The figure for zero occupants had been entered twice on the same sheet.
Once in the area-by-area check, once in the total at the bottom. Seorin read the signatures between without tracing them with her finger. All six lines carried Nam Gijun’s name.
“Did you personally inspect every area?”
He looked down. Afternoon light was caught by the window frame, leaving only half the sheet brightly lit.
“I checked the main entrances.”
“Inside each room?”
“If a door was locked, I checked it from outside. That was how I confirmed those.”
Main entrances. Outside locked doors. Neither answer meant that he had looked inside every part of the building. Seorin moved the attached LOWER LEVEL IN USE note beside it.
“This records use at 16:04.”
“Someone must have come for their belongings.”
“Do you remember?”
His lips closed, then opened.
“Several people came that afternoon. I couldn’t say exactly who.”
Yunjae moved toward the entry log, leaving Gijun’s way clear.
“We’ll establish who’s inside now first. Yesterday’s record stays separate.”
Seorin nodded. Looking for yesterday’s people on paper must not mean missing today’s. Staff radioed the permitted areas. Office, main entrance, outside passage answered in turn. Two designated workers were checking the restricted connecting section from beyond its door.
Eungyeong took out a document list.
“We prepared the Vacancy Confirmation as one form. Business Support transferred what the caretaker confirmed.”
“All six signatures obtained together?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
Gijun drew one foot under his chair.
“I didn’t sign blank paper. The area names were there. I just didn’t put separate times.”
“Who entered 15:00?”
All six times shared a typeface; only the signatures were handwritten. Seorin asked the designated worker to photograph that difference. That all the times shared a typeface did not prove they had been entered at the same moment. It did, however, make clear whom they needed to ask about the entry.
Eungyeong reached Business Support, explaining who was listening before switching to speaker.
“We put three because that was the scheduled end of the document check. I didn’t visit then.”
The voice sounded young.
“It wasn’t when each area was inspected?” Seorin asked.
“No. The caretaker messaged that he’d checked in the afternoon. Time was a required field.”
Someone’s required field had become someone else’s six visits. Seorin preserved the explanation without improving its wording, adding the call time and speaker’s role.
“Please keep the material used and the sent version. Don’t replace it with a file correcting only the time.”
The speaker asked whether they wanted a revised copy. Seorin explained that they needed the basis for the existing document. Eungyeong requested that the original remain and any explanation come separately.
Afterward Gijun pressed his knees.
“Isn’t it just one wrong time?”
“We’re checking whether it’s only the time. Who inspected inside the lower level?”
He had no immediate answer.
Silence did not prove residence. Rather than fill an empty answer herself, she wrote METHOD OF LOWER-LEVEL CHECK UNCONFIRMED. Outside, someone dragged plastic while preparing equipment covers for forecast rain.
A site worker contacted Yunjae. Beside the storage compartment, in a small waiting space within the preservation boundary, they had found paper while photographing belongings. A picture showed its position before anything moved.
A silver food pouch. Its torn top caught in a hanging storage net. Below were a printed date and three short strokes drawn by hand.
Seorin almost said that meant the food had been eaten yesterday. She opened the photograph larger before saying it.
“That’s the packing date. It doesn’t establish when someone ate.”
Doun pointed to the net.
“It wasn’t put up today. There’s a little of it in my first passage photograph.”
He opened his original. Same nail, same torn net. In that first photograph, the pouch itself was hidden from view. They could identify the net, but not establish that the pouch had been there since yesterday.
Accompanied by the designated worker, Seorin went down to the safety boundary, leaving her destination and expected return with the office. Light on the landing had sunk since morning. Staff operated the blue door. Beside it, a board recorded the current number inside.
The net lay farther in than the place where someone had leaned or sat. She could not call all of it Haeun’s rescue location. From outside the line, she watched the worker illuminate the wall.
A small unsigned notice beneath a low shelf read:
WASH CUPS AND LEAVE UPSIDE DOWN.
A droplet was drawn below. A work storehouse could have cups. Food packaging did not automatically make it a home. Still, had the person declaring every area empty checked this shelf and net?
The designated worker turned the screen to show her another photograph, this one looking into the shelf. Three mismatched cups. A folded thin cushion with overlapping compression lines. Seorin kept her thought that someone might have slept there out of the report.
