The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 126

He rubbed his chin with trembling hands. His fingers, which had always been so firm, were shaking finely, just like mine. As if Joo Taeson might suddenly collapse. Without warning.

“Yet, you don’t even know what’s inside my heart, and every time you see me, you make a fuss, asking me to like you, asking me to cherish you. You keep testing me with your gaze and your words, shaking up someone like me who is already going insane just from being entangled with you. Whenever I look at you, I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, yet you’re there, desperate for an answer.”

“…I understand. I know that I wasn’t approached for revenge, but I also understand that you had no choice but to hate me, and that being entangled with me in such a way is terrible for you.”

“…”

“…Even so, could you not just love me?”

The tears pooled in my wide eyes wavered. Perhaps because of that, Prosecutor Joo’s gaze seemed to waver as well.

Is that so difficult?

Even knowing it was a difficult thing, I wanted to ask that childishly. Like a child, just as he said. Not wanting to be that way, I bit the inside of my mouth painfully to endure it.

A heavy sigh leaked from his neat lips, and his large hand ran through his hair as if he were stifled.

“Fuck…, I didn’t hold you back for this.”

“…”

“Leave.”

“…Prosecutor.”

“We’ve already made too many mistakes toward each other today. Let’s not make any more.”

At his words, I slowly turned my body. Even in this situation, I followed Joo Taeson’s instruction.

However, before I had gone a few steps, a low voice called me from behind.

“Chaeha.”

My feet stopped. When I slowly turned my head back, I saw Prosecutor Joo standing under a streetlamp. The shadow cast over his face felt as weary as the weight of his life.

How could I dare not to know? How hard Joo Taeson’s life must have been. The same incident had trampled over both of our childhoods, and that cruel moment had made Prosecutor Joo a man who could not speak, and me a man branded with a scarlet letter.

He slowly parted his lips.

“I’m sorry.”

As soon as I heard the apology, the tears that had stopped poured out hotly once again.

I was sorry. For not being able to hold back and questioning him, eventually making Prosecutor Joo say such things. For being spoiled, asking him to like me and cherish me.

As a man with pride as high as a mountain, he wouldn’t have apologized easily. But it wasn’t a word I should have heard. Strictly speaking, the one who had to beg for forgiveness between the two of us was me. I knew that.

Wiping the tears flowing down my cheeks with my sleeve, I opened my trembling lips.

“No. The person who should be apologizing is not the Prosecutor, but me.”

I straightened my body, bowed my head deeply to him, and then lifted it. And I spoke with sincerity.

“I am sorry. For making you go through such a difficult time because of my father.”

“Knowing that it wasn’t your father’s doing…. Are you doing this on purpose to turn my insides upside down?”

“No. I mean it. All this time, whenever I met the Prosecutor, I wanted to apologize on my father’s behalf, saying I was wrong. I’ve received too many apologies from people who don’t even deserve to be apologized to—people saying they were sorry to me. I haven’t even been able to apologize to the person who truly deserved to hear it…. That’s why I really wanted to beg for forgiveness at least once from someone who deserved to hear those words.”

“…”

“I am sorry. You don’t have to let go of your heart until everything is certain. I know well that you had no choice, Prosecutor Joo, but I was too reckless just a moment ago. I was emotional. I keep becoming like this in front of the Prosecutor.”

“…Lee Chaeha.”

“Please get home safely.”

I greeted him and turned my back again. To ensure we didn’t make any more mistakes toward each other, just as Prosecutor Joo Taeson said.

I was glad the night was deep. There were no passersby around the residence. Because Prosecutor Joo did not hold me any further, I took heavy, trudging steps and headed into the dark alley. Crickets and insects were chirping loudly in the sparse bushes.

As soon as I entered the small residence, I turned on the lights. It had been bearable to be home alone lately. I became lonely again, as if I were the only one left on Earth. It felt as if a dry sandstorm were blowing in front of my eyes.

I took a shower first because I had sweated a lot from running and shouting. I wondered if the hot water would hide my tears, but the teardrops that warmed my eyelids and flowed down were hotter than the water pouring from the showerhead.

