The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 69

“Yes. It’s a case that was already concluded as a death from illness at the hospital, so almost no data remains. They didn’t even perform a proper autopsy.”

It meant there was no way to prove it was murder.

I closed my mouth again and carefully read through the last of the documents. I let out a rising sigh.

“…President Kang Woosung’s body was discovered by his eldest son on his way to school. He was a high school senior at the time.”

That day had been hell for me, too, but it must have been an even greater tragedy for President Kang Woosung’s sons. I had been too busy enduring my own life and had never looked into my father’s case, so I had completely forgotten this fact.

My solar plexus felt heavy and constricted. It was hard to dare to fathom the heart of a son who would have discovered his father’s murdered body.

“At such a young age… poor things.”

Although I was even younger at the time, I was now much older than that nameless boy. Ruminating on the shock that boy must have received, I recalled the immense, bottomless sorrow of the bereaved families I had encountered countless times at the prosecutor’s office and police station.

As soon as I looked away from the dog-eared documents, my eyes met Mr. Joo’s. With his chin resting on his hand and his body leaning toward me, he watched me steadily and asked.

“…Poor?”

Mr. Joo’s voice, which always created a deep resonance, fell like a lonely autumn leaf.

“Of course. Imagine how great the shock must have been. I feel sorry for them.”

“It’s not like Officer Lee killed them, so there’s no need to feel sorry.”

“You were the one complaining last time that the families of suspects don’t even know how to reflect.”

“Just feel pity. That’s enough.”

It was a demanding order. I slightly pushed out my lips and then pulled them back in.

Lastly, I read my father’s statement, which I had skipped because it was painful to read; it was filled with nothing but content denying his own crime and appealing his innocence. Because it was read in a longing voice I thought I had forgotten, I eventually couldn’t check everything, and with heat slightly welling up in the corners of my eyes, I set the documents down and cleared my throat.

“I guess I have to conclude that Lee Gilyoung was indeed the culprit.”

“Right. Because of the password, there’s no other way. Lee Gilyoung is the culprit.”

“…So is that why you didn’t even want to see my face earlier? Because I’m the son of a murderer.”

“…It’s similar, but slightly different. It’s because I dislike myself for being attracted to someone like you.”

The gaze of the man meeting mine was deep. It was a look that felt as if it could pull me from the deep sea and devour me whole.

“If you can kiss me, at least you shouldn’t have to dislike me, shouldn’t you?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“…Couldn’t you just let it be simple?”

My voice trembled as I asked back, making me worry if I had crossed the line again. Mr. Joo let out a light sigh while organizing the documents sprawled out before me. It was a reaction as if he were looking at a child’s tantrum.

“Don’t force your feelings or push me just because we had sex once.”

Yet, he was the one who had even specified which emotions I should feel, telling me not to feel sorry for him but just to feel pity. The frustrations I had swallowed and endured all day long were flying through my body like dandelion seeds.

Mr. Joo parted his lips.

“I don’t want to criticize Officer Lee for the mistakes that man committed. I wanted to do that before, but seeing Officer Lee up close, I think that would be too… harsh.”

But at those last words, a low fever rose in my eyes once again. I had spent my childhood hearing countless times the accusation that I was a murderer’s son, but no one had ever felt pity for me.

As I bit my lip, the tip of my tongue, which Mr. Joo had bitten and rummaged through several times since the afternoon, stung.

He sighed once more, then stood up and approached me. His broad body, which always felt like a wall, blocked me, and just as I thought he was leaning down to look at my face, our lips overlapped. I bit my lips tightly, trying not to let my tongue out, and felt my lower lip being chewed by his hard teeth.

“Ah….”

“Don’t put up any useless resistance and open up.”

I hesitated a little before opening my lips.

I was tense, fearing he would force another aggressive kiss, but his plump lips overlapped softly, parted, and overlapped again repeatedly. His thick tongue, which intruded cautiously, swept across my smooth mucous membranes and touched my canine teeth, rummaging through me without being rough. A groan escaped my lips unknowingly at the sweet contact, which was distinctly different from the afternoon.

“Uuung….”