“There are traces of resting or eating. Who used them, and until when, need separate confirmation.”
Beside the cups lay a crumpled timetable for an outer Dorim bus route. The last service was circled; the next morning’s first departure handwritten below.
Doun looked at the timetable for a long time. Seorin too found herself thinking where she would wait if the last bus on her own journey home had already gone. Recording separate dates and numbers did not mean ignoring someone’s circumstances. It meant refusing to invent those still unknown.
Back upstairs, Haeun was leaving. Her friend cleared room for crutches outside the entrance. Putting a transparent envelope away, Haeun saw Seorin.
“Something else today?”
“The lower-level confirmation doesn’t match the scope actually checked. We’re requesting preservation.”
Seorin did not show her someone else’s belongings. Haeun was not necessarily their owner, nor was she the person responsible for explaining another person’s things. Instead, she mentioned locating the old waiting space at their next contact.
Haeun took out a photograph, covering faces and names with paper. Only an interior door remained visible.
“Here? Mum said this was where she waited. The door opened into the corridor. They moved the chairs when someone came.”
It was yellow-gray. The location resembled STAFF WAITING AREA on the hand map, but the swing differed. Seorin recorded the photograph’s period and who had described the place. A location-only copy could follow if Haeun wished; she need not wait with weight on her injured ankle.
“I thought I’d seen it properly this time. Maybe I was wrong again.”
“We can check which part. Being wrong doesn’t erase everything.”
Her friend took the bag. Staff recorded their departure. Seorin waited for the door to close before opening her report.
For the title, she started to write VACANCY CONFIRMATION ERROR. Then she erased those words and chose a different description.
REQUEST TO PRESERVE BASIS FOR ALL-AREA CHECK AND TRACES OF USE.
Document names and photograph numbers followed separately: the bulk entry of 15:00; no confirmed internal lower-level visitor; food and resting traces; differing door swings. The occupant count stayed blank.
Her company supervisor called.
“So today’s conclusion is that it wasn’t vacant?”
“There’s insufficient basis to confirm vacancy. Actual presence and numbers need more checking.”
As she gave that answer, Seorin felt the tension leave the hand holding her pen. She had wanted stronger words, afraid caution sounded like postponing a conclusion. Yet saying that something had not been inspected was a conclusion too.
The company sent preservation requests through official channels and returned receipt numbers. Site material went to its existing custodian; contractor documents to their holders. Seorin did not write that she had used her own name to seal off the whole building. She could request and report within her role; that did not make every restriction hers to order. Today meant preservation and continued restricted access. Final suspension of dismantling remained another procedure.
Yunjae read the list.
“Have you included movement of belongings?”
“I’ll add it. We need to know where the cups and cushion came from.”
Eungyeong acknowledged receipt. Cooperation would take time; material was scattered. Seorin could not expect everything tonight. Instead, she obtained the name of the person who would answer for each set of material, and agreed when the next check would take place.
She reviewed recipients. Keeping only the office printout would leave no route back to whoever filled the vacancy time. She added the caretaker’s message received by Business Support and the earliest form.
Gijun said private phone numbers were mixed into the messages. The designated worker explained the procedure for relevant portions. Unrelated conversations did not all need disclosure now.
Only then did Gijun take out his phone. He turned it toward the worker rather than handing it to Seorin. Seorin took one step back from the screen. If the necessary material survived, she had no reason to see every screen first. Later, she checked only that the recorded preservation items matched the request.
Doun poured cool water into a new cup. As she accepted it, Seorin checked its underside.
“Opened today,” he said. “I’m not serving you evidence.”
Seorin gave a short laugh and accepted it. For a moment she let her eyes rest: lately they had begun studying any cup she picked up, as though every base might need an explanation.
Then another site photograph arrived.
An open storehouse entrance opposite the waiting space. A designated employee had opened it for today’s belongings check. The door folded inward. Along the outside wall ran a long mark left by chair backs.
Seorin remembered Haeun’s photograph.
A door opening into the corridor.
Between the present door and the old chair marks were two pairs of unused hinge holes.
At the new photograph’s right edge, two removed hinges lay in a transparent box.