Late April was strangely clear in the sky.
The blue that filled the city nearly to a twinkle, as though some unseen hand had swept Seoul's grime away in one great sweep. Reflected light from glass towers and the gentle wind with it brought with it the distant smell of asphalt and open windows.
In the workplace, though, it was no exception. The air was still processed and synthetic. Soft hum of fluorescent light overhead, and the relentless beep of keyboards filled the air with the same relentless beat it had acquired for the whole last month.
Yoo Minjae sat in front of his desk, where he always sat, with the soft hum of Finance Strategy Team 2 all around him. On his computer screen, a proposal cycled-one from a shipping company for a merger. Mid-tier, generic projections, generic corporate speak. Nothing really exciting on it.
The proposal looked good on the first read. Neat numbers in order. Reasons behind ratios. Industry standard practices all taken into account. Any analyst would have approved it with some comment.
But Minjae kept going.
Appendices had this little sentence and it knocked him off his feet: a holding company as small investor. Registered in Cayman Islands. No logo. No recent transactions. Just a company code and three words.
Minjae stopped. The name rang a bell.
He did not answer out loud, but remembered to have seen it last year—in the files of a Mongolian copper mine that had been closed down suddenly in 2021. No recorded shutdown. No workers' grievances. Just. gone.
He clicked onto another page and started tracking links.
A Slack beep lit up the top left of his screen.
Seori (HR):
"Minjae-ssi, project sync available at 4?"
He replied:
"Yes. I'll be ready."
His fingers above the keyboard as he closed down the proposal.
Not yet, not a hurry.
---
The afternoon moved at a slow and steady pace. Meetings, routine questions, team member updates seeking confirmation of terms or numbers. Seori dropped by once, inquiring if he had gone through the joint deck for the upcoming presentation. He nodded and handed her a USB.
"Finished with the supplier metrics yet?" she asked.
"Last night," he snapped. "Shifts in their line items of fixed costs."
"You noticed that in the first run through?"
"I double-checked. It jumped out."
She glared at him as though she had something or two to say, but nodded. "Thanks.".
At 6:50 pm, as the sun dipped into amber golden colors, Minjae padlocked up and departed the office suddenly. He did not go to the subway stop or convenience mart like many of his co-workers.
He went along alleys and over a footbridge that led him to a less crowded part of the district—distance from corporate signs and busy street corners.
He walked into a tiny building with no sign. A coworking space that few knew existed.
On the fourth floor, he walked into a teensy-weensy office with a keypadded lock. No nameplate. Desk, two chairs, jack in the wall.
He pulled out a second laptop—no name, encrypted—and booted it up.
Within minutes, he was excavating archived data: geology studies, energy market trends, investment records. Not for any company assignment. Simply his own surveillance.
He typed in the holding company's name.
There was, necessarily, little to bring up. But the act was unusual.
The firm had somewhere and everywhere property worldwide. A geothermal project in Slovakia. Seismic survey gear purchased in Chile. A short-lived northern Japanese drilling lease, later donated a few months later to a non-profit organization. None of the deals hit the headlines. But their frequency and timing told a story.
He made some notes, faxed some geology reports.
Why would an investment group funding independent power projects be aided—a minor—of a merger-seeking logistics company investing?
He inquired further.
The company's Chilean holdings had been secretly restructured. Twice, the geothermal operation of Slovakia had been operated by new managers. And the Japan license, though inactive, lay next to a retired power station being refurbished.
It was not a linear connection between them. But he knew this kind of pattern—loose movement with no ultimate goal, scattered across nations and sectors. Visible only if you plotted timelines in decades.
He shrugged a second time in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck.
It didn't have that scam smell. It smelled like someone filtering purpose out.
---
The lights were lit at the house, and there was a smell of rice in the air at the small flat.
His mother was parked in front of the TV, all dressed in a cardigan, viewing a hospital soap.
"You're back," she said, looking at him.
"Late meeting," he said, taking off his shoes.
"Eat anything?"
"There was something we snacked on."
"You'll eat well," she complained, clinging to the remote. "You'll spoil your stomach eating this way all day."
He pushed open the kitchen door to get a glass of water. "I'm okay."
She propped her head on the pillow to look up at him. "You worried?"
"No."
She cocked an eyebrow. "That's what you say every time."
He smiled weakly. "Because it's always true."
She was silent. "Do you ever consider doing something for yourself? Not for work. Just. something. fun?"
"I'll think about it," he said, standing and sitting beside her.
They sat in silence for several minutes, watching television. One of the individuals on television had just admitted something huge. The music swelled.
His mother sighed. "These shows always make me feel so heavy. But they touch me."
Minjae consented reluctantly, but didn't reply.
She turned to him. "You never talk business."
"There is nothing to talk about. Reports, meetings, the same thing every day."
She gazed at him. "Still. I hope you're not loading yourself too much."
"I'm cautious," he murmured.
"Just don't end up like your uncle. He worked twenty-four/seven until he fell ill."
He didn't react. He simply placed his arms on his knees and gazed at the TV.
Later, he was in his bedroom, going through a plain notebook. There were notes throughout it—nothing explosive. Just investment timetables, local buying habits, incidental facts about small asset transactions. Company names. Locations.
A merger bid by a logistics company shouldn't have been associated with energy ventures in far-off locations.
And that is what it was.
He didn't have to make conclusions tonight.
But he added a quick notation to the side of the holding company's name:
"Reappears in three different energy sectors. Same quarter."
---
The next morning, back at his desk, the team fell into their usual rhythm. Joohyuk stretched forward and offered Minjae coffee.
"I'm fine," Minjae said.
"You sure? Looks like another long day."
"Don't feel any different to me."
Joohyuk chuckled. "That's because you're abnormally consistent."
Minjae simply nodded and returned to his monitor.
The offer lingered in his inbox.
Nothing in it to turn down on paper.
But he marked it anyway.
Not suspicious. Just like:
"Needs closer scrutiny."
Because even when the figures added up—sometimes the atmosphere didn't.
And Minjae was always more curious about what they didn't.