You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 210

“Juhan, over here!”

Arriving at our meeting spot, I found Dongjin already waiting.

It was a bit late for dinner, so there weren’t many people around.

“You’ve lost half your face.”

I said, sitting across from him, and Dongjin chuckled.

“Just busy with work. Let’s eat first. What do you want?”

“Recommend anything delicious.”

I wasn’t very hungry, and my purpose here wasn’t really about the food, so anything was fine.

As soon as the food arrived, Dongjin started eating with such gusto that he seemed like he would bury his face in the bowl.

I picked up a few pieces of meat from my bowl and pushed them onto his plate.

“Hey, what’s this? You eat it.”

“You eat a lot. Your wife must be worried seeing you lose weight.”

“My wife likes skinny guys.”

“That’s just what they say.”

“These days, who is it… some actor from a drama? Anyway, she’s obsessed with him and nags me. Is her love fading?”

That couldn’t be.

Dongjin’s wife was someone who had even considered taking her own life when Dongjin did.

Though she didn’t go through with it because of the children.

If she had left too, and I had turned a blind eye to Dongjin when he asked for my help, having nowhere else to turn, I would never have forgiven myself.

Of course, even now… every time I face Dongjin like this, I resent myself for not saving him in my previous life.

“That can’t be true.”

“What do you know? Oh, by the way, my wife wanted to have a meal with you.”

“Sure, let’s do that. The kids must be grown a lot; their uncle should buy them some toys.”

“Yeah, you’re making a lot of money now. Buy them.”

I gave a meaningless laugh, watching Dongjin continue his meal, and then suddenly checked my phone.

It’s August 2010 now.

And the day Dongjin took his own life was exactly May 2, 2011.

“Last time, you said the director’s son was keeping you in check. How’s that going? Is he still doing that?”

“He’s still a pain in the ass. Hey, don’t even mention that bastard. It pisses me off.”

“Is he the type to slander you to keep you in check?”

“Slander? Well, he’s capable of anything.”

Dongjin answered casually, pulling the side dishes I didn’t like towards himself.

“If anything happens, tell me right away.”

“What kind of thing? What thing?”

“Just anything. Even if it’s not law-related, if there’s something you can’t handle alone, I can help.”

“Seriously. Why are you suddenly saying that? Of course, if anything happens, I’ll call you right away. Gotta get some help from my lawyer friend.”

And that guy hid things from me until the very end, only coming to me at the last possible moment?

There are many things I want to say, but there’s nothing I can say.

After the meal, we bought coffee and walked around the hospital’s surrounding trails.

Even at this late hour, hospital staff were seen here and there.

“Anyway, what did you want to ask me?”

Dongjin asked, sitting down on a bench in front of a flower bed.

“It’s nothing much. Lee Jungchan’s son, Lee Sehyung.”

“Ah, Lee Sehyung? Is he at our hospital?”

“Yeah. I heard Lee Sehyung had a problem with his spinal cord and became paralyzed in his lower body?”

“That’s right. He’s probably getting rehabilitation at our hospital. We’re consulting with your department.”

Dongjin said nonchalantly, sipping his coffee.

“But why?”

“Have you ever seen Lee Sehyung’s chart?”

“I haven’t. The head of the department is in charge.”

“Really?”

“Well, he’s the son of a prominent politician, and Lee Sehyung himself is famous, so security is pretty tight.”

“So, the head of the rehabilitation department is directly in charge of his rehabilitation too?”

“That’s right.”

I nodded slowly.

Right now, Lee Sehyung’s legs are perfectly fine.

The fact that he’s still going to the hospital means that the head of neurosurgery and the head of rehabilitation are in on it too.

“What kind of people are the head of neurosurgery and the head of rehabilitation?”

“I don’t know much about the head of rehabilitation, but our head is really…”

Dongjin looked around to make sure no one he knew was nearby, then lowered his voice and answered.

“…ambitious for success.”

“Ambitious for success?”

“There’s talk that the current director’s position is shaky. So, he wants to get in good with the political side. The hospital is struggling with the establishment permit for the nursing center, so if he can solve that, he’ll definitely be reappointed as director.”

“And?”

“So, there’s talk that the director will promote anyone who helps him maintain his position?”

“Your head is aiming for that?”

“That’s right.”

Dongjin nodded vigorously.

“And the director’s son is in our department right now. So, he takes care of him as if they were lovers in a past life.”

“Didn’t your head introduce you to a VIP a while ago?”

At my question, Dongjin sighed deeply.

“After the head introduced me to the VIP, I even went into the OR [operating room] when he had surgery, right? But in the middle, the door opened, and the director’s son slipped in. So, I wondered what was going on, and they said they called him because they were short on hands. They weren’t short at all.”

“So?”

“After that, that bastard kept going into the OR.”

“…I see.”

“Well, whatever. It’s not like I’ve ever handled such VIPs before.”

“So, your head would write false diagnoses for VIPs too.”

Dongjin waved his hand as if it were obvious.

“Of course. Hey, our head is a broker, a broker.”

