The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 1

Misfortune is like a snake. It crawls in without a sound and bites the ankles of those standing defenseless.

This was the conclusion I reached after looking back on the misfortune that occurred around that time countless times in the years that followed.

As I grew up, I suspected that there might have been subtle signs—which my younger self had failed to notice at the time—foretelling the misfortune that was to come. The kind of revelations that often appear in dramas and movies, like a glass falling and shattering, or rain and lightning suddenly pouring down from a clear sky.

However, no matter how carefully I ruminated and examined it, the world had sent me no signals whatsoever. That night, the misfortune that would come to find my father and me half a day later must have crawled into our house silently like a snake, hiding itself securely somewhere near my feet while I slept.

Secretly and silently, yet agilely. Aiming for my defenseless, exposed ankles.

Thirteen years old and still an elementary school student, I had fallen into a light sleep on the sofa while watching TV, waiting for my father, who was late coming home from work. It was the middle of July. A muggy breeze blowing in through the open window brushed over my forehead, where sweat was beginning to pool due to the tropical night. In my sleep, I curled up comfortably, catching the scent of the breeze that carried the lingering effects of the rainy season.

When I think back to that night, I recall the coolness of the sofa leather pressing against my cheek whenever I drifted in and out of sleep, the voice of the announcer flowing from the TV, and the curtains fluttering in white. That is the last memory of a comfortable sleep.

Past midnight, hearing the beep-beep of the front door passcode being entered, I slightly lifted my heavy eyelids. I saw my father taking off his shoes in the foyer, but I couldn’t get up immediately, overcome by sleep. A groggy voice escaped with difficulty through my parted lips.

“Dad, are you home?”

“Lee Chaeha, it’s 12 o’clock, why are you still awake? You have to go to school tomorrow, you should sleep early.”

“I was sleeping on the sofa.”

“You have to stretch your legs out in bed to get a proper sleep. That’s the only way to have good dreams.”

Walking up with long strides and hugging me until I felt like I was being crushed, my father was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and even a jacket. Since it was midsummer, it must have been incredibly hot.

When he was a taxi driver, he used to wear short sleeves comfortably and things like that. After becoming a driver for a casino president, my father dressed neatly like an office worker to go to work. It was a newly established casino that hadn’t even begun operations yet, but there was an inaugural president preparing for the opening, and my father was that president’s driver.

As my father began wearing luxurious clothes, his salary also increased. One year after my father became the casino president’s driver, we moved from a north-facing villa where the laundry didn’t dry well to an apartment that had been built a long time ago. It was a house that was excessively large for a family of two who were left behind after my mother died of cancer.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and asked.

“Did the president get off work late today, too? You used to come at 8, but lately, it’s always 12.”

“Sorry, sorry. Now that the casino opening is right around the corner, the president is very busy. After it opens, Dad’s salary will go up even more.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Just wait until the casino opens. Even the people who lived hard lives in the abandoned mining villages will all find jobs, and Danhyeon City will become a decent place to live. Just like Buyong City in Gangwon-do.”

There was a hint of pride in my father’s voice, the pride of having become a driver for an important person. It was understandable, as attracting a second inland casino had been a long-cherished desire for Danhyeon City.

People don’t really know that there were mining villages in regions outside of Gangwon-do. They were scattered throughout Gyeonggi-do, Chungcheong-do, Gyeongsang-do, Jeolla-do, etc., and because their scale was significantly smaller compared to Gangwon-do, their very existence didn’t receive much attention.

After the era of the mining villages came to an end, the miners in regions outside of Gangwon-do also lost the livelihoods they had cultivated for a long time. They wandered in search of a way to live, but they could neither find a method nor escape poverty.

Many miners flocked to the abandoned mining villages of Danhyeon City, Gyeonggi-do, which bordered the Chungcheong and North Gyeongsang coal mines, but no matter how much they put their heads together and tried in various ways, their livelihood remained just as bleak. That was only natural, as Danhyeon City, while belonging to Gyeonggi-do, was a remote area of the metropolitan region without a single subway line, and it was a small city where it was truly difficult to make a living, save for the old factories that other regions were reluctant to attract.

Still, the miners and their families did not give up. They took the Gangwon-do Coal Mining Association, which had succeeded in attracting an inland casino, as their role model. They organized an association just like them, named it the ‘Other Regions Coal Mining Association,’ and demanded that the government provide us with a solution as well. It was an arduous and long struggle.

Their desperate yearning finally escaped the closed mines and saw the light of the world. They succeeded in attracting the country’s second inland casino to Danhyeon City. It was exactly five years after the Buyong Casino was built in Gangwon-do.

Although it was permitted on a modest scale compared to Buyong City, the people in the association hugged each other and shed tears of joy. Their dramatic celebration was broadcast across the country on the 9 o’clock news.

The inaugural president in charge of the casino’s opening preparations was none other than my father’s high school friend. As soon as President Kang was put in charge of the casino opening preparations, he happened to ride in my father’s taxi and recognized his old, close childhood friend first.

My father was surprisingly honest, innocent, and talkative for his age. He must have poured out all the hard times he had gone through to his friend, even welling up with tears.

About losing his beloved wife to cancer and being buried in debt because of the medical bills. Even about the story of his young son who lost his mother at an early age.

The two released their long-held feelings, and the warm-hearted president readily offered the pitiful old friend the position of casino driver.

After that, my father came to call his friend “President,” but he was smiling every day. If a classmate gave me money and told me to use honorifics from now on, I think my pride would have been deeply hurt. Does it change when you become an adult? My father really looked happy. He just said it was a relief that he could finally send me to an English academy and a math academy.

But I liked it when my father would teach me how to solve problems himself instead of being able to send me to an academy, and when he would always come home in the middle of his taxi shifts to eat dinner together. Even though the small table between us was tiny and the side dishes were nothing but kimchi and dried anchovies, it was still that way.

“I’m okay even if you don’t earn much money, Dad. I wish you could be home more.”

“Oh, my handsome son. They say that once kids turn ten, they push their dads away, so I guess Chaeha’s puberty is still a long way off.”

“It’s just that it’s boring being alone in the evening.”

Feeling like I should answer like a “pubescent” kid, I said it as indifferently as possible.

“Still, I have to earn a lot of money to buy our Chaeha good clothes and send you to an academy. Otherwise, I won’t have the face to see your mother later.”

“Why are you talking about Mom? Don’t do it. It makes me want to cry.”

“Does it still make you cry? Then cry whenever you want. You have to cry until you can talk about your mom without tears so we can talk all about her together.”

“That’s enough. Stop it.”

Honestly, my father was a bit meddlesome. I didn’t want to show tears, so I answered a bit curtly. I think I was truly like a pubescent boy this time. I quickly changed the subject.

“So, did you earn a lot of money?”

“Yes. After 11 o’clock, the president gives me 100,000 won for my hard work. Look at this.”

My father took out his thickened wallet from his pocket and readily pressed 50,000 won into my hand. It was too much money, so I tried to pull my fingers away, but the expression on my father’s face as he gave pocket money to his son looked so happy that I soon accepted the money. The folded bill settled in my palm.

“Thanks. But why do you call him President when you’ve finished work? You said he was your friend.”

“What does it matter? Even though he’s a friend, I respect him, so I can call Woosung ‘President’.”

“Is his name Woosung?”

“Yes, Kang Woosung.”

“I think the name Woosung is nice, too.”

Kang Woosung. It sounded just like an actor’s name.