Beneath Seorin’s signature, part of the word REQUIRED remained.
It was not the bottom of a handwritten letter. It was the end of another sentence, left when someone cropped horizontally across the page. Seorin read it without saying the sentence she remembered. She waited until the company’s records officer laid the original on a transparent support.
It was the morning of November 2, in the records room behind the office. There were no windows. Ceiling lights shone on the scanner lid. Outside, Doun checked the list of permitted copies. Today’s viewing included other employees’ signatures, so he did not enter with her.
The officer unfolded the bottom of the page.
SOME AREAS NOT ENTERED. ADDITIONAL SITE CHECK REQUIRED.
Seorin had written that sentence herself last week. Immediately above it were her signature, Lee Seorin, and a short black speck. A slanting fold crossed beneath the speck.
“There are pressure marks in the original paper.”
The officer changed the angle of the light. Seorin looked without touching. The grooves deepened toward the end of her name. She remembered pressing hurriedly on the pen, but did not put that memory into the comparison table.
Next came the scan submitted by her company at the time. The fold, speck, and sentence were all present. The officer explained that this was the retained file, not a fresh scan, and opened its preservation history.
“Is this the version sent outside?”
“The first submission matches our retained copy. We’ve compared the file list in the transmission bundle too.”
Seorin wrote down the document’s full name first. It was a Preliminary Structural Risk Review, requesting further entry and checks. It was not a Final Safety Confirmation.
Beside it went the handover-completion copy received from the payment desk. The officer aligned the images using their page dimensions. The name had grown slightly larger. The diagonal fold stopped halfway. The black speck had enlarged by the same proportion as the name.
Seorin remembered trying to overlay two equally magnified screens earlier. This time, she did not use monitor size as her reference. They checked the page sizes within the files and the proportions of the cropped area first.
“The tops of those last letters have enlarged with it,” the officer said.
On the original, the sentence required an additional site check. On the completion form, that sentence was gone. Whoever tried to take only the name and speck had left a fragment behind. Seorin studied the cut sentence longer than her own name.
“A paper saying I hadn’t checked became evidence that I had.”
Her voice was lower than she expected.
The officer said they could not yet identify the person who made it. Seorin nodded. They had found the document the hand had passed through, rather than the hand itself.
Company transmission records led to acknowledgment by the public receiving desk. Seorin did not open anyone else’s archive through her company account. Each custodian supplied only the approved file and list. The relevant page of the review received by the public desk showed the same speck and fold.
The next item, however, was a viewing distribution copy, not the completion form.
“How far was it sent again?”
The public officer’s reply described distribution for site coordination: a bundle passed from building management to the Clearance Team and contractor contacts. The original review, including its signature page, appeared on that list. The supplied information did not show who downloaded and edited it.
Seorin distinguished a signature taken from a public submission from a signature made public for anyone’s use. This was distribution for work. It did not authorize substituting the signature for final confirmation.
“I never permitted this use.”
The officer recorded her statement with today’s date. They did not retrospectively add a refusal to the old document. Seorin asked for other company-held consent records to be checked too. Remembering no permission was different from finding none across all the material.
By lunchtime, the searched records contained no authorization to reuse her signature for completion confirmation. A company manager replied that no approval history for that use had been found. Seorin listed the scope searched and its custodians beside the result.
When she opened the door, Doun stood. There was no coffee. Two water bottles sat well away from the table’s edge instead.
“More paper today,” he explained.
“You’ve even reduced our drinking space.”
“My signature can get wet when I’ve written it myself.”
She laughed briefly. Finding the route her name had traveled did not make laughter impossible. Wanting to write one’s own name was ordinary enough to joke about.
She showed him the permitted comparison. He looked first at the cropped letters, rather than her pen strokes. He did not say the person responsible must also have made his receipt.
“The method looks similar.”
“We check the preparation routes separately.”
“Is this finished, then?”
She read the summary: SIGNATURE SECTION FROM PRELIMINARY REVIEW REPURPOSED. ACTOR AND EDITING INSTRUCTIONS REQUIRE FURTHER CHECKING.
“We found where it came from. We still have to establish who moved it, and under what authority.”