“What kind of broker?”

“Exemptions from military service for children of political and business figures, diagnoses for when they have to appear before prosecutors, etc. He provides all sorts of things.”

The answer is already clear here.

Lee Sehyung is also pretending to be disabled thanks to that head.

“If the day ever comes when I leave the medical field, I’m going to expose that bastard as a broker and leave. Just you wait.”

There’s no need for Dongjin to tarnish his name as a traitor to the medical community by exposing him.

I’ll take care of that.

Anyway, if Lee Sehyung’s scam is exposed, all the hospital officials who backed him will be on the chopping block.

In particular, the head of neurosurgery, who issued the false diagnosis, will be hit the hardest.

Once we start digging into the head of neurosurgery, it’s only a matter of time before we find out which politicians’ children he falsely diagnosed.

“Doctor! You were here?”

At that moment, a young doctor ran up to us.

“Oh, Doctor Lee. Why, what’s wrong? There were no calls?”

“Ah, no, it’s not that. The head just returned from his business trip and brought back gifts, they said?”

“Really? Then leave mine at my desk.”

“…He wants you to come and get it yourself.”

“Ugh, alright.”

Dongjin grumbled and got up.

“Do you have to go in?”

“Yeah. Oh, Juhan. I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor? What is it?”

“Let’s go up together first.”

I followed him into the hospital without knowing why.

He told me to wait for a moment in the lounge in front of the ward, so I mingled with the inpatients and watched TV, waiting for Dongjin to come back.

About 20 minutes passed.

Dongjin came back with a large shopping bag in one hand.

“Juhan.”

“Oh, you’re back? But why does your head tell you to come and get such a small gift himself?”

“I know, right? Just a piece of chocolate. He bought it from the Chocolate Museum. Was he just goofing off? Ugh, really.”

He showed me the small box he was holding.

“I don’t like chocolate, you eat it.”

“No, thanks.”

“Ah, eat it. Consider it a bribe since I have a favor to ask.”

He forced the chocolate box on me, then handed me the large shopping bag he was holding.

“What’s this?”

“My socks and underwear. Could you drop them off at the security office of my apartment on your way home? Haha. My wife isn’t home anyway.”

“Why are you taking the laundry when your wife isn’t home?”

“She went to her parents’ house with the kids and will be back late at night. I don’t have anything to wear from the day after tomorrow, but my wife can’t come to pick it up. I was supposed to go home today, but you suddenly came to me with a favor to ask, so I couldn’t go. A favor, huh?”

“Hey you,”

“Gotta go! Thanks in advance!”

He was already waving his hand and running towards the medical office in the distance.

I picked up the shopping bag on the floor and chuckled.

Dongjin’s house isn’t on the way to my house; it’s in the opposite direction.

As Dongjin asked, I left his underwear and socks at the security office, then drove back home.

I habitually got out of the car, but then I remembered the chocolate he had forced on me and took it out again.

The chocolate, with a lot of German written on it, wasn’t such a great gift that he had to tell me to come and get it in person.

I put the chocolate on the dining table, washed up, and went to sit on the sofa.

I was mindlessly flipping through TV channels.

‘Wait a minute.’

Wasn’t Germany where Lee Sehyung went to get spinal surgery?

There’s still time until the election, but if Lee Sehyung wants to pretend to have recovered enough to walk by election day, he needs to match the timing of his surgery to around this time.

He’ll have to get the documents ready in case.

If the head went to Germany to prepare for that?

“…”

I looked at the chocolate box.

I don’t know German, but it’s similar to English in many ways, so I skimmed through it.

[Schokoladenmuseum Köln]

It says Cologne Chocolate Museum.

I already heard from Dongjin that the head bought this from the Chocolate Museum.

So, the place the head went on a business trip was Cologne.

I searched for a few words on the portal site.

[Köln Rückenmark]

Cologne, spinal cord.

Just by putting in those two words, the top search result was a hospital.

And when I put the English name of that hospital back into the search bar, English pages popped up.

They were web documents about the world’s leading spinal cord specialist hospital located in Cologne.

There were many stories about patients with lower body paralysis due to spinal cord injuries undergoing surgery here and walking again.

I immediately called Dongjin.

-Oh, Juhan. Did you drop off my socks and underwear okay?

“That’s not important. Your head.”

-Our head? Why?

“What was the purpose of his business trip to Germany?”

-Purpose of the trip? I heard he went to attend a conference? I don’t know much about it.”

“Hmm, I see.”

If it’s a conference that the head of neurosurgery would attend, it would naturally be a conference in that field.

I once again entered [Cologne, Neurology Conference] in English on the portal site.

‘As expected, there was no neurology conference, and no other conference was held at that time either.’

Then there’s only one answer now.

Lee Sehyung received surgery here.

And it’s clear that they are secretly preparing to pretend to go for surgery now.

Lee Sehyung will definitely depart for Cologne to leave a clear record of his entry and exit.

Lee Jungchan isn’t stupid enough to lie without leaving that much evidence.

Then, we must expose Lee Sehyung’s lies before that.