The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 16

He was not just another investigator from a different office, but a senior clerk belonging to Prosecutor Joo Taeson’s own office. I had to suppress my caution and ask, all while ensuring I didn’t reveal the test I was undergoing.

“When an investigator reviews a case in the prosecutor’s office, how do you usually organize it to report to the Prosecutor?”

“First, we summarize the case overview, and we meticulously look up laws that seem applicable to the trial along with similar precedents. Although the primary duty is calling in the people involved in the case to verify if the police interrogation record is accurate or to supplement it.”

“Laws and precedents.”

I hadn’t thought about going as far as looking up precedents.

“Yes. But Prosecutor Joo is incredibly thorough, and his legal interpretation is quite bold, so there are times he proceeds with a different application of laws compared to existing precedents. He tends to present various opinions when passing cases to the public trial prosecutor.”

“I see.”

“Fortunately, he is quite generous to the staff below him, so even if we don’t find everything perfectly, he doesn’t get too upset. Prosecutor Joo is a bit of a workaholic, so he ends up solving those things himself. We benefit from that.”

Generous. That didn’t seem to apply to me yet.

Regardless, Investigator Song Haneul’s words matched the rumors Mr. Hwang had passed on—that Prosecutor Joo was actually warm and kind. Having heard it from the mouth of someone who worked directly with him, I had to accept it as the truth now.

Prosecutor Joo was, after all, a righteous person who had become a whistleblower for the late Prosecutor Yoon Soyeon. It was a courageous act, and an incident I could not forget, having lived my whole life being bullied. If Prosecutor Joo hadn’t done that, the Chief Prosecutor who abused Prosecutor Yoon wouldn’t have resigned, and Prosecutor Joo wouldn’t have had his career ruined, drifting through local branch offices after slipping from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.

I felt an optimistic hunch that if I were to work under Prosecutor Joo, his attitude toward me would also soften. The fact that his words were sharp as blades was offset by his characteristically relaxed tone, and fundamentally, his attitude was consistent. Even if someone is difficult, it is much easier to endure them if they are a predictable person.

Investigator Song and I hadn’t explicitly discussed our destination, but we were heading in the same direction. Investigator Song asked in a friendly tone.

“Do you also live in the staff quarters, Chief Lee?”

“Yes, I live on the 3rd floor.”

“I’m on the 5th. We were residents of the same villa, yet we haven’t seen each other even once. We must have kept missing each other. Let’s grab a meal together sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

“Then have a great weekend, Chief Lee.”

“Yes, take care.”

I said my goodbyes first on the 3rd floor.

As soon as I entered my home, I threw the kimbap and the awl into a corner and looked over the case summaries I had organized again. I had organized them neatly and meticulously found the applicable laws, but I hadn’t attached the precedents.

“I have to redo this.”

Sighing deeply, I supplemented the shortcomings in detail and didn’t eat my first meal until 5 PM, opening the kimbap packaging.

The weekend I had surrendered to the task Prosecutor Joo assigned me had already reached 2 AM. Now, I had to wake up in at least six hours. As I rubbed my sleepy eyelids, I questioned, for the first time in a while, why Prosecutor Joo was going so far as to test a newcomer like me to take me into his office, and why I was so desperate to be acknowledged by a superior.

Of course, I knew the answer regarding myself. To avoid being marked in a new group, to avoid being swept up in strange rumors, and to get along well. Because if a superior doesn’t look upon me favorably, I might not be able to survive in the organization. It was also saddening that my own life had never been acknowledged by anyone until now.

That is why I am doing my absolute best.

“Right, if I’m told to jump, I jump.”

If I just close my eyes and endure for one week, I can sleep soundly next weekend. Thinking that, I turned the pages diligently. As I tried to read thousands of pages in a single day, my skin ached as if my fingerprints were wearing off, which reminded me of the blue rubber thimble that had been on Prosecutor Joo’s finger. I hadn’t particularly been conscious of it when we met, but I remembered the color of the thimble vividly.

A blue thimble and blue wrapping cloths. They are colors that suit him very well.

📄🖊️

I began running into Prosecutor Joo more often within the branch office. Every time, he would ask how many cases I had reviewed, and then continue on his way.

