The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 53

For a moment, my own voice—not that of Prosecutor Joo Taeson—slipped out. After I told him I believed him, Lee Chaeha looked at me with eyes that seemed on the verge of crumbling. The hatred I felt because he was a murderer’s son and my professional conscience in judging a case were separate issues. I nodded readily.

“There is no evidence that money actually changed hands, the other party hasn’t been identified, and all the evidence presented is merely circumstantial, so it’s far too insufficient to say one police officer reported another to the Internal Affairs Department. Usually, the corruption materials that make it all the way to the prosecution’s hands have solid evidence. If it’s not to that extent, they don’t stab their colleagues in the back.”

“…Thank you, Prosecutor.”

His face as he answered was so fragile that I didn’t think he’d be able to survive among the other detectives. I had thought he’d been living well, but seeing him appear not only with the rumors from the police academy but also falsely accused, it irked me. I had thought it might feel satisfying if a murderer’s son lived a difficult life, but unexpectedly, that wasn’t the case.

“Why don’t you transfer departments? If you’re from the police academy, you could work comfortably in the intelligence division. Even if you just went to the Metropolitan Investigation Unit, the atmosphere would be better. It must be the first time someone from Seoul Police University has been assigned to the Hanpo Police Station, and since you specifically wanted the violent crimes unit, the detectives on the front lines might not like it.”

“…Yes. Thank you for the advice, Prosecutor. And for believing me.”

“How would you like me to handle those police officers? It’s usually grounds for disciplinary action, but I feel like that would be more troublesome for you.”

“For me, it’s better for my career if there is no disciplinary action. But that is a matter for the Prosecutor, so I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to ask.”

I was slightly surprised by that answer.

“If I recommend disciplinary action to the Internal Affairs Department, it’s going to be very difficult for you, Lieutenant Lee.”

“…That is true. But even if things become difficult for me, that is the fault of the detectives, not the Prosecutor’s.”

Lee Chaeha answered firmly, but his expression looked precarious, as if it would collapse at any moment. His long eyelashes fluttered, and his fingertips rubbed his neatly shaped eyebrows as if he were in a difficult spot.

He must have wanted to ask me not to do it. But his answer followed principles. Unlike his soft voice and fragile appearance, there seemed to be something firm hidden deep inside him.

Unexpectedly, I liked that side of Lee Chaeha. In a way, I was even impressed. Even I was surprised by it.

It was two years later that Lee Chaeha, who had come to me while falsely accused, appeared at the Danhyeon Branch as a prosecution investigator. The day he first knocked on my office door to introduce himself after his appointment, the moment I saw his unexpected face appearing with an expression distinctly different from two years ago, a hot emotion flooded my surprised heart.

I was already bringing the word ‘perhaps’ to mind.

Perhaps this might be fate.

That evening, I visited the charnel house where Prosecutor Yoon Soyeon was for the first time in a while. I hung the modest flowers I had prepared in advance and faced her in the frame placed there. The question that first sprouted in Prosecutor Yoon’s mind had been transplanted into me, taken deep root, and now become an obsession I couldn’t shake off.

“I’ll solve it soon.”

After murmuring like a promise, I stood in front of her for a while.

I moved my feet, which didn’t want to budge, to leave the charnel house when I saw Chief Tak Seong-ung standing in a corner inside. It was the first time I had seen Chief Tak at that charnel house. I approached him, feeling glad, but unlike usual, he was looking up at an urn with a slightly terrifying gaze.

“Chief Tak.”

I called out to him. As he discovered me, Chief Tak’s sharp gaze softened, and in an instant, it returned to his original face. Instead of my deceased father, he smiled brightly, grabbed my hand, and seemed happy, like someone he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a warm, welcoming attitude that hadn’t changed even once in over ten years.

“Taeson, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see Prosecutor Yoon Soyeon. What about you, Chief?”

“Ah, so this is where Prosecutor Yoon Soyeon is. I have an older sister who passed away early, so I come here sometimes.”

I thought his expression had been too cold to be just reminiscing about his sister. But my bewilderment was soon buried by Chief Tak’s good-natured expression.

