You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 189

You Have Been Defended – Episode 189

My father is alive now.

But I have never forgotten the sorrow of that day, not for a single moment.

My father’s incident was the reason I decided to catch Wooshin, and it completely changed my life.

While having my life threatened, losing my family, and losing many other precious things, I lived with the sole determination to catch Wooshin.

Even now, after receiving a new life and having everything from that time erased.

I met Yoo Min-hyuk’s gaze, who was looking at me with a surprised expression.

“…Attorney.”

“With the hope that a family member suffering from illness could alleviate their pain even a little, I found and provided medicine that was more expensive than my salary… Do you know how it feels for that medicine to kill your family?”

He knows.

He also lost his sibling due to a pharmaceutical side effect, so he probably knows this feeling best.

“In front of a family member who has become such a cold corpse, do you think you can rationally control that anger? This person at least conscientiously dropped out in the middle. This person at least wasn’t the one in charge. This person says they didn’t know it would be used like this. This person just did as they were told. Do you think you can go through each one, distinguishing who to resent and who not to resent?”

“…”

“For someone who has lost a family member, that’s not important. Everyone who contributed to making that medicine is an accomplice. Everyone who brought that medicine into the world is a criminal. Rational judgment, fairness in weighing the severity of the crime—you can’t expect that. Even I, who have a job that is forced to be fair, was the same.”

Who doesn’t know?

That Yoo Min-hyuk realized that the medicine he developed could have side effects and opposed its release.

But so what?

Does that mean if you just oppose it, you become someone who has done nothing wrong?

“Yoo Min-hyuk, you said that you knew the research reliability of Highzolan was low and strongly protested to Myunghwa Pharmaceuticals that it should be researched again, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Was that really all you could do? Why didn’t you make this fact known to the outside? Why didn’t you think about making this fact a big deal and just submitted your resignation and came down to this countryside? Did you think you did enough because you protested at the risk of your own livelihood? How many people did you know would lose their lives because of that medicine? No, even if only one person loses their life, is that doing enough?”

I can understand it rationally.

He must have been afraid.

If he did such a thing, he would become a whistleblower, so he must have worried about the aftermath.

He had only researched to make Antrozol have a better effect, but the fact that he had to fight with Myunghwa Pharmaceuticals to prevent that drug from coming into the world must have been burdensome.

Yoo Min-hyuk, who had already lost his sibling due to a pharmaceutical side effect, knew how difficult and painful that path was.

So, he wanted to resolve it by ending his brilliant career there and living as a pharmacist in a small pharmacy in a rural fishing village, atoning in his own way.

“You said you didn’t want to be involved in this anymore? Then, are you saying it’s okay if Antrozol Alpha is released as is? Are you saying it’s okay if innocent patients collapse from heart attacks after getting the injection you developed? Are you saying that you’ve come all the way down to this countryside to cleanse yourself of your sins, so that’s enough?”

“…No.”

“If that’s not it, then what is it? My client, Jo Bong-joon, and Choi Jong-hyun, the reporter who is working hard to publicize this case with Jo Bong-joon, and I, are all people who have no direct connection to Antrozol Alpha. But we know that drug is a drug that kills people, so we’re struggling to prevent its release, wasting our precious time. But we are outsiders, and we don’t know anything about medicine. But we’re still researching and finding out, working hard like that… Yoo Min-hyuk, you were aware of all the situation, so is it enough for you to just shut your mouth and hide like this?”

“No. Attorney, that’s not it. I am,”

“We just hope that no one is sacrificed to the logic of corporations. We just hope that there are no people who think that it’s okay for several powerless, ignorant people to die if it means they can fatten their own wallets. We just hope that there are no situations where children who spent a lot of money on medicine in the hope that their parents wouldn’t be sick blame themselves. But, are we the ones who have to be turned away by Yoo Min-hyuk? Are we the ones who have to be treated as rude people who can’t even ask a word and touch Yoo Min-hyuk’s buried trauma?”

“No! That’s not it. Attorney… sob, sob, that’s not it…”

Yoo Min-hyuk collapsed to the floor and sobbed.

I stared down at him silently.

In this life, Antrozol Alpha has not yet been released, and my old sorrow has become nothing more than a dream.

Even so, I couldn’t help but resent him, who was sobbing in front of me now.

I know it too.

That he tried in his own way.

But it was still not enough.

Because he didn’t do everything he could.

What if, in the previous life, Yoo Min-hyuk had been more proactive?

Since he was going to retire anyway and run a small pharmacy in this rural village, there would have been no reason to worry too much about his social reputation.

If he wasn’t confident himself, what if he had reported it to even one medical reporter, like we did?

If so, before the perception that Antrozol Alpha was simply an upgraded version of Antrozol spread, wouldn’t there have been people who heard bad rumors?

