You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 449

#450 You Have Been Defended

Kim Mi-ja cried without stopping.

She didn’t stop until the makeup that had highlighted her appearance was ruined.

Kang Min-jae wordlessly handed her tissues. She initially pushed his hand away but eventually took them and wiped away her tears.

But even so, the tears kept flowing.

I just watched her quietly.

It was true that I had started to push her to stimulate Kim Mi-ja’s guilt, but as I spoke, I think I got a little carried away myself.

I had been investigating Woo-shin’s numerous wrongdoings, but this case of sexual favors and organ trafficking was particularly shocking.

Isn’t it natural to be angry?

Anyone would be angry.

Fortunately, the victim who had become the perpetrator sitting in front of me had not completely forgotten that anger.

“…I’ll go to the restroom for a moment.”

Kim Mi-ja picked up her handbag and stood up.

She had cried as if she would faint soon, so Kang Min-jae tried to support her, but she seemed to have misinterpreted his intention.

“I’m not running away.”

Kim Mi-ja coldly pushed away Kang Min-jae’s hand and went into the restroom inside the room.

The sound of the sink water running could be heard.

Kang Min-jae sighed deeply and leaned back on the couch.

“I feel like I’ve become a villain.”

It’s not easy to dig into someone else’s wounds.

In fact, I have a lot of concerns about how to treat Kim Mi-ja.

She is both a victim and a perpetrator.

If she had become Oda Satoshi’s lover to survive and lived a normal life after marrying him, it might have been different.

However, Kim Mi-ja took over the management of Yojung and was even appointed as a professor through academic forgery.

This goes beyond mere self-preservation and can be seen as a crime committed to fulfill her own desires.

If Woo-shin had taken advantage of Kim Mi-ja’s weaknesses and forced her to run Yojung, the situation would be different, but what about the academic forgery? That was her choice.

Anyway, Kim Mi-ja admitted everything.

That doesn’t mean she has agreed to stand on our side, but it does mean that we have laid the foundation for moving on to the next stage.

First, we need to get Kim Mi-ja to tell her story in more detail.

Securing her cooperation is the next step.

“Haa…”

Kim Mi-ja sat down again across from us with a face that looked as if she had never cried.

I thought it would take a long time, but she seemed to have fixed her makeup.

Still, her emotions didn’t seem to be completely sorted out, and her lips were trembling.

“Do you need more time?”

Kang Min-jae asked.

Kim Mi-ja looked at Kang Min-jae and smiled faintly.

“What else would I do but cry if you give me time?”

“Then can we move on to the next question?”

“What other questions do you want to ask? You already know everything.”

Kim Mi-ja asked in a sharp tone.

“When did Kim Mi-ja start managing Yojung?”

“…It was after I became deeply involved with my current husband.”

“Exactly how many years ago?”

“Well, I guess it’s been about 15 years.”

If it’s 15 years ago, she would have been 31 years old, and it would be from 1996.

I don’t know when Yojung was established, but it seems to be older than I thought.

“You said that you were assaulted for trying to send away the children who were brought to that place. Did that happen even after you became deeply involved with Oda Satoshi?”

“The deep relationship I’m talking about isn’t as beautiful as you might think.”

“I never thought it was beautiful.”

“…I’m talking about when Oda Satoshi started to become obsessed with me. Of course, there was attraction before that, but that was before his dead ex-wife got sick, and I was just like a lover. But from the moment I heard that his ex-wife had an incurable disease and could die at any time, he started to become obsessed with me.”

“Then what were you doing at that time?”

“I lived in a mansion prepared by Oda Satoshi, and all I did was decorate myself with the money he gave me and wait anxiously for him to come. After becoming his lover, Oda Satoshi took me out of that Yojung.”

“When was that?”

“I guess it was around my mid-20s.”

It seems that the relationship with Oda Satoshi had been going on for longer than I thought.

If she was in her mid-20s, even if I take it as 25 years old, it would be 21 years ago, so it would be 1990.

“There wasn’t a great reason for taking me out of there either. It was because I had to deal with other people if I stayed there, so he took me out because he wanted to monopolize me. Because he didn’t want me sleeping with other men. As you said, I gave up my pride and human dignity and did everything those people told me to do. So I was very popular.”

She said that, explaining in detail what she had been through.
The nicknames, close to derogatory terms, that those people had given her, how they had treated her.

Just listening to it made me feel disgusted, and I couldn’t manage my expression at all.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Why do you think so?”

