You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 506

You Have Been Defended – Episode 506

Given the nature of the intensive care unit, staking out in front of it wouldn’t grant us any additional visitation rights. Moreover, Myungdae Hospital didn’t operate a VIP ICU, so we couldn’t even observe from beyond a window.

Thus, we decided it would be best to disperse for the day.

Kang Su-il booked a hotel about a five-minute walk from the hospital to be ready for any contact from the hospital. The rest of us, including me, left Kang Su-il in charge and decided to head to the office first.

Due to the urgency of Kang Min-jae’s situation, we hadn’t yet heard about the accident processing, the dump truck driver, or Son Jeong-min.

I had a lot to do before he woke up.

“There’s so much to tell, I don’t know where to start,” Tae-shik said, scratching his cheek sheepishly as he sat down in the conference room.

“What happened to the dump truck driver?”

“Ah, that bastard was pretending to be unconscious. Still, just in case, they checked him out in the emergency room and found some hairline fractures.”

“Didn’t he try to run?”

“He did. But we caught him.”

“You didn’t hit him or anything, did you?”

The situation itself is quite simple.

A dump truck crossed the center line to kill me, and Kang Min-jae rammed the dump truck to stop it.

Kang Min-jae prevented the accident.

But that’s only from our perspective.

Since I removed the black box SD card in advance, we can prove that the dump truck drove straight at us.

We can even prove that he caused glare by turning on his high beams in broad daylight.

But in these situations, there’s always a prepared lie, isn’t there?

If he says he fell asleep, he can avoid the attempted murder charge against me.

I don’t think the driver’s face was caught on the black box, but even if it was, it wouldn’t be visible anyway because the high beams were on.

When you think about how the law will judge, the situation becomes complicated.

The driver simply fell asleep at the wheel, and Kang Min-jae intentionally sped up and rammed the dump truck.

Of course, the judgment will vary depending on the traffic signals at the time, but the fact that Kang Min-jae was speeding severely remains.

So, excluding my case where no accident occurred, when looking at only Kang Min-jae and the dump truck driver, the victim and perpetrator are not clear.

From that perspective, the fact that Kang Min-jae’s side, who may be the perpetrator, used physical force against the dump truck driver could be quite disadvantageous later on.

“Ah, we didn’t do that. Jong-hyun told us to be careful because Attorney Kang could be the perpetrator. We just kept asking where he was going, if he was hurt, and said we couldn’t let any problems arise. So, we couldn’t stop him from leaving after treatment.”

“That was my idea. Right, Attorney Cha? Min-jae could be the perpetrator?”

Jo Bong-joon raised his hand timidly, as if wanting praise.

“That’s right. Even if we somehow prove that the dump truck driver crossed the center line to kill me and Tae-shik, the accident with Attorney Kang will be treated separately.”

“But the fact that the dump truck bastard tried to run means that even if he were the victim, he had no intention of holding Attorney Kang responsible for property or personal damage. He wasn’t even thinking about filing an insurance claim.”

“He might have tried to run because he thought he might be the perpetrator. Since the accident happened while trying to kill me, he would have had a lot on his mind.”

“That’s true. Come to think of it, it seems like the dump truck bastard’s fault will be significant. The dump truck ran a red light, right? Attorney Kang was just speeding at most.”

“Ran a red light? Do you remember what the signal was then?”

Traffic law isn’t my specialty, but what’s certain is that whose fault it was will be determined by the traffic signals at the time.

If the dump truck ran a red light, Kang Min-jae is likely to be the victim.

In that case, we might be able to tie up the dump truck driver.

“Now that you mention it, I’m not sure… I think it was a red light?”

“We’ll know when we check the black box.”

Either way, if the dump truck driver is the perpetrator, he will naturally want to pass quietly, and even if he is the victim, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of making an issue of it.

So, even if Tae-shik’s employees used force to restrain the driver, the driver was more likely worried about failing to escape than feeling unfairly treated.

But wouldn’t the story be different if the police were at the scene?

At the accident site, I was busy taking care of Kang Min-jae and waiting for the ambulance, and I didn’t see the police then.

If the police arrived, it would have been after Kang Min-jae and I left the scene. The police would have confirmed that Kang Min-jae was transported by helicopter and then focused on the dump truck driver.

So, regardless of the outcome, Tae-shik’s employees should be careful.

If Kang Min-jae is found to be at fault, the dump truck driver might suddenly change his attitude and try to portray Kang Min-jae as a lawless person on the road.

The police would be the victim’s witness then.

“So, what happened to the dump truck driver now? You said you couldn’t stop him from leaving.”

“We exchanged contact information and pretended to part ways. Then we followed him right away.”

“Is the contact information real?”

“I called him right there, and he said his phone rang, so it’s probably not fake. But it could be a burner phone…”

“If you’re following him, can you track where he’s going in real-time?”

“He recorded the phone call he made after leaving the hospital. Uh… after that, he took a taxi to an inn and hasn’t come out yet.”

“Then keep checking who he’s contacting. When can we get the recording of that phone call?”

Tae-shik scanned his inbox and replied.

“And next is Son Jeong-min. They said Son Jeong-min wasn’t at the Munyeok Health Center. They searched the entire Munyeok area but couldn’t find him. I showed Son Jeong-min’s picture to the terminal employees and asked if they had seen him, and they said they had. But he wasn’t alone. He was with two adult men.”

“So, Son Jeong-min was bait after all.”

Jo Bong-joon scoffed.