I didn’t have an appetite, so I skipped dinner. Leaning against the cold wall, I stared blankly at the TV and wiped away the tears that fell occasionally. Memories that surfaced anew pressed painfully against my chest.

On the Zippo lighter that he had mentioned himself as his father’s keepsake, English initials were inscribed. I remembered clearly.

The initials were ‘WS’. Kang Woosung’s, Woosung.

I had thought his following me when he thought I might harbor ill intentions on the day he fought at the playground, or his worrying for hours and waiting for me, fearing I might have been in an accident on a day I couldn’t be reached while watching a movie, were merely professional anxieties from a job that dealt with many accidents and incidents. But looking back now, the reason Prosecutor Joo Taeson’s imagination stretched out so ominously was because he was the family of a crime victim.

My phone rang. I didn’t want to check it, fearing it might be Prosecutor Joo, but I summoned my courage and pressed the power button. A message from my cousin Noona was displayed at the top. The timing was always twisted. It couldn’t be worse, so I pressed it, and an unexpected message greeted me.

Chaeha, Mom says to tell you she is truly sorry for everything until now. I told Mom never to contact you again from now on. I also persuaded her to stop being divorced from Dad. Please do not forgive not only my parents and my older brother, but also me, who failed to stop them. You don’t have to reply. From now on, none of our family will contact you. I’m sorry.

After checking the text, I put the phone down. It was an apology I would not have heard if it weren’t for Prosecutor Joo.

I hugged both legs and rested my chin on my knees.

Today became the day two people who should have received apologies heard the words “I’m sorry” from the right person for the first time.

One was Lee Chaeha to Joo Taeson, and the other was an apology from my uncle’s family to me.

Wondering if I would be able to see Prosecutor Joo’s face at work tomorrow, I went into the Prosecutor’s Office intranet on my phone. I agonized countless times over whether to submit my annual leave. I couldn’t bring myself to take a leave of absence less than a year after getting hired. I had been assigned as an investigator even after being criticized, and I could clearly imagine Song Haneul’s struggle, buried under work, if I were absent.

However, I didn’t have the courage to see Prosecutor Joo right away. In the end, I used my annual leave and lay down on the bed.

Even lying down, tears fell intermittently. It was suffocating to lie down and cry after so long, so I would occasionally get up, pound my chest to cough out the sobs, and find and take the pink pill I hadn’t touched for days.

I couldn’t breathe. Closing my eyes and staring into the darkness, I felt as if my body were floating into the air and being sucked into an endless Haneul.

Before I knew it, I was floating in the vast firmament.

The night Haneul was similar to the deep sea where I had sunk for a long time and lost my body temperature, in that it was full of pitch-black darkness and it was difficult to breathe due to a lack of oxygen. That night, I couldn’t fall asleep and wandered the cold night Haneul for a long time.

‘President Kang Woosung is Joo Taeson’s father.’

‘There was no reason to pick at my wounds for the sake of Officer Lee’s feelings.’

‘I didn’t want to love you.’

As if I had been floating in the night Haneul since I was born, just like a small water droplet, I stayed in the firmament, harboring every hurtful word in my heart and letting it grow in volume. Then, like raindrops that a cloud drops because it cannot bear its weight, I began to fall endlessly toward the ground.

I was now a being that only had to be shattered to pieces. When I finally crashed my whole body into the ground and plummeted completely, I realized that the place I had fallen to was, in the end, the sea again.

A vast open sea where the wide horizon stretched out lonely.

As it turned out, it was the Dead Sea, where the pain of Joo Taeson and Lee Chaeha had melted like salt.

I woke up at 7 a.m. out of habit and connected to the Prosecutor’s Office employee intranet. It was after Prosecutor Joo had rejected my annual leave.

A sigh escaped me on its own. I first got up from my seat because I was thirsty, and only then did I realize that my physical condition was unusual. The skin that touched my palm was burning hot all over. I felt a sense of despair, as if the pain of my heart had turned into a visible physical ailment.