You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 442

#443 You Are Defended

“Attorney, about that kid you mentioned before, Yerim.”

On my way to work, I was listening to music from the car audio with my eyes closed when Taeshik, who was driving, suddenly spoke to me.

“What about Yerim?”

“You told me to check her blood type back then.”

“I did. Now that I think about it, it’s been a while.”

“Ah, I got a call from the kids this morning. It’s RH-B.”

The child who lost her memory after the hit-and-run accident that drove Heo Minwoo to his death in my previous life, and was smuggled to Japan with a forged passport.

I crossed my arms and nodded.

It’s not surprising.

I already expected it to be a rare blood type, and I specifically checked to confirm that expectation.

I don’t think Wooshin planned the hit-and-run from the start.

No matter how urgently they needed an RH-B child’s organs, choosing Yerim as the target is strange.

If they were going to use Yerim for organ trafficking, there’s a prerequisite that Yerim must be alive to be taken to Japan.

Yerim has parents, so if she hadn’t lost her memory, she would have looked for them. It would also be unnatural for the hospital to prevent a patient who arrived in an ambulance and was officially transferred to the emergency room from finding her parents.

Wooshin wouldn’t have taken that risk.

In short, in a situation where they needed an RH-B child’s organs, luckily for them, a child with that blood type, who even lost her memory, rolled into Wooshin Hospital.

The data of a child patient whose identity could not be confirmed would have been uploaded to the computer network and caught the eye of a related person who was monitoring it.

The mindset of using anyone for their own benefit if necessary is disgusting.

“But did you have dinner yesterday? Sangil said you didn’t?”

Taeshik asked as we approached a particularly congested section.

“I had a late lunch, so I didn’t eat.”

“You said you have a late-night snack when you’re hungry.”

“But it was too late, so I just went to sleep.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“I had breakfast, that’s why.”

Taeshik clicked his tongue and looked at me.

“That’s why you’re not bulking up.”

“Do I have a reason to bulk up?”

“What’s the point of having a handsome face? You need a good body.”

“My body isn’t bad.”

“You don’t have the bulk, the bulk.”

“Do I have to have arms the size of watermelons like you to have a good body?”

“Of course.”

Taeshik grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and showed off his right arm muscles to me.

“That’s disgusting. Get it away from me.”

“What’s disgusting about it? It’s because I have a body like this that I protect you, Attorney!”

As the light changed, Taeshik stepped on the accelerator and sighed.

“Seriously, take care of your health. If you need to, get some tonic [traditional Korean health supplement]. You have so much money, why don’t you take care of your body?”

“I’m not sick, why would I take tonic?”

“I’m really worried you’ll suddenly collapse, Attorney. You should at least eat properly. It’s always coffee, coffee, coffee.”

“Why are you being like this all of a sudden? Don’t bother me too.”

“You’ll ruin your stomach.”

“It’s my stomach, not yours?”

“I’m worried you’ll suddenly collapse and I’ll have to carry you to the hospital.”

“There’s an ambulance, why would you carry me?”

“I mean, that’s just an example. Listen when someone’s talking.”

Taeshik massaged my wrist with one hand and shook his head.

“Look at this. What is this for a man’s wrist? Are you a princess? Your wrist will break. If someone grabs you, you’ll be dragged away.”

“Why would my wrist break? I’m average. You’re just excessively thick.”

I said that, but I lowered the sun visor and checked my face in the mirror.

Did I lose some weight?

I checked last time and my weight was still average.

“Why are you looking in the mirror? You’re handsome even if you don’t look. Don’t worry.”

“I’m checking if I lost weight.”

“What checking? You’re skin and bones.”

“Like Sangil used to be?”

“Ah, he was a twig. You’re not that bad. But you do look like you’ll fall over if I poke you.”

Taeshik’s standards are like a grandmother looking at her grandson, so I can’t trust him.

And wouldn’t anyone fall over if a giant like Taeshik poked them?

I parked the car in the parking lot and was about to go up to the office when I met Secretary Oh in front of the elevator.

Seeing him holding coffee, it seemed like it was his turn to get coffee today.

“Attorney, good morning.”

“Yes. Taeshik, you carry the coffee for him.”

“Oh, no. It’s just four cups of coffee.”

Secretary Oh waved his hand and got on the elevator that had already arrived.

All the way up to the company, I looked at myself in the large mirror in the elevator.

Taeshik kept saying I was skinny, so I was a little worried that I really was.

I thought I needed to be physically fit so it wouldn’t interfere with the investigation, so I’ve been exercising steadily, but why am I losing weight?

“Why are you looking in the mirror so much, Attorney?”

Secretary Oh glanced at me and chuckled.

“Secretary Oh.”

“Yes?”

“Am I that skinny?”

Taeshik snorted at my question.

He seemed amused that I was paying attention to what he said.

But it’s not that I’m worried about my appearance because Taeshik said I was skinny.

Right now, there doesn’t seem to be any problem with my health, except for my mental health, but he keeps telling me to take tonic, so I’m just worried that I might collapse before I see Wooshin go down.

“When we went to the sauna together last time, you looked good.”

“Hey. You shouldn’t flatter your boss too much. What do you mean I have a good body? I’m skinny.”

“No, it’s not like you have a muscular body, but you still have muscles… Well, you have a slim, muscular physique, right?”

“What’s with the word ‘slim’ for a man? A man should be…”

“Secretary Oh, can I see your wrist?”

Secretary Oh looked puzzled but rolled up his sleeve and showed me his wrist.

I put my wrist next to it.

