12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: RED

After greeting me, Oh Hyun-joo expressed her thanks to the other policemen one by one.

“The officers who were on the scene earlier…”

“Oh, well, that was me.”

The policeman who was with me earlier stuttered up his hand. Oh Hyun-joo tried to approach him, but a middle-aged police officer stood in front of him and reached out his hand first.

“I’m his superior, Assistant Inspection Choi Chul-yong. I’m glad you’re okay, Ms. Oh Hyun-joo.”

“Oh yes, I see.”

Just now he had asked what she was like. Now, the man was shaking her hand with his mouth wide open.

I turned my eyes, shaking my head. But then, a small, bald man came up to me. “Can I, uh, talk to you for a second, please?”

‘Who the hell is this guy and what is he trying to say?’ When I tilted my head a little, he quietly took a business card out of his arms and gave it to me.

“I’m… I’m like this.”

‘OH Entertainment President Kwon Oh Hyuk.’

He was the president of OH Entertainment. Considering that the culprit, hairdresser, and Oh Hyun-joo all, belonged to the company, he was in charge of the case. He told me this while Oh Hyun-joo was holding the attention of the police.

“Can we just go out and talk for a minute?”

I nodded, following him out of the station.

He told me, “Nothing much, we want to keep this case quiet. As you know, our entertainment company has an image to maintain and it wouldn’t be very good for actress Hyun-joo, too. Do you understand, sir?”

That was right. I nodded silently.

“So, first of all, we’re going to do this as quietly as we can. I am sure, reporters may contact you in case. So…”

He suddenly took an envelope out of his arms and handed it to me. “If you’d take this and not let the press know…”

I was a person who received. I peeped right into it. There were two cheques of $10,000; it was $20,000.

‘How little! This is the only thing I’ve ever done.’

In the old days, my eyes would have been wide, but now that I had touched such a large sum of money on the stock market, I was not very excited. Still, I tried to close my eyes with this. It was because I didn’t want to make money this way, and I didn’t want to be bothered by this kind of work.

But then Kwon looked at me and said, “I, uh, I’d like to ask.”

He hurriedly took out another identical check out of his arms and gave it to me. It was a total of $30,000.

‘No, I was just going to take $20,000 and not say anything.’

He seemed to have added another one because I had a dull look at the previous $20,000. I did not have to refuse to take more. I nodded. “Yes, well, I see.”

Kwon once again said with a nod to me. “Please do me a favor.”

At the end of the secret deal, Oh Hyun-joo walked out of the police station. She looked at me and came up to me and said, “You’re… you’re a lifesaver. I’m sorry to let you go like this, but may I have your number, please?”

My eyes were stiff. ‘Is this true? Am I picking up the phone number of Oh Hyun-joo?’ But it was a true story.

She rummaged through her bag as if she were trying to get a number from me. But a moment later she spoke in a rather depressed voice. “Now I left my phone in the car…”

“Oh, wait a minute.” I hurriedly took out my business card and handed it to her. As I was about to leave the company, I didn’t think I would need to give my business card for a while, but Oh Hyun-joo would take it.

But this was the time. The man standing next to her stepped forward and took my card for her. ‘What is this?’

I looked at the man, but he avoided my eyes. I remembered seeing him at the spot earlier today. Coming to think of it, he was her manager. He was the manager who drove the Mercedes van. When the manager came forward and took my business card, Oh Hyun-joo stayed still.

I was convinced inwardly. ‘Well, that’s how celebrities do it.’

Then, Oh Hyun-joo smiled one more time and bowed her head. “Thank you once again.”

“Yes.”

After the final greetings, Oh Hyun-joo and her manager and the bald president left the police station in the courtesy van. I watched the van leave and then went back into the police station.

Inside, the middle-aged police officer named Chul-yong was praising her beauty, in old words for his age. “Wow, she is a real fairy.”

