You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 131

“Is the lawyer with the messed-up personality here…?”

Tae-shik, who had burst into the office with a booming voice as usual, clamped his mouth shut as soon as he spotted Assistant Manager Oh.

“Lawyer, isn’t that the Chief?”

He quietly approached my desk and whispered.

“That’s right.”

“…Why is the Chief here?”

He seemed threatened, hiding behind me and watching Assistant Manager Oh.

Tae-shik and Assistant Manager Oh knew each other well.

Assistant Manager Oh was in my office when I first met Tae-shik as a prosecutor.

So, my first meeting with him was also his first meeting with Assistant Manager Oh.

Back then, Tae-shik was one of the suspects who was very disrespectful to the prosecutor.

He used informal speech, swore, and even shouted.

I wasn’t very kind to suspects back then, and Tae-shik was a fiery young man in his early twenties.

I couldn’t stand it and was about to get up to say a few words to Tae-shik when Assistant Manager Oh appeared.

He grabbed Tae-shik’s ear hard and said,

-You killed someone and you’re talking down to the prosecutor? Huh? Should I call you in every day for three months until your trial? Then you can just sit in the corner of the prosecutor’s office for hours without any business and then leave. At first, it’ll be fun to get out of the detention center because you’re bored. But as time goes on, it’ll be hell. Should I do that, you punk?

…It was the early 2000s, a time when swearing was common in prosecutor’s offices, so it was possible.

Assistant Manager Oh was quite tough on troublesome suspects.

I heard later that Tae-shik thought everyone would cower before him because he was a murderer.

The other inmates in the same room were also afraid to talk to him properly because they heard he was charged with murder.

But he was shocked when a nice-looking, affable, and seemingly easygoing man grabbed his ear.

There are more stories about Assistant Manager Oh and Tae-shik, but they all involve Assistant Manager Oh’s unexpected forcefulness scaring Tae-shik.

That’s not to say Tae-shik dislikes Assistant Manager Oh.

When there was a possibility that he might not have killed someone, Assistant Manager Oh was one of the people who ran around trying to prove his innocence along with me.

He may be intimidated, but he’s secretly grateful.

“Tae-shik? Jang Tae-shik!”

Assistant Manager Oh seemed happy to see him hiding behind me and got up to approach me.

Tae-shik grabbed my shoulder tightly and tried to get further away from Assistant Manager Oh, who was getting closer.

His actions dragged my wheeled chair along with him.

“What are you doing? Let go.”

When I tried to pull his hand off my shoulder, Jang Tae-shik shook his head.

“Tae-shik, let me see your face. It’s been years.”

Kang Min-jae was amazed that such a big guy became a lamb in front of me, but I’m just a mid-level boss. [Referring to a position of moderate authority].

Assistant Manager Oh was the real Jang Tae-shik trainer.

“C, Chief! Long time no see. Ah, you look even younger than when that happened back then. Haha. I didn’t expect to see you here…”

Perhaps thinking he couldn’t hide any longer, Tae-shik stood up and bowed 90 degrees to Assistant Manager Oh.

Assistant Manager Oh stroked Tae-shik’s head.

“Hey, kid. You’ve grown a lot.”

Assistant Manager Oh massaged Tae-shik’s arm.

He seemed amazed by his muscles, which looked like they could bend a steel pipe like taffy, and touched him here and there.

“Ehehe, don’t touch me! Hehehe, it tickles.”

Tae-shik, who was ticklish, twisted his body.

He was huge, but he was really acting up.

When I looked back at him with a distorted expression, Tae-shik finally came to his senses and cleared his throat.

“Ahem. I haven’t grown much. My height is the same.”

“You were a baby when I saw you in the prosecutor’s office, but now you look like an old man. Haha.”

“Huh? You’re the old man, Chief. Your hair is getting gray, you’re almost a grandpa. Haha. Is that so? I’m almost thirty, so I guess you could call me an old man. Hahaha.”

I wonder if he thinks that if he speaks small and quickly, the previous words won’t be heard.

Assistant Manager Oh seemed to find that side of Tae-shik cute and pinched his cheek.

“You rascal. But what brings you here?”

“The lawyer asked me to do something.”

“The lawyer?”

This time, Assistant Manager Oh looked at me in surprise.

“Tae-shik is running a private investigation service, so I’ve been using him as an investigator. He’s quite good at his job.”

“Is that so? Wow, even a worm can roll around, Tae-shik has found his aptitude. Private investigation service, you’re not doing anything bad, are you?”

“Haha, of course not.”

“He won’t do anything bad except for illegal Hwatu [Korean card game resembling poker].”

I moved to the consultation sofa and said.

Tae-shik kept grumbling that he had quit illegal Hwatu, but he would never know that the word [Lie] was floating above his head.

“But where did Lawyer Kang go?”

