You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 73

“Grandpa, are you enjoying the romance all by yourself?”

Kang Min-jae, climbing the stone steps and entering the garden, found his grandfather sitting on the terrace, drinking tea.

The terrace was prepared for winter with transparent curtains and a heater, filling it with warmth.

His grandfather, who was enjoying the post-meal leisure with a blanket over his knees, scolded his grandson as he unzipped the terrace entrance.

“Why are you coming in through the zipper instead of the inside? The cold air is coming in.”

“It’s just for a moment. But, isn’t it a bit much even with the heater when it’s this cold? You’re not as young as you used to be. You can’t confuse yourself with the old days. Grandpa, you’re old now, old.”

Seeing his grandson respond with a playful scolding, he eventually let out a hearty laugh.

“I sit here and read books every day after dinner, but you’re always away from home, so I’m nagging you now. It seems like you’re busier than when you were at Taekwang [a large corporation]?”

“Well, yeah. At Taekwang, there were paralegals and such, so I didn’t have this much work, but at the office, it’s just Senior Cha and me now.”

Kang Min-jae asked the housekeeper, who had spotted him and come out to the terrace, for coffee and took off his coat.

The way he hung his coat on the back of the chair was incredibly slow.

It was as if he knew what kind of expression his grandfather would make and was desperately trying to avoid it.

He dusted off the coat for no reason before finally turning to face his grandfather.

“Is it fun?”

“Huh?”

He had expected a disapproving answer, so he rolled his eyes at the unexpected question.

“I asked if it’s fun, suffering like that with Cha Ju-han.”

“It’s not suffering. What suffering!”

He waved his arms, but for some reason, he remembered complaining to Cha Ju-han today about how uncomfortable it was to live like this, giving him headaches and sleepless nights.

Kang Min-jae sighed deeply and lowered his arms.

“Ah, well, it is a bit tough. But it’s much better than working at Taekwang.”

“What’s so good about it?”

“Does the Taekwang CEO keep contacting you? Asking you to come back? It’s been so long since I started working here, why do you keep talking about Taekwang?”

“Hmm, it sounds like you’ve received such a message?”

When his grandfather asked back, Kang Min-jae shrugged.

During the last plagiarism case, Taekwang’s lawyer had subtly conveyed such a message.

As a law firm that others are desperate to enter, it is a place with high standards.

They wouldn’t usually ask a lawyer who has already resigned to come back, so it was something to be proud of.

But Kang Min-jae’s position was a little different.

“Even if I did, it’s not like they’re asking me back because of my abilities.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s obvious it’s because of Grandpa. You’ve invested a lot in Taekwang.”

“That’s separate from you.”

“That’s what Grandpa thinks, but I don’t think Taekwang thinks that way. Well, it’s fine. Grandpa, how about withdrawing your funds this time?”

Kang Min-jae pulled his chair closer and said.

“That drama case I had last time, the plagiarism case. I went up against Taekwang. Our office does a lot of things that make the world noisy, so we’re bound to clash with Taekwang more often in such cases.”

His grandfather chuckled at the words ‘make the world noisy.’

“Your ambition is excessive.”

“It’s not ambition, it’s just the truth, Grandpa. Senior Cha doesn’t know that you’re my grandfather yet, but I can’t hide it forever. How would Senior Cha feel if he found out I’m your grandson, and you’re heavily invested in Taekwang, which he keeps meeting as an enemy?”

What his grandson said was not without merit.

Of course, Taekwang probably wouldn’t even care about Cha Ju-han’s law office.

Yoon Won-hyung had sent Cha Ju-han a few feelers [love calls], but he had plenty of talent.

In any case, it was troublesome for his grandson, who was in a somewhat close position with Taekwang, to keep appearing as Taekwang’s enemy.

But what was important now was not that.

The grandson was more worried about Cha Ju-han feeling betrayed than his grandfather being put in such a situation.

“You don’t have any intention of going back to Taekwang? You seem to enjoy working with Cha Ju-han.”

“Yes. I like it now.”

“Do you think that feeling will stay the same in the future?”

“Yes. Unless Senior Cha kicks me out.”

The grandfather hummed and leaned back in his chair.

According to what he had found out, Cha Ju-han was a legal professional who had followed a typical elite course.

His time as a prosecutor was close to perfect.

If he had continued to climb the ladder and played his cards right, he could have aimed for a high position.

The professors at Seoul National University and the Judicial Research and Training Institute who had taught him all remembered Cha Ju-han’s name, and they spared no praise for him.

He wasn’t the type of prosecutor who got tainted from the start, following drinking parties and sucking up.

Even if he had decided to enter politics later, he could have pushed forward with a clean and upright image.

He was a famous person in a good way.

Until he suddenly resigned after 5 years and became a lawyer.

“You know that many legal professionals criticize Cha Ju-han’s actions after he criticized the prosecution in court.”

At his grandfather’s words, Kang Min-jae narrowed his eyes and smiled faintly.

“Grandpa, you’ve been investigating Senior Cha? Well, it would be stranger if you hadn’t.”

Kang Min-jae took a sip of the coffee in front of him and met his grandfather’s eyes.

After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth again.

“Then, do you also know why Senior Cha quit the prosecution?”

At Kang Min-jae’s question, his grandfather crossed his arms as if he was intrigued.

“It seems you don’t know.”

“…I don’t know. Senior Cha doesn’t talk about it. But since Senior Cha also knows that I’m hiding something but doesn’t ask, I can’t ask either.”

“When Cha Ju-han was in the prosecution, he didn’t like being in the spotlight. Even with the Jo Jin-tae case he was in charge of right before he left the prosecution, reporters were flooding him with calls, but it’s said that he didn’t properly talk to anyone.”

