The Hidden Wire
When I pressed the call button on the table kiosk, the owner came over instead of the part-timer.
He looked around even though there was no one else nearby, then carefully set a USB drive down on the table.
"Hurry and put it away. And don't tell anyone else. It's not supposed to be like this."
I nodded at the owner as he cleared his throat and made a show of his own helpfulness.
'I might have to come back here for work, so it's better not to make enemies over this.'
"Thank you. But this meat is so good, how could I not advertise it? This isn't the time to hesitate, you should be adding two more servings of samgyeopsal right now."
The moment I paid for the extra order through the kiosk, the owner was all smiles.
"I've never seen anyone this slick. All right, spread the word as much as you like. Our pork really is good. The location is just a little awkward, that's all."
"I don't think the location is bad at all. These days, people prefer places with the kind of charm you have to search down an alley to find. Their own little precious hidden gem, you know."
"Oh? Is that so?"
I told him there were restaurants on Insta and ShortsForm that introduced themselves as hidden gems. Most of them were paid promotions, though.
The owner seemed to have a rough idea of marketing, but he looked genuinely shocked, as if he had never realized advertising had to go this far.
"I really don't have time for this. I should talk to the agency. Thanks."
Just as he was about to leave with bright eyes, I stopped him.
"Owner, can I take the soap flower bouquet from the counter? You saw the CCTV footage, so you know it's evidence."
"Y-yes? Hah, well... I was going to throw it out anyway. Good timing, then. Take it with you when you leave!"
He looked as if he had no real clue, busy copying things without even watching the video.
Still, he quickly wiped the expression off his face like a proper business owner and headed back into the kitchen.
After inhaling four servings of samgyeopsal before early lunch, I stopped by the counter before leaving the restaurant.
It had been hard to see while I was eating, but the soap flower bouquet was smeared all over with dark red stains, and dust had piled up thickly on it.
'Wow. That's pretty bad. Can I even carry this by hand?'
It wasn't just dirty. It was ugly enough that "hideous" felt more accurate.
It had clearly once been a pretty bouquet, but now, if you left it in the shop, it would give off an impression that went beyond they don't clean very well here and straight to I don't want to come here.
'It's gross. I should buy a shopping bag at a convenience store and carry it that way.'
I sighed inwardly and bowed to the part-timer who had so kindly cut my meat earlier.
"Thanks for the meal."
"E-excuse me!"
The moment I stepped outside, the part-timer came running after me and held out a large paper bag.
"Lawyer-nim, put it in here and take it with you. That bouquet would be awkward to carry by hand."
He was probably taking such good care of things because of his sense of duty, even though it wasn't even his own business.
People like him could survive in any field, as long as they didn't insist that only their own values were right.
I took the paper bag with thanks and sealed the soap flowers inside it.
Then I handed him my business card.
"If anything comes up, please call me. I'll give you a free consultation."
"Free consultation? How much do you charge normally?"
"One hundred thousand won for a same-day consultation, VAT included."
"Wh-what? Isn't that too expensive?"
Even a law student might not know the practical side of things.
As a rule, small and mid-sized Seoul law firms started at 150,000 won an hour. VAT extra.
"If you ever need a lawyer, you'll find out whether it's expensive or cheap."
He would be surprised by how cheap the consultation fee was.
And then he would be surprised a second time by my skill.
* * *
I opened the office door and set the paper bag on the consultation table.
I didn't want to take the bouquet out, but there was something I needed to check.
Buzzz.
A call came in from the flower shop auntie next door to Ye-ji.
"Hello?"
"Lawyer boy."
"Yes, Auntie."
"Ye-ji's test results are in. It's a mild concussion. She lost consciousness for a bit, but her brain wasn't damaged, so she'll recover quickly."
"That must have been a shock."
"Exactly. It's lucky she came to the hospital. If she hadn't, it could've been serious."
The auntie said Oh Ye-ji would come back after finishing her IV.
"That sounds right."
"Oh, and did anyone stop by the flower shop? Someone who looked like a relative of Ye-ji's father, maybe?"
'Wait. Didn't I tell the auntie earlier that I was going to the restaurant where Oh Yoon-sik met his siblings? I definitely sent her a message through Kkaetok after I spoke with Oh Ye-ji.'
Apparently she hadn't seen the Kkaetok message because of Ye-ji's situation.
"Auntie, I went out because of the case. I sent you a Kkaetok message. Did you not get it?"
"I saw it a little late. After the Blooming owner told me quickly that you had left our street stall there and taken the subway."
'Blooming really is a busybody.'
"But your phone rang after that, from Ye-ji's father, asking whether anyone had come by after you got to the office, so I wanted to check."
"I only just got here, so I'm not sure."
"I see. Well then, lawyer boy, Ye-ji will head back after she finishes her IV, so don't eat dinner alone. Wait for her."
"Yes! I'll be working, so take your time coming."
Click.
The desk clock read 1:23 p.m.
'An IV takes at least an hour or two, so she'll be here by five at the latest.'
She might even stop somewhere for a late lunch and early dinner on the way back, so I could spend the time drafting the complaint.
Before I started working, I set the documents I had printed out yesterday on the computer desk and pressed the power button on the power strip.
I had only bought the power strip recently, but already there was a faint electronic buzzing sound.
It was annoying, but I turned on the computer anyway.
"Civil cases. Haven't done one since the public-interest attorney days."
If it had been another field, I would have been buried in study, but ordinary civil litigation didn't put me under much pressure.
I had handled major criminal cases and corporate law at Continent Law Firm, but in general, anyone who had passed the bar exam or the old judicial exam knew the basics of civil procedure.
