“The flowers in the garden need to be watered.”
Jin Seoah looked down at the hand clasping her wrist.
She could barely feel any strength in it. It was closer to having someone simply lay their fingers on her. Even so, Hana did not let go.
“I’ll do it.”
When Jin Seoah answered, Hana’s eyes moved.
“Don’t give them too much water.”
“How much should I give them?”
“The hydrangeas on the left side of the flower bed need three liters. The roses in the middle need one and a half liters. Check the soil moisture of the potted plant on the right first.”
Jin Seoah looked at Hana for a moment.
“Understood.”
“Please do it before sunset.”
“Yes.”
Only then did Hana let go.
Not long after Park Mujin headed for the interrogation room, the door opened again.
Kim Taeho entered.
He wasn’t wearing handcuffs. Instead, Park Mujin and a police officer followed on either side of him.
Kim Taeho stopped when he saw Hana lying on the analysis table.
An external frame and temporary power unit were still connected to Hana’s chest. Her damaged synthetic skin had not yet been repaired.
Kim Taeho spoke in a low voice.
“Was she alive?”
Jin Seoah turned to him.
“I don’t think that’s something you get to ask.”
Seo Jinhyeok stopped Jin Seoah.
“I’ll take over the questions from here. Mr. Kim, sit over there.”
Kim Taeho didn’t sit in the chair.
Without taking his eyes off Hana, he asked, “You said she wanted to see me.”
Hana turned her head.
Their eyes met.
“Mr. Taeho.”
Kim Taeho’s face hardened.
It was the same form of address as always. Whenever they met at his father’s house, Hana had always called him Mr. Taeho.
Not family, not owner, not intruder—just his name.
Kim Taeho looked at Hana’s damaged chest.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you about the day Mr. Yongsoo made his will.”
“You said you erased the memory.”
“I deleted it.”
“Then what can you possibly say?”
“I deleted the memory data, but the fact that the deletion command was carried out, along with the reason for it, remains in a separate judgment record.”
Jung Haeun checked the screen.
Hana’s memories had several layers.
Sensory records of what she had seen and heard.
Judgment records interpreting those sensations.
A history of commands carried out.
Even if a sensory memory was deleted, the fact that she had executed the command did not disappear with it.
Jung Haeun asked, “Can you directly replay what was deleted?”
“No.”
“But can you explain what happened that day?”
“Only partially.”
“What are you basing that explanation on without the sensory record?”
“Mr. Taeho remembers.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Kim Taeho.
Kim Taeho let out a hollow laugh.
“So that’s why you called me? So I could tell the story for you?”
“Because it isn’t my memory.”
“It was stored in your head.”
“I saw and heard it, but what happened was between you and Mr. Yongsoo.”
Hana looked at Kim Taeho.
“Mr. Yongsoo did not want me to retain what happened that day.”
“Why?”
“You can tell them, Mr. Taeho.”
Kim Taeho closed his mouth.
Seo Jinhyeok did not press him.
The only sound left in the analysis room was the hum of Hana’s power unit. A low vibration repeated at regular intervals.
Kim Taeho pulled out a chair and sat across from Hana.
“Have you forgotten everything?”
“The sensory memories are no longer there.”
“Even the fact that my father didn’t recognize me?”
“That is not recorded.”
Kim Taeho stared at Hana’s face for a long time.
“My father called me.”
He looked at the floor rather than at Hana as he spoke.
“He told me to come over because he wanted to settle the issue with the house. So I went.”
He had already given that statement in the interrogation room. But his voice was slightly different as he brought it up again in front of Hana.
Fatigue came through before anger.
“When I went inside, my father asked who I was. I told him I was his son, and he said his son was ten years old.”
Hana did not move.
“You took my father to his room. You said he was temporarily confused and told me to wait outside.”
“Did I?”
Kim Taeho glared at Hana.
“You really don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
The strength drained from Kim Taeho’s face at the answer.
It seemed difficult for him to accept that the person he was angry with could not remember the moment he had been angry.
“About ten minutes later, my father came back out. This time, he recognized me.”
“And then?”
“He apologized.”
Kim Taeho’s hands clenched on his knees.
“He apologized for never having done right by me since I was a kid. He apologized for not helping me when I was struggling.”
It was information Park Mujin had not heard in the interrogation room.
He watched Kim Taeho in silence.
“So I asked him for the house.”
Kim Taeho gave a short laugh.
“My father apologized first. I thought he’d help me this time.”
Seo Jinhyeok asked, “Did you have business debts then?”
“I still do.”
Kim Taeho made no attempt to deny it.
“You could pay them off if you inherited the house.”
“Yes.”
“My father knew, too. He knew why I needed the house.”
“What did Mr. Kim Yongsoo say?”
Kim Taeho’s eyes shifted to Hana.
