You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 450

You Have Been Defended – Episode 451

#451

I, too, have been thinking about this story.

If I were in Kim Mi-ja’s shoes, what choice would I have made?

If she doesn’t accept Chief Han’s offer, she has to entrust her life to Oda Satoshi’s decision.

If Oda Satoshi doesn’t remarry her, she has to return to being a fairy [a euphemism for a woman working in the sex industry] and live as before, as Chief Han said.

So, she has no choice but to bet everything on Oda Satoshi.

But if she accepts Chief Han’s offer, even if her relationship with Oda Satoshi ends, she won’t have to live as before, at least.

Of course, she has to be in the same boat with the people who put her in that situation…

The situation might have been different if it were in Korea.

But that place is a foreign country, and she wouldn’t even have a passport to return to Korea.

Cha Ju-han, unlike Kim Mi-ja, has not experienced such a situation.

Besides, I am thinking about this with general knowledge and common sense, and because I know how to use the law, I might have been able to find a way out, but Kim Mi-ja is different.

Kim Mi-ja, who couldn’t even study anything other than Japanese after going to Japan, might have had only one option.

“I understand Ms. Kim Mi-ja’s choice.”

“…That’s how I ended up running the fairy business, and after that, I saw children in the same situation as me. It’s just as you said, lawyer. They were really young. When I asked them their age, they were sixteen or seventeen. They looked really young to me, and then I thought, was I here at an even younger age, clinging to men? It was driving me crazy. So… a few times, I gathered the children under the pretext of giving them special instructions and opened the back door for them. Honestly, I couldn’t do anything more than that. I couldn’t drive, and I couldn’t buy them plane tickets. I just had to tell them to get out of here and try to survive somehow.”

Tears started to well up again in Kim Mi-ja’s eyes, which seemed to have run dry from crying so much.

She bowed her head.

Tears dripped and soaked her skirt.

Kim Mi-ja covered her face with both hands and cried for a while, then took a deep breath and started speaking calmly again.

“My heart was racing like crazy. I wondered if the kids got out without being caught. I was thinking that if the kids weren’t caught, I could just say that they suddenly pushed me and ran out, but… in less than an hour, the kids were caught again.”

“…”

“Chief Han and his subordinates came and started beating the kids like crazy. The kids knelt down and begged for their lives, saying they would do anything not to do it again. And… they glared at me and said that I let them go to escape, that they wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t coaxed them. Well, that’s true. I… I should have let them go more cleverly, but I couldn’t do that… So, I just thought I should do something, and that action made the kids even more difficult.”

The weight of guilt that Kim Mi-ja carried was much greater than I had expected before meeting her.

Suddenly, the words I had used to push her earlier came to mind.

Although it was a strategy to get her to open her mouth, I admit that I went too far.

“So, I was beaten by Chief Han on the spot. Honestly, I don’t remember the pain. Just that it hurt a lot… But I can’t forget the expressions on the faces of the children who were looking at me. Some children were sorry for me, and some children resented me… There were a few more incidents like that. The last time, I was beaten by Chief Han and fainted, and when I opened my eyes again, Oda Satoshi was sitting in front of me. At that time, he said something like this: ‘Don’t act stupid. I’m disappointed in you.’ He said that if he hadn’t stopped it, I would probably be dead.”

Kang Min-jae lowered his head.

I wasn’t sure if I had heard correctly, and it was a story I didn’t even want to hear, but I had no choice but to listen.

I felt overwhelmed at the thought that I had to share this recorded conversation with other people.

“I thought at that time, if the person who is thinking of marrying me is like this… how solid is the castle built here where this crazy thing is happening? No matter how much I struggle, it won’t work. It’s no use. So, from then on, I didn’t let the kids out. Still… come to think of it, you spoke as if you had really seen me in person. On days when I was really overwhelmed with guilt, I would sometimes talk to the kids. I would tell them to run away even though I couldn’t help them escape. If I didn’t say that, I really… I really felt like I would commit suicide.”

Just in case the person she spoke to was Lee Ga-yeon, I didn’t say it as if to confirm it, in case it could be identified.

Of course, if Kim Mi-ja, who had no previous contact with Lee Ga-yeon, suddenly spoke to her, I had the calculation that she would have done that enough to other children besides Lee Ga-yeon.

She seems to have been making efforts in her own way.