“Yes, sir? It’s different after you saw her in person, isn’t it?”

The young policeman, who had been scolded earlier, was relieved to say something. This time, however, even the middle-aged policeman failed to refute him.

“Well…”

I watched the scene with a smile.

A moment later, the staring middle-aged policeman looked at me and said, nodding his head. “You have to go home, don’t you? Policeman Kim. Take him home.”

———————–

The next day, Saturday morning, I got up around eight o’clock, as always. There was quite a lot going on yesterday, so I was so tired, and yet as I woke up at this time every day, my eyes automatically opened. I was a complete morning person now.

“Ho-hum.”

I stretched out, got up, took a shower, and had breakfast. In the meantime, I kept reminding myself of yesterday. Stoker, killer, super beauty, so intense an event in my life that I did not think I would ever forget. I still shook my head two times and thought, ‘It’s okay. Yesterday was yesterday and now I have to work today.’

I turned on my computer to receive an email from 12 Hours After, which was now my main job. It was 8:50 a.m. It was still five minutes before the email came.

‘Today is the weekend. Let’s look at the Lotto.’

I logged on to my email account, thinking that way. But there was an email that I hadn’t seen.

[12 Hours After, Correction Report]

The email arrived at 8:50 p.m., when the incident took place yesterday. I clicked on it.

———————

[Correction Report]

– We’re pleased to inform you that the contents of “Actress Oh Hyun-joo, who is stabbed by a man in front of Choo Hospital in Gangnam” have been revised due to the intervention of the reader

———————

I looked down at the email. It contained my performance instead of the contents of yesterday’s email. ‘The 29-year-old citizen, identified only by his surname Han, overpowered the criminal by shoulder throwing him onto his back, and two police officers nearby quickly arrested him, leaving the criminal’s plan for naught.’

It was not a newspaper that anyone could see, but I was a little moved to see my story on the news. I read the article through, even though I already knew the contents. The correction report only recorded the starkly changed facts.

‘It’s definite there’s no fixed future, and I can change it with my will. All right. It was a good tip.’

‘If I am rolling in more wealth in the future, I may not like the news that comes out in 12 Hours After. When that happens, there will also be a need to actively intervene in the future, as I did yesterday.’

‘Hoo, that’s good. I can modify the future. I think things are getting bigger.’

I leaned back on the chair for a while and closed my eyes. But when I closed my eyes, I could see only the black eyelids at first, and then suddenly someone’s face came to my mind. Oh Hyun-joo’s face was cute with a little bump on her head. I opened my eyes and shook my head a couple of times.

‘Wow, Han Sang-hoon, wake up.’

It was like I was still dreaming, and not really awake. But it was definitely not a dream that she took my number yesterday.

‘Maybe Oh Hyun-joo will call first. She’ll buy me a meal in return for saving her life. Then, what should I do?’

I had a delusion, laughing like that. But even then, I had such negative thoughts. ‘No. Would a top actress like that want to meet a commoner like me just because I saved her once? That’s ridiculous.’

I was like a little girl breaking the petals by herself for a while. ‘She likes me. She doesn’t like me. She likes me. She doesn’t like me.’

After repeating the ideas of affirmation and negation, I came to a third conclusion.

‘No. Whatever it is, shouldn’t I be a competent man for a top actress?’ I turned my head to the monitor with that thought. ‘All right, what’s the news today?’

But then a loud loudspeaker sounded outside the apartment.

“Who will be the new mayor of Seoul?”

After that, I heard someone shouting, “Lee Hee-chul! Lee Hee-chul! Lee Hee-chul!”

I felt a sudden surge of irritation.

‘Ah, they’ve been making a lot of noise the morning weekends. Lee Hee Chul? I’m not going to vote for you. No, who’s the competition? I’ll have to choose him.’

I found the mail from the NEC last time, and the booklet I had thrown away randomly to eat my chicken and beer.

It was the point of the local election season.