Even if it wasn’t my father, wouldn’t at least some of the people who died in vain like my father have been saved?

I know it’s a meaningless assumption now, but I couldn’t help but make assumptions and imagine it dozens of times in this fleeting moment.

“…Yoo Min-hyuk, you still have a chance.”

I slowly said, calming my excited tone.

“Antrozol Alpha has not yet been released. And, since we’ve bought some time, the release will be delayed even a little.”

“…”

“Yoo Min-hyuk. You have the data, right?”

He looked around the messy studio apartment with empty eyes.

Among them, his gaze was fixed on a small frame placed on the desk.

Inside, there was a photo of brothers who looked to be on good terms, with their arms around each other’s shoulders on the beach.

Yoo Min-hyuk bit his lip while looking at that side.

After realizing that there was a problem with Antrozol Alpha, what was he feeling when he couldn’t stop its release and came down to Jinseong?

I think he must have felt miserable.

He probably felt the same emotions I felt when my father passed away, when he lost his sibling.

Like me, he must have resented the people who developed that medicine.

But in the end, he had done the same thing, and he couldn’t stop it, so he must have felt devastated.

The reason he came down to this countryside may have been because it was the place where his sibling passed away, but there may have been other reasons.

This place, where the rate of device distribution is low, is not as fast as Seoul in spreading rumors.

Even if problems arise later because of Antrozol Alpha, he may have thought that if he was holed up here, it wouldn’t reach his ears.

But I don’t think he could ever escape in that way.

Isn’t this a severely aging area?

Antrozol Alpha is a medicine that has been a hit as a treatment for arthritis.

Since most arthritis patients are elderly, there may have been victims here as well.

No matter how much you try to run away and turn a blind eye, it’s impossible.

That’s what guilt is like.

It’s like a monster that tenaciously chases after you to gnaw at you, no matter how you hide.

That’s why stirring up his wounds and fears was not easy for me either.

“…I have it.”

Yoo Min-hyuk answered in a subdued voice after a long time.

Kang Min-jae took a long breath he had been holding in and slumped his shoulders.

“Can you give it to us?”

At my question, Yoo Min-hyuk hesitated for a long time.

He wiped his palms on his pants and bit his lip.

His pants were damp, as if his hands were full of sweat.

“…I can give it to you.”

“Do you have it now?”

“No, I left it in Seoul, in Seoul.”

With the word [Truth] floating above his head, Yoo Min-hyuk couldn’t raise his head.

I was the one who drove him into a criminal, but maybe I think this.

I wonder if Yoo Min-hyuk was waiting for someone to come and give him a rebuke close to intimidation.

If he really wanted to bury it like this, would he have bothered to bring those materials out?

Was it because he thought that someday, the time might come when he had to tell the truth?

That’s why I couldn’t help but blame my past self in the end.

If I had found Yoo Min-hyuk’s existence in the previous life, wouldn’t it have helped the Antrozol Alpha side effect lawsuit that had continued for years in the previous life?

* * *

Yoo Min-hyuk said that he had kept the data in a private vault located in Seoul.

He wants to go up to Seoul with us, but the pharmacy he runs handles the most diverse medicines in Jinseong-gun [county], and there are customers who come every day, so he said he can’t go up right away.

Since he decided to give the data anyway, and if that happens, he thinks he will have things to do as well, so he needs time to organize.

I was once again grateful for being given the ability to distinguish between truth and lies.

I wouldn’t have been able to easily believe such words before, but now I can promise a few days later without worry and go up to Seoul.

“Attorney.”

Kang Min-jae, who had been driving silently, glanced at me and spoke.

“Earlier, what you said to Yoo Min-hyuk—about the heart of a person who lost a family member due to a pharmaceutical side effect…”

He trailed off and looked at me.

“Why?”

“…It sounded like your own experience to me. Do you have such pain?”

Kang Min-jae asked in a very cautious tone.

He probably had tens of thousands of thoughts in his head from the time he parted ways with Yoo Min-hyuk until now.

He even thought about the fact that I am an only son, and wondered if I had a sibling and lost them in such an incident.

“No, I don’t.”

I answered indifferently.

Then Kang Min-jae turned his head towards me with a face full of betrayal, widening his eyes.

“…Then was that all acting?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, really… Wow, wow… Attorney, you could really be a con artist. Wow, I was really fooled. Wow, really… I didn’t even know, and I was feeling sorry because I thought you really had such pain, and I couldn’t even bring it up!”

Kang Min-jae shouted, raising his voice, asking how I could lie without batting an eye.

I just laughed.

My father is alive now.

So there’s no need for that story to remain as my experience.

This time, I’ll prevent such a thing from happening.