At the Crossroads

Chapter 21

The interrogation room was in use again the next day morning. As having interrogated two people on two consecutive days, Jinyoung was willing to hand that duty to someone else from his team. But he could not when the others insisted he was the one who knew Mark better than any of them.

They were just by the interrogation room when Mark arrived. He greeted everyone heartily, except Jinyoung, who had his arms crossed as he watched them.

"If you've finished, you're invited into the room, Mr. Tuan," Jinyoung said, for the first time since Mark had been here.

Mark finally turned to him, as if he had just noticed Jinyoung. "Who's going to interrogate me?" he asked, rasing his eyebrows.

"Who else?" Jinyoung moved into the room and Mark followed. He pulled Jinyoung back just when they were at the entrance.

"Why hurry?" His hand, which held Jinyoung's arm slowly moved up and down. "If you want me here the whole day, I'll so willingly stay."

Jinyoung pursed his lips, in annoyance, and removed Mark's hand. "Thanks but it's an unnecessary offer. And one thing, don't touch me anytime as you like. I'm no more a room attendant who has to be considerate toward his customer. So keep your hands to yourself."

"That hit me hard," Mark covered his chest with his hands to show how hurt he was. "I just wanted to say good-morning to you."

Jinyoung just shook his head; nothing was surprising anyway. He continued into the room and seated himself at the table. To his relief, Mark did not make any more scene and sat down in the chair where he was supposed to.

"How many interrogations am I going to have?"

"This is your second time only. And the last one wasn't even long. How many more you'll have depends on the result of this one," Jinyoung said.

"Okay. But I'm not complaining in case you think I'm. You know, more interrogations mean-"

Jinyoung interruped him by clearing his throat and started, "Alright, so, you and Kim Shiwoo were pretty close, weren't you? What kind of relationship do you have? I mean, a personal friendship or only for business?"

Mark gave his answer immediately, "Kind of both."

"Please elaborate."

"Well, we started as the business partners," Mark said, "But it wasn't that simple. Our company deals with all kinds of goods for trade. But lately, there's been a particular demand for oil to export. So, we decided it would be a great idea to have more deals with the Korean oil companies. For most of the part, it was successful. But Crystal Oil Company. You know, it's not much of a household name these days although it used to. But our deals would be a great opportunity for them. I had several discussions and meetings with Shiwoo hyung, who was the CEO. That was how we got to know each other. But the thing was, he refused to have big deals. I thought he didn't trust us. But he kept insisting that it was because they were handling many other deals at the moment. So, our partnership didn't go so far but our friendship had grown."

"And?"

"And what? That's all! What else do I need to tell?"

Was it possible that Mark was telling the truth or was concealing his involvement with Kim Shiwoo's crimes? Jinyoung had to rack his brains for the next question. "Do you think there was any other reason why he didn't agree to the big deals you proposed? For example, because the company didn't produce enough oil?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Why do you think he lied?" Mark, for a moment, looked interested, giving an impression that he had not at all thought of that.