You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 138

“Kang left a while ago.”

Yang Han-seok announced as soon as I opened the door to his office, before I even stepped inside.

“I figured.”

I replied, entering the prosecutor’s office.

“You copied all the records and left, so why are you back, *sunbae* [senior colleague or mentor]?”

“Didn’t you withhold the CCTV footage from Kang?”

“We can’t release that due to privacy concerns.”

“I’ve already spoken with the chief, so double-check.”

At my words, Yang Han-seok frowned and picked up the phone.

The call didn’t last long.

A few seconds later, Yang Han-seok hung up, acknowledging the instruction.

“I’m the prosecutor in charge. You need to talk to me about verifying evidence records. Why are you two making deals with the chief and then notifying me, the prosecutor in charge?”

“Yang Prosecutor, you also get case information from the chief, so why should I only talk to you?”

Yang Han-seok jumped up from his seat.

“What did you just say?”

“Am I wrong?”

“Who said I was getting case information from the chief? I investigated based on the data from the police. Don’t make baseless assumptions.”

“Alright. The data is here.”

I placed the USB on his desk.

Yang Han-seok seemed quite insulted and continued to glare at me.

I didn’t particularly want to be overly polite to him, but I also didn’t intend to insult him.

I simply didn’t want to prolong a meaningless conversation.

I sat on the sofa and checked my wristwatch.

“I’d appreciate it if you could hurry. I don’t have much time.”

Yang Han-seok looked like he wanted to grab me by the collar.

However, he only trembled with his fists and did nothing.

He simply handed the USB I gave him to the chief clerk, instructing him on which CCTV footage to give me.

“Counsel, here you go.”

Shortly after, the chief clerk approached me and handed me the USB.

Since I had already made a deal with the chief, I figured he wouldn’t try to omit any files and make me come back multiple times, so I didn’t check it and put it in my inside pocket.

“I’d like to contact the victim’s side.”

“……Ah. Prosecutor?”

When I spoke to the chief clerk, he glanced at Yang Han-seok and called him.

Yang Han-seok chuckled and replied.

“Ask the counsel why they want to contact the victim.”

“……Why do you want to contact them?”

“I want to check the extent of the victim’s injuries and see if a settlement is possible.”

There was no way Yang Han-seok couldn’t hear my voice, but he pretended not to.

The chief clerk, once again with a troubled expression, repeated my words like a parrot towards Yang Han-seok.

“He says to check with the victim’s side and let him know, please convey that to the counsel.”

“Check with the victim’s side…”

“Thank you.”

I picked up my briefcase and stood up.

Yang Han-seok couldn’t seem to hear my voice, but I could definitely hear his.

There was no need to receive it through the chief clerk.

As I was about to leave the prosecutor’s office, I heard Yang Han-seok’s voice from behind.

“*Sunbae*. Be careful. There are a lot of people sharpening their knives behind your back.”

In the end, is that all he has to say?

“Alright.”

Knowing that my response often irritates people even more, I simply said I understood.

Yang Han-seok already seemed very angry with me, so I thought it would be better than replying at length.

“……”

But why he seems even more upset is truly a mystery.

“Counsel.”

As I crossed the hallway and stood in front of the elevator, I heard a voice from behind.

It was Kang Min-jae.

He must have been waiting all this time, even though I told him to go first.

“I told you to go first.”

“How could I do that? You said your relationship with the chief isn’t good, I was worried.”

I glanced at him.

It’s true that our relationship isn’t good, but it’s not like Hwang Young-chan would lock me in his office and beat me up.

“Can I ask what you talked about?”

Kang Min-jae asked after getting on the elevator.

“I asked for the CCTV.”

“Is that all?”

We talked about many other things, but there wasn’t much I could tell Kang Min-jae.

Hwang Young-chan himself only came to a conclusion after contemplating for a long time why I suddenly left him.

To make him understand my actions, I would have to tell him a lot.

I didn’t want to explain at length.

This case is one that Hwang Young-chan is trying to cover up through Yang Han-seok, under Wooshin’s orders.

And I was Hwang Young-chan’s protégé until the year before last.

If he has any sense, he should be able to roughly gauge the situation just by looking at how this case is unfolding.

“……Um, so did you get the CCTV?”

When I didn’t answer easily, Kang Min-jae scratched his temple and asked.

I took out the USB from my pocket and handed it to him.

“It doesn’t contain all the CCTV footage from the scene, but it has the footage of Go Yoon-sung being carried out and leaving the construction site.”

“I understand. Hmm, should I contact the NIS [National Intelligence Service]? We might need video analysis.”

“Let’s take a look first. We need to check for manipulation.”

As soon as we returned to the office, we checked the CCTV footage.

There was nothing particularly special.

The inside of the alley where the assault took place was definitely dark, so not even shadows could be seen, and there was only footage of Go Yoon-sung being carried out by his escorts.

As we heard in the statements from the scene, he was covered in clothes, so we couldn’t see him properly.

We could only see his limp hands and that his face, which was barely visible, was covered in a lot of blood.

Several CCTV cameras captured the scene from various angles.

The escorts surrounded Go Yoon-sung as if they were protecting him, and they left the construction site like that.

The surprised expressions of the workers were also captured.

Among them was the site manager I met today.

“It doesn’t look like there’s any CCTV footage from the underground parking lot.”