He nodded. Having someone beside her who could hear the same distinction again made repeating it less tiring.
A colleague called from the corridor, asking whether Seorin could take another site tomorrow. Eundam’s final confirmation appeared complete on the shared schedule. Seorin lowered her lunch.
“Who said it was finished?”
“It’s on the work board. If it isn’t, I’ll swap with someone else.”
The colleague showed her the terminal. A field carrying the external confirmation had changed to COMPLETE. Seorin asked that the screen remain intact while they checked with scheduling. The copied signature was deciding more than payment paperwork. It was deciding someone’s next working day.
Her own report, SAFETY CONFIRMATION INCOMPLETE, still existed. Scheduling explained that another employee had closed the work after reading the external document’s title. The officer reversed that action with today’s reason recorded. Seorin still declined the colleague’s request. She needed time to finish the checks already hers.
“Copy a few strokes, and that many schedules change,” Doun said.
Seorin ate a spoonful of cold rice. She wanted to explain the unfairness further, but instead checked that the person taking the other site had its outstanding risks. Recovering her own name must not mean someone else’s name being hurried into an empty field.
That afternoon, the manager brought a correction draft beginning THE SIGNATURE IS INVALID. Seorin stopped there. She could not recognize a completion confirmation she had never made. But the company could not use that sentence to decide the validity of every payment decision.
“Send what I checked, and what I didn’t write. Leave payment decisions to the responsible desk.”
The revision stated that she authored the preliminary review, neither directly signed the handover-completion form nor confirmed completion. It included the original conditions: areas not entered, further checking required.
The notice went separately to site preservation, building management, and payment comparison staff. Residents unrelated to it did not receive a long account of her copied signature. Through support staff, the two women sharing a name learned only that the payment evidence needed further checking.
“Does that mean I can get the money now?” Little Window asked.
Seorin adjusted her grip on the phone. She wished she could name something changing immediately.
“No payment conclusion today. Material is being submitted showing that the person recorded as confirming completion did not do so. Your own objection continues separately.”
“More waiting.”
“Yes. We’ll check the next reply with your support worker.”
The woman sighed. Seorin did not record it as disappointment in her. An inspector could not determine everything a waiting person’s sigh meant.
Afterward, she removed PROOF COMPLETE from the guidance note. Establishing the signature’s source had not restored everyone’s missing history. She felt briefly ashamed that the problem carrying her own name had yielded first. That feeling could not justify promising someone else a payment outcome.
Eungyeong called after receiving the notice. Her voice was quieter, her manner of ending sentences unchanged.
“It seems a submitted signature was put into the form. Perhaps the review before use was insufficient. That doesn’t mean no site checking took place.”
“We’ve requested who actually checked which areas. Please answer that separately from use of my signature.”
“I’ll check with Business Support.”
“Preserve the working file and sending history unchanged. A corrected replacement alone won’t show the earlier route.”
Eungyeong promised cooperation. Seorin recorded neither an accomplice’s admission nor a lone junior employee’s mistake. Attaching, reviewing, and authorizing submission needed separate fields.
Her manager would review their own distribution practices too. Masking signatures alone would not solve everything. Someone had removed the unconfirmed conditions; someone else had read the result as confirmation. Still, future submissions could display their scope more clearly.
Seorin wrote a separate recommendation: put areas not entered and incomplete final checks on the first page; link signature pages to document numbers and page numbers so they could not stand alone as conclusions. She left the original unchanged.
Before closing, Yunjae confirmed receipt. Site preservation continued; signature-comparison material had reached the designated investigation desk. Seorin asked only about her submissions and the next structural checks, not the entire investigation.
As she closed her bag, the transporter replied. A second handover receipt for October 26’s afternoon cases had been found. Viewing needed the commissioning party’s confirmation, but the destination category could be supplied.
She searched for SHREDDING YARD.
It was absent.
Doun read the permitted first page with her. The recording-device cases had been removed from the shredding queue and classified differently.
EQUIPMENT AWAITING REPAIR AND INSPECTION.
Seorin read the storage area below. The cases taken from the building had not disappeared. They were waiting under another name.