And whenever he passed by the Fine Section, there were several times our eyes met through the glass door, as if he were occasionally checking up on me. Every time I stood up halfway and bowed my head, Prosecutor Joo would make a face as if he thought I was stubborn again, waving the documents he was holding in his hand. It meant don’t make it obvious, just sit. Then, I would immediately glue my bottom back to the seat and turn my tired eyes back to the monitor.

Living my work life with less than four hours of sleep, my mind kept wandering while I worked. Originally, I suffered from severe insomnia and couldn’t sleep deeply, and since the time spent lying down itself was short, the actual time I spent sleeping was at most around two hours.

When night came, I pushed up my sleepy eyelids with all my might while facing the documents. Read them all, no matter what, I reassured myself, enduring the extreme fatigue.

Prosecutor Joo contacted me via the company messenger just before I left work on Wednesday.

Chief Lee, can you report to me tomorrow morning?

It is possible, Prosecutor.

There was no reply after that, so I pouted my lips slightly while looking at the messenger window. I was suffering from work that I shouldn’t even have had to do for a week; it would have been nice to hear a single word of appreciation beforehand.

I stayed up all night to finish the final organization. Sleeping for only an hour, I woke up at 5 AM to finish the final check, and then loaded the blue wrapping cloth filled with documents onto the cart, layer by layer.

Ahead of going to work, I wrapped a scarf tightly up to my nose to prepare for the dawn cold. Since I didn’t have a car, I struggled, rattling the heavy cart all the way to the Danhyeon Branch Office. It was a distance that usually took 10 minutes, but it took over 20, and even though the cloudy sky was sprinkling the first snow, I wasn’t given the luxury to appreciate it.

When I finally knocked on the door of the prosecutor’s office, Room 512, with nervous hands, Prosecutor Joo’s voice welcomed me from within. It was 15 minutes before the promised time, so I was a little surprised that an answer returned. I opened the door slightly and stepped into the office where only Prosecutor Joo was. Although it was morning, the outside was so cloudy that the pale fluorescent light was illuminating the inside.

“Hello.”

“Yes.”

“…Did you stay up all night in the office?”

“No, I usually come in around 6:30.”

It was an unheard-of arrival time. I knew that prosecutors could barely apply for overtime pay, so I was quite surprised.

I was about to enter the auxiliary office next to the prosecutor’s office as usual, but he waved his hand and pointed to the chair placed next to him. I pulled the cart to a stop, sat down next to him in front of his desk, and held out the report of several dozen pages that I had printed out in advance.

“I printed it out this time.”

“As you should.”

Prosecutor Joo flipped through the report and leaned back in his chair. Unlike me, who was nervous, he, as the evaluator, looked as relaxed as always.

“Give me the briefing.”

“Yes, Prosecutor. The first case is one where the suspect attempted to rape the victim, but failed because the resistance was too severe; he then strangled the victim, and after leaving the victim, who had fainted, abandoned, he set fire to the building.”

I summarized the points where I thought the victim’s statement was credible and recited the applicable legal clauses.

“Since there was an initial statement from the suspect that he thought the victim was dead at the point he strangled her, attempted murder is established; because he set fire to the building after fainting the victim, arson causing injury to an occupied building is established; and since he left with the victim’s cash, larceny is established. Among similar cases, there is a precedent from the Supreme Court in 2003 where the defendant was sentenced to 12 years.”

Prosecutor Joo sat with his chin propped up and his legs crossed, listening to my briefing while flipping through the report pages one by one. I was reporting diligently, but his expression grew increasingly indifferent as I continued.

I hadn’t slept for a week preparing for this, so with the listener’s attitude like that, I felt incredibly hollow as someone whose bones had been ground down reading thousands of pages in a single week. Feeling like I had done something wrong for no reason was just an added bonus.

Prosecutor Joo listened to all 10 case reports for 30 minutes. And as soon as it finished, he threw the report I had written with all my heart onto the desk as if tossing it aside. My unremarkable report was powerlessly buried amidst the mountain of stacked documents. The evaluation that returned was simple and clear.