The Man Who Thought Family Meant Blind Loyalty
“So you think it’s fine to mooch off your uncle like he’s some saint from heaven?”
“If that’s not what’s happening, then what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Oh Yoon-bok looked utterly incredulous as Oh Ye-ji rushed at him, bristling with outrage. She had once been the kind of kid who would call him Uncle and cling to his arms, but now that she was grown, she’d turned one hundred and eighty degrees.
“How dare you talk back to your elders like that! Is that how your mother raised you?”
“Old men love dragging up family education the second they get called out. Funny how they never remember the education they themselves received.”
“You little—!”
“What, are you going to hit me again?!”
“Exactly! If you weren’t raised right, maybe you need to be hit!”
The moment Oh Yoon-bok raised his hand, Oh Ye-ji squeezed her eyes shut.
I rushed forward and yanked the hood of his coat back from behind.
“Excuse me.”
“Guh—!”
His body lurched sideways as though he’d stepped onto a round ball and lost his footing.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“And who are you to butt into someone else’s family business?”
“Violence isn’t family business. It’s a crime.”
The police and a security guard from the shopping arcade arrived almost at once. I handed Oh Yoon-bok over to the officer who’d come in response to the report.
“This man assaulted someone?”
“Yes. He hit this student here—the one wearing sunglasses.”
“I see. Could you explain in detail?”
I separated the victim from the perpetrator and explained everything that had happened, one point at a time.
“Wait—are you the good Samaritan from Goto Station? You look exactly like him.”
“…Pardon?”
“A friend of mine was called out during the Goto Station random attack, and he spoke with you then.”
The man who asked whether I had a gun permit.
“He said you were completely by the book, and you are again today. Honestly, it’s reassuring.”
“……”
The officer nodded and closed the incident log.
That settled it.
“Let go of me! I’m suing!”
“I’ll let you go once we’re outside.”
“I said let go—I’ll walk there myself!”
I hauled the shouting Oh Yoon-bok out with me.
Lee Kkot-soon, who had been stroking Oh Ye-ji’s face, suddenly burst into tears.
“Ye-ji, why did you jump in?”
“What, you wanted me to stand there and do nothing while Mom got attacked?”
“That’s right. A kid shouldn’t get involved with some drunk bastard.”
“……”
“Your head okay?”
“It feels a little swollen, but I’m fine.”
Since they were talking, I decided to come back in a little while.
I turned and headed to the Blooming flower shop.
As soon as the owner of Blooming, who was as thin as a scarecrow, saw me, she flinched like someone who had something to hide.
“Blooming’s owner, you recorded the whole thing earlier, didn’t you?”
“If anything went wrong, I could use the footage as evidence. It’d be good for Ye-ji’s family.”
“The footage?”
So she had filmed it every single time something like this happened? And handed it over to Ye-ji’s mother each time?
“……!”
Not a chance.
She must have filmed it to make a spectacle of it again, just like that Goto Station random attack video that lit up the internet.
Just looking at the subscriber count on Blooming’s NewTube channel was enough to tell me it wasn’t doing Ye-ji’s mother any favors.
“…So what do you want?”
“What do you think?”
I held her stare for a long moment, and the Blooming aunt finally opened her smartphone.
She grumbled like she was the one being wronged, as though she hadn’t done anything criminal at all.
“Wouldn’t it be enough just to delete it? What’s with the attorney act?”
“It’s not an act.”
I took her phone.
“Before you delete anything, I’d like you to send me all the recordings. To Ye-ji’s mother, and to me as well.”
“I can understand sending it to Ye-ji’s family, but why to the lawyer? What are you planning to do? You know I’m close with Ye-ji’s mom, right? If you try anything stupid, I won’t let it slide!”
She barked the words at me in a rapid-fire stream, but I only smiled.
“You said you were close—didn’t you know? I’m Lee Kkot-soon’s lawyer.”
“What?”
Shocked to discover there was something she didn’t know, the Blooming owner froze.
While she was still reeling, I sent the video files over.
I should go see Lee Kkot-soon. She’s talking with her daughter, though.
Her second daughter, Oh Ye-ji.
Jia of Twice, the idol group that debuted through a survival show.
She had been born late in life, and she was said to be turning twenty-one next January.
-I kept saying the second kid had been talking about becoming an idol since she was ten, and then suddenly she’s in an agency and popping up on TV.
