You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 540

With Onodera’s election as the president of Japan’s ruling party, the special session of the Diet [Japanese parliament] convened to appoint the Prime Minister also elected him to the position.

Naturally, Korean news outlets covered the Onodera story extensively every day.

They brought in Japanese experts to the newsroom to discuss and predict what policies Onodera would implement in the future.

Just by accessing portal sites on my phone, I could see Onodera’s name everywhere.

However, what kind of stance he will take in Korea-Japan relations isn’t that important.

Since he will soon be stepping down from that position anyway, any plans he has are very unlikely to materialize.

People who pay attention to Korea-Japan relations seemed curious about what kind of person Onodera is, but I have no interest in the politician Onodera.

Even if he were a politician worthy of respect, the moment he thought it was okay for another child to die so that his grandson could have a healthy heart, he was already proven to be inhuman.

“Is Choi still asleep?”

Choi Jong-hyun, who always exuded a grimy presence whenever we gathered in the conference room, had been absent for days.

This was since IAIJ [International Anti-Corruption Investigation Joint] officially decided to turn Woo-shin’s human trafficking and the paper company and nominee account issues into a project.

IAIJ, which was already accelerating its investigation by receiving the ledgers from the British Virgin Islands, couldn’t refuse this item.

So, Choi Jong-hyun was living according to Washington time.

It wasn’t enough just to hand over the data; he had to receive and explain the frequent calls they made.

“That’s right. These days, we hardly see his face. The time difference is 13 hours, so his lifestyle is almost the opposite of ours.”

“Still, Jong-hyun *hyung* [older brother or male friend] leaves memos about how IAIJ is handling the project, so he doesn’t have to stay awake unnecessarily.”

Kang Min-jae said, passing over the memos that Choi Jong-hyun left each time he communicated with IAIJ.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since Jong-hyun *hyung* has been living like a reporter.”

“Hey, Jong-hyun *hyung* has always been like a reporter.”

“Reporter, my foot. He used to scratch his belly and sleep all morning. Well, he worked hard when he was busy, but our job wasn’t always busy without any downtime.”

Choi Jong-hyun had become busy, and so had I.

Thanks to Park Young-ki, who said he would mobilize the Bar Association so that I could be appointed as a special prosecutor, I was being called to this place and that place.

Perhaps because of my stiff attitude, some people didn’t like me, but Park Young-ki did his best to promote me.

I thought I had learned Kang Min-jae’s smooth social skills from working with him for a long time, but it seemed I still looked obnoxious to the rigid senior lawyers.

“And regarding the protection of Kim Mi-ja’s family. Once Kim Mi-ja disappears to the United States with IAIJ’s help, her family might be in immediate danger. We should start preparing to protect her family so that Kim Mi-ja can leave with peace of mind.”

“I suppose so. We can send her parents on an overseas trip and have them stay away for a while. That’s the easiest way.”

“Yes. The problem is her older siblings. They all have jobs, and we can’t ask them to quit because of this.”

“Her younger sibling is a teacher, and her older brother is…”

“I heard he does translation work.”

“If he’s a freelancer, he can take his parents and leave. The younger sibling is the problem.”

“I think the answer is to assign bodyguards. And fortunately, she’s a public official, so she’ll be less likely to do anything rash. Anyway, once Kim Mi-ja comes forward as a witness, it will be difficult to touch her family. If we take good care of them until then…”

I nodded slowly.

The time from when Kim Mi-ja disappears until she comes forward as a witness is the most dangerous time.

It’s to prepare for when they threaten her family’s safety to get Kim Mi-ja to withdraw her testimony.

“Hold on, I need to take this call.”

I was about to talk about how to protect Kim Mi-ja’s family, so I didn’t want to answer the phone if possible, but I couldn’t ignore the caller, Kim Chan-young.

“Hey, it’s me.”

─Is it a good time to talk?

“Yeah. But shouldn’t you be at work right now?”

─I took a day off. Would I really call you from work?

“Did you meet Go Sang-jun? Didn’t you say you were meeting him yesterday?”

─Ah, yes. I was going to call you right away, but I was so exhausted when I got home that I just passed out.

I understand.

He must have had to be careful about every word he said and every breath he took while talking to Go Sang-jun.

“Did you bring up the architect?”

─Yes. He said he’d contact me soon. But I’m not sure if that architect really designed Okashima Hospital and Ribbon Medical Center.

“I suggested it because I thought it was a high-probability method, but I didn’t necessarily think it would be correct. Did Go Sang-jun find it suspicious?”

─No, fortunately, I’ve been talking about detached houses for a long time. I don’t even know if Go Sang-jun remembers that.

“When are you meeting the architect?”

─When do I have to meet him by?

Actually, I don’t know either.

The date of Onodera’s grandson’s surgery must have been set, but it seems they didn’t discuss it at the *yōjeong* [exclusive hostess bar].

Kim Mi-ja kept passing over the wiretapping files until she left for the United States with IAIJ’s help, saying she didn’t know when or how she would be needed.

