The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 137

Was there perhaps, after all, a small part of him that wanted to kill me? Was he harboring the absurd delusion that if he killed me and hung up my corpse, he could stop Prosecutor Joo?

It was hard to guess the inner workings of a mind that had chased such illusory emotions for so long.

“Persuade Prosecutor Joo. Tell him not to request the warrant tomorrow. I’m not joking right now.”

Chief Tak exhaled roughly and suddenly tightened his grip on my throat. The moment my Adam’s apple was pressed so hard that I choked out a dry cough, I heard the sound of the password being entered above my head. Startled, Chief Tak jerked his head up, causing the sensor light to turn on, and my gaze, as I lay on the floor, also shifted upward.

Beep. With an electronic sound, the door opened, and as if by some lie, Prosecutor Joo Taeson appeared. The moment I locked eyes with him, my strength drained away helplessly.

Prosecutor Joo, who had discovered us tangled together, wore the most terrifying and cruel expression I had ever seen on him. As if he were about to kill the person before him right then and there.

The moment Chief Tak stood up in surprise, a kick sent him flying backward. As soon as Prosecutor Joo entered, he pulled me up from where I had collapsed and stood me behind him, as if to protect me. He took off his shoes, went inside, and turned on the room lights.

“Chief Tak, what on earth are you doing? Should I call the police?”

Chief Tak, who had been violently kicked by the prosecutor’s dress shoes, could not get up for a long time. Chief Tak, who had been sitting hunched over in pain, finally stood up with great difficulty. The middle-aged man staggered for a moment before he finally parted his lips.

“No, I just… I just wanted to talk to this investigator for a bit.”

“By choking him in the entryway?”

Prosecutor Joo turned slightly and grabbed the leather strap of the bag that was slung across my chest. I immediately realized what he was about to do. Fearing it might not be necessary to go that far, I lightly held his wrist to stop him, but he took out a pair of handcuffs with an unhesitating hand. Chief Tak’s eyes widened at the sight of the silver object.

“Taeson.”

“Let’s talk. But it won’t work without handcuffs. Because Officer Lee, the victim, is here.”

A low voice, thick with an undeniable sense of despair, added:

“Our relationship has already ended, and it’s going to go as far as it can anyway. So, is there any need for pleasantries? Don’t struggle, just hold out your hands quietly.”

“…”

“I’m not trying to arrest you; I’m trying to ensure a safe conversation.”

Naturally, the man did not hold out his hands willingly. In the end, Prosecutor Joo approached first, seized Chief Tak’s hands with an iron grip, shackled him, and then pressed down hard on one of his shoulders to force him into a seat. Under normal circumstances, he would never have treated Tak Sung-woong that way.

I worried that Chief Tak might pull out a weapon during the moment Prosecutor Joo approached him. My stomach still hurt terribly from Chief Tak’s knee, but I quickly approached to assist Prosecutor Joo, holding down his remaining arm and helping with a simple pat-down. The opponent did not resist as much as I expected, and no weapon was found. I felt not a little disappointed inside that there was no awl.

After Prosecutor Joo hooked the other side of the handcuffs to the bedpost, he sat facing Tak Sung-woong. I cautiously took a seat beside him. A heavy ache still remained in my throat where I had been choked.

Chief Tak, now handcuffed, could not hide his sense of defeat, which bordered on irritation. A cruel, raw expression I had never seen before pooled darkly between the deep wrinkles of his skin. The look on his face was just like a venomous snake concealing its flicking tongue, and for the first time, I thought he and Oh Jahyeon looked alike. They were the same breed of human. Chills crept up the back of my neck.

Prosecutor Joo pushed back his bangs, which were slightly damp from the rain, and asked:

“How did you get into Officer Lee’s house? There’s no sign of forced entry, so you must have figured out the password.”

“…”

“This isn’t an interrogation room, and anything you say now cannot be used as evidence. I’m not even recording this right now. Just tell the truth.”

But Chief Tak’s tight lips did not open easily, as if they were locked. A heavy anguish weighed down the voice of Prosecutor Joo as he addressed him.

