A Seed to Be Uprooted
Friday, December 8. 9:00 a.m.
I opened the office door and swept the floor. It was such a small space that I finished in no time, but the air purifier kept running without a pause.
“Lawyer boy.”
“Auntie, come on in.”
The flower-shop auntie from Ye-ji’s place came into the office wearing the arm sleeves she usually never bothered with.
“Were you cleaning?”
“Yes. I can’t do it often, but whenever I have the time, I should.”
Looking pleased, she nodded and set a file down on the consultation table.
“Here’s Ye-ji’s dad’s resident registration copy and the power of attorney. I brought the other documents too.”
“Oh? How many pages did he rip up?”
“Two.”
“Not bad.”
“The moment I said the word divorce.”
She drew a chilly little gesture across her throat.
Yeah. Divorce really was a cheat code.
“But did he say anything else? I’d be a real thorn in his side.”
On the day Oh Yoon-sik had thrown the ashtray, he’d asked me to cut my fee if I would introduce him to a friend.
He fought me back then, so why would he be different now? If anything, he’d be furious that I was tearing the family apart. He’d blame me for this.
He’d already said he was displeased every time the auntie mentioned hiring a lawyer yesterday, so I was certain of it.
“...Lawyer boy, you’ve really got your mat laid out, huh?”
“I’ve got it spread out.”
“Heh. Ye-ji’s dad did say it was a waste of money to hire a lawyer. He said it was embarrassing enough to fight with family in court, so why should he have to pay for it too?”
He’d been so annoyed that, according to the auntie, he’d practically lost all affection for him.
“No, really, think about it. If a person isn’t even sick but still gets a referral and goes to a university hospital, it’s for prevention, right? So why is he doing this, then? The second siblings get involved, prevention or not, it all goes out the window.”
“Sounds about right.”
Maybe it was just the difference between how doctors and lawyers saw things.
Lawyers don’t have a medical license like doctors do. We just have a qualification.
Put simply, you couldn’t practice medicine without a doctor’s license.
But a lawyer could defend someone in court even without passing the bar exam or the state exam, as long as certain conditions were met.
That was why some people thought a lawyer’s fee was money wasted, no matter how capable the lawyer actually was.
“I was already about to blow my top again yesterday, and then Ye-ji’s dad said if he didn’t hire a lawyer himself, that would be that.”
So he tried to strong-arm her.
If he said the fee was too expensive, maybe I’d step in without charging him anything.
He was assuming I wouldn’t turn down helping an acquaintance, even if I was expensive. What nonsense.
His little scheme was completely transparent.
“Lawyer boy, is what Ye-ji’s dad said true? Is there really no way?”
“Of course there is.”
I unfolded the power of attorney, the one stamped with Oh Yoon-sik’s seal, in front of her expectant eyes.
“I wrote here that he was granting full authority over everything needed to invalidate the Bubal-eup land compensation undertaking.”
“Mm-hm.”
I tapped the clause in question.
“That also includes the right to retain a lawyer. A representative can appoint a sub-agent.”
“A sub-agent?”
“Yes. It’s covered in Article 123 of the Civil Code. It means the sub-agent acts within the scope of that authority.”
In other words, the representative could also hire a lawyer.
“...Then I can hire you?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you retain me, there’s no legal problem at all.”
“......!”
“Of course, if I decide I’m being negligent, you can issue a notice of dismissal. This is something that has to be handled officially.”
The auntie’s mouth fell open.
“I wrote the power of attorney broadly, just in case, so I’m glad it worked out. Oh, and don’t worry — the document itself is legally sound too.”
“Goodness! So this is the thing Ye-ji sent me, the one that says it goes down easy!”
It seemed Oh Ye-ji had sent her one of those KakaoTalk memes about having a happy, easy stomach.
Watching the auntie clap like a delighted seal made me feel oddly proud.
“So this is why they say Continent Law Firm is Continent Law Firm. It really is completely different.”
