then the man gets nothing.

‘It’s not as much as the bumper cost, but 450,000 won is by no means a small sum.’

The minimum wage in 2004 was 2,510 won, and if converted to 200 hours per month, that’s 502,000 won.

That means it’s almost a month’s salary for a typical part-time job.

“It’s just a deposit, as I said. If we check and genuinely scratched it, we’ll pay for the bumper. But since you don’t trust us, if the black box video is deleted, we’ll give you the SD card deposit too. This is the best we can offer right now.”

The man showed signs of contemplation at my proposal.

Then he stared intently at his car bumper.

He seemed to be trying to compare it with existing scratches.

It’ll be the same anyway.

If he was confident from the start, he could have just talked to the club and checked it with us.

“Ugh, I’m letting this slide because I have to go to work quickly. I’m trusting you guys.”

“No, do we really have to go this far? Let’s just go and check together… cough.”

Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon acted unjustly to reassure the man of his trust.

Then, as planned, I jabbed him in the side with my elbow.

“Oh, come on, listening to your girlfriend won’t cause you any loss. You’re asking for trouble.”

It’s not like that at all, but let’s pretend not to know.

I briefly looked into the distance and then smiled sweetly, extending my hand.

“Then could you please give me the SD card?”

With our efforts, we secured the black box footage for 450,000 won in cash.

“Ouch. Did you have to hit me that hard?”

Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon rubbed his side where I’d jabbed him and said,

“It’s unavoidable if we want it to look natural.”

“Even so. Can I use the corporate card for pain relief patches? I feel like I need about ten of them here.”

“That would be covering your whole waist, not just your side. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Ugh, see, the perpetrator never knows. Only the one who got hit feels wronged.”

“Exactly, why didn’t you listen to your girlfriend?”

“How could that person see us as… Hmm.”

Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon sat in the driver’s seat, looked at me, and rested his chin on his hand.

I calmly said, skillfully inserting the black box chip into the SD card reader,

“You don’t have to deny it with your gaze, I already know everything.”

“It’s not like that.”

It is like that.

I’ve been a secretary for 22 years, I tell you.

I know Lawyer Yoon’s heart.

“You’re just telling me to work hard, aren’t you?”

“…What am I going to do with our Secretary Kim?”

It feels similar to the atmosphere when he made that problematic statement last time.

I said, looking at the laptop screen with a cold gaze,

“If you’re going to say something like ‘never had a girlfriend,’ I can make you need not ten but a hundred pain relief patches.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry. Please spare me.”

“No, really!”

Seeing my elbow move, Lawyer Yoon threw his hands up.

“Anyone would think I was hitting you, Lawyer Yoon.”

“That’s how it felt.”

“Oh, really? Then I guess I should make it a reality.”

“Oh, the laptop’s on. We should check it quickly. We went through so much for this.”

The laptop saved him, seriously.

I plugged the SD card reader into the laptop and busily moved my hands.

Having dealt with many car black box screens in my past life, it wasn’t too difficult.

“Oh, what is it, Yoo-hee? Why are your movements so professional?”

“I have a DSLR camera. I think the principle is similar.”

“Wow, you’re always stuck at work, when did you enjoy hobbies like that?”

“Shall we continue what we were doing earlier?”

“Let’s find the video quickly.”

I didn’t realize it, but as the man said, Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon had a knack for asking for trouble.

First, I copied the entire black box video from the day of the accident to my laptop folder.

Then, with a trembling heart, I opened each video from that time slot.

“Oh my god, it’s the car lunatic!”

“Right. It’s the team leader.”

I swear, seeing Cha Kang-hyuk’s face was a welcome sight for the first time in my life today.

“It seems we’ve secured it properly, doesn’t it?”

“…Yes. We did it, Yoo-hee.”

Lawyer Yoon’s voice was filled with emotion after checking the laptop video.

He’s such a transparent person when it comes to expressing emotions.

“To secure this for only 450,000 won. Yoo-hee, you’re like a genius.”

“But there’s also the cost of the scratch repair from the shop, isn’t there?”

“Hahaha, it’s a place my father has been going to since his time, so they pretty much did it for free.”

Actually, if we had just confirmed the existence of the black box, we could have just tried to haggle.

Then they would ask why we needed it, and we would have no choice but to use Cha Kang-hyuk’s name.

Then the price would have skyrocketed.

Because there’s no one in South Korea right now who doesn’t know Cha Kang-hyuk’s name.

Since a third-generation chaebol is involved, they can just name their price.

More than anything, it’s better if Cha Kang-hyuk’s name doesn’t come up anywhere at this point.

“I’ll bill today’s expenses as business trip costs. The money exchange will all be on Lawyer Yoon’s car black box anyway.”

“Even without my black box footage, they would probably just give it to us if we asked, wouldn’t they? Considering how important what we secured is.”

“That’s right. It can change the entire paradigm of this case.”

I gazed at the office workers who had started to quarrel with Woo Jin-gon’s group.

Both sides had good voices, so their voices were well recorded on the black box.

“This is really amazing, isn’t it?”

“There’s something even more amazing left.”

“Huh?”

We need to catch Woo Jin-gon.

It was time to change the perspective of the case itself.

“Lawyer, how’s your time this Friday night?”

“F-Friday night? Uh, uh. It’s fine. No, even if it’s not fine, it has to be, r-right?”

“?”

What? I’m asking if he’s free, why is he reacting like this?

“Hmm, it’s because of overtime, I guess. Well, now that you’ve just been freed from overtime, I wouldn’t like it either.”

“Huh?”

Weekend night, overtime at the club.

I know nothing about clubs.

In college, I worked part-time, after graduation, I prepared for the bar exam, and after joining the company, I only went between home and work.

Of course, I wouldn’t know anything.

The only trustworthy person might be Lawyer Yoon.

Lawyer Yoon Yi-hoon probably only studied, but he must have gone to a club at least once.

So we decided to invite Cha Kang-hyuk to inspect our outfits.

And.

For some reason, Cha Kang-hyuk had been silent for five minutes.

Then he finally spoke with difficulty.

“Neither of you is serious… are you?”

“We are serious.”

“More serious than ever!”

And then silence again.

I really don’t know what the problem is.

“Short skirt and a hot top. Just as you ordered?”

“I’ve come looking absolutely dazzling and fantastic.”

“Ha, if only you two couldn’t talk.”

Cha Kang-hyuk stared at us with a look as if he was seeing something incorrigible.

It must be because we haven’t revealed the existence of the black box yet.

If he knew how much trouble we went through to get it, he wouldn’t be making that face.

“Team Leader Cha, you’ll find out a truly astonishing fact at the next meeting. I could mention it a bit in advance, but we also need to organize things on our end…”

“It is surprising. Truly very surprising.”

Well, it would be that surprising.

To receive such a look from none other than the car lunatic himself.

This feels somehow very humiliating.

“No, who goes to a club dressed like they’re going to work?!”

This is crazy.

Director Cha Kang-hyuk suddenly stood up and shouted.

It’s the first time in my life I’ve been called crazy.