You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 420

#421

I woke up and checked my phone to find a message from Kang Min-jae.

[Are you asleep, Attorney?]

[Looks like you are…….]

[Please contact me when you wake up tomorrow! Good night.]

I must have been so tired yesterday that I went to bed early and didn’t see Kang Min-jae’s message.

It was time for him to be awake, so I called Kang Min-jae and headed to the kitchen.

While the call was ringing, I tried to open a water bottle from the refrigerator, and Kang Min-jae answered.

─Hello?

“Hey, I just saw your message. What’s up?”

─Ah, yesterday, I ended up telling my grandfather about the conversation I had with the brothers… Is that okay?

“There’s no reason it wouldn’t be. But?”

─My grandfather heard about it and wants to meet you the day after tomorrow.

“Me?”

─Yes. Um, it felt like… He knew something. I have a feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d heard about Woo-shin doing something like that.

“Really? Okay. Tell him I’ll visit him the day after tomorrow.”

─Yes. Oh, and the manager next to me is asking when you’ll be starting work?

“Tell him I’ll start next week.”

─Okay.

“I’m hanging up.”

I drank the bottled water and took my medicine, then sat down at the dining table.

Every time I take medicine, I feel like a patient.

Actually, I am a patient…

Damn it, I only took sleeping pills in my previous life, but now I’m taking all sorts of medicine.

And I’m even showing this to others.

I have no choice since Kang Min-jae has seen me have seizures twice.

Let’s just think of it as karma.

“Cha Joo-han, please don’t forget your hospital appointment. I see you haven’t been here for four weeks.”

“I had some personal matters.”

“Still, stopping medication on your own will only make things worse. Understand?”

“Yes.”

What could I do when I couldn’t go because I was hospitalized?

I sighed and paid the hospital bill.

Then, Tae-shik, who was sitting on the sofa, approached me cautiously.

“Attorney, are you going to the hospital to fix your bad temper?”

Is he asking sincerely?

If he weren’t my bodyguard, I’d want to hit him.

“Shut up and let’s go home.”

“Protecting you is no fun. You’re too much of a homebody. You just stay home all the time.”

“Then should I wander around with a hole in my stomach?”

“That’s true.”

Tae-shik scratched the back of his head and sat in the driver’s seat.

“Have you heard anything from the guys protecting the others?”

“No. Everything seems normal, but the brothers seem uncomfortable. They have to take them everywhere they go.”

“That’s true, but it can’t be helped for safety. Let’s watch for a while and then either end the security detail or think of a different approach.”

“Yes.”

So far, no one other than me has been threatened, so I’ve considered removing the bodyguards attached to Kang Min-jae, Jo Bong-joon, and Choi Jong-hyun.

However, now that we are getting closer to uncovering Woo-shin’s deep secrets, they may be in danger, so I can’t easily tell them to end the security detail.

Kang Min-jae, Choi Jong-hyun, and Jo Bong-joon don’t need to go through what I went through.

Even if they survive such a terrible situation, they might suffer from PTSD like me.

“Oh? Aren’t those Jong-hyun and Bong-joon? Wow, they really can’t stay put.”

I got out of the elevator and headed to the front door, and I saw Jo Bong-joon and Choi Jong-hyun loitering there.

“Why can’t we stay put? Were you talking about us? But where did *you* go?”

“I was just bored at home, so I went for a walk.”

“Your house is as big as a palace, why do you need to go outside?”

“Anyway, what’s going on? You didn’t even contact us.”

As I punched in the password and opened the front door, Jo Bong-joon held up a plastic bag in front of my face.

“My mom heard that Attorney Cha had a hole in his stomach, so she bought abalone and made porridge. She told me to bring it to Attorney Cha.”

“I came to get a spoonful.”

“Please tell her thank you.”

As I reached out to take the plastic bag, Jo Bong-joon shook his head.

“The patient is watching TV. I’ll heat it up. Do you have a pot at home?”

“Is there a house without a pot?”

“I think Attorney Cha’s house only has beer and ramen.”

Jo Bong-joon went into the kitchen, and Choi Jong-hyun and I went to the living room and sat down.

“I heard the elder [referring to Kang Min-jae’s grandfather] called Attorney Cha?”

“Did Kang Attorney tell you?”

“Yeah. He said you seemed to be sleeping last night and told me. He said the elder seemed to know something.”

“Yes, that’s what I heard, but I’ll have to meet him to know for sure.”

“It would be good if you had some information… Oh, I’m getting a call. Just a moment.”

Choi Jong-hyun shifted in his seat and took out his cell phone from his pocket.

“Oh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kim Seung-hee?”

Kim Seung-hee was the first witness who went to study abroad from the House of Angels and returned to work for Woo-shin’s affiliate.

I told him to answer the phone, and Choi Jong-hyun switched to speakerphone and answered.

“Ah, yes. Kim Seung-hee. What’s going on?”

─Ah, hello. Well… I have something to tell you…

Kim Seung-hee sounded like a child who had done something wrong.

“Please tell me.”