“Your expression is not good. Well, someone as dirty as me is now the wife of a member of the House of Representatives [Japanese Parliament], a professor, wearing luxury goods and acting elegant. Didn’t you see it too, Kang Min-jae? How elegantly I was smiling happily at the reception.”

“I don’t think it’s dirty at all that you were forced into sexual favors at Yojung in the past.”

At my answer, Kim Mi-ja chuckled.

“You were pushing me so mercilessly for someone who thinks that way.”

“The one I was mercilessly treating was Oda Tomiko, who runs Yojung, helps them, forges academic credentials, and deceives people. You didn’t go to that Yojung because you wanted to, did you? You were submissive to those people to survive, weren’t you? Why is that dirty? The dirty ones are the people who made you do that.”

“…I didn’t expect you to think that way. The other kids who saw me flattering those people and being loved by them cursed me for being spineless. I was an outcast even among Koreans. Maybe that’s why I tried harder to be loved by those people.”

“How did you end up running Yojung?”

“After my current husband took me out of Yojung, he told me that I seemed to have a talent for drawing and told me to try drawing. I spent my days drawing and met Oda Satoshi at night… Then, as Oda Satoshi became obsessed with me, he said that he wanted to remarry me when his wife died. I guess he was talking about it everywhere. One day, he told me to go to Yojung with him to meet someone. I shouldn’t have gone there no matter what…”

Kim Mi-ja sighed deeply and started looking around.

Her gaze was directed towards the mini-bar inside the room.

“I can’t say anything sober. Can I have a drink?”

“If you speak while drunk…”

Kang Min-jae said urgently at the unexpected request, but Kim Mi-ja shook her head.

“I’ve been drinking so much since I was young that I don’t get drunk easily. I’ll only have one drink. I can’t go back to the hotel drunk anyway.”

She got up from her seat and brought the whiskey from the mini-bar.

I was thinking about ordering ice, but she poured the whiskey into a cup and gulped it down.

After drinking about three glasses, she dabbed her mouth with a tissue.

“Um, I feel a little better now. Ah, where were we?”

“You said that you went back to Yojung because there was someone to meet.”

“Ah, right. Yes, when I went back there, there was a Woo-shin official. It was someone familiar. The one who had been managing us since I came to Japan… We called that person Chief Han. He and some of his subordinates were there.”

“Chief Han?”

“Yes. When the kids came over from Japan, there was a dormitory or something. It was a dormitory in name only, but it was in a remote location… It was like an apartment, but a very bad place. These days, they seem to send the kids to special schools, but we didn’t, and we only taught them Japanese. We slept four people in a room the size of this sofa to that television.”

The size of the room she mentioned is about the size of a small studio apartment that can be commonly seen in university districts these days.

It’s about 5 pyeong [approximately 16.5 square meters or 178 square feet].

It’s a space that’s far too small for four people to live in.

“It was no different from a prison. We couldn’t open the door from the inside, and when they opened it from the outside, we were controlled and got into a van to move to Yojung. Anyway, that’s the person who controlled us. Chief Han.”

“What did you talk about when you met Chief Han?”

“In short, they needed someone to manage Yojung. Originally, Chief Han was managing everything, but after the House of Angels was established and the children kept coming over, it seemed like he was struggling just to manage the children. And I was getting older to some extent, and I knew best how that Yojung worked, and I was favored by the people who frequented it… And I was the most obedient of the children who came there. Above all, Oda Satoshi was saying that he was even thinking of remarrying me, so I think they thought I wouldn’t betray them.”

“Was there any coercion?”

“He said that to me in a place where my husband wasn’t. He said that even if my husband got tired of me and abandoned me, I wouldn’t have to worry about making a living while managing Yojung. Anyway, if you’re abandoned by Oda Satoshi, you’ll have to come back here, and I’m going to make it that way even if you don’t want to, so from here… He said that it would be better than living as a prostitute here.”

Kim Mi-ja distorted her expression when she said the word ‘prostitute’.

It must be a word that is not easy to put on her lips as a word referring to herself.

“I thought it would end when I got older and wasn’t pretty anymore, but that’s not the case. He said that even if I get old, I’ll be useful somewhere. So… So I said I understood. You can think of me as despicable. You said I went from victim to perpetrator, right? That’s right. But if that happens, I don’t have to be a victim anymore… What would you do if you were me? Can you say that my choice is not normal?”