“He said he couldn’t give me the house.”
“Why not?”
“He said that machine had to stay alive.”
Hana’s eyes moved almost imperceptibly.
Kim Taeho continued, “He said that if my father died, the machine would have no registered owner. Since it was an older model, renewing its long-term operation permit without a guardian would be difficult. If no new owner appeared, it would most likely be repossessed.”
Im Suhyeon quietly nodded.
Under current law, an android whose registered owner had died had to transfer ownership or obtain an independent operation permit within ninety days.
If it failed to do so, the Administration repossessed it.
Most older androids that were repossessed never found new owners.
In the end, they were dismantled for parts.
Kim Taeho said, “My father said that if he left the house to Hana, she could undergo an independent personhood review and continue living there.”
Seo Jinhyeok asked, “So Mr. Kim Yongsoo left the house to Hana for that reason?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Did Mr. Kim Yongsoo say that himself?”
“Yes.”
“When he recognized you?”
Kim Taeho’s expression hardened.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
It was true that Kim Yongsoo had experienced a temporary state of cognitive confusion before making the will. But even after recognizing Kim Taeho again, he had clearly stated that he intended to leave the house to Hana.
Kim Taeho lifted his head.
“That doesn’t mean he was thinking clearly.”
“Why do you think that?”
“How can it be considered clear thinking to decide that a machine matters more than his son?”
No one answered.
The question could not be answered by the law alone.
Kim Taeho looked at Hana.
“I asked my father where that left me. I asked what I would have left if he died and gave the house to a machine.”
“What did Mr. Yongsoo say?”
Kim Taeho’s lips pressed tightly together at Hana’s question.
“Mr. Taeho.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I heard it, too.”
“That’s why you erased it.”
“Mr. Yongsoo told me to erase it.”
“So keep pretending you don’t know.”
Hana’s gaze did not waver.
“If you don’t tell us, I won’t ask anything else.”
Kim Taeho lowered his head.
It took time before he opened his mouth.
“My father said this.”
His voice came out low and ragged.
“Don’t you still have a family to go back to?”
Kim Taeho’s wife and daughter lived in Paju.
After his business failed, Kim Taeho had lived apart from his family. He had said he wouldn’t return until he had settled his debts, but in truth, he was avoiding them because he didn’t want them to see him after his failure.
“I told him I didn’t have a family. That they’d all abandoned me.”
Kim Taeho rubbed his face with one hand.
“So my father said this.”
In the end, he couldn’t look at Hana.
“You haven’t been abandoned. You’re the one who isn’t going back.”
Silence settled over the analysis room.
“I got angry. A man who had never even properly acted like my father was suddenly talking to me about family.”
Kim Taeho bent forward. His clasped hands trembled.
“I yelled at him. I told him I’d sell the house when he died. I said I’d scrap that machine, too.”
Hana’s internal response readings spiked for an instant.
Jung Haeun watched the change.
“My father hit me then.”
Jin Seoah looked at Kim Taeho.
“Mr. Kim Yongsoo did?”
“He slapped me once. A man who could barely stand upright.”
Kim Taeho laughed.
“And then he apologized immediately.”
Everything that had happened within those twenty-two minutes that day.
The moment a father failed to recognize his son.
The moment a son said he would scrap his father’s android.
The moment a father slapped his son.
And the moment they apologized to each other.
Kim Taeho thought it was evidence that could overturn the validity of the will.
Kim Yongsoo had not wanted to leave it behind for anyone else.
Seo Jinhyeok asked Hana, “Why did Mr. Kim Yongsoo tell you to delete that memory?”
Hana answered, “There is a judgment record Mr. Yongsoo left behind.”
“Tell me.”
“He said that his failure to recognize Mr. Taeho was a record of his illness, that Mr. Taeho’s anger was a record of a failed son, and that his striking Mr. Taeho was a record of a failed father.”
Hana paused for a moment.
“He said he did not want to leave any of it behind as an inheritance.”
Kim Taeho slowly raised his head.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did he leave the house to you?”
“He determined that I needed a place to live.”
“And I didn’t?”
Hana did not answer immediately.
“Mr. Yongsoo said that he had already left something to Mr. Taeho.”
“What?”
“A family to go back to.”
Kim Taeho’s expression twisted.
“He called that an inheritance?”
“Yes.”
“Easy for him to say.”
“Mr. Yongsoo said that, too.”
Kim Taeho looked at Hana.
“What did he say?”
“He said that because words were easy to leave behind, he had prepared something else as well.”
Hana tried to move her right hand.
The wires connected to her arm pulled taut. Gu Daechul hurriedly supported her hand.
Hana traced a small rectangle in the air with her finger.
“There is a wooden box in the second drawer from the bottom of the living-room bookcase.”
Kim Taeho’s eyes changed.
“What box?”
“An item left for you, Mr. Taeho.”