─Someone from Woo-shin headquarters came. They asked if I had met Choi Jong-hyun.

“From Woo-shin headquarters?”

─Yes. Then they showed me a picture, and it was a picture of me talking to the reporters at the cafe. I couldn’t deny it.

“So?”

─So… They asked me what we talked about, so I told them the truth.

“The *whole* truth…?”

─Yes. I couldn’t help it. I’m getting paid by Woo-shin, and I can’t lose my job trying to help the reporter. They said there would be no disadvantages if I told the truth…

“……I see.”

I don’t know if they were watching Choi Jong-hyun and Jo Bong-joon or Kim Seung-hee, but it seems like the former.

That’s why they took pictures.

Even with a bodyguard, they might not have been able to catch someone determined to stalk them.

Am I going to have the experience of being followed by black cars wherever I go again, like in my previous life?

─Ah, just in case, I didn’t mention Ga-yeon, so don’t worry about that. Ga-yeon has been begging me not to talk about her to Woo-shin, so I didn’t.

“I see. You did well.”

─I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I hope I didn’t ruin anything you were doing because of me.

“It’s nothing like that. Don’t worry.”

─That’s a relief. I’ve told you everything… I’ll hang up now.

Kim Seung-hee seems to have called Choi Jong-hyun out of guilt.

If Kim Seung-hee told the truth, Woo-shin would have realized that we knew they were using the children from the House of Angels for sexual favors.

Maybe they even figured out that Choi Jong-hyun and Jo Bong-joon went to Japan for a day trip.

We were as careful as possible to see if we were being followed at that time, so there’s no need to worry about Lee Ga-yeon, but it’s somewhat threatening that Woo-shin knows how much information we have.

“Haa… Is this okay? I don’t think Kim Seung-hee will be at a disadvantage, but…”

“What can we do? Woo-shin did all sorts of things, from wiretapping to cloning cell phones, but we still managed to get through it, so we have to get through this again.”

* * *

“Elder, just a little further and we’ll be there.”

Kang Kwan-woong, who had left the house after a long time, leaned on his cane and Kang Soo-il’s support to climb the stairs.

“It rained yesterday, so the path is a bit wet. Please be careful not to slip, Elder.”

“Okay.”

“I should have come another day after it dried up a bit.”

“No. I always put it off and haven’t been able to come for years. If I make up my mind, I have to come right away.”

“I see it over there.”

The place they were looking for was a memorial park located in Yongin [a city in South Korea].

Passing between the shallowly raised mounds, Kang Kwan-woong stopped in front of a tomb.

Kang Soo-il handed Kang Kwan-woong the flowers he had bought at the entrance of the memorial park.

Kang Kwan-woong took the flowers and placed them in front of the mound.

“Let me talk to this friend for a while. Please give me some space.”

“Should I go to the car?”

“Yes. You guys stay a little away too.”

Kang Kwan-woong said to the security team standing behind Kang Soo-il.

The security guard nodded and stepped back a little.

Kang Kwan-woong leaned on his cane and stared at the mound.

“It’s been a while, friend.”

The owner of this tomb was the person who served as the Chief of Staff to the President in the Blue House [the executive office of the President of South Korea] when Kang Kwan-woong was the president.

“I’m very late, aren’t I?”

Kang Kwan-woong had become a white-haired old man, but the Chief of Staff buried in the tomb was still in his middle age.

“There are next-generation children who will do what we have been hoping for. You would have been happy if you were still alive…”

Kang Kwan-woong trailed off.

The past years he had spent with the Chief of Staff suddenly flashed through his mind.

Kang Kwan-woong took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and placed it in front of the mound.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to see it before I close my eyes, but they’re smart kids. They’ll definitely do well. Believe them. And please take good care of them.”

Kang Kwan-woong smiled faintly.

“I’ll come again when I miss you. Stay well until then.”

Kang Kwan-woong straightened his bent back.

It was the moment the security team, recognizing that the conversation with his old friend was over, was about to approach him.

The man who was standing in front of a nearby tomb and offering flowers suddenly rushed at Kang Kwan-woong.

“Ugh!”

The man rushed into Kang Kwan-woong’s arms and plunged a knife into his abdomen.

Kang Kwan-woong let out a loud groan, and the security guards who were approaching him didn’t have time to stop him.

“Elder!”

The security guards quickly subdued the man who had plunged the knife deeper into Kang Kwan-woong.

But it was already after deep bleeding had occurred in his abdomen.

“Elder! Can you hear me, Elder!”

The head of the security team caught the collapsing Kang Kwan-woong, and a nearby security guard quickly pressed down hard on Kang Kwan-woong’s wound.

Kang Kwan-woong seemed to have lost consciousness and did not answer.

“Call 119! Quickly!”

The head of the security team holding Kang Kwan-woong shouted, and another security guard called 119 [the emergency telephone number in South Korea].

The captured criminal writhed on the floor, crushed by the security guard, but said nothing.

“Elder! Elder!”

The sound of the security guards calling Kang Kwan-woong echoed in the memorial park.