“Auntie, I’m the one who’s different. Even there, it’s still just a place where people live and work, so they’ve got their fair share of parachutes.”
When I saw her pointing upward, then dropping her finger from the ceiling as if a parachute were descending, she burst out laughing.
“I had no idea you were such a funny guy. No wonder Soo-young kept you so close.”
She patted my hand, equal parts wistful and affectionate.
“She must have loved him very much.”
Even now, I was sure she still did.
I couldn’t tell what expression I was wearing, but judging by the auntie’s face, it didn’t seem to be a bad one.
“By the way, auntie. When are you planning to tell Oh Yoon-sik that you’ve hired a lawyer?”
“...Do I have to tell him? If I have to, maybe in three days? I think it’d be better to wait a little before saying anything.”
Three days, huh? That’s actually perfect.
“Good. Then please tell him that if he cancels the retainer agreement with the lawyer, he’ll only be able to recover forty percent of the retainer fee.”
That was what the precedents said.
The moment the auntie left, I turned on the computer and opened the complaint.
“Now I need to fill in the defendant’s address and resident registration number I couldn’t write down last time.”
I entered the personal information of all six defendants, Oh Yoon-sik’s siblings.
“Oh Yoon-ja, the eldest sister, lives in Gangnam-gu? Then there’s a high chance the case will fall under the Seoul Central District Court.”
The defendants were scattered across Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
If I joined the siblings’ suit and the related case together, the Seoul Central District Court would most likely have jurisdiction.
Once I submitted the complaint, it would take at least two weeks for the defendant to file an answer and for any supplemental response to be submitted.
It would take at least three months before the first hearing even came up.
“The mission said it would move up the lawsuit date, so I’d be better off building one more solid piece of evidence in the meantime.”
I lifted my hands from the keyboard and brought over the bouquet of soap flowers I’d set outside the office while cleaning.
Hoping to see the past I needed, I unleashed Psychometry.
Hah!
* * *
Squeeeeak.
It was a house like the one belonging to a villain in a drama — dark overall, filled with gaudy gold ornamentation.
The kind of place that laid bare the owner’s arrogance and twisted possessiveness all at once.
A hospital in Gangnam is visible through the window? Then this is probably Oh Yoon-ja’s house.
Oh Yoon-tek, the youngest brother I’d seen in a photo, sat grumbling on a crocodile-leather sofa.
“Big sister, is this bouquet enough?”
“Yeah. It’s perfect. It won’t wilt, either.”
“Then why did you even make me bring it?”
“Honestly. You should at least give Yoon-sik a present to show your gratitude.”
With a sneer, Oh Yoon-tek set the soap-flower bouquet on the sofa table.
“If that’s the case, why not just buy him a meal?”
“And where exactly do you think I’d get the money for that?! We already poured everything into the brothers’ savings pool.”
“How much could the judicial scrivener’s fee even be?”
“As if that was the only thing!”
Oh Yoon-ja pulled a package out from under the sofa table.
“Even so, isn’t a mini recorder a little risky? It leaves evidence.”
“What evidence would there be? Do you think Yoon-sik would throw away or smash the soap flowers we gave him?”
Oh Yoon-tek’s warning that they didn’t need to leave a trace was buried beneath the sound of the package being torn open.
When Oh Yoon-ja dismissed him with a look that said there was no chance of getting caught, he shook his head as if she were beyond reasoning with.
“Yoon-tek, the reason I’m always the one out front is because of you people.”
“......”
“Is their land compensation the end of it? They’ve got a store, land, and even Gangnam real estate under Kkot-soon’s name.”
“That apartment is prime property.”
Oh Yoon-tek licked his lips, as if they could still get their hands on it if they just used a little force now.
Seeing that, Oh Yoon-ja suppressed a laugh.
“And is that all they’ve got? Isn’t Oh Ye-ji a hot idol too?”
“Hot doesn’t even cover it. She’s the number one idol in Korea. The kind of top star who leaves our texts on read.”