Lee Ga-yeon didn’t say that her words were helpful, but anyway, Lee Ga-yeon and her friends did manage to escape.

“Ah… I even tried to commit suicide. What’s the point of living like this? Is there any reason for me to be alive? If I can’t escape this hell, I’d rather just die. But I couldn’t die. It ended in several failures. They found me like a ghost before I died.”

Kim Mi-ja scrubbed the inside of her wrist with a tissue soaked in water.

A lot of flesh-colored makeup came off on the tissue.

She held out her wrist to me as it was.

Numerous scars were on her reddened wrist.

Scars that conveyed how she had tried to take her own life.

“Of course, I could have kept trying. If I kept doing it, I might have succeeded someday. But… as I kept doing this, I gradually lost the courage. Shouldn’t I just close my eyes and live as those people tell me to? Why should I die? Why should I, who have done nothing wrong, die? Can’t I just give up my conscience for a while and live without worrying about making a living?”

She spoke quickly, as if she were pouring out words that had been stored in her for a long time.

Since she was ostracized even among Koreans, I even thought that this might be the first time she was saying these things.

She spewed out words like she was defecating, and finally sighed deeply.

“But sometimes I think that I should have died after all. …You think so too, right? You think it would have been the right choice to just die, right?”

Kim Mi-ja asked.

Her eyes, from which tears had been wiped away, were now only empty.

“I don’t think so.”

I answered without hesitation.

I think it would not have been strange if she had chosen death.

The size of the pain that had grown in proportion to the years she had spent would have been beyond what I could guess.

The time Kim Mi-ja had to spend in Japan was a whopping 33 years.

It’s almost the same level of time from the moment I was born to this moment.

While I grew up and entered elementary school, wore my first school uniform, took the college entrance exam, became a college student, passed the bar exam, became a prosecutor, and spent several years as a lawyer, she was constantly trapped in that cycle.

So, I couldn’t even guess more.

How painful it would have been.

The desire to rather die became sympathy beyond understanding.

But even so, at this moment, I thought it was fortunate that she did not die.

What Woo-shin did to her would have become a chain that would forever bind her unless she lost her memory.

Even if Woo-shin suddenly came to his senses like a bolt from the blue and said he would compensate her and spare no support, she could not return to the way she was before.

Her youth had already been tainted by sexual assault, and it would become a cornerstone shaping her personality, body, and everything else.

Mental trauma doesn’t disappear, even with treatment.

Just as my single brush with death turned my body into one that has seizures without medication, the fear that had accumulated in her over the years would absolutely prevent her from ever returning to the innocent Kim Mi-ja who lived in Korea.

But the reason I thought she should still live is simple.

Because in the end, her pent-up feelings would stagnate in the place where she died.

From the stories I’ve heard so far, Kim Mi-ja wouldn’t have been able to vent the resentment and anger that had accumulated from the age of 13 until now to anyone.

No matter how much Oda Satoshi became her husband, could their relationship be a normal marital relationship?

Oda Satoshi might see her as a woman, but he wouldn’t see her as an equal human being.

With no one to lean on, she had reached a point where she had to think of Oda Satoshi as a lifeline.

No matter how much she becomes the object of envy for others, weaves money into cushions, and drapes herself in luxury goods, the pain she received will not disappear.

I contacted her because the reason for striking at Woo-shin was important.

When I first decided to approach her, I, too, may have regarded her as a tool to strike at Woo-shin with an easy heart.

But not anymore.

She, too, must see the downfall of Woo-shin.

To her, who was trapped in distrust of humanity because no one had ever helped her when she was crawling at the bottom of hell, and who was filled with loneliness in this world teeming with 7 billion people, I must let her know.

That they will one day pay for their sins.

“I sincerely apologize for driving Kim Mi-ja to this point in the beginning.”

Kang Min-jae turned to me, slightly surprised by my words.

“I think you have been living a more painful life than I expected. Of course, I wasn’t trying to unilaterally blame Kim Mi-ja. I lashed out to get Kim Mi-ja’s confession, but I don’t think the intention matters. I lacked respect for the life Kim Mi-ja has lived.”

“…….”

“I also think it’s fortunate that Kim Mi-ja is still alive. I can fully understand even if Kim Mi-ja does not cooperate with us.”

“Then… are you going to bury the academic forgery case?”

Hope flickered in her eyes.

No, can that be called hope?

Although she seemed somewhat confused, she still had a desire to keep her flaws from being exposed to the end.