Office Manager Oh said, rummaging through the files.

“They definitely won’t give it to us. If they smuggled Oh Sang-hyun out that way, the CCTV there would have captured Oh Sang-hyun’s badly injured state. Then they would have no choice but to acknowledge mutual assault. Those bad guys. They took away the CCTV in that alley. They definitely have that footage too.”

Kang Min-jae fumed.

“We need to quickly find out about Go Yoon-sung’s situation. I’ve already requested his contact information from the prosecution to meet him, so we should get a response by tomorrow.”

I looked at the clock, which was already pointing to 6 o’clock, and put on my coat.

“What are you going to do when you meet him? Are you going to try to settle?”

“I told the prosecution that, but I don’t intend to settle. I need to secure evidence that Go Yoon-sung isn’t really hurt.”

It doesn’t make sense that Oh Sang-hyun’s assault resulted in an 8-week injury.

However, Go Yoon-sung doesn’t have the guts to inflict self-harm to pretend to be a victim.

Since he’s hospitalized at Wooshin Hospital, he probably colluded with a doctor and got a diagnosis.

“The case records have photos of his torn and bruised body.”

Office Manager Oh replied as I buttoned up my coat.

“He was seriously injured. But usually, the police take those evidence photos themselves. If Go Yoon-sung was just pretending to be hurt, I wonder how those photos came about.”

“Either the police are on their side, or the police gave them a favor and they took the photos themselves and submitted them. In both cases, that body wouldn’t be Go Yoon-sung’s body.”

If my guess is correct, I plan to uncover all of this.

If that happens, Go Yoon-sung won’t have to face the stones alone.

Podol is his companion, isn’t that reassuring?

* * *

Three days later, we received a call from Yang Han-seok’s prosecutor’s office.

Office Manager Oh answered the phone, and it seemed that Go Yoon-sung’s lawyer said it was okay to give out his contact information.

I hadn’t received the civil lawsuit yet, but when I searched the lawyer’s name in the legal directory, he was affiliated with Taekwang.

It wasn’t unexpected, but Taekwang again.

It was truly sickening.

Since the immediate issue is the criminal trial, the immediate enemy is the prosecution.

I decided not to worry about that side for now.

While the criminal trial is ongoing, the lawyer is merely Go Yoon-sung’s spokesperson.

The civil trial will depend on the outcome, so I might not even have to fight that lawyer in court.

I have to hope so.

“I’ll make the call.”

Kang Min-jae, who received the contact information from Office Manager Oh, picked up the phone.

“Tell them to meet at Go Yoon-sung’s hospital room. We have to see him there no matter what.”

If we don’t meet at Go Yoon-sung’s hospital room, contacting his lawyer elsewhere would be a waste of time.

Since we don’t intend to settle anyway, there’s no need to bother each other.

Besides, the lawyer would have instructed Go Yoon-sung not to say a word, so it would be difficult to hear anything meaningful from him.

From the beginning, my goal was to enter the ward he was hospitalized in.

To confirm whether Go Yoon-sung is faking his illness, I need to find out how he’s living inside the hospital.

To do that, I need to enter the ward he’s staying in, but the problem is that it’s obvious he’ll be in the VIP ward.

Access to the VIP ward is strictly restricted, so unless I make an appointment with Go Yoon-sung and enter the ward, it’s impossible to hear statements from the people around him.

Therefore, even if I can’t meet Go Yoon-sung, I need to enter his hospital room anyway.

There’s a high possibility that the hospital staff has been bribed to keep their mouths shut, but it’s still a place where people live.

Words can leak out anytime, anywhere.

“I don’t know if they’ll willingly show us Go Yoon-sung.”

“If we say we’re going to apologize in person as if we’re going to settle, they might show us. Anyway, there’s no other way to enter that ward except to meet Go Yoon-sung.”

Just as the labor union was preparing to make an issue of Go Yoon-sung’s actions regarding Oh Sang-hyun, Go Yoon-sung’s side, sensing this, made the first move by claiming he was assaulted.

It’s probably because he calculated that if he assaulted an employee with his already bad image, it might be irreversible.

If we say we’re going to settle, Go Yoon-sung’s side might want to end it with a picture of him receiving a direct apology and generously forgiving us to improve his image.

Looking back now, I wonder if the lawyer Oh Sang-hyun previously hired kept trying to push for a settlement for that reason.

Go Yoon-sung’s side sent a signal that they would give some convenience if we settled, and that lawyer eagerly took the bait.

Even if it became a non-prosecutable offense due to the injury, if we settle and receive a letter of no punishment, it would definitely be taken into consideration.

“What if they refuse to let us meet him in person until the end?”

“Say he’s faking his illness and can’t show us.”

“……Is it okay to openly mock him like that?”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“I wish you’d realize that your jokes don’t sound like jokes at all.”

Kang Min-jae grumbled and copied Go Yoon-sung’s lawyer’s name onto his phone.

“I’ll go make the call outside.”

About 30 minutes passed.

Kang Min-jae returned to the office, wiping his dry lips with his hand.

“How did it go?”

Kang Min-jae didn’t answer Office Manager Oh, who was curious about the results, and first drew water from the water purifier and drank it.

“Ah, I talked too much, my lips are chapped and my tongue is dry.”