-But, Lawyer-nim, do you know the idol survival show? Ye-ji placed second there. Isn’t that amazing?
I’d been shocked even when I heard the story from the aunt yesterday.
I’d been too busy hanging around with friends to pay attention to things like that.
-She’s the kind of kid who says Mom shouldn’t have to struggle, so she handled things on her own from when she was little. I felt so guilty.
And today, too, the moment her mother was in trouble, she rushed forward to protect her.
She must have been scared. She’s amazing.
I picked up the flower basket that had fallen to the floor and set it back on the stall.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
“I’m fine, Lawyer-nim. More importantly, I think my daughter’s hurt.”
“I’ll watch the stall for you. Please go to the hospital.”
“…Would that be all right?”
“Of course. A head injury can be dangerous, and there’s been a commotion all around.”
Oh Ye-ji, wearing her sunglasses, jabbed her mother in the side.
“Mom, let’s go to the hospital. Manager might chew you out later, you know.”
“Shall we go right now?”
“Yep. But first, call the company and tell them Mom came to the stall and got hit by some weirdo.”
“…All right.”
“Hurry and grab your wallet. We’re going together.”
“Wait just a minute.”
As Lee Kkot-soon went into the shopping arcade, Oh Ye-ji turned to me.
“Lawyer ajusshi, you want a hospital diagnosis report, right? For a lawsuit?”
She was quick on the uptake.
“If your mother wants to proceed, yes.”
“But would a diagnosis report really change anything? In a civil case?”
“There’s also video of you getting hit.”
“I don’t really get law, but... I guess he had it coming?”
“Still, it’s better to avoid things like this. You never know what life will do.”
There are cases where people die after tripping over a tiny pebble. Here, she’d been struck directly. If she handled it too carelessly because it seemed unlikely to become serious, something truly awful could happen.
“…What life will do, huh.”
Oh Ye-ji folded her arms, forcing down the anger surging inside her.
“Hoo. Yeah. I didn’t think something like this would happen again.”
So there was something else like this, beyond the land compensation agreement.
Since we’d only just met, I couldn’t bring myself to ask what had happened. If I ended up taking the case later, it would only mean one more person willing to help me find evidence.
“If you think of anything else, give me a call.”
I pulled out my business card and handed it to Oh Ye-ji. She stared down at it.
“Oh, you graduated from Korea University Law School? And you were with Continent in criminal and corporate law? Then why are you working in Goto Underground Shopping Center?”
I could hear the doubt in her voice. The mission had egged me on, sure, but I had chosen this place myself—and the value of Cha Do-hyuk didn’t change just because I’d peeled the law-firm label off him.
At times like this, it’s better not to answer with something boring like, “A law practice does well where foot traffic is heavy and it’s close to the district court.” Better to make an impression.
“People matter more than place. Especially ability.”
I tapped my head lightly as I said it.
“Ohhh, that was slick!”
She let out a burst of idol-level energy, cheering in the middle of a shopping-corridor crowded with passersby.
“You shouldn’t shake your head when you’ve got a head injury!”
“I’m fine!”
“You’re an entertainer. What if someone records you?”
“I know I’m a total beagle. If I bleed while filming content, I still end up running around like crazy.”
I couldn’t even begin to handle her.
…When is the aunt coming back?
Lee Kkot-soon had left the stall with a sign saying it was temporarily unattended and a Post-it note reading, “Please inquire at Cha Do-hyuk Law Office across the way.”
She came back with the price list and a large envelope.
“I put up the away sign, so no customers should come by, but if anyone does, sell the flowers at these prices. Leave out the ones that fell on the floor. And this is the agreement and the property registry I saw yesterday.”
At that instant, an exclamation mark seemed to pop over her head.
Mission assigned.
Mission
Before March 15, 2024, persuade the victim and resolve the case.
-If successful: evidence.
-If you fail: the system will be destroyed.
※ Investigation and litigation will proceed faster than in a real-world case.
“Ye-ji’s father doesn’t exactly have any intention of filing suit right away, but can you still move forward? This isn’t just one or two times, so I’m taking it pretty seriously.”
Now I understood why the mission had said to persuade the victim and resolve the case.
It was because the victim, Mr. Oh Yoon-sik, had no intention of suing his siblings.