Kang Min-jae nodded silently at his grandfather’s words.

Even during the short time he was working under him as a trainee, he could tell that Cha Ju-han was not the type to enjoy being in the spotlight.

Even though he was clearly a noticeable person, he didn’t seem to have any ambition for success.

And Yoon Se-yeon was proving that that impression was correct.

Wasn’t she the one who grumbled that she had never received a proper call during his time as a prosecutor?

“But now, every case he takes on makes the country noisy. I heard that there isn’t a legal professional who doesn’t know Cha Ju-han’s name.”

The first time he dramatically overturned the Kim Yeon-jun case, and the second time with the plagiarism case.

Of course, he probably doesn’t want to reveal that his influence was heavily involved in this exam paper leak case, but once Jin-cheol’s trial begins, some people might deduce it.

This case was first ignited on the portal [online platform], but it was Yoon Se-yeon, a reporter from Iljung Daily, who blew it up to the scale of appearing in the news.

Yoon Se-yeon had been monopolizing articles related to Cha Ju-han from the beginning.

Of course, from Cha Ju-han’s perspective, he was using her because she was comfortable, but people wouldn’t think that way.

Seeing that the person who first wrote the article about this case was none other than Yoon Se-yeon, people who are watching Cha Ju-han with interest might realize that the exam paper leak case itself was revealed by Cha Ju-han’s hand.

“What do you think is the reason why he suddenly changed?”

His grandfather asked again.

Kang Min-jae hesitated to answer.

Instead, he worried that his grandfather would become suspicious of Cha Ju-han and think negatively of him.

“It’s not that Senior Cha likes being in the spotlight, it’s that I like it. Senior Cha is trying to do a lot of pro bono work, but I want to expand the office, so I keep telling him to take on famous cases.”

The grandfather gazed intently at his grandson, who was passionately defending Cha Ju-han.

“But, there were many people who said that Cha Ju-han seemed to have changed overnight before he left the prosecution. Ah, that’s right. I heard that he suddenly had a conflict with his highly favored chief.”

“…I don’t know about that. But people can have conflicts while living, and things like that happen…”

As Kang Min-jae’s voice gradually faded, his grandfather simply smiled.

“According to you, it doesn’t make sense that such a perfect Cha Ju-han would suddenly have a falling out with his chief prosecutor. A social person endures even the dirtiest things for their own sake. Not like you, living doing whatever you want.”

Kang Min-jae felt a pang in his heart at the sudden sharp remark.

“He must have wanted to leave the prosecution even before that. He might have suddenly gotten sick of the prosecution. I quit after a year because I didn’t think the prosecution suited me.”

“You have a backer, but Cha Ju-han wouldn’t, would he? From what I see, he seems to be a case of a dragon rising from a small stream [a self-made person], born into a working-class family.”

Kang Min-jae felt like he was getting caught up in his grandfather’s words as he continued to talk.

Thinking that nothing would come of continuing this conversation, Kang Min-jae shook his head and said.

“Everyone has their own circumstances. I have them, and Senior Cha has them too. Whether Senior Cha suddenly needed money and started a law office, or he started it because he was sick of the prosecution, I don’t care. I often think that I made the right choice in choosing to work with Senior Cha. I learn a lot. This case alone…”

As Kang Min-jae, who had been pouring out words quickly, paused, his grandfather smiled gently.

“You mean the case of the child who was bullied by his classmates?”

“…Yes.”

Kang Min-jae felt annoyed that his grandfather already knew everything whenever he brought up a topic, but he sighed deeply and answered.

“When I first entered as a trainee. Not long after, Senior Cha took on a school violence case. To be exact, school violence was secondary, and high school students who were acting as henchmen for gangsters were arrested…”

Kang Min-jae slowly recalled the old memories.

During the investigation of that case, it was also revealed that those students had been committing school violence.

However, in the prosecution, there was talk of the school violence being a troublesome matter, and since they had already been arrested for other crimes, they should just gloss over that part.

The only one who insisted that all the crimes they had committed should be strictly judged was Cha Ju-han.

“Senior Cha and the chief reduced their already insufficient sleep and investigated all the school violence cases. They took victim statements, requested a full investigation from the police. When the related department asked why they were meddling, they offered to let that department proceed with it without any conditions and asked for a juvenile trial to be opened. Senior Cha did.”

Kang Min-jae rubbed his forehead.

Maybe it was from then on.

Perhaps he had projected his own past of being a victim of school violence and admired him even before he saw Cha Ju-han’s true colors.

“If we cover this up, the victim students will live with that wound forever. That trauma won’t be easily erased, so the law must judge those perpetrators. He said that’s how the country will know that the words that the country protects them are not just simple written law.”

Even now, the voice of Cha Ju-han uttering those words was clear in his ears.

He answered the opposing chief prosecutor, who came to Cha Ju-han’s office and shouted at him for meddling in other people’s affairs, without giving in at all.

If he gained comfort from that, would that be strange?

“…”

The grandfather, who knew best the wounds that Kang Min-jae had been carrying, eventually chose silence instead of scolding.

In the awkward atmosphere, he laughed awkwardly and took his grandfather’s wrinkled hand.

“So, please trust your grandson’s judgment. I’m too tired, so I need to wash up and sleep. Grandpa, please go inside soon too. Ah, what a rare early 퇴근 [leaving work on time]!”

Kang Min-jae left the terrace and disappeared into the house.

The grandfather closed his eyes and pondered.

He still had to keep an eye on whether that Cha Ju-han, whom Kang Min-jae was infatuated with, was really a decent guy or a snake with a dark inside.