A thick fingertip rested gently on the corner of my mouth, where traces of being torn from the moaning remained. His touch, brushing over the spot that had barely healed, was meticulous.

He’s capable of kissing like this, too.

Instead of showing my frustration, I secretly curled my toes. His touch, brushing against my mouth and hair, was unbearably tender, making my body tingle. With the soft contact of touching and then pulling away, the saliva that had been messy and overflowing in the entryway became a thin, silver thread, connecting our two lips for a moment before snapping.

Mr. Joo only straightened his back after kissing the bridge of my nose, my slightly swollen eyelids, and even my cheek. Feeling a bit dazed and embarrassed, I pressed the back of my hand firmly against my cheek and pulled it away.

“Was that your first kiss, too?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve never been in a relationship either?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Joo stared at me somewhat blankly, then covered his mouth with his hand and let out a small sigh. At first, I thought he was doing that because he disliked it, but seeing his eyes, which were tilted downward in a peculiar way, I wondered if he was feeling a bit guilty.

“Stop looking at the files and go to bed.”

“Give me the medicine.”

“Alright.”

We sat at the dining table with a single glass of water between us. We shared the pink sleeping pills, taking one each. It was a strange kind of sharing.

“How long have you been taking them?”

“Over 10 years.”

“You’ve been taking them for a really long time.”

“What about Officer Lee?”

“About 8 years. I haven’t been able to sleep well since I was a teenager… but at that time, it was a difficult age to go to a psychiatrist alone.”

“Both of us are broken somewhere.”

“How about we just leave it at the level of needing help to sleep?”

I tried to suggest it, but Mr. Joo cut me off sharply.

“I don’t know about others, but it’s certain that you and I are broken.”

I found it strange that he was so certain, but since I had lived my whole life wearing a scarlet letter, the idea that I was broken somewhere didn’t seem like a wrong statement. After all, I hadn’t been able to sleep because of the scenes of the past that were projected onto my closed eyelids like a screen.

The time we lay in bed together was past 1 a.m. I borrowed Mr. Joo’s pajamas.

Because there was quite a difference in our height and build, wearing his clothes made me look ridiculous, with the pants and sleeves far too long. I was also long-limbed for my height, but the difference in physique between me and Mr. Joo was significant.

I rolled up the sleeves that covered my hands and folded the pants the same way. There was no helping the fact that they were wide at the sides.

“You look funny.”

That was Mr. Joo’s simple impression upon seeing me. Since my lack of a heavy frame had been a complex of mine throughout my police academy days, my reply popped out somewhat curtly.

“That’s because you’re a span taller than me, Prosecutor.”

“You look like you’re inside a sack.”

I went to bed first because I wanted to hide my oversized clothes. Mr. Joo turned off the lights and even closed the blackout curtains before lying down next to me. It felt strange to be sleeping in Mr. Joo’s bed, so even though I was exhausted, I wondered if I should have just returned to the residence to sleep.

Even though we had already had sex, I was tense, fearing our bodies might touch. It felt as if the black darkness were connecting his skin to mine. So I intentionally lay at the edge of the large bed, but I was effortlessly pulled to the side by a hand tugging on my arm.

A large hand slowly entered the inside of my top. His index finger drew a circle along my navel before crawling up and settling on my left chest.

Mr. Joo had a higher body temperature than me. I had known it when his fingers occasionally brushed against me, and I had felt it while having sex today. He had a temperature as high as the difference in our physiques. It was strange that human body temperature is generally 36.5 degrees, with differences rarely exceeding even 1 degree, and yet he could be so hot that it felt like he would melt me.

“Your heart is beating so fast.”

“…Because you’re right next to me, Prosecutor.”

“How do you feel about me, then?”

“I don’t want to say.”

I didn’t want to reveal all my feelings to a man who had intended to have a relationship without even looking at my face. It would be obvious anyway, so it was too one-sided to want a definitive answer on top of that.

Unlike Prosecutor Joo on the other side, the pair of scales I was hanging onto was noticeably weighed down on the other end. There was no need to tell him the details of the names of the weights placed on it.

“I know you kept glancing at me in the prosecutor’s office.”

“Isn’t it the same for you, Prosecutor? We made eye contact quite often.”