“Jong-hyun has been talking to the college student who’s in contact with the kids from the House of Angels, and he said Son Jeong-min still hasn’t shown up.”

“Oh, right. I asked again 20 minutes ago, and he said Son Jeong-min hadn’t shown up then either. He should have been back by now, but it seems like he just ran away because it failed. Just in case, I told him to contact me immediately if he comes back.”

Choi Jong-hyun showed me the messages he exchanged with the college student.

“So, we can’t even know where Son Jeong-min went?”

When I asked Tae-shik, he ruffled his hair and sighed deeply.

“Ah, well, they said he didn’t come back to the terminal… I think the two adult men he was with are probably from the House of Angels. They might have taken him away in a car.”

“I don’t think he’ll come back to the House of Angels. I think he’ll just run away.”

“Son Jeong-min was bait, and since he’s a minor, the kids from the House of Angels will probably keep him under wraps because we don’t know where he’ll run off to. It would be nice to find Son Jeong-min, but I think it’s better to focus on the dump truck driver now.”

“That’s right. Once we catch one, the rest will come out in a string.”

I also think it’s virtually impossible to find Son Jeong-min.

It’s also difficult to make an issue out of the email I received from Son Jeong-min.

To others, Son Jeong-min, based on the email alone, might seem like a kid who’s stubbornly refusing a good offer from the House of Angels.

Of course, if we reveal what kind of study abroad the House of Angels is talking about, we can use that email to search for Son Jeong-min, but that’s too valuable a card to use just to find Son Jeong-min.

“That driver was trying to kill Attorney Cha anyway. So, they must have promised to prepare for him to flee overseas, or give him a certain amount of money if he goes to jail, or something like that.”

“Probably. Unless he’s an idiot, he would have set conditions in case of failure.”

“Right. And Onodera must have decided what to do if he failed, right? But instead of Attorney Cha, the former president’s grandson got hurt, so they must be panicking. So, let’s watch how they act from now on and pull them out like a string of candy.”

The situation was roughly sorted out.

I nodded and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Tae-shik asked, standing up with me.

“I need to go home. I don’t know when Attorney Kang will come out of the ICU, but I need to think about what he’ll need when he moves to a regular room… Ah, were afternoon visiting hours from 6 PM?”

“I think the last visiting time was right after the surgery.”

Choi Jong-hyun and Jo Bong-joon also gathered their things and replied.

“There’s no point in going now, Attorney Cha should rest. Tae-shik, you worked hard today too. You both must have been very surprised. Do you have any aches or anything? Shouldn’t you both go to an oriental medicine clinic?”

“I’m fine. What about you, Attorney Cha?”

“I’m okay too.”

“Still, you should go just in case. Go tomorrow morning after visiting hours, or before you go.”

“Only one person can visit at a time anyway. It’s better for Chief Kang to go in than me. I’m going to Myungdae Hospital at a reasonable time anyway. Chief Kang will tell me what his condition is like after seeing Attorney Kang, and I’ll ask Dong-jin if he’s recovering well.”

“Sigh, okay. Still, it’s a relief that we have Dong-jin. What would we have done without Dong-jin at a time like this? How anxious would we have been?”

“That’s true.”

I suddenly remembered when Dong-jin chose his major.

He called me, saying he had a serious concern. His parents told him to go into a comfortable and lucrative field, but he wanted to go into neurosurgery, and he asked if that was a foolish thing to do.

He was asking if it was right to go into neurosurgery just because he felt attracted to it right now, when there was a way to make money comfortably.

I told him to do what he wanted then.

I told him to try another major later if living as a neurosurgeon became too difficult.

I was also studying at the Judicial Research and Training Institute at the time, and I think I said it easily because I had made up my mind to become a prosecutor among people who were recommending me to become a judge.

If even I had told Dong-jin that it would be better to follow his parents’ advice, I wouldn’t have been able to get help with Kang Min-jae’s case.

* * *

The house I arrived at after sunset was filled with eerie silence.

I felt a great sense of incongruity for a moment, but belatedly realized that this was the constancy of my house.

I had only lived with Kang Min-jae for less than half a month, but I felt strange that I was awkwardly accepting this solitude.

“Sang-gil will be here soon. Should I tell him to buy something to eat?”

“No.”

“You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“I had an O Gok Latte [a mixed grain latte].”

“Jong-hyun said you didn’t eat it.”

“I said no.”

“Is it because you don’t think you can eat? Should I tell him to buy porridge then?”

“Am I sick?”

“Is there anything you want to eat?”

“I don’t know. Nothing comes to mind right now.”

“Think of food at this moment. As an image. Tell me what comes to mind in that image.”

“…Noodles?”

“Then should I tell Sang-gil to buy noodles?”

“No, I’ll eat that later when Attorney Kang buys it for me.”

“…Seriously.”

I became fixated on noodles, which I didn’t even like.

Kang Min-jae has to take responsibility for my changed taste by getting up and buying me noodles.

“I’ll tell him to buy porridge, so eat it,” Tae-shik said as if notifying me, and went out to the terrace to make a call.

I sighed and went into the dressing room.

As I took off my clothes one by one, I noticed that the clothes I was wearing were all severely wrinkled.

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked around wearing such wrinkled clothes.

I roughly put the clothes in the laundry basket and went into the bathroom.

I turned on the water and adjusted the temperature, but suddenly I was bothered by the silence in this space again.

I shook my head from side to side.

I just wanted time to pass quickly.

Didn’t they say he would wake up in a day or two?

So, I didn’t need today, and days like today, anymore.