“If it was there, why didn’t you tell me until now?”
“I was instructed to deliver it after the will’s validity had been confirmed.”
“My father’s been dead for three months.”
“The lawsuit has not ended.”
“Because I filed it?”
“Yes.”
Kim Taeho gave a hollow laugh.
“So I was the one keeping myself from receiving what was mine.”
Hana did not answer.
Kim Taeho stood.
“I’m going to check the box first.”
Seo Jinhyeok blocked his path.
“You’re currently a suspect. You can’t return to the scene alone.”
“You said it was something he left for me.”
“The police will inspect it and then hand it over.”
“My father left it to me.”
Seo Jinhyeok gave Kim Taeho’s own words back to him.
“That’s for the court to decide.”
Kim Taeho’s face hardened.
Park Mujin’s lips lifted ever so slightly.
But he didn’t smile.
The wooden box was where Hana had said it would be.
Seo Jinhyeok, Park Mujin, and Jin Seoah returned to the house with the police. Kim Taeho went with them under the investigators’ watch.
The living room was almost unchanged from that morning.
A trace of blue coolant remained where Hana had collapsed. The broken vase and hammer had already been collected as evidence.
Kim Taeho stopped when he entered the living room.
It was a trace he hadn’t noticed that morning.
It remained there even after what he had done had left the room.
Park Mujin went to the bookcase.
The second drawer was locked.
Kim Taeho said, “The key should be under the flowerpot on top of the bookcase.”
“How do you know?”
“My father always kept it there.”
Jin Seoah lifted the flowerpot.
A small key was taped to the floor.
Park Mujin opened the drawer.
Inside was a wooden box about the size of two palms.
An old piece of paper was attached to the top of the box.
“For Taeho.”
Kim Taeho reached out.
Seo Jinhyeok picked up the box first.
“I’ll give it to you after I check it.”
When they opened the box, it contained an old wristwatch, a bankbook, and several photographs.
The bankbook bore the name of Kim Taeho’s daughter.
Kim Taeho’s expression froze.
Park Mujin checked the transaction history.
For ten years, Kim Yongsoo had deposited the same amount every month. It wasn’t a large sum. But not once had he missed a month.
At the bottom of the box lay an envelope.
Kim Taeho took it.
The letter contained only a few short sentences.
“I can’t give you the house. I’m afraid it would become another place for you to hide.”
Kim Taeho’s hand stopped.
There was one more line beneath it.
“Use this money to pay off your debts and go back.”
Kim Taeho stared at the letter for a long time.
No one spoke to him first.
Jin Seoah stepped outside the living room.
The sun was slanting westward.
The flowers in the garden needed to be watered.
Beside the faucet sat the green watering can Hana used. When Jin Seoah picked it up, Kim Taeho’s voice came from behind her.
“That’s for the hydrangeas.”
Jin Seoah turned.
Kim Taeho stood by the front door. He was still holding his father’s letter.
“Only water the roses around the roots. If water gets on the petals, they’ll get sick.”
“You knew that?”
“That flower bed has been there since I was a kid.”
Jin Seoah held out the watering can.
“Then you do it yourself.”
Park Mujin looked between them.
Kim Taeho didn’t take it right away.
His eyes went to the flower bed.
Roses were blooming in the middle, and hydrangeas stood in rows on the left. It was the garden Hana had tended every day until that morning.
“Can I?”
Kim Taeho asked Seo Jinhyeok.
“If you don’t run.”
Kim Taeho took the watering can.
He turned on the faucet and filled it.
He watered the hydrangeas first.
He moved the can slowly so he wouldn’t pour too much in one place. Then he crouched in front of the roses and moistened the soil around the roots, avoiding the petals.
He didn’t measure the amount Hana had specified.
But he looked like someone who had done it for a long time.
Jin Seoah asked, “What are you going to do when Hana comes back?”
Kim Taeho answered without looking away from the flower bed.
“I’ll have to sue again.”
Park Mujin said incredulously, “Still?”
“The court needs to determine whether my father made the will while he was of sound mind.”
“You’re not planning to break Hana again, are you?”
Kim Taeho’s hand stopped.
“I’m not.”
“Can we trust you?”
“I don’t know.”
Kim Taeho answered honestly.
“I don’t really know myself right now.”
He started watering again.
He didn’t apologize.
He didn’t ask to be forgiven.
He simply took over, for a while, the work of the being he had damaged.
Seo Jinhyeok didn’t think that was enough.
But he didn’t think it was nothing, either.
Kim Taeho was charged with trespassing, aggravated property damage, and attempted destruction of evidence.
He was not charged with attempted homicide.
Even though Hana had been recognized as having limited artificial personhood, the current Criminal Act did not define an android’s body as a life. In the charges against Kim Taeho, Hana was both the victim and the damaged property.