“I didn’t know you had an older sister, Chief.”

“She died when I was a teenager. You wouldn’t know, of course. It’s been over 6 years since Prosecutor Yoon Soyeon passed like that, too. Stop forgetting and living; why do you keep coming to see her and hurting your heart? You’re cold on the outside, but you’re secretly sentimental.”

“What good is being sentimental when I couldn’t even help her?”

The taste in my mouth as I spoke was bitter. Chief Tak patted my back and we started walking toward the entrance together.

“There’s a decent Kalguksu (knife-cut noodle) place right in front; let’s go have a meal together. You haven’t had dinner yet, right?”

“I’d like that, but aren’t you keeping your wife waiting?”

“No, no. Let’s eat together and then head in.”

As I headed out with Chief Tak, I glanced at the urn he had been standing in front of. That urn was larger and flashier than the others. Perhaps he had cherished his sister. After glancing at the name ‘Tak Ji-sook,’ I followed the Chief down the walkway from the charnel house.

Since it was late summer, the sun was still out, and because of the shower that fell during the day, the scent of trees and grass around the charnel house vibrated refreshingly. While talking with Chief Tak and walking on the wet ground, I was already thinking of Lee Chaeha, who had come to introduce himself upon his appointment.

For the four months after Lee Chaeha was appointed, I slowly pulled him in, using the spider web that was tightening around my body. Holding onto the faint thread that I thought would snap under the pressure and break midway, Lee Chaeha reached the prosecutor’s office. I had thought ‘perhaps,’ but everything about my connection with Lee Chaeha was beyond expectation.

Every time I slowly threw out the truth, Lee Chaeha was flustered and shaken. Although he eventually cried and got angry the day I called him home and showed him the whiteboard, strangely, I didn’t think he would back down.

The reason the spider web I was caught in could ensnare Lee Chaeha as well was not because my skill in drawing him in was excellent. Lee Chaeha, too, had just been caught in the same spider web from the start. We were both bitten by the same trap on our ankles, and though we struggled in different places to escape, the gears bit deep into our bones and would not let us go. This was the conviction I had developed lately.

In the prosecutor’s office, Lee Chaeha did even better than I thought. He was diligent but quiet, and he got along well with others, but sometimes he had a lonely expression. His pale skin color sometimes looked so translucent that it seemed as if the sunlight was passing through it, and I was occasionally seized by a thirst to reach out and touch him to see if he was even still existing in the prosecutor’s office.

Whenever I faced Lee Chaeha, I was surprised anew at how different he was from the Lee Gilyoung’s son I had imagined. The solid prejudices I had built up over several years crumbled bit by bit, bit by bit, every time I bumped into Lee Chaeha.

His life had not been smooth. He had spent a considerably unhappy childhood, and even after becoming an adult, he endured a life that was not easy. If I were not Joo Taeson, I would have had no choice but to sympathize with him.

It was not my intention to select him as an investigator and make it difficult for him to adapt to the Public Prosecutor’s Office again. I wanted to torment him, but I never considered that method. It was obvious that all sorts of noises were rampant behind his back, and he was receiving stinging gazes even to his face, but Lee Chaeha worked harder than anyone else. He ran with such sincerity that his desperation could not be hidden.

There was something in his perseverance that made the heart of the person watching him ache. It was things like the fact that he seemed accustomed to bullying and rumors, or the way he did his best without a single complaint even under my unfair treatment, which was close to taking out my anger.

Perhaps because of that, from a certain moment on, I often forgot the fact that Lee Chaeha was Lee Gilyoung’s son. And I realized that I was drawn to someone who silently endured unhappiness and worked hard, and to a life that suffered from the same common denominator as mine.

In the end, we were two lives that lived like two sides of a coin. Just as a coin must have a front and a back, just as shadows exist if there is a sun, the misfortune that befell me inevitably left similar scars on Lee Chaeha.

Of course, that common denominator aroused a huge sense of guilt in me. That at least Joo Taeson should not be drawn to Lee Chaeha.