“Lawyer Kang went to buy coffee. Ah, I should have told him to buy Tae-shik one too.”

“It’s okay. Lawyer Kang will give me aloe juice later.”

Lawyer Kang is the only one in our office who uses honorifics with him.

He was the only one who protected Jang Tae-shik’s pride, who was a figure of fear without ever being intimidated anywhere.

“Ah, Sang-gil said he asked the protesting person about the situation, pretending to be a reporter. Do you think it’s okay?”

“Who would believe a menacing bald guy is a reporter?”

“Bald? Sang-gil grew his hair out. And if you look at him, he looks dirty, but his eyes are so innocent. They’re like a cow’s eyes, cow’s eyes.”

I handed the mp3 that Tae-shik gave me to Assistant Manager Oh.

It seemed to be a recording of the conversation.

As soon as I connected the mp3 to the speaker, the conversation started playing.

[Ha, I don’t know where to start. So, the incident happened two months ago…]

The protester is the victim’s brother, and the victim is currently hospitalized.

To summarize, the whole story is like this.

A month ago, Chief Ko Yun-seong of the new apartment complex construction site went on an inspection.

The victim, a deputy in the apartment business division, was accompanying him at the site in place of the team leader who was on a business trip.

In the meantime, a construction worker, old enough to be his father, made a mistake to Ko Yun-seong.

Ko Yun-seong verbally abused the construction worker in front of everyone, and the victim thought it wasn’t right and stopped him.

Ko Yun-seong was very angry at this and called him out separately to assault him.

His eyes, kicking him into a corner, were almost like a madman.

To make matters worse, Ko Yun-seong ordered his entourage to assault the victim as well.

Some of the entourage held the victim in place, and the rest assaulted the victim with Ko Yun-seong.

The victim shouted to Ko Yun-seong that he wouldn’t stand still, that he would report it to the union and take legal action.

Then, Ko Yun-seong provoked him, saying, ‘Really? Are you angry? Then hit me. Hit me.’

But the victim, already beaten to a pulp, could only glare at him without hitting him once.

Then, Ko Yun-seong showed a sudden behavior.

He ordered the entourage surrounding the victim to hit him.

When the entourage hesitated, he even grabbed their hands and slapped himself on the cheek.

“Sang-gil was speechless when he heard it. He wondered what kind of crazy bastard this was.”

Tae-shik interjected in the middle.

I paused the mp3 for a moment.

“The children of Ko Sang-joon generally managed their image well. There were minor incidents, but I think this is the first time there has been an incident of this magnitude.”

Assistant Manager Oh had heard the explanation from Choi Jong-hyun, but he seemed shocked to learn the details.

The incident itself was outrageous, but I wasn’t surprised at all.

Ko Yun-seong is originally a crazy bastard.

He was addicted to drugs, and he couldn’t even speak properly without them.

“Ko Yun-seong is someone Ko Sang-joon can’t even control. Isn’t he the youngest son, the apple of his eye? Let’s listen to the rest.”

The victim fainted at the scene and was immediately taken to the hospital and hospitalized.

But his misfortune didn’t end there.

Not long after, he received shocking news.

Ko Yun-seong took civil and criminal action against him for assaulting him.

After that, it was the same as what I heard from Choi Jong-hyun.

The victim had told the union that he was going to take issue with Ko Yun-seong’s assault, but when Ko Yun-seong sued him instead, the atmosphere became strange.

No matter how crazy Ko Yun-seong was, he was still sued for assault.

Even the police quickly sent the case to the prosecution, and the fact that the prosecution indicted him seemed to have the biggest impact.

The first trial was scheduled for a month and a half later.

“Just listening to the statement, I don’t know why the police sent it to the prosecution, or why the prosecution indicted him. There was no evidence because it didn’t happen at all, and he wasn’t caught in the act.”

Assistant Manager Oh tilted his head.

I agree, but if you think about the influence of Wooshin Group, anything is possible.

It would be easy to falsely accuse a powerless employee.

“First of all, I think it would be good to meet the victim and hear his statement in detail.”

“Are you going to take this case?”

Assistant Manager Oh looked at me with worried eyes.

“I don’t know yet because I haven’t met the victim directly. But if this statement is all true, I think I should take it.”

At my words, Tae-shik took out a memo with the protester’s contact information from his pocket and handed it over.

“He said to contact him if you have any more questions.”

“Assistant Manager. I heard the situation from a reporter I know, and he said he would like to help if there is anything he can do after hearing the details. Please contact him.”

“You said no one would believe a menacing bald guy is a reporter.”

Tae-shik grumbled.

I watched Assistant Manager Oh’s back as he went to make a phone call and answered him simply.

“I never said that reporter was Sang-gil, did I?”

Unfortunately, the reporter I was talking about is Choi Jong-hyun.