Of course, there could be a difference between that and a lawyer who specialized only in civil cases, but Oh Yoon-sik's case wasn't the kind that needed that level of study.
I entered the password on the desktop and opened the complaint file.
"Let's get the complaint drafted first."
Tap, tap, tap.
"Plaintiff: Oh Yoon-sik."
Oh Yoon-sik's resident registration number.
His address underneath it.
Below that, I wrote: "Attorney Cha Do-hyuk, counsel of record," along with the address of my law office.
"Defendants: Oh Yoon-ja, Oh Yoon-hye, Oh Yoon-bok, Oh Yoon-tek...."
I left the resident registration numbers and addresses blank for the six defendants, since I didn't know them.
"Complaint for Invalidity of Land Compensation Pledge Agreement."
The request for relief and the statement of reasons were the most important parts, since they asked the court to make this or that ruling, so I put serious care into writing them.
A civil action, which deals with legal disputes between private parties, is not like a criminal case, where the state uses its judicial and punitive powers to punish an offender.
In a case like Oh Yoon-sik's, it was mostly about saying, "I can't pay because of this," or "I need to be paid for this reason."
So the outcome of a case often came down to how the lawyer framed the right or legal relationship that was the subject of the lawsuit.
Of course, the evidence backing up the argument in court was what finally settled things.
Oh Yoon-sik's case already had the evidence from the start, so it didn't require nearly as much work as other lawsuits.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Done! When Auntie from Ye-ji's flower shop comes by, I can sort things out with her and file electronically."
Electronic filing.
It was what people called filing through the Supreme Court's e-Litigation site, and civil complaints were submitted there.
'That's one way civil and criminal cases differ.'
In criminal cases, you had to file the complaint in person at the relevant police station or send it by mail.
It wasn't absolutely required to file in person or by post, but depending on the police station, some places didn't allow online filing.
'Cases like this would have synergy if I could file them together with a criminal complaint, but Ye-ji is involved too, since she's a celebrity, so I'd better hold back.'
Anyway, that was enough of this for now. I needed to do something about that irritating buzzing first.
"What on earth is the problem?"
I turned the computer off and on again, then plugged the power strip into a different outlet, but the noise still wouldn't disappear.
'Wait.'
At that moment, something I had bought for the last mission came to mind.
Strictly speaking, it had been something I threw in to make the shipping free.
'It came in handy at Continent, but I wasn't sure I'd ever use it here.'
Still, I'd forced myself to buy it because you never knew what might happen, and maybe this was the moment it would prove useful.
'I did leave the office open for a while even when I wasn't here, so maybe someone came in and hid an illegal camera in a corner.'
I opened a drawer and took out the box containing a high-performance bug detector.
These days bug detectors were multi-function signal detectors, capable of finding wiretaps as well as illegal cameras, tracking devices, and signal jammers.
'It isn't the professional model I used at Continent, so it should be easy enough to use even without reading the manual.'
I pressed the power button and went into the settings. I switched it to silent mode and lamp mode instead of the buzzer, then turned on the laser detection function first so I could check for camera lenses.
Honestly, it felt unlikely that anyone would plant an illegal camera in a tiny law office like this.
'It's absurd, but the world has a way of making absurd things happen.'
I searched every corner, telling myself that if nothing showed up, that would actually be a relief.
But the detector gave no response at all.
'Did I imagine it? No way.'
Since I had never heard that buzzing sound before, I didn't want to dismiss it as my imagination.
At Continent, when I handled corporate law work, I had seen similar things happen.
'Industrial spies don't just use computers.'
I switched the detector to bug-sweeping mode.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash!
Immediately, the detector's status window blinked and displayed that a signal had been found.
!
'Where is it?'
Standing in the middle of the office, I moved the detector from side to side.
'Not the bookshelf. Not the cabinet.'
'Not the computer desk either.'
I turned again and stopped in front of the consultation table.
'...'
Why was the detector flashing so violently at the consultation table?
'Was the dark red paint smeared onto the soap flowers so they could hide a wiretap inside?'
The moment I brought the detector close to the soap flowers, it reacted even more strongly, just as I had suspected.
I wondered what Oh Yoon-sik's land was worth that they would go this far.
'The place where this soap bouquet was sitting was probably where Oh Yoon-sik signed the agreement. What exactly are they after?'
Did they not even know it was illegal? Or maybe they were the type who thought money mattered more than legality or illegality.
After all, the land compensation settlement agreement itself had already been illegal.
Creak.
"Welcome."
"It's me, lawyer boy."
The person who opened the office door was Auntie from Ye-ji's flower shop.
"Oh, I'm tired. You haven't eaten dinner yet, have you?"
"No. But, Auntie, you're early."
"It would've been nice to finish the IV, but Ye-ji's manager came, so I had no choice. The hospital was too open a place, so they said I should be discharged."
'Oh Ye-ji said she was treated in the emergency room of a university hospital in Gangnam.'
Unless you were being admitted, getting an IV in the ER would have been expensive for the company to cover.
Whatever the reason, if an idol was said to have gone to the emergency room, people would start saying the company was overworking her.
"She'll probably go to one of the partner hospitals for more IV treatment, or rest at her accommodation."
"Mm-hm, that's what the manager said too, that they'd move to a partner hospital."
The auntie gave a bitter smile, as if Ye-ji leaving before finishing her IV had been weighing on her mind.
"By the way, lawyer boy, what's that you're holding?"
"This? I bought it for the interior renovation this time. Is there something wrong with it?"
And then, shh.
I raised one finger to ask for silence.