“Exactly! If she’s a celebrity, she must be making hundreds of millions a year without breaking a sweat.”
“Oh!”
Oh Yoon-ja fanned the flames of his greed.
“So we only need one thing. Just one piece of dirt to drag her down.”
Click.
* * *
Without realizing it, I was gripping the bouquet of soap flowers so tightly my knuckles had gone white.
So this soap-flower bouquet was ultimately meant to target Oh Ye-ji?
They were insane. Completely, irredeemably insane.
They weren’t thinking about helping their niece if she did well. They were only thinking about how to drag her down.
Money matters, sure. But there’s still a line.
And a recorder meant, more likely than not, that they planned to sell the dirt to a reporter or use it to cut a deal with her agency — even if it ruined their niece’s life in the process.
Professional scammers, preparing before they even start bleeding someone dry.
I blocked the spam call that always came in at the same time every day and set the soap flowers — made filthy by dust and black smudges — on the consultation table.
I need to cut this off at the root.
* * *
I went straight to Geum Yoon-ho Judicial Scrivener’s Office, the place that had notarized the undertaking.
10:00 a.m.
Even though it was the time most offices opened, Geum Yoon-ho Judicial Scrivener’s Office still hadn’t raised its shutters.
They’re not even answering the phone. I’ll have to wait at the café across the street.
I sat by the window and drank a warm cup of tea while I waited for the office to open.
By around 11:30, the shutters finally began to rise.
“There we go.”
I got up at once and headed for the crosswalk.
“Hello?”
The moment I opened the door to Geum Yoon-ho Judicial Scrivener’s Office, classical music drifted out.
There was another desk for a different judicial scrivener besides Geum Yoon-ho, and the chairs were all lined up close together.
Of course, none of them were actually in yet.
And there’s nobody on the consultation sofa either. Maybe they stepped out for a moment.
The second I took a few steps inside, I heard a chair scrape from the innermost partition.
“Ah, welcome. This is Geum Yoon-ho Judicial Scrivener’s Office.”
“You were here after all.”
I walked over and exchanged a quick greeting with him.
“Nice to meet you. I’m attorney Cha Do-hyuk. Are you Geum Yoon-ho?”
“He’s my father. What brings you here?”
The middle-aged man pushed his glasses up.
“I came because I have something urgent to discuss regarding the undertaking Geum Yoon-ho drafted around November 29. When does Geum Yoon-ho usually come in?”
“...Excuse me? What do you mean by that?”
I hadn’t said anything particularly strange, but he looked at me as though I’d just said something absurd.
Could this be a case of mistaken identity? The only place in the Seoul and Gyeonggi area where a defendant would plausibly go is here.
It was confusing, but he didn’t seem to have anything to do with the defendants.
First, before I moved on to the Busan Geum Yoon-ho, I took out my smartphone for confirmation and showed him the seal stamped on the undertaking.
“This is the seal used at Geum Yoon-ho’s office, isn’t it?”
“No, why is this seal stamped here? Where did you get this?”
“So it is the seal used here, then?”
“It is, but we don’t use it anymore. If I had to put it another way, we can’t use it even if we want to.”
He went back to his desk and came out with a copy of a legal newspaper from two years ago.
So that was it after all.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding.”
“Not at all. If anything, this is good. It’s just giving us a reason to change the office name and all that.”
Fair enough. If rumors started that they’d been connected to a crime, even an old office like this would inevitably take a hit.
“Though I have no idea how our office seal ended up on that document.”
“Neither do I.”
In situations like this, even if I knew something, I had to act like I didn’t. The truth of how that seal got there was still uncertain.
“If you find out anything, please contact me at the number on this card.”
“Yes. I’ll be on my way.”
After taking the business card, I started thinking over the story I’d need to write in the complaint when my eyes landed on a promotional newspaper from decades ago hanging on the wall.
“Attorney. May I take a photo of this legal newspaper and this advertisement?”