Even though her current state isn’t entirely happy, she seemed to be in the most stable and closest to happiness she’d ever been, and I could see her eagerness to maintain this.

But it may be my arrogance, but if we succeed in striking at Woo-shin, and she lets go of that greed… I thought she might be a little happier than she is now.

I wanted to let her experience an ordinary life.

“Was the academic forgery Kim Mi-ja’s will?”

At my question, Kim Mi-ja bit her lip.

“…If you’re asking about the reason I started forging my academic record, then no.”

“What is the reason?”

“After Oda Satoshi and I talked about getting married when his wife died… his wife had been bedridden for almost three years. After a few months, he told me that to be his wife, I couldn’t just be any woman.”

Is that the logic that only a woman befitting the reputation of that elite family can become his wife?

“Since I’m good at drawing, he told me to build a career by working at an art gallery or something. So, I tried to start with a part-time job at first. But I kept getting rejected, and when I looked into it, it was because of my education. I wrote that I was a high school graduate, but that’s a lie too…”

“So, you were thinking of Youngjin Women’s University?”

“When I told my husband that I couldn’t even get a part-time job, he just told me to write that I graduated from a school in Korea. He said he wouldn’t even bother to check properly anyway. I asked if I really had to do that… but my husband was adamant. He said he couldn’t marry a woman without any title.”

That’s where the lie started.

I think I know the next step.

“Because I had to have Oda Satoshi marry me, so… in the end, I said I understood. Then I had the opportunity to do several jobs, and I studied books and everything else as much as I could and received good evaluations. Then I had the opportunity to become a curator… but since I had already written that I graduated from Youngjin Women’s University while working part-time, I had been acting like that all along. But, but… when the curator position came up, my husband said I had to do it.”

“Then, was your appointment as a professor from the curator position also due to Oda Satoshi’s pressure?”

“…Yes. But, to be really honest… I think I was greedy too.”

Why wouldn’t she be?

She may not have known it when she was trapped in the fairy’s castle, but she would have developed an academic complex since she started her social activities.

It is an opportunity to taste a kind of superiority that she, who has not learned enough, teaches children who graduated from high school with excellent grades and went on to university.

Although she was 불안하긴 [uneasy] because her level of knowledge did not reach that of a general professor, she may have been thinking of filling her empty heart with vanity.

“I also have a sense of guilt. I also know it’s wrong. But, but.”

“Even if Kim Mi-ja does not cooperate with us, I have no intention of continuing to threaten her to make her cooperate.”

“…Then.”

“But we know all the corruption committed by Woo-shin… I don’t know how much Kim Mi-ja knows, but we know and have evidence of numerous corruptions that could be controversial besides this case. We have no intention of burying this.”

“Then… what are you going to do?”

“We will make sure that Woo-shin and his related people are all punished. Of course, that will include Kim Mi-ja’s husband, Oda Satoshi. When that happens, Kim Mi-ja’s academic forgery case will be revealed, even if we don’t intend to. At that time, I expect you will be punished as an accomplice.”

Kim Mi-ja didn’t say anything but instead covered her head with both hands.

“I think it would be much better for Kim Mi-ja to cooperate with us, put it down herself, and testify, rather than having everything revealed at that time and being punished as an accomplice. Above all, even if Kim Mi-ja also actively cooperated to some extent in the academic forgery, Oda Satoshi forced her to become a curator and a professor, right? Of course, it will be difficult to escape criticism for deceiving students and the public, but there will be plenty of people who will sympathize with the situation Kim Mi-ja is in.”

It would be nice if I could keep her from being criticized, but that is virtually impossible.

This is because there are groups that demand paranoid ethical innocence from victims, even though the facts of the damage are clear.

However, even though nearly a hundred years have passed since the fall of imperialism, the criticism of Woo-shin, who is showing dirty behavior, and the Japanese politicians who willingly accepted the bribes, will be even more fierce.

Wouldn’t it be better to say what you want to say in a place where there are more people who sympathize with her than to be hit by those fiercely flying stones?

In fact, Kim Mi-ja’s flaws are so insignificant compared to Woo-shin and his associates that they will be buried.

“We will no longer threaten Kim Mi-ja. But you have to make a decision. I don’t think I’m going to fail.”

I took out a business card from my pocket and placed it in front of her.

“Please contact me anytime. I hope you make a rational decision.”