Im Suhyeon stared at the classification section of the case file for a long time.
“Victim asset: HK-Care 7th Generation, registered name Hana.”
Below it was another separate entry.
“Victim statement provider: Hana.”
The same entity was recorded simultaneously as property and as a statement provider.
Im Suhyeon handed the document to Seo Jinhyeok.
“Are you going to approve it like this?”
Seo Jinhyeok read the record.
“Is there another way?”
“Not on the current form.”
“Then make one.”
“Chief.”
“Remove Hana’s name from the victim asset field. List only the damaged components and repair costs.”
“They’ll raise an issue during the audit.”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
Im Suhyeon looked at Seo Jinhyeok for a moment before taking the document back.
“You say that a lot. One day, you’re really going to have to take responsibility.”
“I know.”
“I’m saying it because you don’t seem to.”
Im Suhyeon returned to her desk.
A little later, the printer produced the revised case record.
“Victim statement provider: Hana.”
This time, no other classification appeared before it.
Hana returned home a week later.
She had not been completely restored. Part of the frame in her chest remained exposed, and only about half the sensation in her right hand had returned.
Most of her memories from the past three months were also damaged.
Hana had to accept Kim Yongsoo’s death anew every day.
When she opened her eyes in the morning, she confirmed that Kim Yongsoo was gone. She read the stored death record, looked at photographs from the funeral, and relearned the three months she could not remember.
Jin Seoah could not tell whether that was the same as human grief.
But she could tell that Hana spent a long time reading the same records every day.
Jin Seoah took Hana home.
When the front door opened, Hana stood in the living room for a long while.
The photograph hanging on the wall.
The teacup on the dining table.
The sofa where Kim Yongsoo used to sit.
Hana did not touch any of them.
“Are you all right?”
Jin Seoah asked.
“It is difficult to determine what condition would qualify as all right.”
“You can take your time.”
“I have plenty of time.”
Hana looked at Kim Yongsoo’s photograph hanging in the living room.
“He did not.”
Jin Seoah could not answer.
Hana went out into the garden.
Because of the frame in her chest, she walked more slowly than before. She had to pause to regain her balance even to descend a single step.
The flowers in the garden had not withered.
The soil beneath the hydrangeas was wet, and new buds had appeared on the roses.
Hana stopped in front of the flower bed.
“Who watered them?”
“Mr. Kim Taeho.”
Hana’s gaze remained on the flower bed.
“I see.”
That was all.
She showed neither joy nor surprise.
Hana slowly crouched and touched the soil with her finger. With the hand whose sensation had only half returned, she checked the moisture.
“It is slightly too much.”
Jin Seoah smiled.
“I’ll tell him.”
“Next time, he should use twenty percent less.”
“Do you think Mr. Kim Taeho will come to water them again?”
Hana plucked a withered leaf from the rose.
“I do not know.”
“Would you like him to?”
Hana’s hand stopped.
“I will not answer that question.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mr. Yongsoo did not ask me to.”
Jin Seoah did not ask anything else.
There was a presence from the direction of the alley.
Hana raised her head.
Beyond the low wall, Kim Taeho stood in front of the gate.
It was impossible to tell how long he had been there. In one hand, he held what looked like a new, adjustable walking cane.
Kim Taeho looked at Hana, who was touching the soil in the flower bed.
“Did I give them too much water?”
“Yes. About twenty percent too much.”
Kim Taeho nodded.
“I’ll be more careful next time.”
He stood the cane he was carrying just inside the gate.
“I’m going to continue the lawsuit.”
“I know.”
“I still don’t believe you didn’t deceive my father.”
“I know that, too.”
“But until the trial is over, can I take care of the flowers?”
Hana did not answer immediately.
Kim Taeho waited outside the gate.
“There is one condition.”
“What is it?”
“Only water the roses around the roots.”
The corner of Kim Taeho’s mouth moved ever so slightly.
“Understood.”
He did not enter through the gate. He turned and walked away.
Hana watched Kim Taeho’s back as he receded.
Jin Seoah asked, “Is it all right not to invite him in?”
Hana answered, “He will come in the next time he comes to water the flowers.”
“How do you know?”
“Mr. Yongsoo determined that he would.”
“You mean Mr. Kim Taeho will come back?”
“Yes.”
Hana looked at the flowers in the garden.
Who would own the house had not yet been decided.
It would take a long time for the lawsuit to end.
But things had already been left behind in that house.
Kim Yongsoo’s photograph and old teacup.
The wristwatch and bankbook he left for his son.
The room and garden he left for Hana.
The twenty-two minutes of memory that were ultimately erased.
And the gate left open for the person who had yet to return.
Jin Seoah thought perhaps those were the inheritances left behind before the house itself.
The soil around the roses’ roots was still sufficiently wet.
They did not need any more water today.