“Chief.”

“…Prosecutor Joo should know well enough how one finds out a password.”

“Did you lift fingerprints, or did you record it?”

“I recorded it. It’s simpler that way.”

The attitude of Tak Sung-woong as he answered was unexpectedly brazen.

“And the camera?”

“I collected it a long time ago.”

“Were you planning to kill Officer Lee?”

“No, just a threat.”

That was far too dry an answer for a man confessing to his own deeds.

Although Prosecutor Joo’s voice was filled with anger and frustration despite his desperate efforts to hide it, Tak Sung-woong remained perfectly calm. Even with Prosecutor Joo, whom he had treated like a son, sitting right in front of him, he showed no emotional turbulence, as if he were having a business-like conversation with a stranger. It was enough to make one wonder if this was like an actor returning to the waiting room after a play had finished.

As if forcing himself to compose his emotions, Prosecutor Joo swept back his falling bangs several times. I did not miss the way his neat fingertips were trembling minutely.

“I didn’t know you were capable of such a foolish act toward Officer Lee, Chief. I hoped you were a better human being than this…. I feel pathetic for still harboring expectations of the man who might have killed my father.”

“The person who killed your father was Lee Gilyoung.”

At Chief Tak’s unwavering denial, I looked at Prosecutor Joo again. His straight eyebrows were slowly furrowing. Farther, past the point where he would usually stop.

And surprisingly, Joo Taeson looked like he was about to cry. It was not a thirty-five-year-old prosecutor holding his own at work, but the nineteen-year-old student who had discovered his father’s corpse that appeared to be standing there, and my heart sank with a thud.

“Lee Gilyoung? How dare you speak that name shamelessly in front of Officer Lee….”

I could almost hear the sound of him grinding his teeth.

“I will ask you properly. Who killed my father? Was it Oh Jahyeon? Or was it you, Chief?”

“It was Lee Gilyoung.”

“The culprit knocked on the door to call Father out without entering the password. I verified it with Wooseon. Mr. Lee Gilyoung, who was the driver, knew the front door password, so he would have had no need to knock like that.”

“…If so, there must be another reason Lee Gilyoung knocked on the door. Find it. Don’t go after an innocent person.”

“Chief.”

It was like talking to a wall. Prosecutor Joo let out a long sigh. He soon shut his mouth into a straight line, looked down at the floor for a moment in thought, and then slowly lifted his eyelids. And he asked a question he had no choice but to ask eventually.

“…Why did you take care of me and my brother? After Father passed away.”

“…”

“Did you truly pity us? Were you even worried about us, even a little?”

“…”

I desperately hoped in my heart that Chief Tak would answer that he had been sincere. Because if not, it felt like the life of the young Joo Taeson had been trampled upon too cruelly. I wanted Tak Sung-woong to confess to his crimes, yet affirm that all his subsequent actions had been genuine.

Only then would Joo Taeson’s heart be a little less damaged.

But contrary to my wishes, Chief Tak did not answer in the affirmative to the end. The sound of Prosecutor Joo’s breathing beside me, and the look in his eyes that I could glimpse, were precariously poised, as if he would collapse at any moment.

The lips that had been closed for a moment parted again, and a cold voice, like a blizzard, spilled out of Prosecutor Joo’s mouth. It was a temperature I had never felt from him before.

“Then with what intention did you hover around the victim’s son?”

“…That is none of your concern.”

“Did you find it quite amusing to see the victim’s son relying on you, calling you ‘Mister,’ and liking you? Was it fun watching him suffer from aphasia after his father died? Is that why Oh Jahyeon….”

Prosecutor Joo closed his lips without finishing his sentence, but I immediately realized what he had been about to say.

“Wooseon was so shocked after seeing the corpse that he even got aphasia, you know.”

That statement Oh Jahyeon had uttered had already become a wound for Prosecutor Joo. The story that Joo Taeson had suffered and struggled with aphasia could not have been conveyed to Oh Jahyeon by anyone other than Chief Tak.