“It’s similar.”

I muttered as I got off the elevator that had arrived in front of the company.

Then Taeshik started laughing loudly.

“Did you compare because I said you were a princess?”

“You were exaggerating.”

“That doesn’t make your wrist any less princess-like.”

Taeshik seemed to be enjoying teasing me.

I’ve never heard such a thing in my life.

The things I hear about my appearance are mostly ‘handsome,’ not ‘pretty.’

I’m also 187cm tall [approximately 6’2″].

Of course, I might look small to Taeshik, who is over 190cm [approximately 6’3″], but that’s still much taller than average.

“Who’s a princess?”

At that moment, Kang Minjae opened the door and came out, asking.

Taeshik nodded towards me and answered.

“The attorney.”

“Why is the attorney a princess?”

“His wrist is thin, like a princess.”

Kang Minjae approached me as if he had heard the funniest story in the world and circled my wrist with his thumb and forefinger.

Then he checked his own wrist as well.

“Princess is too much.”

“See? You were exaggerating.”

“You should call him Princess. Why aren’t you using honorifics?”

“Oh, that’s right. He was a princess.”

He’s not worth dealing with.

I took my share of the coffee from the carrier Secretary Oh was holding and headed to my office.

Then Taeshik shouted from behind.

“The princess is sulking.”

“If you keep saying that, you’re fired.”

“Then who told you to skip meals?”

“I’m going to eat five meals a day because of you, so don’t worry.”

“That’s what I wanted.”

I said that, but how am I going to eat five meals?

…That’s a useless thought.

Anyway, I hung up my coat and sat down at my desk.

As a habit, I checked my inbox and found an email from Secretary Oh.

Just as I was about to check the email, I heard a knock.

“Yes.”

It was Secretary Oh.

“Ah, Attorney. I just sent you an email. Are you checking it…? Ah, you are.”

“I was just about to open it. What is this?”

Secretary Oh pulled a chair near me and sat next to me, and I opened the file he had attached.

Inside the file, which was over 100 pages long, were photos and comments attached to each.

“It’s nothing much. I was supposed to do the internet search that time, right? You know, searching for information on politicians in the Shingaku University Hospital Hall of Fame.”

“Ah, yes. But you said there wasn’t much information. You sent me a brief file back then. Did you find anything new?”

I asked, scrolling through the file, and Secretary Oh scratched his cheek and said.

“Ah, not really… I remembered that you said there were about 60 people in the Hall of Fame, excluding alumni associations and such, and it would be a waste of time to investigate all of them. So I’ve been doing it little by little whenever I had time, and it’s already filled up this much.”

As Secretary Oh said, at the very beginning of the file, a table of contents was created for each person, with Korean and Chinese characters written together, and everyone who had been in the Hall of Fame was included.

I could tell how much searching he had done, even with a quick glance, as the photos, external profiles, histories, and information of those people were listed in detail.

“It must have been difficult to find Japanese sites…”

“But there were a lot of Chinese characters, so it wasn’t that difficult to read. And these days, there are good internet translators. As I was searching like that…”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Even though it was simple labor, it wouldn’t have been easy to search foreign sites and create documents, and I was once again surprised by Secretary Oh’s tenacity.

I was reminded of the days when I was with him at the Central District Prosecutor’s Office.

He used to surprise me like this back then too.

“I’ve been thinking, it might not be a bad idea to pass this list on to Lee Gayeon and have her check it additionally.”

“That’s right.”

I nodded and scrolled to the top.

Secretary Oh had arranged them in order of influence in Japanese society, and as I scrolled down, there were cases where he even attached family photos or private scandal articles.

“But how did you find the family photos?”

“They just came up when I searched. There are a lot of photos on SNS [Social Networking Services], interview articles, or when the families are also famous.”

“I see.”

I was about to look at each one in detail.

When I got to the fifth person, the person Secretary Oh thought was the fifth most influential person in the Hall of Fame.

“This person…”

It was a person with an official profile photo and a family photo attached below.

The main character is Oda Satoshi.

A five-term member of the Japanese House of Representatives [lower house of the Japanese parliament].

And in that family photo, unlike him, who looked quite old, a very young and beautiful wife was standing next to him, smiling.

“Why? Do you know him?”

“I don’t know Oda Satoshi, but this wife here.”

“Ah, this person. His wife is very young, right? I heard he remarried.”

“I see.”

“But why?”

“She looks familiar. Didn’t you think so, Secretary Oh?”

Secretary Oh pondered for a while, enlarging the photo at my words.

“I didn’t look closely, but now that you mention it, it does feel familiar.”

“Where could we have seen her?”

I rolled my eyes and pondered, and then my gaze fell on the personal information forms piled up on one side of the desk.

The personal information forms that Kang Soo-il had given me, of the people who had gone to Japan at the hands of Wooshin during and before Kang Kwan-woong’s term.

The face in the profile photo on the very top.

“Secretary Oh.”

I put the personal information form in front of Secretary Oh.

“Doesn’t she look alike?”

Although there is a gap of more than 20 years, and she is young, so I can’t be sure, she really looks a lot like her no matter how I look at her.

She’s the person on the very first page, so I’ve looked at her face dozens, hundreds of times.

The person who went to Japan at the age of 13 and is now 45 years old.

She’s the person who made me think about how old she was when she started offering sexual favors, and made me sink into thought.

“She looks… alike.”

Suddenly, Lee Gayeon’s voice in the audio file flashed through my mind.

[Some people live as concubines, showing themselves well to those sponsors, and some people, like us, live on the run.]