To Lee Kkot-soon, the road ahead must have looked hopeless, but from a lawyer’s perspective, it wasn’t that difficult.
And if the case really does move quickly, even better.
“Please go to the hospital first. I’ll explain the details afterward.”
Back in the office, I opened the large envelope Lee Kkot-soon had given me.
I already knew the contents from looking at them the day before, but what I was most curious about was the situation when Mr. Oh Yoon-sik signed the agreement.
“First, I’ll try Psychometry on the agreement I got from the aunt.”
Hah.
Riiiiiip.
* * *
It was late at night, and it looked like a fairly large restaurant.
So he wrote the agreement at a restaurant.
I immediately checked the wall menu in front of me.
The place name is Alleyway? It’s written on the napkins too, so that must be it.
And there were six CCTV cameras on the ceiling, at least the ones I could see.
“……”
“……”
The five people seated at the cherry-red table kept picking up and setting down their soju glasses while glancing at Mr. Oh Yoon-sik.
After swallowing a bite of grilled pork neck and scallion salad, Mr. Oh Yoon-sik gave a thumbs-up.
“This place is seriously good. Big sister, should we have our gatherings here next time? What do you think?”
“I’d like that. But if we’re family, shouldn’t we sort out the Bubal-eup land compensation first and then decide on the date for the gathering?”
“Ah, right. This always happens when I start drinking.”
Clink.
The eldest sister set her glass down without drinking.
By contrast, Mr. Oh Yoon-sik tossed back his soju in one go.
“Haah. That’s enough for tonight. If I drink any more, I won’t be able to get home.”
Just as Mr. Oh Yoon-sik flipped his glass upside down, Oh Yoon-ja flipped his back the other way.
“Do you really think I’ll even look at the agreement the youngest brought? A notary wrote it, sure, but we still need to check it.”
“Big sister, you’ve got to trust your siblings. Who else would you trust? It’s not like I don’t know I can’t read.”
“Then you sign it, and we have one more round after that? All together?”
* * *
Thud.
That was enough to confirm what I’d expected.
The rest would just be the youngest having Mr. Oh Yoon-sik sign the agreement written by the notary and then going home.
He was the type to give generously to his siblings, so he probably even paid for the meal.
“First I need to check out this grilled-meat place. It wasn’t a private room, so the restaurant CCTV should have captured it.”
The problem was that, unless you brought the police or prosecutors with you, restaurants generally refused to show CCTV footage.
“I should call the aunt first and confirm whether this really is the place where Mr. Oh Yoon-sik filled out the agreement.”
Not long after, the answer came back.
-Lawyer-nim, it’s a pork barbecue place called Alleyway in Bongeunsa alley.
I found the route on my map app and got up immediately, walking straight toward Line 9.
It took only twelve minutes from Goto Station to Bongeunsa Station, so if I used a shortcut before then, I could still solve this faster.
With connections.
I sent a quick message to Min Ho-jun.
Ho-jun. You had a classmate from university who passed the bar and went into the police, right?
Not long after, the number 1 disappeared.
-Yeah. Why?
I have something I want to ask.
-…You? Him?
Yeah.
-Hiss. It’s not hard to give you his number, but maybe you should ask someone else.
-Never mind, I’ll look into it for you.
Given Min Ho-jun’s roundabout personality, that meant he was reluctant to hand over his classmate’s phone number.
Then let me ask one favor. I need a restaurant’s CCTV for a case right now—do you know a police officer who could go with me or contact the place for me?
-Going with you would be hard, but contacting them should be possible. When are you going?
Today, obviously.
-I figured as much. lol
-Send me the restaurant number.
I quickly sent it, area code included.
Thanks!
-That’s what friends are for. I’ll ask you for a favor sometime, too.
Sure. A billion times over.
-lol, got it.
Even saying that, he had never once actually asked me for a favor—not since high school.
Still.
Ho-jun, was I on bad terms with that guy?
I might have been an outsider, but I didn’t have any classmates I was actually on bad terms with.
Well, except for the whole disaster at the Judicial Research and Training Institute.
But either my memory was off, or Min Ho-jun sent back an emoji that practically screamed disbelief.
-You really don’t know?
-Seo-seok-hyeon. The guy who tried to confession-ambush Ryeo-won noona.
“Ah.”
I remembered.
That loser from my department.