However, there was no conversation in them that could give a hint about the date of Onodera’s grandson’s surgery.

In the first place, very few people knew about Onodera’s grandson’s surgery, and even if they did, they wouldn’t share the schedule.

“I can only say the sooner, the better. I don’t know when the surgery will be.”

─Could the surgery be as early as tomorrow?

“I don’t think so. There’s no noticeable movement from Im Hyun-il yet.”

I keep checking his outpatient schedule, and he still has outpatient appointments every Monday and Thursday.

Besides going back and forth between his home and Wooshin Hospital, unless he’s hanging out with other doctors, there’s nothing suspicious.

It doesn’t seem like Wooshin officials are meeting separately at the hospital or calling each other; they don’t seem to be meeting outside.

The internal map of Okashima Hospital only needs to be found by the day Im Hyun-il leaves for Japan.

If Im Hyun-il goes straight into VIP surgery as soon as he arrives in Japan without even considering his condition, Onodera will surely throw a fit, saying he’s not being sincere.

─Then please contact me as soon as you see any movement of Im Hyun-il trying to leave the country. I’ll try to move it up as much as possible.

“Okay.”

─Oh, he seemed very anxious about the guy who tried to kill you and the people who tried to kill him disappearing.

“He’s telling you that now?”

─Yes. It seems like Go Yoon-soo was behind that. But he seems so angry that he can’t even trust Go Yoon-soo anymore. But how sincere is that, really? How many kids are there who act like his tongue in his mouth?

“Was there anything else about that? Any future plans?”

─Sadly, I guess I’m not at the level where he shares such specific plans with me yet. Ah! And…

Kim Chan-young shouted as if he had remembered something, but soon trailed off.

─No, it’s not important. I was thinking if there was anything you might be interested in, but there isn’t.

He seems to be hiding something.

But if it were something I absolutely needed to know, he would have told me.

Kim Chan-young had a suspicious side from the first impression, so I tested him many times using my ability, so there’s no room to doubt his sincerity.

Still, I was about to open my mouth to tell him to tell me if there was anything I needed to do, even if it wasn’t something I needed to know.

The conference room door burst open.

“Are you going to be on the phone for long?”

Kang Min-jae asked.

I covered the built-in microphone on my phone with my hand and answered.

“No, I was just finishing up.”

“Dae-cheol called, and it seems to be about the House of Angels. Shouldn’t we listen together?”

Dae-cheol is an employee dispatched to monitor the House of Angels.

Something important seemed to be happening, so I told Kim Chan-young to call me as soon as he made an appointment with the architect and went into the conference room.

Hang Min-jae’s phone was placed in the middle of the table with the speakerphone turned on.

“This is Cha Joo-han. You can talk now. What happened to Sung-yoon?”

─I sent messages to all the lawyers, but you didn’t see them, so I called.

“I guess we didn’t see them because we were in a meeting. Is it urgent? Did So-eun move?”

Kang Min-jae quickly added, sounding anxious.

─No. It’s not So-eun, and it’s not urgent. The situation has already ended in the meantime. You remember Sung-yoon, right? The kid who hurt himself to kick out the college student.

“I’m the one who told you to keep a close watch on Sung-yoon, of course, I remember. What about Sung-yoon?”

─Kim Young-ji suddenly moved even though it wasn’t her quitting time, so I followed her, and she went to the school Sung-yoon attends.

“So?”

─I watched to see if she was going to do anything to Sung-yoon, and she took him to an alley. There was a van waiting there.

“…A van? Is Sung-yoon safe?”

─Yes, for now.

“For now?”

─She wasn’t waiting to take Sung-yoon away. Jung-min was inside.

“Son Jung-min?”

─Yes. I didn’t see him in detail, but the kid’s condition is a bit… Please take a look at the pictures I sent you.

At Dae-cheol’s words, I opened the messenger.

Several photos and a video had arrived.

The quality was quite good, so it didn’t seem like it was taken with a phone.

Thanks to that, I could see Jung-min’s appearance, which seemed to have been zoomed in quite a bit, in the video.

I couldn’t see his whole body because he only stuck his head out of the car, but his face was quite different from the Jung-min I had seen in the pictures before.

If Dae-cheol hadn’t said it was Son Jung-min in advance, I wouldn’t have recognized him.

His cheeks were so thin that they were sunken, and his complexion was very bad.

He didn’t seem to be able to open his eyes properly either.

They were half-closed like a sleepy person.

Moreover, although it was a very small sound, there was also a short scene of him talking to Sung-yoon, and although it was difficult to judge from this alone, I also got the impression that he was talking incoherently.

Jo Bong-joon, Kang Min-jae, and Office Manager Oh must have seen the same thing, but they didn’t open their mouths easily.

Then Dae-cheol urged.

─What do you think?

“I have a bad feeling.”

─I thought you were going to say how can you judge based on just this, but I’ve seen guys like that before I quit.

“…”

I hoped I was taking it sensitively.

As I came into contact with Wooshin’s misdeeds, I hoped everything related to them felt like the worst.

─They’re just like drug addicts.”

“…”