Case No. 2024-EQ-0231. Workplace bullying.
Victim: Song Minjae, male, 32. Site manager at a mid-sized construction company.
Four offenders. Superiors and coworkers from the same department.
Kim Taeho, male, 45. Department head. Jung Haesoo, male, 38. Manager. Oh Seyoung, male, 36. Assistant manager. Park Jihoon, male, 33. Same-year hire.
Taekyung opened the file. It was thick. Duration of harm: two years and seven months.
There had been no physical assault. Not once.
Instead, there had been these.
Exclusion from work. Being cut off whenever he spoke in meetings. Being removed from the group chat. Being pressured not to attend company dinners. Eating lunch alone. Forty-seven rejected reports. The same report passed when submitted by someone else. Forced overtime. Forced weekend work. Hints of consequences for using vacation days.
And then, the decisive act.
A post identifying Song Minjae had appeared on the company's anonymous message board. “When an incompetent person takes up a position, the entire team dies.” Twenty-three comments. Every one of them in agreement.
Song Minjae had quit six months ago. He was currently receiving psychiatric treatment for depression and social anxiety disorder. He had tried to find a new job three times. He had failed every interview. He said that whenever he entered an interview room, his hands began to shake and no words would come out.
Taekyung interviewed Song Minjae.
Song Minjae was a tall, broad-shouldered man. Like someone who had worked at construction sites, he had large hands. But those large hands were trembling on his knees.
“When did it first begin?”
“Three months after I joined the company. Department Head Kim cut me off in a meeting. ‘What do you know?’ That’s when it started.”
“Was there a reason?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. At first, I thought maybe I’d done something wrong. So I worked harder. I did overtime. I came in on weekends, too. But the harder I worked, the worse it got.”
Taekyung made a note.
“What about your coworkers?”
Song Minjae's mouth closed. After a moment, he spoke.
“At first, Park Jihoon was on my side. We were hired the same year. We ate together, too. But after about six months, he stopped seeing me, too. I heard later that Department Head Kim told him, ‘If you hang out with Song Minjae, you'll end up just like him.’”
Taekyung did not stop writing.
“When was the hardest moment?”
Song Minjae was silent for a long time.
“I was crying in the company bathroom when someone came in. It was Manager Jung Haesoo. He saw me and laughed. He didn't say anything. He just laughed and walked out.”
Taekyung set down his pen.
“After that, I couldn't cry in the bathroom anymore. I had nowhere left to cry.”
Taekyung was silent for three seconds.
“That’s enough.”
Taekyung began the assessment at his desk.
The difficulty in this case was clear. There had been no physical assault. The Equivalent Retribution Act operated on the principle of “returning the harm exactly as it was,” but there was no physical harm to return.
There was only psychological harm.
And there were four offenders. He had to separate how much harm each of the four had caused.
Department Head Kim Taeho had led the effort. Manager Jung Haesoo had carried it out, Assistant Manager Oh Seyoung had gone along with it, and Park Jihoon had crossed the line from bystander to participant. Their shares of responsibility were not equal.
Taekyung organized each offender's actions in chronological order.
Kim Taeho: ordered Song Minjae excluded from work, cut him off in meetings, rejected his reports, and hinted at consequences for using vacation days. The architect of the bullying.
Jung Haesoo: carried out Kim Taeho's orders. Forced overtime, forced weekend work, and removed him from the group chat. The man who laughed in the bathroom. The executor of the bullying.
Oh Seyoung: pressured him not to attend company dinners and led his isolation during lunch. Author of the post on the company message board. The spreader of the bullying.
Park Jihoon: initially took Song Minjae's side, then joined in six months later. The betrayal of a peer. The one who completed the bullying.
“That’s enough.”
Song Minjae started to stand, then stopped.
“Assessor.”
“Yes?”
“Is there really anything you can return to them on my behalf?”
Taekyung looked at Song Minjae.
“They never hit me. They didn't break any bones. They just ignored me, ostracized me, and laughed at me. How are you supposed to return that?”
Taekyung was silent for two seconds.
“Finding what can be returned is my job.”
Song Minjae's eyes reddened. He lowered his head and left the interview room.
Taekyung stared at the empty chair. The place where Song Minjae had sat. The place where a big man had sat, trembling.
You could destroy a person without ever hitting them. How did the Equivalent Retribution Act return that?
Kim Taeho: 40 percent. Jung Haesoo: 25 percent. Oh Seyoung: 20 percent. Park Jihoon: 15 percent.
But was that ratio correct?
Park Jihoon's 15 percent might have left Song Minjae with a deeper wound than Kim Taeho's 40 percent. What a superior did to him and what a peer's betrayal did to him were qualitatively different. Divided into numbers, Park Jihoon bore the lightest share, but during the interview, the moment Song Minjae had gone silent the longest was when he talked about Park Jihoon.
Taekyung put down his pen.
The size of harm and the depth of harm were different.
The Equivalent Retribution Act measured size. Depth could not be measured.
Taekyung based the assessment on size. Depth was not a number.
Jungyeong read the report.
“Equivalent mental harm will be imposed on each of the four offenders at different percentages.”
“Yes.”
“Kim Taeho, 40 percent. Jung Haesoo, 25 percent. Oh Seyoung, 20 percent. Park Jihoon, 15 percent.”
“Yes.”
Jungyeong set down the documents.
“Assessor. Park Jihoon was initially on the victim's side. He joined in later. If you impose 15 percent on him, then in future workplace-bullying cases, ‘bystanders’ will also become subject to punishment.”
Taekyung looked at Jungyeong.
“He crossed the line from bystander to participant. He isn't a bystander.”
“Where is the line? Is not eating lunch together participation? Is leaving the group chat participation?”
Taekyung was silent for one second.
“Ask Song Minjae whether the day his peer turned his back was the beginning of the participation.”
Something changed in Jungyeong's eyes. Sharpness surfaced, then softened again.
“I'll approve it. But there will be a constitutional petition over Park Jihoon’s case.”
“There will be.”
“Will we win?”
Taekyung looked out the window.
“Even if we lose, the precedent will remain.”
That night.
Hyunwoo contacted him.
“The timing for Park Jongsu's second-stage enforcement has been finalized. Next Tuesday.”
“What’s his condition?”
“The fractures from the first stage have healed sufficiently. Second-stage cervical-spine-injury enforcement is possible.”
Taekyung looked at the clock. 10:23 p.m.
“Send me the enforcement plan by tomorrow morning.”
“It’s already done. Check your email.”
Taekyung opened the email. Hyunwoo's enforcement plan. It was organized without a single gap. The location and intensity of the cervical spine injury, the expected results. An enforcement design precisely corresponding to Lee Sunok's CT images.
As Taekyung read the plan, he remembered his interview with Lee Sunok. She had kept both hands on her knees, but her fingers had been trembling faintly. Someone who could not stop her own hands.
Park Jongsu would soon be in the same condition. Sensation in both arms would be diminished, and he would need assistance with daily life. He would live in that condition for four months, then undergo the third-stage enforcement. A fractured skull. Cerebral hemorrhage. And the same hemiplegia as eight-year-old Choi Yunho.
Fourteen months.
Han Seojin had called it “torture.” Jungyeong had said, “Whether a person can endure it is a separate question.”
Taekyung closed the plan.
Whether it could be endured was not within Taekyung's jurisdiction. His domain was numbers. If the numbers were right, he enforced them. If the numbers were wrong, he stopped.
He opened the next case file.
Case No. 2024-EQ-0244. Stalking.
Duration of harm: three years.
Physical assaults: 0.
Taekyung turned to the first page.
Episode 8 END.